A Neon Darkness

by Lauren Shippen

  “Well,” Marley breathes, and I shift on the couch to face him more fully, “it’s strongest and easiest when I’m seeing an echo of something that happened in the same spot that I’m in. So, let’s say a year from now, you and I are sitting on this couch: I might see an echo of you as you are now—a little piece of your past that’s tied to a specific time or place.”

  I get momentarily waylaid by the casual suggestion that Marley and I will still be hanging out in a year. Is that what all of them think? That I’m now just a staple in their lives who will be there for holidays and family dinners and late nights sitting on the same couch we’ve always sat on?

  “But you see stuff that happened in a different place, right?” I ask, distracting myself. “Because the first time we met…”

  In an effort to derail my own thoughts, I didn’t think about where that sentence was going, and now I’ve acknowledged the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the corner that I’ve very successfully been avoiding until now. I start to think about the fact that I want Marley to steer us out of the conversation, forget I said anything, but he’s already talking.

  “It can be tied to specific emotions too,” he explains. “I think because we were talking about Blaze and some of the stuff he’s been through…”

  The implication hangs in the air and I decide to change the subject myself, unsure of what I actually want in the moment and what my ability might be trying to accomplish without my knowledge.

  “Did you read his journals?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “You said there were journals in his things,” I say. “They might have information—something that could help us figure out where he went.”

  “I’m not gonna read his journals—” Marley starts before cutting himself off and telling the truth. “I skimmed them. Nothing really new to learn—Blaze’s been in a bad spot, wanting to hurt himself, wanting to tear his ability out of his body … that’s how he described it anyway. But that’s the way Blaze is—he describes things dramatically and violently because his ability is dramatic and violent. I’m just glad to see those things on the page. If he gets it out on paper, he’s not taking it out on himself.”

  There’s a long beat and then Marley brings his hands up to rub his face.

  “Goddamn it, Damien,” he sighs, and I thrill at hearing my new name from his mouth. “Don’t tell the others. Worried as they are, they’d be pissed if they found out that I went digging in Blaze’s private stuff.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” I say, smiling.

  “And yours are safe with me,” he says, dead serious and staring into my eyes. “I know that the first time we met … well, I was thrown off. By what you can do. But anything I see in your past is not anyone else’s business. I’m not even going to bring that stuff up with you unless you ask. I care about people’s privacy.

  “The journals being an exception, obviously,” he adds guiltily after a moment.

  “Why does Blaze hate his ability so much?”

  “Because it hurts him sometimes,” Marley says, sadder than I’ve heard him. “It gets him in a lot of trouble—most of us have gotten in trouble at one time or another because of what we can do—but it also hurts him.”

  “What, like … physically?”

  “Yeah.” He nods. “Apparently just a low-level pain, like a chronic burning he says, but that can’t be fun to live with.”

  “No shit,” I mumble, horrified by the prospect. My ability doesn’t feel like anything, other than when I’m using it. Even then, I can only feel it when I’m really concentrating, when I’m trying to do something. Most of the time it just happens and I don’t think twice about it.

  “It doesn’t hurt for me,” Marley shares. “I mean, sometimes I see pretty sad stuff in people’s pasts, which hurts in its own kind of way. But I can’t imagine having an ability that caused me physical pain.”

  “So you’d never give it up?” I ask, even though I can’t imagine why.

  “No, definitely not,” he says. “Yeah, it’s weird sometimes, but it’s a part of me now. Like breathing.”

  Marley doesn’t get to “what about you” this time. I don’t want to think about what my answer to this question would be, and I definitely don’t want to share it with Marley. I guess my will is stronger than his.

  We sit in silence for a few minutes, both leaned back and staring up at the ceiling, lost in our own thoughts.

  “Hey, Damien?” Marley asks quietly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you…” Marley trails off awkwardly, something I’m not used to from him. As a man of few words, he picks them all very carefully.

  He pauses before starting again.

  “You have a place to stay, right?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, Neon said you were at some swanky hotel back when you first got here but you’ve crashed on my couch a few times and you haven’t invited us over anywhere…”

  “I didn’t realize I had to.” I sniff.

  “So you do have a place to stay,” he says, voice serious as he turns his head back toward me and stares me down with pale eyes.

  “Yes, I have a place to stay,” I say mockingly, rolling my eyes. I’m surprised that Indah didn’t tell them. If Marley doesn’t know, then that means Neon doesn’t know. I’m beginning to learn the chain of information within our little group—if Neon knows something, everyone does. I guess Indah keeps as much to herself as me.

  “And I’m betting that it’s nicer than this place.” Marley sweeps his arms toward the rest of the tidy living room.

  “Not really,” I say, surprised to find myself being honest. “It’s way bigger for sure,” I continue, and Marley snorts beside me, “but, I don’t know, it’s not as … this is a home.”

  Suddenly, I can feel tears welling up in the corners of my eyes and blush in embarrassment. I sigh and clear my throat, closing my eyes as I dig my head farther into the couch cushion behind me—trying to pass off the emotional wave I’m experiencing as settling in for another night spent passed out on Marley’s couch.

