Believer

by Ravin Tija Maurice

  “You should thank him,” I told Noah, motioning at Eric. “If he hadn’t spoken up, I would have popped your little head like a pimple and felt no ways about it.”

  Noah began to hyperventilate, crying hysterically. That once painfully handsome face was contorted in fear and anger in such a way it made him so completely repulsive that I turned away from him. I felt nothing for him as he blubbered on.

  Not a damn thing.

  He stumbled as he tried to get up, coming towards me. Eric put his hand on my shoulder, in an attempt to calm me, as I wrapped Noah in energy, holding him in place. This energy was different, it was something that turned much more solid that held him in place like he was trapped in ice or wet cement. He was completely frozen except his face.

  “Either you tell me now or I will squeeze the answer out of you,” I said to him calmly.

  “Eamon got sick! We were so close. We would have lost our deal; lost everything we worked our whole fucking lives for if we hadn’t helped them,” Noah sputtered out. “All she said was that if we brought her some blood, she would cure Eamon. It was just a little blood! And she cured him. I didn’t know what she was going to do! I didn’t know they were going to take Bliss!”

  “Who is she?”

  “Nikki.”

  “You mean the fucking broad that answered your phone the other day? The girl that my stupid ass felt like shit about is the root of this nonsense? Great. I want her full name and phone number.”

  “I.... I....”

  I walked over to his frozen figure and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “You still have not answered my first question. Where the fuck is Bliss, Noah?!”

  “I don’t know! They wouldn’t tell me after she left Eamon’s house. They said they wouldn’t kill her!”

  I laughed. “What they are planning to do is much, much worse.”

  I saved the contents of Noah’s phone to his micro SD card and took it. Then I walked over to his laptop, which was sitting open on his coffee table, and copied its contents onto a flash drive I had on my keychain. I took pics of his IP address and any other numbers I could find that Q might use to get remote access if necessary.

  He stared at me, panicked and immobile. His face wasn’t as red, but it was blotchy from all his crying. His once perfect blue eyes were bloodshot and glazed over, bulging out of his head. He reminded me of a fish out of water left on the shore to die, flopping around gasping for air.

  I stalked back to him as I scrolled through his contacts. “So which Nikki is she? There are a few in here. You should have some kind of code to keep your girls organized.”

  “Her name is Nikki Frank.”

  I walked over to him, getting as close as I could without being tempted to choke the life out of him.

  “You and I are done. If anything happens to Bliss, I will kill you with my bare hands.” I looked into his eyes as I calmly spoke. “If you continue to be honest with me, you might make it out of this. If Bliss is hurt in any way, you and your piece of shit friends better fucking leave town because I will hunt you down and destroy you. You are a horrible excuse for a person, and I am ashamed to know you.”

  I released him and held my ground. I waited to see if he would try anything. I was disgusted to even use my powers on him. “Did you bother to ask what the blood was for? Do you have any idea what you have done?”

  C’mon asshole. Give me a reason.

  I stood over top of him, and he occasionally turned his gaze to me as he crawled away.

  Maybe now he would understand. Maybe now they would understand not to mess with me.

  “What the hell are you?” Noah blurted out when I finally turned and headed for the door.

  “Not what,” I called behind me as we walked out of the loft. “Who.”

  I sat down in the passenger seat of Eric’s car and bent over, putting my head back between my knees. It was easier without a seat belt. I tried to breathe normally, but it was hard between horrified sobs.

  How many people would die because those idiots wanted to keep their record deal? I should do the world a favour and kill him now before he did any other seriously dumb shit.

  Praise Jebus!I never had sex with that clown! Hurray!

  There was too much shit involved in this storm for me to process it all. I was angry and horrified all at the same time. What lengths was I willing to go to? What would I do to find Bliss?

  Sure, I had thought about killing Fray back there, but would I? It may have made me feel better in the moment, but what good would it have done?

