That Last Onset

by V. J. Chambers

  “Oh,” said Eve, “you got yourselves untied. That’s good.” She sounded as if she were congratulating a group of puppies on peeing on the newspaper instead of the floor.

  I started to struggle against the guys holding me and then figured it was pointless. I’d have to let it play out. But I wasn’t an idiot. Something bad was about to happen, and I knew I wasn’t going to like it.

  “This could have been much easier, you know,” Kieran said to me. “You could have just told us where Chance was.”

  “You really are annoying,” Eve said. “All of you. Kieran and I can’t figure out what you did to everyone in the city yesterday. We thought you were immune to our powers because of who you were. But you had some little tricks up your sleeves, didn’t you?”

  “Annoying,” agreed Kieran, “but not a significant problem. After all, your little group is all wiped out now, isn’t it?”

  “Of course, it was a total pain to have to bring in people from outside of D.C. who hadn’t been affected by whatever you did, but it wasn’t that much of a pain,” said Eve. “You got our attention, though, so you can feel proud of that, I guess.”

  They were talking to us like children. And I realized that in a lot of ways, they were right. There wasn’t much of anything we could do to them. To Kieran and Eve, we must seem like willful kindergartners. They were going to get Chance. And I wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it.

  “I don’t know where Chance is,” I said to Kieran. “So I couldn’t make it easy for you.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Kieran. “Supposedly, only Hallam knows.”

  Eve waved at Hallam. “Hi, Hallam. I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Eve.”

  Hallam’s only reply was a stony glare.

  Eve stuck out her lower lip. “He’s not very polite, is he?”

  Kieran addressed us like a school counselor. “Look, we really don’t want to hurt anyone. So if you tell us where Chance is, this will all be over really quickly.”

  “Fuck you,” said Hallam.

  “You’re right,” said Kieran to Eve. “Not very polite at all.” He snapped his fingers at his men. “Bring Marlena up here.”

  The men holding Marlena dragged her away from the wall she’d been leaning against. They pulled her in front of Kieran and Eve.

  “Oh gosh,” said Eve. “You’re pregnant. You know, I would give anything to be pregnant. Anything on earth. And no matter what Kieran and I do, it’s not happening.” She reached out and took one of Marlena’s hands. “You understand, right? If something got in the way of your being a mother, you’d do everything you could for a child, wouldn’t you?”

  Marlena yanked her hand away from Eve. “I don’t understand a thing about you, bitch.”

  Eve’s jaw dropped in shock. “She’s rude too. I think I’m glad we’re going to hurt her.”

  Then I got it. That’s what they were going to do. They were going to force Hallam to watch as they tortured his pregnant wife. There was no way on earth Hallam could keep from telling them where Chance was. I couldn’t blame him when he did. He had to.

  “Oh my God,” breathed Azazel. “Hallam, just tell them. We’ll figure out a way to get him back.”

  I sucked in air and didn’t say anything. Because some selfish part of me cared more about Chance than Marlena. And some part of me wanted Hallam to stay strong.

  Kieran rolled up his sleeves. He stepped close to Marlena, stretching his neck. And then he punched her in the nose.

  Azazel whimpered.

  Hallam rushed forward but was caught by the men holding them.

  Marlena just glared at Kieran. “That all you got?”

  Eve smiled pleasantly at Hallam. “Tell us where Chance is.”

  I was going to have to do something about this. My gaze darted around the room, sizing up the men who were holding us.

  Hallam didn’t say anything, but his eyes were full of agony.

  Kieran giggled. “Gotta say, even though we didn’t want to hurt anyone, it sure is fun to get to do it anyway.” He punched Marlena again, his fist colliding with a crunch against her face. He’d broken her nose. Blood gushed out.

  “Hallam, tell him,” said Azazel. “We’ll work something out.”

  We were outnumbered, and they all had guns. The guns weren’t in their hands, but in holsters at their waists. If I could get to one, I’d have a few seconds before they drew their guns to take down a good portion of them. But I’d have to kill them, and I’d sworn...

