Hollow Back Girl

by Olivia R. Burton

  “Nope,” I argued, holding up a hand. “Don’t go there. Not listening.”

  Robin’s emotions were fuzzy for a second, amusement and love swirling with the hesitant curiosity she’d come in holding onto. Unfortunately, as I stretched my arm upward, my droopy sleeve slid down and she caught sight of the scars Mel had given me.

  “What’s on your arm?” she asked, sliding my sleeve back before I could stop her. Immediately, shock took over as she grabbed my wrist, baring my arm completely and gasping. “Oh my god! Are these scars?”

  “Uhhh,” I improvised desperately, trying to pull away. Robin jerked her gaze to my face, her expression going tight, real true anger like I hadn’t felt from her more than a handful of times rumbling through my chest, before she sat up and spoke.

  “Tell me the truth.”

  I opened my mouth, slammed it shut. There was enough of me that didn’t want to tell her that I considered just staying silent. Honesty won out, however, and that tipped the scales in favor of her compulsion.

  “I was attacked by a werewolf; he thought I was a giant spider. I’ve had them about four months.”

  Robin bowed back like I’d socked her in the stomach, but her wide eyes stayed locked to mine. I felt her hand on my arm shake a bit before her gaze dropped to my scars again. I swallowed, trying gently to pull my arm away as if that would end the conversation and everything would be fine. She squeezed harder.

  “No,” she said. “Tell me the whole story. What—” She cut off, shifting as if to get into a position more conducive to hearing your crazy sister spout nonsense. We sat on the bed facing each other, legs crossed, knees touching as though we were children playing paddy-cake as she held my arm in her lap and looked over the skin. After awhile, she lifted her gaze, her brow knit, her lips tight.

  “There are werewolves?” she asked, surprising me.

  I only gaped at her for a bit, felt my jaw move as if I would speak, even though no sound came out. Then, unable to control myself and wondering if being whammied into waking up before I was properly rested had anything to do with it, I let out a short giggle. The giggle turned into a fit, making my scraped cheek feel raw and dry, but I couldn’t seem to stop.

  When I finally got myself under control, I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Is that why you haven’t been calling as much? You didn’t want to tell me about werewolves?”

  I felt no compulsion this time; Robin was just asking. I could lie, though I guess I didn’t have to, not completely.

  “Mostly, yeah.”

  “Mostly?” she asked, her grip on my wrist—and my freewill—tightening again. “What else is there?”

  “Vampires,” I babbled. “Demons. Fairies. Izzy. There’s a tree monster out there right now. It dropped me on my head. Dad fooled around with it.”

  Robin was frozen, mouth open in disbelief, eyes narrowed, grip on my wrist loose enough that I was finally able to extract myself from her grip. Time passed, leaving me sitting in a soup of her concern, with the occasional burst of glee from one of the kids or rumble of grumpy affection from my dad downstairs.

  “I think,” she said carefully, as her concern deepened into a shard pressing against my chest, “that you were hit too hard. I think—I’m sure you need to go to a hospital.”

  “No,” I said, not sure if I should be as genuinely insulted by her reaction as I was. I hadn’t habitually been a liar, at least not about anything that wasn’t related to my poor diet. Dad had promised everyone I was fine, and she’d believed him. That should have been the end of it, but here she was, questioning my painstaking revelations. “I’m not crazy and I’m not lying.”

  “I’m not saying you’re lying!” Robin assured me, grabbing for my hands again. I flailed, evading her repeated grasps, but she pressed on, likely having had this same sort of fight with the kids here and there. “I’m saying you’re hurt! Look at you, you’re in awful shape, full of bruises. You said yourself you were dropped on your head. Let’s just—”

  “No,” I argued, still doing my best to make sure she couldn’t touch bare skin. She was getting frustrated with me, but it was mild compared with the worry settled in her chest that threatened to explode and shove me off the bed like being hit with a cannonball. I didn’t like it, I didn’t want it, and I hated that I’d made her feel it. She had gotten our mother’s compassionate nature, while I had gotten dad’s damned empathy. My constant absorption of emotions good and bad often make it hard to be as selflessly worried for the state of others as she could so easily be. Still, I also knew what it felt like to be drenched in concern over the well being of a loved one.

