by SJ Davis
“What do you know about her?” I asked, feeling like I had to know.
“We think she’s being hidden away in a small town in Louisiana. There was some suspicious activity revolving around a young girl. At the moment, we’re focusing on finding her parents, since we know much more about them. I bet you were too young to remember.” He smiled. “But her mother used to be quite fond of you.”
Used to be… “And you’ll bring them all back?”
“That’s the goal.”
Jemma, here… It was a real possibility, her coming home. Would she even remember me? I bet she wouldn’t. She had her new baby now, her own child with the man she inexplicably loved. They made Willow together, and she meant more to them than I ever could. I bet they treated her like a princess. Giving her everything she wants and taking her all kinds of places. She was living the good life while I was here, alone. Images of the girl, bleeding and broken popped into my head.
Back to Jemma being here. She wouldn’t know me if she saw me. There wasn’t a chance I entered her mind. She could walk past me on the street and not know any better. Yet her picture haunted me. It was all flooding me now after going to long without thinking about her at all. No nightmares. No painful memories. Today was a sudden and cruel wall of it. I didn’t want to deal with it. I didn’t want to see the woman ever again. I didn’t want pictures of her in my head. I didn’t want her in my home, and I didn’t want her child here. The girl I promised to love forever. I didn’t want to see what it did to me if I saw her.
“E’rybody wawk da dinasow!” a little boy shouted as he ran out of the daycare room. He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, so a toddler slammed into my legs and fell onto his butt. He looked up with big lime green eyes. “Uh oh.”
“Ferris!” the day care woman, Meg, shouted. She scurried out and picked him up. “You’re always running,” she huffed.
He laughed at her. “I like to wun!”
I rolled my eyes and looked at Dad. He was staring sharply at the wall and I didn’t have a clue why. I started walking again when I heard the phone ringing in the room.
“Damn. Fitz,” Meg called, making me stop. “Honey, I hate to ask, but I have six under tens in here and I need to take this call. Can you hold Ferris for like two minutes? I can’t trust him not to take off.”
I stared at my father, waiting for him to bail me out. “Just do it. Meet me in the training room.”
He abandoned me and a smiling baby was thrust in my face. I grabbed him, holding him at arm’s length. “Um… hi.”
“HI!” he laughed. “Who aw you?”
I took a deep breath. “Fitz.”
He kicked his legs in the air, grabbing at my arms. “I like you.”
“Great…”
Ferris giggled madly as he started making sounds like a train or some kind of machine. He seemed quite entertained to do so.
“Fitz!” Meg hissed at me, holding her hand over the phone. “He’s a toddler, not a grenade. Would it kill you to be nice to him?”
“Why take the chance?”
She glared at me with black eyes. “A couple minutes.”
“Fine,” I growled. I set the kid on the ground and sat with him. He blew his chubby cheeks up and blew air out of his mouth, pretending to make something explode. I took a few cleansing breaths as I counted to ten in my head.
The kid seemed happy enough. Too young to have real problems in his life. That wouldn’t last very long, because misery always came crawling. The only way to be happy, was to steal it from someone else. That Willow knew. She stole it from me and used it for herself. An evil act before she was even born.
Ferris got quiet for far too long, and I knew what that little brat was doing. He laughed when it was over and I knew he was a little devil. “Why?” I asked.
A box of baby wipes slid across the floor, and hit me in the leg right before a new diaper hit me in the head. Meg was still on the phone, watching me.
“I’ve never changed a diaper,” I said in another growl.
“On the job training,” she snapped. “Do it or I won’t get you that album I found.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What album?”
“Live at San Quentin.”
Fuck. “You win this round.”
Ferris was halfway down the hall when I looked back at him. I had to get up and book down the corridor, barely catching him before he turned the corner and got trampled by a guard. I brought him back and laid him in the hall.
