Dissident

by Lisa Beeson

  Mother Am grinned. “If doing the right thing were easy, there would be no need for courage.”

  Ari grimaced at the platitude, then forced herself off the bed with a gusty sigh. Though her head still felt slightly abuzz with low-grade fever, she squared her shoulders and stood tall. All right. Let’s do this.

  “I will leave you to it,” Mother Am said with a meaningful glance. She opened the doorway in the wall and quickly shuffled out, leaving it opened behind her.

  Ari expected Adam to come to the open door, but he did not. He was forcing her to make the first move. …like a jerk.

  She heard a huff of laughter, before his familiar voice said, “Hurry up and get your butt out here, kid.”

  Taking a deep bracing breath, with her eyes stubbornly on the ground, Ari compelled her reluctant feet to move forward. When she reached the doorway, she slowly raised her eyes.

  There he stood across the green little courtyard illuminated by spears of buttery sunlight and surrounded by plants laden with plump, fragrant blossoms.

  His skin no longer showed any signs of decay and his eyes were clear. He was healthy and strong. He was a Xjaamin.

  His brown eyes and hair were now the silver of liquid mercury as were the iridescent markings running down his neck and coming out of his sleeves on the back of his hands. He wore a ring on his right hand, studded with the same labradorite-like stones the rest of the Xjaamin had in one form or another.

  His thoughts were guarded and his face inscrutable.

  She could not imagine what he was thinking when he looked at her. It had only been a little more than a year since she left Paradise Glades, but she was not the same innocent kid he had known. She had easily grown seven inches since then, and her left leg was now replaced with a robotic facsimile. Her face and arms were marred with scars, and her eyes jaded by trauma and loss.

  We are the choices we make…

  “Hey, kid,” he said with a small smile. “You’ve changed since the last time I saw you. Did you, uh, do something different with your hair?”

  With a burst of tearful laughter, Ari closed the distance between them and walked into the open arms of her friend, her chosen family, her Adam.

  “I’m so sorry about what the Shades did to you,” he breathed out with painful regret. “I couldn’t stop him. I was like a hitchhiker in my own body. I couldn’t stand his foul thoughts about you, and hearing my voice say those things… But I couldn’t do anything about it. I wasn’t strong enough to do anything but hold on. I’m so sorry.”

  She clutched the back of his shirt, flashing back to that horrific night at Jashar’s plantation. “I knew it wasn’t you saying those things. As soon as I saw the eyes…,” she rasped out through the sobs that hitched in her chest. “I thought you were gone.”

  He held her tighter. “But you still found me. I was able to hold on as long as I did, because I knew that you would. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

  “But I did,” Ari insisted, drawing back. “Because of me, your life as Adam Lennox is over. Jamie has lost her brother…”

  “Hey,” Adam said, stopping her. “I’m still here. Jamie hasn’t lost a thing. In fact, she’s gained a bigger family than she could have possibly imagined. All because of you. This,” he said, motioning to his altered body. “This was possible because of you. I am alive right now with unlimited potential at my fingertips, because a weird, skinny kid decided to pick my truck to hide in,” he said with a lopsided smile. “You saved me, kid; in more ways than one.” He let down his guard and she was able to see that he was still the man who had taken her in when she had nobody else. Still the one who had believed in her and had never given up on her.

  “…And I never will,” he said. “Like it or not, you’re stuck with me.”

  Good, because I couldn’t handle losing you again, she thought. But said instead with an exaggerated sigh, “Fine. I guess you you’re cool enough to be part of my superhero posse now.”

  Adam let out a huff of laughter. “Whatever, I was always cool enough. I just have flashier skills now.”

  Ari smiled, reveling in the ease in which they had slipped back into their old playful banter.

  “Well, I guess it’s time to go home,” she said, mustering up her courage.

  “Not quite yet,” he said, and she felt strangely deflated with a mix of relief and disappointment. “First, we’ve got to go help your friend Cam and his dad before it’s too late.”

