He couldn’t breathe. Then he was gone.
Cai saw what hit him, but just barely. To him, it appeared as if the strangely familiar, reptilian-ish man he’d just been talking to sort of faded away in a half-visible rushing blur that moved so fast he could barely follow it—until it knocked him off his feet from the side, snapping back into focus to slam him hard against the wall.
Regan pinned him down with a forearm against his chest, pressing up toward his neck as the young man’s hands desperately struggled to push him away. But even Regan’s wiry arm was so much stronger than a teenager who’d obviously seen some physical as well as emotional trauma, and it just wasn’t happening. He looked up at him in shock and terror, wide eyes spilling over with tears.
“No—don’t!” he managed to gasp out.
Regan’s eyes snapped open. Disturbing recognition. Again. Why?
Didn’t matter. Still had to escape. Cairus Maddox still had to—
He shut his eyes again and clamped down on the bizarre, terrifying impulse screaming in the back of his brain, intruding on his conscious mind and overriding his most reasonable of thoughts. Think. Why? No reason. No reason this young life should end here. He knew nothing. He’d done nothing. All he’d said was that he knew Regan, knew his friends, knew where he—
Run, run, run, run!
Regan moved his forearm up just a few inches to press it into Cairus’s exposed, vulnerable throat. He did not slam it against the brick wall. He did not grip and twist, he did not dig in with the claws on the ends of every finger, no matter what demands his suddenly-horrifying instincts made. And he did not dwell on the disturbing fact that he knew exactly how to implement all of those options.
He pressed down with restraint and—it would be absurd to call it gentleness, he thought wildly. Just… hold him there. Until the first sign of unconsciousness. As soon as Cairus’s eyes slipped out of focus and grip on his assailant’s arm weakened, Regan lowered him to the floor.
Then he turned and ran. He was across the room in what felt like half a beat of his heart, rapid and pounding as it was from disgust and horror.
As he opened the door and stepped out, a small bell tinkled overhead—and he stopped dead. For the first time, Regan noticed the long-haired grey and white Himalayan cat that now loped across the bar stage, hopped down and continued over to Cai’s crumpled, unconscious form, proceeding to sniff urgently at his head as if checking whether he was breathing. It must have been in the room the entire time, Regan thought, and he simply hadn’t seen it until it moved. He would have noticed that cat before. Fluffy, bright green eyes instead of the usual blue, and it looked… not quite real, somehow. That was harder to put a finger on, but it definitely—
He gasped. The cat turned its head to look up and stare directly at him and he felt something like an electric shock of… he’d call it ‘recognition’ if he knew what it meant at all. But now he could see that its green eyes were some kind of synthetic metal, made of several layers of interlocked gears and wheels, all spinning together but different speeds, directions… gyroscope, that was the…
Go!
He stopped staring at the cat, but kept wondering why it was so significant. Why he knew the cat’s face with more clarity than any human one he’d seen tonight. And why it was so important that it had seen what he had just done to Cairus Maddox.
Regan ran out the door so fast, he didn’t see Cai slowly, painfully lift his head. Or the way the cat turned its head and ran to the stage door as it opened, meowing as if to alert him to the presence of the pale, thin girl with long, platinum-blonde hair who stepped through.
“Jenny?” he groaned, weak and breathless as she hurried over to him, steps quick and light in the faded ballet slippers she wore, untied ribbons trailing behind her feet. “Jenny, there’s—a guy just—he—”
“Shhh,” she whispered, kneeling down beside him. “It’s all right. He’s gone now. He won’t hurt us.”
“How do you…” He struggled into a sitting position with her help, reaching gingerly up to touch his aching head. “We gotta tell Garrett. This is one of his guys, Jenny! He’s gone bad, rogue, something! I sensed something bad, weird in his head, and now he’s…” He looked up, seeing her bite her lip and look away. “Jenny?”
