Shards

by F. J. R. Titchenell

  “Sounds more like a seventies folk band than a group of battle-hardened monster-hunters,” Greg said.

  “Yeah, and they tend to be pretty litigious,” Julie added.

  “John Carpenter’s Breakfast Club?” Aldo joked.

  “‘The Network’ is starting to sound a lot better,” I said. “Maybe keep it for now? We’ll know it means something new, and it’s nice and generic, not bad for anonymity in public.”

  Greg laughed. “Anonymity, after what we just did?”

  “Yeah, we did just pull something major there. What’s going to happen to us after that?” Aldo asked.

  “Probably what Dad said would happen,” Mina said, begrudgingly. “When he said that we would be safe, he meant it. We’d be dead if he didn’t. Though it’s probably only because we’ll be useful bait to draw out the Slivers.”

  “And what are we going to do about them?” Aldo asked.

  “After what we did tonight, they’re gonna come after us,” I said. “We’ve interfered with their plans twice already. They’re gonna be pissed. They can’t just come after us on the street like they did with Courtney. The mainstream Splinters are going to be watching us like hawks, and if they see a Sliver make a move, they’ll try to intercept them.”

  “So we’ll be watched more than usual? Lovely,” Greg said.

  “At least we get to fight some Splinters again,” Mina said, smiling. “Besides, I fully intend to keep a completely open line of communication this time. We can have meetings whenever they are practical, daily texts, and of course a regularly updated Need-to-Know Newsletter.”

  She looked to me, so proud, so happy with the thought of sharing information with the entire team. This was a new Mina Todd, one who was starting to understand how to play well with others.

  I liked it.

  “On that happy note, anyone else feel like dancin’?” Julie said as she sidled over to the jukebox, popped in a quarter and cued up some eighties dance music. She held out a hand, and Greg was more than happy to take it. It looked a little absurd, after all we had been through tonight, to be dancing in the middle of a diner decked out with Christmas decorations and UFO memorabilia, but a little release felt warranted.

  They weren’t the only ones. Aldo and Kevin (well, mostly Aldo) were talking animatedly about the fight against the Splinter-beasts while Courtney pulled Mina aside and said she had an idea she wanted to talk about. That left the person I wanted to talk to most all alone.

  Perfect.

  “Dance with me?” I asked Haley.

  She smiled up at me, almost sheepishly, but joined me in the small space in front of the jukebox that would have to act as a dance floor. She seemed uncertain about how she wanted to dance with me; the song was neither fast nor slow (though, the way Greg and Julie were careening around the dance floor, you’d think it was the fastest song man had ever written). Eventually we settled on a close, casual posture, more or less holding each other up against the exhaustion that threatened to pull us down at a moment’s notice.

  “You’re not bad,” she said.

  “At dancing?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, holding back a nervous smile.

  “Thanks. Mom always wanted to make sure I knew how to dance well enough, just in case,” I said.

  “Just in case what?” she asked.

  I gave her a playful twirl, getting her to giggle. “In case I ever needed to butter up a girl for interrogation.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, that?”

  “Yeah, that,” I said. “Just what the hell did you do to Madison?”

  “It was supposed to be your Christmas present, but what can I say, when we got all our ducks in a row, I got a little excited and kinda-maybe threw the switch a little early,” she said.

  I looked at her, skeptical. She continued. “Remember when Greg was explaining dead agenting? Attacking your attackers? It got me thinking. So I got Greg, Julie, and Aldo together, and we worked out a plan. Greg got some of his . . . associates, to provide enough resources to make Madison appear to be a low-level drug dealer. Aldo got into her computer and cell phone to make it look like she had a side-business selling pictures of underage girls in the locker room. And Julie and me, well, we just started dropping a few rumors and let them linger and grow. Then I confronted Madison and told her that if she didn’t tell Patrick and some other influential kids in school that nothing had happened between you and her that I would go to the police and the principal with proof of her criminal enterprises.”

  “And she didn’t?” I asked.

  Haley smiled sweetly, shaking her head. “No, she played her part well. She told all the right people that you had rejected her advances and she was humiliated, and she wanted to make you look bad, and that she would never make up a lie about you again. It was fun, watching her embarrass herself in front of these people, standing by her as the supportive friend. Once she started getting torn apart by the court of public opinion, I gave the cops and the principal her information.”

