THE NEXT DAY, Diana asked Ruby for a lighter. After that, the days blended together. Diana ran on autopilot. A few harsh remarks here, a laugh or two there, harmless flirting with Da Vinci, a conversation about supplies with Ruby. It’d been at least a week since the blade episode. Despite going into the woods with the intention to test the flame against her flesh, she had not yet done it. As much as she hated to admit it, she was nervous. What next if the flames didn’t touch her? The longer she waited, the more nervous she got.
The group functioned fine without her being there in full mental capacity. Tim, Ruby, and Rigan were convinced they were going to navigate their way around the KGB to escape. Diana had more than a few reasons the plan wouldn’t work, but she kept her mouth shut, because she knew that, in his now-exterior heart, Tim also understood the plan wouldn’t work, but the illusion of hope stayed.
Eventually, Diana made a move. That night, she took a large step in ensuring her own mortality. She waited for Da Vinci, Rigan, and Tim to fall asleep. It was her turn to stand guard, but she left them. It was the perfect opportunity to slip away unnoticed. Since her lash out on the 23rd, Da Vinci had been keeping a close eye on her, closer than usual. She vanished into shrouded, green woodlands, surrounded by unglamorous vines and dying trees. Soon enough, there’d be snow. Some days, Diana could feel herself going away with the trees and woodland life. It was all getting cold. She chose the bank of a mostly stagnant pond, not too far from their current site for her experiment, convinced that when she started to blister—and she was certain she would—she’d be able to dip her hand into the water, preventing the flames from engulfing her whole self and the dainty floral dress Ruby had given her.
She pulled out the small, silver lighter, handling it like a relic of the old world. She flipped it open with one of her nails and immediately protected the flame, careful not to let the wind get to it. Not powered by the want-to, but the need-to, Diana dipped her fingers into the flame. And she felt nothing. Nothing but the residual panic when her heart drove the dagger out of her chest. Thinking on her feet, she switched the flame from her fingers to a location where her skin was softer, along her previously carved-up arm, but no blistering came. She did not feel the warmth from the fire. The flames treated her skin like Teflon. For a long while, she just stared in shock, but after a moment, an uncontrollable sense of anger overtook her. She balled the lighter up in her fist and threw it yards away. Then, she ran her hands through her matted hair and pulled at it, desperate to feel something. Her scalp began to flake and pieces of shell with hair fell at her feet. She made the choice not to cry. She kept herself under control. The next thing to happen wasn’t planned. It wasn’t thought through, but she felt as though it had to happen.
Carefully, she made her way over to the decaying side of the stagnant pond. At first, she just dipped her toes in, and then she took a deep breath and dove. The temperature of the water was unreadable due to her thick shell-like skin, so there was no immediate shock when she submerged herself in the pond. It was another world down there, filled with algae, mud, grime. Where there was no control in the woods, there was some down there. The world was so peaceful at the bottom of that pond. Everything just gently swayed. There was no chaos. Diana let go of her breath and allowed the water fill her lungs. She’d been waterboarded before. The nearness to death was overly familiar, but when the sensation of drowning took over, Diana didn’t thrash or fight to reach the surface. She kept floating down.
She woke up to the water parting and Rigan diving down to get her. He moved like an animal under the water, his webbed limbs helping him reach the bottom of the deep, dark pond. When his arms looped around her, she didn’t fight. Once they were back on land, Rigan only needed to compress her sternum once. She vomited up enough water to kill and then some.
“How long was I und—”
“One night. I stop watching after you for one night and that’s when you chose to try to kill yourself,” Rigan scolded. “All I wanted was one night of rest and you decide to try to kill yourself.”
“What?” Diana’s eyes were still adjusting. Light breaking across the horizon in the east. She’d gone under shortly after dusk. She hadn’t drowned at all. She’d fallen asleep. She wasn’t any closer to dying than she had been before.
