“You never said I could leave.”
No,” Onyu said. “You aren’t strong enough to leave yet. You’re the only thing keeping you here.”
Jin looked back at Benja’in-su. “Save me from the madness.” The Morg’ah’nee just giggled.
“Are you going to allow me the chance to explain?” AJ said with the patience of a mother. Yes, AJ seemed motherly but many things seemed one way and were another way completely. Where Aria was an impatient braggart, AJ seemed to have infinite patience. “You’re unbalanced. Every part of you is uneven. You’ve tried to correct the imbalances and couldn’t so you found steady ground instead of steadying and grounding yourself. You made it easier if you held onto something…Aiden…for instance. Or maybe it’s the need for liquor…or even your predisposition for suicidal heroics.”
Jin’s face hardened. “You don’t know anything about me.”
AJ tilted her head. The mask covered most of her lower face, but she could see all the expression she needed in her eyes. Her eyes told Jin she was wrong before her mouth did.
“I was a part of you the very moment you were born. Of course, I know you. I know everything about you. You don’t need to fight me, Jin. I am on your side. I will always be on your side.”
Jin bit the inside of her cheek debating with herself. Unlike with Onyu, who more or less forced her cooperation, and Aria who she, despite everything she’d done, felt loyalty to, she felt an intrinsic wish to trust AJ. “How can you help me?”
“By helping you heal. When Onyu spoke of the imbalance, that imbalance comes from within you. You’re hurting and you’ve been hurting for a very long time. You’ve tried but right now, in this situation, it isn’t enough.” AJ bent low until Jin could look into her gold tinted eyes. “If you trust me, I’ll get you back home.”
“Why are you so nice? If you’re a fragment of Aria, why are you so nice to me?”
AJ laughed, the sound echoing behind her mask. “I’m the part of Aria that is the softest, the most vulnerable. It is also the reason why I am the strongest. Aria…I mean I am not a mean person…just a smartass. I care or else you wouldn’t have ended up here in the first place.”
Jin grunted in disagreement.
“Stand, Jin. We have work to do.”
The first genuine smile spread across her face since she’d been here, and Jin put a hand on the ground to prepare to stand but paused. “Wait. How?”
“How what?” AJ said, her head tilted.
“I mean if the Great and Powerful Oz over there couldn’t get me together with her bird demon warriors and throwing me head first into a wonderful rendition of “Here is Your Life Minutes Before You Got Your Head Blown Off”, then how can you?”
“Onyu knows Kowloon.” AJ smiled. “I know you.”
“Onyu knows Kowloon. I know you,” Jin mocked.
“I don’t think this is going to work, Onyu,” Benja’in-su said from her seat at the base of a tree.
“I freakin’ agree!” Jin grunted from the ground. She clutched the elbow which had broken her fall. Maybe ‘broke her fall’ was saying too much. It was the first thing that slammed into the ground after AJ swept her feet from up under her.
“I think you may be right,” the spiritualist admitted, staring down at Jin.
They’d been at this for days and she was not getting better. While in the discarded timeline, Jin was able to tap into a power that allowed her to be keener, faster, and swifter. Here in Kowloon, it seemed as if that had all been a dream. The ability to calculate, to be perceptive, to see past her limits was failing her. Take that back. They were nonexistent.
AJ moved her weapon, a spear, the spear, the one Jin had in her dream, to her side, and her body armor, a golden cuirass that extended across her chest and down her right arm, disappeared. “She is weak,” she said.
Jin rolled her eyes. “Newsflash. Just because I’m not as strong as you doesn’t mean I’m weak. Not my fault you assumed I would be stronger than this. Manage your expectations.”
AJ looked at Onyu as if Jin had spoken in some unknown language and Onyu threw her hands up in response. “What do you want me to do? She’s gotten the fundamentals, okay? Hand to hand could use some work but if we get her there, Oti will handle that. She’s not going to be you overnight.”
