by David Beers
Christian shook his head. “No … I don’t know what it will do to her. I don’t know what’s really inside her mind anymore.”
“But she can talk to you right? She does? You said she helps you, sort of like a wife or girlfriend?”
“Yeah, she’s functioning to a degree, but that doesn’t mean I can just go poking around in her head. I don’t know what kind of traps Luke might have set, or what they’ll do to her.”
“Well you know what I think, Christian. You should let it go. Get her help and let Luke go. Let Tommy go. Let the whole thing go. You told me that Titan said you were free, and you are. You’re free not to do any of this.”
Do you think he’ll let me go, Simone? Do you really think that? Christian thought the words but didn’t say them.
“Maybe,” was all that came from his lips.
“I’ve gotta run into a meeting, Christian. Will you call me sooner next time?”
“Maybe,” he said, knowing that it was probably a lie. One truth and one lie in a conversation. Was 50% bad?
“It depends on how you look at it,” the other said.
“Okay, bye, Christian.”
“Bye,” he said and hung up.
Christian stood from the couch and walked back to the bed where Veronica lay. He saw she wasn’t sleeping, but lying on her side like normal. She rarely rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling—Christian didn’t know why she preferred this position, but found it slightly puzzling.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down next to her on the bed.
“Hey,” she said without looking over.
The two of them weren’t cold to each other, but there wasn’t much warmth either. Like a married couple who knew they should have cashed out years ago, but stayed together for any number of reasons besides love.
“Do you love her?” the other asked.
The questions were nonstop now. The two creatures Luke created were as much a part of his life as anyone else, forcing Christian to ignore them much of the day.
He understood what they were, what they meant. The splitting of his personality, the destruction of any sanity he might still possess. He had thought about it a lot over the past year, between lying in hospital beds and doing physical rehabilitation. These things existed because of his mind’s capabilities, both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was that instead of imploding on itself, his mind had created two other entities. One was Luke’s aftermath, and the other simple insanity.
Both existed, as did Christian, and their separation allowed Christian’s existence. Otherwise, he would have been mired into three personalities, none of them dominating, thus insanity reigning.
The negative parts of them were obvious—they were always present. Always here. Always chatting.
And yet, there was more. Christian’s mind might be powerful, but it couldn’t hold these things at bay forever. It was breaking, and he knew it. Had been breaking for quite some time.
Sooner or later, he would completely crumble.
“Stop your daydreaming, Christian,” the mouth said. “We have people to use here. Veronica, specifically.”
It floated over her, smiling endlessly.
“Are they talking to you?” Veronica asked.
“Yes … but I need to speak with you.”
“Okay.” She sat up, folding her legs beneath her and leaning against the headboard.
“I’m at a crossroads, Veronica. I’ve got to decide what to do.”
“What are the choices?” she asked.
“Let Luke go or go find him.” He looked at the opposite wall as he spoke.
“Sometimes I remember things he told me. I did just now. Would you like to hear it?”
She spoke like some kind of android, something fully programmed. Christian hated it. This wasn’t the woman he fell for or loved. This was a goddamned computer.
“Yes. Tell me.”
“He said neither of you can ever let each other go. That you’re intertwined now, like DNA wrapping around itself.”
She fell quiet.
“This broad is insane,” the mouth said while laughing. “Luke really did a number on her.”
Ignoring it, he spoke to Veronica—or himself … he didn’t know which. “That’s what I think, too. But to find him, Veronica, I have to go inside your mind. I have to undo what Luke did, at least as much as I can, and I don’t know what might happen.”
“You’re free, Christian,” Veronica said, “but you already know that. You don’t have to worry about me or anyone else, anymore.”
He closed his eyes, knowing that was another of Luke’s phrases. Just something else that he’d taught her to repeat like a parrot.
“What do you want?” he whispered harshly. “What should I do?”
“I want to fulfill my purpose, Christian. That’s all.”
He’d heard this before. The purpose. Always back to the purpose, something Luke gave her that Christian hadn’t pushed to understand. But, not like when he avoided the eventual decision that killed Tommy—
“Oh, don’t think about that, buddy. You’re not ready for it,” the mouth interrupted.
—because to actually dig here could cause damage.
“And you’ve caused enough of that, haven’t ya?”
Christian looked at Veronica, trying to keep his eyes from venturing to the black mouth above her. “Okay. Let’s fulfill your purpose then.”
“Hi, Wendy,” Robert Franklin said, the Senator taking his seat in the Attorney General’s office. “Thanks for meeting with me.”
“Not a problem, Robert,” she said, both of them knowing she had no choice when it came to sitting down with Robert. If she didn’t cooperate, he could just as easily put her ass in a sling, too. She was out of his crosshairs for the moment, mainly because he’d been thinking he already found his prey.
That had proven not to be the case, though.
Unfortunately.
So now he’d gotten on Wendy Welcs’s calendar, because things needed to be done.
“Do you mind if I speak plainly, Wendy?”
“Of course, Senator.”