  Chapter 20

  The last of Cam’s air floated up to the surface in a flurry of tiny bubbles.

  As the cerulean water pressed in around him, his clothes and boots felt like weights, pulling him down deeper and deeper.

  His empty burning lungs were spasming, desperately wanting to take in air that was not available. His rapidly weakening limbs refused to obey him as he continued to sink deeper. He was tempted to give in to the reflex and inhale, but he knew that would be a fatal mistake.

  The vision in his burning eyes was darkening around the edges and closing in. It reminded him of the ending of the old Looney Toons cartoons. He remembered watching them early in the morning, while his mom got ready for work. Sitting on the coffee table in his SpongeBob jammies with a big bowl of cereal in his lap, he’d be captivated by Bugs Bunny and his friends’ antics. Sometimes, during the commercial breaks he would look back at his mom sitting at their small kitchen table, sipping coffee and nibbling on toast. She would be gazing out the window at the rising sun beginning to illuminate the dark, early morning sky. He had not understood the look on her face then, only that she seemed tired and vaguely sad. Now he recognized it as the look of a weary warrior preparing for yet another battle. Bracing herself for another sucky day of work in a seemingly endless string of sucky days.

  Feeling his stare, she would turn her hazel eyes on him and the sadness would evaporate. Her smile would brighten her face like the dawn, letting him know that everything was right in his world. In response, he would either flash a big grin back at her, or pull a silly face to make her chuckle. When he was satisfied that he had lightened her mood, he would turn back to the TV once the commercials ended. But not this time. This time he scrambled off the coffee table and ran into the tiny kitchen. Crawling up onto her lap and wrapping her up in the biggest hug his little arms could give her. He breathed in the vanilla and almond scent of her skin, and held on so tightly, because he knew now that in a few short years from that moment she would be gone forever. He had to let her know how thankful he was – that all her hard work and sacrifice was not taken for granted.

  “I love you so much, Mommy,” he said with his five-year-old voice.

  “I love you too, baby,” she said with a kiss into his hair.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything,” he said with a whimper. “For loving me so completely, even though I look like the man who broke your heart. For working yourself to the bone to keep us afloat, and giving me a happy childhood. For putting up with my crazy little ass, even though all you probably wanted to do was rest.” He took in a shaky breath as tears stung his eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Mommy.”

  “But you did, my sweet boy. You saved me every day. You were my reason.”

  Without her having to say it, he knew what she meant. He had been her reason to get up every morning, her reason to endure her hardships with a courageous heart. He was her reason to keep smiling and to believe that life was good and still full of wondrous possibilities.

  Enveloped in his mother’s love, Cam was overcome with a warm peacefulness spreading through him as he floated in darkness towards a piercing brightness in the distance.

  “Seek out joy,” she whispered into his ear. “Embrace the genuine love and beauty that life offers. Let that be the measure of your days, not the hardship and heartache. And you’ll never be sorry.” Her presence let go and began to recede. “Live, my sweet boy. Live.”

  Cam was suddenly retching up seaw
ater, and coughing through his salt-scalded throat, while someone pounded on his back.

  When the reflexive coughing finally stopped, Cam fell back in an exhausted heap. Expanding his chest, he took in deep breaths of delicious air. The musical chattering of birds filled his ears, quickly followed by the sound of rushing water and rustling foliage. He felt someone smooth back his wet hair, then wipe his face with an unbelievably soft material. Cam’s eyes fluttered open to the loveliest sight he could have possibly hoped for. Leaning over him, water dripping off her like diamonds, and silhouetted by rays of sunlight filtering through palm leaves like a corona around her head – his love, his light, his Ari.

  “It’s so good to see those beautiful browns,” she said with a tearful smile, before she started to cry in earnest. “I thought I lost you…”

  Cam sat up and hugged her close; afraid it was all an illusion. “You’re here… you’re really here? You’ve come back to me?” he asked into her warm shoulder, entangling his fingers in her silky wet hair.

