by Dan Krokos
“It’s nothing.” I ease my grip on his wrists so he doesn’t bruise, but still hold him down. My face is close to his, our chests pressed together.
“Noah and Olive,” he says.
“They’re fine, everyone’s fine.” My hair slips from behind my neck and trails along his cheek. Peter twists his left wrist and suddenly he’s free of my grip. His warm fingers slip around my neck and bury in my hair, making me gasp. The whole movement took a half second.
I drift closer; he’s not pulling me, just guiding. Right before I close my eyes I see his widen. I pull back.
“What’s wrong?” I say.
“I’m going to be sick.” He releases the back of my neck and the warm imprint of his fingers fades away. A shiver runs across my shoulders. I don’t understand what he means, because I’m still thinking about the shape of his lips and wondering if I looked at them before, when I was still me. Then he rolls off the bed and runs into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Oh, sick.
I sit at the edge of the bed and almost laugh. Pretty sure I was about to kiss him. Yeah, I was. Maybe he saved us both from that. I rub my gritty palms over my face. “Get a grip, Miranda,” I say.
Especially when I kissed Noah only a few hours ago. Yes, I didn’t kiss him on purpose, it kind of just turned into that. And yes, I’m almost positive I was about to kiss Peter willingly. Still. The last thing I want is to confuse both of them; I’m confused enough for all three of us. But it’s not my fault—Peter was the one who grabbed the back of my neck. I had been holding him in place, with no plans of lip contact. His fault.
Which doesn’t explain why I’m trying so hard not to smile.
Peter opens the door, disrupting my thoughts, looking like he saw a ghost. He hovers in the bathroom doorway. “Don’t ever let them stick you with whatever...don’t ever get stuck with a dart. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.” I snap off an awkward salute.
“Don’t call me that,” he says. He crawls back into bed and pulls the covers over him, moaning. “I feel hungover.”
Flash—
The four of us at the table in our room. A mostly empty bottle of something called Jameson. It burns our throats but we’re too drunk to care. We’re playing Monopoly, but only because we don’t feel like sneaking out again. Olive has a lot of hotels. Noah is broke. We laugh and laugh and then I stand up suddenly and run to the bathroom. I get the lid up just in time to puke. I stagger back to the room and lean in the doorway.
Olive says, smiling, “You should stick to juice boxes.” Peter laughs. “Or maybe just light beer.”
I give them both the middle finger and stagger to my bunk.
Fall into it.
A glimpse of the next morning . . .
“Yeah,” I say, back in the present. “Hung over.”
In the bathroom I splash water over my face. After being in the river, I’ve seen enough water to last a lifetime. But the bathtub does look inviting. All sorts of expensive oils and soaps line the shelf above it. Who arethese people? A brief image surfaces of the metal shower stalls we used in our base. It’s possible I’ve never had a bath.
I take a washcloth from the tub and wet it in the sink, wring it out. Staring at myself in the mirror, I drag the rag over my neck. My lips are chapped, on the verge of cracking. The skin under my right eye is purple. I run water into my hands, try to smooth the tangles and dirt out of my hair, then whip it into a quick ponytail. Nothing keeps me from smelling like the river. My eyes look lighter in the mirror. Before they were...I don’t know what they were before, but now they’re ...pink? I lean closer. The whites are perfectly white, but the irises are a reddish pink. I tilt my head and the effect shifts, revealing a hint of green. It must be the light.
I look away, still not recognizing my face or my lank auburn hair. I rinse out another washcloth for Peter and take it into the bedroom. His eyes are closed but he opens them when I sit on the bed.
“How did we escape?” he says.
“Olive carried you. It was her.”
He nods. “What happened?”
I tell him nearly everything. About Olive’s meeting with her other half. He can’t think of anything to say. I leave out the part about me and Noah trading air under the water. He listens to it all while I drag the cloth over his face and neck, cleaning the dirt away. He takes my hand at one point and winds his fingers through mine. We look at them folded together.
