“I don’t understand.” A part of me screams for Gar to leave, to let me back, but then the pain returns. The thought of losing him sears my soul, threatening to twist it beyond repair. Rather than deal with that, I retreat further, letting the well-worn persona inch closer to total control.
Ryan’s still in front of me, staring and waiting. A clumsy tendril of thought brushes against my mind, but I knock it away.
“You’ve changed. I can feel it.” Ryan’s eyes are pleading at me. I see it, but it feels surreal. It’s as if I’m experiencing this through the eyes and ears of someone else. “One minute you’re frightened and upset, the next, nothing. It’s like a blank wall came between us.”
Ryan watches me for a moment before his eyes go wide and he steps back. “You let Gar take over, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t let Gar take over, Ryan. Gar is me. We’re the same.” The cold voice feels reassuring, in control yet hollow. “Given the risks, a bit more detachment is a good thing.”
Ryan’s lower lip quivers as tears form at the edges of his eyes. “Where does that leave me?”
“I don’t understand.” Part of me does, but I don’t want to acknowledge the truth. “Nothing’s changed between us.”
“Yes, it has.” The voice is higher and holds a hint of panic. “Gar is emotionless and cold. I don’t love him.”
“Ryan”—I blink, keeping him in my field of vision—“I’m still me.”
“You said you loved me, Will. If you meant it, don’t hide behind Gar.”
In the silence of my mind, I scream. Anger, fear, frustration all fight for dominance, struggling to be the voice that names my pain. But if I let Gar be that voice, it will be so easy again. No feelings, no hurts, no cares. Gar is meant for this type of situation. I’m not.
“Will, please, don’t leave me.” Again, I feel Ryan’s consciousness push into my mind. This time it’s more insistent, urgent. Gar moves to block it, but I grasp for the link. Holding on, I can feel the cold, dispassionate side I hid behind for so long push against my hold on Ryan’s thoughts.
Gar isn’t real.
Did I think that or is it Ryan trying to reach me? Gar is real; I am Gar.
“Will, don’t leave me, please!”
I blink again, and Ryan’s face comes into focus. Wide-eyed, a tear trailing down each cheek, Ryan’s pain mirrors mine. If losing David hurt, hiding behind Gar was causing Ryan the same pain.
“You said you loved me.” Ryan’s thoughts slice through my mind, echoing back and forth. I said it, meant it, too. Didn’t I?
Of course I meant it. “If you love him, you can’t run away.”
The voice isn’t mine or Gar’s. I want to believe it’s David, trying to stop me from making a huge mistake.
“I do love you.” My voice is barely a whisper. “But it scares me.”
I hear nervous laughter before Ryan hugs me. “I’m scared too, Will, but not when I’m with you.”
The voice in my head, Gar’s voice, yells for me to retreat. Ryan’s expectations are too great. I can’t keep him safe forever.
Squeezing my eyelids tight, I scream at the voice in my mind. Then I’ll die trying!
“Ryan, you need to be scared even when I’m around.” I tighten my grip on my boyfriend, letting him know I haven’t left. “Do you understand how this affects us… you?”
I’m scared enough for both of us, but if he doesn’t listen to me, I can’t keep him safe.
I can feel him nodding against my chest. “It means I’m in danger every time I leave the house.”
“You need to talk to your Purpose, get it to understand how It puts you at risk.”
“Will, it’s not as if I can tell It what to do.” Gone is the angry man who screamed at me for sending him away, his defiance replaced by a note of despair.
“How do you know until you try?” There has to be a way to reach it. Even I could feel It was confused. “We both know what happened wasn’t what It intended. Maybe it will listen to you.”
When Ryan looks up, there is a spark in his eye. He’s up to something. “I’ll try, but with one condition.”
I chuckle at the statement. “There are conditions to you trying to save yourself?”
“Yes.” He’s ignored the gentle ribbing. “I want you to talk to your Purpose.”
25
TALK to his Purpose? Was Ryan kidding? “You want me to do what?”
“You heard me.” Ryan’s eyes darted all around the nearly empty street. “And don’t say, ‘It doesn’t work like that.’ We both know you haven’t tried lately.”
The protest died on his lips when he realized Ryan was correct. He hadn’t tried lately. What’s more, he was asking Ryan to do the same thing. “Okay, that’s fair. I’ll try as soon as we get back to the apartment. I want off this street and out of this neighborhood as quickly as possible.”
Turning, Will didn’t wait for Ryan’s answer. He needed to get Ryan home, someplace safe. The twenty or so block trek from Shaw to Adams Morgan kept him on edge. Every time they turned a corner, he prepared for something to leap out at them. With a grim satisfaction, he noticed Ryan was more alert than usual. Being host to his Purpose was dangerous. Maybe now Ryan believed him.
After throwing the bolt, Will still paced the small apartment. What if Ryan was wrong? What if home wasn’t a safe haven? Everything was new to Ryan. What if he’d misunderstood the answer? Worse, what if he wasn’t really communicating with his Purpose?
