Ren The Complete Boxed Set

by Sarah Noffke

  “Aw, and what better place to witness the dawning of the north wind than behind a cape,” Dahlia says, snuggling in closer to me. She gets me. Gets that I have pulled the element of symbolism into our lives. Dahlia knows that I’ve found a magic of sorts and plan to unleash it.

  Chapter Eleven

  I nearly step on a crawling, drooling thing when I round into the conference room of the strategic department. It’s a baby I don’t recognize, but I know it belongs to Trent based on its dark skin and wiry black afro. The little brat stops crawling right in front of me, blocking my path to my usual seat at the conference table. With green eyes too large for her tiny face she looks up at me and points.

  “Red!” she says with a giant smile.

  I’m actually impressed that the little shit can use words, since Lucien is older than her and has the vocabulary of a chimp with special needs.

  “Ren,” I correct her. “Learn bloody English. My name is Ren.”

  “Red! Red! Red!” the fucker says.

  I extend my foot and nudge her leg with my calfskin moccasins. “Move or I will step on you.”

  Trent, who had been in a conversation with an agent at the front of the room, looks over. Then he startles, like he just remembered he forgot the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. “Oh, Jaz! Get out of the way!” He rushes over and scoops the thing up into his arms, looking sheepish. “Sorry,” he says, as he deposits her into a nearby leather chair, where art supplies had previously been set up for her.

  “When the fuck did this place become a nursery?” I say, eyeing the jerk, who immediately grabs a crayon and begins sucking on it.

  “Trey wants us to embrace the family feel. Before, things were divided. No children were really raised at the Institute, but after everything…” Trent trails away because he’s a fucking loser who can’t move on and let the past go.

  “Well, there were good reasons for not raising heathens here. We do have a fucking job to do and how are we supposed to do it if every bloody day is ‘bring your daughter to work’ day?” I say, tossing a finger in the drooling thing’s direction.

  Beside me there’s a cough. I rotate my head slowly and find Adelaide has taken the place next to me.

  “Hi, Pops,” she says, because she knows I hate it when she calls me that.

  I throw my chin up in the air and stare at where the heavens would be if such a thing existed. “Very funny, God.” Then I point a thumb at Adelaide and say to Trent, “Don’t think this proves your fucking case. Although she doesn’t act like it, Adelaide is an adult and I’m not even certain she’s related to me.”

  At this a laugh explodes out of her mouth. “Yeah, whatever you want to tell yourself, Red,” she says, and then takes a seat next to the dumbass who is now coloring on the redwood conference table.

  I return my attention to Trent. “I’ve been out of pocket on other business and need updates on the current cases,” I say, as I take my usual spot at the table, two seats down from the little brats.

  Trent looks all too displeased when he sits in the seat next to me. He then eyes the other two agents in the room, giving them that look. The one that says, “Get out.”

  When they’ve left the area he returns his focus on me. “Other agents don’t get full reports on all the top-level cases, Ren.”

  “I’m not other agents,” I say, clasping my hands over my lap and leaning back. It’s been ages since I’ve sat.

  “You’re also not the head of this department anymore,” Trent says.

  “Can we bypass all this ego bullshit of yours? I don’t have the time and I’m trying to help you save the fucking world from sliding into a canyon of doom,” I say.

  “He has control issues,” Adelaide says from her spot a few chairs away. Apparently she decided to stay and make my life even more hellacious. She’s borrowed one of the brat’s crayons and papers and is drawing a picture, like the child that she is.

  “I’m definitely close to breaking and going on a rampage, so please remember that,” I say to her.

  Trent grabs one of his dreads and pulls at it, but only slightly. It’s a nervous habit he’s recently adopted. “There have been two more wolf massacres,” he says. “That’s your case so I’ll brief you on that, since I know you’ve been busy on other business.”

  “And then you’ll brief me on the other level five cases,” I say.

  “Ren, I really don’t—”

  “Trent, what I think your biggest problem is, besides your hair, is that you fail to see that everything is connected. Usually I could relate level five cases to each other and find a string that connected them. I was able to do that and consolidate my cases. I’ve seen the amount of level five cases that have poured in and I’m betting that they aren’t all unrelated. Why don’t you fill me in and take advantage of my superior knowledge and experience,” I say.

  “Modesty is another of Ren’s strong suits,” Adelaide says, like she’s talking to the drooling child.

  “Yes, fine,” Trent says with a heavy sigh, obviously overly stressed by all the demands of the position. He really has so many shortcomings, and yet he was the best person for the job. “About the wolf case—”

  “Go ahead and call it the werewolf case,” I say.

  “With all due respect—”

  “Don’t use that phrase. It’s a phony phrase that has no meaning. It’s supposed to make someone not feel offended for something that obviously is contradicting their intelligence,” I say, cutting Trent off. “Really, Trent, have I taught you nothing?”

  “I just think it’s a bit early to jump to such a bizarre conclusion,” Trent says.

  “Then don’t. But when I’m right then I’m going to shove it in your face,” I say.

