by Rob Thurman
I understood that. I’d have given anything to say good-bye to Tess.
• • •
Once the van was loaded, it was Fujiwara driving. It was a good idea to bring him along. If you wanted anyone caught up in a violence cycle and trying to kill you, it was Fuji. He wasn’t very good at it. That upped everyone’s chances of survival considerably.
Thackery was in the front passenger seat. That I didn’t care for much. The sociopath who had let Charlie die through indifference and ambition wasn’t someone I wanted watching my back. But Hector had said, lack of conscience aside, that next to him, Thackery was the best scientist, and he’d rather have him in sight than lurking back at the base unsupervised, doing God knows what. Psychic reading wasn’t any kind of proof that Hector could take to his government oversight contact, and Hector did have his own eventual plans for Thackery that government oversight had no part of.
That left three soldiers in the first bench seat, Meleah and me in the second seat, and Hector in the back with the Charlie buster, or what he called the Transplanar Energy Reintegration and Stabilization Device. I used the name to distract myself from the sharp ache of my rib. No happy pills today for the psychic who needed to stay sharp and focused.
“Someone has a thesaurus fetish, and it is out of control,” I drawled. “They need help. Professional mental help that can probably only be found in Germany in some experimental psychiatric study run by Freud’s cryogenically frozen brain in a jar.”
“I named it,” Thackery said stiffly from up front.
“So surprised. It would take a narcissistic egomaniac to come up with a name so boringly geeky that they wouldn’t even use it on a Star Trek episode. Hell, I’m astounded you didn’t name it after yourself. Wait.” I groaned. “You did, didn’t you? The Thackery Transplanar Energy Reintegration and Stabilization Device. God, what a dick. You should patent it as a sleep aid, too, because that’s what it’ll induce halfway through actually saying it.”
Hector was running last-minute diagnostics time and time again on the Charlie buster as the van sped along the road. Whether the machine worked or not and dissipated what was left of Charlie or failed and left Charlie still roaming to activate brutal aggression sprees, Hector wasn’t going to have a good day either way. That he was able to give an amused snort at my taunting of Thackery was my good-bye to him, like Eden having said good-bye to me with pancakes. We all had our talents, and we all used them in different ways. Who wouldn’t think the bite of sarcasm wasn’t as tasty as that of blackberry pancakes?
Although we were no longer going to the caverns, and Thackery had bitched a solid hour about that, the drive was every bit as long as Fujiwara had told us. With the van’s tinted windows, the scenery was all shadows. The radio was silent, as was everyone else. The soldiers weren’t big talkers, and Hector and Meleah were distracted by hopes and fears that were one and the same thing. I took the opportunity to nap off and on, making up for a sleepless night and getting some respite from the pain that Tylenol did nothing to dull. It was a damn shame they couldn’t make a narcotic that kept you happy, pain-free, but without the fuzziness.
I dreamed of Charlie and those pink walls of Cane Lake. The pink that had been the final straw. The color that had reminded me too much of my lost sister’s shoe. I remembered lying to Charlie about taking his calls. When I woke up with a crick in my neck, I realized that I hadn’t lied. I was going to be there to take Charlie’s call, his last one. I hoped that made up for all the other unanswered ones.
The van was bumping over what felt like a dirt road. That was standard for a Georgia farm. Hector had said one brother had beaten the other over the head with an axe handle for the privilege of gaining twice the acreage, so it had probably been a while ago, a hundred years, give or take. These days, everyone had a thirty-eight shoved in a drawer somewhere, nice and convenient when arguments became a little too hairy. Hell, if you wanted to drive on up to Tennessee, they had some places that would let you carry guns in a bar, because nothing mixed like alcohol and bullets. And nothing cured a hangover when you didn’t have a head left to host it.
A Georgia farm, I thought, as we hit another bump that had my rib groaning. They’d been lucky with that list of theirs. What if someone had razed one of those massacre houses and built a mall over it? Would there still be a recording? Would an employee suddenly go berserk at the Gap and start beating customers over the head with a mannequin arm since axe handles weren’t available?