“Are you sure it’s your Purpose giving you answers?” Even as he spoke, Will knew he shouldn’t have asked the question.
“I’m not stupid, Will.” Ryan’s eyes became small slits before he turned away.
“No one said you’re stupid, least of all me, but you have to agree, we weren’t prepared for what happened.” That was an understatement. “What if what you’re seeing is your past hosts somehow trying to answer you?”
Slowly, Ryan shifted his body until he was facing Will again. “I suppose that is possible, but it feels different than when I saw the memories of prior hosts. Maybe you should reconsider and read my thoughts. It might help.”
“Not right now.” Will shook his head, his eyes focused on the window behind Ryan. “Maybe after we’ve both tried to speak to our Purpose it won’t be necessary. Be better to wait.”
“There’s nothing so scary in my thoughts that you can’t see them.”
Will gave him a small smile. “In time, you’ll understand.” If he made it.
“Whatever.” Ryan rolled his eyes dramatically. “We should go inside and lie down.”
“Actually—” Will moved to the window and peered out. At the edge of his hearing, sirens still filled the city. “—you should let me go first. It’s possible this place isn’t as safe as we think.”
“What does that mean?” Back was Ryan’s defiant tone.
“Not what you’re thinking, obviously.” Nothing moved below that appeared threatening. Not that he expected he’d see anything. “Your Purpose had no idea what it was doing at 6th and O. If it was so wrong about that, I’m not willing to trust your life that It’s right about our home being safe. One of us needs to be alert in case something happens.”
“Okay.” The answer seemed to dissipate his annoyance. “But how come you go first?”
“If we’re wrong and we’re not safe here, I think it’ll take a bit of time before trouble finds us. By going first, I’ll be awake when it’s most likely something will happen.” That, and he didn’t expect to make contact, so he’d be “gone” a very short time. “So, unless you have a problem with that, let me get started.”
THE last time he’d tried to talk to the damn thing in his head, nothing happened: no contact, no answers, nothing. Thirty-six years later, Will expected the same result—nothing. He wasn’t being pessimistic, just realistic.
Sunk into the couch cushions, he closed his eyes. How should he do this? Call out, “Hello, Purpose, will you please talk to me?”
> “That’s one way to speak to me.”
His eyes snapped open as he searched for the source. “Did you say something?”
Ryan closed one eyelid. “Me? No. Why?”
“Let me get back to you.” Turning his focus inward, Will cleared his mind of outside influences.
“After forty years, now you’ll talk to me?”
“You weren’t capable until recently.”
“Does the other Purpose’s presence have anything to do with this?”
“No. Your brain functions are sufficiently evolved that we can communicate.”
“And you never bothered to make me aware of this new ability? You had to know I’d want to speak with you.”
“Did you seek me out just so you could vent your anger? I thought you had questions.”
“Fine, but I’ll want an answer to that question one day.”
“The answer is simple. I didn’t see the need to communicate with you before now.”
Will wanted to scream at It for its cavalier attitude. This was his life It had hijacked. How dare It treat him so callously.
“Surely you recognize that you cannot apply your values to me. I’m not human, nor do I have your emotions.”
“What exactly are you?”
“In words you will understand, I am sentient energy. A spirit is another analogy that would be apt.”
“Where are you from?”
“Somewhere else. Another plane of existence. We entered through a temporary rift in space, seeking sustenance.”
“So you feed on the souls of the dead?”
“As best as you can understand, yes. The life energy you call a soul is nourishment for us.”
“You keep saying us. Are there more of you?”
“Just my other and I came through. There are many like us, but they stayed behind.”
“How come just you two came here? If this place is such a great feeding ground, why didn’t the others come too?”
“Your question assumes we needed to leave. My other and I chose to explore a new place.”
“Can you go back?”
“Perhaps. It would take a confluence of circumstances that haven’t occurred in the several millenniums we’ve been here.”
“Why do you need me to kill people to survive?”
“Killing has never been necessary for my needs. You and the others have interpreted my requirements to mean killing those who deserve punishment.”
“Wait, you’re saying all this time we didn’t need to kill anyone to make you happy?”
“My needs require what you would call justice. The souls of those who were wronged cry out, demanding satisfaction. How that is achieved is something I’ve left to you and the others. Killing the guilty has never been a requirement.”
“But…. There hadn’t been a requirement for death, just vengeance.”
“Again, that is how you and the others interpreted my requirements. I am more properly a spirit of justice.”
“I don’t understand. When you called upon me to act, only death satisfied you.”
“Not so. You relied upon the memories of the others. Long ago, another decided death was the proper form of retribution required to achieve justice. The rest of you have followed in the one’s shadow.”
“Explain to me how you’re involved.”
“Those who have been wronged and cannot rest, call out. I hear these calls and draw those souls to me.”
“You mean it’s drawn to me.”
“No, it is drawn to me. That you can sense them is because of my presence. Once they are satisfied, they release the life force that binds them to this plane and I absorb it.”
“Why only the innocent?”
“I choose who I will help.”
“Which means you can help others if you want.”
