“He’s not there anymore.”
She turned her head to the side and looked at Colin lying lifeless in the bed. The loud clunk from the ventilator was the only sound in the room.
“That’s what scares me the most. Was I there enough for him?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. All I knew was Trish needed me in the days to come and the only way I could be there for her, was to fix me. Against what in my heart I wanted, I gave Trish some space in hopes that I could put my life back together.
A few hours later, I found myself sitting around the library in the compound with the few people who wanted therapy or were bored enough to come. Not a word being said among us. The clock ticked above the fireplace. Each second echoed in the room. I looked to Berlin, then Esther, who had a blank stare going on. Finally I looked at Nye.
“Where is she?”
“She’ll come. If nothing else this is important to her.”
“Would you go get her? Maybe she fell asleep.”
“She’s not asleep.” I glared at him. This was ridiculous. I pushed up on the arms of the chair.
“Fuck it. I’ll go get her.”
“I assume that she’s still in our room.”
“Fine.” I crossed the foyer and headed up the stairs.
Music blared behind the door. I pounded hard, but didn’t get a response. Wrapping my hand around the brass door handle I turned it; opening slowly I saw Kiriana on the bed facing forward.
“Hey, partner, it’s time for you to shrink us all.”
She didn’t respond. A controller for a video game was in her hand. I looked on the TV screen to see cars crashing left and right.
“Kiriana, I need your help.” Nothing. “Remember Trish? I told you about her.” Her faced twitched slightly.
“She’s having’ a tough time.”
“Join the club.”
“It’s different. I’m worried she might do something.”
“Smell your own?”
“Yeah.” If nothing else, Nye was right—she cares so much about us all. No matter how mad she is she’d always try to help out. “Her son died. That money I’d been dropping in the bucket at the bar was for her kid. I never knew it.” Nothing. “Are you trying to destroy your car?”
“Yep.”
“Kiriana, I know you’re depressed.”
“I’m not depressed.”
“What are you then?” I asked, leaning against the dresser.
“Mad.”
Her digital car flipped over and over.
“So you’re taking it out on your car?”
“The point of the game is to crash and destroy cars.”
“Is this healthy?”
“It’s Gestalt therapy.”
“What about the baby? Isn’t stress bad for…”
“How about the fact that it’s being carried by someone who’s dead? Think that might cause more of an issue?”
“What did Gabriel say?”
“It’s fine. Now get out so I can return to my therapy.”
“What about our therapy?”
She paused the game and glared at me.
“You’re fucking grownups. Some of you, hundreds of years old. AA members only take a few meetings to figure out how it goes. Seriously.”
Her head turned back to the game and she started in again.
“KK, you should see Nye. He looks…”
“We’re sealed; I don’t need to see how he looks to know how he feels.”
She was so unfeeling in her words. This was not KK. This was some possessed person. I looked on the screen at the pile up she had created. A smile crossed her lips as she looked at the carnage. Explosions, scraping metal, and horns abound.
“You’re never driving my car again.”
“I’m not allowed out, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You’re being a child.”
“You’re nineteen. Who’s the child?”
“KK…” She paused the game again and sat up more.
“James, I don’t want to hear it. I lost my husband and my best friend in about two minutes. I’m mad. I don’t go for the jump off a roof or down a bunch of pills route, I go for the eighteen hours of Burnout Revenge One, Two and Three. I blow up cars on a TV that don’t even have drivers. It makes me feel good. It releases some of my anger. Am I not allowed to do that?” she screamed.
“Yes. You are. But Nye loves you and is miserable and I thought I was your best friend.”
“Zarmina is the first girlfriend I’ve ever had. I relate better to men. That’s why we get along so well. But for the first time I had someone who could handle the girl shit that guys couldn’t. All the stuff I’ve always had to keep in because it was too much. Now I’ve lost it.”
“Z ran after you to comfort you.”
“And I haven’t seen her since. The one thing that a woman wants to give the man she loves more than anything is a child. Dilana already could barely stand to be around me. But now Zarmina is the same way. They both want to give their Others a child. D already lost two, but at least she’s had the experience. Z never will. They don’t mean to hate me, but when we chose to become an Other we knew having children is not an option. Now, here I am, being able to give Nye the most precious gift in the world, something they’d die to be able to do.”
“Z will come around. Her heart is too big not to. And screw D. She’s almost the biggest bitch here.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that. She takes pride in being number one.”
“Is that really the most important thing?” I asked, rocking back on my heels. “Having a child.”
“Yes and no. Being sealed I already have Nye coursing through my veins. Now I have him growing inside me too.” Her hand went to her belly. “I want to protect it more than anything, but at the same time, I’m scared to death. This world we live in…”
“Is magic, Kiriana. This child will want for nothing. He or she will know more about the world and life than anything.”
“But will its father ever get over the fact I’ve—”
“He didn’t mean it. He was scared he was losing you. Can you understand that?”
“No. I can’t. How much more do I have to show him before he’ll realize he’s my everything?”
“I can talk to Nye.”