  My son.

  “I’m fine, Hallam,” Marlena said through gritted teeth. “Don’t tell him anything.”

  Hallam was struggling against the men who held him, but he wasn’t getting anywhere.

  I didn’t have use of my arms, but my hands were right at the level of the holsters on the men’s hips. Maybe if I twisted the right way, I could surprise them. I tried not to look into any of the men’s eyes. It would be easier if I thought of them as targets, not people.

  Kieran’s fists swung again, but this time he wasn’t satisfied with one punch, and Marlena’s face wasn’t good enough. He drove his knuckles against her swollen belly, one after the other.

  Marlena let out a little cry and sagged in the arms of the men who were holding her.

  Hallam roared in rage.

  Kieran punched again. And again.

  “Tell us where Chance is,” Eve said, still smiling.

  Marlena yelled again. Her face was bloody and twisted in anguish.

  “Palomino White,” Hallam blurted out. “He’s with her. I don’t know where they live nowadays. It used to be out west in Washington State.”

  I cringed. But he’d had to. Of course, he’d had to. He hadn’t had a choice.

  Kieran kept swinging.

  “Stop it,” Hallam rasped. “Let her go, dammit.” He strained against the men that held him.

  And I made my move. I jerked myself sideways quickly. I’d been standing without moving for so long that the men holding me had slightly relaxed, so it took them by surprise. As I moved, I reached for the closest gun. My fingers brushed the cold metal.

  For a split second, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to grasp it, that it would slide out of my fingers.

  But then my grip found purchase. The gun was in my hand. I flipped off the safety and aimed into the first leg I came to. I pulled the trigger.

  Kieran stopped punching Marlena, a surprised look on his face.

  The men around me moved away. One man fell to his knees, gripping his leg, which was seeping blood. And I didn’t think. I just pulled the trigger again and again. Point and shoot. It was what I was good at. The Sons had trained me well. It felt good, like putting on an old pair of broken-in jeans. I was at home. The spatters of blood didn’t bother me. The glassy eyes of the dead didn’t bother me. The throaty screams of dying men didn’t bother me. Nothing bothered me then. I was a killing machine.

  Azazel hadn’t hesitated either. She had a gun too, from one of the fallen men. I hadn’t seen her move, but she was covering me, sighting bodies and waiting for them to move. Hallam had rushed forward to support Marlena, whose face looked ashen and sick. I didn’t have time to inspect them further.

  I whirled and put a bullet in Eve’s skull, but she had my invincibility power, so it went right through and sealed back up.

  “Ouch,” she said. “You’re rude too.”

  I turned the gun on Kieran. “Near as I can remember,” I said, “Kieran’s power doesn’t protect him from gunshots.”

  I crossed to Kieran in two steps and jammed my gun against his temple. “What happens if I blow his head off? What would that do to your precious little powers?”

  Kieran grinned at me. “Try it and see.”

  Fine. I didn’t need another invitation. I pulled the trigger.

  Kieran was right next to me, and there was an explosion of blood and bits of skull. It spattered against me, and each drop that hit me suddenly reminded me of my guilt. I’d promised never
to kill again. I’d sworn—

  But Kieran just shook himself. The wound on his head was already mending. “Our powers are one. What she can do, I can do. You and Azazel never quite got yourselves together enough. You never embraced it.”

  I could hear the patter of feet outside the cell. Men were coming. Could we shoot our way out of this? What were we going to do? I tightened my grip on the gun, bracing for it. I caught Azazel’s gaze to make sure she was doing the same. She gave me a grim but determined look.

  Kieran and Eve noticed our exchange. They laughed. We were nothing to them. Babies playing a game.

  Nancy materialized like a ghost out of the darkness. She was grinning. “Imagine thinking you could escape,” she hissed.

  Great. She wasn’t Nancy after all. She was that creepy Agnes thing.

  “Do you want your powers back now?” said Agnes.