  “What do you mean?” I can feel Marley turning his face toward me again and I swallow around the rising lump in my throat.

  “I don’t know, man.” I shrug. “It’s just … you know. You have your stuff and things on the walls and it’s just … it’s you. It feels like you live here.”

  “Well, yeah, I do live here.” I hear him huff a laugh and I open one eye to peer at him. He’s still staring at me, a curious expression on his face. I want to know what he’s thinking.

  “I can’t quite figure you out, Rob,” he says, my ability winding its way under his skin. “You have this power that can give you everything you want and yet … it’s like what you actually want most are things not even your ability can get you.”

  “I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” I say, my heart rate rising.

  “You want a home, don’t you?” he asks, and I already regret letting my power loose on him. Maybe I don’t want to know what he’s thinking—Marley sees me too closely, too fully, for me to want true honesty from him.

  “Whatever, dude,” I scoff. “I live in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills. I don’t want anything.”

  * * *

  I want them to come back. Even though I hated being around them—was so afraid of what I might do to them, what they might do to me in retaliation (though they never did anything, why did they never do anything, why didn’t they stop me)—I want them to come back. It turns out, a house isn’t much of a home without anyone in it.

  Their smiling faces still stare down at me from the framed photos lining the wall of the main entryway. The blanket my mother knit for me still sits on the back of the couch—casually flung over the cushions one day when I got too hot. I’ve barely touched the couch since they left. For three years, I’ve gone straight to my room the moment my feet cross the threshold. When I’m alone in my room, I can pretend that the house creaks because there are ot
her people in it, not just because it’s starting to fall apart. I can pretend that I’m not alone.

  But I am alone. I’m as alone as any person can be. On the outskirts of a town of two hundred, ten miles away from the nearest grocery store, with no family coming to keep me company. I tried calling my grandparents—the only people left who might give a shit about me—but the phone just rang and rang and rang. It rang every single day for two weeks straight. Either my grandparents were dead, or my parents had already gotten to them—warned them about their horrible, monstrous son. I don’t know which version of events to hope for.

  I have to leave this place. I know that, in my gut. I’m sixteen today, a grown-up now, and it’s time for me to move up and out. School is an empty shell of what it once was—no conflict, no interest. Whatever is inside of me is getting stronger and there’s no one in town who’s immune. I don’t want to be around them. I don’t want to look at the blank faces of my classmates giving me their homemade lunches, packed with such love and care; I don’t want to see the blank faces of my teachers as they give me an A on every paper, every test, every final exam, even when I didn’t turn anything in.

  It’s time for me to see the rest of the country, the rest of the world. Maybe whatever poison is inside me will be sucked out by leaving Nebraska. Maybe the world outside of me will be stronger-willed. Maybe I’ll find people who understand me, who aren’t afraid of me. Maybe I’ll find people like me.

  Even as I think it, I know it’s a hollow wish.

  * * *

  Like a lot of things in my life, it happens when I’m not actively trying.

  Neon and I hit up another one of Blaze’s haunts last night and came up completely empty, and now the Scooby Gang has taken the night off. Marley has class, and Neon is at some show that neither Indah nor I wanted to go to, so it’s just the two of us hanging at Bar Lubitsch. I haven’t spent much time here in the past few weeks—getting more comfortable being in the Unusuals’ space, their homes—but I’m struck by how familiar it feels to sit at the bar and watch Indah work on a particularly slow evening. It brings me back to the night we first met—barely half a year ago, even though it feels like a lifetime.

  “Maybe I should learn how to bartend,” I say as Indah mixes a complicated cocktail that a suited bro with perfectly coiffed hair just ordered.

  Indah laughs as she sets a coaster down on the bar in front of the guy, but doesn’t say anything. This is how Indah operates when she’s got a customer, I’m discovering. She’s aware of me, pays attention to me, but doesn’t speak directly to me if there’s someone else at the bar. I know that I could have her ignore everyone, put all of her focus on me, but I’m enjoying watching her tattooed arms stretch to reach the top shelf, her nimble fingers spinning a glass. There’s a simplicity to this—to just sitting with her, thinking aloud and watching her work—that keeps me grounded. Satisfied. Wanting anything else seems unnecessary when I have this.

  “Thanks a lot.” Indah’s voice cuts through my musings and I look up from my drink to see her grimacing at me.

  “What?”

  “That guy just left without having his drink or paying for it,” she snaps.

  I spin on my bar stool to look around me. She’s right: the suited douche is gone, the bar practically empty, except for a guy on his laptop in the corner and the old woman from the first night in her usual spot with a glass of clear liquid.

  “Oh.” I wince. “Oops.”

  “Oops?” I spin back to look at Indah, whose eyes are bright with anger. “Robert, I make my living from tips and you keep driving business away.”

  “I’m not trying to,” I say. “It’s not my fault that people don’t want to stick around.”

  “Yes, it is,” she sighs. “It is your fault when they leave because you want me to pay attention to you.”

  “Jeez, fine, I can leave,” I say, starting to move off the stool.

  “Wait, no—” Indah shouts as she grabs my arm with a warm hand. “I want you to stay.”