“I don’t want you to. He needs to come to his conclusions about this situation. More importantly about me.”
KK went back to her game. For the first time since she started the stupid therapy session I actually needed someone to talk about my problems with and she was in worse shape than me.
“Are you going to stand in the doorway staring at me or are you going to talk about Trisha?”
I closed the door, crossed the room, and sat at the foot of the bed. KK sighed and placed her controller down. Pushing up on the bed, she sat up and crossed her legs underneath her. Up close I could see her eyes were puffy from crying with dark circles underneath them. Just like Trish’s when I left. Damn it! Why did I leave? She needed me and I abandoned her…I had to do my duty as a man, a soldier…
“Don’t go, Jim,” Sarah pleaded as I held our six-month-old in my arms. “My family will help us out.”
“I don’t take charity,” I growled.
I should have known she’d get pregnant to trap me. Well, it worked. She got the wedding band she wanted. She got the man she wanted. That’s what I was. A man.
I stepped up to my responsibilities. It didn’t matter that I was sixteen when I married her. We’d both dropped out of high school and got jobs. She waited tables until her seventh month, then decided it was too hard on her. The little money we had for rent all but disappeared. Even with two jobs, I was unskilled labor and couldn’t make more than fifty bucks a week. She refused to move into Detroit where I could take a bus to a factory. I would have a good job, but she needed her family and what did I know about kids. I was the baby of my family.
>
“It’s not charity,” she cried. “Not when it’s from family.”
“Your father looks at me like I'm a failure. I’m eighteen now, the Army will train me. They’ll pay and I’ll send money home every month. Enough for you and Tommy. You can get the furniture you want. After a year we can look for a house when I’m on leave.”
“I can’t do this on my own.”
Her eyes instantly cut to Tommy. I knew she had the baby blues, but her mother said she would be over it soon. How could she not? Tommy was a fat-faced baby who had finally gotten over the colic that kept me up all night so I could let Sarah sleep. When I gave him a squeeze goodbye I tried to hand him back to Sarah, but she just turned away so I placed him in his play yard before I kissed her on the cheek and left.
“What happened to Tommy?” Kiriana’s soft voice brought me back to the compound and my existence. How had she learned that name? What had I said? Memories tumbled together and I needed to focus on now, because then hurt too much.
“I left her…Trisha…alone to deal with her son’s death.”
“They have counselors who are trained to deal with grieving parents.”
“I should have stayed.”
“What happened to Tommy?” KK asked again. “Why would you tell me about Tommy and Sarah? Why now? You never mentioned you’d been married before.”
“I should have stayed.” My voice was lost in my own grief. The grief I medicated with alcohol while thinking I could get away from it.
“With who? Sarah? Or Trisha?”
“Both.” I swallowed a hard lump past my chest that burned in a way I couldn’t handle and I reached toward KK’s nightstand out of instinct only to come up empty.
She didn’t have the bottles of liquor I needed. She didn’t have anything to numb the pain. Instead she pulled me in her arms and I wept. Wept for too much.
“I tried to get Gabriel to save Colin. I wanted to strangle him. Children shouldn’t die. They shouldn’t, KK. Not because we’re stupid.”
“Colin didn’t die because of stupidity. From what you said it was chronic. He was in pain. He wasn’t getting better.”
“Don’t tell me his death was a relief.” I sat back and wiped the tears from my cheeks.
“Had you met Colin?”
“No…his spirit came to me after Samir obtained it from his body. He called me Daddy and asked me to care for his mother.”
“Is that something you think you can do?”
“I couldn’t with Sarah.”
“Trisha’s not Sarah. Sarah was a child. She thought she could handle a grownup situation. She couldn’t. What happened to Tommy?”
“Why do you keep bringing him up?”
“Because you did.”
“He died.”
“How?”
I got up and crossed to the door.
“If I bring Trisha here to recover can you take care of her?”
“What else am I doing?” KK picked up her controller and eyed me. I wasn’t ready to talk about Tommy. Not now…not ever.
* * * *
Trisha O’Driscoll
The world swirled around me. I knew at some point I’d bury my son, but the reality of it wasn’t what I expected. The formality. The paperwork. The drawn faces with absent eyes. Those around me tried to be empathetic, but they didn’t know. They hadn’t lost a child. A son. I tried to call Dustin. He actually picked up only to say, “Whatever it is, I don’t care,” before he hung up.
The pen scratched on the paper in front of me as I entered information like a robot. Jimmy had held me as they turned off the ventilator. Then he ran like everyone else in my life.
Trembling, I looked at the brochures for funeral homes. Autumnal trees littered the covers with eternity symbols. As if my son were just a leaf that had fallen from a branch, but would come back in the spring. He’d bloom and be reborn.
“I need a few minutes,” I said as I stood and left the psych resident trying to help me cope. I’d lost track and didn’t care what the names of anyone present were.
Rubbing my eyes I stared at the vending machine like somehow picking a soda would help me focus. Caffeine, sugar, and…
“I’m sorry I left.” Jimmy’s voice came from behind me.