  “How is that different than any other time?” Adelaide says, interrupting us.

  I slowly turn and look at her. “Do you have nothing to do? Isn’t there a level one case that you can go screw up or an underprivileged kid that you can insult or an upper-class college freshman you can give an STD to?” I say to Adelaide.

  “I agree that that’s not the way a father should talk to his little princess,” she says in a baby voice to the kid beside her who is scribbling on paper now. “Your daddies would never talk to you that way because Trent and Joseph have souls.”

  “That’s yet to be determined,” I reply. “Have you really met Joseph?”

  “I have, and I think it’s pretty cool that Jaz has his eyes, but your skin color,” Adelaide says in Trent’s direction. “Pretty cool that you found a donor who looked so much like Joseph.”

  “Oh, we didn’t,” Trent says. “It was my sample we used, but we were able to splice in some of Joseph’s DNA. It’s this new CRISPR technology.”

  “What? That’s a thing? We can do that?” Adelaide says, sounding stunned.

  “Aiden’s lab can. They created the technology. Gene splicing has really come a long way. It’s even rumored that soon they’ll be able to alter existing DNA,” Trent says.

  “If you two dimwits would shut the fuck up for a second about family trees then I’d like to get the information on the latest level five cases,” I say, at my wits’ end with these two fuckers.

  “Well, the most recent one is incredibly peculiar,” Trent says.

  “Stop hanging out with Aiden, who uses superfluous adjectives, and get to the bloody point,” I say.

  “Right. Well, there was a string of robberies at optometrist offices all over the country,” Trent says.

  “Why is that especially peculiar? Did they steal contact lenses?” I say.

  “No, they hacked into the software and stole patient records,” Trent says.

  “And this string of robberies. How long is it actually?” I ask.

  “Over three thousand,” he says.

  “Holy fuck, that’s a lot. This isn’t a common robbery. What’s in those records?” I say.

  “What you’d expect,” Trent says, and now he sounds smug, which I don’t approve of. “Nothin
g that could point to the purpose behind obtaining hundreds of thousands of patient records nationwide.”

  “I’ll repeat this because you obviously lost your hearing in the Dream Traveler apocalypse,” I say. “What was in the records?”

  “Medical information, vision history, prescriptions, retina scans—”

  “What the fuck did you just say?” I say, cutting him off and a peg falling into place in my cognition.

  “Retina scans…” Trent says, not getting it. That’s why he sucks at this job in comparison to me.

  And then it all connects, like a quilt with patches from different times in history, made by separate people. The new United States President’s words come back to me:

  “Can I still pass the retina scanner security bill?” he had asked me on the night of the election.

  I regarded him blankly, I remember.

  “Why?” I had said.

  “Because I think it will be cool to have to have eye scans to enter all government facilities,” he had said, like a fucking idiot. But now I realize he’s either a part of this conspiracy involving werewolves or he’s a pawn. And I know exactly what’s going to happen next and exactly how to stop it.

  “We need—” I begin, but then I’m cut off by the mobile ringing in my pocket. I retrieve it to realize that my pops, who is staying in the rooming corridor with the rest of us at the Institute and apparently can’t walk down the hallway, is calling me.

  “What?” I growl into the phone.

  “Ren, it’s your pops,” he says.

  “Caller ID is a thing, you know,” I say.

  “It’s Dahlia. Something’s wrong. I mean, more so than usual. She asked for you,” he says.

  And I switch off the mobile and leave without another word.

  Chapter Twelve

  The bedroom I’ve shared with Dahlia now for weeks at the Institute is dark. She always keeps it bright, filled with lights that mimic the sun’s rays. I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of that during my imprisonment at the Institute, which is devoid of windows. And flowers always make the space feel inviting, overshadowing the cold stainless steel walls. This woman found a way to make an underground facility feel like a home. She has done what Dream Travelers blessed with special powers and decades more experience have failed to do. Dahlia brought personality to a steel box of a room. She made me forget where I was, if only briefly. She fooled me every morning into thinking I was awakening to sunlight streaming through open windows. That the garden was on the other side of the double doors, like the one at our house in Santa Monica. She did something I thought I was the only one left alive that could do. Dahlia created an illusion.

  Our room is dark when I enter, and the black makes the space feel too vast, like it doubled inside to accompany the pain. Each night, every morning, each hour of the day, she wears the pain like a solider does a battle scar. Hidden. Buried under clothes. Away from the eyes of everyone. But I feel her pain. It fills the room in the morning, at that raw hour when she’s awoken to remember. To remember that God has cursed her. Cursed her for being a Middling. Cursed her for tirelessly serving his people, by creating an art that no one can touch or replicate.

  Pops doesn’t turn his head as I approach. He only rises from his crouched place close to Dahlia’s side, his hand clasped in hers.

  “I didn’t want to leave her. That’s the reason I called,” he says, his back to me, his eyes probably somber and on the woman before him.

  “Son, I was afraid if I left her—”

  “Leave,” I say, my voice a hush.

