Grim Judgment

by Jennifer Reinfried

“Offense taken. My shoulders are killing me.”

  “Please, Duncan? For me?”

  Without a word, the man strode over to Isaac and began to massage his neck and shoulders. Isaac looked at Emma with widened eyes, obviously completely uncomfortable in the moment, while Duncan smiled happily back at her. A baffled silence ensued, and then the entire group burst into laughter.

  “I can’t tell if I’m doing this on purpose or not,” Duncan said.

  “Okay, okay, enough.” Isaac pulled out of the man’s grasp. “You’re terrible at it either way.”

  More laughter followed.

  “So apparently,” Duncan said as he moved back to Emma. “The more you plead, the easier it is to make me do whatever you want. Also, if you get all quiet and focused and use your eyes to stare into mine, it’s way more powerful. Try combining that.” He held up his hands before she could speak. “And please, for the love of God, don’t make me do anything embarrassing.”

  An idea formed in her mind, and Emma grinned. She stepped up to Duncan, put her arms around his neck and pulled him close. She opened her eyes wide, rounding them, and formed her lips into the barest pout. “Duncan?” she said softly. “Can you make a sound like a giraffe?”

  He shuddered and blinked rapidly. His mouth dropped open and he uttered a wordless noise, then snapped it shut again. He looked around wildly at the group with helpless eyes. “I can’t,” he said, a desperate tone to his voice. “Emma, I want to, but I don’t know what one sounds like.”

  Emma tossed her head back and laughed along with the rest of the onlookers. Isaac was doubled over, hands on his knees. Mari clapped a hand over her mouth and shoved Shawn slightly with the other, who was laughing so hard, tears formed in the corner of his eyes. Aaron spilled hot chocolate into the grass as he bent over, clutching his stomach. Even Lucas was chuckling. He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair the way Shawn often did.

  “I’m serious! Someone look it up so I—”

  “Duncan, stop.” Emma resumed her previous look and stance. “I don’t care about it anymore.”

  “Right. Okay.” He frowned. “Fuck, that’s so not funny.” He glanced at the lake again. “I think we need to figure out how to reverse it. Right now I want to run into the lake in my underwear while bleating like an animal with Isaac in tow.”

  What he described threw everyone else into near hysterics, their combined laughter echoing through the trees and foliage and bouncing over the lake.

  “Forget what I asked you to do,” Emma said to him. She tried to keep a straight face, but found it difficult as she kept picturing the possible antics. Trying again, she said, “Duncan, please forget it.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m working on it.” He shook his head to clear it. “I need some water or something.”

  “On it,” Shawn said quickly, and jogged over to the cabin, entering through the open front door.

  “Okay, so we know it works,” Aaron said, scratching notes into a small notebook he held in one hand. “That or Duncan just really likes Emma.”

  “You want to volunteer?” Duncan asked, his eyes sparkling.

  “Hell no. I can hear it when it works. That’s enough proof for me.”

  “Oh, come on, Aaron. Let me try you.” Emma grinned, but didn’t move from where she stood. “Promise I won’t make you do anything awful.”

  He shook his head with a chuckle. “Oh, no, don’t you dare.”

  “Scared I’ll make you cry like a baby? Or crawl on all fours wherever you go?”

  “Oh, please, I just—”

  A ragged scream cut through them all, coupled with the sound of shattering glass.

  “Shawn,” Duncan breathed.

  Emma bolted toward the cabin, close behind the Synths, who entered first. She and Isaac came to a halt, Duncan pushing past them. She turned and saw Shawn on his knees in front of the television, where a concerned reporter was speaking into a large microphone.

  “The attack happened overnight, but the body wasn’t found until this morning.”

  “Shawn?” Emma moved toward him and noticed he was kneeling in the wet, broken shards of the glass he had dropped, his jeans turning a light shade of red at the knees. “Shawn, what is it?”

  His eyes simply stared at the screen, and Emma turned back in time to see an artist’s rendition of Vance’s Head of Finance, Volk. Another image flickered before their eyes. A crimson Grim logo had been painted in the short pristine grass. She turned back and crouched beside him, her shoes crunching in the glass.