“Da Vinci was afraid of this. He asked me to watch you, and the one night I take a break, you go and do exactly what he was afraid of,” Rigan huffed, then took her hand and pulled her up from the ground. She was groggy, but more than capable of walking. “Come on.”
They walked in quiet. The songs of the early-morning birds filled the void. Diana watched as hints of the sun took over the night sky and rolled in through the mountains.
Eventually, as they found themselves almost to camp, she said, “You won’t tell him, right?”
“Huh?” Rigan seemed to be coming out a trance.
“You can’t tell Da Vinci.” She sounded distant, but she meant what she said. “It will break him.”
Rigan looked her up and down for a moment as though inspecting her and her motives. “You really care if he knows?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I care about him.” She crossed her arms and stared at Rigan, more desperately than intimidatingly. “He is troubled enough. He doesn’t need my trouble, as well. What I did was my own doing, and if I choose to continue, it’s still my own doing.”
“You really want to die?” Rigan asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “I just want to know that I can.” She cleared her throat, residual water still lurking in her lungs. “If the KGB gets me. There’ll be no cure, no opportunities, it’ll just be torture. It’ll be torture and endless pain. I need my own cyanide pill. I need to know that’s not my future.”
“Yeah. I get that. I wish I didn’t, but I do.” He turned his back to her and started walking again. There was silence for only a second before he spoke again. “Diana, can you be honest with me?”
Her interest was piqued. “Depends. What do you want to know?”
“Do you think we’re going to get out of here?”
“The CIA won’t be coming. With the Kennedy assassination, they’ll be tied up for weeks, even months. An escape is unlikely.”
Rigan shuddered. Her words must’ve confirmed his fears. Tim had been leading him and Ruby on, but Rigan was trained to be skeptical. “Thanks for being honest with me.”
Da Vinci and Tim were already awake and in the clearing when Diana and Rigan reached camp. They’d been waiting for her. She had a speech planned out in her head, but upon seeing the fire embers, the fort, the backpacks of food, the people, she was overcome with tears. This was it. This was their future.
“Diana.” Rigan offered out his arm for her. “It’s okay.”
She shook her head and turned away, heading back into the woods, trying to get her thoughts back to the peacefulness she’d found at the bottom of the pond.
RIGAN CAME TO Da Vinci and Tim, seemingly confused. “What do we do?”
“I’ll go after her.” Da Vinci bowed his head. “I’m the one with the answers.” He sighed.
“Don’t bother, Da Vinci,” Tim said. “You know nothing is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong?” Rigan’s eyes narrowed. He glared Tim down. “She tried to kill herself. She is overflowing with tears.”
“Diana is not depressed, Rigan,” Tim responded. “She is pissed. If you believe anything else, you are only fooling yourself.”
For a moment, Rigan was silent. Tim might have been right, but that didn’t stop Da Vinci.
Da Vinci plowed into the woods, knowing exactly where to find Diana. She was curled under a bare oak tree. There was just a bit of frost on the ground where she sat.
“Don’t expect an apology, Da Vinci. This was something I needed.”
“You’re wrong,” he replied, his voice shaking with the cold. “All you need to do is stop.”
“You are so naïve, Da Vinci.” Diana br
ought her legs in to her chest. “You don’t get it. I’m not sorry, because we are never getting out of this hellhole. Look at me, Da Vinci. I’m a freak.” The words lingered. In her life, she’d been called many things. Some derogatory, some not, but freak was never a word used to describe this goddess. “You turned out fine, Da Vinci. If the KGB weren’t waiting outside these mountains, you could walk on out of here. Go back to society. I can’t.” She paused, but then added, “I need to know that there’s still something human left inside of me.”
Da Vinci rummaged his hands through his hair, eventually covering his ears. “Don’t say that.” He frowned. “There is so much human left in you. More—” He stuttered for a moment. “More than there was just a few months ago.”
She laughed, clearly surprised by his honesty. But, before she could speak to him again, he began to cry.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Da Vinci was sobbing. Seeing her exactly as he’d seen her weeks before in one of his visions broke his heart. He’d even warned her. Don’t do it. I know you will. And yet she still did. “I’m so sorry, Diana. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m so sorry.”