  I flashed on the time when I’d thought I’d seen Chloe get shot and it briefly paralyzed me, letting Robin get her hands on my bare skin again.

  “Come on,” she began, her compulsion soaking into my skin. “I’ll get mom and we’ll all go to the—”

  I don’t know what made me do it, or even how I was able to do it. I couldn’t tell you why I’d never done it before, or why this moment was so different from every other time I’d seen someone I cared about having a hard time. Regardless of the how or the why, I pulled a trick out of my hat that had apparently been sitting there gathering dust my whole life.

  Grasping for her worry, her anguish over the state of me, I let Robin’s emotions flow out of her and into me. Like experiencing feelings from the outside, it was a physical sensation; her worry had been thick, hot, pressing against me like viscous, boiling syrup. When I made the conscious effort to calm her, it didn’t stop at my flesh. I shivered when it sucked in through my pores, settled inside me in a well in my gut.

  Robin sighed as if in slow-motion, her wide eyes drooping, her posture slumping. I let out a shocked, wavering moan as if I’d stepped with bare feet onto icy tile. I could feel her worry sitting in me, waiting for something. Was I supposed to release it back into her? Should I have been using it on someone else? How long would it stay there?

  “Wow,” Robin said, blinking at me. “It’s been a long time since I felt that.”

  “Felt what?” I asked, feeling panicked and desperate. I was full, sick, like my insides were threatening to slosh out through my mouth. My body was quivering, my voice shaking. “What just happened? Oh god, I need to get up. I need—What do I need? I think I want ice cream. I think I want candy. I think—Are you okay? Where’s Natalie? Is she okay? Is Jake still mad at me? Is Stella okay? The kids are—god, how much does dad hate me? Holy shit, what is—this is awful.”

  Fighting off her loose grip as if it were an angry tiger, I pushed up, compelled to get out of there. I needed to leave the room, check on those I loved. I was feeling panicked and stressed as I crossed the room twice, rapidly. Confusion was overtaking me, making me unsettled and paranoid.

  “Gwen,” Robin said, her voice light. She wasn’t worried anymore; she was exceedingly calm, actually. When I twisted, took two steps back toward her, I could see the calm in her, feel it like standing next to a small fire in a wintery nightscape.

  “What? Jesus, what did I do? I’m cold. Or hot. I’m—Are you okay?”

  Robin laughed, pushing off the bed so she could pull me close.

  “Come here. Come here,” she repeated when I stood there shaking. Without waiting for me to actually move, she pulled me into her arms, pressed a hand against the back of my neck. “Calm down.”

  The worry dissipated. The tension in my body ran out in a sigh through my lips and I was fine.

  “Jeez,” I grumbled. Robin ran a hand over the back of my head and then pushed away, holding my cheeks in her hands while she looked into my eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think so?” I shook out of her hands, took stock of myself. “I’ve never done that before.”

  “Done what?”

  “Taken emotions. I’ve … uh, taken them on and experienced them at a distance before, but nothing like that. I didn’t—is this was dad was talking about?” She smiled at me, dropped her hands to he
r sides.

  “I would imagine so. He’s better at it than you, though. We should start this conversation over.”

  “Okay,” I said warily. “What part do you want to hear again?”

  “Start at the beginning. What’s been happening in your life?”

  “That’s a long story. It’s a confusing, strange, and unbelievable long story.”

  “I’ve got time. Jake took the kids to see a friend of ours from high school for breakfast.”

  “Even Stella?”

  “No, she’s with Mom. What do you say we have some hot chocolate and you tell me about your unbelievable, long story?”

  I considered her offer. I wasn’t sure how long my emotional drain would last on her, or how much time it would take for her to go into panic mode again. I didn’t want her to have some sort of freak out and go running off to tell the police to toss me in a loony bin.

