Bright Star

by Grayson Reyes-Cole

  With a busted lip and gleaming eyes she scrambled to her feet from the floor to face him. “I will never stop,” she declared and seemed to raise her cheek to him, waiting for another blow.

  Rush’s palm itched with the desire to spend his truly physical tension again. He wanted to hit her and hit her and hit her until she could no longer influence his or his brother’s lives. The need grew too strong for him to control and he punched her again. This time she did not get up.

  “Rush, stop! Don’t hit her again!”

  The shame was immediate and strong. Rush did not turn to see his brother and Monk coming into the room. It was Jackson’s voice he’d heard. Vaguely, in the back of his mind behind the all consuming red haze in his head, he could hear Bright Star addressing Jackson: “He didn’t hit me.” Her jaw and eye were healing with every breath she took. Redness and bruising faded visibly at a superhuman rate.

  “Don’t lie, Bright Star,” Jackson commanded, though the signs were gone.

  She darted around Rush to stand between him and his brother. “Jackson, this isn’t any of your business. I’m not hurt. It’s none of your business. You should just go.”

  Jackson was obviously not listening. He stood with his legs apart, his fists clenched, and his eyes never leaving his brother.

  Bright Star tried another tack, pleading with the cleric. “Monk, take Jackson and go.”

  Monk did not take her instruction, either. Instead, his eyes were also trained on Rush. “What did she do to push you this far?” Monk asked in a voice calm beyond suggestion. It soothed the leashed beast trying to break loose in them all. Tension seeped slowly from the room.

  Rush placed his hands over his eyes and did not respond. For a long moment he stood there. Though he wanted to, Rush found he could not answer. His tongue was thick in his mouth and he couldn’t stop studying his hands. They were large and strong. They seemed larger and stronger in that moment than ever they had been before. He felt like an oaf… A giant staring down, almost disembodied, at the other occupants of the room, even as they studied him.

  “Rush—”

  Rush silenced his brother with nothing more than a mental shrug, then Shifted himself from the room.

  Revelation

  “Why do you think she did it?” Monk dropped down to sit on the ledge of the building, shoulder-to-shoulder with Rush.

  The night was cool and crisp. The city that spread to the horizon around them was subdued and dark-metal blue. There were no stars out this night, and Rush missed them fiercely.

  Periodically, Rush had been casting himself off the building into the night air. Each time he had returned to the edge of the building. He found comfort in the weightlessness. Released from all pressure, even the downward pressure of gravity, Rush reveled in the void. And then, reluctantly, resentfully, he returned himself to the ledge and allowed himself to be compressed again. He reveled in every worry and expectation until he couldn’t take it anymore. And then, he jumped again. And again. That was when Monk found him. Rush returned to his seat and found the cleric there.

  “Why do you think she did it?” Monk asked when he didn’t get a response.

  “I don’t know,” Rush answered quickly this time.

  “I think you do,” Monk argued.

  “Why are you here? Or is a better question why am I here talking to you, of all people?”

  Monk had followed Rush shortly after he disappeared from that room. He’d had to make a choice. Stay and try to prevent the likely disaster brewing between the highly charged couple, Bright Star and Jackson, or try to help Rush make peace with himself and what he had done.

  He’d been surprised to find Rush on the roof jumping into the night air. Rush rarely engaged in any recreational activity that one could observe. In those times that he was visible, he was either having a beer and watching television, eating, or performing unimaginable feats of Shift. There was little else. But rather than worry too much over this, Monk decided to focus on the high level of need within Rush. Normally, Rush would protect them all from his feelings. This night he didn’t seem to care. His lack of control had already caused brownouts all over the city. White streaks shot frequently through the sky. Even the ground sometimes seemed to recognize Rush’s feelings with an almost imperceptible rumble.

  Rush looked over at him and gestured towards the ledge. “Again, Monk, what the hell are you doing here? Why do you think I’m going to talk to you?”

