by Jana Janeway
“I can’t,” Marcy said. “I could get in big trouble!”
Annoyed, Craddock scoffed. “Fine, then I will!”
“Craddock, no! You don’t have clearance!”
“I don’t care! She has the right to know!”
“When the time is right, she will know!”
“Why am I starting to get the feeling that the Registry isn’t all that great?” Jessica asked rhetorically, almost under her breath, her angry scowl dissolving into a worried expression.
“There’s good and bad in any organization,” Craddock whispered to her. “They have rules and regulations to follow, just like any other higher power.”
“Craddock, don’t do this,” Marcy begged, knowing full well she was helpless to stop him. “You need the Registry’s help.”
“They would stop helping us, just because Craddock tells me stuff?”
Indirectly, Marcy answered Jessica’s question. “Please, Craddock, just wait for clearance.”
Jessica could both see and sense the conflict raging within him, his eyes downcast, his fist clenched and flexing. The anxious looks Bibi and Josiah were exchanging, and throwing back at him, rounded off her understanding of the situation more so than asking a dozen questions would have. If Craddock crossed the people in charge of their survival, they wouldn’t. Or, at least, they would have little chance of it.
Surprisingly, neither friend said a word to him, to try to talk him out of what he was silently considering doing, even though their lives hung in the balance every bit as much as his and Jessica’s did.
It wasn’t out of fear for her safety, but the sincere desire to release him from his self-inflicted torture, that made her do it. If she didn’t say something, he would tell her everything she wanted to know, for no other reason than to ease her unhappiness, and doom them all, subsequently.
“I can wait.” Jessica placed her hand over his, encouraging him to relax it by rubbing her thumb along the knuckles. “Craddock,” she whispered, “I can wait.”
“Craddock?”
He heard Marcy call his name but ignored her, his eyes shifting up to find Jessica’s, barely visible through the tinted lenses of their glasses. They stared at each other intently, as if communicating in a secret language or vibe that only the other could decipher. His tension eased as they seemed to reach a mutual understanding.
“Craddock, take me off speakerphone,” Marcy demanded, sighing in exasperation when she received no response.
Nodding imperceptibly at Jessica first, he then tore his attention away from her, punching the button to disconnect the speakerphone before bringing it to his ear.
“Yeah.” He yanked the charger out of the end of the phone and fell roughly, with irritation, back into the seat next to Jessica. “Fine.—I said fine!—‘Cause she has the right to know!—I won’t!—‘Cause I said I won’t!—Yeah, well, you’re just going to have to trust me then, aren’t you?—I haven’t yet, have I?”
Listening again for a moment, Craddock glanced at Jessica before muttering, with a sense of shame, “I sidestep the answers.—Well, yeah she can hear me! She’s sitting right next to me!”
Sighing, he then began speaking in Menglianese, causing Jessica to roll her eyes, which made Craddock shoot her an apologetic look. After nearly a minute of arguing in the foreign language, he reverted to English. “Okay, so, where?—Yeah, I know it. It’s not far from where we’re at, actually.—An hour maybe? Probably less.—Yes, Marcy, I understand! I’m not a child!—Well, I think you expecting me to treat Jessica like one is unreasonable!—No!—Because she hates it when I speak in Menglianese!
“I am grateful.” His tone was calmer, almost remorseful. “We all are, it’s just, this is hard for her, and if all she wants is answers—
“Yes, I know all about the greater good,” he groaned, conceding. “I’ll wait to tell her.—No, I’m not just saying that!” he snapped, his agitation rising again. “I’m not a fool in love! Chimie doesn’t render one stupid, you know!—Marcy, I get it, okay? I get it.” He sighed, his tone back to subservient. “Yeah, I’ll call you when we’re close.—‘Kay, bye.”
Ending the call with a violent stab of the button, he then handed the phone over to Bibi, who immediately plugged it back into the charger as Craddock pushed his hand through his hair and leaned his head against the back of his seat. Tense silence followed, everyone staring out their respective windows; Josiah stared out the windshield, watching blankly as the shopping center patrons headed to and away from various stores.
