by P. S. Newman
I realized Cecelia was talking to me, her voice soft. "Give me the gun, Eden," she said. It wasn't the first time.
My finger was on the trigger. My hand shook. One squeeze and the gun would go off. I'd most likely shoot myself in the foot but there were other possible targets, one of them Bella. I held the gun out to Cecelia. She took it, flipped the safety on and stuck the gun into the waistband of her pants. Then she grasped my free hand and pulled me away from the edge.
Taylor stood on the other side of her, doubled over and trying to catch his breath. Despite looking like death warmed over, he was gazing down into the chasm with a smile. If Cecelia hadn't taken the gun from me, I might have used it on him then and there.
He felt my stare and glanced over. Triumph blazed in his eyes, next to a sense of calm so great it almost resembled peace. It blinked out of existence as soon as he read my expression. He opened his mouth, then clamped it shut, turned and walked away.
Don't mention it. I only just killed my love to save your life.
Lucky for him, my thoughts of wrath and vengeance were interrupted by the arrival of the Order. Three green vans bumped onto the site, followed by a topless Jeep. A big gun was mounted on the back. Ganner sat at the wheel, not a hair out of place. The vans lined up along the edge of the Pit. Ganner stopped the Jeep in front of us and got out. She surveyed the carnage with fists on her hips. Her gaze snagged on my torn, bloodied, and soot-stained dress. Her brow rose. "I take it we missed the fun. Did you eliminate the doppelgänger?"
I shook my head. “He escaped.”
Taylor gave me the evil eye before turning to his captain. "But we got the last of its chimeras. And Greyson Deynar.”
"The shade from the video?” Of course, Ganner already knew about the video. Taylor had probably told her about it thirty seconds after David handed it over at the gala. “What was he doing here?"
Taylor nodded in my direction. "He wanted to help and she refused to kill him because she’s got the hots for him. I caught them making out earlier. I’m guessing she’s the one who’s been helping him all along.”
Ganner's eyes snapped to mine. "Is this true?"
I raised my chin. “I refused to kill him because we needed his help. He’s a born shade hunter; Taylor and I couldn’t have brought down the chimera without him. But I haven’t been in contact with him. And Taylor forgot to mention that I was the one to eliminate Greyson not five minutes ago.”
Ganner looked at Taylor. He nodded, jaws clenched. This won me points he would have preferred I lost. "She did. After she almost let him kill me.”
"Interesting." A smile played on Ganner's lips. I was in her hands now. Depending on how she wanted to spin this, she could have me tried for a capital offense. Or… “We'll talk more later," she said, a promise and a threat wrapped into one.
“That’s it?” Taylor barked. "You're not going to charge her?"
"Not right this second," Ganner said, "and neither are you."
"The hell I'm not." Taylor pulled his phone out of his pocket, no doubt to call the police.
“Put that away," Ganner snapped. When he glared at her, she simply raised her brows at him.
Taylor shoved the phone back. A scowl twisted his features. "What if she goes into hiding?"
"Don't worry.” That satisfied smile returned to Ganner’s face. "She isn't going anywhere." There was no need to elaborate. If I didn't agree to work for the Order, she would expose me as a concealer of shades. I had worked with Greyson Deynar instead of eliminating him the first chance I got. That was enough to get me in serious trouble. My life would be over and the people closest to me would get caught in the repercussions. The doppelgänger would have won after all.
Good thing Ganner had something else she wanted more than my head on a platter. And now she finally had the leverage to make me agree to work for her.
An Order hunter stepped up to our group. “Captain Ganner, we found Jensen tied up and gagged in the back of the guardhouse.”
Ganner sighed. “That does it. No more single guard duty. Is he okay?”
“He’s pissed, but otherwise alright…”
I turned away from them, towards people who didn't hate or want to use me. Cecelia stood off to the side, an arm wrapped around Bella, speaking into her phone. I caught the tail-end of the message she was leaving. "… call me back as soon as you can. Te amo, caro.”