  “Everyone talks to me,” Monk offered slyly, then stood at the edge. He didn’t look down. Instead, he slid forward until his toes were over the side. He balanced there, raising his arms out to the side. Then, all of a sudden he lurched forward. He flapped his arms. He missed. “I felt that.”

  “Of course you did,” Rush did not deny the push. “You are, as always, aggravatingly right.”

  “We’ve all got to be good at something.” Monk grinned. “As it turns out, I’m good at two things. Well, if you ask Point, I’m sure she’d say I’m good at at least five,” he waggled his eyebrows. “Anyhow, one of those things is physics. The other, apparently, is being a holy man. Who knew?” Monk sat down again and gave Rush a sidelong glance. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not particularly,” Rush answered dryly, though he felt his words to be more bravado than anything else.

  “You feel bad about hitting her,” Monk pressed.

  “I don’t feel anything.”

  “Why lie to me now?” Monk asked. “You’ve haven’t lied to this point, so why now?” He didn’t truly expect an answer, so he continued, “You do feel something. You feel despair. You feel helpless. And—if I’m not mistaken—you are experiencing a profound grief that I can’t for the life of me understand.”

  Rush gave a wry smirk. Whether Monk believed in him or not. Whether he was really a holy man or not, he had a profound Talent for reading the emotions of others. He had pinpointed Rush’s feelings down to the one emotion behind all the others that even Rush had been unable to identify.

  “Maybe,” was the reluctant acquiescence.

  Monk said nothing further. Instead, he reached out and placed a hand on Rush’s shoulder. The warmth and acceptance and unconditional forgiveness that radiated from him seeped into Rush, who was surprised to find tears collecting in his eyes. He was alarmed to find this becoming an increasingly frequent habit. He was also alarmed at how much he needed the reassurance and love that came from the holy man.

  “This is what you do for all of us,” Monk told him. “Every day.”

  Rush couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t. It just made him want to fling himself off the roof again, and this time, not return. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he opened up. “She was stronger than him,” Rush began. Instinctively, he knew Monk would realize he wasn’t speaking of Bright Star or Elizabeth. He was silent, still, listening.

  “She was stronger,” Rush started again, putting his hands over his eyes. “He never knew that all she had to do was think hard enough and his nervous system would shut down. Though she wasn’t that powerful, she had the precision of a surgeon with her skill, she did. He never knew that she held his life in her hands.”

  Monk, again, was silent.

  Rush kept his eyes covered as if that would save him from his memories of his tortured mother and of Bright Star. “I can’t understand why I did it, why I wanted to do it, why I will probably want to do it again.”

  “Well…” Monk began. “If you want my honest opinion, which you probably don’t…”

  “What is it?” Rush lowered his hands and for once looked like a lost little boy.

  “I don’t think you wanted to do it at all,” Monk offered tentatively.

  Rush didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Don’t think for a minute that I question if she’s capable of it. She is capable, and I absolutely would prefer to think it was her fault. But honestly, Monk, do you think I could have fallen to that simple a suggestion?”

  “None of us are infallible, Rus
h,” Monk told him. “Not even you. I think that if she were able to key into what can only be a very real fear of yours, then yes, yes you could have fallen to that simple of a suggestion.”

  “But why? Why that, of all things?” Rush asked with a pained pull of his lips. He was replaying the interchange in his mind. He was testing his body, searching for any residue of the High Energy that may have been used on him. Where his memory failed him, the examination did not. He found the telltale traces of Bright Star’s recently spent Energy inside him. “Why would she want me to do this?”

  “You know why.”

  Rush did know why, but he didn’t want to think about it. He had no choice. Responsibility. Bright Star had been preaching it from the beginning. He needed to take responsibility for the lives and welfare of not only those around him, but everybody. Additionally, she knew what pain and guilt would come from inciting him to physically lash out at her. She knew the way he would be plagued by memories of his gentle mother. Guilt, in her gamble, had been the dark brother of responsibility. She wanted him to accept this cosmic responsibility, and she had never much cared how she got him to do so.

