by Chloe Garner
Valerie nodded, rolling onto her side.
“Did you do what you needed to, in New Orleans?”
Samantha nodded.
“It’s complicated, and it isn’t done, but the immediate problem isn’t immediate anymore.”
Valerie licked her lips.
“It’s bigger than my parents know, isn’t it?” she asked, and Samantha shrugged.
“Sam has told me a lot about your world, and it’s certainly a microcosm of the one that I live in, but I’m not sure that it’s like you think it is. The world is bigger and more complicated than you know, but the things that your parents know and that they’re fighting for… I don’t think they’re wrong.”
Valerie nodded, tucking her arm under the pillow.
“Why did you help us?” Valerie asked. “Why did Jason come back?”
“Jason came back because you were going to go in on your own,” Samantha said. “He had to go get Angelica, but none of us were okay with you going in and fighting on your own, so he turned around and came for you. We couldn’t see in the building until you burned all of the magic off in your cast; I didn’t know that they actually had your parents, but Sam could see them go in and not come out again. Your parents - you - you’re fighting for the right things. Important things. I’ve always got so much going on and so many people… If you do things that are important, you’re going to end up in charge of people who need you to keep them safe and keep them on track. Sam says he can see it in you. Your parents…” She smiled. “They seem to resent it. They’re avoiding having anyone depend on them directly. And that’s your call. But the way it’s worked out for me, I’ve got people who need me. And it means that I can’t always show up exactly where I want to be. But I want to make sure that people like you… That you have what you need to do what you’re doing, because it’s worth getting behind.”
Valerie settled lower.
“I don’t know what to do,” Valerie said, and the woman smiled.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“The Council is chasing us all around trying to make us do stuff, the Pure are trying to kill everyone only they don’t mean to, I can’t go back to school, I can’t go with my parents… It’s calm here, but I don’t want to just hide out and hope that everyone else figures it out. I don’t know what… What am I going to do?”
The woman licked her lips and settled in her own chair, nodding.
“I see. What do you want to do?”
Valerie sighed, thinking.
It was surprising how hard the question was.
“Before, I just wanted to go home, be normal, go back to my school,” Valerie finally said. “I didn’t like Survival School because of all of the rules, because they all hate me there.”
“And now?” Samantha asked.
Valerie shook her head, looking down the bed at Sasha, thinking - with not a small pang of fear - of Ethan, somewhere, healing from a table falling on his head.
“I want to go back to school,” she said. “But I can’t. The Council will come and…”
She shrugged.
Samantha nodded.
“I like school. I love to learn things. It’s kind of… a thing for me. So I’d encourage you not to give up on that. I don’t know all of the politics; that’s a Sam thing, but I wonder if you couldn’t find a way to leverage everything so that you could go back without your Council having the incentive to use you. Seems to me your mom did a decent job of it, the first time.”
“It’s so weird, talking to you,” Valerie said. “It’s like you know me, and I don’t know anything about you.”
“I’m married to a psychic,” Samantha answered. “And he wanted to be sure that you guys could handle this before we left you.”
Valerie frowned, looking at Sasha once more.
“How long have I been asleep?” she asked.
“Unconscious,” Samantha answered. “Sixteen hours.”
“He hurt me,” Valerie said, and Samantha nodded.
“The magic was… I might have underestimated what he was capable of.”
“But Jason just… Like it was nothing,” Valerie said. Samantha shrugged.
“It’s what we do. Tridium was a minor player, as far as his powers went, but he was with your people for a lot of years, developing those relationships and getting them ready to launch this attack. Whatever else they may be, demons are good at the long game.”
Valerie pulled her shoulders up around her ears.
“The war isn’t over, is it?” she asked. Samantha gave her a grim smile.
“I think you set them back on their goals a long way, but you still have two sides at odds and no resolution in sight. Maybe, if we’re being optimistic, they go back underground to try to make progress toward a cast that will strip magic without killing people, and the war goes fallow again for a while, but… I think that isn’t really realistic, if I’m completely honest with you. The way Sam describes it, there are an awful lot of people opposing the Council out of a sense of self-preservation. They think it’s about their way of life surviving.”
Valerie pulled the blanket up over her shoulder, tired and overwhelmed.
“So we won the war, but the Council is going to keep fighting it because they want control,” Valerie said, and Samantha shrugged.
“I can’t say what’s going to happen in the future. Human behavior is constantly surprising me. But if you asked me to predict it, that’s what I’d predict.”
Valerie closed her eyes.
“It’s so hard,” she said. “I don’t want to be on either side.”
“No one can make you,” Samantha answered. “You need rest, and you should go back to sleep, but remember that. No one can ever make you be on a side that you didn’t choose.”
Valerie sighed.
“Yeah, but they can sure try hard,” she said. She heard Samantha laugh softly, and then the room was soft and comfortable and warm and her mind wandered until it was completely gone.
