by Brindi Quinn
“Tide! Tide! What the hell happened?!” Y had heard the screams, and she was frantic.
But there was someone that was even more frantic. Jobe, for the first time in his climbing career, was leaping without thinking – leaping on faith – down the scrap heap after his fallen partner.
He’d meant to cut her. During a moment of darkness, yes, but still he’d meant it. Everything else, though – kissing her; panicking her into falling – had been one giant series of unintentions.
“DAMN IT! INK! INK!” He sprang with grace like hers. He flew with the unwavering determination. Ryon, his prince, was in that body somewhere. But so was his princess. His princess, too, was in danger. It wasn’t a question of who he wanted to save more. That was obvious. But what came as a surprise to the hunter was that he wasn’t making rapid descent for Ryon alone. It was for her too.
Wet, disoriented, sore, Tide clung to the pole. Because of the impact, the wind was knocked from her. Her voice and breath were lost. She couldn’t cry out to the distant voice of Y, nor could she call to the voice from above that was getting closer. With a shaky hand, she switched her right goggle light on. It was the best she could do to give them her whereabouts.
She gasped for air. And then she gasped again. And then –
“INK!”
– Jobe was there. She could barely make him out through the mask of white.
“Holy shit, Ink! Hang on!”
Jobe was coming for her?
She was clinging to a slippery pole with expensive climbing mitts that weren’t doing their job. She was slipping, and she still couldn’t seem to get air into her lungs. What was more, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. She’d been almost to the top of the Gustway and then . . .
“Grab my hand! INK, SNAP OUT OF IT AND GRAB MY GODDAMNED HAND!”
Jobe was in focus, and he was reaching to her. He was moving forward along the same pole she was clinging so tightly to. The dust-haired boy was desperate. If she slipped, it would be his fault. It would be all his fault and he’d never see her or Ryon again.
Gasping, she reached for him with a hand that was stained. Stained? Bloody. But it wasn’t blood from her cheek. It was from somewhere else. Her cheek? Why was her cheek bleeding, again?
And then she remembered. She remembered the cut. She remembered the kiss. She remembered what Jobe had done to her.
She let her hand fall.
Jobe winced. “No, Ink! It was an accident! I didn’t mean for you to fall! I saw Ryon and-”
But there wasn’t time for that. Ink was battered from the fall. Her arms were scraped; her left shoulder was bloodied, and she was having difficulty breathing.
“Just grab my hand, girl! Come on!”
But Tide wouldn’t. Tide couldn’t. Her body couldn’t trust the partner that’d betrayed her.
Luckily, there was someone within her that could. With a flash of turquoise, Ryon pushed Tide’s hand forward and grabbed Jobe’s sleeve.
“That’s good, girl! Just hold tight! I’ll pull you ba-”
“You’re a dick, Charles,” choked the voice that was Ryon’s from the mouth that was Tide’s.
Jobe froze. Balanced on the fog-coated pole, he gripped Tide’s arm and stared intently as he tried to discern who it was that was staring back. There was only one person he knew that could look so pissed off and charming at the same time.
“Ryon?” he said, eyes wider than ever before.
“Don’t stop, dumbass!” Ryon’s words were labored. “Save Tide! Always save Tide.”
Jobe blinked away the joy and astonishment and fear. He blinked it all away, and what was left was determination. He gave Ink’s scrawny arm a yank that pulled her closer to the mountain of metal. Ever holding to her wrist, he inched himself backward until his feet reached the edge of the secure cement block that would be their savior. Ryon did what he could to help move Tide’s body steadily along with him, until at last, Jobe managed to get enough footing to support himself. That was when he gave the princess his most zealous yank of all – a yank that put her on the edge of the cement slab with him.
The hunter laid the girl’s tattered body along the steadiest part of the block. “Ryon? Ryon!?” He asked out of desperation. He wanted it to be true more than anything.
But it wasn’t Ryon that answered.
“J-Jobe?” said Tide, confused. She’d blacked out again.