“Last week wasn’t good, for anyone. Not me, not you. Well, I guess it was good for Waverly, but that’s it.” Robert sighed, leaning back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. “In fact, there’s talk of disbanding my entire committee, which won’t look good for me.” He grew quiet and looked at Welcs. He wanted to see what she had to say.
“I agree.”
Measured. What else had he expected from the top attorney in the land?
“Do you believe Windsor?” Robert asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Welcs looked away, to the corner of her desk. “The story started as a rumor, you know that right?” She glanced back up. Robert nodded.
Of course he fucking knew. It was his business to know everything that happened on the hill.
“It started as rumor and by the time it reached my desk, it’d grown almost to fact in a lot of people’s minds. The rumor, I guess it started because of what happened in Christian’s home, or wherever he was staying in DC. The security guard that was on duty described a man who looked nothing like Titan. More, the fingerprints that were found, none of them matched Titan either. The last two or three breaking and enterings that Titan did, he left fingerprints. He didn’t care at all who knew. Then there was what happened at the National Mall. You had a van with Phillips’s wheelchair inside, and someone crashes a huge vehicle right into it. Who was driving Phillips around? Not his nurse. Not Windsor. Not Waverly … The rumor got too big to ignore and so we started the investigation. That, the accident, is the main reason I don’t buy that the killer and Titan were working together.” She looked directly at Robert. “Just because Windsor gets up there and lies to everyone, doesn’t mean all the other evidence is invalid.”
Robert smiled. “And now, I agree with you, Wendy. The freak lied. And he’s going to keep lying and eventually Waverly wi
ll get off without even a slap on the wrist—because Windsor and that woman of his are the only witnesses … Unless we do something about it.”
The attorney general said nothing, her face still.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “It depends on what you’re asking me to do.”
“If Windsor is lying, then this isn’t the only thing he’s lying about. I’m confident of that. Speaking candidly, we need dirt on him. We need to know what he’s doing and we need to make sure the world knows it. If we can discredit his truthfulness by showing he’s up to less than wholesome endeavors, then his testimony goes out the window. Which means the evidence comes back into play, and then, Waverly gets his comeuppance.”
Welcs didn’t smile as she spoke. “And then you get reelected in a landslide.”
“Precisely. Now, would you like to play ball?”
The AG was quiet for a second, seeming to take in Robert’s seriousness.
Let her, he thought. Let her see I’m as serious as that last nearly clogged artery on a 55 year old, 300 pound, cigarette smoking man.
“I’ll put someone on him,” Welcs said.
Veronica felt tired, and it had been a long time since she felt such a way.
“We’re done,” Christian told her. “Thank you.”
She looked at him and only nodded, another feeling rising to the surface of her mind: gratefulness. She was glad to be finished with their talk, because it had been tough.
“I’m going to take a nap, I think,” she said. They were still sitting in the bedroom. She looked at Christian, not sure what she was waiting on. Approval? No. He didn’t give her that. That had been Luke. So why wasn’t she lying down?
Much of her days were spent in such a mindset, unable to understand exactly what she was supposed to be doing—and why she did the things she did.
She wanted to ask Christian what was wrong with her, but whenever she considered doing it, Luke’s voice came back. “Your purpose, Veronica. Remember that above all else.”
She did. She always would. And somehow, if she were to get help from Christian, she might lose the ability to remember that purpose.
Which couldn’t happen.
So she remained quiet.
Christian stood from the bed. “Okay. I’ll be in my room down the hall if you need me when you wake up.” She watched him walk away and then scooted down beneath the blankets. She really was tired, and yet, she wanted to think about what they’d discussed. It hadn’t been comfortable for her, and that was new. Veronica had a tough time remembering a lot of things—as if she was walking through a forest with heavy fog. She could see other trails venturing off to her right and left, knowing that they led to other parts of her life, things she had once experienced. Yet, the fog kept her from seeing down them, and she wouldn’t dare venture.
The fog, though, was her purpose. It was a good thing, if also a bad one.
Things had improved for her since the large house in the mountains. Luke had told her that she was to get Christian back to safety … and then he left.
She thought back to that day in the mountain house, after Luke was gone. She’d sat there for a while, staring at Christian, not even seeing the dead body next to him. She didn’t realize until later that Tommy had been slumped on a couch with his throat cut. Even now, she didn’t feel much emotion about it. She understood it was all part of Luke’s purpose—of which her own was tied to.
She had kept staring at Christian for a few minutes, but she finally remembered what to do. She’d stood and walked over to Christian’s wheelchair.
“Time to go.”
She’d been running on autopilot then, something she hadn’t understood until a few months later. She now realized that Luke’s leaving helped her return a bit to normal—but not too much, his voice reminded her. If you go too far, you’ll forget your purpose.
Christian was the only person she could be herself with. When she finally got them down the mountainside, she’d known what to say to the doctors they first spoke with. There had been a lot. She was fluent with them all, talking like she usually did, yet the words seemed to come from someone else. From Luke, maybe.
