Heroine's Journey

by Sarah Kuhn

  Mom-Demon screamed, and I heard myself screaming in return. My mind felt like it was shredding the longer I fought her with it, breaking into teeny, tiny pieces. But I had to keep going.

  And when you’re done with all that, send me back, I thought at her. Send me back to the human world. And don’t do this ever again. Don’t reach out through the worlds again. If you find yourself even thinking about it, lock yourself up in the prison dimension. Take up a hobby or something. Whatever the demon equivalent is of crochet. And . . . In spite of myself, I felt my heart crack a little for her—for the daughter she’d lost and the hope she’d never been able to find. And try to find some peace.

  The sky thundered again, rain drenching me down to my bones. The ground shook so hard, it threw me into the air and I was falling . . . falling . . .

  I thought I heard Mom-Demon scream one more time. I felt myself scream, too, and then it was like my brain exploded, and all I saw was blackness and all I felt was pain.

  And then I didn’t feel anything at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  MY EYES CRACKED open. I don’t know what I expected to see—a totally wasted demon landscape, perhaps? Mom-Demon standing over me, cackling evilly? The dark nothingness of the prison dimension?

  Instead I saw twinkle lights, blinking at me overhead. My bedroom, I realized. I’m in my bed. I sat up slowly, still transfixed by the twinkle lights, and felt someone shift next to me. I looked down and saw Evie, arm thrown over her face, snoring softly. I reached over and pinched her.

  “Ow!” she shrieked, batting at me. “Bea!” She gave me an injured look. “What are you doing?!”

  “Just making sure I’m not in some kind of demon holodeck dimension,” I murmured, leaning back against my pillows.

  She sat up and threw her arms around me, pulling me into a tight hug.

  “Thank god you’re okay,” she whispered. “Thank god.”

  “Ack, can’t breathe!” I gasped. “Did being pregnant give you some kind of bone-crushing strength? Because that is one power you definitely do not need.”

  She pulled back and looked at me, brushing my hair off my face. Her eyes were full of so many emotions, like she didn’t even know where to begin.

  “What happened?” I finally said. “Did I just, like, reappear at It’s Lit?”

  “You kind of fell out of the sky,” she said, studying me. “It was very dramatic. Not that you would have it any other way, of course.” She gave me a slight smile. “You appeared right above the pink couch, and Sam and Leah managed to catch you—sort of. You almost smooshed poor Pancake.”

  “Oh, no! Is he—”

  “He’s fine,” she said, laughing a little. “Very indignant, though. You might have to apologize a few times. With bacon.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Right after you appeared, a bunch more people kind of fell out of the sky: Carmen, Edna, and . . . well, his name is Matt, but you’ve been calling him Pretzel Guy?”

  “Oh my god,” I whispered. “It worked.”

  She nodded. “And then—”

  “Kathy, Bernard, and Poet,” I breathed.

  “Yes,” she said. “Rose is questioning all of them, trying to get the full story. Nate checked all of you for injuries, but everyone seemed to be okay.”

  “What about . . .” I hesitated. “That supposed magical overload I was getting from visiting the Otherworld, the one that kept fucking with my vitals? Did that happen again? And did it have any lasting damage?”

  “Apparently not,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Scott and Nate said whatever was happening to you before doesn’t appear to have happened this time—it’s almost like your system adjusted to the Otherworld.”

  “Whoa!” I said. “Maybe that’s why the way I moved through the Otherworld seemed to change every time, why it got easier for me to speak to people and stuff—I was totes getting used to it.” I poked her. “See, you were a big worrywart for nothing.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it nothing—”

  “Maybe I can help fill in some blanks,” I interrupted hastily. I recounted my adventure battling Mom-Demon—and how I’d figured out I needed to go after her in the first place.

