Force

by A.R. Rivera

  And Then There Were Two

  At what point does a person’s mind just stop accepting new information?

  For me, I think it first happened when I watched that last video of my dad. I’m pretty sure it happened again the second I saw Abi inside Eli’s garage. During both of those incidents, my brain refused to assign cells for storage or analyzing anything.

  It might’ve happened a third time when Eli and I heard a loud thud in the middle of the night. It was around two and we were still up, discussing the probable causes of my father’s greatest regrets when we heard it. Of course, we both jumped to investigate.

  I searched around the back of the house while Eli checked the bedroom and his office. When I found nothing and turned back to go inside, I passed by the bedroom window and heard the two of them talking.

  Abi sounded upset. She’d dropped something from the shelf in her closet—that was the noise—and Eli was offering to help her pick up. She refused, telling him it was her mess. I heard the strain in her tone and wondered what she was trying to hide, but I don’t think Eli did because he walked out after that.

  I hurried to the back door and let myself inside. Eli was already in the kitchen looking drained. After that, he and I agreed to call it a night. He was tired and I was tired of talking.

  I had way too much thinking to do to even consider sleeping, though. I started wishing that Eli hadn’t listened to my father and destroyed his journals the moment DHS seemed interested in him. I wished that I had done as my dad asked and read through every page.

  At some point, I fell asleep thinking about Dad, but dreamt of Abi, in between dreams of little motherless children wandering through heavy traffic.

  I woke up late, to the sound of Abi on the phone with one of her friends.

  Since I’m not supposed to be seen or heard, for obvious reasons, and currently persona non grata with the lady of the house, I try and make myself scarce and go in search of Elijah.

  But after checking every room and the empty garage, I determine that he’s not home and so make myself comfortable at the kitchen table where Abi has a basket of clothes that she’s folding as she studiously ignores me and yaps on speakerphone with her cousin Angie.

  “That’s the world we live in.” Angie’s irritating voice echoes through the kitchen. “We are a society of people that treat each other badly, and in turn, we learn to treat ourselves badly.”

  Abi’s folding a pair of jeans with too much effort as she huffs. “Screw society and screw anybody who’s ever treated me like I’m less than.” With that, she cuts a look at me.

  I smile and put my feet up on the table, knocking over one of her laundry piles.

  Angie laughs. “Yeah, we deserve better than the status quo.”

  Abi huffs and glares at me. “I’ve got to go, Ang. There’s a dog trying to shit on my lawn.”

  Angie gives a quick chuckle and a “Toodles.” and then the line clicks.

  Abi immediately grabs my sock feet and tosses them to the floor. “Screw you, too, G. We eat here.”

  I let my feet fall to the ground and take in her ruffled appearance, making sure to stay calm and keep myself from thinking about how beautiful she always looks in the morning. She’s righteously pissed and completely adorable to boot.

  “You know, I think it says a lot about our relationship that you can still get this upset with me.”

  “Ha! As if we have a relationship.” She pulls at her hair and spins towards the kitchen. “Why are you still here, anyways?”

  “I’ve run out of other people to annoy,” I say, obviously joking, but then want to cringe because I don’t have anyone else.

  Shit, I don’t even have Abi anymore.

  She’s standing in front of the fridge when she looks at me with a meld of rage and pity. “I suppose you’re hungry.”

  I shake my head.

  “Good luck with that.” She huffs and walks out of the kitchen. A moment after she’s out of sight a door slams in the back of the house.

  The silence left behind gives me plenty of room to think about what just happened. Once I do start going through her phone conversation and the way she’s looked at me from the moment I got here, it doesn’t calm me down. It actually pisses me off.

  I’m at her bedroom door without realizing I even entered the hallway.

  She answers my knock, staring with a surprised look.

  “You didn’t think I’d come back for you?”

  Her jaw slackens just enough for her bottom lip to quiver. She squares her shoulders and orders me to “Go away, G.”

  “I did,” I say, leaning into the doorway, filling her room with my fury before I’ve even stepped inside. “And I didn’t think about you once.”

  The moment I say it, Abi’s eyes go glossy and I wish to take it back.

  “That makes two of us.”

  She’s always been right there with me, ready to trade insult for insult whenever I indulge that dark impulse. A cutting practice that always left us both in pieces.