“Peter...” I begin, even though I have no idea what I’m going to say.
I see movement to my left. I know I’m semi-safe in this house, but that doesn’t keep my heart from speeding up. Noah stands in the doorway, leaning forward with his hands gripping the doorframe on both sides. He’s not looking at us; he’s looking at my hand wrapped in Peter’s.
“Hey guys,” he says.
“Hey,” Peter says.
Noah steps into the room and holds up his wrist, taps it like he’s wearing a watch. “You ready to recover those memory shots? I don’t want to rush anyone, but the clock is ticking.”
15
The kitchen table is covered with bags and bags of Taco Bell. We sit down and dig into food Elena was nice enough to pick up for us. Noah and I inhale tacos, but Peter can only stomach one, and Olive still looks dazed. I’m curious how she feels about Noah’s blond mystery girl.
Since Peter is still woozy, Noah seems to take over leadership duties. I’m curious if it was always this way, with Peter and Noah calling the shots while Olive and I hung back. It seems normal.
Noah paces next to the table, taco in hand. Elena is nowhere to be seen. Meaning Noah probably told her to get lost. Again I’m curious about how well they know each other.
“This should be fairly simple,” Noah says. “Tycast didn’t give any indication that the other team knows about the cache. So we check the pier out. If we can confirm it’s not being watched, we recover the shots.”
“And what happens when we need more?” I say.
Noah scratches his head. “We worry about that when we survive the next few days. But there should be enough to last us. What good would it be for Tycast to make a half-assed cache?”
Olive says, “And when our powers fade in a few years, the memory loss is supposed to go with it.”
I remember them saying that before, but this time it sparks a phantom. The way my vision wavers into something new is familiar by now.
Weird. For a girl who isn’t supposed to get her memories back, I’ve been remembering a lot lately.
If only I could choose what comes back.
My heart races in anticipation of more memories about the others, but I only see a cold white room, Dr. Tycast at my side. He holds a syringe filled with the lemonade-colored liquid.
“How much longer do I have to take these?” I ask him. I don’t like the shots. Not because they prick, but because of how often I take them. They make the inside of my elbows sore. Noah sometimes mixes them with a drink to avoid the shot, but it’s not as effective.
Tycast holds the syringe up to the light, flicks it with his finger. “Not long.” He smiles down at me, takes my arm gently in his warm, dry hands. “When you fully mature, your brain will atrophy to a normal level. Maybe atrophy is the wrong word. It will thin. Now, when it does, the strain on your cerebrum will end, and it will begin to heal. You will, for all intents and purposes, be an ordinary woman.”
“And then what happens to us?” I say. I don’t want my brain to thin.
He’s studying my arm, probing for a vein with his thumb. I watch him, but he never answers.
I blink.
“Are you okay?” Peter says. Some of the color has returned to his face.
I blink a few more times, shaking my head to clear it. “I’m fine.” He doesn’t look convinced, so I try my best smile. It feels like a grimace.
Olive polishes off another taco. “How much time do we have? Before memory loss sets in?”
Noah turns toward me and opens his mouth, then shuts it.
>
“Go on,” I say, fully back in the present now. “Say it.”
He rubs his nose. “Uh, based on Miranda, we should have about eight hours before we notice something’s wrong. Or at least you and me, Olive. I don’t know when Peter and Mir took their last.”
Peter grabs the last taco. “We better get moving.”
We do a check of the house for anything we can use. Olive finds binoculars. Noah gets Elena to lend us her car, when she returns from wherever she was.
While we search, I toss out a random question. “So this dry run. Why not test us in a controlled environment, on one or two people at a time? Why reveal us to the world?”
Olive stops her inventory of the top shelves in a closet. “Remember what the woman said in Tycast’s office? About a buyer being locked in? I bet they want to see our true capacity. Like firing a gun at the range, then firing one in the field.”