  Rush straightened, “Monk?”

  “Yes, Rush?”

  “You believe she’s crazy?”

  “I believe in you,” was the answer.

  “I know that,” Rush accepted with pursed lips. “I know you believe in me. I know that all of the others believe in me. And I know that Bright Star definitely believes in me. That doesn’t mean she’s not crazy…” He paused. “Or dangerous.”

  “If you’ll recall,” Monk said, only half-joking, “I tried to strangle her.”

  “Yes.”

  “You stopped me.”

  Rush rolled his eyes, feeling more relaxed after talking to Monk. “Yes.” Then, hesitantly, he added, “You know why.”

  Monk stared into his palm pensively until a small yellow flame began to build there. The flame slowly turned to green, then to blue, then to purple. “I can never get it to go to red.” Monk said.

  Rush reached over and placed his hand above the flame. He then opened his mind to the priest. The flame turned red.

  Monk’s eyes widened and he grinned. But then he noticed Rush was silent once more. “What is it, Rush?”

  “She’s going to kill you.”

  Monk swallowed and extinguished the flame in his hands. Then he bent over the edge once more. “I know.”

  “And your wife. And your child, if but for a moment.”

  Slowly, Monk acknowledged, “Yes, I know.”

  “I’m not who you think I am,” was the answer.

  “You’re exactly who I think you are.”

  “I’m selfish and I don’t care like you all want me to care. There are circumstances when I will not save people, even when I have the power to.”

  “I know.” Monk nodded in agreement. “You’re not the one. But without you... Without your selfishness…”

  “No,” Rush countered, “Without you.”

  Monk gave a long shrug. Rush said nothing.

  “Do you think she’s crazy?” Monk asked, changing the subject.

  “Absolutely.”

  “When you think about it though, it doesn’t make sense.” He started to stroke his chin.

  “What’s that?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Monk waved his arms. “None of it makes sense, and it should make sense at the very least to me. I am a scientist, you know.”

  “What doesn’t make sense, and what does your being a scientist have to do with it?”

  “How can she become stronger and faster? How can every one of her senses be enhanced by your residual Energy except for her goddamned brain? Coriolis pseudoforce—”

  “What?”

  “Never mind… I can’t figure it out. She just continues to follow this… this… path of madness.”

  “Why do you follow her, then?” Rush asked more casually than either of them felt. The question was one Rush had obviously wanted to ask for some time. He did not like the answer.

  Monk grinned. “I don’t follow her. All the rest of them follow her, I follow you. And don’t think I don’t know the difference. Maybe you are not the next savior but you are incredibly powerful and I believe in your power just as strongly as any of them do. I also believe in your goodness.” Rush balked. Monk continued, “Yes, your goodness. What I don’t understand is…” And in that one, single solitary instant… he did understand. “It is.” He exhaled.

  Rush did not give the gaping Monk his attention. Instead, he continued to stare straight ahead. He appeared to be studying the horizon.

  “It is,” Monk repeated dramatically. “It is helping her mind, isn’t it? Physics, biology, chemistry. Motion, cells, and molecules. It’s all the same. Our bodies are ruled by static, natural law. Physical, mental, it’s all the same. Even those of us that can channel High Energy. Even you. Parameters of Shift 101, as Jackson says. I didn’t understand because it just wasn’t possible. It’s like Jackson said, there are laws and we are all bound by them. The universe is bound by them. She is getting better. It’s why she could save herself when you asked that I deliver the bodies from the sea. You thought they were all dead, but they weren’t. She saved the others, those who were left. The water, it acted as an accelerant for her Energy, just like… God, Rush, do you see what you have done for her? Do you understand? Oh God! She knows. I knew you were a… a… but, I didn’t know… Oh God.” Tears started to course down the Monk’s cheeks. He stood only to sink to his knees before Rush in the same way he had seen Bright Star do it dozens of times before.