The van stopped, and Fujiwara announced almost cheerfully, “We’re here!” Fuji cheerful while sitting next to the testicle-withering Thackery—what had happened there?
Thackery looked out of his window. “Someone killed his brother over that land? He should’ve stored that homicidal fury up for something more valuable,” he stated disparagingly. I couldn’t see jack from where I was sitting, but if a sociopath, who would gut you like a fish for cutting him off in traffic, didn’t think it was worth killing over, chances were it really wasn’t.
Thackery checked his watch. “Wait, we’re only an hour before ETE.”
Okay, this one I remembered. Estimated time of ether-disruption. I was pretty proud of myself on that one, proud enough not to notice Fuji’s reaction—or lack of one—to Thackery’s temper tantrum.
“An hour, Dr. Fujiwara. You underestimated travel time by two hours. That is completely inexcusable.”
I heard Fuji’s door open, some low words, almost whispered, then the door shut, but I didn’t make out what he said. Truthfully, I didn’t try. Unless he was telling Thackery to stick his head up his ass, something poor Fuji lacked the balls to think, much less do, I wasn’t interested. I remained uninterested for several more seconds until Thackery’s harsh inhalation exploded out into a shocked snarl. “What do you mean, ten minutes, you spineless, brain-damaged nobody? What the hell is going on here?”
Ten minutes. We only had ten minutes with a machine that had taken twenty minutes to load into the van? Ten minutes and a Fujiwara who was suddenly unafraid of his boss, when before his eyes came close to rolling back in his head with very obvious fear whenever the man entered a room? Very obvious, when at times “very” can mean “too” and “too” can mean “not at all.”
“Shit,” I said, leaning past Meleah, pushing the sliding door open, and jumping out.
I hadn’t seen it coming, not for one second.
But now I knew it all.
Thackery was right. This place wasn’t worth fighting about, much less killing over. It wasn’t a farmhouse. It was a four-room shack. Weathered wood eaten down to almost nothing by termites, it was small, cramped, and leaning drunkenly on its foundation. The windows were cracked and completely covered in red dust. The grass surrounding it was parched brown—hadn’t seen a sprinkler or a hose in its life. Year after year of thirsty lives. Inside, the kitchen had once had linoleum, green and orange, curling at the edges. The living room had had remnant carpet, brown as mud, a recliner patched with duct tape, and an orange couch with torn cushions where a boy had slept at night. A narrow hallway with a wood floor slick from use led to two bedrooms—one for the man and woman and one for the two little girls. Although that could’ve changed as the swing had. The splintered porch swing those girls had sat on, rusty chains creaking loudly with every pump of their legs, was gone. One thing wouldn’t have changed, though. If it had been at night, if the stars had been out …
They would’ve been the same stars I’d watched from this yard as a kid, eating a peanut butter sandwich and dreaming of mansions, fast cars, pretty girls, paying for my sisters to go to college and away from here—fantasies of a life to come.
But it wasn’t night. It was—I yanked desperately at my sleeve—it was one fifteen. Ten minutes, Fujiwara had told Thackery. Ten minutes. He was right. That’s when it had happened—at one twenty-five. That’s when everyone died, including a Jackson who had dreamed childish dreams. Birthed in his place had been a bloodied one who knew that not having dreams
meant you couldn’t lose them.
“You son of a bitch!” Fujiwara was at the front of the van, and I ran to take him down hard. I felt the impact of the two of us hitting the ground vibrate through me. I knew he felt it that much more. Red and black flickers of rage ringing my vision, I rammed my fist into his face, feeling the crunch as I shattered his cheekbone. It wasn’t enough. I couldn’t begin to imagine what would be. I hit him, and then again. “What have you done, you bastard? What the hell have you done?”
Hector’s hands on my shoulders, trying to pull me off. His grip was firm, but his voice was shaken. He recognized the house from the files, because this file had interested him most of all. My file. The nightmare of someone you knew versus the nightmare of people from a hundred years ago—which would stick with you more?
“Christ, Jackson, stop. Let me hit him. I can hurt him in ways that will still let him talk. We need him to talk. To tell us why here.”
