A violent chill runs up and down my neck, but I bite into some chicken before anyone can notice.
Veronica sits back, hand on her tummy as if to ease her digestion. “So what are we going to do once we’ve killed every monster in the city?”
Kazuma thinks for a moment, glances at me, then shakes his head. “A shower would be nice.”
“Sleep in an actual wed— ged— you know,” I agree.
“And sex, with any interested parties.” He shrugs widely, eyes closed.
“Will-you-please-let-go-of-that,” she grits, glancing at me anxiously.
“I meant with you, of course.” He smiles disarmingly at her.
“Keep that up and you won’t have me, either.”
I shift uncomfortably. “I don’t like sinking— winking—” I pause, staring into space, getting more and more angry with myself.
“Thinking,” Kazuma mumbles, not looking at me. His confidence has washed away; he suddenly seems . . . uncomfortable.
“I don’t like th-thinking about the future right now.”
Veronica starts to look upset, like she’s searching for words to comfort me but mostly herself.
I set aside the last of the fried chicken. “I’m uh, full. I’ll be outside.” Before they can stop me, I head out the door.
I instantly regret my retreat. The world has become mangled cars and prone bodies and damaged buildings. There’s a guy, a teenager, hanging halfway out a car window, and a headless woman in the driver seat. For the first time I notice the dull background roar of flies. They’re everywhere, swarming in black clouds around anything that used to be human.
Something explodes in the distant north, and my stomach tightens. In no time at all, we’ll be headed into the fray. I’m flooded with a sickening feeling of events spinning out of my control.
Veronica appears on the sidewalk outside the deli and stands with her arms folded, looking troubled. “I’m glad you two are getting along,” she says carefully. “You seem to have . . . forgiven him.”
I blink at her. “For . . . saving my life from the wagon?” Wait. “. . . dragon?” Yeah. “And for being a part of our team?”
She gives me a surprised look, then averts her eyes and seems to shake herself. “Right. It’s just . . . We’re fucked. Not just the three of us, but everyone in this city.” She nods vaguely toward the intersection. “But Kazuma seems to be making an earnest attempt at change. So, not forgiving him seems like a waste of energy at this point, and counterproductive.”
“Okay.”
She steps closer and whispers, “He could lose control again.”
As far as I’ve seen, Kazuma is a nice guy, other than the weird sexual comments. I’m seriously fucking baffled why Veronica is being so guarded all of a sudden, as if someone’s walked over her grave.
Before I have time to word my confusion, she squints at me. “Do you . . . like him?”
Did he tell her about that awkward moment on the roof? I get the impression they’re a couple, and I don’t want to get in the way. I roll my eyes and shift my weight back and forth on the balls of my feet. “Ehhhhhh, the, you know, with the, and—”
“You’re not that brain-damaged,” she mumbles, cracking a smile.
I glare at her. “It’s just . . . weird to talk about, with these people here. There’s something wrong with them.”
She stares at me, saying nothing, deeply unhappy with my answer.
“He’s kind of . . .” Won’t be able to put this toothpaste back in the tube. “I dunno. From the right angle, in the right lighting, when he’s got the right attitude—”
“Just say you think he’s sexy.”
“In the right lighting, et cetera.” A weight flies off my shoulders, and I laugh. “Don’t tell him, okay? That would be weird.”
“He knows.” She pauses, thinking, then adds, “I don’t mind. I know he loves me, and I’m glad you’re getting along. It’s weird, though. I always assumed you were asexual or something.”
I stare at her. “. . . oh?”
She looks uncomfortable. “Since you’ve never really dated.”
“. . . have I not?”
“Not that I know of.”
Alright, this is getting strange. “How would you know that about me?”
“Best friends know that sort of thing.”
I stare at her as confused terror begins to envelope me. “What?” I whisper faintly.
Before we can figure out where this breakdown in communication originated, I notice Kazuma standing in the deli doorway, ramrod-still, staring at the northern horizon. For some reason, he’s wearing the gun across his back; maybe Veronica got tired of its weight.