“He’s gone too…” her voice was a faraway whisper. Her hands spread out in the air, as if she were playing an invisible Cat’s Cradle. The cat in the room itself raised its head to sniff at her arm, fixing her with its artificial eyes, and rotating its ears, also delicately crafted of intricate metal. The entire cat was, but it was much easier to tell in the patches where fur was wearing off from repeated pets.
“Who’s gone?” Cai turned to search her face with much more anxiety than the cat’s gentle scan. “Jenny? Who’s gone? What happened?”
Slowly, she reached out and took his hand, pulling him gently along as she rose to her feet. “Garrett left a message. He wants us to listen.”
“A message… did he go somewhere? Did—the fire alarm earlier, I knew there was something weird about…” still stunned, he allowed himself to be led a few dizzy steps, then caught a glimpse of her face. “Jenny! What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
She shook her head and pulled her hand from his, turning away to hide behind her hair. “Can’t follow him. Just listen to the words. That’s all that’s left.”
“What are you talking about, Jenny?” Cairus’s voice shook as he forced the words out. He felt the answer before he heard it. Sadness radiated off his friend in waves, like turning on the cold water faucet in a warm bath.
“Don’t look for him. He’s a ghost.” Jenny Strings’s voice never rose above a whisper and her face remained downcast; she never met his eyes to see the confusion in his eyes turn to disbelief, then, finally, horror. She kept looking at the floor, so all she saw were his feet as he flat-out ran across the stage and through the back door. Head hanging low and ribbons trailing, she slowly followed.
❈
Evelyn looked up to see the scale-covered young man she’d found tonight beside her again, reappeared as if by magic. “Oh! Here you are! Where’d you disappear to?” She almost smacked herself in the forehead a moment later, realizing she hadn’t just used an expression. He’d actually done that a moment ago. It had been a hell of a night.
“Oh, uh, sorry,” he panted, breathless. She wasn’t sure if he was capable of it, but figured anyone without scales might look pale and sweaty. Couldn’t blame him, really. Hell of a night for both of them, really. “Sorry about that. I just, um, I saw your friend coming? Um…”
“Celeste. She’s on the case,” she reassured him. Figured he could use all the reassurance he could get. “If there’s anything really bad cooking around the Emerald Bar, she’ll find it. We’re both on it, but my end will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“Yeah—sorry for not sticking around to meet her, I just…I don’t think I…”
“It’s fine, you don’t have to explain,” she said easily. “New people are hard even on normal nights. Now come on,” she took a couple steps—much slower than Celeste’s near power-walk—and called over her shoulder, nodding for him to follow. “I have to keep looking for answers. And you have to get some rest.”
“Where? I thought the Bar was one of the last safe places in Parole.”
“One of them, yes. But it’s more of a stronghold and planning center—I mean, aside from an actual bar and performance space. If you need help and a place to stay, you want the library.”
❈
The library was dark as the Bar, but much quieter. They used a lower entrance instead of the main one, and instead of knocking or using a key, Evelyn simply walked inside, holding the door for Regan to follow her in.
“Pretty empty tonight,” she observed as they entered a large room filled with bunk beds and cots. “There’s almost always somebody down here.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Not really bad, I was just hoping to find som
ebody at least. Let them know you’re here and your situation, ask if they know what happened at the Bar. But the library’s a safe place, it’s defended, neutral ground, nobody’s going to start anything here.”
“Where are you going to be?”
“I need to get back to the Emerald Bar, find Garrett, figure out what happened tonight. But don’t worry, I won’t be far away.”
“Okay.” Regan nodded, sinking down on a nearby cot and trying to get acclimated to the four walls around him. It looked so normal in here, and that was the strangest part of the night so far. Inside a room with a floor and ceiling and beds instead of a smoky street with fire glowing up from the cracks, it was easy to pretend everything else had been a bad dream. “I’ll see you in the morning though, right? You’re coming back?”
“Of course! Before you wake up, probably.” He doubted that, but said nothing. “I’m not leaving you in a strange place. Don’t worry.”
