by Sean Platt
Mary flinched, pulling back, jaw set, eyes burning through him.
“Please. We need to talk.”
Mary sighed and followed Boricio away from Luca, the girl, and Jevonne. Boricio nodded as they passed Keenan, Lisa, and Barrow, all huddled together, no doubt talking about Mary losing her shit.
Keenan looked up at Boricio. “We’re in Sector 40. Not too far from Beta Team.”
Beta was one of the other rebel groups, the only other group whose headquarters they knew the location of. The other two rebel camps were cells isolated from each other and the Alpha (Boricio’s team) and Beta teams. Being close to Beta was a blessing in case they had invited unwanted attention by slicing the girl’s throat then taking her. A search would surely be coming.
Boricio nodded back. “Thanks.”
Boricio led Mary as far from everyone as possible, passing several empty rows of ransacked shelves. Out of earshot, he said, “I know it hurts, Mary. I do. But we’re not them. We don’t kill kids.”
Mary met his eyes, hers still wild. “Don’t tell me about hurt. You don’t know what it’s like to lose a child.”
Boricio wanted to push back. No, he didn’t know what it felt like to lose a child, but he did know what it felt like to lose someone he loved. But doing that might push Mary too far. If she snapped any more than she already had, she’d become too big a liability to the group, and there was no way in hell they’d put up with that, no matter who that liability was.
Boricio said nothing.
“And don’t even get up on your high horse, saying we don’t kill kids. Really, Boricio? You’re gonna play that card?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m not stupid. I know what you were before Luca fixed you. And not just the shit you told me. I know the really sick shit you did. I’m pretty sure we all do, if we’re all sharing dreams.”
Boricio suspected that Mary knew more than she let on. He’d had dreams of the others’ memories, too. Snippets of unguarded, highly personal moments: Brent fighting with his wife, Mary giving birth to Paola, Keenan killing enemies of the state even as his marriage was falling apart and his daughter was growing to hate him. If he’d seen their demons, they’d surely seen his. And if they’d seen the worst, how could any of them ever truly trust or accept him?
It hurt like hell to think of them peeking in on such unguarded memories. Hurt more to think that Mary and Paola had seen him at his worst. He’d done horrible things — murdered, raped, and God only knew how many things he’d forgotten in some drunken or drugged stupor. Boricio had spent a lifetime not giving a fiddler’s fuck about dick, including his victims or their families. But since Luca went in his head and fixed him, guilt was a stone on his shoulders, growing heavier with every connection — each new man, woman, or child he grew to care about.
“That’s not me anymore.”
“You still don’t get to judge me. And besides, it was a trap. That alien ship would’ve killed us all if not for Luca. As far as I’m concerned, you’re all trying to save our enemy. Maybe you should care about us instead.”
“Care about us? Everything I do is for all of us. What the fuck does that even mean?”
“Nothing.” Mary shook her head and stared at the ground.
“Don’t play Silent Bob with me. Say what you mean, or don’t say shit.”
“Nothing! Just forget it.” Mary turned and walked away.
“Don’t you fucking walk away from me!” Boricio grabbed Mary by the shoulders and spun her around, more violently than he’d intended.
Mary’s eyes widened. For a moment, it felt as if they’d both gone too far, pushed harder than either of them wanted.
“What? Are you gonna hit me now?”
There was a part of Boricio — a part that terrified him — that wanted to do exactly that.
“Fuck you,” he said instead.
Mary turned and walked away.
* * * *
CHAPTER 2 — Luca Harding
Luca was halfway finished healing the unconscious girl’s neck wound when he realized she wasn’t an ordinary girl.
There was something different about her.
He saw it inside her head while trying to calm her panic with reassuring words. You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. I’m going to help you. Luca realized that only part of her was responding to him. Another part of her had gone inside his head. She was rooting around in his memories, manifesting them for her own viewing within his mind.
His first instinct was to shut her out as he’d done to the alien who had hijacked Desmond’s body when he’d tried to worm inside Luca’s head. Throw up psychic defenses and maybe hurt the girl to keep her from prying again. But as her memories unwound and he watched the girl lose her mother, nearly die herself, and get brought to The Island by her father, Luca knew he could trust her. He didn’t want to kick her out.
He met her inside his mind, his body showing its true biological age of fourteen.
“Who are you?” she asked, looking around.
They were in his old Las Orillas home, probably because he’d been thinking so much about it lately. But that was only for a moment. Then they were in the Other Luca’s home, on Black Island.
The girl looked at him, confused. Then her eyes widened, and her head tilted a bit. “Oh, my God.”
“What?”
The Luca saw it, too. His own self, doubled. Other Luca standing beside him.
“What are you?” she asked.
Luca multiplied. He saw his older forms — at twenty-eight, at forty, and his current physical self, now somewhere in his early sixties.
He wasn’t sure how to explain everything to her. How there were two versions of him, how he’d died then come back inside the other Luca’s body. How they weren’t alone, that there was the alien species inside him, calling itself The Light.
Luca couldn’t find the words.
He’d have to show her.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
She stepped toward him, head still turned to the side like she was studying a rare artifact. “Yes,” she whispered.
