by S. L. Naeole
Slam into him, actually.
He brought his other hand beside the first, searching. He lowered his ear onto the spot that his hands had warmed, but I knew he’d hear no sound. I almost hoped that he would. He said nothing, but his face drained of blood. Stacy’s words could not be refuted anymore, no matter how much he wanted to. He stumbled away from her, tripping over his own feet and landing on the floor.
“What the hell are you?” he said in a panicked voice.
“Sean…oh-pa…”
I knew that word. It meant brother in Korean. I’d heard it spoken before, during happier times. Sean remembered and stricken, he shook his head and then jerked it towards me. “You’re not my sister, man. You’re not my sister. You’re just another freak, like her.”
Stacy, not one to continue pleasantries when she knew they wouldn’t work, resorted to her usual frankness. “Well fine then, you jerk. I’m not your sister. Why the hell would I want to be related to you anyway? You’ve always been the weakest one, even when I was sick, you freaking panty, so yeah, I’d rather not be known as your sister. You totally ruined my rep.”
It was like a tennis match, as my head, and Dr. Bro’s turned to Sean’s to await his reaction. “You’re the damn panty! You and your damned ballet classes always forced Dad to rearrange class time for everyone else just so you could attend. You couldn’t just pick one thing, could you?
“No, you had to do everything, be little miss goody-two-shoes and kiss Dad’s ass so he’d let you get away with always screwing up during practice.” He jumped to his feet, his body twisting in such a way that his foot raised over his head and made contact with Stacy’s shoulder, causing her to sway but never forcing her feet to move in any direction.
We heard a crack, but Sean hid the pain with a grunt and a shake of his head. He bounced from foot to foot, his hands shaking at his side deliberately as he glared at his fuming sister. “And another thing: You always had bad form. Dad was always getting on you about that. Your posture sucked—it still does—and all those damn dance classes didn’t do jack because you’re no freaking twinkle-toes. Your feet are heavy and your moves jerky, clumsy, and to be quite honest, ugly as hell.”
Stacy’s retaliation was swift, her arm arcing and weaving through the air until it landed solidly in her brother’s gut. He grunted before a whoosh of air left his lungs and he fell over onto his knees. “And you always talked too damn much,” she said simply.
She stood there, looking down on her brother as he coughed and wheezed, desperate for the oxygen she had forced out of him. After some time, she knelt down in front of him and her head pressed down onto his. I looked at Robert whose emotionless face told me nothing. He was still angry.
I switched my gaze to Dr. Bro, who seemed disappointed and awed at the same time. And finally, my eyes lifted to see Lark and Graham, the two of them standing at the foot of the stairs, Graham’s face filled with empathy—he knew what it was like to get his butt kicked by Stacy—while Lark’s was filled with sadness.
She had hoped for a reconciliation with Stacy from the very moment their friendship ended, but there was no hope in her eyes now. She did not see the possibility there, and when she heard my thoughts, her shoulders drooped even more. There was no hiding this loss.
“Sean. I know you don’t understand. This was the only way I could live.” Stacy’s voice was barely a whisper, but somehow I could hear her. “I wasn’t ready to die. I didn’t want to. I was given the opportunity to live and I took it. It meant that I would have to give you and Mom and Dad and everyone else up, but there wasn’t much of my life left to live anyway. I wasn’t ever going to wake up from that coma. My life was over, Sean. I had to choose between being dead or dying.”
“I don’t understand. What are you?”
She took a deep, needless breath, and whispered to him the truth.
“What the hell is that?”
Rolling her eyes, she answered. He stumbled back on his feet, landing on his behind and scrambling backwards until his back met the wall. His eyes were crazed as he looked at all of us, as though seeing us all for the first time.
In truth, he was.
“Are all of you…are all of you guys zombies, too?” His voice had risen to a pitch that had probably last visited him years ago.
