by Elen Chase
"You're a mean person!" she frowned. I left the garden service to her, and went to help out in the kitchen, until it was fireworks time. Everybody was running around, preparing the desserts and the cake cutting, and I sneaked into the basement, blending in among the people going up and down for work. Nobody saw me stopping midway and entering the generator room. As soon as I heard the countdown to the beginning of the fireworks approaching the zero, I cut down the power. I rushed to the door and got out, locked it and put the key back in my pocket. I was about to run up the stairs, but the light of a torch coming from the kitchen prevented me. I couldn't just stand there, so I walked down to the basement toward the colleagues who were there for work. I moved in the dark with any noise I made covered up by the upset voices of the rest of the staff. I walked behind some shelves and relaxed. Enough time passed, it's done. Dan was supposed to be out at that point, on his way to our meeting spot. I was about to let a sigh of relief out, when a cold, big hand grabbed me by my face strongly and pushed me to the ground. Somebody is attacking me. My instinct got me up immediately, but the other person was just too fast. I was punched in the face and forced to move deeper into the storage room, until I heard a door closing behind my back. My eyes were finally getting used to the darkness, and I recognized the shape of a man coming at me. I dodged his attacks, trying to find a way to get out of there. The experience gained from my training kept suggesting that he was waiting for the light to come back to shoot me. If that was the case, I had to do something; I had probably less than a minute left before somebody turned the power on again. I fought back, aiming for his legs, but he jumped perfectly on time and tried to kick me. I rolled on the floor and stood up, running deeper in the room. I took a bunch of cans from the shelves and tried throwing them in another direction, hoping to disorient him, but he wasn't going to get fooled easily. He was coming at me, and I had nowhere to hide. I decided to fight; I took my belt from my pants and rolled it around my fist, leaving the strap on the outside, hoping to make my punches more powerful that way. When he reached me, he tried to take a swing at me, which I dodged letting myself fall on the back. He rapidly leaned down, ready to hit me with all his strength, and I gave him a good kick in the face. I got away from him, and the light came back. Like I had thought, it was Finnick. How did he find me? Did he know it was me all the time? How? Was Dan alright? All these questions ran through my head in a blink, and I realized that my only chance to get out of there alive was to act before him. I forced my eyes to stay open, despite not being used to the light yet, and I punched him strongly with the back of my hand, where I was holding the strap of the belt. I got him close to his left eye, and blood ran down his cheek.
"You fucking son of a bitch!" he screamed, and he put a hand in his jacket to get his gun. I ran away before he could point it at me and got to the door which fortunately wasn't locked. I ran through it, to the first area of the basement (the one under the kitchen), and I found, surprisingly, that none of the staff was there anymore. I climbed the stairs, my only way out, aware that on top of them I could find somebody ready to kill me. But on the ground floor there was simply the usual commotion. Four cooks were completing the cake decorations, while the waiters were busy taking the desserts to the garden. I could hear the soldier running after me; I didn't have even a second to lose. I rushed to the back door, and when I got in front of it I saw Stacey entering the kitchen in a hurry, coming from the garden with dishes piles neck high. She saw me, and our eyes met for a brief and intense instant.
"What happened?" she asked me.
Finnick was getting closer. It's over.
I glimpsed at the stairs, then back at her, and said, "Stacey, please..."
Just in that one second I saw her lips saying, "Go."
I took the back exit and heard the sound of dishes crashing to the ground, her voice crying, "Oh my God, Sir, are you alright? I am so sorry." She was doing that for me. I will be thankful to you all my life.
