Ren Series Boxed Set

by Sarah Noffke

  I have a few dozen crafty retorts but I kind of don’t feel like using them right now. Instead I roll my eyes. “It doesn’t matter what they are because I’m not using them anymore.”

  She blows out a breath. “Wish I could turn off my gift. It’s incessant on my attention. What’s your name?”

  I pause and then say, “Ren.”

  “At first I thought you’d give me a false name,” she says with a clever, triumphant smile.

  “How do you know I didn’t?”

  “Because people feel bad when they lie and you didn’t just now,” Jane says.

  “How do you know that I’m not a psychopath who doesn’t feel bad when I lie?”

  “You’re not a psychopath. I know.” She shivers. “You never want to use empathy on psychopaths, it’s like wrapping your mind around a block of ice.”

  “I think I have an idea of what it’s like,” I say, thinking of my experiences of being in Allouette’s head.

  “Ren, do you ever feel cursed?” Jane asks and there’s a pureness to her question. She’s a girl standing alone in a desert. She’s been searching, trying to find her path. Trying to abandon her identity. It’s so plain on her. Plain Jane. And I hate that I know exactly how she feels. I know exactly what she’s looking for, because I’m looking for it too.

  “I’ve only ever felt cursed,” I say, sounding as dejected as I am.

  She nods with a commiserating look. “Yeah, I kind of figured you knew what I meant. I used to be in a society of Dream Travelers and they all seemed happy to be this race of people. They never felt burdened and that’s why I left. I couldn’t relate to them.”

  I lower my chin and rub my temples. Jane and I have too many things in common and it is starting to piss me off. My mum would say the hand of God is playing strongly in my life. She’d say I should be grateful, but I’m not sure I know how.

  “You’re not drinking your tea,” she says.

  “It’s repulsive,” I say, raising my chin.

  She pops out of the booth. “I’ll grab us ales.”

  Jane comes back a minute later carrying two hazy glasses with too much head. “You’re a horrid waitress,” I say, looking at the pints.

  She shrugs and takes a long sip.

  “And you’re drinking on the job?” I say.

  She burps loudly and then shrugs. “The owner won’t fire me. I know how to give him exactly what he wants and how he wants it,” she says with a wink. “Empathy does have some benefits.”

  I throw my eyes up to the ceiling. Oh, bloody hell, would you stop it! I say to God, silently.

  “What are you looking at?” Jane asks.

  I bring my eyes down. “Just cursing God.”

  “Oh, I do that all the time but he doesn’t seem to care. Why are you cursing him right now though?”

  “Because you’re like the female version of me,” I say with a repulsed shiver.

  She laughs. “I always hoped the male version of me would be more attractive than you.”

  My mouth pops open. “I’m deadly attractive.”

  “Maybe for people who are color blind?”

  “Well, you look like a bloody elf with the pointy ears and cropped hair,” I say.

  She laughs. “Don’t take offense. I’ve never been attracted to redheads,” she says, draining her glass.

  “I’m not offended.”

  “You are a little,” she says, giving me a knowing look.

  Chapter Thirty

  I woke up the next day with the first hangover I’d had since after the night I broke up with Dahlia. Jane and I closed down the pub, spending most of the time exchanging insults. It was the first good time I’d had in many years. I may have actually laughed, although it’s hard to remember after that many drinks.

  Over the last week I’ve learned that Jane and I indeed have a parallel life. And although I’d die before admitting it, it’s been nice to have someone to relate to. She takes a break when I come into the pub at mid-day and we chat. It’s become the only part of my life I look forward to. Work is always the same boring bullshit. And each night is filled with strange dreams. I’ve got a long list of missed calls from Trey that I have no intention of returning. There was an off hour where I actually considered going back for one more job but every time I pick up my mobile I freeze. I then remind myself that doing one job isn’t going to make a difference. There will just be another tragedy. There’s no way to stop evil. It’s all just a delay tactic. And to do what he wants I’d have to turn back on the mind control and hypnosis and that isn’t an option. Since I’ve quit being me, my life has simplified and the monster is growing weaker. I was actually laughing. Maybe one day I’ll actually have a humble demeanor. The odds are close to nil, but one can have dreams.