She hung up. "I can't reach David."
"Try Sean," I said. "The doppelgänger kidnapped him, too, and lured both David and me to him. David was freeing Sean when I left them." It struck me as odd that we hadn’t heard or seen from either of them. They were supposed to be right behind me this entire time.
"Thanks," Cecelia said, holding her phone up to her ear again. I pulled Bella away from her, into me. Her hair was a mess, and there were rope burns on her wrists. A sheen of sweat coated her skin. She buried her face in my shoulder. Her thin body shook with sobs. I had to swallow my own.
Neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say.
Cecelia jammed the phone into her pocket. “Damn it. Sean isn't answering, either."
An Order medic stepped up to us. "Hello, ladies.” His cheer pierced our gloom. “Captain Ganner asked me to give you all a check-up."
"Bella first," Cecelia and I said at the same time. Any other day, we might have laughed and done the jinx-thing. Now we couldn't even muster a smile.
A gaggle of reporters had gathered behind the green barrier, eager to get in. Several Order people held them at bay.
“Be right back,” I said. Cecelia nodded and took up position by Bella’s side while the medic checked her vitals. I walked over to the barrier, searching the throng for one particular reporter. They began to call out when they spotted me. Their microphones strained towards me as far as their arms would reach.
I spotted March in the sea of faces and cameras and waved her over. The people from the Order watched me but didn’t protest. They held the other reporters back while March and her cameraman slipped through the barrier. She stuck the microphone in my face. “That was incredible,” she gushed. “Would you care to make a statement.”
I pointed at her mic and the camera. “Only if you turn those off.”
She pulled a face. “Then what’s the point?”
“The point is that I want to have an honest conversation with you. This is off the record. Turn them off.”
She signaled her cameraman to turn off his device. He did, looking pissed. March hit the switch on the side of her mic. I watched her hands closely in case she got any ideas about turning it back on while I was distracted.
“Thank you for your help,” I said, meaning it. If she hadn’t directed the other reporters’ attention away from me, I would have had to do this next bit with every single one of them. I held my hand out to her cameraman. “Now hand me the recorder chip.”
March frowned. “Why? We have the same footage the others got.”
“You’re telling me that you distracted your colleagues from an event I didn’t want recorded, without taping that event yourself?”
She pressed her lips together.
“I didn’t think so,” I said. “Hand it over. I promise you’ll get it back with the same footage all the other reporters got.”
“You can’t make me. Freedom of speech dictates that—“
“The law dictates that kidnapping is illegal,” I interrupted her. “Hand it over.”
“You have no proof that we kidnapped you,” March argued.
I sighed. “When you were driving my van back to my place, did you happen to notice the dashcam?” I could tell by the widening of her eyes that she had.
“We didn’t turn it on,” she said.
“It starts recording as soon as you start the engine,” I told her. “I haven’t looked at the footage yet, but I bet there’s some of the two of you dragging me out to the van.”
“You’re bluffing,” she ground out.
I looked her straight in the eyes
. “Do you want to stake your freedom and career on it?” I couldn’t give her any indication that she was right: it was a bluff. I only used the dashcam if I wanted to record drivers blatantly ignoring my green-flashing lights behind them and not letting me pass. But I knew I had her when a muscle jerked in her cheek. She knew she’d lost. She didn’t want to go to jail. And she probably hadn’t figured out what exactly I’d done on that ledge in the Pit. Yet.
She nodded to her cameraman. “Give it to her.”
He opened a compartment in the camera and pulled out a small rectangular chip. He held it out to me, jaws clenched. He didn’t want to give up the goods, but he didn’t want to go to jail, either.
I pocketed the chip. “Thank you for your cooperation. I’ll get the chip back to you by tomorrow and then you can have your exclusive story. And make no mistake; if you have a backup somewhere in the cloud and use that, I’ll report my kidnapping to the authorities.”