He couldn’t help it; worrying was what he seemed naturally programmed to do. Regan swallowed hard, flaps of skin around his neck twitching as if they were about to flare out in alarm. His breathing was quick and shallow, and his green skin had a sick sheen of cold sweat.
“Hey, you all right? Look at me.” Evelyn stepped back into his field of vision (his eyes were whizzing all around the room, unable to stop and focus on anything). With effort, Regan forced himself to look back. “Take a breath. Deep breath, in and out. You going to be okay?”
“I’m scared,” Regan whispered. “I’m so scared. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know how to make it better or what’s wrong with me and I’m just… oh, God…”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Evelyn said quietly, and it actually sounded like she was telling the truth. Or at least believed it herself.
Then, she softly started to hum. Then sing. And, slowly, the choking anxiety faded. Each breath became a little easier. His heart was still rapid, but it wasn’t pounding painfully anymore. It wasn’t just the song, Evelyn was doing… something.
Good night… Dream sweet… In the morning, I’ll be here…
Evelyn’s voice had been spectacular onstage, but now, in the same way Regan could turn invisible at will and had scales when in full view, her singing went beyond what anyone outside this strange world could recreate. She self-harmonized, modulated in artful but gentle ways that brought his terrified, obsessive thought patterns to an easy halt.
“That’s nice…” He knew there were so many reasons to be afraid, but he wasn’t.
But it was more than that. He’d heard this song before. It was a warm, familiar melody that Regan couldn’t place, but he knew it, as certainly as he knew his own name. It felt old. It felt right. The song itself whispered across his memory like a warm breeze, and in this moment, he wasn’t afraid. Not while he could hear the strange, familiar music.
He gradually felt his muscles relax, from his jaw through his locked shoulders and slowly moving down. Soon even the shadows and shapes of the beds in the library basement looked familiar and reassuring instead of alien.
“I know this song,” he whispered, though he almost hated to break the spell.
“Good,” Evelyn said softly. Even after she stopped the melody, it stayed in Regan’s head like an echo, like ripples across the surface of a pond. “Do you know from where?”
“No…” his scaly brow furrowed as he tried to chase the song back to where it lived. But it might as well have come from a songbird itself; the moment he reached for it, it flew away. Regan’s chest ached, but it was a different feeling from the terrible constriction from a minute before. Heavy. It wasn’t fear, and he could breathe just fine. It just hurt. “It’s… I remember I heard it a lot. But not where, or… who. Where’d you hear it?”
“Me? I’ve heard it a couple times in Parole. Never a recording, though. Always meant to cover it, never got around to it. Makes a nice lullaby, though.”
“Yeah. Really does. And I liked what you did. How you made it feel. Is that part of your power too?”
“Yeah. Audio frequency manipulation. It’s just a little lullaby on a therapeutic wavelength. Great for getting friends through anxiety and panic attacks. Comes in handy more often than I’d like.”
“Thanks. It’s really… it helps. You use that on stage?”
She laughed quietly. “Not as often there. Only when people really need calming down. People get real scared, they need something to take their minds off for a night. And if distraction doesn’t work, just knowing they’re not alone can help.”
“Okay. I’m fine now.” Regan shut his eyes and tried to convince himself that it was true. “I’m not afraid. This is fine. I can do this.”
“Yeah you can. But you don’t have to do it alone,” Evelyn promised. “Your memory is… it’s like that song. You knew by heart once. And you will again. It’ll come back even if you don’t know the words right now. You do recognize it. It means you belong here—or we’re close. Wherever home is, we’ll find it.”
Regan couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even open his eyes. If he did, they’d spill over with tears.
“Just listen, and keep breathing.”
Once she started to sing again, it got easier.
“How are you feeling?” Evelyn adjusted the cloth mask over the lower half of her face as they walked.
“Scared, all day, every day.” Regan glanced over his shoulder back at the library where he'd spent the night. “I think I’m just… always nervous. Gets hard to breathe.”