  “No matter what,” she whispered, clutching him tightly.

  “No matter what,” he echoed earnestly, before pulling back to rest his forehead against hers.

  Heat radiated off her skin. He lifted his head to check her eyes for signs of fever or illness, but instead, what he saw took his breath away. Twinkling flecks of opalescent colors he could barely comprehend filled her gorgeous blue eyes. It was like when she had amped him back in Chicago. “Are you amping me?”

  “No,” she breathed, looking just as intently into his eyes.

  He knew then that even without her help, he was able to see her truly. Looking into her dazzling eyes, he saw her – all the vast magnificence of her. He saw the pain and weariness she was trying to hide for his sake. He saw the same selfless bravery that he had seen in his mother’s eyes. Ari had suffered while she had been away – suffered deeply. His heart ached for her. He wanted to take all her pain away, but he could not and knew he should not. Grams always said that pain was an essential part of growth. He knew Ari had to work through it on her own so she could grow and progress. And he had no doubt that she would, because she was so incredibly strong. But he vowed that he’d be right there by her side to help her soar when she was ready.

  But what if I fall…, her voice whispered in his mind.

  Then we’ll fall together, he thought back. And if we get lost we’ll help each other find our way home. No matter what.

  Her overwhelming love flowed through and surrounded him as though he was engulfed in a blazing fire.

  A pleasant shiver moved through him, igniting a fire in his belly, as her warm fingers moved under the chain around his neck, pulling the coin that she had given him out from under his shirt. She cradled it in her trembling hand. “You still wear it.”

  “Always.”

  “I couldn’t let you go,” she said barely above a whisper. “I thought that I could do it to protect you, but …et lux perstat. The light that remained with me through the darkness…it was you. It’s always been you.”

  His head felt light with a weird drunken clarity, compelling him to lay his heart bare. His Ari was here, right in front of him. Time was never guaranteed. He had to let her know now, without an agenda, only honesty. “I’ll love you until my last breath and beyond, Ari. You’re my light. My north star… You are my reason.”

  More tears filled her eyes, as if she was seeing him, and everything in his heart. “You are my reason, too.”

  He took her trembling hand in his. Bringing it up to his lips, he placed a soft lingering kiss on the warm skin of her palm, infusing it will all his love for her. He heard her breath catch as her warmth seemed to spread into him. Bringing her hand back down, Cam could almost feel electricity arcing between their entwining fingers. Glancing up, he saw her gaze take him in and settle on his tingling lips, and he thought he caught the spark of attraction in her eyes. A primal passion took over, and his lips moved closer to hers with an undeniable pull. With extraordinary restraint, he stopped himself just short of brushing her lips with his, allowing her the choice to close the distance or to pull away if she wanted to. When he felt nothing but her quickening breaths against his skin, he drew back, scared that he had misinterpreted the signs and ruined everything.

  But there was no rejection on her face. She was not repulsed or disinterested. Instead, she seemed both shocked and ebullient by an earth-shattering revelation. He hadn’t misread the signs; she was just awestruck by the magnitude of her evolved feelings for him. She finally saw him the way he saw her.

  The spark of attraction in her eyes escalated to a burning desire – her pupils expanding into dark pools he could lose himself in. She wanted him. The full blast of her attraction exploded around them, making the air crackle with visible sparks. Every cell in his body ignited with a thrumming current – galvanizing his skin, as if there were fireworks pinwheeling beneath it. His heart beat so fast that he had a legitimate fear that it would explode. His sensory receptors felt as if they were on overdrive. He could feel everything around them pulsing with life. Pushed to his body’s physical limits, it felt as if he was about to die the most exquisite death. He welcomed it. The world melted away into nothingness. Colorful kaleidoscopic light splashed behind his eyelids, as the most enchanting atavistic music coursed through and around them. It felt as if their souls were entangling in an ethereal dance, reveling in the recognition of its long lost counterpart. He felt her love, her attraction, her grief, guilt and yearning for this moment to never end. Good, bad, and incomprehensible – he wanted all of her. He wanted to be hers and her to be his forever. For how could love like this ever truly end?

