Into the Real

by Z Brewer

  It was Ames who spoke first, and he did so with a modicum of suspicion. “Sir, I thought you were injured.”

  My left hand went instinctively to the thick bandages on my midsection. “I’m fine. Give me a moment alone with the prisoner.”

  “Sir?” Drew looked hesitant to follow my order.

  Straightening my shoulders, I managed to resist the urge to wince at the pain. “I need privacy to discuss the situation with our guest, soldiers. You’re dismissed for the time being.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” Ames unlocked the door, and the two of them stepped outside.

  The moment the door’s lock was engaged, Caleb flashed me an arrogant smile, but it was too thin to hold weight. His eyes betrayed him with a subtle flash of fear. “I’m glad you came to kill me personally. I would’ve been insulted otherwise.”

  “I didn’t come to kill you.” I spoke the truth. After all, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of becoming a martyr. “Don’t get me wrong. We’ll see how things go, but I didn’t drag my happy ass all the way down here with the intent to end your life.”

  He nodded slowly, as if he almost believed me. I thought about the way he’d laced his fingers with Lloyd’s through the bars of the Serenity Hut, the way he’d handed me the knife when it was time to kill the Ripper. Caleb was my ally—maybe even my friend—in the other Brumes. Surely that meant he could be my ally here, too.

  Stop it, Quinn. One life at a time.

  With a sigh, he said, “So why are you here?”

  “I’m here because I’m trying to figure out what to do with you.” With only a small wince of pain, I threw one leg over the seat of the empty chair facing him and sat, squaring off against my worst enemy. Worst. But not only. “Thanks for pointing out the first option, by the way.”

  He weighed my words for a moment in an attempt to decode what it was that I wanted from him if not his death. “I’m not intimidated by you, so I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish during this little visit. If you want information, you should know I’d rather die than betray the Allegiance.”

  I was sick of his bullshit already and I hadn’t been in the room for a full minute. If we were going to get anywhere, it was going to be because I could find a way to reach through the fog of our feud. “You seem fixated on me killing you, Caleb. Let’s move on from that for a moment and focus on something that I’m very keen to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Was killing your father worth it, just to take his place as leader of the Allegiance?”

  The corner of his mouth tugged up in a smile. “I like you, Quinn. You don’t fuck around.”

  That I didn’t. Not when it came to asking questions that no one else seemed bold enough to ask. “I’d be lying if I said the feeling was mutual.”

  “It’s true, I killed him. Old bastard put up quite a fight too. But yes . . . it was worth it.” A disturbing look of pride washed over him, filling me with disgust. He gauged me in silence for a moment. “How’d you know?”

  I shrugged. “Just a theory I had. Do the other Allegiance high-ups know?”

  “As far as I can tell, only three people do. Me, you, and the departed general.” Resting his cuffed hands on the table, he said, “So why haven’t you killed me yet? Isn’t taking down the Allegiance your little group’s main goal?”

  I met his steely gaze and softened my expression as much as I was able. “Have my parents spoken of me? Has my brother?”

  Silence fell between us. I’d surprised him. But he soon gathered himself.

  “Many times. In the past few years, your parents have proven themselves to be quite dedicated to the Allegiance. In fact, they’ve been invaluable supporters of our cause. They just hosted a fundraising dinner at my home in Charleston last week.” His tone was casual, as if we were old friends catching up. In a way, if I thought about the Caleb I knew in the other Brumes, we were. “And Kai, as I’m sure you know, serves me well. I couldn’t have chosen a more loyal second-in-command. I’m sure they would welcome you with open arms if you came to your senses and joined the Allegiance.”

  It was hard to imagine my family missing me. Intel over the past two years had given me the impression that I was no better than an unfortunate memory to them. But even so, I couldn’t deny my curiosity. My family may not have been my biggest fans, but they were still my family, and for that, I yearned. But not enough to betray all that I’d fought for.