  “It’ll be easier, this time, you know, since you’re screwing my best friend.”

  She crosses her arms. “That’s good because I live to make things easier for you.”

  That bite of sarcasm makes me smile.

  “You’re an asshole.”

  I nod, “No question. But I’m not leaving until you tell me where Eli went.”

  Abi offers the ghost of a smile and annunciates slowly. “You know that place where people go every day to perform tasks and get paid for their time? It’s called work and Eli does it every day.”

  “Why are you being such a bitch to me? You’ve got Eli, now. He follows you around like a puppy.”

  Her cheeks wash bright red at the mention of his name. “He never calls me names or lies to me. He treats me better than you ever did.”

  “I’m sure he does. But then again, he doesn’t know you like I do.”

  Abi’s sharp intake of breath says I’ve hit a nerve. “Why are you here, G, huh? Tell me, why wait four years to come back here?”

  “You know why!” I point. “I have no place else to go. This was supposed to be my safe place and you’ve fucking invaded it the way you always invade every part of my life.”

  “You are so full of shit! Do you know what I went through? Do you even care?” The tears in her eyes begin to fall and she wipes them away. “You left me on the side of the road!”

  “I explained this to you. It was for your own good!”

  “My own good was walking into a shit-storm?”

  “Oh, poor Abi.” The sarcasm in my tone is obvious. “Compared to what’s happened to me that sounds like summer camp.”

  “This isn’t about you, G. You don’t get to tell me how you feel anymore because you walked away. This about me, because I need some damn closure.”

  And I swear as Abi stresses her need to end thing between us once and for all I know in that moment, without one iota of doubt that I have been wrong all along. That this plane I woke up in yesterday afternoon really is my home. That this is gorgeous, fractured woman before me is my Abi, whom I’ve longed to reunite with since we parted.

  It’s going to scar, I think, as I set my hands on my hips and make a big deal of looking patient. “Go on, then. Get your precious closure.”

  She takes a deep breath. “The only reason I didn’t go to jail was because I had the foresight to call my Dads lawyer who made me wait for him to show up before I walked in the door.

  “You never called, you never wrote, you vanished and left me all alone when I needed you!”

  “Well I needed you too, Abi—needed you to be safe.”

  She starts to argue but I hold up a hand and keep talking. “You don’t want explanations, I know. But seeing as you’re still so upset with me, maybe you need one.”

  Her consent is sitting on a padded bench at the end of her bed. She holds a throw pillow in her lap and stares at me with a look that says she’d rather boil m
y bunny.

  “You’re upset because I’m an asshole. I’m sorry for what I said, okay? I thought about you every day I was gone.”

  “I don’t care.”

  I have to sigh at that. She’s right. “I didn’t hold up my end. I get it. But what you don’t seem to get is that day I left you, I went straight to the nearest park to watch the disc my dad left for me.”

  “The one you got from Jeanine?”

  “Yes, and do you know what was on there?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Elijah never told you?” I prod, because if she knows about the stones, why doesn’t she know about this?

  “No.”

  How do I explain?

  I don’t want to. I want to keep her in the dark, away from the light that the stones have placed upon me. To keep her hidden.

  I’m just about to lie. To scrub the whole idea of telling her anything more, when I remember what Abi-Two said. That my Abi is stronger than I think, and that I should give her more credit.

  I want to be able to trust Abi with this. I do. But it’s dangerous to know, to even be in close proximity to me.

  “Knowledge is the first line of defense.” My dad’s voice echoes in my head and I make up my mind.

  “Suffice it to say the contents of that disc proved that my father didn’t die in his sleep.”

  Her reaction is not as strong as I expect. She simply acknowledges with a stiff nod and a curt, “Eli said he was killed.”

  “Strangled. The disc was a recording of the whole thing.” I elaborate, and she flinches.

  “I thought he meant some kind of negligence by staff at the retirement home.”

  “Eli told you about the stones?”

  “Yes.” She squeezes the pillow tighter.

  “The man that killed my dad was named Daemon.”

  At the mention of his name, Abi’s complexion pales and I know she’s heard of him.

  “Daemon was looking for my dad because he knew he had the stones. When my dad refused to give them up, he killed him.”

