Into the Real

by Z Brewer

  Kai appeared to my left. I hadn’t seen him step up, but I could see the gun in his hand, pointed right at Lloyd’s head. “One bullet, Lloyd. That’s all it takes. Think about it. Let him go.”

  A strange sensation washed over me, and I realized to my shock that I was concerned not just for Lloyd’s life, but for Caleb’s. The whisper of a voice—my voice—passed through my mind.

  “We’d better get going. They hunt in twos. One attacks, and if the attacker dies, the other is ready to go in for the kill on the weakened prey.”

  They were words I’d spoken to Caleb. But when? Why?

  Lloyd turned, revealing a gleam of metal in his right hand. In addition to the knife, he was pressing the barrel of a gun into Caleb’s back. His glare hardened. “Like you said, Kai. One bullet. That’s all it takes.”

  Kai seemed to weigh his options. On one hand, he’d never been a person to give up something without a fight. On the other, he had to calculate if he could plant a bullet in Lloyd’s brain before Lloyd planted one in Caleb’s spine.

  Caleb didn’t appear to be a fan of insubordination. “I said to stand down.”

  Shame washed over Kai’s features, and he stepped back, holstering his weapon.

  I recalled Caleb and me sharing a bonding moment—we’d just done something brave and terrible together. But I couldn’t put my finger on when. It had happened. But where? My head swam.

  Lloyd kept his weapons trained on Caleb, but he looked over at the few Resistance fighters who had escaped murder thanks to his bravery. “Stevens, Garret. Help Quinn walk. Be careful. He’s bleeding pretty bad.”

  For a strange, surreal moment, I felt bad for whoever that Quinn person was. Then the burning pain at my center reminded me it was me.

  Lloyd barked into Caleb’s ear, “Order your people to disperse. Now.”

  When Caleb spoke, it sounded like he had to choke the words out. “Kai. Take the men and return to base.”

  It took a few lingering seconds for Kai to obey. His gaze swept over me as he turned to leave, and when he met my eyes, the corner of his mouth tugged downward. Disappointment? Regret? Maybe he felt a pang of guilt over following the orders of a man who’d just gutted his only sibling. Maybe not. I’d never know.

  He rounded up the troops. As quickly as I’d become a thought in his head, I was dismissed as an afterthought.

  As Lloyd had ordered, Garret knelt beside me, looking more than a little concerned about the still-spreading blood at my center. He said, “Sir? Stevens and I are going to help you stand up. We’ll carry you back to base after that.”

  “I can walk.” I’d intended to come off sounding determined, but my voice betrayed my weakness. I was bleeding. I was dying.

  He and Stevens exchanged glances of disbelief. Then Stevens said to me, “Sir, please. Let us help you.”

  Truth be told, I wasn’t certain that I could get to my feet on my own, let alone get back to base. But I couldn’t appear weak—not in front of Caleb, not in front of Kai. “Then help me walk. I don’t want those bastards to see me getting carried out of here.”

  “You got it.”

  Stevens and Garret each put an arm around me, and with a look of trepidation in his eyes, Garret said, “You ready for this? Because it’s gonna hurt like a mother. On three.”

  I wasn’t ready—that much I knew. But I also knew I couldn’t stay where I was, or I’d die for certain. I gave a nod, even though my entire body was screaming no.

  “One. Two. Three.” They lifted me, and a hot white pain shot through me. It was the last thing I could recall before the world crumbled inward and I was left with patches of memory—a damaged filmstrip that had been taped together again with clumsy, shaking fingers.

  The night sky, full of stars. Sounds of far-off voices and the coolness of the air lapping at my hot skin like an animal trying to help me heal.

  Black. A darkness so deep and all-encompassing that it filled me with delirious fear. In a strange panic, I searched the black for comfort, but found none.

  I stretched my memory as far as I was able, trying to recall the exchange with Caleb that I was certain I’d experienced. We’d been on the same side for a time. Fighting . . . someone. No. Something.

  The image of razor-sharp teeth and sinewy muscles moving beneath translucent skin flashed through my mind.

  The Rippers. How had I forgotten the Rippers?