He put his hands to her head, in both the physical world and in the shared space inside his head.
Then Luca showed her everything.
* * * *
CHAPTER 3 — Teagan McLachlan
Teagan and the others said their final farewell to The Farm just before dawn.
It wasn’t easy to leave. Morning light poured onto the Alto Verde hilltops where Teagan’s new family had sheltered themselves for the last couple of years. Like always, it reminded her of Sunday church, now like a blessing rather than the feeling’s occasional haunting knowing she’d never see it again.
Teagan wrapped her left arm tighter around Becca’s and ran her right hand through Whinny’s mane before turning to steal a last look behind her. Her eyes drifted from the front porch where she often let the sun kiss her skin while staring at the sea to her small plot in the garden where she was allowed to grow flowers instead of vegetables. Her mind’s eye then went to the back door leading to the kitchen where it had finally happened.
Teagan let the memory come: throwing herself at Brent, claiming his mouth, and spilling from the kitchen into the living room where she let him finally have what she knew he’d been craving a while. She hoped they could eventually pick up where they left off, when they reached their new location. Teagan refused to call it a safe house, though Ed was so glued to the name that it had infected everyone at The Farm, including Brent.
“Second Refuge,” as Teagan preferred to call it, was at the base of the hills, in what seemed to be a forgotten neighborhood about halfway between Alto Verde and Las Orillas, about a mile from the Pacific Coast Highway.
Moving down through the hills made Teagan nervous, though she couldn’t argue that it was better than the alternative. They needed to reach the refuge so they’d be close enough to radio the others in The City and warn them about the shapeshifte
rs.
Teagan still couldn’t believe what had happened. She didn’t want to. Her skin crawled thinking about losing so many lives when there were none to spare, including Catherine, the sweet girl who’d had her hair braided by Teagan early that afternoon.
The image of Otis, or at least the thing that had pretended to be him, refused to leave her mind. Hacked to pieces, wet and black, flopping on the floorboards like a suffocating fish.
She wasn’t cut out for this. Teagan was a mom; her responsibility was to take care of Becca. Same for Brent. He had his son, she had her daughter, and they’d agreed they were safest outside The City. Thinking that Las Orillas might now offer the most security was a horror in her head.
“We’ll be fine,” Brent had said. “The City has Boricio, Ed, and Mary — the three people most capable of keeping us safe.”
She wasn’t sure that Brent bought it himself, but Teagan appreciated that he cared enough to safeguard her feelings. And it wasn’t like there was any other logical action beyond reaching the refuge, reporting what happened, and waiting for the Alpha Team to tell them what to do.
Becca leaned back and nuzzled against Teagan’s chest.
“I’m tired, Mommy.”
“Do you want to walk?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
She gently yanked the reins, and Whinny stopped. Teagan lifted Becca then planted her on the ground, feeling the burn in her muscles and wondering how much longer she’d be able to do that before Becca was simply too heavy.
Without saying goodbye, Becca ran a few horses up the line to where Ben was walking beside Bashful — Brent’s horse, and one of the stable’s rowdier steeds. The two children fell into chatter.
Becca was six. Ben’s extra three years practically made him God to the girl, though gender might have also had something to do with it. Either way, Teagan’s daughter more than adored him. Becca mimicked Ben’s every move.
Ben reached down, grabbed a rock, and hurled it toward a huddle of trees. Teagan winced. So did Brent, probably thinking the same thing: don’t make any noise.
Though it wasn’t like a small rock hitting a large trunk made any more noise than the caravan’s tromping hooves. Or Becca’s laugh, now a guffaw.
Teagan smiled. Brent turned from Bashful’s back to find her eyes. Becca was lucky to have Ben, and she was lucky to have his father.
She nudged Whinny and trotted up beside Bashful.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hay is for the horses, or is that one for me?”
It was stupid, but Teagan smiled anyway.
“Hey for you,” she said.
“So, do you want to make small talk, or admit we’re scared shitless?”
Teagan’s smile turned into a laugh. “Might as well admit we’re scared shitless.” A beat, then, “I just hope we can get to Second Refuge without seeing the Reaper.”
Brent’s jaw set. Teagan saw him swallow. She thought he might scold her for mentioning the notorious bandit leader who’d been wreaking havoc up and down the hinterlands, and whom they had somehow avoided thus far. Mentioning him was kind of like telling the world you’re glad you’ll never get cancer: inviting disaster. Instead, he nodded toward the caravan’s front, just behind Joe, Peter, and the others who were leading the formation.
“She seem okay to you?”
Teagan followed his gaze. “You mean Marina?”
Brent nodded.
“Of course she’s not okay, Brent. You should’ve seen her trying to fight that … thing off. After she pushed me back into the room, I could only hear it … I — ”
“It’s okay, Teagan. You don’t have to.” After a few moments of clomping hooves and preadolescent laughter, he spoke again. “But that’s what I mean. That’s a lot to deal with, and she seems really shaken up. I think she needs someone to talk to.”
Brent looked at Teagan, waiting for her to get the clue.
“Me? Why me? She obviously doesn’t want to talk.”