  Abi is stunned for a minute, staring into space as she utters acknowledging words. “That makes sense; why you went after him.”

  Suddenly, her eyes are on me and the look in them is pure fire. “That’s really terrible and all, but you didn’t know any of this when you ditched me on the side of the road.”

  “No, I didn’t, but I knew that I was in deep shit with no way out, and DHS was after me, Ab. I don’t have the luxury of a family lawyer. But you have to believe me, when I left that day I thought I was coming back. It was always my plan to come back for you.”

  She huffs and the softness in her disappears with an eye-roll.

  “You know those agents would’ve used you to get to me. I had to make them think I didn’t care about you.”

  “Well, you did a bang-up job. You convinced them and me.” At that, she stands up and tosses the pillow to her bed and disappears into her bathroom.

  Yelling through the closed door, I hear, “Get out, G.”

  I’m not sure if she means leave just the room or the whole house entirely but beat a hasty retreat at the sound of a shower turning on.

  I feel better. Unburdened like a weight has lifted off my back.

  Maybe I should’ve been honest from the beginning. If I had, maybe things would have turned out different. Maybe she would be my helper instead of my Ex.

  Surely she never would have ended up with Eli. He’s not a bad guy. I know he’s not. If I’m being completely honest, he’s probably better for her than I ever could be.

  It’s just... she’s my Abi. She’s not supposed to be his.

  I think about these things while stirring my coffee.

  Half way down my second cup, she’s back in the kitchen, pulling out a chair on the other side of the table. Her long blond hair is pulled up in that messy knot that she makes look elegant without trying. Her face is free of makeup and she’s wearing a baggy t-shirt and skinny jeans. She acknowledges me with the smallest smile and grabs my coffee cup to take a sip.

  I watch her there, sitting, sipping and thinking for a long while. And for a small moment, I’m sure that Eli has it all wrong, that time travel really is possible because we’ve gone back to a place where we can sit together in relaxed silence, having our silent conversations. Her taking my coffee is like sign language. It’s a symbol that means she forgives me, or she’s trying to.

  I set my hand over her wrist to grab her attention. When she looks at me, I look to my hand on her and leave it there for just a few more seconds. It’s my way of saying thank you.

  Then Abi rolls her eyes, like, ‘whatever.’ Like it’s not a big deal, even though it is.

  And when she gets up to put the mug in the sink, I follow her because, dammit, I have to. When she turns around, there’s this surprised look on her face. Probably because I’m charging forward, lips first. They land, full force, exploding on impact.

  Her arms enfold me, fingers pressing into me. She whispers my name and it’s easy to hear the shock as she drags me from the kitchen.

  The impassioned moment stretches as Abi continues to lead me through the living room. My hands wander from her pink lips to her jaw, her delicate neck. I trace the line of her collarbone with my fingertips, feeling that familiar tremble. The one that says she wants me. She keeps pulling, leading across the room. I hoped she was aiming for the couch, but we end up against the wall near the hallway.

  She repeats my name with the longing whisper of a lover, dripping with urgency. My hands find her narrow waist to trace the line of her hips. When I look in her face, I don’t see the soft gaze I expect. I mean, it’s there, but veiled in some other emotion I can’t make sense of.

  Is she afraid? Have I misread the signals?

  My hands find both answers on the plane that was her flat stomach. Only it’s not flat anymore. It’s bulky, feels like a firm paunch.

  Abi, do you have something to tell me?

  That’s exactly what I should say, but the look in her face... it’s growing into something familiar. I know the look—the guilt—I see it every time I look in the mirror.

  A shadow stirs in my periphery.

  My gaze goes left to find Eli’s frozen in the mouth of the hall, his jaw hanging open. I step back and release Abi. She scurries away, passing Eli without looking at him, and shuts herself inside her room.

  Eli gives me a big, brown-eyed look, rich with malcontent.

  When I go to say something—I’m not sure what; either an apology or a victory lap—I’m cut short as Eli gives an exaggerated shake of his head and presses an extended finger over his lips.

  That fact that he’s ignoring what’s just happened makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

  “Hey, Eugene.” He says and my brows furrow. “I wasn’t expecting you to stop by so soon.”