  Brume was different there. I was different too. I stretched my mind outwardly, trying to grasp more details of the memory, but couldn’t. I had to be hallucinating again, losing my grip. The price of waging this war was losing my mind.

  A swirl of people and antiseptic smells. Voices surrounded me, but none really permeated the strange, invisible veil in my brain. It was as if I existed on another plane, and no one and nothing could break through. What was it medieval philosophers had believed? That the world was made of five elements—earth, air, fire, water . . . and something.

  Aether. That was it. I was in the aether. The purest element that permeated the celestial sphere. Where war, bigotry, gender constructs, and weapons didn’t exist. Part of me wanted very much to stay there forever.

  “Will he live?” A familiar voice, deep and assertive.

  “Of course he’ll live.” Even though my eyes were closed, I knew the second speaker to be Lia. Which meant that I was back at the school. The hospital. And suddenly, the veil was gone. “He’s lucky. The blade seems to have punctured his stomach but missed any other vital organs.”

  The familiar voice that had spoken first sighed. “Sounds like we’re all lucky. The Resistance wouldn’t be the same without Quinn.”

  Lia’s voice dropped to a hushed tone. She sounded worried, despite her assurances. “Nothing would.”

  Forcing my eyes open, at first I saw rectangles drawn in the sky. Blinking, I recognized the ceiling tiles of the school and relaxed some. I was definitely back at base, and I was going to be okay. Lia had said so.

  Lia.

  My head began to clear. When I looked at Lia, I found her double-checking the saline bag that was attached to the tube in my left arm. I croaked, “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  Her eyes snapped to mine, and she bent over me, kissing my forehead, hugging me to her chest. “Oh, Quinn. I’m so glad you’re okay. I was worried.”

  “We all were. You lost a lot of blood. Lucky for you, I’m your type.” Lloyd sat in a chair beside the gurney I was lying on, a tube running from his left arm to my right. A blood transfusion. No one could say he’d never given me anything.

  “You are definitely not my type, Lloyd.” I laughed, but the pain in my abdomen cut my humor short. “Where’s Caleb?”

  Lia wrinkled her nose in disgust and removed the tube from Lloyd’s arm, pressing a cotton ball into the small hole left behind. Lloyd held the cotton in place and Lia removed the needle from my arm as well, but left the one attached to the saline bag in my other arm. She tossed the needles and tube into a red trash bin and stepped into the doorway closest to us, where the medicines were stored. Lloyd said, “He’s chained up downstairs. Seemed like a good place to keep him. I have two guards on him now. Think we should double it?”

  When I shook my head, my vision went soft and a sort of giddiness washed over me. It had to be from pain medication. I thought of the soldiers we lost and felt giddiness give way to remorse. But knowing that the sacrifice my men had paid—that my orders had led to a good result at the end—filled me with hope. “Caleb won’t be a problem. It’s his people we have to worry about. Get as many soldiers as you can to guard this building. Kai won’t abandon his leader. Especially not after the conversation you two had back there.”

  “Understood. I’ll get Stevens on it right away.” Lloyd shook his head, releasing a sigh that spoke volumes. With his free hand, he reached up and scratched his scarred cheek. “Your brother never was my biggest fan.”

  For a moment, Lloyd’s voice echoed through my memory. But it wasn’t this Lloyd. It was some o
ther Lloyd. From some other place. “Welcome to the family, Quinn.”

  Clearing my throat, I said, “Where’d you get that scar?”

  “Not surprised your memory’s foggy, with all you’ve been through.” He ran a finger over the X shape on his cheek. “A gift from Kai last year, remember? As he was questioning my loyalty to our cause.”

  A scar. A question of loyalty.

  Here my brother had done that to Lloyd. But somewhere else, another time—maybe another Brume, as crazy as that sounded—it was Lloyd himself. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did.

  Trying to determine how those things could both be true made my head ache. It felt like a puzzle that was too far beyond my abilities to comprehend. Shaking my head, I said, “I guess you never really know a person.”

  Lloyd shrugged. “I guess not.”