I turned my back on them and kept walking, down the side of the Pit to a place with fewer people. I closed my eyes and reached for my shade power, expanding it outward, trying to feel Aunt Vy close by. Nothing. But our link was intact, I was sure of it. I felt it like I’d been able to feel the doppelgänger’s connection to the Pit. That had to mean the doppelgänger hadn’t dropped her into the Pit or destroyed her some other way. I hoped.
He was still out there. Of all the shades we’d eliminated today, he was the one that shouldn’t have gotten away.
I headed over to where the medic was now patching up Cecelia’s rope burns and bruises. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out. Sean. My blood froze. Why was he trying to reach me instead of calling Cecelia back?
I indicated Cecelia to stay with Bella and stepped to the side. I took a deep breath and pressed the green button. "Hey, Sean. What’s the safe word?”
“Moonwalk,” he whispered so quietly that I hardly understood him.
“Sean, is everything okay? We've been trying to reach you guys.”
Sean's sobs filled my ears. "He killed him," he said, over and over. "He appeared after you left the roof, and I was still tied up and I could do nothing and he just… killed him."
Please no. "Who killed who?” I whispered, even though I knew. “Who is dead?"
"David," Sean whispered. "My doppelgänger killed my brother."
My Dream-Study Journal
Case Report # 14 Just Thoughts
They say twenty years ago, before the Surge, people didn't live in fear.
Now I know why. They lived in grief, instead. That state of being where your worst fears have come to pass.
Grief is worse than fear. Much, much worse.
It changes people. C. is a raging lunatic one minute, mad at the world and everything in it. Next, she's a sobbing wreck, screaming her loss into her pillows. Then there are the empty periods when her eyes are open but she sees nothing, not even me. As if her soul has left her body.
I can handle the mad and the sad. But not the empty. That scares me. What if she does leave? What if she follows him?
At least I still have E. She’s grieving, too. I can tell because she's preoccupied. She hasn't asked me about the shades coming to my rescue. But she's been grieving for G. all her life. She knows how to handle it without losing her shit.
I wish I could talk to A.V., but she’s gone. E. says she’s alive, but I’m not sure if she really knows. Maybe A.V.’s dead, too.
Sooner or later, E. will ask about my shades. I haven't decided what to tell her. If I tell her the truth, she might make me stop my experiments. Even though they worked so much better than I ever hoped.
They all came when I called them. It didn't matter that I had no clue where they were holed up. When I needed them, they came running.
For the first time in my life, I’m not afraid. Fear has taken a step back in the mess that are my emotions right now. I'm still scared, but the focus has shifted. It's no longer my dreams I fear most, but the possibility of loss. In fact, I feel like my dreams are my only allies. They're the only thing I can at least sort of control in my life right now.
I just wish this feeling hadn't come at such a high price.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The doorbell rang as I was about to step into my black dress. I went to the door and hit the buzzer without checking the intercom's vid-screen. It was probably Bella. She came over a lot these past two days.
But it was Sean. He was dressed all in black, which accentuated his drawn face and red eyes. He came up the short pathway to my door, shoulders stooped, as if the weight of the world had settled on them.
I wrapped my robe around myself. “Were you picking us up? Cecelia didn't mention anything."
He stopped short. "Is she here?"
"No, she’s next door. What's going on?"
"I can't stay," he said, avoiding my eyes. "Last-minute preparations to get done. I just wanted to…” He broke off, shook his head. “Any news?”
He didn’t have to elaborate. Everyone and their dog’s fleas were hoping for news on the doppelgänger. But he had vanished as thoroughly as if I’d eliminated him myself. I and most of the Order’s hunters had been scouring the city for him for three days and hadn’t found a single clue as to where he might have hidden.
I shook my head. “Sorry, nothing new. But that’s not why you’re here.” It wasn’t a question. I could tell he’d come for a different reason.