She turns, notices him, and blanches. “What’s wrong?”
He swallows, and I finally notice the tiny shivers running up and down his body. He looks like a cat watching a bird — or a swarm of scorpions. If he had fur along his spine, it would be standing straight up.
She looks over her shoulder at me, then further, toward the south. “We have to get to Mjol—”
With an engine roar, a Humvee swings around the corner one block north. A loudspeaker on its roof booms something about lying down on the ground. I look around at the bodies and wonder if they’re in trouble.
“Fight or run?” Kazuma snaps, voice harsh, body already bent forward for attack. “Veronica?”
The Humvee speeds toward us, and flooding in behind it are needle monsters of many shapes and sizes, following the raucous loudspeaker.
“Run!” she screams, and grabs my arm. The three of us turn as one and start across the crowded intersection, dodging bodies and wrecked cars.
Gunfire explodes behind us — at us? No, they have no reason to think we’re dangerous, they must be shooting at the flood of monst—
Veronica drops like a sack, grip wrenched from my arm, and I see that her left leg is bloodied. Bullets ping ping off the asphalt around me, and one hits the side of a car only inches from my head.
Kazuma freezes a few steps away, eyes wide and full of indecision.
“Take her!” she screams, pushing at my ankle as she tries to stand. “I’m right behind you!”
He grips my hand and yanks me down the intersection, and we’re running. I’m holding him back with my slow, still-too-human body, but we’re escaping. The Humvee is being overwhelmed by monsters.
I look back as we run, and Veronica is hobbling a few yards back, teeth bared in pain, hands on her injured thigh. She starts to yell something, maybe, ‘Keep going!’ or ‘Wait!’.
Blood blooms on her forehead and she goes down.
“Wait!” I scream, wrenching on Kazuma’s grip. “We have to—”
“I’ll come back for her!” Kazuma roars, and we dash down an alley.
A helicopter roars overhead, then another, then another. The bottom drops out of my stomach, but all I can do is run. In the intersection behind us, I hear a screech of tires, shouting voices, and more gunfire. I can’t remember why, but that red rose of blood on Veronica’s forehead is the most terrifying part—
I can’t remember why.
We run through alleys and down side streets, past abandoned delivery vans and their decapitated drivers, along and over walls, over fences, through the rare hedge, until my chest is on fire and I’m starting to stumble—
I can’t remember.
We stop to gasp for breath, huddled against a wall in the near-darkness of a building’s shadow, and can hear no one giving chase. We’ve lost the Army and the monsters, or they’re too busy with each other. A man lies across the street with his head propped up on a parking barrier, staring dully at us with his mouth hanging open. There’s blood on his teeth.
My head whips around as I stare at these unfamiliar buildings, the strange topography of disaster. I tell myself this is a weird, industrial part of town, and that’s why I’ve never been here, except that I have. There’s a crushed bookstore, a smashed coffee shop, a little corner with a fire hydrant, and the l
andmarks are there in front of my eyes. Some part of my brain recognizes them, but on a conscious, ‘what’s around the next corner’ processing level, it’s as if I’ve been dumped on the surface of Mars.
We skirt an intersection, hating the open space, and accidentally spook a bear that’s been pawing through the wreckage of a food truck. Its prickly black hide shudders threateningly as it backs away from us, swinging its head back and forth, eyes rolling. Then it turns and lumbers away, searching for its herd.
Kazuma yanks me into a half-demolished cafe and sits me down at a booth in the back. “Stay here,” he orders, and slams the shotgun down on the table. “Don’t touch this unless you’re attacked. If you see soldiers, run.”
Before I can beg him not to leave me alone, he disappears out the door.
I’m alone. Little light can reach back here from the smashed front windows.
My mind is spinning out of control, whisking my thoughts into a dizzying storm. What street am I on? Where is home? What does home look like? Where’s my car? Do I own a car? Why did I assume I own a car?
Ice pours down my neck, down my spine and shoulders and hips. I slowly lie down across the padded seat, hidden in the shadow of the table. The gun on the table looms in my mind, black and sleek and horrible.