“Ever,” AJ shot back from behind the mask.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, AJ. No, really, heartwarming.” Jin pulled herself to sitting. She reached down to dust off her pants but the pain in her elbow caused her to hiss. “Answer this. Why do I need to train with this?” she said, looking down at the wooden sword in her hand. “I’m pretty good with a gun. I’m not the best but honestly, I could put a hole in your head faster than you would be able to lift that sword.”
“Do you have a gun with you?” Onyu asked.
“No,” Jin gritted out.
“Can your gun kill an angel?”
“I don’t know,” Jin shot back. “Never tried! I’m sure I’d enjoy it!”
“In my day we aren’t very fond of guns. They aren’t the weapons of angels.”
Jin pulled her chin in, incredulous. “I saw three of your angel pals with enough artillery to level a city block.”
Benja’in-su giggled. “Is this really about Jin knowing how to fight like Aria, or is this about Jin having the confidence to fight like Aria? Because I hardly doubt you’ll get her up to speed in this lifetime.”
“Unless you have like a Rocky-esque montage you can use. You know, speed the process up with some creative editing and funky inspirational background music,” Jin said, hopeful, delirious. “Oh! Oh! What about like The Matrix? Can’t you just…download some kung-fu into my head?”
AJ stared at Onyu. “What the hell is she talking about?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Just give me qeres bullets,” Jin said, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.
AJ frowned. “You said she suffered from spiritual poisoning. Does that affect a human’s brain?”
“What about the token test?” Benja’in-su suggested, her voice rising with excitement. “It would be perfect!”
Onyu started at Jin, chewing on the side of her thumb as she thought. “It would force her to learn certain skills quickly while dealing with the impurities in her soul.”
“And it’ll be a lot more…interesting than her trying to figure out how to keep AJ from bashing her head in.”
“Bashing is a strong word, Benja,” Jin grumbled. “Bop. She bopped me on the head a few hundred times,” she finished, rubbing the top of her skull with a pout.
“That settles it,” Onyu said, her hands on her hips. “Starting tomorrow, you will complete a Token Test. Go and get some rest. The next few days will be a trial for you.” Onyu reached down and grabbed the hem of her dress before turning to leave. “And if you can get through them, maybe you can find your way home.”
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Faux Praesidium
Kowloon Nuh, Discord Realm
Jin looked at the sight before her and decided right then and there she wasn’t doing the damn token test.
It was early morning and fog hovered over the ground like a thick blanket of white snow. The sun was just in front of them, the rays filtering through the trees and painting them in shadows and light. It was serene and quiet and beautiful and Jin was about to ruin it. Oh, holy hell, she was about to ruin it.
“I’m not stepping a damn foot on that damn bridge! You,” she said pointing at Onyu, “can kiss my ass! And you,” she turned towards AJ, who afforded her an exasperated roll of the eyes, “can kiss my ass! Do you know what happened to me the last time I set foot on that bridge? On any bridge!
No! No more bridges!”
“Think of it as a metaphor. Or…facts. You can’t leave until you cross this bridge,” Onyu said, her voice low with impatience. “Now you can stay here with us for all of eternity. Even though you rake my last good nerves, I have no problem with that. I�
��ll bind your powers and make you a scrub maid, I don’t care! But make up your mind!”
“The nerve,” Jin shot back. “I step onto that bridge and I won’t get to be anything because I’ll be dead!”
“You’re not technically alive, Jin. You’re not technically dead. How can you die if you’re not dead or alive?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
“Jesus has nothing to do with this. He thinks this bridge is an abomination.”
“He’s right!”
“Although they look alike,” Onyu pushed on, “this bridge works differently than Praesidium as in it has no connection to Antris. But beware, the rules are the same. Be brave,” AJ said as she moved to stand in front of Jin, “clear your mind, think of nothing, throw away all of your troubles and doubts,” she said pointedly, “and cross.”
Jin deflated. “But what if I fall?”