  In an intoxicating haze, they began moving slowly back together. The promise of unparalleled potential lay between them. But before their lips could close the distance, a loud screech shattered the glamour and reality crashed back in around them. A huge shadow skimmed overhead, making them both reflexively duck their heads.

  Ari disengaged, severing their spiritual union and causing the hypersensitive sensations to cease, leaving him feeling like an inert lump of clay left out in the cold dark night.

  With a broken heart, Cam sensed the barriers Ari immediately put up between them. Instead of owning and celebrating what had just happened between them, she was retreating from it, closing herself off and scooting away to put some distance between them.

  It cut deeply how easily and completely she had shut him out after what they had just shared – what they had declared to each other. He knew with every fiber of his being that she loved him just as much as he loved her, but she would not even look at him now. It was as if she was ashamed. Going back through everything that just happened he could not figure out what he had done wrong.

  Torn from his hurt and confusion, Cam was struck by the absolute impossibility of what was coming down towards them amidst billowing gusts of air.

  A gigantic golden eagle had its powerful talons gripped around Myles’s shoulders. The bird beat its enormous wings as it brought them both down to the other side of the freshwater stream – which Cam just realized was there – in the small clearing in the jungle. As if that wasn’t enough, as soon as Myles’s feet touched the ground, the ginormous bird transformed into a man with a flash of brilliant light. His hair and eyes were silver, and he was wearing an outfit that made him look like some kind of futuristic monk. The man exuded power like an aura around him – definitely not someone you’d want to pick a fight with.

  Myles seemed just as awestruck by what had just occurred as Cam, gaping at the man’s transformation with complete incredulity. The bird-man tipped his head towards where Cam and Ari still sat on the ground on the other side of the cascading stream. Myles turned his head and his eyes widened in shock and relief as he ran across the shallow water to envelop his son in his arms. “My boy… My beautiful, beautiful boy…” He grabbed Cam’s face between his hands, basking in the sight of him. “The blast pushed me away from the boat with a big wave. I was so
scared I lost you when you didn’t come up. I kept diving down, but I couldn’t find you.”

  Cam embraced his father in a fierce hug. He knew Myles would have kept diving down to search for him until he had exhausted himself. They had both nearly drowned because Cam had been cocky. I should have just gotten in the damn life raft. “I’m sorry, Dad. I thought I could neutralize the threat.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that we survived. Thanks to Ari and…” He looked back over at the strange bird-man-future-monk, who was now making his way across small cascades of the stream. His metallic-silver eyes were on Ari, who had just popped something into her mouth from a beaded leather pouch. After a brief moment of decadent pleasure crossed her face, she stood up. The two of them shared meaningful looks between them, as if they were communicating telepathically. There was a familiarity between them, and it finally struck Cam that Ari was wearing the same type of strange clothing as the bird-man-future-monk. Except, instead of looking like a future-monk, she looked more like a pageboy and a hippie got in a fight over who would dress her.

  Whoever this guy was, he had been with Ari wherever she had gone off to, and they had shared an experience that had obviously brought them close.

  A flare of toxic jealousy blazed through Cam. Tamping it down, he tried to smother it before it got out of control and he possessively raged-out. Bird-man-future-monk looked around Myles’s age. They’re just friends, psycho. Get it together.

  Cam also noticed that Ari had gotten taller. It had only been a couple months since he had last seen her, but she had changed. The soft edges and gawkiness of childhood were replaced with the self-possessed grace and poise of burgeoning adulthood. No one could mistake her for being human now. Every perfect curve of her powerful, majestic form told the story of her exceptional other-worldliness.

  The word “Maturity” scraped through his mind, like a grappling hook finding purchase to brutally rip him down from the clouds. Ari was leaving him behind to become the ultimate version of herself.