  You would never bring about the end of the human race to save your friend. This is different.

  I felt a warm hand on my back, and that warmth began to slowly spread through my body like syrup covering pancakes. I was calmer, and my thoughts became clearer.

  “That’s a nifty little trick,” I said to Eric as I turned my head to face him. “Just so you know, that was the boy trouble.”

  His eyebrows raised. “Oh yeah? That’s a bit of a surprise.”

  “Why? He’s gorgeous. And a Rockstar. Was gorgeous. Now he makes me sick. Wow, I’m stupid.”

  “Sure, he’s pretty, but it seems like that’s all he is. I figured you could see right through his whole shtick. You’re smarter than that.”

  “It was also kind of a rebound thing. He was the first guy to take an interest in me after my relationship ended. My ex was the only person who took an interest in me ever, other than my family. How pathetic is that, right?I’m a mess.”

  “Right. Ted told me a little about that. Hope you don’t mind.”

  I sighed. “No, I don’t mind that you know I have shitty taste in dudes! That’s cool.”

  “Boys,” he said, ignoring my sarcasm. “You clearly need to start spending some time with men.”

  I sat up slowly and wiped my tears with my sleeve. “I am starting to think there is something wrong with me. Maybe I should’ve given Harold LeFaye my powers and saved myself from this shit.”

  “You couldn’t have given him your powers. It’s just not physically possible. If you somehow lost your powers, they would lie dormant until the next Blanchmains is born. He was full of shit.”

  I looked him in the eyes and fought back tears. He took one of my hands and held it with both of his.

  “What do I do now?” I asked, and then the waterworks continued. He pulled me to him and hugged me tight. I buried my face in his neck and breathed deeply a few times, trying to calm myself, but the tears would not stop. My body shook as I sobbed.

  I clung to him like a life preserver. I was embarrassed to be crying like that, but I could not let him go. Something inside me screamed that if I did, he would be gone, and I would be all alone. The darkness that always seemed to sit dormant inside me was ready to consume me if I let it.

  He pulled back a bit, using his sleeve to wipe my tears. Looking into his eyes, I felt safe and good, like all this chaos would settle itself because of his presence. Like he would fix everything.

  You dumb-dumb. You don’t need a man to save you. You need to save yourself.

  I took a breath, and then I leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips. When he did not react, I pulled away and felt my face flush. Had I misread his signals?

  Oh God. I should have known he would never be interested in a girl like me.

  Wow, Cas. Way to hit a home run.

  “Oh God. I’m sorry. That was stupid of me.” I pulled out of his grip, flailing my hands before using them to cover my overly embarrassed face. “I’m such a douchebag!”

  I heard the car start, feeling the jolt as we started moving. I was tempted to jump out, do a full tuck and roll manoeuvre, just to avoid more embarrassment. I leaned my head against the passenger side window, keeping my face partially covered and turned away from him.

  Ten minutes later, I finally got the courage to ask where we were going. I looked around outside to see if I recognized where we were.

  He pulled into the lot of the small restaur
ant in the middle of High Park, a large municipal park in the west end of Toronto.

  He got out of the car, without saying a word, and walked away. I was so confused. Was I supposed to wait? Or follow him? Or find my own way home?

  He headed towards the rose garden. I wasn’t about to sit here and look like an idiot not knowing what was going on. So I gathered my stuff and made sure he had his keys. I got out of the car, locking the doors behind me. I took a deep breath, stood up straight, and tried to walk with confidence as I followed him. But I probably looked like a toddler lost in the mall.

  “Dude, what the hell?” I yelled when I found him. He was standing off near the edge of a path, in view of the garden and the pond.

  “Stop talking,” he said as he pulled me into his embrace, kissing me full on the lips.

  Time stopped. The world around us faded, and all I could see, or feel, was him. His lips were soft and tender, and his touch made me feel like every part of my body was finally awake. I felt like a complete person for the first time in my whole life, like he was my missing piece. Like everything was beginning now, and my whole life up until that point was just the prologue.