  I’ve been napping lately. It’s more a way to avoid reality than to get rest. I woke up late today from the nap and therefore I have to take a shortcut to get to work on time. I’m halfway through a back alley when I catch a movement in my peripheral. I flip my head around just in time to catch a fist slamming into my jaw. I’m then assaulted by a boy’s thoughts. He’s scared and his hand instantly sears from his own assault. I stumble back into a brick wall just as two other boys grab my wrists and pin me to the wall, one on either side of me. They’re street hoodlums who are stealing money to buy booze. They’re bullies hyped up on testosterone and hot egos. I know more about either boy holding my wrist than they’ve dared to share with each other. And I know they’re mostly harmless. They’re not murderers. Just common criminals.

  I pull my face up and stare at the boy in front of me. He’s still cradling his hand. “Damn, you got a hard face,” he says with a sneer.

  “And you’ve got a weak punch,” I say.

  He then lunges forward and throws a punch into my ribs. I double over as much as I can with the two pricks holding me against the wall.

  “You watch your mouth,” the boy says, jumping up on his toes, feeling victorious assaulting a pinned man.

  I raise myself upright, but remain still otherwise.

  “The wanker isn’t even fighting us,” the boy holding my right wrist says.

  He’s right. It must strike them oddly, as it does me. The urge to use mind control on these gits is incredibly persuasive. I could get into the heads of these buffoons and make them fight each other to the death, but that would feed the monster. I think he’s almost starved to death and there’s no way I want to bring him back. And really, what does it matter? These prats aren’t really going to hurt me. They’re just kids who are hyped up on power. I’ve been there. Trey would say this is my karma. Why run from it when it follows me around?

  “The wanker is probably scared shitless,” the other boy holding me says.

  I close my eyes and resign to this godforsaken moment. When I open them it’s because I feel hands reaching into my jean pockets.

  “Take my wallet but watch my balls, would you?” I say to the boy in front of me.

  “Sorry, but I can’t resist, pops,” he says and knees me in the groin hard. Then his friends release me and they dart away as I double over in pain and frustration.

  The little run-in with the bloody buggers in the alleyway cost me more than just a tenner, which is all I had in my wallet. I’m going to be six minutes late to work. I turn the corner to the station and realize I should have been paying better notice to my surroundings. My aching balls happened to be soaking up my full attention. But now I realize there’s a great commotion at the station entrance. I blink rapidly and notice there’s smoke pouring through the crowd.

  Smoke? Why is there smoke coming up from the Underground entrance?

  Then a rush of panicked people brush past me. Some screaming. Some crying. All of them delirious. And one touches me.

  There’s been another bomb. Group X has struck again, I hear the person think.

  I walk almost in a daze as too many thoughts compete for real estate in my head at once. A deafening number of sirens ring through the
air. The authorities move in, pushing the crowd of overly emotional people back. I flash my Underground staff badge to civilians and bobbies, and it actually gives me clearance to keep moving through the growing crowd. I haven’t awoken from my shock, but I’m starting to gain a clear stream of thoughts as I push forward.

  “The bomb went off just a few minutes ago,” I hear a woman say to a paramedic. I don’t look at her, but hone in on her testimony as I move forward, getting closer to the entrance. “It rocked the ground up here like a small earthquake. People were shouting and yelling down below.”

  I move until I can’t make out the woman’s voice anymore. And then my ears pick up on another conversation. “They’re saying there are people stuck down there. The ceiling crashed in. Apparently the bomb went off just beside the ticketing office.”

  I actually whip around at this and the woman who was speaking looks at me oddly.

  Ticketing office? The booth where I work? Where I was supposed to be?