  Eli gives a hand signal—drawing circles in the air with his index finger in a gesture that says, ‘play along.’

  “Yeah... I, uh, I mentioned it.” I say, guessing that this is the right response. He nods again, cuing me to play along, so I add, “At the office.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” He says, raising both hands in confusion and looking back at Abi who’s no longer hiding in her bedroom but standing stock-still, staring at her husband.

  “Come on,” Eli turns toward her, waving for me to follow, “the CD’s on my desk.”

  His eyes dart to Abi. He tells her. “We’re out of milk.”

  She gasps, tears filling her eyes.

  It’s a complete overreaction to an insignificant matter, but I’m sure she’s reacting to the adultery, not the milk situation.

  She reaches one hand around Eli’s neck. When he doesn’t respond to the attempted embrace, she asks the weirdest question. “Do I need to pick it up right now or can it wait until morning?”

  “Right now, please,” Eli tells her and I hear a quiver in his voice.

  Abi da
rts past me to the corner of the living room. She grabs my backpack and brings it to me. I take it and try to catch her at the same time. She shakes me off and walks away.

  “She’ll be fine.” Eli mutters, watching her take up her purse.

  Abi seems to collect herself when she sees how he’s watching her. As if drawing strength from Eli’s appraisal, she nods once more and then slips quietly out the door.

  In my mind, I’m screaming apologies. I’ve completely screwed up what they have going here and as much as I don’t like it, I can’t be the reason they fall apart.

  And what’s up with all the hush-hush covert ops?

  Then it hits me.

  Homeland Security was looking for me when I left. Eli told me he wasn’t working with them but does that mean they aren’t watching him?

  I strolled in like I owned the place.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been gone but my day count is sixty-seven. Most of them were marked in Ice World because the days were so short, but then I spent the most time in World Two, where it was 1996, and then the second most in that unsettled, semi-ancient plane where I met Nahuiollin.

  But DHS... they found me right before I was supposed to leave this plane. I set off that first boom-pack to go to World Two after running from Eli’s Jetta. Yeah, I punched him first, hoping to make it look like he wasn’t cooperating, but he was my last known contact. And DHS doesn’t mess around.

  Eli walks into his office and plugs in a boom box in the far corner. He turns to me, announcing, “I thought I’d let you listen to a few tracks first, see if you like it enough to keep it.”

  I nod, but he rolls his hands at me again. Play along!

  “Sure,” I say with as much cheer as I can muster considering I’ve just destroyed his marriage and possibly his life. I sound pretty natural and add, “Turn it up.”

  The volume knob twists to the highest setting and Avenged Sevenfold is blaring through the house, stinging my unprepared ears, but I don’t cover them. Partly because this is a good song, but mostly because Elijah’s striding towards me.

  He moves in and whispers, “I cannot believe you! I should hand you right over.”

  “It was my fault. I misread the signals.”

  His fist collides with my shoulder. It hurts, but I can’t move away or I wouldn’t be able to hear him say, “My wife doesn’t send signals to anyone but me.”

  “Sorry,” I say again and then rub the Charlie horse from my arm and keep listening as the information comes flooding out.

  “An agent showed up in my office today. I haven’t seen hide or hair of DHS for over two years, and suddenly, the day after you come back, they come looking.”

  “It can’t be coincidence,” I say and we both back up to look at one another.

  He motions to me that he wants to say something and I lend an ear.

  “We’re still being watched, it’s the only reasonable conclusion. I don’t know if they’re listening, but I’m not taking chances.”

  “How long do I—”

  He cuts me off.

  “I have to tell you... I lied to you, G.”

  A pause, waiting while I try to interpret what’s happening here as Eli goes on, confessing.

  “When they arrested me, I cracked.”

  I’m the one punching his shoulder, now because I should have known.

  “They threatened me and my family. My brother’s research funding was yanked. My mom lost her practice. They were going arrest my dad for something they said he did back in 1963. He’s nearly seventy years-old, it would’ve killed him.” His voice is tight and so, so calm as he explains that he had no choice but to betray me. “I had to give them what they wanted.”

  “What did they want?” I don’t know why I’m asking when I already know the answer. That whole story about how he destroyed my dad’s journals before they got them, it never really measured up with the Eli that I know.

  “Your father’s papers.”