“It’d be easier if you wore a mask, or at least a handkerchief,” Evelyn said gently. "Everybody does. I have a spare, if you—”
“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “I don’t—I mean, no thank you. I tried it, back at the library, there was a free box. It wasn’t… good. I know it’s not good to breathe the air here but… when I tried, I couldn’t breathe at all.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “Nobody’s going to force you. Honestly, the safest things are the expensive gas masks… and only Eye in the Sky has those.”
“Then why do people wear anything?” He cast a baleful look at the cloth stopgap measure she wore. “I mean, what's the point?”
“Because anything is better than nothing. We’ll take what we can get, until we can get something better tomorrow.” She glanced at him, and it wasn’t condemning. “But you decide how you go about it. And if something gives you a panic attack… claustrophobia?”
“I don’t… know.” He folded his arms tight, hugging his upper body. “It was bad, but… everything’s bad. I swear, everything’s bad right now. Maybe it’s the lizard in me.”
“Or your run-of-the-mill chronic anxiety.” Evelyn gave him a look that tried to be uplifting but fell a little flat. “I think most of us in Parole have it to some degree. And post-traumatic stress disorder. Lots and lots of PTSD. ”
“This feels like a little more than your basic—I mean, none of this is basic,” Regan tried to breathe deep, then remembered that even breathing could be dangerous in this city, and curled his hands into tight fists. “But this is different, someone did this to me.”
“That’s what it’s looking like, yeah. Or some kind of drug—and if it’s that, Rose will recognize it in around three seconds.”
“Right, that’s right,” Regan nodded, trying to convince himself or at least calm his racing heart. “Your wife knows all about this stuff, right? Brains? Weird stuff that happens to brains?”
“Rose knows more than almost anyone on that subject,” Evelyn said, and Regan could see the smile in her eyes even behind her mask. “She’s one of Parole’s last remaining therapists. Don’t worry, she won’t analyze you or do anything without your say-so, I promise. Just putting that out there, everyone gets nervous. But I don’t think you’ll be nervous once you meet her.”
“Okay. Yeah, thanks for that. But I mean… I know enough to know that all this isn’t normal.” Regan carefully examined the scales on the back of his hands, tiny close to his knuckles and slowly
enlarging further up his forearm. When he rubbed them with his thumb, they brightened considerably; they were covered with a thin layer of what almost looked like ash. It must just be from constant exposure to the smoky air. He hated to think what it was doing to the insides of his lungs, but he couldn’t stand the thought of anything covering his face either. He didn’t need to feel any more trapped and helpless than he already did.
Sun-scorched concrete blocks of apartments stood squat and secure as the city’s distant white-noise hum slowly increased. Still, they were alone—no lights shone behind the barred windows, nobody else walked the cracked sidewalks. The stark white glare of the sun on the metal and asphalt hurt his sensitive eyes, and all he could smell-taste was oily exhaust and smoke.
Evelyn smiled behind the cloth mask. “Well, try to relax, because Rosie and Danae are wonderful and sweet, and they both protect this city as much as I do, just in different ways. And they’ll like you.”
“How do you know? I don’t even know if I like me.”
A bouncy little shrug. “I like you.”
Before Regan could answer, several deadbolts slid back and the door opened, revealing a pretty young woman with dark brown skin and loose, natural curls that fell down to her waist. She had a round figure and soft curves, and was wearing what looked like a fresh grass skirt, and a pink T-shirt that read “Everything Is Going To Be Okay.” Dozens of small flowers were sprinkled through her hair; vines twined around and through it, coiling around her ears and snaking down around her neck, peeking out from under her T-shirt sleeves.
“Evvie!” A bright smile lit up her entire face the second she laid eyes on Evelyn, and she opened her arms wide. “Welcome home! One, two, three!”
“Hello, Rose petal,” Evelyn said, pulling her into a hug and kiss as soon as she’d finished counting. “Miss me?”
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