by Chloe Garner
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, spilling tears on his face. “I didn’t ever believe, and now when I did… I’m sorry.”
“Tears are bad luck,” Dennis said. She looked up at him, startled, and he continued on as though he hadn’t spoken. She put her hand over her mouth again, and Trevor’s arm found its way around her waist.
“Keep moving,” he said. “Stopping doesn’t help anything right now. Just keep moving.”
***
The bus ride was infinite.
She wished she’d had her car, as she watched the traffic roll past them stop after stop after stop, but there wasn’t anything she could do to go faster. A cab, maybe, she thought belatedly, though she wasn’t sure that it would take any less time to get to her than she was going to waste on the bus, at this point. Trevor sat next to her, quiet, and she couldn’t read how worried he was.
“How bad is it?” she asked. He shook his head.
“Not here.”
She looked around. The bus was crowded at this hour, and there were people in all of the seats around them. She put her hands over her eyes, wishing for her car, wishing for space to talk, wishing she’d known, wishing she was at home watching over Robbie.
“What can I do?” she finally asked. “When we get there, what can I do?”
“Not here,” Trevor said again more forcefully, looking at her with what might have been anger. “I said not here.”
Hours and hours and hours later, she finally got up and stood, waiting for the bus to come to rest at the stop at the end of the street, running down the stairs and then all the way to the house. The front door was unlocked, and Robbie was laying across the center couch. Dennis was on the side couch and the other young man was sitting on the arm of the center couch, still and quiet. Lizzie fell on her knees next to Robbie, feeling his face. He was clammy, cold, but he still had a pulse and she could feel his breath on the back of her hand.
The door opened and closed behind her.
“How bad is it?” she demanded without turning.
“Bad,” Trevor said, soft footsteps crossing behind her to his chair. “But not necessarily terminal. He flipped. He’s on the other side of a vision, now, seeing some of the most powerful stuff a furling could ever dream up. We’ve all done it - gotten hit by a furling during a battle and ended up in a bad flip - but I’ve never known anyone to get hit by the last furling after it blows up. We let them go for a reason.”
“What’s going to happen?” Lizzie asked.
“He’s got to get through it,” Trevor said. “It’s stressful, scary, to be on that side of a flip, and it’s going to put a big strain on his body. He might not survive that.”
She dropped her head.
“What can I do?”
“This is where the meds you threw out would have come in handy,” Trevor said. “Beyond that, there’s really nothing we can do but wait.”
“I still have them,” Lizzie realized out loud. “They’re under the seat in my car.”
Dennis sprang to his feet, going to her purse and stealing the keys out of it. A minute later, he dropped the bag on the floor next to her.
“Sedatives take the edge off the vision. Make it feel a little less real. Stimulants keep your body going while you’re in it. A lot of the anti-psychotics actually do a good job disrupting them. If they can’t get a vision really going, it can’t get that bad,” he said. She looked at him, but he was pawing through the bag, setting bottles of pills on the table behind them. He held up the bag of marijuana.
“He’s going to wish he could have that.”
She frowned and he grinned, then looked back at Trevor.
“These will do it,” the forked-tongued man said.
“All right,” Trevor said. “Be careful.”
Dennis nodded quickly, playing half of a split tongue along his upper lip.
“Sit him up?”
She realized Dennis was talking to her. She got an arm under Robbie’s shoulders and hesitated.
Did she really trust this man with the solid body of tattoos and a split tongue to be able to administer a cocktail of unrelated drugs such that they wouldn’t kill Robbie? If he did die, she would never know for sure what killed him.
She looked back at Trevor, who shrugged.
“It doesn’t happen to me,” he said. “Not like it does to them.”
She bit her lip and nodded. She either believed it or she didn’t. Pulled Robbie’s head up off of the couch and propped him up with her shoulder. Dennis gave her an affirming little nod, then put the first pill in Robbie’s mouth. For a long moment, Lizzie worried that there would be no way to make Robbie take the pill, but Dennis grabbed a section of flesh on the back of Robbie’s arm and twisted it hard, and Robbie closed his mouth and swallowed.
“He’s still here,” Dennis said, loading the next pill into Robbie’s mouth. “It’s just a lot louder on the other side. He knows what it means.”
Swallowing a pill that you didn’t know was there sounded like a good way to choke on it, Lizzie thought, but it looked like it was working, so she kept her thoughts to herself. After a couple of minutes, the pills were gone and Dennis nodded.
“Still no way to know,” Trevor said, “but that’s all we can do for him.”
Lizzie nodded and sat down on the ground. No one had to say anything, because after Dennis reclaimed his seat on the side couch, no one else moved. They sat. They watched. They waited.
***
Around dawn, Robbie groaned, rolled onto his side, and started snoring. Trevor got up and took Lizzie’s hand and kissed it.