  “I understand,” I tell him, because I do. You have to do what needs to be done to protect the people you care about. Right?

  But I’m not losing a wink of sleep over what happened with Abi.

  “No, you don’t.” Eli disagrees.

  He then steps back, walks over to his desk, and reaches underneath the collar of his shirt. There’s a long silver chain around his neck. On the end hangs a key. He makes a show of it, holding it out for me to see before he unlocks the bottom drawer of his desk. When he walks back over, he’s holding a locked metal box. The chain and attached key sit on top. “I kept this from them,” he yells through the music. “To make things easy for you.”

  I set my backpack down and gesture that I, too, have some things to give, but he shakes his head, refusing.

  Bastard.

  I open my bag, toss the metal box inside, set the keyed necklace around my neck and tuck it in. Then, set my pack back on my shoulders.

  That’s when I see it—across the room, on a shelf overloaded with books and frames—there’s a portrait. A woman standing alone in a frilly, pale dress. She’s holding a bouquet of red and white roses.

  I push past him and tear it from the shelf. It’s so wrong. He’s the one who lied to me and cut a deal with the enemy, he stole my girl and now he’s the one who gets to keep her?

  Eli’s behind me, trying to take the frame back. I can’t hear whatever bullshit he’s trying to feed me and I’m glad. My clenched knuckles fly at his face but he swerves. I follow with a heavy hook that misses, too, but manage to get one knee into his stomach. I take a fistful of his button up shirt and scream into his ear.

  “You told her what you wanted to, to get closer, didn’t you?”

  His gaping eyes amazingly widen. “You were supposed to come back. I waited a year without word! I took her the letter like we planned. She was heart-broken. She needed a friend.”

  The strength leaves me. “I never should’ve come to you.”

  He shakes his head, yelling, “We’re wasting time. They could be here any second.”

  As if on cue, the room is suddenly, deathly dark.

  And quiet.

  “Run,” Eli whispers over the shuffle of his feet as he feels his way across the room. “Run, G. Now.”

  The lone window in his office opens to the back yard. Eli’s silhouette is stretched across, holding back the split curtains and I can’t tell if he’s facing me or the window because there’s no daylight out there.

  “What happened to the sun?” It can’t be past two o’clock.

  Eli’s talking, still trying to tell me there’s nothing left for me here and that I have to go and never look back.

  My Abi—she’s married to this geeky, wannabe-hipster, nerd-that-can’t-tell-a-joke-to-save-his-life. I’m supposed to leave her here because that’s what he wants?

  And like the thunder bolt that hit me on the steppe, I understand. “Where did you send her?”

  “What?” Eli’s shadow shifts.

  “Why did you send Abi for milk?”

  His shadowy head seems to shake like he’s trying to concentrate. “To get her away.”

  “Away, where?”

  “Just gone.”

  “Why? What’s happening?”

  Eli yells my name. “G! You’re wasting time. They’re out there and you are—” He halts and sniffs. “Do you smell smoke?”

  I don’t. Until he asks. “Oh, shit.” The lack of sun makes sense now.

  We’re both at the door of his office, feeling the air around it, searching for the telling heat. It’s too dark to see and I feel that heat coming from the walls, taste the choking smoke.

  We crouch down and suddenly the dark room is alive with a dancing orange glow streaming from the open window. The hot door is forgotten.

  “She’s gone? For sure?” I ask. Eli nods and then I can focus.

  We take to our knees and head for the window that’s disappearing behind the building smoke.

  I hear Eli coug
hing, tugging my leg, “My work. It’s in the safe.”

  “It’s gone.” I reach back and pull him by his collar. “You’re leaving first!” Idiot’s life is in jeopardy and he’s worried about math problems?

  I push Eli out ahead of me. He hits his head on the garden wall that I didn’t realize was so close and grunts. While I wait for him to make his way out, I grab my backpack. The stones are in there and they know how to put out a fire.

  As I feel my way through the bag, I get to thinking how this whole scenario feels off. Since when does DHS burn people out? They’re more likely to stage a hostage situation with megaphones and news cameras—to make sure the whole world knows they’ve caught their bad guy. Or better yet, wait for Eli to deliver me, before convicting me in the court of public opinion.