Noah stands in the doorway to the garage, having checked over the Mercedes. “Good point. If we’re talking about the kind of money Tycast hinted at, the buyers will want a guarantee that we work.”
“We can’t let them win,” Olive says.
Noah smiles with more surety than I feel. “We’re not gonna.”
Something passes between them, but I don’t know what. It feels private, enough to make my cheeks burn. But it’s not like I can get jealous when half an hour ago I almost kissed Peter, if I was even going to. Noah definitely shies away from Olive’s gaze, stepping back into the garage.
I turn away before Olive sees I noticed. And find two polished katanas resting on the mantel above the fireplace. My eyes trace the curve of the sword, and something primal stirs within me. I want to feel the grip in my hand. I pull Elena over and point at the swords. “Are those real?”
She stares at me. “Yes. My dad likes to collect Japanese stuff. Why?”
“You mind if I borrow them?”
“Uh...”
“Awesome. I promise to bring them back.” I go to the mantel and lift the swords up. I hear Elena huff a sigh and walk away. When I turn around, Noah is standing in front of me. “You scared me,” I say.
“No I didn’t.”
I hand him a sword. “You know how to use one of these?”
“Not as well as you.”
Experimentally, I lift the sword over my shoulder and let it point down my back. It sticks to my armor, through my T-shirt. The scales layered on my back are magnetic.
“Nice feature, huh?” Noah says. He’s trying to be nice, or something. “So, about Elena...”
“I don’t care, Noah.” The response is automatic, and maybe a little untrue.
“What?”
I pull the sword from my spine, test the weight with a quick twirl, then put it back. “I don’t care how you know her.”
“Yes you do. She’s a friend, that’s it. I made these contacts before we were together.”
“I said I don’t care. She’s been very helpful.”
He holds up the keys to her Mercedes. “Yes, she has.”
We drive downtown two hours before midnight. The looming threat of memory loss is at the front of our minds. I don’t have much to lose, I guess. Two days of memories? But as soon as I think it, I realize I’m wrong.
I have everything to lose.
I’m back with my friends, my family, and we have a purpose. I’m closer to finding out who I am with every passing moment.
But the others, they’ll have to go through the same confusion and despair I did. At first it doesn’t seem so bad, until you realize what’s missing. The more you learn the more you see lost. The worst part—if we all lose it, there would be no one to explain what happened.
We go over the plan in the car while Noah drives. Peter and I will watch the pier. Once we say it’s clear, Noah and Olive will move in and search the water. Simple enough.
We drive into downtown Cleveland and I lean against the window and watch the people and lights and cars. I imagine them plunged into invisible terror, running from whatever horrible images their minds produce. I imagine cars overturned, people trapped inside, fires raging. I hear a siren, thinking it’s in my head, but an ambulance passes us going the other way.
Noah stops next to a building of crumbling brick and broken windows. Far off, I see the blackness of the lake. I force myself to shake off the imagined destruction; we’re here now, and without our shots we won’t be helping anyone.
Noah hands me a small radio he must’ve taken from Elena’s house. I try to grab it but he holds on until I meet his eyes. “We’ll be hidden,” he says. “When it looks clear, let me know on this. Channel two.”
I take the radio and he grabs my wrist. Peter is already out of the car. The dome light makes Noah’s face ghostly pale. “Be careful,” he says. “And watch for Rhys. He could be anywhere.”
The rogue’s name makes me shiver. He could be an asset, if he was on our side. But until we know more he’s definitely classified as dangerous.
From the back, Olive says, “Noah, she’ll be fine. We all will.”
He lets go of my wrist. “I didn’t mean to grab you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I can still feel his fingers through my armor. It wasn’t exactly a nice touch, but I’d rather he didn’t touch me at all; I don’t need to be any more confused about what was between us, and what is.
Noah pops the trunk, and I make sure we’re alone before pulling out the sword. A breeze carries the lake’s dead fish smell. Down the street the pier juts into the water. It’s peaceful near the shore, darker and quieter. Noah drives away to stash the car somewhere before sneaking to the pier.
