by Chad West
“Whoa,” Cynthia said.
“That looked like crap, but you did it.” He rotated his shoulder. “I’m just glad you didn’t rip my arm off.”
“That was bad ass,” Cynthia said, and looked at Lucy, who was on her feet, grinning. “Felt so weird. Like my brain was yelling instructions at me. I was just reacting.”
“You’ll get better,” he said. “Angela?”
Angela frowned. “Well, Cynthia didn’t die. Which is kind of bittersweet.”
Cynthia flipped her off, but smiled. Her instinct was to lash out, but she was sort of happy that Angela was making jokes at all. Angela sat down and bit her lip. She was the least of Cynthia’s burdens. Everything had gone fine with Jonas, but she had hoped that, by some miracle, the cravings would go after he was done. Her head was still cloudy, her hands still shook. Her center began to give.
“So, we’re going to be, what? War machines after this?” Lucy asked.
“No. Not at all. All I want is for you girls to be able to defend yourselves. To use your powers. If Kah’en’s plan comes through, I don’t even want you close when the fighting starts.”
“This somehow makes me doubt that,” Angela said, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes.
“Angela, if there’s any other way is what I said and what I meant. I brought you here to avoid this. The incident at the farm shouldn’t have happened. I wish you were still living your old lives, completely unaware of me.”
“Not me,” Lucy said.
Jonas started to respond to Lucy, then he was looking at Cynthia curled up on the couch, rubbing her hands together like she was cold. She tried her best to seem normal. “You okay?”
She tried to change her blank-face into a smile. “I’m fine. Just tired or something.”
“Just, and I’m serious, let me know if you don’t feel right.”
She shook her head a little too much, wanting the conversation to be over. It was taking too much concentration. She needed all she had to keep from running out the door.
***
“My turn!” Lucy said as Angela stood, done with her own session with Jonas. Lucy ran over and sat in the chair, smiling up at Jonas.
Angela huffed. “That was long and boring and I don’t feel any different either.” She turned, looking at Jonas, hands up. “That was not an invitation to try and hit me.” She sighed. “I would think that supernatural mind-stuff would be more interesting. Especially when it’s on me.” Angela sat down where Cynthia had been before trotting off to her room earlier.
“Don’t care. I’m excited.” Lucy slapped the leather arms of the chair with a snap.
“I’ll need a minute,” Jonas said. “This doesn’t take as much out of me if I take it slow like this, but it’s still a burden.”
She moped, but agreed that he deserved it. “What happened? If you don’t mind telling,” Lucy said.
He considered for what seemed an eternity, then nodded. “They were most afraid of us. I mean people with mental powers: Telekinesis, mind-readers and such. Strength, energy powers, things like that, they could fend off in one way or another. They eventually came up with some defenses against our mental powers, but they still weren’t enough for the stronger among us. So they would capture us. Declaw us, so to speak. Leave us alive. Just to kill spirits, I think.” He stopped at that, seeming to be hung on that thought for a moment, then looked at the two girls, continuing. “I was caught. My people stole one of their transporters, which was a big thing. But I was caught.”
“Sorry,” Lucy said.
“They took my abilities.” He shook his head.
“How come you can still do,” she made a gesture with her hands, “this.”
“I was lucky. I guess. Whatever they did just impaired me. Didn’t completely take it away. It happened sometimes. I can do simple things. Well, things I consider simple. But I’m no use on the battlefield. Hurts like hell when I dig deep. It’s just not there.”
There was silence.
“You want a hug?” Lucy asked.
He looked at her like he was trying to figure out if this were sarcasm and then smiled. “I’m fine.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, anyway.”
She nodded, long waves of yellow flowing into her face like curtains. “So, you never explained that part. The powers part. People on your Earth just have superpowers?”
He shrugged. “No one really knows. Random mutation maybe? It started a few hundred years ago. A boy born with special abilities. Then it just began to explode. About one out of every thousand or so now. We expected to find the same thing here, actually.”