I made my way through the main street, longing to disappear in the crowd as soon as possible. Like Dan had predicted, people were mostly drunk or high, and some were also fighting. That way my beaten up face wasn't too strange to look at. I got to our meeting place, the parking area of a famous club that was obviously open, and looked around searching for Dan or Sara. I was exhausted, my lungs hurting with every breath, and my swelling face pulsing as hell. But all of that was nothing compared to the anxiety of not seeing Dan in that place. I wandered around like a zombie when I felt something touching my arm. I reacted shaking that hand off, ready to punch to death whoever was getting close to me, when I met Dan’s eyes. He was alright: he wasn't hurt, and he didn't even have a scratch. I felt so relieved that I hugged him tight, regardless of everything around us, seeking comfort in his arms. I waited a couple of seconds, until my heartbeat went back to normal, and let go. I saw his expression change as he looked at me and figured out I was hurt. He touched my face without saying anything, but I knew well what he was feeling. We stayed silent and Sara walked toward us from the car the old lady had prepared for us. She was also worried sick for me. We had stuck to our role and done all we could, but we weren't able to celebrate a victory that night. We didn't know in the first place if the plan had worked or not. Dan had managed to do his job on that watchpad, but what happened with Finnick was really a mystery. Why did he come for me so certainly? How did he know it was me? Did they figure out that the blackout was connected to Domme? Would they find out about the chip eventually? That was our only chance of succeeding, and the thought of having fucked it up was tormenting me. I sat on the back seat of the car, worried for Stacey and the result of the plan. Dan sat next to me, and Sara drove us away from the parking area.
"What happened?" Dan asked me.
"Finnick came after me as soon as I cut the power down; I don’t know how or why, but he knew it was me."
"Did somebody else see you?"
"No, at least I don’t think so. It was dark, and he pushed me further into the basement to another room. But that girl, Stacey, she helped me escape. I hope nothing happens to her because of that."
"We’ll ask somebody to keep an eye on her, just in case."
"It’s so frustrating," I said. "What did I do wrong?"
"Who knows. But if nobody found me and Sara it means that they haven’t seen through our plan. Even if they busted you, you might have been the perfect decoy for us. As long as they don’t find the chip in that watchpad, they’ll assume that whatever our plan was, it failed."
"So you think we did it after all?" I was full of doubts.
"We’ll find out directly tonight," said Sara. Her voice brought me back to the current situation.
"Now that I think about it, where are we going?" We clearly weren’t on the road to Downtown; we were heading out of town instead.
"We’re not going too far, and it’s a place you know well too," Sara told me. "Now that those people are so busy with the Summer Festival, it would be a pity to stay closed up in the city, hiding. And it’s the only chance for those two to meet calmly with you two without being followed."
"Those two? You mean…" I looked out of the window, and indeed I found that landscape familiar. I had been there in the past, at the end of high school when we organized those full immersion study weekends that ended up with us not studying at all. That was Sean’s vacation house in the mountains. "Isn’t this dangerous for you guys?"
"We’ll be back in two or three days," said Sara, "and you need Sean to check if everything went well with the chip, ain’t that right?"
We arrived to the house, and Sean was already waiting for us outside. He opened the garage for us, so that Sara’s car wouldn’t be visible, and he greeted us with a big smile. "Woo, who the hell are you?" he told me when he saw my face.
"It’s me."
"Me, who?"
"You owe me four hundred credits and you killed my turtle."
"It was an accident!" He paused and then said, "God you got ugly."
"Fuck
you, Sean," I replied, smiling. I had missed him, that idiot. "Do you already know anything about that chip?"
"Come inside," he said. Chloe was waiting for us in the living room.
"It works!" she yelled happily as soon as she saw us. "We’re receiving a copy of all messages leaving and reaching that watchpad. We haven’t tested if we can hear calls yet, but we read all texts and emails just fine."
"So they haven’t found out… not yet at least." I was a bit depressed about the fact that everything could go to hell any time.
"Drew, what’s wrong?" Chloe asked me. She looked at my face, then at Dan, and she asked him, "Why did you do this to him?"
"Why are you assuming I did it?" replied Dan.
"No, Chloe, this was a bad guy’s doing," I said, my hand on her shoulder. "Was there something interesting in the messages you read?"
"Nah, mostly spam," said Sean, "and his wife wants a divorce."