Something’s wrong with me.
No, there’s not. I’m just tired and scared. I just need to rest—
“I can’t—”
I swallow thickly, terrified of saying the words out loud, that doing so will make this real. Vivid fantasies bloom before my mind’s eye, of Veronica laughing sarcastically at me, then screaming in my face, shaking me like a helpless, lost child—
“I can’t remember.”
I cower internally. There’s nothing wrong with me. Everything is fine. My cheeks are very wet; I raise a hand and feel tears pouring down, though I can’t feel them in my eyes.
I press my body against the seat, and a dam finally breaks inside me. I’m sobbing helplessly, clutching at myself, hugging, reassuring, trying.
All my arguments bubble to the surface and then disappear. I’m left empty, breathing only because my body breathes. My head and chest are pumped with air, carrying me up in a dizzying spiral. I let out a last sob and feel my eyes, my vision, changing.
The waterfall carries me down into a pool of black water, and in its depths, I am calm.
I sit up, dry my face with a napkin, and inspect myself. I’m uninjured as far as I can tell. My eye is drawn to my wrist, then up to my elbow. There’s writing there, a tattoo, though a thick scar of needle flesh cuts through it.
FI . r E I
QU.
This was important. I cradle the arm against my breast.
I’ve been abandoned.
Choking, I grasp at the pain like a burning coal in my chest, unable to grip without searing myself. Somewhere in the distance, my voice hiccups through babbling, disjointed sentences. The only thing keeping me from panicking again is the strong, patient arm around my shoulders.
I look up at Kazuma. He’s staring across the cafe at the open front door, looking shell-shocked.
“Can’t find her,” he whispers, voice thick with emotion. “Dead soldiers everywhere, and piles of needles, but she’s gone.” He sighs heavily. “I need your help. I need you to be sane.”
The gun dominates the table in front of us; I tear my eyes away from it.
He moves it to the floor next to his foot. “Tell me what it’s like.” His arm is still around my shoulders.
I swallow as hard as I can and squeeze my eyes shut. “Feel. Wrong. Think. Bad.”
He remains silent. Maybe I’ve convinced him that a spring somewhere has broken, that the clockwork has ground to a halt — or gone spinning off on vacations of its own.
After a moment, he gets up and ducks behind the front counter. He sucks in a sharp breath at the barista lying on the floor, then sorts through the display cases. He eventually emerges with a tray of cookies and a few bottles of water. He sets them down in front of me and urges, “Go ahead. You need to eat, and you definitely need water.”
Before I know it, I’ve finished a bottle and am halfway through another, shoving it down my burning throat. A picture looms before my eyes of a cat duct-taped to a lawn chair while a man — my father? — administers its medicine. There’s humor in the image, and traces of fear and frustration, of knowing that something isn’t right.
I look at the cookies, then up and away when they start to squirm before my eyes. The entire time, quiet tears steadily flood me.
Kazuma nurses a bottle of water and stares out the window. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “It’s my fault. All my fault.”
“What,” and I swallow thickly, “What is this?”
“Your mind is trying to adjust to . . .” He waves a hand vaguely toward the front of the cafe. “We should wait until we find Veronica.”
I shake my head a little. “I’m not, not the kind of, p-person who f-f-freeeeaks out l-like this.” I breathe in and out, as calmly as possible.
He looks like he’s on the verge of saying something, but eventually decides against it. “Just take as long as you need to stabilize yourself. Don’t panic, and don’t do anything stupid.”
I nod, still breathing carefully, and look directly at him for the first time in several minutes. “Is this,” I pause, swallow. “Is this what amnesia feels like?”
He meets my gaze, and for a moment I drown in the guilt and sadness and understanding pouring from his eyes.
“How much can you remember?” he whispers.
It’s not so much that I can’t remember; I know all my memories are at hand, extant somewhere inside my skull. But while I was sleeping, someone came in and rearranged the filing system. Where I had alphabetized, they sorted by date. Where I had tagged images by color and significance, they removed metadata and scrambled EXIF. I have no idea where recollections are; familiar things only come to me when I don’t try, when I need them instinctively.