With pure fury, I took his shoes off, followed by his pants. I really hated this kid. I hated him more when the smell hit me. I undid the dirty diaper, and he laughed again. I started cleaning him and it was a level of bonding that I wasn’t ready for. I hated kids. That blame went solely on the head of a little girl named Willow, but the feelings still stood. I hated them, and the boy in front of me was on that list.
I tossed the dirty diaper into the daycare room and I put the clean one on him. Then went the pants and the shoes. He sat up and I was surprised when he attacked me. Chubby arms tried to go around me. “Ank oou, Fizz.”
I breathed out bitterly. “Yeah.”
Meg came out of the room and bent down. “We’re gonna watch a movie, honey,” she said as she scooped Ferris up in her arms. “Then we can color and read a book…” her voice faded as she walked away. Jemma used to hold me like that.
With a sigh, I stood up and headed to the training room. I stopped to wash my hands in the big bathroom with the stalls. I didn’t usually use it, but I needed a second. I didn’t actually know who Ferris’ parents were, but I knew his mother was dead. Meg had no relation to him. So why was she so kind? Why did she have to care about him? It felt like a shot to the chest.
My hands were clean and I was staring at myself in a foggy mirror. My eyes were sunken from the lack of sleep and the drugs pumped in and out of me. It had been going on for years and I think it was starting to take a toll on me. I was little more than human, and it was very possible that my body would break down. My dad wouldn’t let me die like this. He loved me.
Jemma knew about the tests on me. I think it used to make her uncomfortable when she was still around. Not enough to make them stop or to take me from this place when she went looking for asylum. I wondered what she would think if she knew it changed the color of my eyes.
I got to the training room, finding my father setting up the recording equipment. It would capture everything that happened in the room. There were mats set up on the ground and walls. It got rough in here and deaths wouldn’t do us much good. Not that I would know. I’ve never come close to killing anyone.
Dad went to speak with the trainer, and I had to pause before I went on. Her face was what destroyed me. It was a coincidence. It had to be. The woman was the same height as Jemma had been. Hispanic and a very soft face. Her hair was dark and tied back and her eyes were dark green. The resemblance was eerie and unnerving.
When I approached, I looked anywhere but at her.
“This is Annalise,” my father said. “She’ll be training you today. She’s very good at her job. Tough, but good.”
I extended my hand to shake hers. “Fitz.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said with a light Spanish accent. “I hope you’re ready.”
I nodded and watched the ground until I could pull myself together. “I am.”
My father got out of the way, and I stood across from the woman who looked like my mother. Every moment where my eyes were on her, stung in my chest. It was like my lung collapsed and I didn’t care enough to keep trying.
My legs were knocked out from under me and I saw the woman hover above. “I guess you’re a liar as well as unprepared.”
I glared. “You didn’t say we were starting.”
“An enemy will not tell you when you are about to die. If they do, then they are a vil
lain from a movie and not worth your time. Get up,” she said harshly.
I moved slowly and she slammed her foot down on my chest, knocking the wind out of me. “What are you doing?”
“Getting up. Or trying to, if you’d move the fuck back.”
She pressed down on my chest. “Be swift, child. Hesitation means death. You are weak and human. If you want to live, then act like it.”
Human. They all thought I was human. I could shift into something and rip her throat out if I wanted to. But she wanted me to try, so I would.
I grabbed her leg and yanked hard, making her fall to her back in a hard slam onto the mat. I threw my legs in the air, getting enough momentum to land on my feet. “Better?” I smirked.
In a second, she spun and swung her legs at me, landing a kick to my knee. It was agony when I stumbled back.
Then the demon was on her feet and watching me. “Don’t be cocky. What the fuck does it matter if your enemy thinks you’re clever moments before they die? It’s not worth the time.”
I panted, watching her and keeping my distance. “Well I like making funnies.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are a little boy. Be a man and get me on my back.”
I smiled. “So much I can do with that.” Before I was done talking, she had my throat and I was against the mat on the wall. She slammed me into it and jabbed me in the stomach with her knee.