“Time for bed,” he said. She motioned to Robbie and Trevor nodded. “He’s going to make it.”
***
She was there when Robbie woke up later that afternoon. Trevor had been gone for a little more than an hour, and she hadn’t asked where he was going.
Robbie rolled onto his back and stared up at the skylights with a hand across his forehead for a long time.
“I can’t believe you let Dennis drug me,” he finally said. “I almost didn’t take it, not knowing where he got it.”
“They were yours,” Lizzie said. He looked over at her.
“You didn’t throw them out?”
She shook her head.
“I meant to. I just didn’t know whose trash can I wanted to burden with that much contraband.”
He sighed and looked back up at the ceiling.
“Don’t do that again, okay?”
“You know I can’t promise not to make big mistakes,” she said. “Trevor said you saved my life.”
His hand slid down over his eyes and there was a groan.
“The things… everything. It’s nothing. Not to them. It’s all nothing.”
She wanted to argue with him, but didn’t know where to start, from there, so she didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she said instead. He looked at her again.
“You found it, though. Didn’t you? The energy?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I just couldn’t do anything.”
“That’s because you’re weak,” he said with an attempt at a smile. He looked away, like looking at her was just too much effort.
“Trevor says we won,” she said. He laughed dryly.
“You think that matters?”
“Maybe,” she said.
He laughed again.
“You can’t do this.”
“Robbie…”
He looked at her, hard.
“Lara took her entire life learning how to do it, and they killed her. What hope do you have?”
She paused for a moment, looking for the right answer to that, then nodded firmly.
“Enough,” she said. “I have enough hope to be worth trying.”
He grunted and wove his fingers over his eyes, writhing for a moment.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “What can I do?”
“The ideas hurt,” he said. “They’re in my head and I can’t get them out and they hurt.�
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“You want whiskey?” she asked. He dropped his hands and sat up slightly.
“You don’t approve of me drinking real liquor,” he said. She shrugged.
“I watched Dennis give you an unknown cocktail of stuff last night. Maybe times are changing.”
He put his head back down.
“Double.”
She got up and brought back a water glass and the bottle, leaving it on the table for him to pour himself. He drank straight out of the bottle and let it drop back onto the table.
“They’re going to kill you,” he said. “They showed me.”
“Today?” she asked. He shook his head, looking at her with despondent eyes.
“I don’t know. Someday.”
“That’s why we fight them, isn’t it?” she asked. “Because they’re evil and like to make you miserable?”
“No, we fight them because if we don’t, they’ll destroy the world. I saw that, too.”
She glowered, but he wasn’t watching her to know about it.
“I thought you died,” she said after a second.
“You would have,” he answered.
“I get it,” she said. “I just… I realized I could stop it.”
He nodded.
“Lara could take one of the big ones, if it wasn’t too big, but it knocked her flat for about a week after. They’d raid the house just because they could. I don’t think you’ll ever be that strong.”
“I’m going to try,” she said. “I know I’ve got big shoes to fill…”
“You aren’t ever going to be her,” Robbie said. “You can’t do that.”
She sat back a bit, telling herself that he was upset because he didn’t feel well, and he was lashing out at her because he was angry and hurt, but that didn’t help much.
“Well,” she said, standing. “I’m all you’ve got, so we’re just going to have to do the best we can.”
He groaned.
“Lizzie,” he said. “Lizzie, don’t. I’m sorry.”
She looked down at him and he looked at her through his fingers.
“Don’t die,” he said.
She kicked him in the side, just hard enough to get a good grunt out of him.
“You either.”
He nodded, closing his fingers again.
“Deal.”
***
Trevor was waiting in her room when she got there, determined to write the e-mail to her boss, this time, and explain… something. He was sitting on the bed looking at a television that she had hung but not plugged in yet, his fingers woven behind his head.
“It’s art, I think,” he said.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“A flat-screen TV with no power,” he answered, and she looked over at him.
“It’s just gray glass,” she said, and he grinned.
“You’ve got no vision.”
“How did you get in here?” she asked. “I watched you leave.”
“I’m sneaky,” he said.
“The window?” she asked, and he nodded.
“The window.”
“Why?”
“Because Robbie’s going to lecture me when he sees me next, and I don’t feel like it,” he said. “I think if I’m clever, I can avoid him for the rest of our lives.”
Lizzie laughed and hopped onto the bed next to him.
“I don’t see that working out, but it sounds like fun to watch.”
He grinned wider, and hooked his fingers around the back of her neck. She pulled away.
“I’m here to get something done,” she said.
“Good,” he said, reaching again. “Just so long as we both know that you meant to get something done, and that you aren’t actually going to get it done, we’re on the same page.”
She dodged.
“I’m going to e-mail my boss.”
He settled, shifting his hips back and forth.
“And tell him what?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Don’t you think you should know what you’re going to write before you write it?” he asked.