  I looked from Kieran and Eve, who were laughing like banshees, to Hallam and Marlena, who were white faced and worried. Was she kidding? I’d do anything for those powers at this moment. I turned to Azazel, who was nodding. “Hell yes,” I said.

  Agnes reached out for Azazel’s hand and my hand. She pulled our hands together, joining them.

  The door shot open. We heard gunfire first. Then we saw the men pouring in. There were so many of them, and they were all shooting. I struggled to raise my gun, but Agnes was in the way.

  The men swarmed the room. They were everywhere, stepping over the dead bodies and firing their guns like automatons.

  “Agnes!” I said, trying to shake out of her grip.

  But she was muttering something under her breath, something I couldn’t understand.

  A gunshot close to my face—too close. The noise echoed in my ears. I felt a sharp pain exploding in my head and then brilliant white light consumed me.

  Part Two

  The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –

  And Breaths were gathering firm

  For that last Onset – when the King

  Be witnessed – in the Room –

  -Emily Dickinson

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Jason,” a soft female voice was saying. “Jason, wake up.” Someone was shaking me.

  I rolled over, rubbing my eyes. Dull morning light was streaming in through the curtains of the room I stayed in with Chance. Mrs. Jones was standing over me in her bathrobe. Her hair was in rollers.

  “You must not have heard your alarm,” said Mrs. Jones.

  “Crap,” I said, throwing aside the covers and sitting up in bed. I’d been having such a weird dream. I was old, and people were trying to kill me. But it was fading now, turning to wisps in my brain. All I could really focus on was that I’d overslept. And that meant there wasn’t going to be any hot water for a shower. If I even had time for one. “What time is it?”

  She gestured at my clock radio. “Seven-fifteen,” she said.

  “Crap,” I said again. I had to catch the bus in twenty minutes.

  “Breakfast is on the table.” She smiled at me and swept out of the room.

  I got out of bed and pulled some clothes out of my dresser. Most of them didn’t fit me very well. They were all hand-me-downs from the Jones’ various foster kids. It was better than wearing the same clothes every day, though, so I wasn’t about to complain. I cinched up a pair of jeans with a belt so they wouldn’t fall down and yanked a t-shirt over my head. I stumbled to the bathroom to at least brush my teeth and run a wet comb through my hair.

  I smacked directly into Azazel in the hallway. She was wrapped in a towel and her hair was wet. My eyes swept her body, looking at the little droplets of water that were still clinging to her shoulders and neck.

  “Sorry, Jason,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “It was my fault.” I had a weird flash out of nowhere. I had my mouth on her neck. She wasn’t wearing any clothes. Whoa. I looked away from her. I darted into the bathroom. Damn it. I slammed the door after me.

  The mirror was fogged up from all the other showers people had taken this morning. I tried to wipe it off with my hand, but there was too much steam in the room. It didn’t make much difference. As I popped my toothbrush into my mouth, I scolded myself.

  Azazel is really, really taken, I said to myself. She’s all over that Toby guy. People like you do not get to have girlfriends. Or sex. Ever. So stop thinking about her.

  But that wasn’t right, was it? Why did I have this weird feeling like I’d been with Azazel, not just in my prevalent adolescent fantasies (which often took place in the Jones’ shower, embarrassingly) but really and actually? That I’d actually held her and kissed her and touched her and—

  Stop it, I warned myself.

  There was something more to that odd feeling I had. As if I’d been with her, but it had been a mistake. I should never have touched her, ever. But that was crazy. Wasn’t it?

  “Taken,” I told the mirror. “I get it.”

  “Jason?” called Chance from outside the bathroom, “are you talking to yourself?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, hurry up,” he said.

  I swung the door open. Chance raised his eyebrows at me. For some reason, I felt the urge to give him a huge hug. It felt as if I hadn’t seen him in ages. But Chance and I didn’t really hug, so I shoved my hands in my pockets and trudged downstairs for breakfast. This was the weirdest morning ever.