“NO!” Jobe shook her body. “Ryon? Geez, Ryon! Can’t you just . . . just . . .” Ink’s head bobbed. She was scraped in several places, but the worst of them was her shoulder, where a large something had torn into her skin on the way down. Dirtied with leftover flakes of whatever the culprit had been, the gash made Jobe stop – stop his rant for Ryon. His partner was injured and he was the person responsible. “Ink! Stay with me, girl!” He pulled the red tie out of his hair and wound it around her arm. That would slow the flow until he could carry her down.
He glanced into the darkness that was the way to the ground. “Ink, can you hear me?”
“Unh,” said Tide.
“Okay. Great. Girl, I need you to hold tight to my neck. I know you won’t be able to use this arm, but can you hold on the best you can with the other?”
Tide nodded weakly.
Careful not to make anything worse, Jobe hoisted her around his back and brought her uninjured arm over his shoulder. Tide’s hand tried to slip away, but Jobe corrected it. “Your legs, too, Ink. Can you hold on with those?”
“Y-yeah.” Her breathing was finally returning to normal.
Jobe let out an exhale of anticipation. “Okay. Let’s go.” Acting on faith, he leapt into the dark fog and trusted that there’d be something to catch him.
Stories below, Y was pacing. Though she could hear distant cries, she couldn’t discern what was happening above. There was one thing that was for sure, though. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t anything good.
She stared up at the frosty-like peak, worried and sick-feeling, and waited. She waited for what felt like hours before the sound of racing footsteps alerted her to a frantic someone racing through the fog.
“Who’s there!?” she yelled, hopeful that it was someone that might be able to offer something in the way of assistance.
“TIDE!” called a boy’s voice. The fog was tricky, and because of it, Rye nearly crashed into a stout girl with orange hair.
Tide squinted at the boy she didn’t recognize. “Who’re you?” said Y.
“Is Tide up there still?! Is she okay?!”
“I-I don’t know! I heard some shouting, and-” But when Y’s eyes landed on the boy’s neck, her throat gagged. It was one of THOSE. A boy with no beginning. A boy that shouldn’t have existed. Despair and regret bottled in a suit of flesh. “Who ARE you?” she demanded.
“My name is Rye.”
Chapter 15: The Soul Mates
Running faster wouldn’t help her. Attempting to fight it off wouldn’t either. Her best bet was to find a place to hide. Amidst the dirt-stained dumpsters and filthy sewage grates, she’d find shelter. But the demon had returned. It was at the back of her neck, and it wasn’t wasting time on subtleties. It was ready to devour her. But perhaps that was what she deserved. Perhaps that was her fate. For the things she’d done, the demon had found her; and because of her inability to remain rooted to the ground below, she had no choice but to let it.
“I’m sorry, Ryon. I’m sorry that I held too tightly to her. I’m sorry that I wouldn’t let you rest.”
Those words escaped the young-lipped girl as the shadowed creature finally took hold of the soft groove of flesh.
. . .
Tide awoke from the dream to a reeling headache and a body that was angry at her for what she’d put it through. The young girl’s mind was fuzzy. So were her eyes. But she could detect a presence at the side of her bed.
“Y?” she said.
“Incorrect, Miss Yondo,” said the presence.
Tide recognized its voice – the vo
ice of a man with shiny shoes whose name she couldn’t remember. She tried to find him, but her eyelashes were like smoke. Still, after several weak attempts at fluttering, she was able to find a chiseled jaw.
“Bad dream, Miss Yondo?” said the man who was indeed her father’s lawyer.
“Sir?” she garbled.
“Alas,” he said. “You have failed your mark. And I had such high hopes for you, too.”
Disoriented, Tide pulled her eyes fully open and surveyed her blurry surroundings. She wasn’t in a bed after all. She was on a cot? And she was in an office. An office with a windowed view of a large, heaping scrap pile. The Weighted Dome. She was in the Weighted Dome – in the geezerly judge’s office.
“What happened?” she asked.
But the demon didn’t want to discuss that. “Bad dream?” he said again.
“Er- yeah. I was being chased by something, and it . . . bit . . . me. Wait, what are you even doing here? And what am I doing here?”