"Why am I not surprised?" commented Sara.
"Anyway," said Dan, "if tomorrow the redirect is still working, it means they haven’t found out about our plan. So for now there’s nothing else we can do."
"I want to get this stuff off my face and flush it in the toilet once and for all," I said, taking the prosthesis off my jaw.
"Wait, I'll help you," Sara told me.
"I have some pizza in the fridge if you want," said Sean.
"Yeah, thanks," said Dan, making a short pause, "Fran."
"That's not even a man's name!"
"Here, something to drink." Chloe offered me a beer. She and Sara stared at the bruises left on my face by the prosthesis, worried. I decided to turn my brain off and try to relax. At long last, I could spend a little bit of time with my friends.
Chapter 51
I slept like a baby that night, and two things occurred to me as I woke up in the early morning in the double bed of the guest room. First, I had still my waiter uniform on, which was making me sweat like a pig. Second, I wasn't alone; I was pinned on the left edge of the bed, with my left arm and leg hanging off it, and Sara candidly sleeping on my other arm, which had gone completely numb, on the right. Beside her, Chloe had taken over the rest of the bed, and on the floor next to it, Sean was snoozing with an idiotic, over-relaxed look on his face. On the little table beside the bed, and on the floor, there were the empty beer cans we had been drinking the night before. I slowly got up, trying not to wake them, and left the room. Thirst led me downstairs, and I found on the couch, in the living room, a backpack with a change of clothes for me and Dan. so Dan knew we were going to Sean's house too. I went to shower and when I came out of the bathroom, I looked around the house for Dan.
He was sitting on the porch swing outside, drinking a hot tea. His legs were propped up with his knees to his chest, untied hair, and his gaze lost in the distance. A delicate and elegant figure, beautiful and unapproachable, and yet so inevitably attractive. An’s earring shined red on his right earlobe.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked me.
"Oh yes, I was sharing the bed with two ladies, you know."
"Such a fortunate man."
"And you? Did you sleep at all?" I sat next to him. "Last thing I remember you were upstairs drinking with us."
He shook his head, "No, not really. When you guys fell asleep I came down here." Strong and determined, Dan wouldn’t usually let his guard down; hiding behind the ice shield of his eyes, he was always ready to attack first, before others could hurt him. But sometimes he would be vulnerable around me and me alone. That morning was one of those moments; tired and sleep-deprived, he moved closer, as if he truly needed me by his side. I passed my arm around his shoulders, his body warm under the light fabric of his shirt, and I laid a gentle kiss on his head. He curled up in my arms, his face nuzzling at my chest.
"I bet you couldn't sleep because I wasn't holding you in my arms," I whispered.
"You wish," he lazily argued. "To be blunt, sometimes I find you annoying."
"What?"
"You're too clingy. Do you have to cling so much to me all night?"
"I want to be close to you."
"Not when it's so hot outside." His serious face while saying that was so adorable.
"Pfff—" I couldn't hold back a laugh, "how comes you never told me before?"
"… You looked so happy I couldn't bring myself to."
"You have to tell me such important details. What's the meaning of being together if you have to hold back?" I kissed his forehead. "So, no hugs at night during the summer. Can I hold your hand though?"
"... yeah."
"Deal. And when it gets colder? Can I hold you all night like I'm doing now?" I asked him. He tensed up and his lips flattened.
"When it gets colder… that’s so far away." He moved back away from me. I clearly did something wrong, but I couldn’t understand what.
"Dan, are you okay?"
"I shouldn't be here," he told me, averting his eyes. "I shouldn't be here in her place."
"Who are you talking about?"
"You came here with her in the past, didn't you?"
"Here? Is this about Shallie?" I grabbed his wrist, and forced him to look back at me. I had no idea what feeling I saw in his eyes, but it made me anxious.
"Drew… this thing going on between us is wrong."
"Why are you saying that?"