  “Wow,” Evie said. “That’s awesome, Bea. That you figured out how to turn it around and use the information she gave you to defeat her.” She shook her head at me, smiling slowly. “I underestimated you so much. You are a hero. In so many ways.” Her smile faded, and she gnawed at her lower lip. “And look, we have so much to talk about. But I also want to say I’m sorry for what I said that night. About not getting to be sad when Mom died. I put all this stuff on you, and it wasn’t fair. And this pregnancy . . .” A shadow crossed her face. “It’s made me doubt myself so much. I really don’t know if I can do this.”

  “You can,” I said softly. “Of course you can. But back up, please—how did this happen? I mean, uh, I understand the mechanics,” I added hastily. “But . . . was it planned? How far along are you?”

  “We’re still early in the first trimester,” Evie said, smiling slightly and patting her stomach. “And uh, no. It wasn’t planned. You can thank that teeny-tiny percentage of fail that comes with any modern birth control method.” She shook her head. “It’s so weird. I knew immediately I wanted to keep it. But at the same time, I feel like I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. And I feel guilty for not just being deliriously happy. Nate is deliriously happy. What’s wrong with me?”

  “Tanaka girls,” I said, leaning my head on her shoulder. “We have to angst about fucking everything. Did you tell Dad?”

  “He never responded to the email I sent when we started investigating Mom’s death,” she said. “So. He doesn’t get to know about this.” She paused, her expression going contemplative. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said again. “Especially since I’m still so bad at just, like, talking to you. About anything. I mean, I couldn’t even bring myself to tell you I was pregnant. There’s been so much going on, and then we kept fighting, and I didn’t know how you’d react. But I still should have told you. I don’t think . . .” She took a long, shuddering breath and blinked a few times. “I don’t think you know that I love you. Like, deep down, underneath it all. I don’t think I was good at letting you know that. After Mom. I’m so sorry.”

  “Of course I know you love me,” I said fiercely, my eyes filling with tears. “But Evie . . .” I hesitated, trying to put my thoughts together. “Neither of us ever dealt with losing Mom. Not really. We survived. We got through it. We somehow came out the other end intact. And a lot of that was because of you.” I squeezed her hand, and repeated what Sam had said to me that night I’d cried in his lap: “Any mistakes made during that time . . . well, I don’t think they’re entirely our fault. We did the best we could. And I think now . . .” I took a deep breath. “I think we need to try to deal with it. Really deal with it.”

  “How?” she said, her voice faint.

  “Well, therapy, for one thing,” I said, giving her a slight smile. “I mean, there must be a therapist or two in this town who specialize in superhero psyches, right?”

  “Oh, for sure,” she said, returning my smile.

  “But also . . . We need to be honest with each other. To try to relate to each other as actual human beings who’ve been through a bunch of shit instead of Big Sister Who’s Always Nagging and Little Sister Who’s Always a Disobedient Pain.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe we should go to therapy together? Because I have a feeling this might require a referee of some kind.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, laughing. “But I think it’s all part of a process, you know? Something that doesn’t have an end date, necessarily. I’ve been so fixated for so long on finding this big magic bullet that I think will fix me. And then I get bored and move on to something else when whatever I’m doing at the moment
doesn’t fix me. You know, what you call my short attention span.”

  “That’s another thing,” she said, wincing. “I haven’t been fair to you about . . . well, what you’ve been doing with your life. What you’ve wanted to do with your life. My perception of how you, like, process information and how you focus and how you find new passions . . . it hasn’t always been accurate. I was stuck seeing you a certain way.”

  “And I was stuck seeing you a certain way,” I said. “That’s another thing we have to work on.”

  “So much to work on,” she murmured, giving me a slight smile.