I was thrown fifteen feet, landing hard. I could hardly breathe while I laid there, looking around for Annalise. “You’ll die as you live. Weak and worthless on the ground.”
When I sat up, I saw her running at me. I dove in time to miss a kick to the face. The bitch was good, but so was I. I got behind her and grabbed her arm, spinning her around and sending my fist into the center of her chest. The air left her violently and she doubled over. I thought I won until she came back at me with a punch to the jaw.
Blood tricked out of my mouth and I fell backwards. She kicked me, over and over again. My side was in utter agony and she wouldn’t stop. “Have you got no reason to fight?” she asked when she backed up. “Is it not worth it to you to have the power waiting for you once you become a man.”
I seethed with hate as I looked at her. “I’m a man now.”
She laughed at me. “You’d like to believe that. You’re a worthless boy who wants what he cannot have. You need to be worth something to be wanted, boy,” she hissed. “But look at you… I can see it in your eyes.”
I got on my feet, holding my side. “What can you see?”
There was a smile on her face. “Nothing at all.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I said through bloody teeth.
She came to me, shoving at my shoulders. “No. It’s why you can’t fight. You are an empty beast. You need passion to fight. You need skill and you need to want it. There is nothing at all to you and until there is, you will not matter at all.”
I went for her with an uncoordinated swing that she dodged without effort.
Annalise grinned again. “See? Your anger at me is hollow.”
“Stop,” I ordered her.
“Start,” she ordered back with that grin. I tried to hit her again and she threw me against the wall. I crumpled to the floor, needing to catch my breath. “Where are your quips getting you now?”
I huffed. “I don’t need quips to kick your ass.”
“No, you don’t. You need to follow your instincts. First, you must try and find them. Tell me, is there a reason you’re so weak, or were you just born like that? Abandoned were you?” How did she know that? My file was locked away. “You think because no one wants you that’s an excuse to give up? You think that you need someone to validate you?”
I got up again. My father set this up. Did he really slip her information just so I’d feel motivated? It was his style, but I didn’t want to think he’d do that with me. Not me. “I don’t need anything from anyone.”
“Prove it. Don’t find your worth in the heart of someone else.”
“I don’t! I don’t care if anyone wants me.”
“Good,” she said as she took a stride to me. “Because no one does. Does that make you angry? Use it. Be something other than the worthless little boy you cling to.”
I charged at her, taking her by the throat and throwing her like she threw me. She landed at the wall and I went quickly back to her. She couldn’t get away from me. I had to win this.
“I am not worthless,” I said to her as she lay at my feet.
Defiantly, she said, “You don’t even want to be more than this. It lies in your eyes. Barrenness. Even if you wanted it, you cannot be anything else. I feel the ice in your soul. You were born sick and you will die just the same. You relish in it and you cannot even see. One day, you’ll dance in the darkness, wanting nothing else. No one loves you now and no one will love you then.”
I crouched there, watching Jemma tell me that I was unloved. Unwanted. She was abandoning me all over again. Cruel to the end. Her green eyes were on mine and I couldn’t feel the heart beating in my chest. I was nothing to her. Nothing then and nothing now. She lied. Lied every time she said she loved me. But she wasn’t lying right now. She knew what I was. This thing that she could recognize as a child. She looked in my eyes and didn’t want this monster to be near her baby. The child that was so precious to her that she ran. I wasn’t worth saving. She couldn’t save me if she tried.
But she didn’t want to try. Not for a moment. She left me here to rot away. No Jemma. No Willow. No deliverance. I would die as I lived.
Nothing.
I took Jemma by the throat, squeezing. Her eyes bulged from fear as she scratched at my hand. I bled, but I couldn’t feel it. Empty. She said I was empty. Then let it be so.