  Something is needling my mind, like it’s trying to get my attention in this disastrous moment. Possessed by a weird force, I turn my gaze away and keep moving closer to the Underground entrance. Compelled. Magnetized. Something keeps pulling me to the wreckage, although there’s nothing but devastation there. Maybe I’m compelled by the strange idea that three teenage punks are responsible for saving my life. I was supposed to be down there.

  Almost all realities state that I was supposed to be one of Group X’s victims, except the reality that I’m living. And still my mind keeps hitting a brick wall. Why? Why was I late when I’m never late? Why on this day? What is going on in this strange life of mine? Everything seems to have such odd timing lately and I’m not sure why. Why do I keep getting pushed into near collisions with Dahlia? Or joined up with a person like Jane? Or why am I stalled on a day when I would have been at the epicenter of an explosion? I’m supposed to have free choice and the ability to live my life the way I want to now, but strangely I don’t feel like I do. Increasingly I feel like a pawn.

  The paramedics are starting to carry people out of the Underground entrance now. Most victims have on oxygen masks or have bloody gashes in their heads or are laid out on stretchers. I stop moving forward and assist a bobby who is trying to move the crowd back. There are so many people being brought up to the surface all at once.

  A herd of frantic victims swarms to the surface and behind them more and more. The tube would have been packed with people. It’s rush hour. My mind has a hard time assembling the idea of a bomb going off on the platform during rush hour. It would have been bloody chaos. A blood bath. Metal and concrete and bodies all fighting for a space when the detonation happened. My stomach curdles with revulsion. And yet, I all but signed the papers on this kind of thing happening by not taking the job to stop it. What am I so angry about? I don’t have any right to be repulsed by this. I knew this kind of thing was going to happen and yet I’m shocked by the aftermath of the tragedy unfolding around me.

  Just then a dead man’s body is brought up, carried between two other men. Their faces are flushed and sweaty when they lay the man down at a paramedic’s feet.

  “There’s a hundred more like him,” one says to the medic.

  I narrow my eyes at the man, like he’s done something wrong by surviving a catastrophe and stating a fact about what remains.

  I knew more people were going to die from Group X’s acts. I surrendered to it. And I’d seen the reports about the attacks in the news. But seeing the reports and watching the outcome are two different things. And knowing I was six minutes away from being blown to bits makes a new reality sink in. I’ve only ever cared about myself. Ever. And to know that the acts of a group I could have stopped almost killed me hits a tender place not protected by armor. I could have died. I was supposed to. And it would have been my fault. It would have been justified.

  More bodies are being pulled up the stairs. Dead bodies. Women. Children. Men. Old. Young. Some half breathing. Some being rushed for care. Some already with masks on. Some burned. Some looking past the verge of shock. And then a man carries a limp figure in his arms. He lays her with the bodies. The ones that no longer breathe. The ones that are meant to be catalogued and sent to the morgue. But I recognize this one. And I know I’m not mistaken. She would have been on her way home from the pub. She’d been stopping by my booth every day this week. Her shift over, mine beginning. There next to another dozen dead bodies lies Jane’s.

  I almost kick out. Kick out at the crowd in front of me. Kick out like I’m having a tantrum. Jane is dead. I know it by looking at her. I know it by where they’ve sorted her body. To the pile that doesn’t need immediate attention. And yet, I want to rush to her. Check her pulse myself. Slap her cheek and tell her to quit trying to get attention. But I don’t. I stand frozen. A stupid witness to this tragedy. I was supposed to be there. Actually, I would have been so completely blown to shit that there wouldn’t be a body. And yet, here I stand, watching.

  What does it even mean that the female version of me, who has lived my parallel life, is dead by an act I could have stopped? What am I missing? I throw my head up to the sky and look at the gray clouds with conviction. What do you fucking want from me? I ask God.

  More smoke spills from the tunnel and a horde of people rush out of it.

  “There’s about to be another explosion,” a guy yells, running up from the stairs. “A generator is about to blow.”