"It tormented me all night… I have no right to stay beside you like this. Hug you, kiss you, just because she can't do it anymore… she was supposed to be here… I stole everything from her." His eyes were trembling as those words came out. It hurt. Once again, I felt I had in my hands a faint piece of glass that was about to fall down. He's gonna slip away from me. I don't want it. I drew him back in my arms by force, and his now empty tea cup fell on the ground.
"Dan, I know you think out of respect for her. But who decides what's right or wrong? This is happening, and it's all that keeps me going. You really want it to end, you want to leave me, because of a problem that exists only in your mind?" Apprehension was resting heavy on my chest. What if he said yes?
His hands clutched at my shirt. "No," he muttered, and finally let his tears out. He cried in my arms, sobs shaking him all over, his face turning hot against my chest, just like that night at the sea. I asked myself if there was something I was missing with him, something more I could do. When he calmed down a little, he finally spoke to me, in a thick voice, "I'm getting worse… whenever I'm alone, I keep thinking about things and end up seeing my nightmares even if I'm awake."
What that doctor said to me at the rehabilitation center came back to my mind, “Pharmaceutical treatments only work as support for the psychological therapy. Drugs might cure the symptoms, not the cause.”
"Dan, what can I do?" I felt powerless, how was I supposed to help him if he wasn't telling me more? Should I insist to know the truth?
“The way you are now, if you were to find out what happened to him, you would break him once and for all.” Those words prevented me from saying anything else.
"Can you stay by my side? Just for a little longer..."
"Always," I took his face in my hands and we kissed; his lips were wet and salty, and I tasted them, sucked them, and licked them in an intimacy so intense I lost contact with the rest of the world. My mind was full of him, his arms around me, his lips, his tongue and his smell. When we stopped kissing we were both speechless and breathless. "Feeling better?" I asked.
"Way better," he told me, his face still red, the corners of his mouth now slightly turned up. He fell back in my arms. I held him tight and kissed his forehead.
"When we were kids,” I confessed, casually touching his earring, “I was sure you and An would have gotten married, eventually. I was jealous of you, but at least this way I wouldn't have to hand you two over to anybody else. I was sick to think that, wasn't I?"
"We all had some weird feelings for each other. An and I talked about it sometimes."
"… I never heard about it."
&n
bsp; "It started earlier for us, at the time you weren't thinking about these things yet. It would have been strange, suddenly bringing it up to you." Dan and An always shared a strong connection. I knew that, but it still sort of hurt to find out that they were discovering new feelings without me. We hadn’t talked about her at all since that day we had mentioned her during our fight. Yet, since we got together, I had often wondered to what extent An knew him better than I did.
"I have something to confess to you, Drew. I think it was when we were twelve. One day An ran to my house after school, all shocked because she had heard a girl saying that she liked me. She screamed at me that she didn't want me to date her if she asked me out. I told her I had no intention to do it anyway, but she was so jealous… she told me she hated the thought of you and I falling in love with another girl. After that, we kissed. It was our first."
"What?" I hadn't felt so betrayed in a long time.
"I'm sorry, Drew. It never happened again, we were consumed with guilt toward you."
"I..." I tried to calm down. It was nine years before, and we were kids. And thinking about it, it was better that way. I wouldn't have wanted them to date anyone else either, let alone kiss. At least that way it stayed between us. I immediately realized it was crazy to think that way. "Really, I can accept that. I forgive you," I said, even though it was already the second time he had hidden something important about An from me. “He lies to you more than to anyone else.” I could feel Miller's words crawling between us. What was gonna come out after that? A voice in my head suggested me that there was so much more he was hiding and lying about.
"I really am sorry. When she said those words to me I was happy, but at the time I was also very confused; I was attracted to both of you."
"You mean emotionally or physically?"
"Both. It was strange, because I was jealous of how close you and An were, and at the same time I wished you looked at me the same way you were looking at her. I felt so helpless during your whole fourteenth birthday party, except when the three of us were together."