I slammed the side of her head into the gap between mats, making her lose the strength to hold onto me. Blood trickled out of her ear as a strangled whimper left her lips. So I did it again. And again. I screamed as I did it, watching her head as her skull broke open on the floor. I was covered in blood and I couldn’t stop. The screams turned to a wretched sob as I caved my mother’s head in. Hope left me as the life left her.
I was left shaking on my knees, staring at the blood on my hands as my chest ripped apart from the inside. There was so much pain that I honestly didn’t know if I would be alive in a few moments. I didn’t want to be. I wanted to lie down and slip into oblivion. This place wasn’t meant for me. Not anymore. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want Jemma. I didn’t want that little girl. I wanted the end.
There was a hand on my shoulder and a voice in the air that I ignored. I didn’t want to hear it and I couldn’t even try right now. I didn’t want to be soothed. I wanted everything to just stop. My humanity was gone now. I was not, and could not be a good man. And I didn’t want to care anymore.
I knew it then. There would be no solace. Not a moment of peace in my life for as long as I should live. Nothing I could bury myself in. Nothing to hold me. For me to hold onto. Those days were behind me. So far away. No one would sing me to sleep.
Air came, making it clear that I wasn’t dying. How could my body betray me like this? Allowing such pure agony in and not having the mercy to make it stop. It was all I could feel. All I could feel… All I should feel…
I sobbed, letting the pain consume me as I stared at my blood coated hands. I rocked on my knees, gasping. It was too much to bear. “Please,” I begged God. “Please make it stop.” Please.
Please.
TODAY, SHE WILL BE HAPPY
BY SARAH HALL
The artist awoke with sunlight pouring through his window that morning, like all the mornings before. It was a good day today, because they sky did not pour rain. He didn’t like the rain. It always made his work so tedious, and much harder than it had to be.
He climbed out of bed, and wandered out into his workroom, whi
ch took up most of the house. He needed the space for all of his things, though, so he didn’t mind. He didn’t have time to waste on such frivolities like places to sit, and room to eat. He just wanted to make his art.
With a smile, he said, “What shall we do today, hmm?” His hands passed over the dozens of opaque jars that lined four shelves, neat as could be. The labels weren’t in any kind of order, but he knew where each jar had been placed, so he didn’t have to worry about wasting time trying to find this or that.
“Ah,” he said. “I’ve got it figured out.” He removed one of the jars, and popped the lid. Inside, a hundred small white tablets had been piled together. Each and every one of them had a small X on the surface, just like the tablets in all the other jars. He removed one, and approached her.
She stared at him with empty eyes, like she did every morning. Sitting exactly where he had left her the night before. She turned eyes dark enough to act as mirrors to him. With a hand on her chin, he pushed the tablet between her lips with his thumb, and smiled at her. “Today, you will be happy,” he said.
As the words left his mouth, her eyes got brighter. A smile formed on her lips, but she did not say a word. He had taught her well. She was to pose, and look where he wanted her to look, but she was not to speak. It would be an unnecessary distraction from important work.
The dress she wore wouldn’t do for this. It looked too somber. He had her change from the black silk into a wedding dress, with a bodice that hugged her every curve, and a train that dragged behind her for more than a yard. It was pearl, not white. It brought some relief to the paleness of her skin, and the darkness of her eyes seemed endless. As she sat on her stool again, he fetched her brush. Getting all the tangles out of her raven black hair took time. The gentle curls always seemed to get caught together in ways that he didn’t like. He found it necessary, if time consuming, to separate them so that they hung around her face exactly the way he wanted.
When her hair pleased him, he stepped back. The smile on her face had not been diminished by the time that passed. Her lips looked red and rosy. Her cheeks pale. Her eyes stared seemingly into infinity, while actually looking directly at him. She looked perfect. She would always be perfect with the right tablet, and the right outfit. Oh, and the pose. It mattered so much how she sat, and how her head cocked, and where her arms laid. Even her fingers could ruin a pose if he did not place them carefully.