“I’m feeling a lot better, really.” Rose said, sitting up to kiss Danae’s cheek. “Go cuddle Jack; I know he’s missing his mommies. And I know Evelyn’s off somewhere beating herself up for all this. She said she wasn’t, but she is, and none of you are sleeping enough.”
“You never stop, do you?” Danae stared down at her. “What about you getting enough sleep?”
“I’m in a hospital bed and it still hurts to move.” Rose sighed. “Whether I like it or not, I’m resting. And making sure you do the same.”
“You could have died. I’m not sleeping for a long time.”
Rose’s gentle fingers stroked Danae’s face, twined through her wild hair. “Listen. It was my choice to go with you to rescue Finn and I’d do it again. Even if I get hurt, my decisions are mine to make.”
“I should be able to protect you.”
“Your lady can take care of herself.”
“I know.” Danae softly pressed a kiss to the back of Rose’s hand. “But you still got hurt.”
“Yes I did.” Rose said, carefully watching her wife’s face. “But we’re not like… other people. Everyone else doesn’t have flowery bulletproof vests. I’ll be fine.”
“Fine?” Danae said faintly, eyes slipping a little out of focus. “Please don’t tell me that. You can’t be—and you don’t have to be, not with me.”
Rose was quiet for a few long seconds. “I’m not fine. But I’m… processing. I’m… it’s…”
“It’s okay. You can’t think about it, can you?” She stopped for a moment. “Just like you can’t stop and take a break. It’s easier to focus on other people. And keep busy.”
Slowly, Rose nodded her head. “It doesn’t feel real. It hurts, I know it happened, but, it feels like it happened to someone else.” She smiled a little. “Classic post-trauma reaction. Initial shock and emotional numbness combined with defensive dissociation. Double-edged sword of being a therapist—I can track my brain’s exact responses and processes. But it doesn’t make them any easier.”
“No.” Danae bit her lip; the pain was grounding. “Sometimes even seeing the broken parts doesn’t make them any easier to fix.”
“What exactly happened back there?” Rose asked, frowning like she was trying to make sense of a particularly baffling puzzle. “Everything happened so fast. I saw people running. Heard crashes. But everything was chaos and noise and… and pain.”
“Regan got you into the car,” Danae answered, voice flat. “So maybe he actually saw it happen. I didn’t know how—I mean, you looked—there was a lot of blood. And I… freaked out. Pretty bad.”
“God. I’m sorry, honey.”
“Sorry? You’re the one who got shot!”
“Just in general. I’m sorry for me too. It just sounds like a nightmare.”
“Well, good. And yeah. Yeah, it—it really…” Danae trailed off, breathing hard, face pale and drawn. “It was bad. I saw you, and… and then I saw them. Eye in the Sky. They were there with their armor and shields and—and guns, and I couldn’t see anymore. I couldn’t think, I just wanted to destroy everything. Everything.” Her angular shoulders fell as she gave a deep sigh and stared at the floor.
“I don’t blame you. It sounds like Hell. Or at least like our old life.”
“I mean, that’s basically the same, right? It was all happening again, and I couldn’t stop it. You were hurt, and the guns were pointing at me, and I just…” She stopped. Sucked in a few fast breaths. Rose squeezed her hand and waited. “I punched a hole in the ground. With a tank.”
“Honey… I know you’re feeling guilty and sick about this, and it had to have been absolutely horrific in the moment, and however you feel is valid…” Rose spoke slowly. “But I am also very, very sorry I missed that.”
“I knew you’d think it was awesome.” Danae groaned, flopping back onto the pillows. “And it was really awesome, that’s the worst part, I can’t even enjoy it! It just—oh, God, it sucked so much! It wasn’t just seeing red, it was being red. I was gone. And I couldn’t breathe, I was so angry, and… so scared…”
“A flashback. You relive the trauma, and in that moment, it is real.”
“Felt really freaking real. I dunno what the hell’s wrong with me, but if it never happens again, that’d be just great.”