  A scream tore from his throat again, long and loud in the house. His face was contorted in pain, and one hand clutched his chest. Emma glanced around, but everyone else seemed helpless. Duncan moved to Shawn’s other side, and stared at the screen, his face disbelieving.

  “Dad!” Shawn cried. “Dad!”

  Emma mouth fell open. Dad? Oh, God...

  “Shawn,” Duncan said softly. “Shawn, I’m so, so sorry.” His hands trembled as he crouched and pulled him into a sideways hug, but Shawn’s eyes never left the television.

  “Emma,” Duncan said. “Turn it off.” She nodded and moved forward, reaching for the remote.

  With another cry, Shawn pulled away from Duncan and lurched against the TV. He picked it up with ease and threw it at the back wall of the living room where the screen shattered after leaving a sizeable dent in the logs. Mari screamed as it broke into pieces, and everyone began to back out as Shawn picked up one of the couches and threw it into a window.

  “You piece of fucking shit!” he screamed, his voice already hoarse. “Jaxon, you goddamned monster!” The other couch was flung into the wall, and the force of his strength not only snapped it in two, but punched a hole in the drywall and flew into the bedroom beyond. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

  Emma had shrunk first against the far wall, then inched her way toward the others as Shawn raged, terrified. Before she could reach Isaac, who also looked on in fear, movement to her right caught her eye. Lucas leapt at Shawn, grabbing his arms and pinning him to the floor.

  “Come on, buddy, come on,” he muttered. His body twitched over and over as Shawn flailed, but Lucas held him down. “It’s all right. You’re okay.”

  Emma felt Isaac’s arms wrap around her and he pulled her further away from the scene. Shawn let out a few more cries, then stopped struggling, his eyes wet and far away.

  “I’m going to fucking kill him,” Shawn snarled, almost to himself. It was the last thing Emma heard before Isaac took her into the other room with Mari and Aaron, leaving Duncan and Lucas behind.

  —-

  Isaac stood in the kitchen, half a loaf of bread to his right. He pulled a long serrated knife from a drawer and began to saw at the tough outer crust, throwing a cautious look over one shoulder as footsteps approached.

  “Hey,” he said as Mari entered.

  “We have to clean this,” was all she said. Her eyes bored into the disaster Shawn had created in the living room.

  “We will.” He finished cutting and put two pieces of bread on a plate.

  Mari studied the mess a moment longer before turning toward Isaac. She glanced at the knife in his hand, then up at him. A split second passed that was awkward and tense. He dropped the utensil in the sink and moved to the refrigerator.

  “They’ve been in there a long time.” Mari hopped up on the counter farthest from Isaac to watch his motions.

  “It’s understandable,” he replied. “What Shawn just went through...”

  “I know. I’m just worried.”

  Isaac pulled a jar of sliced pickles, a brick of muenster cheese, and a nearly empty jar of mustard from the refrigerator. “Me, too.”

  “Because she’s with Shawn? Comforting him?” Mari eyed Isaac, who laughed.

  “Not at all. I’m worried that Shawn’s going to lose control again and hurt her.” His eyes grew concerned.

  “He loves her.”

  “I know.”

  “That doesn’t bo
ther you? That she used her power, which so far we don’t know how to turn off once it’s affected someone, to make him fall for her?”

  “Emma didn’t know about it.” Isaac looked up at her. “Of course it bothers me, the feelings Shawn has for her, that they were together before. But I trust her.”

  “If it were me I wouldn’t.”

  “Well,” he smiled. “You don’t know our history. Besides, you don’t give a shit whether or not I trust Emma.” He slapped some mustard on his sandwich with a butter knife in a flourishing finish, then capped the jar. “You’re more worried about Shawn.”

  “You’re a genius. Smartest person alive.”

  “Look,” Isaac took a bite of his snack and chewed for a moment, leaning against the counter. “I know you’re going through a lot, but we all are. Emma and I are here to help with the Jaxon problem. You don’t have to like us, but at least trust us. We have a common enemy. We have no interest in hurting you, so you can drop the pissed off, ‘I obviously don’t trust you’ act.”