  That was cold. I liked Haley, and I considered her one of my best friends here. I didn’t know she was capable of something like this. Part of me was impressed. An even bigger part of me was scared for her.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” I said.

  “Maybe not, but I did. And you know what? It worked,” she said.

  “You got rid of Madison, sure, but have you thought about what the Splinters are gonna do to you for this?” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Like they haven’t already destroyed my life?”

  “You know what I mean,” I said.

  “Yes, I do, and maybe you’re right, but my time in their Warehouse has given me some perspective on the Splinters that you don’t have. They like their lives here and they’re terrified of them falling apart. After what we did to Madison, they will fear us, and they will think twice about messing with us again. Whether you believe it or not, Ben, what I did was not only right, but necessary,” Haley said.

  I could see the logic of every word she said, and I was glad to see that my reputation had been salvaged. It didn’t make me feel any better about what she had done. I had built up this image of her as someone who wouldn’t sink into the darkness that Prospero welcomed.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Just promise me you’ll always remember what it’s like to be human?”

  She smiled, standing up on her toes to kiss me on my right cheek, the one that didn’t smell of gasoline. “For you, Ben Pastor, I promise.”

  Unconsciously, I looked across the room to see if Mina had seen that. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw her engrossed in conversation with Courtney. I knew I shouldn’t have been nervous, that there was nothing going on with either Haley or Mina, but I couldn’t keep my heart from pounding when I thought Mina might have caught Haley kissing me.

  After the song, Courtney and Kevin both offered rides to whoever needed them, and Haley, Aldo, Greg, and Julie gladly took them. Seeing Mina hanging back, I excused myself, saying I’d walk her home. We all exchanged our handshakes and hugs as we separated.

  It felt bittersweet to see them leave. We’d just signed on for the coming war against the Slivers, and there was a good chance we might not all live to see the end of it. Right then we were alive, and we were human, and it felt good to pretend that everything would stay that way forever.

  I walked to the Christmas tree by the jukebox and pulled free the present I had stashed beneath it. I joined Mina by the table where she’d first explained Splinters to me, a miniature Santa hat on the head of the stuffed jackalope off to the side. She stood looking up at a large sprig of mistletoe that hung from the ceiling above the table.

  “I’ve never understood the mistletoe tradition. Mistletoe is poisonous if ingested. You might as well be kissing beneath a bottle of cyanide,” she said idly.

  I looked up at the white berries above us. “I’m sure it has some ancient pagan origin that I’m too tired to pretend to know anything about
right now. Do you have a problem with the Christmas tradition of gift-giving?”

  “No,” Mina said.

  “Good,” I said, handing her the wrapped parcel. “Then merry Christmas. And happy birthday, for that matter. Since you didn’t tell me about that, this’ll have to count for both.”

  She smiled faintly. “I didn’t get you anything.”

  I shrugged it off. “There’re still some shopping days left before Christmas. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  Mina tore off the paper to reveal the new bag I had gotten her (with Haley’s help). It wasn’t quite as big as her old one, but it also wasn’t being held together by a series of patches, a wish, and a prayer.

  “Thank you, Ben,” she said.

  “Merry Christmas,” I repeated.

  She smiled, emptying the contents of her old bag onto the table and putting them in the new one. I didn’t want to break up this sweet moment, but there was something I had to get off my chest.

  “Did you know what Haley did to Madison?”

  “Not in advance. I overheard you talking,” she said. “It makes sense, really, why she did it, and that she didn’t tell us, because we would have probably tried to stop her.”

  “You heard us all the way over there?” I said, nervous again.

  “I have good hearing,” she said. Then it was her turn to look nervous. “You know, maybe you should ask her out sometime. I believe she is interested in you, and you two would make a very compatible couple.”

  I don’t think Mina could have said anything more surprising to me at that moment, shy of admitting she was a Splinter. I struggled for an answer, trying to find something nice to say. The longer I struggled, the more I could see the pain growing on her face.

  “I don’t think I can do that,” I said.

  “Why not?” Mina asked.

  Honest or safe. Take your pick.

  “I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship right now, not with all of this going on. Let’s defeat the Slivers first, then we’ll talk about my love life,” I said, trying to make a joke out of it. Safe it is.