  “I miss them, you know,” I said. “This war. It’s cost all of us so much. Friends, family. Lives . . .” Locked in the forefront of my mind was the image of Kai moving from one person to another, pulling the trigger without remorse. Each shot reverberated through my memory. So many lives taken, and for what? Vengeance? Stolen goods? Ego? Genuine tears threatened to well in my eyes, but I swallowed them down. “I hate Kai for following your orders back there and killing my people. But I hate you more for ordering him to do it.”

  “You would have done the same thing if the situation had been reversed.” His tone wasn’t a defensive one. It just . . . was.

  “Never.”

  He cocked a sharp, disbelieving eyebrow. “You’re telling me that if my troops and I invaded this building, stole supplies, and set off fiery explosions that murdered people you know and worked with—fought alongside for your mutual cause—you wouldn’t have hunted us down? You would have let us go, or if you did manage to catch up with us, you would’ve simply rapped us on the knuckles? That’s some bullshit right there, Quinn, and we both know it.”

  He was right. It was bullshit. But looking at it from his point of view didn’t silence the sound of gunshots that was still ringing in my memory. “I want this war to stop.”

  “Then surrender.” The corners of his mouth lifted in a derisive smile.

  “Good one.” I sighed, moving on to the next phase of my plan. It was now or never. Caleb would either be interested in talking of a road to peace, or he wouldn’t. My throat felt dry. “Neither of us is willing to surrender, but maybe we can find somewhere in the middle that would satisfy both sides. I can’t make the final call for the Resistance—after all, I’m only in charge of our base here in Brume—but I can try to convince my people to trust that your cooperation is sincere. If it is, of course. Don’t try to deceive me, Caleb. I’ll know it. I’ve been betrayed enough in my life to know a lie from truth.”

  He leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

  “We both know that the Allegiance isn’t doing as well as you’d have people think. Ending this war would save lives—your people and mine.” I flashed him a pointed glance. “Correct me if I’m mistaken, but my understanding is that the Allegiance wants all people to fall under one rule. The Resistance wants people to be ruled by no one. I propose that we make a deal and draw a line on the map. Those who want to be ruled by the Allegiance can move to whatever land we agree is yours, and those who want to be free move to our side.”

  “Are you actually suggesting we give you land to call your own?”

  “I’m suggesting a compromise that will save lives on both sides. Because if we don’t end this war soon, you and I both know that you will die—and you can trust that it will be by my hand—and your cause will suffer because of it. Your father established the Allegiance to act like a shepherd leading sheep—a doctrine we both know you believe—and with their shepherd gone, the sheep will scatter.” I was appealing to his sense of reason now. The truth of my next words was so heavy that it weighed on them until they cracked. “If an agreement that leads to peace is not achieved, eventually, we will all die—every one of us—and have nothing to show for it but bloodshed.”

  Caleb cleared his throat without meeting my eyes. “What you’re suggesting is . . . it’s . . . interesting. Impossible, some might say, but intriguing nonetheless. Where exactly are you proposing we draw this literal line in the sand?”

  My heart beat once. Twice. It wasn’t disbelief that filled me, but a strange sense of relief that, even after all th
at he’d done, Caleb might actually still retain a small shred of humanity. Maybe no one was a lost cause. “To begin with, I want the Allegiance to immediately hand over all of Brume to the Resistance as a show of good faith. The rest can be determined later.”

  He offered only a nod in response. I didn’t know if he was agreeing to my terms or merely acknowledging them.

  Standing, I said, “I’m going to grab some paper and a pen from my office. When I get back, we can discuss possibilities and hammer out details of an agreement. At least something to end the fighting here in Brume.”

  “I’ve agreed to nothing yet. And even if I did, you know I’d have to take your proposal back to Allegiance headquarters. So, I suppose the question that remains is whether or not that’s something you’ll allow.” His focus was locked on a spot on the floor. I wondered if he felt coerced, or maybe a sense of shame for even considering my proposition. He was the head of the Allegiance. Did the idea of compromise fill him with shame?