“Nothing’s wrong with you.” Rose’s smile was rueful and disappeared fast. “For Parole, this is the new normal. Do you know how many people with PTSD I’ve seen since the fires started?”
Danae didn’t answer, just dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and pressed hard.
“You reacted. Everyone reacts.” Rose looked down at the cluster of flowers sprouting from her chest, over her heart. “It’s just self-defense.”
“It’s not going to get better, is it?” Danae whispered. “It’s not. It doesn’t get better. Not unless we make it better. Not unless I…”
“What are you thinking?”
Danae nodded slowly, face hard and resolute. “If we’re going to survive this… we need protection. We need firepower.” Danae shut her eyes. “We need me.”
Rose was quiet for a long moment. “Like I said… the decision is yours to make. And I’m with you, no matter what. But if you’re trying to make up for something…”
“No. No guilt. I’m doing this to keep us alive.”
“Okay then.” Rose nodded slowly. “As long as we do things for the right reasons.”
Danae smiled a little, but it didn’t last long. She took a deep breath. “But I’m still scared.”
“Why? Aside from… oh, there’s so much, isn’t there?”
“I don’t want to go back there.” Danae’s voice broke. “We have a beautiful life. I make things now, create, I don’t destroy. We tried so hard to make our own lives, and for a while, I really thought we were free! And now it’s pulling us back in, and I want to scream and I just don’t want any more of this! We had peace. I just want peace. No more anger, no more fighting. I’m so tired.”
“I know. God, I know.” Rose said quietly, reaching up to stroke Danae’s cheek. “I wish I could pick up this entire city in my hands and just—make it stop. Make it quiet, make it safe.”
“Me too.” Danae sniffed. “And I’m scared. I’m exhausted. But it’s worth it. If I keep you alive, and keep Jack and Evelyn and everyone we love alive… It’s worth it, to be a soldier for a little while longer.”
“It’s not right,” Rose whispered, and now it was her turn to blink back tears. “It’s not fair. Just… just come here.” Rose’s soft hands found Danae’s jaw and gently pulled her down into a gentle kiss. “I love you. Remember that, please, I love you, and I’m with you. Always.”
Danae shut her eyes, rested her head on top of her wife’s, and just breathed. “Love you too. So much.”
❈
Later that night, Danae opened the door marked “EMPLOYEES ONLY,” slipped inside and closed it behind her. The place was still a ghost town but deep-ingrained mom instincts meant she tiptoed anyway. But Jack was asleep ten floors up, finally, after a thousand kisses and promises that Mama Rosie would be better soon.
Inside the dingy laundry room to which Lisette had given her the key, Danae stood with her hands on her hips, staring at her array of projects. Several suits of body armor stood against the wall, and a pile of fur and clockwork gears lay in a heap on the floor. She took a slow step forward, nervous as if Toto-Dandy were alive and snarling at her.
Deep breaths. Just start slow. She didn’t need to start making weapons or bombs again, not today. But remembered pain and gunshots stung under her skin like splinters, and now she wasn’t sure of anything. She closed her eyes and saw Rose’s face spattered with blood; it made her want to say to hell with peace. It made her want to cry and cry and never stop. It made her want to flip another tank and send a thousand more men with guns falling into the fire.
It made her want to mow down whole damn city, ripping and screaming and defending until this violent, sick
world was safe for sweet flower girls and little boys who tucked flowers into her hair and called her Mama.
Something had to give.
But right now, all she could do was kneel down onto the floor, and start tucking Toto-Dandy’s mechanical guts back inside the heavy pelt, stroking his ears. She began to pet the limp fur and start trying to breathe life back into the battered shell. Back into both of them.
❈
Finn couldn’t stand the silence.
He’d awoken with his entire body on fire and his tongue so swollen he couldn’t speak. Still, he’d recovered quickly, thanks to Lisette and Wren’s medical magic, and hadn’t even needed skin grafts or an extended ‘hospital’ stay. The huge burned swaths peeled easily off, leaving behind tender, painful scars but nothing else. And even though he was still sore and weak, his scars were nothing compared to what they could have been. At least the physical ones.
