He said, “I wish I had more to give you, but when I saw her, I was more worried about you. I didn’t know you were okay. Not until she told me. And once she did, she pulled a card for me and….” Vic trailed off, then focused on something over my right shoulder. Red and I both looked, but there was nothing there. Nothing that either of us could see, anyhow. Vic cleared his throat, crammed his hands into his pockets, and started acting shiftier than usual. “Miss Mattie wants me to tell you she approves.”
Gooseflesh raced down my arms. In all my concern about Lydia, I hadn’t given a second thought to Mattie, since she was already dead. I wasn’t sure if that was something I should feel bad about or not.
“Uh…okay,” Vic mumbled. “Specifically, she says Red Turner is a fine young man. And she’s happy that you’re willing to let him help you, instead of trying to prove a point by doing everything alone. She says you can help each other.” He paused to listen, and he didn’t cock his head like someone being theatrical and proving how difficult it was to hear beyond the veil. He just stood there and stared. And then he added, “She says—aw, geez—she says she loves you very much, and she’ll always look out for you, but she has to go. There’s work to do. And, she says, now you’re ‘grown enough’ to handle whatever comes next.”
In all the time we’d known each other, Vic had never offered to act as the go-between, and there was so much I wanted to say to her, I hardly knew where to begin. “Tell her I love her. Tell her I miss her. Tell her I wish we could’ve spent more time together.”
Vic made a curt, dismissive gesture. “You don’t need me to tell her that, she can hear you just fine. But, wait, there’s gotta be a way to make a ghost leave without projecting out of my body, right? That can’t be good. Jennifer Chance nearly…yeah, but one of these days I might not snap back in. And what about the sticky repeaters? I don’t think they’re even technically ghosts.”
How silly of me to think Victor Bayne had stopped by on my account. Strangely enough, I wasn’t terribly annoyed. He’d always considered himself to be the center of the universe. I supposed, in a way, we all did.
Seeing him in action was a giant wakeup call. His abilities put one foot in each world, which left him off-balance in both. But the value was clear.
What good is it to be psychic? It’s everything. In knowing all we can know—about the past, the future, or the great beyond—we come to understand ourselves.
I took Red’s hand in mine, pressed my skin to his, and focused on the general direction in which Vic was still ranting. Even though my emotions were running so high I couldn’t precisely name them, I’d had enough practice to center myself, and open up, and allow. My own feelings were complex, but there was no mistaking which emotions swirling around us didn’t belong to me. I felt Red’s sublime calm, and Vic’s persistent anxiety. And beyond that, an outpouring of pure love. It always pissed me off that Vic could speak to Mattie but I couldn’t.
But now, I realized, it didn’t matter. I could feel her heart.
I squeezed Red’s hand and basked in the love. Not just Mattie’s, but his too. And Vic’s. And then I realized that as a whole, the world around me subtly vibrated with love. Not as pure as Mattie’s, of course, but more love than hate. It was a precarious balance, though, and it couldn’t afford to lose any of us. People with real talent. Those of us willing and able to be a conduit for good.
Maybe it was time for Con and Lisa to lie low, but me? A world of possibility was now spread out in front of me. Professionally, I had nothing to lose—and nothing to hold me back, either. Thanks to Con’s foresight, I was outside the system, and that was where I’d do the most good. Drunk Tony, for starters. If I could pry him off the barstool and get him to listen, we could work on his penchant for self-medication. And Carolyn…maybe she’d be willing to lend a hand. If anyone was sick of bureaucracy, it was her.
“I love you,” I whispered directly to Mattie. Because, of anything we can all say to one another, isn’t that the only thing that truly matters?
Vic stopped babbling mid-sentence, then huffed out a sigh. “She’s gone,” he told me. But I already knew. I’d felt her love enfold me in a final embrace as surely as if she’d done it in the flesh. And while I was sad when the feeling faded, I wasn’t devastated. I’d see her again someday. Lydia too. And in the meantime, given my connections, I had no doubt there’d be plenty of tasty opportunities for a pair of off-the-grid Psychs like Red and me.
We all contemplated the now-empty spot for several moments, then Vic scratched the back of his neck and said, “So, if you need anything, y’know. Shoot me a text. Or whatever.”
