by Kat Quinn
I nudge him, then settle my chin on his shoulder, peering at the side of his face while slinging both arms around his waist. “You like him?” I say more normally, less sillily.
Connor’s bright turquoise eyes dart a glance at me, corner of his mouth twinging upwards in the smallest grimace. He nods, just slightly, once.
“Well okay, then!” I proclaim, jumping out of the seat and yanking him up with me. “Then let’s figure out how to get you your man!”
Slack-jawed, Connor towers over me, staring down in disbelief. “But he’s already your man.”
“Pffffffft,” I reply. “Okay, so it’s fair for me to be soulmates with all five of you, but none of you are soulmates with each other? Bah. Besides, didn’t you explain something to me last week about puzzle pieces fitting together? It’s pretty much impossible to make a puzzle where there aren’t a bunch of pieces all touching one another. Mmmmm….. Touching one another….” My brain misfires and I short out for a moment, suddenly taken by the image of all three of us tangled up. Obviously, naked and sweaty with plenty of moaning, just how I like it. I’ll definitely drown from drooling if I don’t keep talking.
“So yeah, he’s mine, but so are you. And I’m pretty sure we learned that sharing is caring like a million years ago,” my hands gesture wildly as I speak, excited about possibly matchmaking and growing this love bubble of splendifferousness. They halt suddenly as a thought occurs, “But if any of you steps outside this puzzle box, I’ll cut a bitch that comes after what’s mine.” My eyes narrow, threatening a world that isn’t listening and doesn’t care about my possessiveness over an already greedy assortment of hunks. “Unless it turns out there’s an official puzzle box expansion set offered in the rules, and even then they’d better not fuck with the overall harmony of the image because I’ll burn that expansion to cinders and huck them into the sea if they think they can just come on in here and wave their luscious booty around to break up the band somehow!” My mouth is basically in a snarl, teeth visually promising to rip apart completely imagined and fully hypothetical threats to our beautiful soulmate puzzle.
Connor’s eyes are bugging out. Oh, probably went a little too far.
Zipping up straight, clutching my hands behind my back and plastering on a totally harmless smile, I let go of that weird murder instinct and focus back on the cheerful warm and fuzzies. “Anyway! Like I said! Yes, please, more smoochies! Totally encouraging this thing to be a thing. Mmm hmm!” Nodding enthusiastically, I bounce on the balls of my feet. “Whatever you’re into, I’m into. Although in this case it may very well be actually true. I’m pretty into all of you, you know.”
Connor’s face softens and he steps forward, catching me around the waist and placing a kiss on my forehead as I bound up towards it. “You’re a strange woman, Disaster Zone Jones.”
“You love it.”
“Mmm hmm,” he agrees, gentle smile pulling lightly at his mouth. “Wouldn’t have you any other way.”
“Same!” I yelp, hopping up again and pecking a sneak-assault on Connor’s lips. “And that includes not having you not like Lin. There’s lots to like about Lin, so I totally see the appeal. We should plan an attack on him! Or, like… Probably more reasonably… a talk? A talk attack! But without the attack.” Violence probably isn’t the way to most people’s hearts, but I can see the appeal in showing off how strong and whatnot you are in an attempt to woo a mate. But I don’t think Connor’s really the ‘rip-apart-all-your-enemies-on-the-battlefield’ sort. Doesn’t particularly seem like the most natural tactic for someone so… gentle.
“I’ll talk to Lin if you talk to Monty,” Connor spits out quickly, hitting a ball out of left field. I gawk at him briefly. Had no idea Connor was a baseball player.
“Hey now, not the same thing!” I protest. “And besides, this is about you and Lin, not me and Monty.”
“How is it not the same? We’re all in this puzzle box together, as you’ve said, and your pieces are touching. Do you not want to be part of the same puzzle?” He asks.
