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Val watched Jessica go, her heart pounding. The pulse in her throat drumming away. Temples throbbing. The hell of the thing was that she got it. She understood why Jessica was pissed. And if she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that her sister was right. What better lesson could Val teach Braden than that sometimes you had to risk everything in the pursuit of what was true and good. Even what was beautiful.
But she shook her head. It was one thing to risk yourself in the pursuit of high ideals, to put your own life on the line for a principle, but being responsible for a family changed everything. How could Jessica not understand? She had someone to love. Someone to lose. How could she not see?
“Fuck you, sister,” Val said.
After a while, she went back to the barn. She found Celina sitting with her back against the open door, her lovely legs stretched out on the ground in front of her. Val wondered how the girl had managed to stay in good shape when she had lived for years in an underground cell.
Good talk, huh? her voice said in Val’s head. No changing your mind?
“Don’t you start in on me, too,” said Val, trying hard to put on a friendly tone. “And you don’t have to talk to me like that all the time.” She leaned the rifle against the door frame.
Celina smiled, but to Val it looked forced. She didn’t have to be a mind-reader to know that this was a girl who went about her life wearing a mask.
“I try to keep up appearances,” Celina said, shrugging. “Otherwise, what’s there to talk about? And everyone puts on masks.”
“You think so?”
Yep. Even you.
Val ignored this. “Everyone else still asleep?”
Celina closed her eyes for a second. “Braden’s starting to wake up. Kim is still sleeping. Dreaming about you, actually.”
Val’s cheeks warmed.
“A good dream, I hope?” she said. They hadn’t talked about it, but something about Kim had seemed a little off since the Institute. Val had chalked it up to horrific experience that they’d just gone through, but she wondered if finding out that Val had done all of it with Asa’s help had bothered Kim.
“I’ll let you ask him about his dreams,” said Celina. “Look, I need to...” She looked up at Val, all pretense of mirth gone. The honesty that shone in the girl’s eyes almost startled Val.
I need to tell you something.
“Okay,” said Val. “But you’re not going to change my—”
It’s not about saving that baby girl.
Val knelt down and sat on her heels, a weight settling in her stomach at the expression on Celina’s face.
“Okay, what is it?”
Like this, said Celina’s voice in her head. Please.
Okay.
You’re worried about Kim, said Celina.
A jolt of irritation shot through her chest, but she took a deep breath and calmed herself.
Sorry, said Celina’s voice. I can’t always help it.
That’s what Braden says, but he’s a kid.
Celina pressed on, still looking Val in the face. Look, when I first met your husband back at That Place, I did something...
She trailed off, and another jolt hit Val, but it wasn’t irritation. An icy feeling of jealousy and fear settled in her gut. She knew already what Celina was like.
What did you do?
For a few seconds, a look of confusion crossed Celina’s face, and then she broke into a grin.
Val’s fists clenched almost involuntarily.
What did you do?
No, no, no, Celina’s voice said. I didn’t bang your husband.
The wave of relief that swept through Val surprised her. She had never felt jealous or insecure with Kim. Not once. With a sickening feeling in her stomach, she wondered how else Celina would change her life.
Celina shook her head, her grin fading.
No, I made him see... something, she said. It’s just a thing with me.
“What is it?” said Val, impatience straining her voice.
Well, you asked...
Suddenly an image rose in Val’s mind unbidden. She saw herself lying in a bed, naked, her legs wrapped around the waist of a muscular, broad-shouldered, faceless man. With each thrust of his hips, The-Other-Val’s fingers dug into his back, and she cried out in pleasure.
“That’s enough,” said Val, shaking her head to clear it. Her hands clasped the sides of her face. God. It had been like seeing. Like being there as a bystander, a witness.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Celina. She looked down at her feet.
“Why would you do that?” said Val.
“It’s like...” said Celina. She looked around as if searching for the right simile. “Like a cat chasing a laser pointer on a wall.”
Val stood, her heart beating hard. She wanted to side-kick Celina’s face. “I’m sorry about how you’ve had to spend your life,” she said, clenching her fists. “But that’s not Kim’s fault. It’s not my fault.”