  “When Mom-Demon showed me you guys in It’s Lit, I realized a lot of things. But one thing I realized especially is that because I get so fixated on finding that one big thing that I think is gonna fix me, I completely fail to see all this stuff I already have that makes me happy. A big, weird, extended family that loves me so damn much, and gets protective past the point of reason when I have, say, a boy in my bedroom. A best friend who shows up for me no matter what, even when I’ve acted like a total asshole and almost sent her crush to a demon prison dimension. Another best friend who . . .” My voice faltered. I swallowed back my tears and forced myself to continue. “. . . who I am completely in love with and is super dedicated to giving me more pleasure than I can handle. And even though I’m pretty sure he doesn’t feel the same way, and we’re probably going to have to stop with the mind-blowing marathon sex sessions . . . it’s okay.” I leaned my head against her shoulder. “Because the fact that I can fall in love like that? Is pretty awesome.”

  “Those are all good things,” Evie said. “Wonderful things.”

  “Looking at all of you, I realized: hope comes from watching people push past seemingly insurmountable odds to do the right thing,” I said. “And everyone I love does that on pretty much a daily basis. Remember when you told me how it seemed like I’d lost my ability to hope after Mom died? How it seemed like I’d somehow gotten it back in recent years?”

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “It was because of you.” My tears rose up again, threatening to fall. “It was watching you take control of your life, after being so sad and so scared and so inside your shell. When you actually started standing up to Aveda, when you actually started admitting you have feelings, when you found a purpose and started superheroing . . .” I swallowed hard. “It was like seeing you come back to yourself. And find a better self—that person you were meant to be. You pushed past those insurmountable odds, Evie. That’s what made me feel like I could hope again.”

  “Bea,” she said, her voice tremulous.

  “I love you,” I said. “I love you more than anything. No matter how much we fight. No matter what else happens.”

  “I love you too,” she said.

  And then she buried her face in my shoulder and we lay there silently and cried on each other, letting out all those years of broken, pent-up feelings between us.

  “I should let you rest,” she finally said, sitting up and brushing a hand over her eyes. “Nate would tell me to let you rest. And then tell me I need to rest. But you have a couple visitors—are you up to seeing them? Please say yes, because they’ve been waiting for hours, and if I don’t let them in now, well . . . I can only bribe one of them with bacon.”

  “Yes, please,” I said, sitting up straighter. “Send them in.”

  She smiled, gave me a last hug, and got up from the bed. I tried to smooth my tousled hair as she crossed the room and opened the door. Leah, Sam, and Pancake burst in, like they’d been smushed up against the door the whole time. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Oh, Bebe!” Leah shrieked, pouncing on me. I heard Pancake racing around on the floor, yapping up a storm. Sam picked up the puppy and set him on the bed, then settled himself into the rocking chair. “Are you okay?” Leah asked, grasping my shoulders, her eyes wide with concern. “I mean, are you really okay? I must’ve asked Nate like a million times, I was probably driving him crazy—”

  “You were,” Sam murmured.

  “And he said yes, but I want to hear it from you,” Leah continued.

  Pancake settled between us, curling himself into a tiny bread loaf of a dog, and started licking my hand. I scratched his ears.

  “I am okay,” I said, laughing. “Really. And Lee . . . I’m so sorry. I was such an asshole. I was so out of my head, thinking I could bring my mom back, thinking I could somehow make everything better—”

  “I know,” she said, patting my hand. “I know. And I should have . . . I don’t know, found a better way to tell you about Nicole. I think I was feeling weird and kind of left out when you and Sammy started, uh . . .” Her eyes slid to Sam, and he raised an eyebrow. “It’s always been the three of us, and then you guys kinda had something extra going on,” she continued. “But I really like Nicole, Bebe. And she totally gets why you’d be suspicious of her. She said she’s willing to sit down with you and have, like, a whole conversation and submit to any grilling you want before we go on a date. She knows you care about me, and that’s important to her.”

  “No, please, date her. If it makes you happy, date her,” I said, squeezing her hand. “But definitely let her know that if she hurts you in any way, I will murder her. In a way that makes being trapped in a demon prison dimension for eternity look pleasant.”

  Leah laughed and cuddled Pancake to her chest. He side-eyed her, annoyed at being disturbed from the bed. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said, beaming at me. “Now Pancake and I are gonna leave you two alone. ’Cause I think you guys need to talk.”