When Valerie woke next, it was light out, and Sasha was gone. Valerie got up and went to take a shower, feeling out what hurt and what didn’t and what didn’t feel normal and coming to the conclusion that maybe all of it had been a dream, because she felt completely normal and she couldn’t actually believe she’d done what she remembered doing.
Maybe it was the inverse of her dad’s cast, and the thing that she remembered doing hadn’t actually happened, and she was going to go downstairs and Sam was going to offer her an omelet and tell her about the history of the Pure.
If only.
The phoenix from Hanson lay on her chest, and she hadn’t had that before.
She didn’t believe it, but it made it feel better to let her secret self believe it for a few minutes as she went and got dressed again.
She went out into the hallway, hearing voices downstairs, and she followed them. Sam was once more at the kitchen counter, but everyone else was sitting at the bar stools or - as she rounded the corner - lounging on the couches eating breakfast.
“Good morning,” Susan said, getting up to come hug her. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Ethan,” Valerie said. “I thought you were more hurt than I was.”
“So did I until you passed out right on top of me,” Ethan answered, getting up. He had a ginger way to how he walked, but he was on his feet.
Valerie’s relief was bone-deep, seeing it.
“You didn’t answer me,” Susan said, holding Valerie by her shoulders.
“I’m okay,” Valerie answered. “I can’t tell that anything happened.”
“Told you that Sam knows her healers,” Jason called from the couches next to Shack and Hanson.
“So do I,” Susan answered without turning her head. “Are you ready to go?”
“Go?” Valerie asked. “What do you mean?”
“We need to go,” Susan said. “Your dad and me. We - you - just destabilized the entire power structure within the Pure, and we need to take advantage. Also,
Gemma isn’t there to keep an eye on them, so your dad and I have to get a lot closer, and now is the time to take advantage of the cracks.”
“But…” Valerie said. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“We take you back to school,” Susan said. “It’s the only place you have capable adults I trust looking out for you.”
“If you take her back there, the Council has already claimed custody,” Ethan said, coming to stand next to Valerie. “You can’t do that.”
“I have a plan,” Susan said. “I need you to trust me and go pack up anything you have here.”
Valerie shook her head, patting her sides.
“All of my stuff,” she said.
“I took it off so I could work on you,” Sasha said from the counter, her mouth full of pancakes. “Sorry. It’s up in a drawer.”
Valerie looked at her mom again.
“They’re going to take me away and try to put me in a box,” she said, and Susan shook her head.
“I’ve been in their boxes,” she said. “Unless they come up with a reason to put you down into the darkness, they aren’t strong enough to hold you, with that kind of time on your hands.”
“Still,” Ethan said. “They might throw me into the darkness for helping her get away.”
“I have a plan,” Susan said.
“When she says that, I’ve found the best idea is just to go with it,” Grant said from the counter.
“You know that you are welcome here as long as you need it, but this is not a long-term refuge for any of you,” Samantha said. “You have to go back to your world and your lives.”
Valerie looked into her mother’s eyes, then nodded.
“Okay,” she said. Susan gave her a firm nod, then looked over at everyone else.
“We’re going to have to make a separate trip for the rest of you,” she said.
“Long weekend,” Shack called with an easy grin. Apparently he wasn’t too bad, either.
They’d made it.
She…
She was going back to school.
Maybe.
Was that even what she wanted?
She couldn’t go home, because the place didn’t exist anymore.
She couldn’t stay here, because… well, she didn’t even want to. It was beautiful and all, and Sam and Samantha and Jason were interesting, but they were busy and important and there was very little to do here.
That just left school, right?
Or try to talk Sasha into just riding around the country with her mom?
She had to go back.
She nodded.
“Okay,” she said again.
“Come get something to eat,” Sam said. “Then you can pack up and head out.”
She nodded, looking at her mom.
“All you have are the wraps?” Susan asked, and Valerie nodded.
“I didn’t have anything else. I left the tool box at Hanson’s apartment.”
“I’ll go pack them,” Susan said. “You eat, and we’ll get on the road.”
“I’m coming,” Ethan said.
“Excuse me?” Susan answered. “You’re Merck Trent’s son. I don’t think what happens to you next is at all relevant to getting Valerie back into Survival School.”
“I think that whatever deal or plan you’ve got going on, I’m going to have to ride its coattails to get not just back into school, but out of the darkness. I’m not kidding. I’m certain I made my dad that angry.”
“You stole his car,” Shack said, and Susan looked over at Shack.
“What happened?” she asked, and Shack shrugged.
“They turned up at school in Mr. Trent’s fancy car.”
“They were going to take me away,” Valerie said. “So we ran. That was the car that he knew how to get into, and I… magically hotwired it, I guess.”
“You…” Susan said, then shook her head. “This is what my mom felt like, all those years, isn’t it?”
Grant sounded like he might have snorted hard enough to launch food up his nose.
“All right,” Susan said finally. “You can come. But if you get in the way of me getting this done, I swear I will leave you by the side of the road to fend for yourself.”