Finally, meekly, Josiah spoke up. “I sorta need to know where we’re going.”
“Sorry,” Craddock muttered, shifting back to the edge of his seat and leaning forward. “You know that abandoned mini golf course and amusement park thing?”
Josiah scowled as he started the car. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, there. By the bumper cars.”
Nodding, releasing the parking break, Josiah threw the car into drive and pulled out of the spot.
“Why there?” Bibi wondered, turning to face Craddock.
“I didn’t ask why.” Dropping back against his seat, he glanced over at Jessica, who continued to stare out her window, still obviously upset. “You okay?” He grasped her hand, gently, but she immediately yanked it away. The abrupt action surprised him. “What’s wrong?”
“How much of it is real?” She glared at him, undeterred by his confused expression.
He dropped his hand into his lap, staring back at her, trying to determine what she meant by her harshly asked question. “How much of what is real?”
“You’re working for them, aren’t you?” Her eyes narrowed; her mouth set in a tight line. Only her shallow breathing told of how she was anxious about the impending answer.
“Working for who?” he asked defensively. “The Registry?” She rolled her eyes and looked away, but he took her angry actions in stride. “No, I work for a boring bank and trust.” She arched an eyebrow in response. “I’m a bank teller, or was. I don’t work for the Registry, Jessica. Why would you think that?”
“It just makes sense!” she shot back, continuing her accusations. “How you know so much! Your side of that conversation just now! How you could supposedly fall in love with me so fast! I’m your assignment or something! You’re not really in love with me, are you?”
It felt like he’d been punched in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. “How could you think that, after what we shared before?” He glanced briefly at Bibi when he heard her sigh, but turned his attention back on Jessica quickly, gripping her shoulders and forcing her to face him. “You felt it, too! I know you did! You know me, Jessica. You know how I feel about you. All this is, is fear and frustration, okay? Fear of the unknown, and frustration ‘cause you don’t know.”
Her body slumped and her expression changed, showing remorse as she stared back at him. In response, he pulled her into his arms, holding her, shushing her when she began to cry.
“I swear to you,” he whispered, “my feelings for you are real, and not some chore or task I’ve been assigned.”
“What if this Chimie is really some drug you’ve slipped me?” she questioned weakly. The way she continued to clutch at him told of how she didn’t really believe what she was suggesting. “What if that saccharin wasn’t really saccharin? What if all those insects I’ve been eating were really, actually, laced with something?”
“Jessica,” he chuckled at the absurdity, “you know that’s not true!”
“I don’t know anything right now.”
The double meaning of that made him laugh, but he stopped when he felt her tense, as if upset. “I want to tell you, Jessica, I just can’t right now. You heard me go to bat for you, just now with Marcy!”
“She’s not on the phone anymore,” she whispered covertly. “Couldn’t you just tell me and say you didn’t?”
“I can’t take the chance that it’ll get back to her.” Discreetly, he jerked his head in Bibi’s general direction.
>
She glanced that way before nodding, letting him know she understood. “My gut instincts are right on this, though, aren’t they? I should be worried.”
Combing his fingers into her hair, he raked it aside, off her neck, and nuzzled affectionately. “Not overly. Trust me, okay?”
She hummed in response, his lips on her skin robbing her of her voice, but she soon found it again. “Do you really not want kids?”
His distraction technique wasn’t entirely successful. She only discarded one problematic subject for another. “Right now, honestly, no. But later. . .” He trailed off, unsure of what to say, or of how he even felt about the issue. Attempting to cover his uncertainty, he turned the focus back onto her. “I take it you do?”
“Very much,” she answered, “but I do agree with you, that right now is not the best time for that. I’m just worried that later will never come.” Her embrace of him became stronger, almost desperate, new tears welling and falling in silent mourning.
Assuming her emotional display was because of him, because of his slightly ambiguous answer, he hastened to offer her reassurances. “Jessica, sweetie, I’m not against the idea of having kids.”