She nodded, “weird,” then looked at him, realizing how that might sound. “I mean weird as a good thing.”
He smiled again. “I’m okay to start if you are.”
“You sure?”
“Wasn’t as bad as I thought. Just needed a second to reenergize, I guess.”
She faced forward and nodded, giddy. “If you’re sure.”
“I am,” he said, sliding his hands through her hair and resting them on the sides of her head.
It felt, at first, like his fingers were sinking into the bone of her skull, like it was made of mud. A warm tickle of electric current caressed her brain as they connected. Then came sleep. But it was no sleep she’d ever experienced. She was aware, but not in control. It was more like sitting in the back row of one’s consciousness.
She could sense the changes taking place. She imagined Jonas, hunched over, busily writing new information onto her brain. The thought occurred to her that perhaps if she could see how he did it she could do it too. But she was so far away. It didn’t matter. She needed to know, to see how her father did what he did. She knew almost from the beginning who he was—the man from her dreams. And she knew she had to prove to him that she was strong enough to help. She had to show him that she was worth loving. Taking a deep, non-existent gulp of air she willed herself forward.
***
“I matter,” Jonas heard Lucy whisper. He started to turn to the sound of her voice, but then he was there. It was early morning, and he smelled breakfast foods. He felt his mouth begin to water at the rich smell of peppered bacon. It had been so long since he’d had bacon. He wondered why he was there. It was a memory, but he hadn’t been trying to flip through her past. Still, he felt himself sink in. The idea that he might not even be in control of the bit of power he had left sent a chill up his spine. Jonas started to move out of the memory, out of Lucy’s mind, to try and figure out what was going wrong. But he could not.
“What, honey?” Lucy’s mother (He found himself aware of who this woman was) wiped a bit of egg from her lip and looked at the girl.
Lucy met her gaze, hating her, and then let her eyes drop to the butter knife on the table. She slid it into her fingers. (Jonas knew she did this almost every morning.) She tilted her head at her step-father, a sack of mush squeezed into a shirt and crooked tie—the thin end sticking out well past the fat, auburn V. The idiot jerk. She stared at her plate.
“Finish that damn bacon, kid. Shit just went up again,” The Sack pronounced from across the table. The chewed remains of his egg, sunny-side-up, rolled around in his mouth like the view from some kind of disgusting Laundromat washer.
Somehow, Jonas managed to pull himself above the memory. It took a lot of will, but the memory sat paused below him. He stopped to rest, a little alarmed at his lack of control. That was when he realized for the first time that Lucy looked different in the memory than the girl he’d met. How had he not seen that she was using her powers like that? Why would she even want to? Then he was being sucked down into the memory again. Lucy gripped the thick metal of the butter knife more tightly. (Jonas tried again. He couldn’t leave. What was he seeing?) The knife was smeared with bits of toast and butter, and it would, if she had anything to say about it, soon be smeared with The Sack’s blood as well.
This is what Jonas became aware of at the moment he stopped struggling to leave:
Two, sometimes four, times a week her stepfather would creep into her room and smother her with his heavy, sweaty form, forcing himself into her over and over until his demon need was satisfied. Then, he’d pull his ratty blue robe on again, lean over her and smile, wiping a bit of hair or sweat or nothing from her forehead or cheek. Then, he’d pour salt in the open wound. He would lean down further and kiss her on the forehead. Then he would say it.
“I love you, Lucy. You’re my daughter.”
But she wasn’t his daughter. Not in a physical sense and not in some time-earned, emotional way. She was his plaything. His worthless slave. She was an empty, soulless, human-shaped sex toy to him. Otherwise, how could he do it? How could he blithely wipe the tears from her cheeks, see how he was destroying her, without thinking that she wasn’t worth anything at all? She was without doubt not his daughter.