  As I stood, I dared to think about the possibilities that could come from my conversation with him. Maybe it had taken kidnapping the leader of the Allegiance and locking him in a room with me to get him to listen to reason, but if that was the price of peace, it was a small one. By the time I stepped inside my office, I was feeling fairly confident. Maybe that was my first mistake.

  A loud, familiar sound ricocheted through base. A single gunshot. Screams followed it from the floor above, along with shouted words and frightened children crying out. Instinctively. I reached for my holster, which was hanging over the back of my desk chair, but found it empty.

  My stomach shriveled. My lungs seized inside my chest, and I bolted back to where Caleb was chained. It couldn’t be. I was wrong. I was still medicated and not thinking clearly. There was no way—

  Lia stood in front of Caleb, her shoulders slumped. Tears lined her face, and I wondered if they were tears of remorse or relief. She held my pistol in her hand. The guards were nowhere to be seen. How had she managed to evade the sniper and get by the door guard? How’d she get through the door without the code? Questions raced through my mind, but their answers would have to wait. What mattered was what she had done.

  The weapon dangled from her fingers, threatening to tumble to the floor. But she didn’t seem to care about that. She’d already accomplished what she’d set out to do.

  Caleb’s lifeless body lay crumpled on the floor. Blood pooled around his head in a crimson halo. If there was a heaven, he was entering its gates well equipped.

  My voice shook with anger and disgust as I ripped my still-warm gun from Lia’s hand. “What have you done?”

  At first, she didn’t even seem to be aware of my presence. Gripping her by the shoulders, I shook her and shouted, “What the hell have you done?!”

  Words left her lips in a whisper: ethereal, intangible, but nonetheless very much real. “I’ve saved lives.”

  “You’ve damned us all! We were there, Lia. Peace was within reach. And now . . . now Kai will take Caleb’s place, and no amount of talking will convince him to end this war.” It was over. Everything we’d all fought for. Lia had sentenced us all to death with the single pull of a trigger. A sudden wave of nausea hit me hard. I released my grip on her and stepped back. “The guard?”

  “We had an understanding. But it’s not important how I got the code. All that matters is that I did what had to be done.” She looked at Caleb’s body in a way that could only be described as wonder.

  “Families, Lia. Friends. Everyone. You’ve just killed us all.” I stormed back to my office. Lia had once described to me the human instinct of fight or flight, and I was in pure flight mode. Because there was no one to fight. At least, no one I’d feel good about hurting. I grabbed my tactical vest, holster, and knife, and put them on as fast as I could. As I was snapping my pistol into my holster, my hands slowed. Scribbled in my handwriting, tacked to the wall beside the map, was a note that read “You can’t run from the monster. The monster is you.”

  Only I couldn’t recall having written it.

  Furrowing my brow, I shook my head, stowing my questions about when I’d written it and why. I’d have to think about it more later. Right now I had a mess to deal with.

  I wished I could scrub what I’d seen out of my brain. But I could never unsee it—so much of Caleb, spilled out all around his lifeless body. How could Lia be so reckless? So . . . violent?

  The irony of my questions hit me hard. If anyone should be able to comprehend those things, it was me. But I didn’t. I didn’t understand at all. The only thing I did understand was that I never believed, in any existence, that Lia would’ve done what this Lia had just done.

  “What are you doing? You should be lying down. You’re still injured.” I hadn’t noticed Lia enter my office. Her voice was steadier now. She sounded like her old self. But she was different. She’d never be the same to me again.

  I snapped, but my voice was shakier than I’d intended. “You murdered him.”

  Her face paled. “Where are you going?”

  My response came out in a growl. “Outside for a cigarette.”

  Her words followed me out the door. “I won’t apologize for doing the right thing, Quinn. You know I made the right choice!”