“That wasn’t a dream. That was a recount of what happened to the first Tide Yondo.”
Tide stared at him blankly a moment and then, “Excuse me?”
“Your dream, Miss Yondo. That was what happened to the first Tide Yondo right before I ripped the soul from her body.”
“What?” Tide laughed. And then she laughed some more.
But the lawyer was serious. “Yes,” he said. “The thing that bit the first you . . . was I.”
Tide’s laughter fell. “Eh?!” What the hell did that mean? Like the harsh pelt of cold water, Tide was tossed to awakeness. “WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!?” Feeling trapped, she tried to leap from the cot, but her body was still angry, and it betrayed her by rebelling with pain.
The judge was saying, “You see, Miss Nero, I am an invention created by your father. I am the soul drill, and I have been with you all along.”
Tide let out a sickly whimper. The demon lawyer ignored it.
“I am both here and within you,” he continued. “I am the substance known as Bororore. The foundation of the earth. The balance of time. And I have made a deal with your father. A deal to save you. A deal made by a desperate father before he understood everything – before he understood the cycle of rebirth. A deal made when he was still clouded. Nonetheless, the deal was made. And in exchange for preserving your here and now, your father’s soul has been devoured.”
“DEVOU-”
But a second voice cut in. “Calm down, Tide. I’m here.” It was the voice of a gray boy with boxy glasses who’d been leaning discreetly against the wall behind Tide’s cot. She hadn’t noticed before, but at the sight of him now, the throbbing of her ribcage returned at full throttle.
“This is all too much for her,” Foster told the demon. “Let her see a familiar face.”
The demon thought a moment and then –
“Very well,” he said, sighing. “Go fetch him.”
Foster nodded and disappeared through a door at the back of the office. When he returned, he was accompanied by a guilty-looking boy with flowing, dust-colored hair that was much dirtier than usual. The boy’s dark part was far subdued. It was buried deeply, and at the forefront of his emotional core was remorse.
“Hey, girl,” he muttered. “I don’t know what to say-”
But he didn’t get a chance to finish.
“Jobe!?”
For Tide, it was a reunion of mixed emotions. She remembered the cut and the kiss and the fall. But she also remembered bits and pieces of the rescue. A mistake had been made. Jobe had betrayed her? And she couldn’t clearly remember why. But in the end he’d . . . saved her. Yes, that was right. Her partner had saved her. Her need for familiarity in a confusing situation overpowered the traces of betrayal that lingered, and as it did, the fear in her olive eyes disappeared into gratefulness. Reading the change, Foster gave the hunter a prodding push forward, and since that ‘prodding push’ came in the form of an aggressive elbow jab, Jobe turned to swat at the gray boy’s nose before turning to the girl he’d nearly killed.
Arms crossed, he went to her. “Sorry,” he said. “I got mean. And selfish.”
Tide’s muddled mind listened to him. She didn’t understand anything, but she could tell that he was being genuine. That was the sort of thing she needed. She reached for the person that could give it to her.
He responded by patting her head. “Good girl.”
“Sit with her, Chuck,” ordered Foster. “We’re telling her everything.”
“Everything?” said Tide, baffled. “Oh, wonderful. Can you start with clearing up that nonsense about their being another Tide Yon-”
“Shhh,” said Jobe. He wrapped a muscled arm around the battered girl’s shoulder.
It felt good, so Tide let herself be held. She let herself be comforted.
Foster took a breath, and when he was ready, he said it – the thing Chuck had been keeping from his partner. The thing they’d all been keeping from her. The secret that had been hidden for over a year:
“You, Tide Yondo, are a Second.”
“Uh . . .” Tide squinted at him, saw that he was serious, and then cried, “WHAT!?”
“But you aren’t JUST a Second.” Foster moved right over her outburst. “You are a Second born of a Second. A Second spawned from Ryon and stabilized by your father’s soul.”
Tide’s jaw went slack. There was no way she could believe something like that. They were playing her. But Jobe’s arm was around her. She concentrated on it. Forcing away the disbelief, she concentrated on solidity.