  Lots of people skip the prologue.

  “What just happened?” I asked when we finally separated. I opened my eyes and stared deeply into his.

  “Our first kiss was not going to be outside your former lover—”

  “I did not sleep with him.”

  “Sorry! Your former paramour’s house. After you attacked him, I might add.”

  “But you let me think—”

  He kissed me again, running his hand through my hair and cupping my head gently. His mouth opened slightly, and our tongues touched, sending a wave of heat through my body. I put my hand on his chest. I wanted to touch his skin. All of it.

  I pulled away slightly, so I could see his face. “I have only ever been with one person. For real. My whole life.”

  “So?” he asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I might be really bad at this.” He laughed as I continued, “I have no clue what I am doing in life in general, and when it comes to romance stuff, I am so lost.”

  “Hey, I get it. Ted told me a bit about what happened. Ramona did too. I think she digs the idea of us together, by the way. Then I vetted him.”

  “You vetted my dead boyfriend?”

  “Would you rather explain it?”

  I thought for a moment. “No, I’m cool. Continue.”

  “Okay. Well, I think I have a clear picture of it. Him. Whatever. Point is, you don’t have to explain until you’re ready.”

  “Speaking of Ted and Ramona, we should probably get back,” I said, then I kissed him again. I did not want to stop, but I knew my phone would start ringing soon. People would be looking for us eventually. We were supposed to be working after all.

  “We will have to plan a day of just you and me. No one else’s drama or anything else.”

  “Saturday.”

  He smiled. “Okay. Saturday.”

  “We should also keep this quiet for now.”

  “Agreed. Don’t know if Ted and Chris would be kosher with it. And I don’t want Millie and Nya to be suspicious of my motives.”

  I smiled. “What are your motives?”

  “You. Just you.” He kissed me again, but this time he pulled away first. Then he took my hand and started guiding me back to his car.

  We held hands as we drove back to the office. I’d held Jesse’s hand in a similar way. That felt like eons ago. It came as a great surprise to me that I was happier now than I had ever been, even though we had only had a moment.

  “Maybe we should spend the rest of the day looking into Nikki Frank,” he said as we pulled up outside L&B.

  “Could ‘Frank’ be short for ‘Frankenstein’?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But we’ll find out.”

  We parted ways at my office door. I wanted to kiss him goodbye, but I just watched him as he walked down the hall and disappeared around the corner.

  I went straight to work finding out who Nikki was and if she was this ‘Frankenstein’. The flash drive clicked as I slid it into my laptop, and with the punch of a key, the contents of Fray’s phone began downloading. As they transferred over, I opened my desk drawer to find a card reader for the micro SD I took from him.

  I looked at my computer screen, and my eyeballs felt strange. I blinked, and it seemed like the edges of my vision shook. My peripheral vision started to become milky.

  I closed my eyes tight, then opened them again, and it stopped. I would have to ask Eric about that later. What was happening to me?

  A darkness appeared in the corner of my office, a strange shadow I had not seen before. I blinked hard, squeezing my eyes shut again, and it was gone.

  I needed to get my eyes checked. Maybe I was getting glaucoma. Or having an aneurism.

  Calm down nutjob.

  I could not find anything about Nikki or Nicole Frank. The phone number Fray had for her was registered to LaBelle Waterford Industries. I texted Q and asked her if she could find me any dirt on Nicole ‘Nikki’ Frank and gave her the phone number.

  A short time later there was a quick knock at my door, which was the signal from Ted that it was time to go.

  I gathered up my things and quickly texted Eric that Ted and I were leaving. I knew I couldn’t run to his office and kiss him goodbye. It hurt my heart a bit.

  He was at the end of the hallway by Lewis’s office when I stepped out with my gear. He smiled and waved. I did the same and tried not to look too eager.

