Return

by J. A. Huss

Fucking aliens. I hate that mind-reading shit. It’s so fucking unfair. And that farsight shit is just as bad. I mean, what the fuck? How unjust is it that some people—aliens—can see the fucking future? It’s not right. It’s not right and it really pisses me off, actually. Especially Rikan. That bastard knew everything. Shit, he probably knew about this little side trip of mine.

  Side trip? Is that what you call this?

  Hey, whose fucking mind is this anyway? Get the hell out.

  And Lucan. He knows everything too, I feel that to be true. He says he doesn’t, but I don’t believe him. And Tier just went picking through my mind like it was a goldmine of information.

  Hehe, but they never saw this coming. Nope, this was a total surprise.

  You just keep telling yourself that, Junco.

  All right. What the fuck? Who’s there?

  This is my fucked-up life, OK? Go get your own.

  Oh my God. What if that’s Inanna?

  I swear, bitch, I’ll kill you again if that’s you!

  Nothing.

  That’s what I thought.

  I’m the fucking queen up here… in… the nothingness of… Pillar Seven.

  Oh. Motherfucking. Fuck.

  Now we’re getting somewhere.

  I’m not floating on a galactic wind… I’m in the fucking Pillar!

  Oh my God. I fucked it up! I can’t even dissipate myself correctly! I scattered myself inside a giant fucking container!

  Suddenly the pull on me is stronger, like a current pulling me downstream. I paddle my arms and kick my feet, desperately trying to swim back upstream. I fight it. It pulls, I resist. The new current calls to me, it goes from light and nudging to strong and persuading.

  And then it’s a force.

  It consumes me. It’s gravity and I’m mass.

  I’m pulled backwards by my feet, spinning as I fall though the nothing, the black preventing me from spatially aligning myself to anything other than the wind I create with my backwards motion. My hair is flying up, the air that should not be possible in a vacuum whipping against my cheeks. Drying out my eyes and lips.

  And then the spiral intensifies. I pick up speed, like I’m being sucked inward instead of shooting out and away.

  “No!”

  I scream it in my head and it comes out as words. This surprises me so much I do it again.

  “No!”

  I paddle my arms and legs more frantically now, desperately trying to get back to the dark. But it’s no use. The black turns a dark gray, then less dark, and less.

  And then it’s not black, it’s red.

  And the red recedes to allow yellow to leak into my new world.

  Maybe I’m being changed into light?

  Oh, for fuck’s sake, Junco! Wake the fuck up!

  I’m just about to say I’m not asleep when water enters my mouth and slides down my throat.

  I choke, desperately gasping for air, but more and more water floods into my mouth.

  And then my eyes fly open and I can see again.

  I’m not in the black or the yellow, but the green. The green of brightly lit lake water. There are plants waving in the currents I create with my thrashing, and small fish with brightly colored scales float by along with the bits of organic filth.

  My survival instincts kick in and I tip my head back and point it at the sunlight above the water.

  I shoot forward like a bullet and breach the surface of the water, my mouth open, choking, coughing and spilling water out as my lungs ache for the liquid to be replaced by air.

  My arms flail around, desperate to prevent my body from sinking back under again, and then it enters me in a rush. Oxygen. I inhale, I suck in air like an intake fan and heat radiates up from my toes, spreads into my ankles, up my calves, into my torso, down my arms and then finally… my mind.

  My mind is back.

  You can’t ever trust the mind-reading skills of these aliens.

  All the locks are unlocked.

  All the closets are open.

  All the trunks are empty.

  All the secrets are known.

  I am in my lake. And standing in front of me, on the edge of a dock, is HOUSE.

  She’s scowling at me, her arms crossed over her little chest, her flip-flopped foot tapping out an impatient rhythm on the unpainted gray wood, and all around me are brightly scaled fish that reflect sunlight.

  I spit out some water and laugh. “Ha!”

  “Ha, yourself, Junco. I’ve been waiting for you!”

  I dunk my body under the water again to flatten out my long hair, then pop back up and spit out another gulp of disgusting lake water. “I didn’t know, HOUSE. I was sorta incapacitated.”