“I know,” she whispered; his sincerity was as tangible as any physical object, “but what about all the chaos? Will they ever stop hunting us? And, if they don’t, is bringing a child into that the best of ideas?”
More than anything, he wanted to give her some sense of hope to cling to, even if he did have to stretch the truth to give it to her. “In a few years, when they realize that none of the things they were paranoid about have happened, they’ll stop.”
The Chimie between them betrayed him. While she appreciated what he was attempting, his act was as transparent as clear gift wrapping tape. “Maybe,” she humored him, “but you’re just assuming, really. You don’t know that for sure.”
“Maybe not,” he conceded, “but I do know this for sure. . . I know that I would deny you nothing, if it’s within my power to give it to you. If later, you want to start a family, then we will start one, chaos or not. We’ll find a way, okay? We’ll work it out.”
Stealthily, out of her peripheral vision, Bibi watched and listened in on the scene playing out in the backseat, harsh reality stabbing her as she did. Regardless of the circumstances, or the short amount of time they’d known each other, Craddock and Jessica were soulmates. If she was being honest with herself, she’d known it all along, but couldn’t admit to it. Her brain was so busy protecting her heart, it refused to allow the fact to enter.
Seeing her tears when he glanced in her direction, Josiah took her hand in his, driving one-handedly as he did so. When she looked over at him questioningly, he whispered, “It’s gonna be okay.”
She smiled sadly in return, nodding.
“What?” Craddock asked, so engrossed in Jessica that he didn’t catch the softly spoken words, or the respective pained and empathetic looks shared between his two friends.
“We should eat,” Josiah said, as if repeating himself. He placed his hand back on the steering wheel, forcing a casual demeanor. “Think they’d mind if we stopped? Or should we eat after we meet?”
“After.” Craddock shifted positions, bringing Jessica up against his side with a long, heavy sigh. “I just want to get this shit over with, ya’know?”
“I hear’ya, man!” Josiah laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “What I wouldn’t give to be sittin’ on the couch right now, tossin’ back a cold one, watchin’ whatever sports just happen to be on!”
Craddock laughed, too, welcoming the easier subject. “Yeah, that does sound pretty great, huh? What would you be doin’ right now, Bibi, if we weren’t on this crazy adventure?”
She turned in her seat, smiling back at him. Though the question was innocuous, she knew it was his way of telling her that he would forgive her, in time, and that he wanted them to remain friends, in spite of her previous actions. “Probably getting a cane swung at my head by an angry old person. What about you, Jessica?” she asked, including her, beginning in that small way to start a friendship between them.
She shrugged, a sheepish smile inching onto her face. “Well, when I’m not working, I like to vacuum, and organize my cleaning supplies.”
“Oh, you’re one of those!” Craddock quipped, teasing her. “I should’ve known, when I saw my bed made with oh-so-perfect tucked and folded corners!”
“It’s my only weird thing, I swear!” Jessica blushed but laughed, feeling a sense of camaraderie emerging for the first time since meeting them. “So, Bibi, by your comment, can I assume you work with the elderly?”
“Not exclusively. I’m a physical therapist.”
“They said they were relocating us together,” Josiah said suddenly, changing the subject as the thought occurred to him. “You suppose we’re gonna be neighbors or something?”
“No clue,” Craddock answered. After considering it for a moment, he was no less bewildered. “I have no clue!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Spooky.”
The clouds covering the sun only added to that perception. Former rides in various stages of disrepair and dilapidation, weeds overgrown and dead or dying, buildings with rotting wood and chipped paint, litter and debris everywhere, they all added to the ghost-town-like feel, and to the anxieties rising amongst the foursome as they headed for the predetermined meeting spot.
“Spooky,” Jessica repeated herself, her hand gripping Craddock’s tighter, their shoulders touching as she pushed against him. The comfort she sought and received from that simple action was enough to keep her feet moving.