“You fell before didn’t you? Yet you are here,” AJ reminded her. “You are resilient. I know that already. You won’t realize that until you have courage, cub.”
Jin chuckled humorlessly. “Every time you say that I end up in more trouble than I started.”
AJ smiled. “You’re a diamond. Pressure makes you strong.” She grabbed Jin’s shoulders and spun her toward the bridge. “There are warnings I could offer but the point of a test is to test a person.”
“Not even a hint like…fourteen steps in and the bridge is going to catch fire and you’re going to have to either jump ship or get a tan you don’t need?”
AJ sighed but couldn’t hide her grin. “Just know if you can survive what you’ve survived, you can survive anything,” she said with a small push to Jin’s back.
“Well-wishings straight from a Hallmark card,” she said as she took the first step towards the bridge. “I’m going to do swell,” she muttered.
AJ, Onyu, and Benja’in-su took steps back, many of them actually, to the point they blended in with Kowloon Forest. Inhaling, Jin gazed at her obstacle.
It looked identical to Praesidium, same rope handles, wooden planks, same floating lanterns and sturdy structure that stood up to the draft of the canyon below it. That didn’t pacify Jin. Last time she’d been on the bridge, the damn thing collapsed–no disappeared!–right from up under her.
Jin exhaled. Clear your mind. Clear your mind. Think of nothing. Clear your mind. She wasn’t completely sure how you cleared your mind. Your mind doesn’t shut off. If you try not to think of something, you just think of it. So she thought about a white room, empty and quiet. She chose a corner of it and stared at it in her mind.
“Good,” Jin whispered, drawing up the courage AJ thought she had.
The first step was successful and so was the second. Instead of staring at the end of the bridge, she continued to think about the white corner of the room. Her hand slid across the rough surface of the rope, her feet pressed down on plank after plank and before she knew it, she was safely at the end of the bridge in one piece. On the bridge post was a large bronze medallion with a tree etched into it. Jin snatched the token up and slid it into the pockets of her dark pants Benja’in-su had given her earlier.
When Jin stepped down on the grass-covered hill on the other side of the bridge, she turned around and looked back at the structure with wide eyes before pointing at it and laughing, her smile threatening to split her face in two.
“How’dya like that you piece of crap bridge! You got me last time with your spooky voices and you know…disappearing right from up under me but I’m on the other side, jackass!”
“Please don’t antagonize the bridge!” Benja’in-su yelled from the other side. “It doesn’t like that.”
“It’s a bridge!” Jin said, kicking the bridge post. “What’s it going to do?” “Jin.”
Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes went wide. She tried to inhale but the sound of the voice stole the next breath out of her chest. She felt her eyes stings, a precursor for the tears lining the bottom of her lids.
There’s no way. There is no way he is here.
“Turn around, babe.” There was a deep laugh. “Don’t you miss me?”
Jin wanted to turn around, she wanted to turn around so badly. “I do,” she breathed. “I miss you so much but…you’re not real.”
A snort. “How do you figure that?”
“Because you don’t belong here. Why are you here? Why would you come here?”
“You don’t want me here?” the person said, disappointment heavy in their voice.
Jin did turn this time and her eyes fluttered and her knees went weak because it was Aiden. He was here, he was right here. He was wearing a royal blue suit, the one he’d worn for their first anniversary. He’d grown a beard, the hair dusting his cheeks and chin and it was very attractive on him. She’d always liked when he did that. There was something sparkling in his eyes, and for a moment, she could see they were a touch misty.
He held out his arms and there was something about the way he did it. The angle always impressed her, like he knew exactly where she would fit in his arms. A gentle slope on the Y and X axis that cemented everything she knew about him, everything she knew about them.
They fit together. They belonged together. They would always find each other, whether it was on the other side of the bed, the other side of the room, or the other side of existence.
He found her.
She ran, tripping over her own feet, reaching for him until she collapsed into his arms, into his space where he welcomed her.