  I tuck the pouch in my waist before standing to peek out the window. Flickering flames on both sides of the glass. So much smoke it looks like night outside.

  Minutes ago there was nothing, now the blaze is spread across the perimeter of the yard. Through the building smoke, I’m able to make out patches of the line of shrubs under the window. I hear the crackle of burning wood, creaking as it shrivels in the heat.

  After one more check that there’s no one hiding in the shadows, I toss my bag to the ground and crawl out behind it.

  The wind shifts, blinding me with choking black smoke. But I keep moving until I’m back on my feet and my pack is secured.

  With a sleeve, I cover my nose and head towards the detached garage that I know I’ll run into if I can get beyond the low garden wall and the invasive smoke.

  Inside Eli’s garage, one light over the utility sink is already turned on. The air is hot but mostly clear, with the exception of a gray layer hovering near the crossbeams.

  The howl of fire trucks screams from every direction. Their red patterned lights splash over the cracks between the rolling door and outside. I shut the side door behind me and call out for Eli in the brief break between wails.

  Right as I start to wonder if he came this way, I hear him answer. Barely. The sound is weak and I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I stop and listen, calling him again.

  “Tools.” I hear him say and turn to make my way to the front end of his car where there’s a cluster of garden tools hanging on the wall. The moment I clear the front end I see Eli lying on the floor half covered by his compact car. His legs are the only visible part of him.

  He’s not stuck under the wheels, so I ask, “What the hell are you doing down there?” And then follow with, “If your car is here, how did Abi drive away?”

  “Neighbor.” Eli mutters and the word sounds labored. When I take a closer look I find that surrounding Eli’s form are small puddles of red. The red is smeared over the white swooshes on the sides of his shoes. I follow, with my eyes, the trail of splatters, to where it starts—about six feet away at the side door I passed through.

  “Help me up.” His voice is shaking.

  Trying to pull from a standing position is useless so I get down on my knees and yank on his legs until I see his belt. It’s like he isn’t putting forth any effort at all, so I use his belt like a handle to pull him the rest of the way out.

  Once his head clear the front bumper, I see a teardrop-shaped piece of splintered wood glued to the back of his shirt, right between the shoulder blades. He cries out when I touch it and turn him onto his side.

  I’ve seen too much. I don’t need to see my friend with a hole in his chest. Eli’s wet, red hands cover the wound. His skin’s whiter than his shirt was five minutes ago, and taking on a shade of sickly green.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  His lips move. I lean in closer to hear the faint whisper, but it’s too low.

  “What?” I say and when he doesn’t reply I turn to look at him.

  Holding Eli’s hands over his chest, I feel like puking and running. “Who did this?”

  This isn’t the first time I’ve watched a person die, it’s not even the first time I looked them in the eye as it happened. I pray it’s the last time I have to see that light drift out.

  Getting to my feet feels wrong. Leaving him here feels wrong. Still, I look down at my friend and say my goodbyes, garbled with every apology I can think of and promises him that I will make sure Abi is okay.

  On my way out, three quarters of the way up the door—about chest height—a small teardrop-shaped hole in the wood of the door. As if I need the assurance, I slip the bloody puzzle piece that’s still in my hand back into place, knowing that whoever shot Eli was outside when they fired, and for some reason didn’t shoot until he entered the garage. My eyes drift back to the light over the utility sink and then the shape of my shadow on the door.

  Setting fires reeks of Daemon.

  I snap off the light over the sink and stand on the hood of Eli’s car to unscrew the light inside the garage door opener, and then hit the button to lift the large garage door and wipe my prints off the button, the hood of the car, and door. Then exit the side, staying low and moving quickly. I need the paramedics to find Eli but I can’t be here when they do.

  Too much has happened. I’ve seen things... done things, committed immoral acts. And now... now I have to find her and tell her about Eli.

  The driveway and entire block out front, to the left and right, are covered with fire, ambulance, and police units. Sirens wail from their parked cars as I pass through the smoke in the back yard. I hear firefighters inside the house, breaking things and shouting.

  Climbing the back gate, I land in the alley and break into a run.

  It isn’t long before I’m out of the smoke and under a nearby tree where the afternoon sun betrays red hands and jeans.

  I’ve got to find a place a change.