“Well, yes! Of course! But, like… I don’t know, things got weird between us after the whole David ambush failure thing. And you getting stabbed,” I gesture towards his torso, roughly where we pulled out the knife that nearly killed him. “Kind of seems like he’d rather just stay… I dunno, however things are, now? Apart? Well, not apart but not together?” Shrugging, I continue, “Besides, I’m totally happy with what I got. Don’t want to go after what don’t want me just cuz I ain’t got it, too,” I say, grabbing at both of Connor’s hands and hanging onto them loosely. “I really am fine with whatever he wants. Wouldn’t want to push against a wall.”
Connor shakes his head and looks up to the sky briefly, “My brother is an idiot.” He starts. “I’m sorry he made you feel any kind of unwanted, he’s just… well, Monty doesn’t do a great job at taking care of himself. His focus is always on making sure everyone else is healthy and happy; that they have everything they need. Half the time, I don’t think he even knows what he wants because he’s never stopped to let himself want anything. I love the guy, don’t get me wrong, but he’s a little too selfless. It’s really a problem.”
Cocking an eyebrow, I wait for Connor to continue. His eyes are sad, but the corners of his lips are stretched upwards gently.
“Monty’s the kind of guy who doesn’t finish his formal healer training because he needs the money to buy a house so his mentally unstable brother isn’t homeless when he ages out of the system. He’s the kind of guy who starts a whole entire business to keep a rich genius and lost troublemaker from being bored, as well as scope out the most people, in secret, who need help. He’s the kind of guy who will spend all day slaving over a stove for a soup kitchen, but never once stop to have a bowl for himself, even if he’s just a hair away from collapsing of hunger.
“Monty puts himself last, always. Never rocks the boat, always makes sure everyone else is taken care of, and somehow convinces himself along the way that he’s not allowed to have anything. If he has something, it’s only so he can give it away. He thinks he’s too fortunate, so the only way to balance those scales is to make sure he’s always giving, and the last one to get. If he even gets in the first place.” Connor shrugs, “Side effect of being the big brother to a revolving door of broken foster kids, I’m sure.
“Monty’s a good egg. Possibly one of the best eggs out there, but he’s also a big, dumb idiot if he’s made you think he doesn’t want you.”
Crinkling my nose, I hesitate before replying. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’m more of a runner, not a chaser. Plus, things are kind of… weird… between us. Wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“You’re a weird woman, Disaster Zone Jones,” Connor repeats. “I think all you’d have to do is just… start.”
I roll my eyes at him, “Sure, fine. Might be good to know for sure, since sometimes I think he’s into me and sometimes I think he’s afraid to be alone with me.” Crossing my arms, I nod decisively. “I talk to Monty, you talk to Lin?”
Connor picks up my bowl of clippings from beside the bench and hands it to me, keeping the basket of now-eaten muffins for himself. “Deal.”
26. Dizzy
Slowly, a long breath leaves my lips as I pause, hand ready to knock on Monty’s office door. No big deal, Dizzy, just another intimate conversation with another of the men you have intimate conversations with every day. Worst thing that happens is he rejects you and you run away and find a circus to join where you can wear heavy clown makeup and hide your face for the rest of forever. Oh, except that won’t work with Monty because he’d be forcibly dragged behind. Drat.
Okay, new plan, it goes poorly, you just spend the rest of your life playing a never-ending game of hide and seek where you’re literally always just behind his back, right out of sight. He’ll either go mad thinking he’s haunted by ghosts, or play along and spare you both the embarrassment of actually saying howdy doodie.
Rolling my eyes at mysel
f, I forget about the knock and just stroll on in. Who is this timid person afraid to say what’s on her mind and why was I suddenly possessed by her?
Just to be safe, I throw a quick glance over my shoulder, to make sure I’m not somebody’s endless hide and seek. Nope. No piggyback ghosts, just good ol’ fashioned nerves. Ridiculous.
My stomach clenches anyway.
Shaking it off, I step through the door and am greeted by Monty’s back, clad in a clockwork-patterned polo shirt. Turning slightly in his seat, I’m disappointed to see we’re not alone. Monty’s hand is on the chest of an elderly man laying on the exam bed, frail body shaking like a leaf barely hanging onto its branch in the wind. Any lingering tightness in my gut goes frolicking away off into the distance, not a care in the world left behind.