“I loved you, Tide,” continued Foster. “I loved you more than anything. And when you bore Ryon, I became his best friend. His roommate. His guardian. But when Ryon became too strong, and you were on the verge of death, I chose to help your father save you. Harnessing the power of the miracle fulestone, he created . . . this.” Foster gestured to the lawyer. “This man. A being with the power to transfer souls. A ‘soul drill’ with the power to reverse the effect of Seconds.”
“Reverse?” blubbed Tide.
Foster nodded. “Sort of, but not quite. The process is reversed by making a Second spawn a Second.”
“Second spawn a Second?” Tide shook her head. It was too redundant to grasp.
Nodding, Foster went on, “When that happens, the new Second looks identical to the original Main. Ryon wanted you to live. Once he learned what Seconds truly were, he didn’t want to exist. He wanted it to be you, so he allowed Nero to draw a Second from him. That Second is YOUR body. The second Tide Yondo. It was the perfect vessel for your soul. Empty and identical to the first you in every way.
“Using the soul drill,” – Foster again gestured to the lawyer – “your father inserted your soul into the new body. He created a new you. A new-bodied you with the same old soul. It was everything like the first you, except that it had a Second’s memory. And because it couldn’t remember any of the pain, it could handle the burden of living. That was how your father stopped you from disappearing. That was how he stopped Ryon from taking your shared soul for himself.”
Jobe stiffened. It was a different account of the story than he remembered. In his opinion, Ryon had been coerced into helping. But that didn’t matter right now. Squashing those dark feelings, Jobe said,
“Essentially, girl, Ryon and your pops saved you.”
Foster bit the end of his glasses. “The thing is, a miracle like that comes at a price. A strong soul is needed to stabilize a newly materialized body during its first stages. Your soul was too weak, so your father used his soul to help. By linking himself to you, he was able to act as your step-in Main until you could fully support your new self.
“During the transition, you were in darkness for an entire year, Tide. You were frozen. And when you were reborn as a Second one year ago, you started off as though no time had passed. I wanted to see you. More than anything. But for fear of releasing the memories you’d suppressed, I stayed away. Your father decided that was best.” He tipped his head and allowed
his despair to show. “I couldn’t help myself, though, when Rye found you. Watching you through his eyes was torture. That’s why I had to see you. Even if only once.”
It was crazy. It was absolutely crazy. The princess wanted to ask a million questions, but there was only one thing that her mouth could voice:
“Red.”
“That’s right,” said the lawyer, glancing at his wristwatch. “You haven’t a marking, Miss Yondo. That is because a full soul lives within your body. Your tattoo disappeared as soon as your body became the primary vessel for your soul. The same will happen to any Second who gains full control of one. If Foster disappears, so will Rye’s tattoo.”
There was silence.
Tide was shivering from having her everything challenged. She opened her mouth to let the questions flow, but Jobe squeezed her shoulder. “Let it sit, Ink. Let it sit.”
The princess growled, but then gave him a shaky nod. He was right. There was too much to ask. She needed time to process.
“The cases are rare,” said Foster. “But it’s true. A Second can gain control of a soul and force a Main from existence. When that happens, their brand will disappear.”
The lawyer at the side of the bed sniffed. “Such is the case with the president of this ‘charming’ establishment.”
“Him?” said Tide. The president of the Weighted Dome? Scanning the heap through the window, she swallowed the questions that tried to leak through her teeth. What did that mean? That the judge had at one point had a tattoo? That he’d been a Second?! Tide wanted to burst. Because of the horde of questions banging against her mouth, she wanted to erupt. And indeed she might have, had Jobe not opened his scowling mouth and voiced them for her:
“So that’s how the coot knew?” A stern expression reached the hunter’s face. “Mind getting that guy, bro?”
“Fine,” said Foster. “If you think it’ll help.” The gray boy left the office through the backdoor that led to a large conference room where Jobe had been waiting previously, and where a few others were still waiting. One of them was particularly antsy. At least he would have been, had he been present.