“Really spooky,” Josiah agreed, leading the way to a directory sign that, in the park’s heyday, was probably vibrant with color. Now, it was barely readable, or recognizable as a map at all.
“Looks like we’re heading to just past the merry-go-round.” Bibi’s finger stabbed the lackluster, formerly painted image of a bumper car, located just above an equally dim likeness of a carousel horse.
“Looks like,” Craddock mumbled, the impending meeting heavy on his mind.
“Weird place to be doing this,” Bibi mentioned, taking the first step in the direction of the path they needed to take. Everyone else followed suit.
Startled, Jessica stumbled a little, her feet reluctant to move her towards danger. “Weird, like, we’re being set up again?”
Bibi shook her head. “No. I’m not getting that vibe at all.”
Confused, Jessica scowled. “Vibe?” She craned her neck when Craddock leaned in to whisper something in her ear.
“She thinks she’s psychic.”
“I don’t just think it,” Bibi said, firmly but good-naturedly, smirking back at Craddock over her shoulder.
He smiled sheepishly in apology. “What vibe are you getting?”
“That this is finally going to be over soon.” Her stride never faltered as she walked with purpose towards the merry-go-round pavilion she could just make out in the distance.
“God, wouldn’t that be spiffy.”
Craddock’s bitter sarcasm was mostly due to exhaustion, but also due to a sense of anxiety he couldn’t shake, that he couldn’t put into words. There was something looming, something significant, but the clues to the puzzle were hazy, hiding within his subconscious, refusing to surface.
While Bibi seemed certain their journey was nearing an end, Craddock had the exact opposite impression.
“If she was psychic, wouldn’t she have seen half this shit coming?”
Jessica’s whispered question brought him out of his rumination, but it was Bibi who answered her.
“It’s not an exact science.” Her pace remained steady. “And some days are better than others.”
Josiah dropped back a few steps, to just beside Jessica. “Oh, and she has the hearing of a bat.”
“Which means I heard that,” Bibi shot back, playfully serious, effectively proving Josiah right, and then she pointed up ahead. “Just around that corne
r, I think.”
“Is it weird that I’m nervous?” Jessica took in a shaky breath and released it slowly, in a futile attempt to relax.
“No,” both men answered, in perfect unison; Craddock then added, “We all are. Trust me, it’s not just you.”
“I don’t know why I am,” she said, almost as if to herself. She looked up at Craddock, her eyes wide and wary. “I mean, it’s going to be okay, right?”
He tightened his hold on her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s going to be okay, Jessica.”
As they passed the carousel, the bumper cars pavilion came into view, as well as the two vague figures standing near it. The distance between them made visual confirmation difficult, but even so, they knew the two people watching their approach were Marcy and Jeramey.
“If it is, then why are you nervous, too?”
Having his bluff called, Craddock said nothing in return, only nodding in acknowledgement of her question. They were a few short yards away and closing the gap fast. Answering her would have to wait.
“Have you been waiting long?” Bibi called out to them, to which Jeramey shook his head as he pushed off the metal railing he had been leaning against.
After flicking his cigarette to discard it, he exhaled the smoke from his last hit before answering. “Just got here about ten minutes ago. You made good time!” He grinned mischievously. “I take it Josiah’s a speed demon?”
“Nah,” Craddock forced a laugh, “we were just closer than we thought.”
“Why here?” Bibi gestured to the park around them, and as she did, Craddock finally met Marcy’s cold stare.
“We wanted a place the Purists wouldn’t suspect,” Jeramey answered, when a quick glance at Marcy produced the opinion that she wasn’t going to. “We’ve sorta been playing catch up, so to speak, to the whole staying one step ahead of them concept, ever since the rock quarry-slash-ambush fiasco.”
“What happened to that Ethan kid, who took us straight to them?”
With Jessica’s question, Marcy finally looked away from Craddock. “Oh, he was no kid. Don’t let the apple-faced, just-out-of-high-school look fool you! He’s older than you! And what happened with him is classified.”
