Transcendence t-1

by C. J. Omololu

  Veronique looks at the wide expanse of sky in front of her. “Maybe,” she says. “But up here on the roof is the only place that will really work.”

  “Because this is where it all started,” I say, realizing what she’s up to, why we had to come back to this spot—so that she can reenact everything that happened that night and right the wrong that she thinks was done to her. She wants to see my broken body down on the sidewalk like hers was back then. I turn to her. “Why bring Griffon up here? So that he can be some kind of sick witness?”

  “Witness?” Veronique smiles in a way that sends shivers down my spine. Her eyes look dead. Emotionless. Unforgiving. “No. If anyone’s here to be the witness, it’s you.”

  I look at her, confused. “But I’m the one you want,” I say. “I’m the one you think caused your death back then.”

  Veronique starts pacing in front of me, the nervous energy almost visible. “I don’t want you dead,” she says. “Death is way too easy. Don’t you see? After everything that’s happened, do you still think you killed me that night? You are the one who took everything from me in a few brief seconds, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Alessandra was everything to me.” Veronique stops and walks over to the spot at the railing where she fell so long ago. Her voice is soft as she starts to speak. “Do you finally get it? You took something precious from me a century ago, and now I have to take something precious from you.” She takes several steps toward me and glances at the splint on my arm.

  “At first I thought taking your ability to play cello would be enough. But then I saw that there was something even more valuable for you to lose.” She glances at Griffon. “Something that you could never recover from. Like what you took from me. I’ll never recover from my loss. In any lifetime.” Veronique stands right in front of me. I can see every individual lash as she stares into my eyes. “Look carefully. Who do you see?”

  I shrink back from the force of her energy. As I look into her eyes, her features blur, and for just a second I see a bright white smile and shining dark hair. I look up at the tiny birthmark over her right eye. It’s in the same place a distraught boy would have put a gun to his head centuries earlier—just before pulling the trigger. My heart races as I recognize the essence I knew so long ago. It can’t be. “Paolo?”

  “Ha ha!” Veronique claps her hands and steps back. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  I stare at her, trying to see the handsome boy she once was. I’ve thought of her as Alessandra for so long, it’s impossible to think of her as anyone else. “But I thought you were her. Alessandra.”

  Veronique shrugs. “You obviously assumed wrong. When I was Paolo, you took away the most valuable thing in my life, and I’ve spent every moment since looking for Alessandra’s essence. When I recognized you at the conservatory concert, I hoped that maybe her essence had been drawn to you in this lifetime.” She looks down at the gravel rooftop. “But I didn’t find her.” She looks up again, a cheerful expression on her face. “But I did find the next-best thing. The essence that you’re drawn to above everyone else.”

  I hear a metallic click as Veronique pulls a thick black gun out of her coat and aims it at Griffon’s head.

  “Veronique!” I yell. “This is crazy. We’re friends. It’s me, Cole. Whatever happened in the past doesn’t matter now. Griffon has nothing to do with this.”

  “I love that you think that,” she says, not taking her eyes, or the gun, off of Griffon. “Such wonderful naiveté. However, I totally disagree. What happened in the past matters a lot. It’s the only thing that does matter.” I don’t even see her hand move as the gun explodes to life, my heart racing with the deafening sound, and I can’t help but flinch.

  The bullet kicks up tiny fragments as it ricochets off the railing behind Griffon, but he keeps staring at Veronique as if he’s daring her to do it again. “You missed,” he says calmly.

  Veronique narrows her eyes at him, her teeth flashing in a half smile as she steadies the gun on him once again. “I never miss.”

  Giacomo grabs Griffon by the arms and shoves him roughly forward. “That isn’t necessary,” Griffon says, looking at Veronique with hatred in his eyes. His voice wavers only a little as he speaks. “I’m not going to fight you.” He turns to look at me for the first time, and the total honesty in his eyes makes me catch my breath. Despite everything that’s happened the past few days, the thought of living the rest of this life without him is unbearable.