She could feel that corpse kiss of his even now (Jonas could too.) Those lips on her forehead were cool, lifeless things, always taking a bit of her sanity with them as they pulled away. Often, she laid there for hours, feeling the place those two pinkish leeches touched, the slightest bit of spittle they left behind, the place each whisker poked at her face, the smell of his deodorant and a long day’s work, praying that they’d go away, that he’d go away, forever.
People died in car accidents each day. Bam! You’re getting up to get a fresh refill on your coffee and there’s Mr. Aneurysm to lay you low. Cancer, heart attacks, crippling accidents: each day she wished these things in secret. But they never came. He never stopped. And she never had the nerve to go through with her butter knife fantasy. Because that’s all it was—a fantasy. It was her pretending she had the power to do anything to stop him.
She had read that the reason people put a gun to their heads when they committed suicide wasn’t because it was the most effective means of ending one’s life. It wasn’t. It was because they wanted to stop the thoughts; pay that damned glob of gray matter back for its constant yammering. She found herself daydreaming about similar retribution for her step-father. She wanted to bring the knife down hard on his gun, take it in her small hands and pull both ways. It would bring an end to her pain once and for all. What court would blame her? What group of thinking people would— She always snapped out of such thoughts feeling guilty. But she was surprised that day the guilt hadn’t come. Something in her had broken and refused to be repaired.
(Jonas watched now, wild with anger.)
“I said, sit your skinny ass down and finish your breakfast.” He stared at her like he was just another dad weary of taming another ill-mannered daughter. At some point she had stood, and now, for the same reason she always did, she did what she was told. He stuffed another piece of bacon in his mouth. “Damn,” he said, shaking his ham-shaped head.
She let the butter knife slip, without sound, back onto the table. Her palm was stiff and sore, white from holding the knife so tight. Her mom patted her on the shoulder. “C’mon, sweetie. Just finish up so you won’t miss the bus again.”
Lucy opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came. Gerald, the Sack, glared at her with a fork full of eggs halfway to his mouth until she took a piece of bacon and stuck it in her own mouth. But she refused to meet his eyes. He shook that ham again and shoved the fork into his own hole. Two thin fingers found the knife once more as she lowered her eyes to her plate. She heaved great globs of food into her mouth until it was gone and then got up, her fingers sliding away from the blade’s handle as she went. Now she would get away for a little while, even if it was school. It was another world, with another her and no him in sight.
“Bye, honey. Have a good day.” Her mother called with a smile.
(Jonas left from the memory as quickly as he had entered it.)
***
Lucy was not able to douse the fiery temptation to enter his mind, find out more about this long-lost father. Now that she had, she found herself afraid. The ground on which Lucy stood was soft with blood. Tired-eyed men pushed forward to battle Fade warriors: towering, thewy, oil-toned beasts. Electric blades, glossy with vigorous current, giant shooters that spat out sizzling molten blasts, and thin, sharp and long weeping stilettos that grew from the backs of their armored arms like unnatural thorns—the best of them fell to these giants.
They took her roughly (No, it was Jonas they took. These were his memories). He bellowed in protest, even getting through a few of their mental defenses, turning them into empty, useless weapons. He was willing to make this sacrifice. It had always been a real possibility. But he would go kicking. They hit him hard. His people had the gate equipment. They could figure out what made the Fade's technology tick now, he told himself this as they yanked him along. Lucy tasted his blood, felt his head swirl in confusion. He reached out hard with his mind. Even the crowd of Wraith who’d gathered around him weren’t strong enough to dampen his powers in full. Another of the Fade screamed in pain. She felt the corner of his mouth rise, then fall at the next blow. The travel from aware to unconscious was swift.
Then it was mostly her, shivering. Lucy wondered if the others had seen things like this. No, she hadn’t just seen, she had lived that memory. But Lucy doubted they had. Angela and Cynthia wouldn’t have been able to have gone looking as she had. They didn’t have her abilities. She wondered, after what she’d just experienced, if that might not be a good thing.