“Because you’re the only person she’s remotely close to.”
“Yeah,” Teagan said. “The operative word is remote.”
Brent laughed. “I thought you were friends.”
Teagan shrugged. “We get along. But Marina’s always seemed a bit … off.”
Brent seemed to be choosing his words carefully. Finally, he said, “Well, you two have something to bond over, right?”
“And what’s that?”
“Overbearing religious fathers.”
Teagan laughed. Brent smiled.
“You’re right. Marina’s probably no more off than I am.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Well, sort of.” Teagan laughed again. “But that’s okay. I get it.”
“I’m just saying that out of everyone here, maybe you’re the person most equipped to understand her.”
Teagan craned her neck, looking up the line toward Marina, then turned toward Brent. “I get what you’re saying, but just because we both had religious fathers doesn’t mean we have all that much in common. And besides, there’s little shared between Christianity and The Church of Original Whatever.”
“I’m comparing households, not religions, and suggesting that there’s something about growing up orthodox anything that tempts parents to nurture a fascination with laws and control. Look, my parents weren’t especially religious, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but being a reporter gives you a front row seat to plenty of shit you don’t want to see. In my experience, people become religious for a lot of reasons, good and bad. Sometimes, it’s because their lives are out of control, morally, socially, whatever. Religion brings light to their dark, order to the chaos. It serves as inner police. Even if everything else in your lives is opposite, the two religions, and your fathers, probably have that in common. Just talk to her,” he added, nodding toward the front of the line. “Please.”
“Dad?” Ben appeared by Bashful’s side, with Becca just behind him. “I have to pee.”
Brent looked toward the bushes. “Why are you telling me?”
Ben ticked his head toward Becca.
“Ah,” Brent said. “Got it.”
He turned to Becca. “Hey, Becca, wanna play I Spy?”
“Yes!”
“Well, I’ll leave you all to it, then.” Teagan smiled, nodded at Becca, turned and winked at Brent, mouthed thank you, then nudged Whinny forward.
Teagan took her time falling into pace beside Marina, not wanting to seem eager, but after a few minutes Whinny and Marina’s horse, Nickel, were trotting side-by-side.
“It’s a nice day,” Teagan said.
Wow. I’m actually talking about the weather.
No response, not that she deserved one.
“Feels nice to ride outside The Farm.”
You know, after being chased away by alien shapeshifters.
“Ben and Becca seem to think we’re on an adventure. Can you imagine?”
I’m getting dumber by the word.
Marina finally looked over. It seemed like she wanted to smile, but the morning’s weight seemed heavy on her face. Her mouth rose at the corners then fell. She turned from Teagan.
“You know, I’m happy to talk, if you want to.”
Marina said nothing, gaze fixed in front of her, skin creamy against her green scarf.
Another few moments of silence, then Teagan tried again.
“I got pregnant with Becca while I was in high school. That was the loneliest time of my life.”
Marina didn’t respond. Teagan continued.
“I didn’t have anyone I could talk to. My sister was gone because she’d killed herself not too long before. And I couldn’t say anything to my mom or dad. The thought of talking to any of the adults I knew was scary because I didn’t know who might fink to my parents.”
Another pause, still nothing.
“Even if I got the courage to talk, everyone I knew would have probably tried to give me advice or help in some w
ay. But that wasn’t what I wanted. When I thought about it — and I did each night before falling asleep, each morning when I woke, and all day long — I realized that all I really wanted was someone to give me their unbiased ear.”
Marina finally looked over, still silent.
“Sometimes, we want a stranger to listen because they’re less likely to judge us or make the wrong assumptions. And sometimes, the best advice is no advice, when all you want is for someone to hear you vent. Well,” Teagan shrugged, “I never had that. But I’d love to be that person for you.”
Teagan could practically feel Marina thinking. She finally said, “I guess I’m just numb to it all.”
A pregnant pause. Teagan didn’t know if she was supposed to listen or fill it.
“What’s the point in fighting anymore?” Marina’s voice dropped an octave. “At first, I thought we were fighting for something, and that gave me hope. I thought I was somehow going to make a difference. But how can we have hope if everything can be taken away so easily? One moment of weakness, and it’s over … why bother?”
“My grandma used to say, ‘When the world says, ’Give up,’ hope whispers, ‘Try one more time.’ I used to think that was corny. Not anymore. Now I think things like that are all we really have to hold onto.”
“My dad used to say, ‘Hope is frail but hard to kill.’ But he was wrong about a lot of things.”
Maybe she was imagining it, but Teagan felt Marina’s voice blush with warmth despite her chilling words.
“If you knew that hope and despair were two roads going to the same place, wouldn’t you rather be where the sun might be shining?”
Marina looked at Teagan for a long moment before returning her eyes to the trail. Finally, she said, “Thank you, Teagan. Really. That — ”
Gunfire exploded up front, to the sides, and behind them.
Just ahead, and slightly to the left, Joe tumbled off of his horse. The brown colt whinnied, bucked, and knocked into Peter. He fell, too.
Marina looked wide eyed and vacant, her mouth hanging open.