“I could, but I found the thoughts of most corrupted my hosts.”
“How come you force us to act? Others who’ve ignore your needs went mad.”
“My needs are paramount.”
“Wait, I didn’t kill Phillip Greer or do anything to him. In fact, the victim was angry. How come there wasn’t a consequence?”
“I dismissed that soul. Justice had been served.”
“What about ‘your needs are paramount’?”
“I didn’t require the energy.”
“Because I’d avenged two others just before?”
“In part, but I don’t require energy every day. You have supplied me with sufficient energy to last for quite some time.”
“Since I’ve been so helpful, will you and the other go find someone else?”
“Even if that were possible, and it is not, I wouldn’t leave you, not now. You are the first to achieve a level of cognitive functioning sufficient for me to communicate with them.”
“So? Now that my memories are imprinted on you, the next host will know what you require.”
“As I said, it is not possible. Once bonded, only your death can separate us.”
“Wonderful, I’m stuck with a parasite for the rest of my life.” Not that he expected anything different.
“A parasite only takes from its host. Consider me more a symbiont, for I give you much in return for your services.”
Will wanted to scoff at how “much” he got in return. “The other that came with you, are you the same?”
“No, my other is similar, but different.”
“That’s not very helpful. Can you be more specific?”
“Your kind has two parts that make a whole. There is the flesh and sentient energy. What you call the soul. The soul is bound to the body by powerful energy. It is the release of that energy upon which my kind find sustenance.
“Of course, the release of energy is instantaneous, so it is difficult to be there when the energy is released. I am able to draw those souls who linger to me. Once they are willing to let go, I can feed on the remaining energy as it is released.
“My other is different. It cannot draw souls to it as I can. Instead, It draws the living to it, and when they die, it feeds off their energy.”
“Meaning It kills its host to survive.”
“That was never Its intent. In practice, however, that is what has happened.”
David’s death was planned. That thing inside Ryan planned to kill David and would have killed Ryan if Will hadn’t been there. “What was the intent, if not what’s been happening?”
“My other and I are a pair. Those It draws to itself, either of us may kill. Only those deserving death are drawn to the host.”
“That makes no sense. If that was the purpose all along, why has every one of the other’s hosts died within days?”
“When we arrived on your world, we didn’t realize your kind would prove so limited. None of our hosts could communicate with us, making it difficult to achieve our purpose. Because I drew human souls to me, I was able to partially communicate what I required. Through the innocent, you understood my needs well enough for me to survive.
“My other’s hosts had no such knowledge, and they were unable to recognize what was happening.”
“And someone died either way, so the other got what it needed.”
“Correct.”
The callous way It said “correct” made Will want to scream. “Those were people, innocent people, your other sent to their death. I avenged hundreds of them for you….”
Now it made sense. If they couldn’t get both hosts to figure things out, they did the next best thing: they killed the other’s host. Not only did it feed the other, it created souls that cried out for vengeance. And, conveniently enough, the “avenging” spirit of “justice” was close by to carry out vengeance.
“You killed all those people for no reason.”
“They died so we might live.”
“That’s not a good reason. You killed innocent hosts just so you could have a victim to avenge.”
“Our needs are paramount.”
“Fuck you and your needs! Do you know how m
any hosts died trying to avenge victims you created?”
“All who have served as host and all they have done is known to me.”
“To you, we’re all disposable pieces that you can replace when needed.”
“As the first to recognize you belong together, you and your mate are not disposable.”
A thought suddenly came to him. “You arranged for us to want to be a couple.”
“No, we do not have the ability to create such emotions. The attraction you share comes from within you.”
“Forty years I didn’t feel this for anyone, and you just happen to pick the one person who changed that? I don’t believe you.”
“I have no motivation to deceive you.”
“Yes, you do. You want us together so you and your other can be together.”
“Your opinion does not change that I had no hand in your feelings for your mate.”
“Whatever. It doesn’t change what you did, what you’re doing. I won’t be a part of this anymore.”
“You have no choice.”
“Of course I do. I can kill myself, and you can find someone else and hope it doesn’t take millenniums more for you and your other to reconnect.”
“Emotions cloud your judgment. By reuniting me with my other, you have a chance to be with your mate for as long as you want. Why would you toss that aside?”
“Ha! Not so confident anymore, are you?”
“Whatever you decide, my other and I will survive. Killing yourself dooms your mate and ensures future hosts will continue to die needlessly.”
“You can’t guilt me. I’m not the one doing the killing. You two are.”
“My intent is to point out the benefit to continuing in your role. Reunited, my other has no need to bring violence to your mate. Killing the guilty will suffice to feed us both. Isn’t that preferable to letting your mate die and dooming countless others?”
Will tried to block his thoughts from It but realized it was futile. If he died, Ryan wouldn’t last a month. “Will Ryan continue to get stronger?”
“Your mate will improve much as you have.”
“If I agree to continue as your host, the other will stop attracting violence to my ma… to Ryan?”
“Together, you will bring the others to justice and thus feed us both.”
Purpose Page 20