  “I’ll do anything for you.” Griffon is speaking only to me, as if there’s nobody else on the roof with us. “If it means that I have to end this life to save yours, then it’s fine.”

  Veronique laughs, and I see nothing but cruelty in her smile. “Brave words. Let’s see if you can match them with even braver actions.” She motions the gun toward the edge of the roof. “Whether you go over on your own or need a little ‘encouragement’ makes no difference to me.”

  Griffon stumbles on the gravel as Giacomo pushes him toward the edge where Alessandra fell so many years ago. It feels as if everything is happening in slow motion. This can’t be real.

  As they walk, Veronique follows them with her eyes, the gun firmly gripped in her outstretched hand. “I hope you really understand what you’re about to lose,” she says, not looking at me. “Any last words for Griffon? Everyone deserves the mercy of a proper good-bye. That’s more mercy than you showed to me and Alessandra.”

  “You can’t kill him!” I scream, watching Veronique aim the gun at Griffon’s head again.

  “Oh, but I can,” Veronique says flatly. “I have to. It’s the only way to even things up so that we can all move on. I think popular psychology would call it ‘closure.’”

  I’m even more unprepared this time as the sound of the gun echoes off the buildings around us. Griffon jerks back as the bullet hits him and he falls back over the waist-high railing. My screams rush through my ears as I lunge forward, knowing it’s already too late. “No!”

  Veronique grabs my left arm as I try to twist away from her toward the railing. The pain is blinding, and I can feel the newly attached nerves and tendons straining and tearing where her hands are holding tight. Just as I feel like I’m going to pass out, everything seems to move into slow motion. I feel energy flowing between us where our bodies are touching. I’m slipping into a memory, but this time, I’m not alone. Somehow Veronique is with me.

  As Signore Barone leans over the edge of the roof to show me the lights of the city, his right arm tightens around my neck until breathing becomes uncomfortable. I reach up in shock when I see him looking down at me, hatred and disgust flashing in his dark eyes. He turns so that his back is to the railing and all of my weight is now supported on his arm. I can hear myself gasping for air, and I claw at his hands, but it makes no difference.

  “It’s your fault they want to force Alessandra out of the troupe,” he says, spittle flying from his mouth. “If you hadn’t arrived, her career would still be on the rise!” He turns around so that I am now hanging half over the railing, and I can see the light-colored cobblestones far below. There is a loud ringing in my ears and my vision is fading when I hear a commotion behind him.

  “Papa! What are you doing!” Alessandra cries, and I can feel her weight on him as she tries to pry his arm from around my neck.

  “Get away!” he yells. “Go back downstairs. This has nothing to do with you. I’m only acting for your own good.” His grip loosens just a little as he pushes her back onto the gravel roof, giving me two or three desperate breaths of air. In seconds she is up again, flying at the two of us.

  “This is not the way!” she yells. As she fights with him, Signore Barone brings his arm back to fling her off, but misjudges his own strength. As he pushes her, she loses her balance, and in seconds she has disappeared over the railing, her screams echoing back up to us as she falls.

  “No!” he shouts, the noise a primitive, animal cry. I turn to look down, and see that her arms and legs
are bent at unnatural angles and watch the dark pool spreading out underneath her across the hard stone walkway.

  Signore Barone reaches over the railing as if he can still catch her falling figure. I scream her name, not believing what I’m seeing. Before he can turn on me, I run for the stairwell door, in time to meet a crowd of men rushing up from below.

  My memory clears, and I see Veronique on her hands and knees a few feet away, her back arching and falling as she struggles for breath, Giacomo standing over her, looking lost. As she sits back on her knees, I can see the gun is still gripped in her right hand. I sit up and look frantically around for Griffon, but he’s nowhere on the roof.