“Aiden, I’m so happy you’re here! There was…a thing and it, well they, they squaked and then the bed was on the ceiling and..and so many rats!” she babbled nonsensically, the words rushing out of her mouth. “You have no idea how much I wanted–” She stopped when she felt his finger across her lips, shushing her.
“I want you to meet someone.” He took a step to the side and looked down. Jin followed his line of sight until it rested on a small child–a boy. His skin was deep tan, maybe a shade darker than Aiden’s. He had a head full of curls, wild and adorable. His dark eyes were wide and expressive but he seemed shy, hesitant. A finger was trapped between his lips as he gnawed on the tip. He looked up at her, using his baseball cap almost like a shield.
“You can go to her. No need to be shy,” Aiden prodded, pushing him just a bit in encouragement.
The little boy looked up at Aiden one final time, as if he were waiting for permission. Aiden nodded towards Jin and the child took off, jumping right into Jin’s arms. Jin, just like Aiden, automatically held her arms open for him at a specific height as if she had held him before. He sunk into her embrace, hugging her tight around her neck and giggling.
“Zion,” she whispered, in remembrance of a name she’d never uttered, of a person she’d never seen before. But she knew this child. She knew his hugs and his scent and his smile, the twinkle in his eye.
“Hi, Mommy,” Zion said in her ear, his infectious giggle dying down to the quiet utterance of a title.
She knew this child. She knew this was her child.
“Zion was the honorary name my Dad was given from the neighborhood kids since he didn’t have a middle name. You said–”
“That it would be the perfect way to honor your father,” Jin mumbled, looking at Zion as he compared the curls in her head to his.
“He misses you,” Aiden reassured, answering a question that Jin hadn’t known to ask.
“How,” she looked up from Zion to Aiden, her bottom lip trembling with the effort not to break with all of the emotions swirling in her. “I haven’t had this child, Aiden. I haven’t had any child. I’m not a mother.”
“Time is funny,” Aiden observed. “Just because you aren’t a mother here, does that mean you’ve never been or never will be a mother? Are you the only instance of you in this universe? And how can he not belong to you if you know him.”
Jin bit her lip to keep it from trembling.
“He is from another timeline. Another one of your p
aths that doesn’t run congruent with the timeline you’re in. A fate that doesn’t belong to you.”
Jin blinked. Her hand fluttered to her stomach. The news hit her hard. “So…I’ll never–”
“No. Not if things stay as they are. You can, though,” Aiden said, his eyes bright with hope. “Stay here with us. We came here for you. Came here to help you, to be with you.”
“Mommy, you left and you went away, far, far away. But we found you!”
Jin’s head was swimming. She didn’t understand. She did, but… “I…can’t…” she looked back at the bridge. Onyu, AJ, and Benja’in-su were nowhere to be found. She frowned. “People…people are depending on me.”
A look crossed Aiden’s face and he took a step closer, his hand coming to rest on her hip–a hand with a smooth gold wedding band– and his other on Zion’s back. “No. We are depending on you. We love you, we miss you. Aren’t we the ones who matter most?”
She took a look at Zion, then back at Aiden. “Aiden…I can’t…”
Another looked crossed Aiden’s face. It wasn’t kind. She’d never seen that look before. “You don’t want to be with us.” He wasn’t asking and his tone felt like a hammer to her heart.
“Baby, that’s not true, it’s just that…this is complicated! You don’t belong here. Zion doesn’t belong here,” she pleaded, hoping to make him understand. “You don’t belong to me. You belong to another Jin.”
“Another Jin,” Aiden snorted, the sound heavy with disgust. “You are Jin. And you don’t want to be with us.” He reached over and pulled Zion out of Jin’s embrace. Zion reacted as if Aiden was snatching him from his lifeline. He began to scream and cry, his little arms reaching out for the woman who looked so much like his mother.
Jin reached for him, too. “Aiden, please. Give him back to me. Let me calm him down.”
A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck Page 31