  Rush reached down and pulled him up until they were eye to eye. “Monk,” he said, slightly shaking the other man. “Monk, I told you once before never kneel to me. Never. No matter what you think, I am still a man and only a man. Yes, my Talent can transform others, change others, even grow inside of others. We all know this, but Bright Star has a piece of this power within her… without me. And you have a piece, too.”

  Monk grimaced. His faced crumpled in near grief. “No—”

  “The rock, Thaddeus,” Rush persisted. “You have the power to transfer High Energy, to transfer a signature, a life signature—”

  “I—”

  “We both know you put your Energy into that rock. You can transfer a life signature, even where there exists one already. You have to help me. I respect you, and you are my friend.”

  Monk started to shake his head as if being called a friend to Rush was more of an honor than he deserved.

  “Listen to me, now,” Rush said. “If you want her to live, if you want your daughter to live, then we have to help each other. You have to let me help her. It’s the only way.”

  “You did say you were selfish.” A jaw ticked in the Monk’s cheek.

  Baby

  “Are we cool?”

  Jackson regarded his brother under heavily lidded eyes. He didn’t answer the question. “She doesn’t blame you,” was all he said.

  Rush visibly tried to contain the desire to shake his brother. “I couldn’t care less whether she blames me or not. I’m not asking about her. I’m asking about us, you and me.”

  “Do you remember when we were little?”

  “I remember.”

  “And Dad—”

  “Your Dad,” Rush corrected through clenched teeth.

  “My Dad,” Jackson acknowledged with a quick nod. “You remember what my father’s temper was like.”

  “I don’t think I could forget.”

  “You remembered what would happen between him and Mom.”

  “There’s no way I could forget that.”

  “Or forgive it?”

  “Or forgive it,” Rush agreed.

  “Then I don’t know how you could have done what you did. And, oddly enough, that’s not even what I want to know.”

  Rush gave a pained smile. “You want me to tell you why I never stopped him.”

  Jackson didn’t say anything. He could
n’t. His throat had closed over, simply from getting that question out. He had been wanting to ask this for all the days following the incident. Instead, he nodded.

  “She wouldn’t let me,” Rush stated plainly.

  “Wouldn’t let you—”

  “Wouldn’t let me,” Rush repeated firmly. He neared his brother and stood eye to eye with him. “She didn’t want there to be any attention drawn to her Talent or to mine. She didn’t want the Talent. Jackson, you couldn’t know, she had been in and out of the hospital for it before you were even born. When she met your father, everything changed. He controlled her and somehow, she let him control what was inside of her.”

  “She could have defended herself,” Jackson croaked.

  “She could have, but she didn’t,” Rush returned. “She had no respect for the Talent until you were born. She didn’t want it. She felt guilty for having it. But, then you came. And they both loved you. And… and it started to slow down. It happened less and less. the older you got. It happened less and less until they died.”

  “She died.”

  “Yes,” Rush agreed. “Then he died.” The question lay between them, waiting. Jackson would want to know. Rush didn’t know whether he wanted to give the truth. In the end, he answered him. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “So he died natur—”

  “I didn’t kill him. He did die naturally, only a few years later than he should have. She protected him for that last stretch. Without that protection, the disease that was eating him alive had free reign to kill him.”

  Jackson considered this. “You knew all this.”

  “Yes.”

  “You never told me.”

  “No,” Rush answered.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Jackson. I’m protective, I guess. You are my blood. I’d rather deal with it, than have you deal with it.”

  “You’re like her.”

  Rush did not like the similarity drawn between him and his mother. Though he had loved her a great deal, he didn’t want to believe he was that sort of victim. But he couldn’t deny the possibility he was exactly that sort of victim. He shook off the thought. “I didn’t think you needed or would want to know this.”