  Mari glared at him, then her face changed, softened. “I miss Peter.” She looked at the floor.

  Isaac took another bite of his sandwich, silent.

  “Having Lucas around was hard enough,” she continued. “He’s quiet, keeps to himself, nearly the opposite of what Peter was. But now Shawn’s here, and he’s almost identical to him. It’s tearing me up inside. I don’t know how to deal with what I’m feeling. I know I seem like a complete bitch, but I have to put up with a replica of my dead fiancé gazing at Emma every thirty seconds. On top of that, we have two criminals in our midst who have willingly admitted to killing people, and I have to try and trust that they won’t kill me, all while dealing with my personal sufferings from Peter and Naomi’s deaths. Not to mention the ever-present threat of Jaxon, a murderous psychopath who is on the loose and hell bent on getting revenge on anyone that has hurt him.”

  “I guess I’d be a bit cranky, too, when you put it that way.” Isaac grinned and wiped his fingers on his jeans, sandwich finished.

  Mari snorted softly.

  “You know.” He gently lowered his plate into the sink. “We could always make Shawn dye his hair or something.”

  She laughed. “No. He’d look ridiculous.”

  “Make him grow a beard? A creepy moustache?”

  Mari’s eyes sparkled as she let out an uncharacteristic giggle. “Gross. No, I’ll get over it. Peter died a few weeks ago. It’s still fresh.” She leveled a saddened gaze at him. “I’ll be fine. Just trying to sort everything out.”

  Isaac nodded. “Well, if it’s any consolation, you can trust us. I know coming from me it doesn’t really help things, but I know in my heart I would never hurt any of you.”

  “Because you don’t have orders from Vance to do so.”

  “Because I have absolutely no reason to want to.”

  She considered him a moment. “Is what Aaron said true? About you wanting to stop working for that kingpin and disappear with Emma?”

  “A hundred percent. I wanted to find a nice little place in the middle of nowhere to settle down together.” He looked around. “Kind of like this one. Minus the destroyed living room. And super powered humans. No offense.” He grinned.

  “None taken, don’t worry.”

  “Mari, I never got to thank you.” He looked at her. “Jaxon would have killed me back in Colorado. Because of you, I’m still alive.”

  “And you found your Emma.”

  “Yes. And that.”

  “No problem. Glad something I did didn’t turn into a cluster fuck like the rest of it.” She smiled. “And that someone around here is happy.”

  “Takes a lot to bring me down.” Isaac grinned.

  The pair of them turned as Duncan’s voice drifted over to them, getting louder.

  “You tried. It’s not your fault.”

  Emma entered the kitchen, Duncan close behind her. Her eyes were sad and full of frustration.

  “What happened?” Isaac asked as she moved toward him.

  “Shawn refuses to let me lessen his emotional pain.”

  Mari frowned. “What? Why?”

  Duncan watched as Emma wrapped her arms around Isaac. “He told us, over and over again, that he needs to keep it fresh,” he said. “That it will continue to hurt, thus continue to remind him of what his brother did to their father and give him as much reason to stop Jaxon as possible.”

  “But with Emma’s power, he could at least—”

  Isaac cut Mari off. “If Emma dulled his pain, he might lose the ambition to stop Jaxon. Might be lured back to his side. It makes sense.” He looked into Emma’s eyes.

  Lucas entered the room, followed by Aaron, who immediately went to the refrigerator. “It was kind of you to not force him,” he said.

  “I wanted to,” Emma replied. “I can’t imagine the despair he’s feeling.”

  Duncan spoke up. “Look, I understand emotions are at an all time high. First with Peter’s passing, then Naomi’s.” Isaac watched a meaningful look pass between him and Mari before he continued. “We’re all here, in this moment, because we’re strong enough to admit that we are responsible for the issue at hand. We all played a part in Jaxon’s dark path, some more than others.”

  Eyes turned to Isaac and Emma, but Duncan shook his head. “I meant me,” he said quickly. “And Bruce, along with his wife. We had the opportunity to end this years ago and didn’t, couldn’t. True, the infiltration made things much worse, but there was no way either of them could have known.”