  And then I look past her and see two things. My cabin. And my twine.

  I burst into tears and start to sink.

  But there’s a splash and some waves and then his strong hands grab me and pull me back up. We break the surface together and he hugs me tight around the chest as he swims to shore, dragging me behind him. Then I’m in his arms and he’s walking up the beach to the cabin.

  “Just relax, Junco. I’ve got you.”

  But I cry instead. “Isten!”

  “Shhh,” he whispers into my neck.

  “Isten,” I whisper back. “Why? Why did you leave me? You promised. You promised it would be forever. You’d never give me away. You promised.”

  He carries us through the door and sits down on the couch with me in his lap. And he just holds me as I cry.

  All that hurt. All that sadness. All that insanity. It pours out of me in a stream of misery and pain.

  “Please, Isten. Can we stay here?”

  “Junco…”

  “Please, Isten. Don’t make me go back.” He sighs underneath me and I start to beg. “Please, please, please… don’t make me go back!”

  He strokes my wet hair, then my cheeks, also wet, but with tears as well as lake water. “We have a little bit of time, Junco, so stop crying, please. We have a little bit of time. Let’s enjoy it.”

  “No! That’s not fair!” I struggle to right myself, but he holds me tight.

  “Listen, Junco,” he says softly as he pulls my mouth into his neck and leans over my ear. “OK? Just listen. Calm down, and hear what I have to say, please.”

  Everything hurts in this instant. Everything. My head, my arms, my legs. My heart.

  My heart hurts so fucking bad I might split right down the middle. How can being with him feel so good and hurt so bad at the same time?

  Because I know. He’s not really here. Isten is dead.

  I’m not really here. This is fake. It’s just another way to trick me into believing in them.

  “I’m real, Junco. I swear, I’m real. And I promise you, after we leave here, you will see me again.”

  I shake my head. “You’re lying.”

  “No, Junco. I swear. It’s a gift. It’s a gift from someone who loves you very much.”

  “Who?” I ask, swiping my hand across my eyes to wipe the tears.

  “He’ll tell you himself when it’s time.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Yes, you do,” he says with Isten boldness. “You believe everyone.” And then he laughs. Like that was funny.

  “That’s not fucking funny!”

  “We don’t lie to you, Junco. You’ll see. We’re not lying. We just can’t tell you everything, that’s all. It only works if you act on your own free will.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your Destiny, Junco. Your Destiny is to save us all. So please, forgive us if we keep our secrets close. Every living thing in the Solar System depends on our discretion.”

  “Why me, Isten? Why me? I don’t want to do this! I don’t want to do any of this!”

  “But you will do it, Junco. Because you’ve been trained your whole life to follow orders. And your commander is going to give you one final order. All you have to do is complete the mission. One final mission, the
n you’re free. Do you understand? Complete this last job and you’re free.”

  I don’t even want to know what this mission is, but my mouth betrays me, because it’s already asking the question.

  “Kill, Junco. Just do exactly what you were trained to do. Just. Kill.”

  Chapter Eight—JUNCO

  I wake in a soft bed and immediately reach back to feel the residual bone left over from when Inanna amputated my wings. The skin is smooth and taut, but the bumps are still there.

  Sometimes I feel like my wings were a dream. Everything is a dream. Of course, when you’re insane, that’s pretty easy to believe. You just let things slip a little and if you’re me, the crazy wiggles right in to take the place of sanity. It’s almost a perfect fit in my case.

  The crazy, I mean. Not the sanity. Sanity and I are not friends. We’re like Ashur and Braun, or Lucan and Inanna.

  I sigh into my pillow. Damn, it sure smells good for being fake.

  “It’s not fake, Junco.”

  I shoot up and the sheets fall away, exposing a pretty white camisole top I had no idea I was wearing. Sera sits at the end of my bed.

  My bed.

  The bed I shared with Charlie all those weeks when I was going through that first morph.

  “Get out,” I snarl. I’m not sure why I have this severe dislike for her, I just do.