“Won’t know what I’m going to say until I say it,” she said. “It will come to me.”
“Is that how it works?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“That’s how it’s going to work, this time,” she said, pulling her laptop from under the bed and sitting down with it in her lap.
“You’re sure,” Trevor said, leaning in closer. “You’re sure you don’t want to wait until you know what you’re going to say?”
“I’m sure,” she said, opening her laptop. He ran the backs of his fingers up the side of her thigh.
“See, I’m all for not knowing what’s going to happen before it happens, but that’s me, and you’re you. You want to know all the details in advance, like a board game. Like chess.”
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked, and he grinned, playing with the edge of her shirt so that his fingertips brushed against her skin.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just like the rush of not knowing. Just going for it.”
The muscles in her side jumped and danced and she tried not to shimmy away. He edged closer.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he said. “You might sit there and write your e-mail and you might… not.”
“Robbie almost died last night,” she said. He shrugged.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
His whole palm turned to lay on her stomach, running up to roll his fingers over her ribs. She licked her lips and looked at him to tell him off, but he met her mouth with his, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling her across the bed and on top of him. There was a thump somewhere over that direction as her laptop hit the floor. She bit his lips and pulled away once more to tell him that she had work to do, but it was a lost cause. His hand was tangled in her hair and her skin was hot under his hand and it would surely wait one more day if it had already waited this long.
***
Two weeks went by. They didn’t have any more major encounters, though Lizzie got the okay from both Robbie and Trevor to absorb any furlings that came into the house. Suddenly they got quite scarce.
Robbie was still recovering, and sore at her more days than not, but she did get occasional good days, when he laughed with her and watched television and ate fast food. He went out with Trevor from time to time without telling her why or where, and she did her best to tolerate it. She washed clothes and dishes, cooked meals, and did her best to tend to the plants outside, thought she felt distinctly like if she touched them too often, they were all just going to wilt and die. It wasn’t bad, but it had a distinct sense of something that was going to happen next.
She went for walks with Trevor at night. He was most alive after the sun went down, and they talked about everything. He made her smile and laugh and he couldn’t keep his hands off of her, which was inconvenient, since she didn’t want to have sex everywhere, but at the same time enervating and thrilling and intoxicating, not to mention flattering. No one had ever seen her like that, and he became a hot point in her life every time he came into the room, something she was aware of, no matter how far out of her range of vision he got, something that felt like combustion at touch, like magnets at distance.
One morning not long after sunrise, he came into her room and leaned against the door. She sat up. She’d been staring at her laptop for an hour, now, looking at the first four words in an e-mail to her boss. She was still getting nowhere on this.
“Today,” he said.
“What about it?” she asked.
“Get dressed,” he said. “The way you want to look when you get married.”
She’d almost forgotten. Not really, but it was like the e-mail. It was something that she’d expected to take a lot of energy to finally make it work, and she was content enough with how things were working to ignore the things that were hard to do.
“Really?” she asked. He nodded.
“Rob
bie is going to drive you,” Trevor said, then left. She stood, already arguing with him, but even as she chased him out of the house, he was gone. Robbie was sitting on the couch looking unamused.
“This is a bad idea,” he said.
“What’s happening?” she asked. He threw his hands out to the sides, letting them fall limp back onto the couch.
“You’re the one who agreed to marry him.”
“But what’s happening?” she asked.
“He said to get dressed and meet him,” Robbie said.
“Where?” Lizzie asked. He shrugged.
“He said not to tell you.”
She came to stand directly in front of him.
“If I don’t like this, I’m not going along with it,” she said. He looked up at her with dull eyes.
“I don’t want you to go along with it, either way,” he said and stood. She watched as he went back to his room and closed the door with perhaps more force than was necessary, then she went to her own closet and opened it, standing in front of it for a long time.
She’d said she wanted to get dressed up, but she had no idea what that meant, really. She took a shower instead, then stood in front of her closet again in a towel.
She wanted to look special. To feel special. She didn’t want or need a big frilly dress that was impossible to walk around in, but without that, she didn’t really have any guide on what she did want to wear. She gave up and put on jeans and a t-shirt and went to find Robbie in the front room. He raised an eyebrow at her.
“An hour getting dressed and that’s what you managed?”
“We’re going shopping,” she said. “And because you won’t tell me where we’re going, you get to drive me and you get to wait while I try things on.”
He groaned and dropped his head into his hands, then drew himself up again and took keys out of his pocket.
“Should you really be driving, when you never know when you’re going to flip?” she asked.
“Depends on how you look at it,” he said, letting her in the passenger side before going to the driver’s side and getting in, himself. She raised an eyebrow at him and he smiled.
“I figure they aren’t going to kill me when they’ve had so much fun making me miserable all these years. But if you don’t think that’s enough proof that it’s safe… no. Probably not.”