There hadn’t been a single explosion since that night in the cell. Silence pressed in like a palpable weight.
After he was let out of bed, he’d gone back to his own room and closed the door. Now he stared at the wall and tried to feel again.
Finn tried to slip on different feelings, but they felt like clothes that didn’t fit. They often didn’t; he was out of practice. He’d never let himself feel real panic, real fear, really think he was going to die, because if he did, people got hurt. So he learned to bottle up everything to avoid catastrophe, pushing sadness and fear far down into a dark, sick little place in his stomach. And now, he didn’t know how to dig the feelings back up again.
But it was different now.
In that white cell, something in his head snapped. The rush of emotion, that mortal terror and despair had been so overwhelming, he’d… overloaded. Somehow. Nothing had exploded or burned around him since; for the first time in his life, he’d known quiet. But the silence came from inside.
He felt nothing. He was broken.
Or maybe he was free. Maybe he could cry and the world wouldn’t end.
Except that he couldn’t.
Finn thought about sunny days and ice cream and holding hands and warm puppies with waggly tails… and felt nothing. He thought about being back in that white, airless cell; electrical currents shooting through his blood; smoke coming from the bottoms of his feet. The smell of his own burning skin. He thought about screaming for Zilch. The silence—heavy as what he felt now—when nobody came.
Nothing. A nothing more devastating than any explosion. He couldn’t cry or scream. He couldn’t do anything except sit here and stare at the wall and…
“Hey.”
He looked up, hopeful for his own smile, as Zilch entered the room, knocking quietly on the door as they opened it. Finn prayed for the usual rush of joy and pounding heartbeat. It didn’t come. He did not jump up and run to hug Zilch. He sat motionless, and looked away again. “Hi.”
Zilch stood in the doorway, uncomfortable, not sure whether to sit down next to Finn, or stay standing, or apologize and leave. “Are you…feeling better?”
“Oh. Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
Zilch moved to stand in front of him, searched his face. “I don’t believe it.”
“Why?”
“You’re never just fine.” Zilch’s crooked mouth curled in a smile. Most other people would have found it frightening, but Finn didn't look away. “You’re either bouncing on the moon, or bawling your eyes out. Just not much of the second one.” Finn shrugged and said nothing. So Zilch continued. “Nobody’s fine after what you went through.”
“Then why did you leave me alone?” There was no accusation in his tone, it was just an impassive, cool question.
“I knocked. Several times. Danae made me stop.”
“She made you?”
“She… advised strongly. Said you needed to process. She’s right. Anyone would need to hide for a while.” They frowned. “But nobody would be fine.”
“Well, I am,” Finn said, and that emotionless tone worried Zilch more than anything else. It sounded like their own. “I don’t feel… anything.”
“Normal to be numb after that. Easier than feeling—”
“No, you don’t get it,” Finn interrupted, a little more forcefully. A note of desperation, a crack in the shell. “I don’t feel anything. I’ve been sitting here, trying to feel something, and I can’t. The explosions are gone too. I think that somehow I… broke something. Inside.”
Zilch hesitated,then, slowly, sat down next to Finn. Not touching him, not even looking at him, but there. “Have you been hurting yourself?”
“No.”
“You said you ‘broke something.’ How?”
“I was always sad, my whole life. And tired. And I just wanted to feel better! And I thought that the drug would make it better. But it didn’t, it just made everything worse!”
“It does that.” Zilch studied a long line of stitches curving up the back of their hand. “For some people.”
“I tried to keep it under control. I tried for years to be happy, even though I wasn’t. Just don’t think about anything, pretend I’m not scared and sad all the time, because if I ever give in, people get hurt.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” Finn said. He unconsciously drew away, shrinking, deflating. “You’ll never know what it’s like to always be afraid of yourself because one day you might cry, and someone you love might get hurt. And then you’ll cry more, and more bad things will happen, and—and you’ll never stop! It never stops!” Finn swallowed hard, entire body tense and rigid. “So I just have to smile. And you’re always so strong. You can’t understand. You’ve never been helpless.”