I think of childhood, and I know that images and concepts should flood to my fingertips, but there’s . . . nothing. I think of home, of comfort, of food, of sex, of family, of . . .
Nothing.
Just as I’m about to burst into frustrated tears, something floats up to the surface and breaks it with a little splash, and words come unbidden to my lips: “What do you call me?”
He shuts his eyes as if struck, and I wonder if he’s going to answer. For a minute, I sit and stare at him as he silently panics.
At last, he looks at me through misty eyes, and I see him calculating. Should he lie? Should he insist I try to remember on my own? In that moment, I realize that I can never fully trust him; a trustworthy person would have burst out with the truth without hesitation.
He puts his arm around my shoulders again and squeezes. “Eden.”
I expect the answer to ‘feel’ right or ‘feel’ wrong, but it ‘feels’ nothing. No torrent of recollection smashes me; no ripple effect spreads through my traumatized mind. I’m given two syllables, ‘ee-den’, with no significance attached.
He pulls a smartphone from his pocket, checks it, curses under his breath. “You ready to go?”
I don’t like the sudden impatience in his voice. I don’t feel like being dragged around right now. I want to curl up somewhere and hide. Terror thunders through me, getting louder.
“Is it like this for you . . . all the time?”
He says nothing, just stares out the windows and squeezes my shoulder.
My mind pours emotion on top of the terror, layering it with pity and shame and loathing. I sink forward until my forehead presses against the cool table, which is a relief. Despair wells a little in my chest . . .
. . . and then abruptly disappears. Suddenly I’m pleasantly hollow and full of colors. I stare at the tabletop and patterns form before my eyes.
“Mjolnir,” I mumble.
“We’ll find it soon.”
“Mjolnir did this.”
> He goes very quiet. Then, he takes a soft breath. “Oh?”
I sit up, though I’m still staring at the table. “Small sections of my brain are made of needles. When I last used Mjolnir, the pulse must have rearranged just enough neurons to throw me into a fugue state.” I catch a bit of memory, of Kazuma saying it’s a miracle he’s not a vegetable. “Like running a magnet over random parts of a hard drive. I’m still remapping sectors.”
A smile slowly spreads across his face, and he beams at me. “Yes! That makes sense!” Then he hurriedly turns solemn. “Do you still want to find it?”
“It’s too powerful to leave lying around. But we’ll have to be very careful with it.” I swallow. “I think Veronica got shot. In the head. So she won’t be able to use it, either, not safely.”
He looks down at the table, and I see tears welling in his eyes. Then he shakes his head and wipes at them with the back of his free hand. “I saw her go down. The Army might have taken her, though their Humvee was still there.”
“We’ll find her. We’ll figure a way to use Mjolnir without the bad effects.” My eyes slide shut. “I feel so heavy.”
“Come on, break-time’s over.” He gets up and slings the gun across his back, then takes my hand and tugs gently until I get to my feet. He leads me out, and we step and stumble over rubble as we go. Then we’re on a sidewalk, walking carefully, eyes open for threats.
My tension has flowed out of me, running down my back in rivers, pouring from my mouth in sky-blue torrents. I am left in peace at last. Colors are bright before my eyes, and air moves over my skin like a caress. It’s like the world is hugging me, cradling the despair right out of my chest. I’m sure that if I looked down at my feet, I would find them six inches above the concrete. Better not to look, though. Better to preserve the illusion.
Kazuma eventually notices my beatific smile and grins down at me. “Wow, this is different.”
“For the moment, I am at peace. Trying to enjoy it as much as I can.”
He takes my hand, maybe worried that I’ll wander off if untethered. We walk like that for a little while, as friends. He is at once impenetrable and transparent. I have so many questions for him, but know that he would be evasive with answers. At the same time, I feel that we have synchronized our emotional wavelengths. It’s a wonderful, warm feeling of companionship. Whenever I step with my left foot, I press my shoulder to his elbow.
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