  Hot chocolate was a good bribe, though.

  It took quite awhile to get through everything I had to say, but I told my mother and sister almost everything. They knew about Mel, Dirk the vampire, Stan being kidnapped by a succubus—even about Owen and the arrangement he and I shared. I had to make it very clear to my mother that Owen and I were not dating, that there wasn’t a future there.

  Of course, she moved on to Mel, asking if I was sure he wasn’t a viable option. His family sounded so nice, she insisted. Shouldn’t I at least give him a chance? Couldn’t that magical necklace that blocked his emotions from me fix the problem? I didn’t explain to her that we’d slept together, but I did push hard on the point that he was physically painful to be around and the necklace was only a part-time solution. Eventually, she dropped the subject, but she wasn’t happy about it.

  By the time Owen called, Robin and mom seemed to have accepted what I had to say to them and moved on to questioning my sanity and lack of steady male companionship.

  “Hey,” I answered, stepping outside to avoid sappy glances from my family members.

  “Are you ready?” he sounded worse than he had twelve hours before. I winced.

  “To catch the plague? Because that’s what it sounds like you’re offering.”

  “I can go without you,” he said. I sighed. It seemed cruel to make him go out into the woods by himself in his state.

  “No, I’ll go. I may insist on driving, too, if you look as bad as you sound.”

  The front door opened and life exploded back into the house. J.J. shot by, followed by Jake and finally Natalie. My brows shot up. “Hold up—Owen, hold on a second.”

  Stepping back in through the sliding glass door, I reached out to Natalie, gave her a small smile when she looked up at me.

  “Nat? Could I ask you a favor?”

  Jake frowned over at me, but Robin put a hand on his arm, mumbled, and I felt the emotions within in transform rapidly from wary unhappiness to calm.

  “I can’t heal you anymore.” Her lip quivered and I shook my head rapidly, dropped down to pull her into a hug.

  “No, it’s okay. Not me. I’m okay. It’s a friend of mine. He’s sick with a cold. Can you help?”

  “Maybe,” she said. I pulled away, looked into her eyes. “I dunno.”

  “Owen?” I said into the phone. “How soon can you be at my place?”

  “Not long,” he said, paused to cough. “Why?”

  “Come pick me up. My niece might be able to help.” In answer, he blew his nose, coughed again. I took that as an affirmative, said goodbye and hung up. “Kid, I’m going to buy you so many robots.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I feel pretty good. Not completely better, but good.”

  “That’s about where I am,” I said, glancing away from the passing scenery at Owen. “She’s not very powerful, but she’s still pretty handy. I did take a painkiller before we left, though.”

  “Legal?”

  “Well, it wasn’t prescribed to me, so probably not, but it’s helping to numb the soreness so I’m not terribly concerned.”

  Owen hummed an agreement and took the last turn on the narrow road leading out to what was rapidly becoming my least favorite part of Balanis. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, shook my head.

  “You really think we’ll be safe?”

  “I believe they’ll refrain from hurting us if we’re respectful.”

  “And how are you going to get their attention? The Lofriska didn’t seem interested in talking to us the first time we went out there, not even after you yelled at them for no reason.”

  Owen smirked as the car slowed, yanking up the parking break when we halted. After turning off the car, he reached into the back, pulled out a bag I hadn’t known was there; it held more fresh produce.

  “Oh, come on,” I groaned. He smiled at me, still close, and then kissed my mouth.

  “Come on,” he said, twisting to climb out of the car with his sack. He didn’t come around to my side to open the car for me; he just waited several steps away, watching. Realizing he was probably expecting me to be his bigfoot compass again, I sighed, climbed out after him. He jerked his head to the side, took a step.

  “Let’s go. I’m going to assume you understand the sasquatch rules of conduct this time.”

  “Don’t get punched in the boob, yeah I got it.”

  We walked in silence for a while, Owen glancing around, still unbothered by the situation. I watched his profile, smiled a little when I considered how different he felt from when I’d left him that morning.