“Da Vinci,” she said softly. “What’s wrong?” She took his hand and guided him down to the ground beside her.
“You know that future? The one I said I fixed.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I changed it.” He swallowed hard, feeling the weight of his words. “I think I caused it. I tried to stop you from this, this mad race to kill yourself, but no matter what I said, no matter who I sent, we still ended up here. Nothing I do, nothing I don’t do, changes what I see. It always comes to term one way or another.” He could feel the dirt and grime of days past sliding off his face with the tears. “I’ve seen you die hundreds of times, Diana. You’ve got nothing to worry about.” He tried to detach himself from the conversation, but the more he spoke, the more he broke. “Our future is imminent and unchangeable.” He felt the most agonizing pain, like a dagger being driven into his heart and twisted until his former self ceased to exist.
“I’m so sorry, Da Vinci.” This was the first time Da Vinci had seen Diana act timid. She reached out and caressed his face, wiping away a tear.
“Are you going to keep trying to kill yourself?” His voice was weak.
“No.” She shook her head, watching him closely.
They sat in the silence of the early morning for a while, but then she spoke again.
“How do I go?”
“I’ll tell you only what you already know. You die trying to save Ruby.”
“But how?”
His head shook. “I’m not going to risk causing that. I would never be able to live with myself.”
“So you outlive me,” she said flatly.
“Yeah.” The inside of Da Vinci’s mouth was dry. “I wish I didn’t.”
She scooted closer to him and curled into his side. He lifted his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, then squeezed her tightly, and they stayed like that as the sun rose.
Ghosts
DECEMBER 2, 1963
“How bad is he?” Ruby handed her backpack off to Rigan and hurried up the mountainside. The drive had been long and she was eager to get moving.
“What are you doing here so early? Don’t you have work?” Rigan slung her backpack over his shoulders and joined her in the race to the camp.
“There are more pressing matters at hand! I just made a three-hour drive in under two and you’re being sassy with me.” Ruby’s words had a bite to them. “Now, tell me how he is. Did the aspirin help at all?”
“He’s deteriorating,” Rigan mumbled. He picked up his pace and got a few steps ahead of her. “The aspirin did the best it could. It’s one of those things we’re going to have to wait out and hope passes.”
“Is there any chance I could sneak him out of the park? I could get him to a hospital.” Ruby’s boots held strong against the slick surface of icy bluffs.
“You’d both get shot.” Rigan shook his head and offered his hand out to help her over a steep slope.
She took it and hoisted herself up. “The KGB has that much spare time on their hands? They’re just camping out around the park?” Ruby sounded dubious.
“They don’t have that much spare time. We’re just that important.” He sighed. “We’ll have to be extra careful from here on out. We’re stationary for the time-being.”
“Isn’t that like the worst thing for you guys, though? Diana and Tim are always going on about it.”
“Exactly.” His claws dug into a thick tree as he pulled himself over a small drop. “But he’s too sick to move.”
“Dammit,” she spat.
Ruby and Rigan moved like a machine from then on, Rigan turning back to help her over the steep bluffs, watching to ensure that she didn’t slip, and then Ruby always knowing when to pull herself and when to comply. The higher they got, the heavier the snow became. Down at road level, there was nothing but a few patches of ice and some frost, but as they approached camp, they found themselves trekking through blankets of snow inches thick. As they approached camp, they found Tim out in the woods. He was startling in the world of white.
“You’re here. Good.” Tim approached them without hesitation. “I need Ruby.”
“What’s going on?” Rigan looked toward the camp. “Is he still okay?” There was something grave in Rigan’s voice.
“Calm down. He’s stable,” Tim answered. “Diana and I have a list of herbs we need. I’m thinking we can get most of them farther down in the mountains.”
Ruby’s face was flushed from the sprint up the mountain, and the cold was starting to get to her, but she did get a smile out. “Of course, what are they?”