Hector wanted to hurt him? Fine by me. As long as someone was doing it, I didn’t care who that someone was. But talk? The time for talking had been over the second I’d left the van, from the moment I’d actually seen where we were.
He had managed to remove me from the scientist, whose face I’d left a bloody ruin.
“Talk?” I snapped. “There’s nothing to talk about. And why here is easy. This jackass”—I kicked the fallen man hard in the ribs—“has sabotaged me. You think I can do a reading on Charlie here? You think I can do any kind of reading at all?” I rubbed at my eyes with the glove-covered heels of my hand, growled, and kicked the fallen man again. This time, he curled up into a ball with a groan. Good. Great. I hoped I broke every fucking rib he had.
Grabbing on to what calm I could, I added, “If he’s sabotaged me, he’s probably sabotaged your machine, too. I won’t be able to do a reading to lure Charlie here, and even if I could, this goddamn spy has no doubt made sure you couldn’t do anything about it.” He’d taken down their project, and now he was making certain that they didn’t get it back up.
The three soldiers were out of the van, confused but awaiting orders. Thackery, who conveniently liked to give orders, gave them one. They restrained Fujiwara with plastic ties around his wrists and ankles and left him lying in the dirt.
Hector looked at his own watch and came to the obvious conclusion that he didn’t have time to question Fujiwara. “Let’s get the machine out. Now!” he directed, and the soldiers moved with him to the back of the van. The four of them began to lift and move the machine considerably faster and with somewhat less care than they’d loaded it. “I ran the damn diagnostics five times. It was green to go every time. I didn’t find anything wrong.”
“Like … you found … nothing wrong … with the … transplanar.” Fujiwara grinned, a scarlet bubble popping from his split lips. “And who … designed the … diagnostics for the … reintegrator?”
I didn’t need Hector’s grim expression or an Alex Trebek guest shot to let me know that had been Fujiwara’s department.
“It doesn’t matter,” Hector insisted. “He could be lying. He’s lied all along, and we’ve never suspected him. He’s made three attempts on your life, and we didn’t see a glimpse of him once. He’s playing all of this like one big game, and this could be a bluff. It would be in line with everything he’s done so far. Jackson, he can only sabotage you if you let him. Take Meleah’s ring.”
With Charlie’s keys lost in Job’s Quarry, the plan had been for me to use the engagement band he’d given Meleah, the one he’d insisted she keep despite her refusal of him. It had belonged to his mother, and he had known Meleah would end up wearing it one day when Hector and the truth finally came to a meeting of the minds. Charlie had carried that ring with him all the years after his parents had died until he’d given it to Meleah. There was more than enough of him imprinted in the metal for a reading.
If I would do one. But I wouldn’t. Not here. Not in this hour of all hours. I couldn’t open myself at all for fear of what might slip in—memories that had nothing to do with Charlie. I’d already lived that blood-soaked, cordite-burnt day through my own eyes. I wasn’t going to relive it through the eyes of my mother as she drowned in her own blood or through those of that bastard Boyd, whose thick fingers had reached for me as I turned with the shotgun and blew off his face.
And, God, never, never through the eyes of Tess, whose lungs had filled with water when her arms and legs couldn’t keep her afloat any longer. My baby sister, who I knew had thought with her last breath that her big brother would find her. Save her. Her big brother, who never let her down, not one time in five unbelievably short years.
Not one time … until the very first and last time.
“What’s happening? What is so wrong with this place?” Meleah was confused as she pulled the chain over her neck and tried to press the ring into my hand. I jerked my hand back and let the ring fall to the ground.
“It’s home,” I said bleakly. Hector had told Meleah about my file, my past, because she knew—I saw it in her eyes.
Stricken, then determined, she looked from me to the house and back. “No. It can’t be here. You can’t do it here.” She crouched and reclaimed the ring. “Jackson is right, Hector. We can’t ask him to do this. No one can ask him to do this.”
“How did Fujiwara know?” I demanded, as Hector and the others—Thackery, who had a career on the line if not a soul, joining in, too—struggled and sweated in the god-awful heat with a machine that had to weigh more than six hundred unwieldy pounds. “About this place? Is it on your list? In your Big Book of Bloody Massacres?” I’d trusted him, not once but twice, and how stupid had I been to go down this treacherous and broken road again?