It was only when she was alone with Christian that she went back to what felt normal—and yet so strangely different. The woman who spent much of her day not knowing how to behave. Who preferred lying in bed and staring at the wall, rather than speaking to people.
The woman who knew her purpose, even if she never voiced it.
“Are you trying to understand it now, Christian?” she asked the empty room. “Are you finally trying to understand?”
She thought so, but she also thought he was scared. She didn’t know why, another trail that contained too much fog for her to see down.
Veronica closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about these things anymore. She would rather sleep, content in knowing that her purpose would be fulfilled soon. Luke had promised if she stayed with Christian, she would succeed. The time was almost here.
She fell asleep with a smile on her face.
“Going to the mansion?” the other asked.
He lay in the bed next to Christian, on top of the comforter with his hands folded on his stomach. The mouth, blessedly, had wandered down the hall somewhere and didn’t appear to be returning.
Christian lay exactly like the other, though the similarity was lost on him. He was thinking, but not about the other’s question.
He focused on what he’d asked Veronica. Christian didn’t have any hypnotizing skills; he had to rely on his training as a psychologist.
“How did Luke give you your purpose?” he had asked her.
“He told it to me.”
“Can you tell it to me?”
She had shook her head. No.
“Why not?” Christian asked.
“Because it might not happen if I tell someone.”
“Like a wish?”
“Yes,” she nodded, her face solemn.
“Are you supposed to help me find Luke? Is that your purpose?”
“I can’t tell you. It’s like a wish, Christian.”
Luke had blocked this avenue, setting up barriers that Christian would have to fight to tear down, and he didn’t know what might happen if he did. Veronica’s purpose was important to her, but what did it really matter to Christian? His goal was to get to Luke.
So, he changed paths.
“Veronica, did Luke tell you where he was going?”
“Kind of,” she said.
“What did he say?”
“He told me that when you were ready, you would know where he went.”
Christian stared at her for a moment, flabbergasted with the answer. Frustration rose in him and he gritted his teeth, doing his best to not show his feelings. It wasn’t her fault. It was Luke’s. He’d done this, creating the answers that Christian now heard.
“Am I ready?” he asked after a few seconds.
“Do you know where he is?”
Christian shook his head.
“Then I don’t think you are.”
Christian had almost laughed, though he managed to keep it in.
“Did he say how I would find out where he was?”
“He said God would tell you.”
Christian had fallen silent then.
Now, as he lay in his own bed, he thought about how Luke of an answer that was. God would tell him. Except, Christian was an atheist—none of Luke’s psychobabble on the subject had changed his mind. God wouldn’t speak to him, no more than he would speak to Luke. There was no God to speak to anyone.
This was just a riddle with no answer: a game Luke played to amuse himself, like when he told Christian to kill those he loved or the attacks would continue.
That wasn’t a game to amuse him. If it had been, then Tommy would still be alive.
Christian’s thought process broke down, pistons seizing up.
Tommy.
That’s all it too
k, just the mention of his partner’s name. Most days—all days, really—Christian was nearly on autopilot. He had a singular purpose in life now, and anything that didn’t coincide with that had to be discarded. The purpose was Luke’s murder. Nothing less than that would suffice.
He’d come back from the mountain, Veronica driving like some dead-eyed drug addict. She’d known exactly where she was going; Luke had left nothing to chance. She stopped for fuel and to help Christian maneuver to gas station restrooms, but that had been it. Veronica hadn’t gone to the closest hospital, but drove him straight to D.C., to the Georgetown University Hospital.
He’d returned from the mountain very similar to Veronica. Both dead inside. Both personalities destroyed by Luke, only through different methods. But didn’t the ends always justify the means? Christian thought Luke would agree with that sentiment. So, he’d come back, and gone straight to the hospital. He offered his resignation to someone other than Waverly—from his hospital bed—because Waverly had already resigned.
He’d come back from the mountain, offered his resignation, and begun protecting Waverly immediately. Christian doubted Waverly knew that, but it was true. If he hadn’t, Waverly would be finished. So, Christian told the people debriefing him that if there was a killer, he’d worked in tandem with Luke.
He didn’t talk about Luke ferociously attacking the animal, breaking bones with his fists.
He didn’t talk about the animal shooting him, or the bullet that opened his stomach, creating that horrifically beautiful flower—its red so deep and perfect.
He didn’t talk about the month long rehabilitation Luke put him through, all the while dreading what would happen at the end.
He didn’t talk about the choice Luke gave him. Not the conversation where Tommy told Christian to kill him, that it was okay, that it would all be okay, even though both knew nothing could ever be okay again.
He told them he remembered nothing, and that meant he couldn’t tell the story of the tiny knife slicing open Tommy’s neck and his blood spilling out across his body. The tiny gasps his partner made as he sat dying on a madman’s couch. No, Christian remembered none of it.
He resigned, debriefed (though the FBI kept coming back, kept asking questions—sure that he was lying), and then put his head down. He focused on his recovery, leaving everything else to the rest of the world. That included Veronica, too, but she seemed to be on autopilot. Another one of Luke’s programming miracles.