“Yeah, I’m good,” I told him. And I meant it.
While he retreated to his double-parked car, Red and I stood our ground and contemplated the remains of the building. If I shifted my perception, I saw it not so much as wreckage, but as physical matter, rearranged. Transformed. Sure, I would’ve preferred my transformational experience to be less brutal. But I was tough. I’d survive.
“C’mon,” I told Red, and tugged him toward the car. “I got what I came for.”
When we settled in, Red turned to me, cradled my cheek in his hand, stroked his thumb along my cheekbone and said, “The way you felt your feelings, no excuses, no regrets, that’s something I’ve always loved about you.”
“Yeah? That’s cool…but what about my butt? Cos I’ve really been targeting my glutes.”
Red acknowledged my valiant attempt to keep from bawling with a shy smile. “Fine butt goes without saying.”
“Can’t hurt to tell me how much you dig it, anytime the spirit takes you.”
We sat together in silence. There was nowhere specific for us to go, so I felt no burning desire to be on our way. Was that what living in the “now” was all about? It would take some getting used to.
After we’d been quiet a long moment, Red said, “Miss Mattie sounds amazing. I wish I could have met her.”
“You still can.” I grabbed his hand and pressed it to my chest, thought back to a memory of picking dandelions with Mattie, and looked deep into his eyes. “Let me tell you a story….”
-end-
About This Story
I’ve always considered Crash to be Victor Bayne’s “path not taken.” Crash, for me, was an idea of what might have happened if Vic hadn’t come into his psychic ability so early, so violently, and so vulnerably—if Vic hadn’t been committed and then scooped up by Camp Hell.
But now that I’ve delved deep into Crash’s backstory, I see it’s nowhere near that simple.
Writing in the PsyCop universe through the viewpoint of a bold, confident extrovert was a lot of fun. Seeing the various side characters through the eyes of someone who isn’t justifiably paranoid was interesting too. Carolyn, Dreyfuss and Jacob come off pretty differently when they’re filtered through Crash as opposed to Vic. I really enjoyed showcasing aspects of their lives that Vic wouldn’t have connected with or known about.
Mainly, though, I was inspired to flesh out Crash’s backstory because I realized I couldn’t do justice to the scope of his relationship with Red from Vic’s point of view. As much as I take great satisfaction in meting out bits of info through Vic’s unreliable narration, Red was too cryptic to stand any chance of making an impression without an empath to perceive him.
As much as he gets around, Crash does have meaningful relationships…mainly with women. Miss Mattie goes without saying. But I delved into his relationship with his mother to show where he’s come from—and then with Lydia, to show how he’s matured. I especially enjoyed his scenes with Lisa. She could be her most authentic self around Crash without fear of being judged or scolded.
All in all, it was fun to ride around inside the head of a main character who’s always up for a challenge. Interesting to view Jacob through a more critical eye, and Carolyn through a more sympathetic one. And definitely, it was fascinating to watch dozens of hair shows and talk to stylists about why they like doing what they
do. But PsyCop is Vic’s story, and I would definitely write about Crash and Red’s further adventures in a future novella if that story needed telling, the next PsyCop novel will rejoin Vic in all his disgruntled and introverted glory.
About The Author
Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price writes paranormal sci-fi thrillers colored by her time in the Midwest, from inner city Chicago, to various cities across southern Wisconsin. She’s settled in a 1910 Cape Cod near Lake Michigan with tons of character and a plethora of bizarre spiders. Any disembodied noises, she’s decided, will be blamed on the ice maker.
The PsyCop Series
Among the Living - PsyCop 1
Thaw - PsyCop Short
Criss Cross - PsyCop 2
Many Happy Returns - PsyCop Short
Striking Sparks - PsyCop Short
Body & Soul - PsyCop 3
Secrets - PsyCop 4
Camp Hell - PsyCop 5
GhosTV - PsyCop 6
Spook Squad - PsyCop 7
Skin After Skin - PsyCop 8
PsyCop Briefs - Collection
www.PsyCop.com
Beautiful • Mysterious • Bizarre
fiction by Jordan Castillo Price
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Skin After Skin - PsyCop 8 Page 41