Everything became black, but it didn’t take her long to realize she was still him—in his memory, his unconscious mind. It was what he knew but did not know. The things his unconscious mind heard and felt. For instance, she felt the pressure, but not the pain of the butchery they did on his head. She heard them talk, muffled, distant—like sound through a wall. She listened as they spoke in their language. But Jonas knew their language and this was his memory. They were proud of themselves for their plan.
She (no, remember girl, this was Jonas.) awoke in a hospital the Fade had taken over. Straps dug into his arms, a parabolic curve of light blinded him. His mouth was dry. The pain in his head came like a shaft of widening light. He rose as much as the straps allowed and let out a growling scream so loud that it hurt his ears. He was bleeding. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt natural. Pulling his face together in pain, he felt the stitches for the first time. He screamed out at what he realized the Fade had done.
Hands rough as fresh-hewn wood pulled at him as the straps came free. A fresh blush of blood soared into his tingling extremities, exciting and painful at once. He struggled, but was too weak. Lucy could feel, see, hear it all. But she felt herself too, separating from him. The dog-like stench of the Fade lessened. The feeling that her joints might pop right out of their sockets became his alone once more. The feel of the warm summer air, then the damp hot back of the vehicle they threw him into was no longer hers. Lucy was watching from a distance, seeing him come in, and go out, of consciousness, being driven for miles and then left, alone, bleeding from the wound in his skull.
Then another memory came from a time before this. She watched a blue arch on the horizon set the sky on fire, thousands of the Fade pouring through. Jonas fought the Fade alongside others; watched friends die, watched them be heroes, just as Jonas had said. The memory flickered. She felt the hand of Elizabeth sweep across his forehead after they’d ripped the ability to fight out of him—as he healed. Again. Lucy’s heart jumped as she held Jonas’ daughter for the first time, then yelped to everyone in the room that this was his little girl. The memories started to come more quickly. By the hundreds, then thousands, they mobbed her. Trampling her ability to differentiate and comprehend. What had she done? What string had she pulled to unleash this upon herself? Jonas warned her. He said she didn’t know enough and that something horrible could happen. Why didn’t she listen?
Lucy pushed back, unable to handle all of it. There was no processing this amount of information. This was another life, told in a moment. The pain was immense. She opened her mouth to beg it to stop, but it was over. They had come and gone, li
ke the temporary and raucous clamor of a passing train. She felt herself being pulled away, to the waking world, all of this falling behind until it was a distant memory and then, nothing at all.
TWELVE
They stood in a loose circle right outside the camp the Fade had made in the woods. Kah’en looked up at the two giants that stared back with the respect afforded his position. “Jonas said he will join us. It is a small edge, but any edge is good against Aern.” Kah’en spoke in the harsh, crackling language of his people, but in a whisper, to the two warriors gathered round—the Fade who would be his generals in this rebellion. Kah’en had always been aware of the obvious racial differences in he and the Fade, but he was a Janar—the Queen’s chosen—and it had never mattered. But now he was standing there, planning sedition against those who had been his kind's brothers for generations. Their charcoal skin and iridescent eyes had never seemed so alien to him. Even standing with the Fade who would be by his side in battle, he felt the weight of his actions.
“I still have my doubts about the human. Any human.” A tall, thin warrior said.
Kah’en responded, “He can be trusted because he wants Aern dead. He will do anything to accomplish that.”
The shorter, but wide, warrior growled and nodded. “He will have a king’s funeral?”
“Of course," Kah'en said. "Aern still has my respect. He is just misguided.”
“The Queen would understand.” Tall and Thin said, sounding like he were striving to convince himself rather than the others.
“She would understand that all I want to feel is the sun of home on my face once again,” Kah’en said. “And not die on a fool’s quest.”
The woods around them—the buzz of insects and the fluttering of leaves in the wind—were the sole sound for a long while. The afternoon sun, fragmented sheets of light through the branches above, flecked their faces. Short but Wide nodded at last.