But now another vision entered Val’s mind uninvited. She was looking up at a ceiling fan in the dark. It spun slowly, the pull chain swaying. A man’s face appeared over her, blocking her view of the fan, and he bent down to kiss her on the mouth. She could taste tequila and cigarette smoke. A hand groped for her under the comforter. It slid up the inside of her trembling thighs. A finger pushed inside her. Burning. Probing. Thrusting.
And just as quickly as it had come, the vision was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Celina whispered again.
They stared at each other. Val felt her anger disappear the way sand under your feet disappears when you stand in a fast-moving stream.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. She sat down next to Celina and stretched out her legs.
They were still sitting that way when Braden came wandering through the barn door, bleary-eyed and hobbling on stiff legs.
“Hey, Mom,” said Braden. He sat next to her and put his arms around her shoulders.
“You can’t sleep, either, huh?” she said.
“Bad dreams,” he said. He yawned.
For a few minutes, she held onto him. She didn’t even bother trying to hide her thoughts. What was the point? The baby. Artemis. Kim. Asa. All of it gathered in her mind like debris pushed by the tide.
“Mom,” Braden said, his voice still raspy from sleeping. “Dad’s okay.”
Val’s chest hitched, and her eyes burned. But she fought back the tears. “I know,” she said, stroking Braden’s hair.
Celina’s voice spoke in her head. You don’t always have to be strong, you know. It’s okay to be weak sometimes.
Stay the hell out of my head.
“Things are going to be a lot different now, right?” said Braden. “Whatever happens now, we’ll have to keep running and hiding?”
Val nodded. She knew what was coming. She wanted to shut him down right then. To tell him to stop before he even said it. But if it was possible, it also made her love him even more.
“If we can help someone who needs it, shouldn’t we do it?” he said. “Even if it puts us in danger?”
She put her arms around him and pulled him tight against her. In other circumstances, he would have joked about her suffocating him, but he let her hold him close this time.
“The world doesn’t deserve you,” she said. “I don’t deserve you.”
“And you know,” said Celina, elbowing Val in the ribs, “I can help. At the Institute, they were training me to sneak into secure places like Artemis. It’s kind of what I’m good at.”
Val turned to look at her.
“Besides, I saw what that hunky doctor looks like in Jessica’s mind,” said Celina. She winked. “It’ll be fun.”
Val sighed and let her head fall back against the barn door. A commercial airliner crossed the sky, its lights blinking on and off among the steadfast, unchanging stars.
She had wanted to be a pilot for as long as she could reme
mber because her grandfather had flown. I flew because I loved it, Paw Paw had told her once. I flew because I needed to be in the sky, to look down and see the world like an old patchwork quilt. See life like maybe God sees it. But I fought because that’s what I had to do. I had to serve. That’s the only reason to fight, ever. Because you serve something bigger than yourself. Because there’s a lot of folks out there who can’t fight for themselves.
Val let go of Braden and stood.
“I need to talk to Dad,” she said. She glanced at Celina. “About a couple of things.”
The girl nodded and looked at the ground.
“He’ll agree with me,” said Braden.
Val looked down at her son. Messy hair. Dirty cheeks. At once she saw the boy who used to play with toy trains and the man he would be soon.
If...
“Not promising anything,” she said. “You just hang out with Celina for a bit.” She looked at the girl. “And you behave.”
Celina perked up. “Me? Oh, I always behave. Nothing but wholesome, rated-PG conversation from me. On my honor.” She placed a hand over her heart. “Well, maybe PG-13.”
Val felt her way to the feed room in the back of the barn where Kim was sleeping. It was pitch black, so she found a lantern that they had taken from the Dragonfly and turned it to the lowest setting. In the blue glow she could see Kim’s outline on his cot. His shoulder rose and fell with each breath. They didn’t have any pillows, so his neck was bent uncomfortably.