I shook my head at him, knowing that no one else would answer. “Stacy and Dr. Bro are the only ones here who are like that, Sean.”
“Then what the hell are you? You’re supposed to be dead, too. What the hell are you if you’re not like her?”
“I’m a human being, just like you.”
“Nu-uh, man. I heard that your dad saw your body. He saw you all burned up and crap. There’s no way that you’re just like me.”
I looked at Robert and saw that he was not going to offer the truth. Lark turned away as well, and Graham held her against his chest, unwilling to part with his wife’s secret. I sighed, and decided to reveal my own.
“What my dad saw wasn’t me, Sean. It was someone else; someone else made to look like me. My dad’s in danger. In fact, pretty much everyone I’ve ever come into contact with is in danger, and instead of letting anyone else get hurt it was decided that this was the best way to keep people safe. If my dad thinks I’m dead then maybe whoever is trying to hurt me will, too.”
“Why would someone want to hurt you? I mean besides the fact that you’re a freak?”
I swallowed the insult and forced the words to come out. “Because I’m a freak.”
“Grace-”
My hand lifted to silence the voices that had risen in unison to contradict me. “Don’t try to argue with me on this. Sean has to know that he’s right. They were all right. I’m not like you, Sean. I mean I am, in every way that matters. But I’m also different in a way that matters to someone else, and they don’t think I deserve to be alive. They’ve tried to kill me but that didn’t work, so they’re going after the people I care about.”
“So I was right! You are the reason why Stacy kept getting hurt!”
Sean was now standing, his hands balled into fists at his side. I looked at them and knew what he wanted to do. I looked into his eyes and told him silently that I deserved it.
He blinked.
Robert stepped forward and pulled me behind him. “Whatever it is you’re thinking about doing, I suggest you change your mind. We haven’t decided what we will do with you now that you know about your sister but you could make it very easy for us.”
Sean’s lips curled in a snarl as he looked at Robert with disgust. “What the hell makes you think I care what you have to say? You and your girlfriend have turned my sister into a monster, man.”
“Actually, that’s my fault,” Dr. Bro corrected. “And I abhor the term monster. Consider us mortality challenged.”
“What the hell? You think this is funny?” Sean was quick. His hand grabbed a portrait that was on the wall and flung it at the doctor. His eyes held a glint of triumph as he watched the sharp wooden corners whiz towards the doctor’s head. The glint became a dull sheen when Dr. Bro caught the frame between his thumb and middle finger, the sound of the glass and wooden backing sliding against the stone-like surface of his fingertips grating and harsh.
“I don’t think that was all that necessary,” Dr. Bro said calmly before walking up to Sean and replacing the portrait, straightening it before returning to his original spot. “If you wish to attack me then please, by all means do so. But do not attempt to destroy valuable artwork in the process. We are expendable. History is not.”
Sean’s mouth dropped at the lackluster response he received, and decided to take aim at a new target. “So what the hell are you then? Huh?” His eyes were focused on Lark, and in them there was a new sense of betrayal. He had trusted her. He had trusted her when doubt had fallen on everyone else.
Lark tried to look at him but her own guilt could not allow her to be so brave. “I am not a friend.”
“Like I didn’t know that,” Sean s
aid sulkily. “I thought you were different. Everything you did for my family after Stacy–after we thought Stacy had died…I thought you could be trusted.”
Lark’s head hung lower. “No one should have trusted me.”
“You guys are all freaks, you know that? All of you. I’m telling my parents, I’m gonna call your dad, Grace, and tell him that you lied to him, too. I’m gonna call the news stations and the police station and turn all of you in for being goddamned crazy.”
He headed towards the door, his eyes never looking anywhere else but at us. He was inches away from reaching his goal and it was like I could feel the decision being made. Instinct propelled me forward, my feet moving before my thoughts could reach my mind, and I placed myself in front of Sean before Robert’s hands could reach him, before Stacy’s hands could reach Robert, before Lark could reach any of them.