Tim pulled from his pocket a slightly damp list and handed it off to Ruby. She tried to silence her chattering teeth.
“Okay.” Rigan exhaled slowly. “I can get you down there and get us to most of the herbs. Once Ruby warms up at camp, she can come down and fill in any gaps in the list.”
“O-oh, no, I’m fine,” she assured, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m just a bit chilled.”
Tim snorted. “Funny.” He nudged his head to the north. “Head to camp and meet us down there in ten.”
Ruby looked to Rigan for a minute before turning her attention to the clearing beyond Tim. “Don’t-don’t kill each other,” she chattered. Tim and Rigan began their descent of the mountain at full speed.
INSIDE THE FORT, Diana watched over Da Vinci, brushing her fingers through his damp hair. He was laid out on her lap, nestled under a few quilts Ruby had dumpster-dived and a pile of too-big shirts. When he spoke, Da Vinci didn’t seem too worried about his health, but his partners had begun to suspect that he did not fully understand what was going on. He was feverish and constantly talking like the kidnappings hadn’t happened, asking when their next departure was and if Dresden had talked to the commander the night before.
At his worst, Da Vinci would wake up screaming, his third eye open and moving frantically. The thought of a mercy killing made Diana’s stomach churn, but if he didn’t get better, she worried that it could easily come to that. He felt clammy and skeletal in her arms. He was as limp as a corpse when hugged or held. He twitched in what she could only assume was a fit of nightmares when suddenly, Ruby popped her head into the fort.
“Wow, it’s like crazy warm in here.” Ruby sounded as though she’d discovered a pleasant surprise.
“Well, when you spend months at a time in the jungles of Vietnam and the tundra of the Arctic you learn to build a damn good fort.” Diana did not look up at Ruby.
“Months in the jungle, is that a true story or a Rigan story?”
Diana let out a thick, warm laugh. “A Rigan story,” she tsk’d. “I hated missions that had me sleeping anywhere but the Ritz.”
Ruby joined Diana on the damp, dead-grass floor of the fort. “How is he?”
“He is not well.” Diana got hung up on her words. A
lthough they were always physically protecting him from gunfire and other agents, this kind of care for Da Vinci was different. This was intimate. There was a new level of fondness between the team that Diana didn’t often see on or off the field. It scared her. “But we’re hoping the heat will break his fever.”
“Yeah, It’s like a sauna in here.”
“That’s good to hear. None of us could really tell. We had to just eyeball it.”
“I-uh-I brought some aspirin, but Rigan took it back down the hill with him. I’ll make sure someone goes and brings it up.”
“Hm, that should help the fever.” She paused for a moment, her gaze still resting on Da Vinci. “Is that all you were here for?” Although most days Diana would opt for a long conversation with Ruby about the news and the nightly shows, today was different. Diana wanted to be left alone. Having her attention divided even one other way from Da Vinci was too much. She wanted all eyes on him.
“Yeah.” Ruby shifted uncomfortably before reaching for her jacket. “I-I’ll be on my way then.” She put her jacket back on but was quickly stopped.
“Sweetheart.” Diana mulled her options over for a moment. It didn’t feel right to just send the girl out into the cold. “I was talking about supplies. Please stay and warm up. You look just about tortured over there.”
“Ohthankheavens.” Ruby huddled back to the fire.
Diana pressed her plump and cracked lips closed. She had on a knowing smile. “Why suddenly so afraid of me, Ruby? Rigan hasn’t been telling you any stories, has he?”
“No more fear than usual,” Ruby joked. “I’m just stiff from the cold. Believe me. If my teeth weren’t so chattery, I’d be talkin’ your ear off.”
It was then that Da Vinci stirred, mumbling quickly. He thrashed around. Diana tsk’d. “It may actually be better if you head down the hill soon, though.” Diana shifted her legs, attempting to move Da Vinci’s head off her lap. “He’s getting restless.”
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