  “None of that matters.” All eyes turned to Shawn, who entered the area quietly as he spoke. “Which of us here is one hundred percent good? Purely innocent? None of us are, not even me.” He turned red-rimmed eyes toward Emma. “Jaxon doesn’t care who’s to blame anymore. We’ve lost all control over him. I lost him.”

  Duncan moved to Shawn and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, then spoke again. “All that matters right now is that we need to stop Jaxon. We have the resources and, hopefully soon, the funds to get equipment we need to take him down, to stop him.” He looked around at each of them. “We must all work together, trust each other, keep each other safe. If we don’t, all can and will be lost.”

  —-

  Emma lay in Isaac’s arms on the soft yet firm surface of their air mattress. They were quiet, each contemplating the weight of what Duncan had said earlier in the day. She knew she had a large role in not only convincing Vance to help them, but also in stopping Jaxon, both of which brought tremors of terror along her spine, regardless of her newfound power.

  I can do it, she told herself, something she’d been repeating in her mind ever since her talk with Duncan the other night. She knew it was important to convince the others she could do her part, with training, but even more imperative to make herself believe she had the ability to subdue Jaxon. Who I now seem to see in every dark corner. The thought of facing him churned her stomach, which had been upset all day, and she winced. At least it’s not Alex anymore.

  “You okay?” Isaac murmured, causing her to blink and look up, fears momentarily interrupted. She gazed at him, cheek pressed into her pillow.

  “Yeah.” Emma smiled.

  “Not our ideal getaway, is it?”

  “Not even close. But we’re together.”

  He grinned. “That’s all that matters to me.”

  “Even though we might not live through this?”

  “We will. We’re unstoppable.”

  “Oh, is that so?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Well, the rest of you are. I’m just here to look pretty and offer a bunch of encouragement from the sidelines.”

  “Oh, hush, you’re more than that.” Emma kissed him. “You’re my rock, what’s keeping me grounded. Without you here, I’d have run ages ago.”

  “You’re stronger than that. But if you need to run, we’ll run. I care about these people, but I care about you much more.”

  “No,” Emma said. “Duncan is r
ight. We need to own up to our responsibilities, our mistakes. I’d hate myself forever if I didn’t at least try.”

  Isaac smiled at her. “You truly are amazing.”

  She snuggled closer, feeling his arms close around her torso, until she was fully pressed against him, his chin on the top of her head. “I love you, Isaac. More than anything.”

  “More than pizza?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I love you more than pizza, too.”

  Emma laughed.

  “I also love you more than Frankensteve,” he said.

  She feigned a gasp and pulled back to look at him. “We haven’t even gotten him yet! How could you possibly know that?”

  Isaac grinned his goofy, crooked grin. “Because I know there is no possible way I could love anything or anyone more than I love you.”

  She kissed him. His fingers caressed the side of her face, then slipped behind her neck, pulling her deeper into their embrace. As their passion for each other heightened, Emma thought that as long as she had Isaac by her side, everything was going to work out. They were going to take out Jaxon, even if they had to kill him to do so; Naomi’s premonition be damned. Until Jaxon was no longer a threat, she wasn’t going to have the perfect life she knew she’d have with Isaac, which waited just out of their grasp. Emma was going to fight with ferocity until their dreams became a reality, no matter who she had to take down along the way.

  Epilogue

  Okay, so I didn’t actually die. You thought I was gone, huh? So did I, but I wasn’t ready to give up. As I felt myself slipping away while Jaxon stared down at me with vicious pride, I jumped the fuck out of my body.

  The golf course had been deserted. True, there might have been a cute little squirrel or a baby groundhog I could have hopped into to spend the rest of my days with a fluffy tail, trying to find and bury food before the winters came, without any other care in the world, but no. Idiotic me went into the closest living thing in the area.

  I often wondered what would happen to me if my body was killed while I wasn’t in it, and now I know. My body was the vessel that allowed me to do my transfers. With it gone, I’m now trapped in the body of my own son, watching helplessly as he continues on a relentless, murderous rampage, unable to do a thing to stop him.