  Suddenly, I don’t care about Veronique. I don’t care about the gun. I’m only focused on one thing. I race to the edge where I saw him last, prepared to see a repeat of the same scene I saw so many decades ago, knowing that if he’s gone, there’s nothing left for me here.

  I hear scraping noises even before I reach the edge and look over. Griffon is hanging from a ledge about three feet down from the railing, holding on with his upper body while his feet swing wildly underneath him as he tries to get a foothold to pull himself up. There’s a gash on his cheek and blood is dripping down the side of his face, but I feel an enormous sense of relief. He’s alive.

  “Griffon!” I yell.

  Griffon looks up at me. His shoes scrape the brick wall. “I can’t get back up.”

  “Hang on,” I say. He’s only a few feet from me, but too far for me to reach from this side. I wrap my left arm around an opening and ease myself over the railing, the pain increasing as I put pressure on it, but there’s no other way. Bracing my feet against the outside of the railing, I lean down, my right arm outstretched as far as possible. “Can you grab my hand?”

  “No. I’ll pull you over,” he says, his words coming in short bursts from the effort of hanging on. “It’s too dangerous.”

  I can see his fingers turning white where they’re gripping the ledge. He can’t keep this up much longer. “No, you won’t,” I say quickly. My breath is coming in gasps. “There’s no other choice. Let go and grab my hand. I’ll pull you up.”

  Griffon hesitates, and I see him look down at the ground far below.

  “Do it,” I say. “Grab my hand.” I reach down another few inches, my fingers about two feet from his face. If he lets go and doesn’t take my hand, he’ll fall for sure. We only have one shot at this. “Just let go quickly. Don’t look down.”

  Griffon looks into my eyes, and a sense of calm seems to come over him. I tighten my grip on the railing just as he lets go with his left hand and wraps his fingers around my wrist. The force of his weight pulls me off balance for a second, and I close my eyes as I pull with everything I’ve got, knowing that the next few seconds can change everything forever. The strain on my arm starts to ease as Griffon uses my leverage to swing his feet up onto the ledge, and he reaches over and grabs for the railing. In one motion, he pushes me back over the railing to the safety of the roof and then jumps over after me.

  I grab at Griffon as we sprawl in the gravel, feeling his relief as he pulls me into him. I close my eyes and feel vibrations, his breathing in time with my own, the rightness of it all reaching down deep beyond logic and understanding. I’ve been listening to meaningless words when all along I should have been paying attention to the feelings inside of me that always speak the truth. In an instant I know that Griffon isn’t rogue, and he isn’t lying. What he wants is to be with me.

  I look up and see Veronique and Giacomo about six feet away. She looks dazed as she glances over at us as if she’s just realized we’re there, the gun hanging limply at her side. Griffon jumps up, pushing me behind him, and I can feel him ready to run at her.

  “Wait,” I say to him quietly, putting my hand on his arm. “Just wait.”

  “Veronique?” Giacomo calls to her, obviously unsure about what to do next. I see the devotion in his eyes and realize that he’ll do anything for her. He’ll obey every order. He’ll stay with her even though she’s spent her life looking for another love. And I have no doubt he’d kill for her, too.

  She ignores him. “What was that?” Veronique turns to me, fear in her voice. Her face is drawn, and she looks suddenly older. “I was with you. I felt the breath being forced from your lungs. I saw Barone’s anger. I saw … I saw Alessandra die.” She licks her lips and stares at me. “But how? I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  I look at the gun she’s holding loosely in one hand. I might be able to grab it if she’s distracted. “But I was,” I say, breathing heavily, my left arm throbbing in pain. Griffon silently squeezes my right hand, a gesture of unspoken encouragement. “And what you saw was what really happened.”

  “And you were telling the truth? The newspapers didn’t lie? It was Barone who…” She can’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

  “It was Barone who tried to kill me,” I say. “But he killed Alessandra by mistake.”