  This does cause him to turn, and just then I catch Dahlia’s face on the other side of him. Her eyes are closed, like an angel napping, rejuvenating for yet another day of creating miracles.

  The expression on Pops’s face feels like a deliberate assault on my resolve in this moment. It says too much. It reeks of an emotion that I should be the only one allowed to feel. And yet, pain connected to the loss of Dahlia isn’t something that I have exclusive rights to. And soon I’ll know that all too well.

  “Give us a moment,” I say to Pops, like I’m asking to have a private consult with Dahlia before she freshens up for dinner.

  He nods, and the hand he claps on my shoulder almost unbuckles my knees. “I’ll be outside, son.”

  When the door clicks shut, I remain standing, staring at the most perfect specimen I’ve ever known. My equal in all the right ways. I’m only superior to Dahlia in my immunity to cancer and still that doesn’t make me better. Cancer probably should have knocked me out years ago, a direct result of my bad attitude and a long list of awful karma. However, I stand, strong enough to face another fifty or sixty years on this earth, and the woman before me lies at the doors of defeat, knocking on the doors, begging to be allowed entry. Just like my mum, but also not like her at all. I don’t forget they will both have died from the same disease. I don’t forget their histories will be so similar. Dying young. Leaving Dream Traveler partners behind. It isn’t coincidence. There is no such thing. It is a game that God plays because he thinks he’s teaching us lessons, making us face demons. But God has no more power over me. This attempt to make me face the pain, experience loss, will be in vain and even he is beginning to know that, I’m certain.

  “Can I ask you for a favor?” Dahlia says, her eyes still closed but a slight smile on her face.

  And the curious grin I release is also accompanied by a sharp brutal pain, which apparently just broke out of the cage where I’d banished it. “You can ask me for almost anything,” I say, taking the seat next to her on the bed, my hand instantly covering hers.

  “Would you be nicer to that man?” she says, and cracks an eye now. And then, as if deciding the light in the room is acceptable, she opens both eyes wide, a smile crossing her expression and then disappearing at once.

  “Why would I do that?” I say.

  “Because your pops is one of the best men I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in my almost forty-five years on this planet,” she says.

  I love that we are here, discussing my abusive behavior. That she’s hiding a smile. That I’m hiding everything. And that she’s the only person I can ever have a tender moment with quite like this. Leaving so much unsaid. Saying the things that matter very little. Dahlia is the only woman alive who understands me. She knows I can’t do emotions. Knows that I’m the most unlovable human to exist and yet she loves me in a way I feel I actually deserve and it makes me better.

  “So you summoned me,” I say, pressing a thumb into her palm, which feels like a cold iris petal that’s fallen on the bare ground.

  “Dream traveling did give me a gift,” she says.

  I nod, no real expression on my face. “Yes, I figured it would. Dream traveling is the power that fuels greater aspects of our brains. Can you do something lame like telekinesis?”

  “I think I have a couple of gifts actually,” she says, and now she’s hiding a sneaky expression although it looks strange on her exhausted face, like a cat about to fall asleep.

  “A couple? Are you certain? You’ve only dream traveled a couple of times. That’s not quite enough to bring on more than one gift or even make that one strong.”

  Dahlia bites down on her lip and nods; well, tries to nod. “I have a hunch on the second gift. But the first one is that I can see the future,” she says.

  “Yes, fairly useless gift, as I suspected,” I say.

  She pulls her hand away from mine and goes to slap my arm but the movement isn’t strong or deliberate enough. Her arm just falls like it is weighted and her hand ends up back in mine. Where it belongs.

  “Ren, I’ve seen the end. My end,” Dahlia says, and I know she’s trying to suppress it, but just then the ache in her words comes out like glue spilling over the edges of two pieces being sealed back together.

  “Have you seen anything on a werewolf case though? That’s really what I need details from a clairvoyant on,” I say.

  She doesn’t laugh. I’m sure sh
e wants to. I’m sure she wants to send a quip back in my direction but instead, she turns her head away, throwing her eyes at a darkened corner.

  “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says, and for the first time in all our lives, I feel a pain in her that is too beautiful for words. It’s not the pain of rejection, like I’ve made her feel so many times. It’s not the pain of loss. It’s the pain of having, and realizing this world can gift us in a way that touches our soul. That kind of experience is so perfect that it hurts. It etches itself on our soul like a tattoo. And it hurts so much that it actually feels good.

  “It sounds like you’ve lived an incredibly sheltered life,” I say, gripping her hand firmly.

  And like we aren’t having a conversation her eyes fall shut and her breaths immediately take on a shallow rhythm. I’m willing to stay here for all of eternity and hold her hand. Watch her sleep. But then her eyes flicker, trying several times to open completely. Without her looking at me, I know she feels me there, but I also feel the disorientation in the way she regards the far wall. “Ren,” Dahlia says, and her voice is too quiet. I lean in to hear her. “I know you have all these plans, but just in case—”

  “They will work,” I say, cutting her off. Now I realize what this is about.

  “But if they don’t. I want… I need the opportunity to say—”