  But I didn’t know that. What’s more, I didn’t know her anymore. It broke my heart to doubt Lia, to feel my absolute trust in her wash away like it was nothing. My trust in her had been a thread that had kept my heart together through war and stress and pain. Who was I when that thread was broken? Would I fall apart completely?

  I punched in the security code, stepped outside, and locked the door behind me. Shift change had occurred, so it was Mika I barked at. “Lia is inside. Take her into custody immediately.”

  “Sir?”

  “Now, soldier.”

  I wasn’t sure where I was going, just that I needed to be away. Away from Lia. Away from Caleb’s corpse. Away from the people of the Resistance who would be looking to me for answers.

  Answers that I didn’t have.

  “Surely, you have one or two.” I jolted at the words—words that suggested the speaker somehow knew what I’d been thinking. To my left, having appeared from nowhere and matching my stride away from base, was the Stranger, once more donning his black snakeskin trench coat. He looked at me through the wet curtain of his dark hair and smiled. “Everyone has at least a single answer to a single question at some point in time.”

  The image of him in every existence, every Brume, was clearer than ever in my memory. It was as if I’d always known him. As if he had been following me around with his insufferable riddles my whole life. “There was a time not so long ago when I thought I had answers. At least some of them. Like who understood me and who didn’t. If anybody had asked me who I knew I could count on, the answer was Lia. It’s always been Lia. But now . . . I don’t know. Lia would never do something like that.”

  “Considering that she just did, it seems that she would.” His steps slowed, and I felt compelled to match his pace. He lit a cigarette, and with the filter clenched between his teeth, said, “Do I detect a smidgeon of trouble in paradise?”

  My insides felt hollow. “It’s like I don’t know her.”

  “Have you ever?” He sucked in a lungful of nicotine and tar, and as he did so, the corners of his mouth seemed to crack. Two crooked, fine lines spiderwebbed up each of his cheeks as if his flesh were made of glass. The lines stopped at each ear, but I swore I heard the crackling sound of the glass threatening to shatter. When he exhaled, the cracks were gone. If they’d ever been there in the first place.

  We’d come to a stop just in front of the small cave in the park. I hadn’t realized we’d walked so far.

  “I may not know everything, but I thought I knew Lia.”

  “Then why does she continue to surprise you?” The last two words drew out of him in a hiss. “No one ever fully knows anyone—not even themselves.”

  He was right about that. N
o one knew who was good or who was evil, because we were all a little of both. More of one or another, depending on whose point of view was doing the judging. But both, nonetheless. “You’re saying Lia is a stranger to me?”

  “No stranger than I.” He smirked, and for a moment, I wondered if he knew that I thought of him as the Stranger, the way he seemed to know other things without my uttering a word. Could he really read my thoughts? Was that even possible?

  Maybe I was clinging to denial. But I refused to let him think he knew better than I did when it came to my relationship with Lia . . . in any life. I shook my head. “I don’t buy it. I know Lia. The real Lia.”

  His voice took on a Puckish tone that I despised immediately. “How can you know which Lia is real? You can’t even determine which you is real.”

  I swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”

  “You can see it now. Oh yes, here you can see it. Here you’re wide awake.” He tapped ashes from his cigarette and drew in another lungful of tar.

  My heart thumped hard against my ribs. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you do. Certain things are immutable. Your feelings for Lia, for instance. Whether you recognize it or not, it’s the same in each existence. But other things are . . . fluid.” He wore a small smile, as if he’d just uttered an inside joke—one that I didn’t understand.

  “What is happening to me?” The question was directed as much to myself as it was to him. It was unbearable.

  “Right now, you are attempting to seek even an ounce of forgiveness for the girl that you love for maybe undoing all that you’ve worked for. At the same time, you are running from monsters and feeling trapped by the wall of fog. All the while, you are also attempting to escape a group of people you thought could help you determine who it is within your capacity to love, when really you need no help at all.” He took a drag and released it with his words in gray puffs. “That is what is happening to you. That is what you are allowing to happen to you.”