Behind me, Peter puts his hand on my shoulder. I jump. “Easy,” he says.
“I am.”
He smiles at me in the dark and tilts his head back, taking in the building. “You think the elevator still works?”
We climb the stairs of what was once a warehouse, all seven floors. Our boots crunch in the dirt and refuse left behind from whoever last called this place home. It’s almost pitch-black— the only light is filtered through the broken and boarded up windows. At the top, I put my shoulder into the rusted door and it screeches open. The sky over the lake is black. From here I see the pier perfectly. The third one, the one Tycast told us about, is the closest. It’s streaked with red paint, just like he said. A small dark boat is moored to it.
Peter settles onto his stomach at the edge of the roof, and I lie down next to him. A little closer than I meant to. Through the binoculars I can see the imperfections in each wooden plank making up the pier.
Peter activates the radio. “Clear so far. How long do you want to wait?”
Noah’s voice crackles through the tiny speaker. “Not long. The bad guys either know about this place or they don’t.”
We fall into a weird, tense silence. Our eyes are on the pier, but I can’t ignore Peter’s shoulder touching mine. It would be awkward to pull away now, but not moving says something too. It’s like my mind has been cut in half when I really need it whole.
Peter clears his throat. “So are you and Noah back in the swing of things?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“You know,” he says, taking the binoculars from me. “Back together. Like that.”
“No,” I say.
“No?”
“No, why?” I tuck my chin over the roof’s edge and look down. I remember running with Peter over the rooftops, leaping into space with no fear. My pulse races just thinking about it. I turn on my side to face Peter. The faint light from the city is reflected in his blue eyes, making them appear lit from within. He stares back at me, binoculars drifting from his face.
“No, why?” I say again.
The radio in my hand crackles. “Guys. Guys, he’s going over,” Olive says.
On the pier, Noah looks around with his hands on his hips. Across the street, Olive holds the radio and the sword. She crosses and stops in front of him. They argue, but their voices don’t
carry this far.
“Idiot,” Peter mutters.
“He’s showing off,” I say. But it looks clear, and I’m ready to get this over with so I can sleep.
Noah turns away from Olive and walks to the end of the pier. Olive watches the street with the sword hidden behind her back. She lifts the radio to her lips and we hear, “What an idiot.”
Noah dives off the end and slips into the water with barely a ripple.
Peter puts his hand on mine and squeezes the radio with my fingers, then leans close. “You might need to help him if it’s too big to pull up.”
“Here’s hoping it is,” Olive replies.
Time passes. Olive paces the width of the pier.
She spins around and freezes, watching the boat.
“What happened?” I say into the radio.
She brings it to her lips after a few seconds. “Just thought I heard something.”
My thoughts turn to the rogue, but it could be anything.
I take the binoculars back from Peter and watch the water. “He should’ve surfaced by now,” I say.
“We used to have competitions when we were kids,” Peter says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. See who could hold their breath the longest. Noah always won. One time I even passed out trying to beat him. He’s fine.”
It doesn’t seem that way. Olive keeps staring at the boat. And if Noah is searching the bottom it doesn’t mean he can’t come up for air. Unless he’s trying to impress us by staying under. My eye twitches. I take a breath and hold it.
Olive raises her sword. From this far away I hear her shout “Come out of there! Show yourself!” at the dark boat.
In the water, bubbles break the surface.
Shit.
Peter and I stand up at the same time. We whirl around and prepare to sprint for the door.
The door that is now shut. Two people in black scaled suits stand in front of it.
The other Peter and Miranda.
16
They both hold shimmering silver staves. Shimmering because tiny tendrils of electricity crawl up and down their lengths. Suddenly I miss the knife-tipped version from the forest. At the same time, seeing the electricity makes my brain scream DANGER, which keeps me focused, blocking the stun of seeing myself staring back at me. Something I definitely need right now.