“Jackson, God, no.” Hector’s hair was soaked, his breath heavy with exertion. But that’s all it was heavy with. I didn’t hear any guilt. Although I’d not looked at Fujiwara twice, had I? When it came to industrial espionage and a rampant run of sociopaths, ex–con man or not, I was out of my depth. In all of this, I doubted once that I’d actually grasped what was happening around me. “All the places on the list are at least fifty years old. The more time that has passed, the more time the ether has to fray. But it doesn’t matter. Even if it didn’t work that way, I wouldn’t have let them put your house on the list. I wouldn’t do that to Charlie’s friend, and I sure as hell wouldn’t do that to my friend.”
That word, that goddamn word that came so fucking easily to him.
I looked back at the house where Boyd had taken it all from me: my mother, my sister, my innocence, an innocence I hadn’t then realized I had. He had taken my whole life, past, present, and future. He’d taken it all, every breath, every step, every decision, until my dying day. I was who I was, every cell in me, because of him. He had made me more than my mother’s womb ever had.
Because I had let him.
But now, maybe I could unmake some of that. I couldn’t change the past he had gobbled up, but there was a chance I could rip the present and the future out of his long-dead hands. I couldn’t do it for myself, and I was an unparalleled expert at doing things for me and only me, yet I could do it for Charlie. I could do it for that homely kid who’d refused to take no for an answer and helped me when I’d needed help the most. I’d thought I’d been surviving Cane Lake no problem. I’d been wrong. I hadn’t been surviving it; I’d been becoming numb. If Charlie hadn’t been there, poking and prodding, waking me up, showing me there was a life outside the fence, I’d have stayed. Boyd had made me, all right, but add two more years of Cane Lake on top of that, and I wouldn’t have an Abby hovering around the edges of my life. I wouldn’t have Houdini. I wouldn’t have enough to offer even a dog, and they only gave—they didn’t take.
One person I hadn’t managed to push away and a dog. Some people wouldn’t consider that much of a life, but compared with what it would’ve been without Charlie’s influence on me, it was a miracle of one. Whether he knew it or not, Charlie was giving me a chance at another
miracle, if I would take it. I could pay him back and put this all behind me in one fell swoop.
I closed my eyes. The heat from above became somehow hotter. I was an ant, and someone had shoved a magnifying glass between the sun and me. Is that you up there playing around, Boyd? No. There’s no up there. If there was, there’d be a down there, and that’s where your wide ass would be burning for eternity.
There was no hell for Boyd, I knew that. It was all right. There was another way to banish him from existence … by banishing him from my life.
I opened my eyes, took off my glove, and held my hand out to Meleah. “Give me the ring. Give me Charlie.”
“Jackson,” she started, already shaking her head.
“It’s all right. Just … don’t let me trip over my own two feet and touch anything else.” I tried for a smile. It didn’t feel particularly encouraging. She must have seen something, however, as she carefully placed the ring and chain on my palm. It was cool, a circle of relief on hot skin.
“Four minutes.” Hector’s countdown was followed by the thud of six hundred pounds hitting the ground. A few seconds later, there was a hum that vibrated up and down my spine as heavy and pulsating as a hive of enraged hornets. “Machine is up and good to go.”
He hoped. I wasn’t as sure. Fujiwara hadn’t needed to bluff before. He’d been what I didn’t believe existed: a ghost. We hadn’t suspected him, seen him, or found any evidence at all that it had been him. I’d felt sorry for the son of a bitch, having to endure Thackery’s rages. He’d fooled us all, seemingly without effort. I had the feeling he was somehow doing the same now.
I closed my hand around the ring. It wasn’t as if I opened myself up to Charlie. It wasn’t as if I’d opened myself up to anyone since this had first begun sixteen years ago, when I’d picked up Tessa’s pink shoe. What I had didn’t come with an off switch, or hell, I’d have taken a simple mute. But right now, there was only the taste of old memories, nothing new.