  “Oh, no, we’re—” I said.

  “We don’t need—” Sam said at the same time.

  Leah hopped up from the bed, Pancake hoisted under one arm, and held up a hand to silence us.

  “You are both still the most ridiculous,” she said. “And that’s why you probably belong together. Come on, Pancake, I’m pretty sure we can find someone downstairs to give you food.”

  “Nate’s the weak link!” I called out after her as she headed for the door. “Total not-so-secret softie.”

  Awkward silence descended as soon as she exited. Sam stayed in the rocking chair, studying me intently. I looked down at my hands.

  “I heard you,” he finally said, his voice low and charged. “Last night. When you thought I was asleep.”

  My cheeks warmed. “Why did you pretend to be asleep?”

  “You were saying a lot of nice things about me, Beatrice. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  I fiddled with my blanket. Don’t cry, I thought. You’ve kicked ass in so many ways today. Don’t let this be what breaks you.

  “So,” I said, trying to make my tone nonchalant. “We should probably stop—”

  “Now I’m going to talk,” he said. “And you’re not going to interrupt.”

  I kept my eyes cast downward. He reached over, turned my hand over, and set something in my palm. I frowned, studying it. It was an eraser. Not just any eraser, but the dopey trophy-shaped eraser he’d won during the Great Calculus Bee of Sophomore Year. The one he kept proudly displayed in his apartment.

  “What . . .” I said.

  “I want this on the record,” he said. “So there’s no confusion, ever. No fighting. No competing. Look at me, Bea.”

  My head jerked up, my eyes meeting his. I rubbed the eraser between my fingers, trying to figure out what the frak was going on. His gaze was intense—more serious than I’d ever seen him.

  “I fell in love with you first,” he said.

  My heart skipped a beat. I pulled the eraser to my chest, squeezing it tightly in my fist, unsure if I was hearing right.

  “I didn’t realize it until that day at the Market,” he continued. “When you got in the brain battle with Kathy and passed out and I thought I was going to lose you. I couldn’t even process it. I . . .” He trailed off, sh
aking his head. “I don’t know when it happened. Maybe a long time ago. Maybe the first time we competed for something or the first time you won a point over me. Maybe before that, even. But it hit me so hard in that moment, what it would be like to be without you. And later that night, when we were naked together for the first time . . .”

  My blush deepened and he gave me a soft, secret smile.

  “. . . I knew,” he said.

  “That’s why you were so weird and distant the next morning,” I managed to say.

  “What you said last night, about me making you feel treasured—you make me feel that way too, Bea. Like you see me in ways that nobody else does.”

  “I am apparently the only person who’s not just in it for the calendar abs,” I murmured.

  His smile widened. “I fell in love with you first,” he repeated. “I love the way you throw yourself into life with such gusto. The way you fight so fiercely for the people you love. The way you embrace everything you’re doing so fully. I love that you talk too fast and that you’re bad at sharing food and that I will always be able to find you in a crowd.” He touched my bright hair—then tapped me gently on the forehead. “And I love this crinkle.”

  “And all this means . . . what?” I tried for an impish look, even though I was overwhelmed with emotion and my heart was beating so fast, I thought it was going to pop out of my chest. “You win another point?”

  “No. You said it yourself last night: You said that I won forever. That you lost because you’d fallen for me.” He tapped the eraser in my hands. “But since I was actually first on that front, it means you win every point. It means I’m done competing with you because you have my entire heart. And I don’t need anything except yours.”

  I fiddled with the eraser, a slow smile playing over my lips. “Well,” I said. “That’s no fun.”

  I set the eraser down and took his hand, tugging insistently. He got up from the rocking chair and let me pull him into bed.

  “One of the chief thrills of my life is competing with you,” I said, winding my arms around his neck. I brushed my lips against his, and his arms went around my waist, pulling me tight against him. “And I see no reason why I should have to give that up.”