“You didn’t even know him.” I sighed and plunked my quarters in the slot, not turning to look at him. “It wasn’t your loss.”
“I know you.” His hands rested on my shoulders then slid down my arms. The heat from his body against my back helped my muscles ease. “You needed me.”
My cheeks twitched as I felt my tonsils swell and cut off my air. The scratches in my throat burned. The tears I thought had dried up began again and I turned into Jimmy’s arms. His hands cradled me. I felt so small in his arms as his hand rubbed circles between my shoulder blades. For the past twenty-four hours I'd felt a connection not achieved in sex. A closeness I hadn’t known existed between a man and a woman. Jimmy ran, but came back. He came back for me. Because I needed more. Not him. None of this was about him. For the first time I was who mattered. I didn’t even know how to react to that.
“From the moment Colin was born he became my life. When he got sick…I thought I could take on any challenge. I was his mom. I could handle any fever, cough…”
“He didn’t have a simple illness, Trish. You did everything you could for him.”
“Did I?” I pulled from his arms and punched the vending machine, not even caring what would fall. As I snatched the soda from the bottom of the machine I growled. “Was spending time with you after work being a good mother? Was working doing everything I could for him?”
I struggled with the cap on the damn bottle and Jimmy reached for it and opened it with ease. Staying silent he took my rage without flinching. None of this was Jimmy’s fault. Dustin should have been there for Colin. I never told Jimmy I even had a child.
What kind of mother was I? Was I still even a mother? I’d lost my only child. The only one I’d ever had. There was no way I was passing on my dysfunctional genes to another innocent child.
“Let me handle things here.”
“How are you going to handle things? He was my son. Mine alone.”
Jimmy pulled me into his arms. “You’re not alone anymore.”
Chapter 11
Her Royal Holiness, Princess LaDressa, Daughter of Lucifer the IV
“YOU shall hunt tonight,” I ordered Pivane.
“I don’t hunt.”
“I didn’t ask about your ability,” I said as I shifted papers and saw the pattern Damarion had wrote about in his journal. “I gave an order.”
“Maybe you do not understand,” he said as he sat in the chair in front of my desk. “If I am not here we’ll be unable to guide the trackers to find the bantling.”
Raising my head slowly, I stared down Pivane from across my desk. He shifted uncomfortably and placed his hand over his groin when our eyes met. His chair slid toward the door and he grasped the arms for support.
“I know where the bantling is emerging. Any fool could figure this pattern out. You will hunt.” I pulled out a vial and placed it on my desk. “The soldier hunts at night. He is close to Kiriana, the one who holds Damarion’s ashes. He is your target. I’m done playing games with this woman.”
“What games have you been playing?”
“We had a deal. She did not live up to her end of it. Now she’s disappeared completely. I will have those ashes.” I slid the vial toward Pivane who didn’t even reach for it. “There’s a toxin in there. Coat a knife with it and stab the soldier.”
“What does it do?”
“It infects. Even Gabriel should be unable to prevent the soldier's death.”
“And you think this will get you the ashes?” Pivane scoffed.
“What did my brother promise you?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Yahweh.”
“Don’t play me for a fool. He sent Damarion up h
ere to die. You kept him safe long enough to keep me content. As he weakened, you stepped in and made sure he died.”
“He died because he fell in love with a human.”
“No, he did not.”
“Fine, he didn’t love her, but he did covet her companionship. You are foolish, young Princess, if you believe Damarion’s only thought or care was of you.”
“I may be a fool, but you will fight tonight.”
“Yes, Yahweh.” Pivane's voice oozed contempt and I couldn’t care less. Unlike my Damarion, I would not underestimate him, but I would also not let fear of Pivane rule me. “Where will this bantling emerge?”
“My best estimate is between East Lake and the airport.”
“That’s not a small area.”
“The Deumos can smell the bantling as it breaks the earth. With all of them there, you shouldn’t have a problem finding it quickly. But you will stay back after it’s been rescued. Lie in wait. You know how to do that?”
“Better than you do.”
I let out a light laugh and waved him from my presence. He left with little argument…but then again my wave did split his lip and draw blood. This was necessary. These events had been set into motion long before this night.
“Before I go, dear daughter,” my mother began. She’d escaped but for a minute before she was to be sent to the surface. “Your life is tied to your father’s. As long as he lives so shall you.”
“I know, Mother.”
“What you don’t know is your father struggles for every breath.”
“Why did you not tell me he’d become so weak? I would have come to his side.”
“And your brother would have discovered his state of being.” Mother looked over her shoulder to my open window. My brother’s guards where marching toward the castle. “Do not allow him to marry you off to Treadmont. Send Masako with the remedies to your father.”
She passed me a piece of parchment.
“I will protect your Damarion. But know your brother wants you dead before you give birth. With a child in your arms you will be untouchable. Even to those of worth. You have worth, my daughter. More than you’ll ever know. I am not an unworthy whore as he would make you believe.”
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