  “No,” she replies as she smooths down her flowing red hair. “Today is a work day, Junco. Get out of bed. You’re on the clock. We have a lot of things to go over and I have other places to be, so don’t waste my time.”

  I lie back down and snuggle back into my covers. I can feel her move and I decide to give her a warning. “Let me be very clear here, Sera. If you touch me, if you speak to me, if you look at me, I will never get out of this bed. Isten already let the truth slip, honey. You guys can’t make me do anything, so fuck off.”

  She sighs, like she’s about to test me with speech.

  “And I do mean that in the most literal sense possible. I’m not done doing whatever it is I’m doing in here. I’m not fucking done. When I am done, I will let you fuckers know. Now, go do whatever it is you need to do and leave my motherfucking cabin—or I promise, I will do the exact opposite of everything you ask me. And I have no problem with it.” I sit up and look her in the eye for this last part. “I will let them all die, Sera, just out of spite. So do not fucking push me.”

  She disappears.

  And then Isten rolls over and drawls out in his sleepy voice, “What the fuck, Junco?”

  I shrug and lay my head on his chest. “I deserve some happy minutes, Isten. I really do. And I meant it. I’m not done with you yet. I’m not moving, I’m not getting up, I’m not doing anything except enjoying you for this whole day.”

  He laughs underneath me and it’s only then that I notice. I never tried to count him.

  It makes me sit upright. “Isten!”

  He throws his arms wide and the sheet falls away, revealing his bare chest. “What?”

  “I didn’t count you!”

  “I got nothing for that, Juncs.” He pulls me back down and plays with my hair. “Come here.”

  I do. I have no desire to deny Isten anything. He could tell me to pretty much do anything right now and I’d say yes.

  “What’s that mean, you didn’t count me?”

  I don’t want to talk about it, but I do because he asked. I start from the beginning, just like I did with Tier. And Isten listens and never interrupts once. He lets me tell him everything. About my sickness. The OCD that compels me to count things, mostly breaths these days, but the stars in the past. And how I got started playing piano and doing the mounted aerialist stuff on horseback.

  “How come I never saw this stuff, Junco? When we twined?”

  “I locked it up, Isten. If you could find it, then so could I. And I needed to forget all that bad stuff. It made me insane, it took over my mind. It just hurt too much.”

  “Does it hurt now?”

  I think about this for a few minutes. I revisit the memories. The Stag training. Which actually, now that I know how big a role Gideon played in my childhood, is not so bad. Yeah, all those Stag visits were scary and hard, but Gideon was there for most of them. “Some of them do, Is. Like the years with that clone father. That stuff still hurts. And the time with Inanna, that still hurts. But my dad did a pretty good job raising me, don’t you think?”

  Isten grunts a little. “Well, you’re here, Junco. So I’ll have to go with yes, your father did an amazing job.”

  “Yeah, me too. I miss him.”

  “If you go back, you can see him. And Tier. And Gid, and everyone else you love.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Junco, time is running out. You can’t hide here much longer. Seriously, there’s shit that’s got to get done. Like finishing the Halo. You never raised your Pillar, Juncs. The Halo is in stasis, which means nothing we have planned to deal with the High Order will work.”

  “I’m not ready, Isten. And that’s the end of it. It’s not even been a day yet. I spent years being tortured and used, so I think I deserve a little bit of a vacation. You were a total dick about my last vacation too, and I’m still mad about that. I’d just killed myself to save the man I love, and all you could think about was weapons training. That was pretty fucked up.”

  His hazel eyes search mine. “I hate the blue,” he says. And then he lifts up my hair. “And this blonde, too. It’s not you at all. I barely recognize you, Junco.”

  “It’s not my fault. I have no control over this Archer shit. Believe me, I liked the old me. I liked being a skinny little shit with my ugly auburn hair and filthy hazel eyes.”

  He laughs at me.

  “I feel like Lucan’s daughter or something. Or Rikan’s sister. Or fuck, God forbid, Lili’s sister. Uh, how I ever liked that girl is beyond me.”