“She doesn’t mean that,” Grant coughed, trying to work out whatever damage he’d done with his surprised reaction. “She’s just high-strung right now.”
“My daughter just burnt down the Pure headquarters,” Susan said. “And I’m sidelined here, babysitting teenagers.”
“Do better,” Grant said, finally coughing hard enough to get himself settled. “You’re a mother, and it’s your job to take care of her, before rushing off to vanquish a fallen foe.”
“Don’t pull that card on me,” Susan said. “I was the one who raised her all that time.”
“And you did a great job. She just set off the biggest scorch bomb I’ve ever heard of. But now you need to figure out her life before you go throwing yourself into the fray again.”
Susan pursed her lips.
“We’ll figure it out, okay?” she asked. “I promise. I’m not telling you what my plan is yet because I’m sort of making it up as I go along, but I do have a rough framework and I’m pretty sure I can make it work. Okay?”
“What about Ethan?” Valerie asked.
“I’m working on the fly,” Susan said. “I’ll see what I can come up with on the way there.”
Valerie nodded, and Susan put her forehead against Valerie’s, then turned to go up the stairs. Valerie watched after her, then took Ethan’s offered hand and walked over to the counter.
“Eggs, toast, pancakes, other?” Sam asked, holding a spatula out the way Jason had held the sword the day before.
Valerie sat on a stool next to Sasha.
“Everything,” she said, and Sam grinned.
“Good choice.”
Valerie looked over at where Gemma was sitting at the very end of the counter by herself.
“What will happen to you?” Valerie asked, and Gemma shrugged.
“If my father catches me, he’ll kill me,” she said. “No fancy holding cell for me. Just a short, painful death.”
“Your dad would do that?” Hanson asked, and Gemma nodded without looking back at him.
“My father will do whatever it takes,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Valerie said. “I don’t know how they found out about you.”
“At the end of the day, it only matters if you people don’t figure out how to end this once and for all,” Gemma said. “I wouldn’t have lasted to another war. I just wouldn’t have. Hopefully you knocked back the technology far enough that it won’t be viable until the next war, so they aren’t going to kill a bunch more civilians like that. It’s just a question of settling the war and making sure that Fact Alexander doesn’t get another try at it in fifteen years.”
“What will you do?” Valerie asked. Gemma looked at her with dry eyes, emotionless.
“I’m going to do what your mother never actually managed to do,” she said. “I’m going to walk away. It’s your problem now.”
“You were my mom’s friend,” Valerie said. “And my dad cares about you.”
“Your father viewed me as an asset,” Gemma said. “Anything that made us special to each other by having shared a childhood died a lot of years ago. I will walk away. And I won’t come back.”
“And I hope you find a life where you manage to heal,” Grant said. Valerie looked over at him, hoping he would say something else to help pull Gemma back, but he didn’t.
He was going to let her go.
“Dad,” Valerie whispered, and he shook his head.
“If you think you’re a political football, you don’t want to imagine what they would do to her,” he said. “Better for her to go to ground, find a new life and just stay there. At least until everything here is well and truly done.”
“Which could take years, even if you do it right,” Gemma said.
“Dad,” Valerie said
again. “You can’t let her do that.”
“Can and will,” Grant answered, offering Sam an empty plate. “Good breakfast, sir.”
“I love this kitchen,” Sam said cheerfully enough, handing Valerie a plate of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and toast. She smiled at him, accepting a fork and sitting with it in her hand for a moment.
“So we’re just going to go back to everything the way it was,” she said.
“Nothing is going to be the way it was,” Sasha answered, something different about her voice.
“Do you hate that?” Ethan asked, and Valerie shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It just feels like more should have changed, you know?”
He drew a breath, then shrugged.
“I see what you mean, but at the same time… Nothing ever really changes.”
“Just who’s in charge of the Council,” Shack called, and Ethan nodded.
“My dad has been on top for a long time, but… It’s always just by the skin of his teeth.”
“And the next guy could blow up whatever plan Mom has to get me to stay at school,” Valerie said glumly. “Nothing changes.”
“I’m sorry,” Ethan said.
“Trust your mom,” Grant said. “She’ll have a plan and when it actually wraps up, it will have gone better than she could have hoped. That’s just who she is.”
“Until she decides to leave you behind,” Gemma said.
Valerie tucked her head over her plate as Ethan sat down next to her and Hanson brought over Ethan’s plate.
Ethan elbowed her.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said.
She thought of what Jason had said.
Even if it was different, it would still be okay.
That’s life.
She nodded.
“Okay.”
Susan parked the car down on the road, not turning onto the driveway.
“Can you not see it?” Valerie asked.
“I see it fine,” Susan answered. “I just want some privacy.” She looked over at Ethan. “How are you holding up?”
He had a headache and his back hurt no matter how he sat or moved, he’d told Valerie, but he was holding it together, and Susan seemed convinced the school nurse could handle the balance of the healing magic he needed, so long as they could get themselves back into the school as students.