  * * *

  I was waiting at the bus stop with the other guys. Cameron and Nick were having some kind of in-depth discussion on how to find codes to cheat on video games. I was half-listening to them and wondering if I’d done my homework for school today. Weirdly enough, I had absolutely no memory of what we’d done in class yesterday. I guessed it wasn’t a completely big deal if I got behind. It wasn’t as if I was going to get to stay here forever, and in the grand scheme of things, high school really didn’t matter very much. But it was freaking me out.

  A car pulled up and the window rolled down. Lilith leaned out the window, brushing red hair away from her lipstick. She smiled at me. “Want a ride to school, Jason?”

  “Uh...” I looked at Chance and the guys as if they could give me the answer. They shrugged at me. “Sure.” It was better than the bus, right?

  I walked around to the other side of the car. As I opened the passenger door, Lilith grabbed junk she had on the passenger seat and began hurling it into the back seat. I helped her until we’d cleared a space for me to sit down. I pulled the door closed after me, still holding a stack of papers I’d taken off her seat. I glanced down at them. “Hey, is this a pentagram on this?”

  Lilith snatched the papers from me and threw them in the back. “No. It’s nothing.” She pulled the car out, wheels spinning loudly on the gravel.

  Why would Lilith have a pentagram? And why did I feel as if I already knew the answer to that question?

  Lilith stole a glance at me from the driver’s side. “We could ditch if you wanted, you know.” She raised an eyebrow at me suggestively. “I’m sure we could figure out something more interesting to do than school.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. I wiggled my foot. “They track this ankle bracelet, you know. I could get in trouble.”

  “Too bad,” she said. Her hand snaked across the car and rested on my thigh. She rubbed her hand over my leg, coming dangerously close to my crotch.

  I gulped. “Um...” I should tell her to stop doing that.

  Why? mocked my thoughts. Because you’re staying loyal to Azazel, who’s taken?

  Lilith’s fingers moved further up my thigh. I stared down at her painted fingernails, digging into the cloth of my jeans. No girl had ever put her hands on me like that.

  But that wasn’t true, was it? Hadn’t I been with another girl, one with red hair like Lilith’s?

  Polly...

  No. I was losing my mind. I shoved Lilith’s hand off of me. “Let’s just go to school, okay?”

  She laughed. “Whatever, Jason. We both know you think I’m hot
. I see the way you keep checking out my cleavage. We should give in and do it already.”

  “Don’t you, like, have a boyfriend or something?” I said. I was struggling to try to remember why I didn’t want to do that. It seemed as if I’d be betraying someone, but that didn’t make any sense.

  “No,” Lilith snorted. “Don’t do boyfriends. Don’t do commitment. But I sure as fuck want to do you.”

  “No...” I was really trying to figure this out. “You like Toby or something. You two are like—”

  Lilith had turned white as a sheet. “No, I don’t. I fucking hate Toby. We don’t get along. Where would you get such a stupid idea?”

  Okay, never mind. I shook my head. “This has been a really weird morning. That’s all.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, remind me never to drive you to school again.”

  “No,” I said. “I appreciate the ride.”

  “It wasn’t the kind of ride I had in mind.”

  She was really vulgar, wasn’t she? I had to admit there was a part of me that did think she was attractive. And there was something about her ballsy, devil-may-care attitude that was appealing. “Look, Lilith, maybe if we could just try this a little slower—”

  “Just forget it, Jason, okay?” She glared at the steering wheel.

  “Okay,” I said.

  We drove the rest of the way to school in silence. When we got to the parking lot, Azazel was already there, hanging out outside Toby’s truck with Jude. He was wearing a skin-tight pink shirt and pink fake eyelashes. They waved us over.

  Jude? He didn’t belong here, did he? But of course he did. He was Azazel’s gay best friend. Lilith was her girl best friend. She’d explained this to me before.

  Lilith looked sidelong at me. “I really don’t think that guy is gay. Do you?”

  I gave her a funny look. “Have we talked about this before?” Everything this morning was this kind of screwy déjà vu feeling.

  “No,” she said. She strolled over to Jude and Azazel. “Hey Jude,” she said to him. “I thought the administration said no costumes.”