  The realization that I’d never given Lloyd a chance to know me, to really know me, and I had a second chance to do so now, hit me hard. How was I to know how he’d react to my truth? It felt like I’d been lying to him all this time. After all, the intentional omission of the truth is just that—a lie.

  “Listen . . .” I swallowed hard, wanting to continue the conversation I’d attempted with him about the hypocrisy of the Resistance—about how I was feeling more and more like I didn’t fit into the male role that society had dictated. Wanting to lay my soul bare to my best friend and trust that he’d have my back once again, as always.

  But then Lia returned with a vial in her hand and filled a syringe with its contents. As she moved to inject the medication into a port on my IV, I grabbed her arm. “Supplies are low. Save it for someone else.”

  She said, “Don’t be ridiculous. You need this.”

  Certain that Kai would be planning a counterattack, I shook my head, wanting to keep my mind clear. “Don’t give me anything to make me sleep.”

  Taking my concern for stubbornness, she sighed and pushed the plunger. My arm burned for just a second but righted itself. She said, “This is for pain. A side effect is that you may get sleepy, but it’s that or hurt like hell. And I’ll be damned if you’re suffering under my care. Got it?”

  A false smile touched my lips. She’d patched me up a hundred times. It felt so safe to be in her care. Like coming home. But I wasn’t in the mood to smile. I was feeling remorseful and angry and confused and so many other things that my head was spinning. Relaxing back into my pillow, I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  The smile didn’t last long. The moment Lia turned away to move on to assist one of the doctors with their next patient, it faded. There was too much to share with her. My truth, yes, but also the strange impression that I existed on another plane of being.

  Lloyd noticed my shift in mood right away. “You look troubled, sir.”

  The last word made me wince. “Drop the ‘sir,’ Lloyd.”

  He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and kept his voice low, so that only I could hear it. “What’s on your mind, Quinn? You seem a million miles away.”

  My head felt strange from the medication, but the pain in my stomach receded. It was embarrassing to talk about my recent hallucinations, but if I could confide in anyone about it, it was Lloyd. I said, “Do you ever have memories of situations that couldn’t have happened?”

  “You mean déjà vu?”

  “No, more than that. Like . . . actual memories and a nagging feeling that you really experienced those moments.”

  An image flashed in the forefront of my mind. Dead, lidless eyes. Sharp teeth. Clawed hands. Rippers. Fucking Rippers.

  He chuckled and sat up again. “What did she put in that IV anyway?”

  I barked, “I’m dead serious.”

  He gauged my reaction—and perhaps my sanity—for a moment, before leaning close again. “So . . . what? Are you experiencing some kind of personality break or something?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s almost like I’ve experienced other lives. The same people are there, but . . . life is different.” I still wasn’t sure exactly how different. There were several pieces to this multilevel puzzle, and I only held a few of them. “If I’m actually living them, that is, and not losing my damn mind to PTSD.”

  “Am I in these other lives?” I couldn’t determine whether or not he was pandering to me.

  “I believe so.” I hadn’t counted on it making me feel weak to discuss what I thought was happening. Was this just another one of those times when I was supposed to “man up”? “I have a feeling we don’t like each other in one of them.”

  “That alone should show it can’t be real.” He forced a smile, but he couldn’t hide the concern in his eyes. He probably thought I was going crazy. He wasn’t the only one. “You should get some rest.”

  As Lloyd stood and made his way down the hall, I caught a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. When I turned my head, I saw the Stranger standing there, now wearing filthy scrubs and a pleased expression. “You’re waking up.”

  People moved about the ward I was in without giving him so much as a glance. It was enough to make me wonder if they could even see him.

  “I’ve seen you before. Here, but there too.” I was growing more certain about my memories. In one life I was trying to get back to Lia. She and I—

  The memory hit me fast and hard. The bracelet on my wrist that had been a gift from Kai. The love letter from Lia. Leaning in to kiss Caleb. Quietly, I said, “There, I’m . . . different.”

  He blew out a mouthful of smoke as he spoke. I hadn’t noticed he’d been clutching a cigarette between two fingers until just then. “Almost fully awake. You’re full of surprises. None I can’t see coming, but still.”