“Robert, don’t!” I cried, pressing myself against Sean, holding him against me despite his protests. “Don’t. Please. Don’t.”
Stacy’s fingers were digging into Robert’s back, and I saw the ferocity that blazed in her eyes as she glared at him, knowing what his intent was and risking everything to prevent him from doing so. Lark stood with her hand between them, poised to pry them apart before serious damage—damage that went beyond physical—could be done.
Dr. Bro and Graham had remained where they stood, too stunned to have been able to act in any manner, though I was certain that the gum that Graham had been chewing when he came down was now somewhere on the floor.
“Grace, you need to get away from him,” Robert said to me slowly, his voice low, the deep timbre of it a warning in itself.
“No. I won’t let you hurt him. I won’t let you do that to him or Stacy,” I said, my head shaking from side to side to emphasize my decision.
“He’s going to expose us all, Grace. If your father were here, he’d be the one to do this.”
My eyes narrowed into angry slits at his words. “If my father were here he wouldn’t be planning my funeral.”
“Robert,” Lark said softly. “Let him go.”
“Let him go,” I repeated. “He’ll tell the police, he’ll tell whoever he wants, but who’s going to believe him? Please, Robert. Please. For me.”
I saw the tension in Robert’s face, the lines of it looking like cliffs of contention where every emotion that ever caused such strain committed suicide, and my heart hurt for him. Everything he was compelled him to end Sean’s life, to protect his secret, our secret. And yet here I stood, unwilling to let him do exactly what he had been born to do.
Again.
“I have never asked you to spare someone’s life before,” I said softly. “I’ve never asked you to do that because I never thought anyone was worth it. Not even me. But please. I am begging you not to hurt him. He’s Stacy’s brother. Whatever it is he feels right now, it doesn’t erase the fact that he’d never do anything to hurt her.”
Stacy stepped back, her hands flying into the air as though she were surrendering to whatever decision Robert made. Lark, too, backed away. The only one who didn’t move was me. Instead, my grip on Sean tightened, and though I was certain that I was squeezing him to hard, he said nothing. His eyes were frozen with fear, and his voice had somehow lost its ability to make a sound as he stared at Robert and awaited his fate.
A shimmer of energy seemed to hover over Robert’s skin, and he shook with anger. I wanted to close my eyes, afraid that he wouldn’t care about my plea; that he wouldn’t care about what his decision would mean. But I kept them open because I needed to see. I needed to see the decision form, and when it did, I felt my knees sag in relief.
“Thank you,” I sobbed, releasing Sean and throwing myself into Robert’s arms, stiff though they were. “Thank you.”
“You are the only person who could beg for someone else’s life with me, Grace. Don’t do it again.” His words were dark, but his voice had softened, and he embraced me with far more gentleness than I felt I deserved. He had gone against his call again…and this time it was because I had asked.
Stacy walked past us to her brother, who stood weak-kneed in front of us, his skin pale, his hair straggled, his clothes wrinkled, looking as though he’d been through a nightmare. “You owe Grace your life,” she said to him.
“I don’t get it.”
“Robert was going to kill you, you jerk. I would’ve tried to stop him, but I know that I can’t. You owe Grace your life—she saved you, you idiot. You should thank her.”
Sean looked at me, puzzled and still so unsure. “I…I still don’t get it. Why the hell would you that? Why did you do that…for me?”
I turned my head in Robert’s arms to look at him and told him honestly, “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for your sister.”
“She saved my life, too,” Stacy admitted.
“Mine as well.”
“And mine.”
Sean looked around the room at everyone who spoke, and I felt the need to argue against it because their lives would have never been in need of saving if it hadn’t been for me in the first place, but Robert’s thoughts reached mine before my mouth could open.
Do not contradict us, Grace. We are each alive because of you. Let us keep that belief. Whether you believe them to be true or not does not matter. We do, and that is all that is important.