Val took the blankets from the other two cots and spread them into a pallet on the floor, which was covered with dust and straw. Then she stripped off her clothes and draped them across her cot. For a few minutes, she stood in the light and looked down at her body, comparing it to the version of her that she had seen in Celina’s vision. She remembered the flat, smooth stomach that had contracted every time she raised her hips to meet the faceless man’s thrusts. She remembered the lean legs that had wrapped around his waist. She saw the firm, perfect breasts and hard nipples. The strong arms that reached around him to dig her fingers into the muscles of his back. The face, the beautiful face that had almost vibrated with the agonizing pleasure of lovemaking. That woman had been an idealized version of her. Val had never looked that good. Not even when she was in her twenties. It was a version of Val that Celina had constructed.
But then with a flush of pleasure that coursed through her like alcohol, Val remembered that Celina had made Kim see this vision before she had met Val. Before she knew what Val looked like. The vision came from Kim’s own mind. Celina had shown him Val as he already saw her.
The skin of her chest, shoulders, and arms tingling, Val straddled Kim on the cot. She leaned over to kiss his face. He stirred, breathing in suddenly, and opened his eyes.
“Hey,” he said, looking up at her.
“Hey,” she said, running the tip of her tongue along his jawline up to his ear.
Later, they lay together on the pallet that Val had made. She stretched out on her side and propped herself up with her elbow, resting her head on the palm of her hand. Kim lay on his back, reaching out with his good arm to run the tips of his fingers up and down her hip.
“Don’t ever doubt me, okay?” said Val.
Kim’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I never doubt you.”
“Really?” said Val.
Kim flattened his palm against her side, his fingers going stiff. “Really,” he said. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. I’ve got more faith in you than—”
“Celina showed me what she made you see,” said Val.
Kim sighed and turned his head to look at the lantern. Val reached out and gently turned his face back toward her.
“Once you see it, it’s hard to get an image like that out of your head,” he said finally. He closed his eyes. “I can see it now. Not like imagination. It’s like a memory of something that I was there to see. And when you have to see it over and over again...” A tear glistened in the corner of his eye. “You know me. I’ve never been jealous or insecure.” He wiped away the tear. “I never knew until now how much just one image, one idea can change you.”
“I do know you,” said Val. “And you know me.”
Kim nodded, opening his eyes. “But there’s two kinds of knowing,” he said. “I know with my whole soul that you love me. You risked Braden and yourself to get me back when you had every reason to leave me. You killed people to get me back. You saved me.” He put his hand on her cheek and touched her lips with his thumb.
“What’s the other kind?” said Val.
“I don’t know how to put it,” he said. “But there’s just... there’s another kind of knowing that none of us really has. Really knowing.” He frowned. “No, not ‘none of us.’” His hand slid down to her throat, the backs of his fingers pausing on the soft flesh there. “Some of us have it. Braden has it. Celina has it. But I don’t.”
Val gripped his hand in hers and moved it to her chest. She held it there, his palm flat against the spot over her heart.
“Yes, you do,” she said. She bent and kissed him, touching his tongue with hers and breathing him in.
He cupped her cheek with his hand.
“Yes, you do,” she said again.
The tip of his thumb stroked her ear lobe. “I love you,” he said.
She lay down next to him—naked, exposed, vulnerable, and broken—and thought that in the end, all other knowledge would fail. Compared with this, even telepathy wasn’t worth much. Just another way of knowing that would deceive you if you let it. How could she risk this—what she and Kim and Braden had? Even to save an innocent child?
“And I love you,” she said.
Throwing her leg across him, she urged their bodies as close together as she could. Maybe the closer she got to him, the better she could make him see.
Almost as if to change the subject, Kim said, “Do you really think we can make it? I’ve been wondering about Mexico. We can’t just fly across the border, can we? We’re going to have to—”
“We’re not going to Mexico,” said Val.
“Why not? Where are we going?”
She put her head on his chest so that she could feel his heartbeat with her face. Feel the life there. The warmth of his flesh.
“You’re not planning to fly across the ocean all the way to Chile, are you?” said Kim.
Nothing’s really ours in the end, Val thought. That’s the key to everything. And it’s the hardest thing to accept.
“No,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere. Not yet. We have something to do first.”
A B O U T T H E A U T H O R
A Humanities professor at East Georgia State College, Dr. Armond Boudreaux writes science-fiction novels and also nonfiction about the ethics and politics of superheroes. Born in Alabama, he now lives in Statesboro, Ga., with his wife and five children.
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