  “You do?” I ask, knowing what answer she’s going to give me and hating myself a little for wanting to hear it out loud anyway.

  “Of course I do.” She smiles sweetly at me, and just like that, everything’s fine again. That is, until seconds later, when the door swings open and a tall, pale man walks into the bar.

  “Please don’t scare this one away,” Indah mutters to me before moving to the end of the bar to greet him. I want to respond but my blood is turning to ice in my veins and my hair is standing up like I’ve had a run-in with Neon and her electric fingers.

  “What can I get you?” Indah croons, and the Tall Man doesn’t seem to hear her. He stands straight and still, gazing around the bar like he’s looking for a friend. I try to imagine what kind of person would be friends with such a man—looming and expressionless, his jaw and cheekbones like knives on his face—when he turns his face to me. I quickly move to look back down at my drink. Does he recognize me? Did he follow me here somehow?

  “Information, if you please,” comes the smooth but sharp voice, like boiling water thrown on a block of ice.

  “I’m sorry?” Indah asks politely, and I see her out of the corner of my eye leaning her arms on the bar in front of her as if the problem is simply that she didn’t hear him.

  “It is my understanding that a young man, Alex Chen, frequents this establishment.” I grip the glass in front of me like it’s the only thing that’s keeping me tethered to the earth and take another sideways glance at Indah. She’s no longer leaning toward the Tall Man, her arms now crossed in front of her as she narrows her eyes at him. I’m grateful for the width of the bar separating them, but it doesn’t feel like enough.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Indah says coolly.

  “Have you seen him?”

  “I think you’re in the wrong place, sir.”

  I’m suddenly very aware of the new, deadly silent atmosphere in the bar. The typing from the guy on his laptop in his corner has ceased and—even though she’s been silently sipping her vodka for forty-five minutes—the old woman is sitting stiffly, clearly paying attention to the tall newcomer.

  “I don’t think I am,” he purrs, and I see Indah clench her jaw. I want him so badly to leave; why isn’t he leaving?

  “We’ve been watching you, Indah Indrawati,” he says, and Indah takes a step back, the blood draining from her face. I’m not even trying to hide my face from him anymore, trying instead to stare him down, pushing my power as much as I can, hoping he’ll leave. Wanting desperately for him to leave. But he just keeps talking.

  “We know that you’re friends with Alex Chen,” he says. “And we very much would like to know where he is.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Indah snaps.

  “People who have his best interests at heart.”

  Indah snorts, a move that strikes me as foolishly bold.

  “Sorry, can’t help you.” Indah turns her back on him, grabbing a dish towel and moving along the bar to wipe it down. For the first time since the Tall Man came in, Indah’s and my eyes meet, hers growing wide at me, as if she’s saying, “Do something, help me.”

  The Tall Man’s pale eyes follow her along the bar until they land on me. I feel my heart start racing a mile a minute, my head dizzy, and I turn back to my drink, downing what’s left of it in one go. By the time I set the glass back on the bar top, the Tall Man is a foot away peering down at me.

  “Hello, Cory.” He smiles wolfishly. “Or was it Robert?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’ve met before,” he says, sliding onto the bar stool next to mine. I should get up and run out the door but something is keeping me planted where I sit.

  “I don’t think we have,” I say, not looking at him.

  “Oh, I’m sure of it.” I glance over to see that his mouth is stretching into a mockery of a smile—like he’s attempting to show his teeth rather than express an emotion.

  “Sir, if you’r
e not going to order anything, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Indah interjects, now standing next to me, her arm leaned on the bar between us, nearly touching mine.

  “I’ll have a ginger ale, please. No ice,” he says without turning to speak to her. He’s still staring me down, the light from the windows behind him like a halo around his dark, closely cropped hair. For the first time in a very long time, I feel small.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Indah begrudgingly grab a glass, loudly and pointedly scoop the glass full of ice, and fill it with ginger ale out of the soda gun. The sound of the blasting liquid fills the bar, highlighting the tense atmosphere.

  With a clunk, she sets it on the bar, ice rattling in the glass as she stares at the side of the Tall Man’s head and says:

  “That’ll be eleven dollars.”

  A truly ridiculous amount for a soda—even in Los Angeles, a soft drink isn’t that expensive—but the Tall Man doesn’t seem offended by the fact that she’s very obviously and intentionally overcharging him.

  His green eyes still staring into mine, the Tall Man reaches into the inside pocket of his long black coat—the same one he was wearing the first night we met—and pulls out his wallet. The gesture pushes his coat open slightly and I see a gun holstered to his hip. I can’t breathe.

  I watch his long, white fingers gingerly place a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and hear the rustling of the paper as if my hearing is heightened. The ring of the register as Indah puts the cash away feels abrasive and shocking and I do my best not to flinch. She slams the cash drawer shut and my eyes twitch in an involuntary blink. I see the corner of the Tall Man’s mouth lift slightly as he revels in my discomfort.

  A moment passes in which Indah very much does not give the Tall Man any change. He makes no move to ask for it or to take a sip of the drink he just paid twenty dollars for. Instead, he just keeps staring.