He finally looked me in the eyes. “I just wanted to give you something." He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held a small, blue-velvet box out to me. I'd seen it before.
"The engagement ring," I breathed.
He looked surprised. "You knew?"
"He showed it to me right before... everything. He was going to propose the next chance he got."
Sean pressed his lips together. "Something else I took away from him. From them.”
"It wasn't your fault, Sean. You didn't kill him."
"Part of me did. Anyway, I wasn't sure if Cecelia would want this," he held the ring higher, begging me to take it, "or if it would make things worse. Especially coming from me."
“You're leaving the decision to me?" Thanks a lot.
Cecelia was devastated. She'd barely spoken in three days and kept fluctuating from bouts of grief to fits of rage. But the periods of apathetic calm in between were scarier. Those were the times Bella came over, certain that Cecelia was contemplating suicide.
"You know I'm persona-non-grata over there," Sean said.
Cecelia liked to have Bella close, which was why I kept taking her back. Cecelia tolerated me, her best friend who had broken her promise to keep David safe. But she wouldn't even look at Sean.
"You know her best," he continued. "You'll know the right time to give it to her."
"Fine." I took the box.
"Thanks, Eden. See you at the funeral." He turned and left without waiting for a reply. I went back into the house and shut the door, staring down at the box. What the hell am I going to do with you?
My phone rang somewhere in the house. I followed its sound into the living room and picked up without checking who was calling. "Hello?"
"Ganner here," the gunshot voice announced. My heart sank. She'd finally caught me. I'd managed to avoid her calls since the Pit. I didn't have it in me to face her just yet, no matter what threats she held over me. But hanging up now was a bad idea.
That didn't mean I couldn't evade the purpose of her call. "Did you catch the doppelgänger?" I asked.
"That's not why I'm calling," she said.
"So, no?"
"No. I have every available hunter on the lookout for him, but nothing so far."
"Then what do you want?"
"You know exactly what I want."
"Really?" I snapped. "You want to do this now, an hour before David's funeral?"
"You could have answered any of my previous calls," she shot back, "though I am sorry for the intrusion. I didn't realize. And I'm truly sorry for your loss."
/>
“How do I get rid of you?”
"I spoke to Taylor. He told me everything."
"You mean his version of everything."
“He's more biased than some, to be sure. He might have embellished here and there, but I think the gist of it is true: you harbored a shade and were holding out hope to integrate him into society. I have my suspicions you might have even been the one to help him with this video of his.”
I put the box with the ring down on the table so I wouldn't crush it in my fist. "I wasn’t involved with any of that.” Not that she could prove, at least. We’d been so careful. Careful enough, hopefully. “And I eliminated him."
"There is hope for you, yet," Ganner agreed, "but I’ll be keeping a close eye on you. So, to make life easier on all of us, I'm offering you a position as a shade hunter of the Order."
The message was clear: Cooperate, and I’m willing to make this look like any other hire. Cross me, and I will bury you in a shit-storm of your own making.
She was willing to disguise it as an opportunity. It was blackmail, yes, but it wasn't the end of the world. I’d been expecting it. She wouldn't expose me as long as I worked out as she planned. I'd just have to make sure I did, while somehow keeping my secret safe at the same time. I knew one person who would make that difficult. One person who would keep an even closer eye on me than Ganner.
"I accept your offer,” I said, "but what about Taylor?”
"Leave Taylor to me," she said. “I promise, he won’t bother you. In the end, what I care about most is eliminating shades. You’re one of the best at it, which is why I want you on my team. It’s all I ever wanted where you’re concerned.”
“And you don’t mind twisting arms to get it.” Mine or Taylor’s. She had to have dirt on him, too, or she wouldn’t be able to keep him on a leash.
"If that’s what it takes to keep this city as safe as I can make it. You start the night shift on Monday, at seven o’clock. I'll get the contract ready until then. All you have to do is sign."