  “You’re looking pretty good, Reid,” I told him, leaning into him for a step. He grinned and I felt delight in him.

  “You still look pretty bad, Arthur, but I wouldn’t kick you out of bed.”

  “Damn straight you wouldn’t,” I asserted as smugly as I could manage.

  “Feel anything?”

  “A little self-conscious,” I joked, pressing a hand to my heart. “But that’s about it.” He turned to lift a brow at me over a smirk and I laughed, shaking my head as I answered seriously, this time. “Nope. It’s just us so far. Do you know where the bigfoots are?”

  “They’re somewhat nomadic. I was able to get a rough idea of their location, but my …” He paused, choosing his words; when he spoke, there was the barest hint of deception there. “Methods aren’t so specific that I could walk right over and expect to bump up against them.”

  “What would you do without me here?”

  “This would take longer, that’s for sure.”

  I let out a pleased little sound, pushed a bit harder with my empathy to see if I could pick up any itchy sasquatch feelings about. While I probed, I jerked my chin to catch his attention again. He regarded me mildly, that small smile still tugging at his great mouth. I considered that maybe part of his draw had always been how mellow he managed to stay in any situation. I love even Chloe and her random outbursts of excitable eagerness, but it was nice to be with someone who didn’t exasperate my empathy or make me feel wired when I hadn’t been prepared to be.

  “You never told me what they told you last time we saw them.”

  “Ah,” he said, as if it had just occurred to him. “They didn’t know what was happening, but they were able to tell me about the campers. Apparently the kids who went missing were assholes.”

  “So I heard,” I said, thinking of Troy.

  “They were loud, obnoxious, leaving garbage and cigarette butts everywhere. The bigfoots weren’t exactly sorry to see them disappear.”

  “But they don’t know why they disappeared?”

  “Nope. They mainly stick in their own groups. Outside of mating, they don’t even cross into each others’ territories.”

  “You think the Lofriska were pissed at these kids because of the garbage and stuff? Would that be enough?”

  “Unlikely; if every camper who was a disrespectful dick went missing, there wouldn’t be too many left in the world. Especially since the Lofriska have somewhat more of a,” he quirked his fingers in air quotes, “Fairy idea of what respec
t is than humans.”

  “That’s slightly terrifying,” I said. Owen patted my back.

  “Don’t worry, they rarely make a habit of attacking humans these days. Humans kill them in droves for agriculture land and strip malls. They don’t particularly want to draw attention to themselves, make themselves targets. They’re not stupid creatures.”

  “Why don’t they just wipe us all out with some ebola-Zika concoction?” I asked. Owen considered it for a moment, before giving me a look that said he didn’t know. We didn’t speak for a bit, though I did find myself considering the revelation as we walked.

  I sort of felt sorry for these creatures—for all forest creatures, really, having to bump up next to us greedy, asshole humans and not being able to do anything about it. The more I thought about it, the less I blamed them for trying to break my neck.

  The itching started shortly after and I whined when I felt it really take hold. Owen turned to watch me rake my nails over my skin, squinting with sympathetic discomfort when I’d hit a bruise or a scab. He let me go at myself for a few seconds before gesturing widely to nothing.

  “Which way?”

  I grunted unhappily instead of speaking, trying to figure out which part of me was the most irritated. Before I could use my words, the bigfoots appeared to our left. Owen turned, gave a small bow, and then held out the bag. The bigfoot who had hit me before looked me over with its mouth open in what might have been an attempt at a smile. The itching driving me mad seemed to indicate that he found my discomfort funny, which I can’t say I appreciated with any sort of grace and poise, despite my guilt at being an asshole member of forest-burning human race myself.

  Signing something quickly, Owen took a few tentative steps forward, set the bag down and then backed up. The non-smiley bigfoot reached out to grab it, handed it back to the little ones and then closed ranks with its mate again. It and Owen signed back and forth while I took a few giant steps back. It didn’t help the itching as much as I would have preferred, but at least I was less worried about being knocked around like a pool ball.