  We part, making way for the paramedics and other people trying to get out of the Underground. Everything is chaos. Too much commotion and too much going on. And then there’s a small quake and a gust of hot wind rushes out of the entrance. It’s followed by people and smoke and debris. My eyes burn from the smoke and the dust. I move to make way for the shift of disoriented people and then I realize something is stuck to my foot. It’s nothing. Just rubbish, but I bend over and pull it off anyway. My heart skips into my stomach when I pull off a shred of the half-seared poster of Dahlia. It’s only a piece of her face, charred and burned at the edges, but I recognize her features. I’d recognize them anywhere. It must have been blown up from the Underground. And it somehow found its way under my foot.

  Again I’m feeling like a pawn in God’s war, but I don’t know what he wants from me. I’m a monster who’s trying to rid the world of me by living simply. And yet I’ve felt more pushed and directed in the last few weeks than at any other time in my life. It’s like as soon as I came up from under the surface of the water, from the Institute, God started trying to direct my path. Doesn’t he understand that I can’t live a life as a Dream Traveler? That I can’t use my skills? That I can’t have Dahlia? All of that is too much for me. It’s enough to break me and make me break the world. I’m too powerful to be what I am. I need to be fucking left alone.

  A man sprints up from the Underground, tears streaming from his face. Another rush of people hurry up from the Underground. This time a woman is half carrying a man who hardly has his feet under him. They collapse at the top. “David,” she shrieks, when the man topples over. She’s on top of him at once. “Wake up. Wake up,” she says, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please, someone help him! Please!” she says, her voice trembling. Help rushes over, but they soon shake their head and retreat to other cases that can be saved. The woman crumples onto the man, the one she clearly loves and has lost.

  Everything in front of me seems to be playing out with a strange reverence to it. I want to look away and yet I feel like there are so many hidden meanings to this all. I hate hidden meanings though. But I stay glued here. Watching.

  “What kind of monster does this sort of thing?” I hear a woman say behind me.

  “I don’t know,” her companion says, “but it’s going to take an act of God to save us from it.”

  A breeze with too much force to be classified as such then rips down the street. I take this as my cue and allow it to push me out of the crowd and down the street. I walk a great distance before I’m away fr
om crying people and sirens and dying victims. Every single event I just witnessed plays across my mind, every single detail as it actually was, thanks to my photographic memory. The crowds of people. Jane’s body. Dahlia’s half-burned poster. The dead man and the grieving woman.

  Today I was supposed to die. Just like when I was born. And yet, I’ve lived both times. I could have been Jane. I was supposed to die, just as she had today. Our lives did follow a symmetry. And now all I can think about is how I left Dahlia all those years ago thinking I’d outlive her, and yet I’m not guaranteed one hundred years, it’s just the odds. And today the odds weren’t in Jane’s favor. People die. Old. Young. Middling. Dream Traveler. I can die too. But I was so afraid to live without Dahlia. Afraid I’d outlive her. However, since I left Oregon I’ve been too afraid to live at all. Hell, even when I was confined at the Institute I lived a quiet military-style life. All regimen. No pleasure.

  And I didn’t want to help Trey because I thought it didn’t matter but if I did then Jane wouldn’t be dead. I can’t save the world but I can save people who matter to other people. Maybe if the Lucidites would have been formed a long time ago then they would have seen Jimmy’s accident and saved him. What I didn’t realize before is that it’s not about the whole, it’s about the individual.

  Lately I’ve felt that God was trying to push me. And it’s angered me because I resented him for ever allowing me to live. I resented him for giving me too much power. For most of my life I’ve hated God for putting a monster inside me. But is it possible that I’ve viewed my life all wrong? I thought I was a mistake created by God, but maybe the reason I didn’t die at birth or today is because I was made as an instrument to be used by God. He is clearly trying to get his handle on me, like a critical tool necessary for an important project. The signs have been everywhere. So much so, I thought at times I could hear God screaming.

  I stop walking and stare up. “All right, what do you want from me, big guy?” I say, appearing to talk to myself.