  “I know,” Isten says nodding. “She’s a little kiss-ass. I never wanted her to come on that mission. Lucan’s little spy, that’s all she was.”

  “I knew it! She spied for him for real?”

  Isten laughs. “She is Lucan’s daughter, Junco. Rikan and Lili are his true offspring.”

  Hmmmm. Interesting. “See, now why did that have to be secret?”

  “Who said that was a secret? Everyone knows Lili is Lucan’s.”

  I give him the stink-eye.

  “Except you,” he says, smiling. And then his smile fades. “So you still love Tier?”

  I nod. “Yes, why?”

  “I dunno, maybe he’s not the guy for you, ya know?”

  I scoff at that. “Yeah, well, I hate to disappoint you, Isten, but he is the guy for me. I can’t even imagine myself with someone else, to be honest. Not even Gideon. Not like that. And Gid is the only other person who could come close to a boyfriend.” I watch his expressions to see if this has something to do with jealousy. But he just reaches up and scratches the stubble on his chin. “You’re sexy too, Isten. But not sexy enough to lure me away from Tier,” I say sweetly. He laughs, but it’s clear he’s not thinking of himself right now. “What’s that about? He’s not for me?”

  “Nothing, I guess. If you love him, then fine. Love him.”

  “You don’t think he loves me?”

  Isten squeezes me so tightly I cough. “Of course he loves you, Snowbird. Of course he does. Believe me, he’d never have done half the shit he did for you if he didn’t have it bad. I mean, shit—he disobeyed Lucan for you, Junco. Do you have any idea how big that is? Tier. Disobeyed. Lucan.”

  “Oh, he sorta came off like a total rule-breaker to begin with. I’m not sure that’s really a big deal.”

  “He does break rules, but he does not disobey orders. Not when they come from Lucan.”

  “He killed all those corporate people involved with Iliana back on Earth. He was on probation.”

  “That doesn’t count. No one ever told him not to kill people on Earth.” Isten shrugs. “It’s one thing to do things you know w
ill be against the rules after the fact. It’s quite another to get a direct order from Lucan to kill Junco Coot and then basically flip him the bird and then bring said girl home with him, like he’s the fucking king of the universe or something. I don’t blame Lucan for letting Rache put him on trial. He deserved it. And he knew that was coming.”

  “Oh.” That doesn’t make me feel good. At all. “But if he was killed, then I’d be all alone. Didn’t he care that I’d have to live on after he was dead?”

  Isten waits several seconds to answer, and when he does it’s very low. Only a whisper. “Junco, that’s what love is. You did the same thing when you cut yourself open at the end of Deliverance to save Tier. He’d gladly give up his life for you, Snowbird. It would be his privilege.”

  “I don’t want him to give up his life for me, Isten. If he does, I want to go with him.”

  “But you’re a High Order Archer, Juncs. You can’t go.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “No, it’s not fair at all. But regardless of how the saying goes, there’s nothing fair about love or war.”

  “He better not leave me, Isten. He better not. If he does, I’ll cut myself in half again and again and again. Until there’s nothing left of me to cut. If I live through this and he doesn’t, then I will refuse to live. I will find a way to die, I will find a way to eliminate myself. I can’t lose any more people. You’re gonna leave me soon, and then if Tier leaves, I’ll have no one.”

  “You’ll always have Lucan, Junco. He’s always gonna be there.”

  “I don’t want Lucan. I want Tier.”

  Isten kisses me on the head. “Junco, if anyone can find a way to live against all odds, it’s Tier. So just let it go. Let him do his job, you do your job, and then you can think about forever. After we kick some High Order ass.”

  I lean into him and it takes me back to Fledge. When Isten and I were up in the observatory looking out at space and he told me about his first kill.

  It was the very first time I had him to myself.

  And this might be the very last.

  So I lean in and enjoy his love for as long as I’ve got it.

  Chapter Nine—JUNCO

  We sleep a little longer and then Isten makes me get up. He’s cooking breakfast when I look out the front window and see HOUSE sitting at the end of the dock. “What’s with HOUSE?”