Zilch stayed quiet for a long few seconds, rolled up their sleeve. “I’ve shown you these before,” they said quietly. It wasn’t a question. Finn’s eyes flicked to the long, deep, branching scars along the inside of Zilch’s forearm.
“Yeah.”
“Original skin. Could’ve replaced it. Didn’t.”
“Yeah,” Finn said, more softly.
“You remember. Why it’s important.”
Finn nodded, said nothing.
“I’ve felt it. The way you feel. The nothing. Days go on forever. You drag yourself. Want to feel something. Anything. While it crushes the life out of you.” Their strange, rattling voice was gentle as if they were soothing a frightened bird in the palm of their hand. “It’s not the same. But…”
“I know.” One of Finn’s hands had come to rest on Zilch’s arm, touching the long-healed scars from another life. “I don’t want to die. I just… I don’t know. Everyone else is important and together. I’m not important. I’m just kind of… here. I’m so helpless.”
“Not true.”
“Feels like it.”
Zilch hesitated. Somewhere, their heart began to pound. They reached up to their neck and tugged on a chain that had always been hidden under their shirt and shaggy, multi-colored hair. They pulled it up over their head, and dangled it in front of Finn. “Something to show you.”
Finn looked up at the chain with three small things hanging from it. Little metal ovals, like military dog tags. “What is it?”
“Read them. That one first,” They plucked at one of the little metal ovals, and Finn took them from his hand.
“There's just the number zero on it…’” Finn said, then frowned. “’Parole Substance Control and Surveillance Force.’” He looked up at Zilch, and for the first time in days, something started to break through and spread across his face. Horror. “Surveillance Force? That’s Eye in the Sky!” He gasped. “You’re with them?” His heart pounded, and he jumped up, backing away.
“No. Finn, sit down,” Zilch said calmly.
“You’re with SkEye! You’re gonna—” Finn could barely speak, and his back hit the wall. “I trusted you, more than—no!”
“Stop, Finn! It’s okay. I’m not with them anymore. Not for years,” Zilch promised, standing up and raising their open hands. “I will
not hurt you. I will not turn on you. Or take you back there. Look at me. It’s still you and me. Same as always.”
Finn was still staring, wide-eyed and ready to run. “How do I know?”
“Because you’re here.” They didn’t move. Nobody living held this still. “Nobody comes out of SkEye detention. You did. Second time that’s happened. Ever.”
“Because… you came and got me.”
“I’d do it again. Thousand more times.”
Finn breathed hard, past the lump in his throat. He couldn’t say what he was feeling, but for the first time since that electric floor… something. “So why are you telling me all this?”
Zilch looked away; ran a hand over their patched forehead, smoothed out the duct tape holding two pieces of skin together. “Should have a long time ago. I’m sorry. Just didn’t want to scare you. Or hurt you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I know that now. You kept your mouth shut under SkEye torture. That takes guts.”
“Thanks.” Finn didn’t smile.
“You deserve to know who you were protecting. And this—” Zilch held up the chain with the tags. “Means everyone feels helpless sometimes. But you’re not.”
“They’ve got us all trapped in here. They’re killing us. It’s hard not to feel like that.”
“Yes. But back then… I was helpless in a different way.” Their eyes dropped. “We both were.”
Finn blinked, confused. “What does that mean?”
Zilch didn’t answer.
“Zilch? That last part. Who’s ‘we?’
Still no answer. They held still as a statue.
“You’re not talking about me anymore, are you?”
Now they turned their head to look at him. “No. You were always better.”
“Who was with you?”
“You know him. Ten years ago, we called him Chimera.”
Finn’s eyes widened. “Regan?”
Chameleon Moon Page 24