  This got a smile out of her. “Fair enough.”

  “So what were you and Courtney talking about?” I asked, trying desperately to change the subject.

  “She was asking if the two of us would like to be on the school newspaper,” Mina said.

  “Really?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. She said that there were a couple of openings, and that it would give us a perfect excuse to walk around the school carrying notebooks and surveillance equipment. Since there is so much Splinter, and possible Sliver, activity going on at school, you must admit it is a tempting offer.”

  It was. It was also an extracurricular activity I had never once considered. Writing had never been one of my strong suits, but if it would further our research and investigation, I would learn.

  “It is,” I said.

  Mina sighed. “It will also give us an opportunity to keep an eye on Courtney.”

  This took me off guard. “What?”

  “I still believe there is a good chance that she is a Splinter. Maybe even a Sliver,” Mina said.

  “Mina, stop.”

  She kept going. “Think about how easily she has ingratiated herself to our group, the way she always wants all the information we have, how easily we fought off the Splinters who tried to take her, how—”

  “Mina, stop this,” I said, firmly.

  “Why? This is potentially a serious problem!” she said.

  “It may be. It may also be the fact that Courtney’s a tough woman and an even tougher reporter,” I said. This next part would be harder to say. It had been building in me for a long time, and though I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the words right, they needed to be said.

  “Seeing Splinters everywhere has been a fantastic survival mechanism for you, and I’m glad it’s gotten you this far in life, but survival will only get you so far. If all you’re doing is surviving, you’re going to turn out like The Old Man.”

  This statement hit her hard, almost as if she’d been punched in the stomach. I didn’t want to hurt her again, not after what I had done tonight, but this was necessary.

  “I’m not saying we give up the fight because I know we can’t. I am saying that you need to live from time to time. Otherwise, what are you surviving for?” I said.

  She cast her eyes down to the floor. “I haven’t lived for a long time. I don’t know if I still can.”

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and smiled, trying to sound cheerful. “Hey, there’s still time. With both of us working on it, I’ll bet you can learn.”

  Mina looked up at me, almost teary, her smile grateful. “You promise?”

  I cast my eyes upward, toward the mistletoe. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  She poked me in the ribs. Hard.

  “Okay, maybe that was a poor choice of words.”

  Acknowledgments

  As is likely to become a trend in our published works, we’d first like to thank our lovely and always awesome agent, Jennifer Mishler, for everything she has done, will do, and is likely currently doing for us at the moment you are reading this. Thank you for helping us sculpt and transform The Prospero Chronicles into what has made it to the page this day.

  Thank you to everyone at Jolly Fish Press for all the work you do in helping us make this a coherent manuscript, putting it literally on pages (and e-readers as it may be) and doing everything you can to get us out in the world.

  Matt would like to thank Scott Carter, his ever-patient and infinitely strong father, for giving him his sense of humor and appreciation for strong storytelling, and his best-friend-he’s-not-married-to Boris Palencia for helping him gain a new understanding for friendship and brotherhood (as comes up in this book a bit).

  Fiona would like to thank her parents and sister for all their support and enthusiasm, as always with a special mention for her dad, Denis Titchenell, for being her first and best English teacher.

  Thanks to all the wonderful readers, bloggers and authors who frequent our blogs and pages.

  And of course, thank you everyone who’s ever produced a work of art we’ve come into contact with, because you’ve all shaped our work in some way or other. Even the bad ones we enjoy for all the wrong reasons.

  Matt Carter is an author of horror, sci-fi, and young adult fiction, co-authoring the first book in The Prospero Chronicles: Splinters. He earned his degree in History from Cal State University Los Angeles, and lives in the usually sunny town of San Gabriel, California with his wife, best friend and awesome co-writer, F.J.R. Titchenell. Shards is his second published novel.

  F.J.R. Titchenell is an author of young adult, sci-fi, and horror fiction, including Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know Of) and co-authoring The Prospero Chronicles: Splinters. She graduated from Cal State University Los Angeles with a B.A. in English in 2009 at the age of twenty. She currently lives in San Gabriel, California, with her husband, coauthor and amazing partner in all things, Matt Carter, and their pet king snake, Mica.