  I met his eyes. They were dark—so dark they appeared black. For a moment they looked like snakeskin, but it had to be a trick of the light. “You’re a gardener there.”

  The corners of his mouth curled upward. The simplest gesture—a smile, a nod—looked unnatural and devious on him. “Am I, now? Are you so sure of that? Or is that just your interpretation?”

  I strained to grasp the threads of my memory. “You may not be a gardener, but you are a man.”

  He met my eyes with a sinister grin. “Am I, now?”

  My chest tightened. Just like it had that day in the school with Caleb. The day I saw black spindly arms dragging a creature’s large body through a doorway. The day I finally saw—

  I swallowed hard, sitting up as much as I was able. My breaths were coming fast; I was panicking at my realization. The answers, they were all there. How had I forgotten? It was real. It was all real. “I know you. Your name is Coe. You turned Lia’s mother into a monster. You put that rubber hose between my teeth before I was electrocuted. You broke my life into thirds, and changed things. I know you, Coe.”

  A satisfied smile settled on his lips.

  “And I know me,” I continued. “I’m not male at all where the Rippers roam. Or female. I’m . . . I’m . . .” A nurse approached, syringe in hand. She didn’t even look at the Stranger, which made me wonder if he was invisible to all but me. Was he all in my head? After checking my chart, she filled a syringe and injected something into my IV. For a moment, I recalled the story of Alice falling down the rabbit hole. My world began to fade fast, but not before I heard Coe speak.

  “Sweet dreams, shattered Quinn.”

  The chuckle that followed his words echoed down into the deep hole of sleep I fell into, the soundtrack to my nightmares.

  11

  When I opened my eyes again, the Stranger was gone. A single word clung to the cobwebs of my mind.

  Genderqueer.

  My IV was still attached, but my head was feeling clearer, so the medication must have worn off some. My center was sore but had downgraded from painful to tender. Not at all the blinding pain that it had been before I’d been brought back to the school. I strained to recall every detail of the conversation I’d had with the Stranger, but it was fuzzy.

  Carefully, I sat up, then placed my feet on
the floor, gauging my pain level before attempting to stand. There was no way I was going to ask any of the medical staff if I could get up and move around. Medical folks always wanted patients to rest, and that was something I just couldn’t afford at the moment. The leader of the Allegiance was in my base of operations, and I’d be damned if I was going to lie around in bed when the path to peace was finally in our custody.

  The tape and needle stung as I ripped out my IV, but I wasn’t about to carry the damn bag with me downstairs. Bad enough that so many had seen the face of the Resistance lying wounded on a gurney. What they needed was to see me strong and steady. They needed hope. They needed confidence in my ability to lead. Especially now.

  “Oh, but wait. I owe you something, don’t I?”

  Ignoring the echo of Lloyd’s voice in my head, I slipped out the front and repeated to myself that the Lloyd in this Brume was my trusted friend. Not like the jackass he was there, in that place where bloodthirsty creatures roamed free.

  It was real, that place. I was certain of it, which meant that the mirror was also real. And Coe was real too. What did that say about me?

  I arrived at the door to the base unseen by anyone with the authority to stop me. Stewart was on guard duty. We exchanged greetings as I punched the code and let myself in. Just inside stood two guards—Ames and Drew, exactly who I’d have chosen to watch over our guest.

  Caleb was sitting on a metal chair in the center of the room. He looked relatively well, which meant that whoever had brought him back to base had resisted the understandable urge to beat the crap out of him for good measure. His wrists were handcuffed. His ankles were shackled to the table in front of him.

  As I approached, Ames and Drew straightened. We’d worked together against the tyranny of the Allegiance long before I’d become the face of the Resistance. Back when I was just Quinn, a person ready to do anything for our freedom, but who had no idea how to load a gun, let alone fire one. I’d been against weaponry of any kind when I was younger. But once an Allegiance soldier had pinned me to the ground with his boot and aimed his rifle at my head, my views on violence shifted. I still hated guns. But sometimes, when the world is full of monsters trying to take you down, you have to become a monster yourself just to survive.