Dr. Bro stepped forward, his calm demeanor having never altered once during the fracas. “Sean, if it would help you to better understand your sister’s condition, I will gladly speak to you about it in the kitchen.”
“How about you go and talk about it in the study,” Lark suggested, pointing them to a door behind the stairs that led to a small den.
Sean looked at his sister, and then back at Dr. Bro. For a second I feared that he’d once again head out the door. But then he nodded and followed the doctor into the other room. Lark closed the door behind them and sighed, pressing her forehead against the door. Graham came down to comfort her but she shrugged him off.
“Next time, open your goddamned mouth and say something instead of just standing there like some kind of ape. He might have taken this a lot better if the captain of the friggen’ football team had spoken up in support of his best friend!” She stormed out of the house, the only person to actually leave.
Graham stared, and then turned to look at me. “What the hell was I gonna do? I’m not fast, I’m not strong. And you know that I’m not good at speaking up during times like this. I would’ve just made things worse.”
Stacy clapped Graham on the shoulder, smiling when she saw his knees buckle and his body dip down at the force of the blow. “Self-awareness is a precious gift, Princess. Give her time. She’ll come back and understand that you did the only thing you could have. Sometimes a person has to stay out of it in order to help it.”
Graham gave Stacy a speculative look. “Are you getting soft?”
“What?”
“You’re defending her. You’re defending Lark.”
Stacy’s body stiffened and she sniffed at the suggestion. “No I’m not.”
“I think you are. I think you’re starting to realize that you can’t stay mad at her forever.”
“Wanna bet?”
Graham’s mouth sealed shut and I shook my head. “Way to go,” I mouthed at him. He shrugged his shoulders at me and bent down to pick up the piece of gum he had dropped.
“I think it would be a good idea if you started to accept the fact that you cannot stay mad at Lark forever, Stacy. The two of you were able to put aside your differences long enough to see me get married, and long enough to defeat Isis, and I’m willing to bet that you might have to do it again at some point.
“Forever is a long time. I don’t have that, and I’d like to know that the two of you worked out your differences before it was too late for me to see it happen.”
I heard a whine, and then a rumbling groan come from Stacy as she looked at me with guilt ridden eyes. Guilt that I had placed there.
“You’re not really going to use that card with me, are you?”
“You bet your ass I am.”
She groaned again. “I can’t believe this. I never thought I’d ever see the day that you’d use dying as bartering chip.”
I tipped my shoulder up in a half-hearted shrug. “I don’t have much time left, Stacy. I gotta play whatever card I’ve got, whatever hand I’ve got, and I’m going all in when it comes to my friends. You guys became friends because of me. Your friendship fell apart because of me. I don’t want to die knowing that you didn’t find your way back to each other.”
Grumbling beneath her breath, Stacy headed towards the door. “You know, I used to wish that you wouldn’t die so that I could see you live to grow and be an old lady with a billion grandbabies or something. Now I wish you’d live so you can’t guilt-trip us into doing stuff for you. This is going to suck.”
She was gone in a blink and I hoped that, if nothing else, an attempt was made to begin to right the wrongs that had been committed against our little family.
Robert squeezed me as he heard my thoughts. “Our family.”
“I won’t let anyone else hurt this family, Robert,” I vowed. “We’re going to piece it back together and we’re going to make everything right. We’re going to stop whoever’s hurting the people I love and we’re going to stop living by rules that were never intended for people like us.”
“You sound so sure of yourself.”
I remained silent. There was no need to agree with him. I was sure. I was positive. Sean was the beginning of the change. Everything else from here on out was going to go my way or I’d die trying.
THE INHERITANCE
The sun had risen and set again before Lark and Stacy returned, and Sean and Dr. Bro emerged from the den. Lark and Stacy were quiet, but at least they came in through the door together. Sean, matching his sister in mood, followed a rather amused Dr. Bro into the living room, where I sat curled up next to Robert on the couch.