  “So how was your time out with Eric?” Ted asked when we got in the car.

  “Great! I like him a lot,” I said as he started driving. “I mean, he’s cool. I like him.”

  Ted laughed. “Don’t tell Lewis, but I like him too. I’m happy you two are getting along.”

  “Me too. It’s been a welcome distraction.”

  “Have you heard from Bliss?”

  I exhaled loudly. “No.”

  “What do you think is going on?”

  “I think Tobias Kinkaid got his claws in her, and Fray helped him sink them in.”

  “How do Bliss and Fray have anything to do with the Kinkaid’s?”

  “Ren.”

  “And Fray?”

  I groaned. “That is a long story. But he is not who I thought he was. I won’t be socializing with him anymore.”

  He smiled weakly at me, and I nodded.

  “No. No. It’s okay. I’m good. It was a harsh realization at first, but I made peace with it. Better I figured it out now before I got too attached,” I began. “People are weird and horrible.”

  “I wish I could say they get better, but they don’t. Age only hardens people in their foolish ways.”

  He pulled up at the house, and we unloaded our gear and went inside in silence.

  I hauled all my stuff up to my room, and as soon as I put my bag down at my desk, my phone started beeping.

  I went to check it, and my eyes started vibrating again, thin milky edges building around my vision. I blinked hard.

  I sat down on the bed and blinked again, wiping my eyes.

  It felt like there was a weird fluid building around my eyes that I couldn’t wipe off. Maybe I was getting cataracts. Strange shapes floated into my vision, and I wanted to vomit. Hard. The floating objects were giving me the spins.

  I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself. I was tempted to lay on the floor.

  I wished I could talk to Lilly Darling. I had so many questions. She could probably put some of the pieces together that I couldn’t, like how this Nikki Frank was connected to the Kinkaid’s. If she was involved in making the virus, it was safe to assume she was some kind of scientist.

  “Bitch is a lot more than some kind of scientist,” a female voice chimed in, making me jump.

  I turned slowly towards my desk, where Lilly Darling sat cross legged. Her long dark hair hung down around her face
like a sheet, and her eyes were wide and stared at me like she might burn a hole in my head.

  “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” I sputtered out. I blinked hard, hoping I was hallucinating. That haze in my eyes was gone; everything appeared to have gone back to normal.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Violence. Nice. You’ll need it to deal with Dr. Frankenstein.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “You summoned me, dumbass. Or did the poor little prophecy girl forget she had powers?”

  “I have never summoned anyone. I didn’t even know I had powers until a few weeks ago when my mom’s family unbound them. It’s a long story,” I took a deep breath. “I watched you die.”

  Her head cocked to one side. “So the natural order of your prophecy was disrupted? Uh oh.”

  “What do you mean ‘uh oh’? And let me add, I am freaking out right now that I just randomly summoned you.”

  I covered my mouth and tried not to hyperventilate. She watched me like someone watches an animal in a cage. What I understood of the world, my world, just crumbled.

  I watched her die.

  “Wow. You have no idea, do you? I figured with your parents’ murder—”

  “My what now?” That made me focus for about a minute. “What do you know about my parents?” I asked.

  She studied my face again. “That is a conversation for another day. Once you deal with Dr. Frankenstein, we can talk about what I know about your parents.”

  “Why do you keep saying ‘Dr. Frankenstein’? Are they like some kind of crazy mad scientists or something? Can we get back to the fact that I watched you die?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Because they are, dummy. Nicole Frank is Nicole Frankenstein. Her grandpa is the legit Victor Frankenstein from the book, which was really the world’s first true crime story, and no one believed it. It’s just as fucked as it sounds. I met Victor.”

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I yelled. “Do you expect me to believe this shit? Frankenstein? Really? This is insane.” I gestured wildly at her. “I finally lost it.”

  “Alright, white hands. Descendant of the nine sisters of Avalon. Shove your head up your ass a little farther, sweetheart.”