  Veronique shakes her head as tears stream down her face. She raises her eyes to mine, and I can see the hatred replaced by the depths of the pain she feels from losing Alessandra. For her, it’s as if it has just happened. “I don’t deserve to finish this,” she says, and turns the gun on herself, the barrel trembling where she holds it against her chest.

  “Don’t!” Giacomo yells, the anguish in his voice matching mine when I called for Griffon just minutes before.

  I make a move toward her, but that just makes her hand shake more. She’s fired it twice already, and this time I know she really won’t miss. All of a sudden I want us all to get off this roof alive. I force my voice to sound calm and even. “This wasn’t the solution last time. Killing yourself just made things worse.”

  “But it makes the pain stop,” she says. “For a while, at least.” She turns away from us, shaking her head again. “It’s better this way.”

  My mind is racing. No more blood should be spilled over what Barone did so many years ago. “But what if Alessandra is back?” I ask quickly. I let go of Griffon’s hand and walk slowly around to face her. “What if you were right, and her essence is in this city somewhere, looking for you?” I take a deep breath as I see the end of the gun move away from her chest just a tiny bit.

  Behind her I see Griffon moving toward us, Giacomo doing nothing to stop him. His footsteps make faint crunching sounds on the gravel, so I keep talking. “Are you willing to give up this chance to find her? For what? It might be decades before you can come back and look for her again.”

  Just as she’s about to answer, Giacomo lunges at her, grabbing for the gun, but Veronique isn’t willing to let it go easily.

  “Do you care nothing for me?” he shouts as he pulls the gun away from her body. “Is it so easy for you to take what I love?”

  Veronique shrieks in frustration as Giacomo wrenches her hand back and the gun skitters across the gravel. His arms surround her as her struggles fade, and soon the only sound is her quiet sobbing.

  Griffon reaches over and grabs the gun, putting it in his pocket before rushing to my side.

  “Are you okay?”

  I reach up to wipe some blood from his cheek. “Are you? This is all my fault. I should have listened to you. I should have trusted you. I’m so sorry.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Griffon says, and without looking back at either of them, we head for the stairwell.

  Griffon pulls me with him as we rush down several flights. We don’t speak, although a thousand things come into my head that I want to say.

  Griffon breaks the silence as we reach the ground floor. “I just need you to believe that I would never do anything to hurt you. I can’t stand going through the rest of this life alone. Without you.”

  “I know,” I say, tears starting to form in my eyes. “Oh God, I know. I’m so sorry.”

  Griffon takes my hand and grips it tightly. “But you do now? You believe me?” The desperation in his eyes makes me feel guilty and hopeful al
l at the same time. “I wasn’t Akhet back then. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about then. It’s over. We’re not those people anymore. All I want is now. And tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that.”

  “There’s just one thing.” Griffon stops just before opening the door to the hallway. “I let you down again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was supposed to save you, and instead you saved me.”

  “Maybe it was my turn this time,” I say, pulling him down into a desperate kiss. “Next time it’s yours.”

  Twenty~Five

  I grab my bag off the hallway table. “I’m going now,” I call to Mom, just as she hangs up the phone.

  “Do you need a ride?” she asks, meeting me at the door.

  “Yes. Thanks.” I lean over and give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Griffon’s mom invited me to dinner too. Can I stay?”

  Mom’s lips flatten into a straight line, and I can tell she’s trying to come up with a reason to say no. “Sure,” she finally says. “But call me when you need a ride back.”

  “I’m heading that way. I’ll take you,” Kat says, walking down the hall. “I’m probably going to be hanging out with you guys a little more—Owen’s coming out in June to stay with Griffon for a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s great,” I say, wondering how weird it will be to double-date with my own sister.

  “Did you ever find your phone?” Mom asks.

  “Um, no,” I say, hoping she’s not going to ask any more questions. Knowing that it’s in a million pieces from being tossed off a three-story building isn’t exactly the same as finding it. The past week has been a nightmare, trying to act normal at home and at school with all that’s happened. I keep worrying I’m going to slip and give myself away.