Wordlessly, I raise the basket of clippings to indicate it as an offering, Monty nods his head in the direction of his desk, dreadlocks plinking together like soundless wind chimes with the motion. Surprisingly uneventfully, my steps are light and totally sneaky as I tiptoe past the healer and his patient to deliver the cuttings to their destination, escaping the room just as quietly. Sighing, I lean my back against the closed door and let myself slide down it part way.
What are you doing, Dizzy? What are you doing…
“Psst.”
Turning my head, I see Lin just around the corner, huddled close to Emmaline. Lin’s arms scoop gallons of air as he hurriedly waves me over. Can air be measured in gallons?
“Dizzy, psst, come over here,” he tries again.
Shaking my head and clearing out all this Monty nonsense, I armor up with a smile and flit over to them cheerily. “Heya! What’s up?”
“Shhh.” Lin holds one thin finger to his lips and motions me even closer until there’s barely a breath between the three of us. His eyes flit left and right, head swiveling in a downright paranoid manner. Lin presses an arm against me and quietly shuffles our group around the corner, fully out of sight of anyone on the main floor. “Come on,” he whispers, neck stretching to peer around the corner again before quickly retreating. With a finger to his lips, he gestures for us to follow, leading Emmaline and myself through the back of house to the staff bathroom. Which, by the way, two chicks following a dude into the bathroom seems like the start of a threesome or a slaughter, not the start of an innocent conversation. Especially when the dude looks hella suspicious, eyes darting all over the place the whole way.
The door clicks quietly behind us as we’re ushered in. Without even pausing for a thought, Emmaline tucks the skirt of her loose dress under her and sits comfortably on the closed lid of our toilet. Lin hovers by the door, one ear pressed to it. I lean against the sink, eyeing both of them. There’s an awful lot of not talking here in this obviously totally normal and not at all suspicious moment. Lin juts his chin at Emmaline, then nods in my direction. Real helpful there, guys.
“They’re back,” Emmaline states plainly. “And they’re not alone.”
Who’s ba…. Oh. Oh, Pornstache and his ‘handler,’ obviously. Really, that shouldn’t even have been a question, given all the hubbub from yesterday. “Wait, not alone?” I ask, realizing that part almost got completely overlooked.
“Mm hmm,” Emmaline nods. “There was an emptiness; a nothing surrounded by everything. Would have been easy to miss, exceptin’ I been keepin’ track since yesterday, looking for the absence. I felt it, a gap between everyone else’s emotions, so I tried to look for one of y’all, but there weren’t no one around. It started outside, but then split, and two more people came in, one empty, and one… tightly wound. Controlled. Rigid. Intense. But there was still an emptiness outside the shop, even though there was another headin’ right for me.”
A shiver traces up my spine. I haven’t met either of them, yet, but between the mondo panic everyone felt in the car and the distressed way Emmaline’s hands are tightly clasped in her lap while she clearly fights to remain calm… Yeah, I don’t even have to feel this juju to know it’s bad. Side note, heck yeah to being in the loop this time! I perform a mental fist pump.
“I’m coming,” Zeke’s unmistakable, blunt voice rings in my head. My eyes widen, part from the whole spooky nothing people and part because Zeke’s never done that before.
“They weren’t the same guys as last time, but they strolled on up to me like I was the prize pig at the county fair and they’d come to pin that blue ribbon right on my chest. Didn’t even stop to browse around, just made a beeline straight to me in the cafe. One of them stuck their hand out to me for a shake, and it was like touching pure, thick, oozing hatred. For just a moment, before they reeled it back in.” Emmaline visibly shudders at this. “Barely kept my manners well enough to smile and give a welcome. I’m tellin’ you, somethin’ ain’t right with these folks.” She taps the toe of her cowboy boot against the tile floor softly, barely audible. “They ain’t done nothin’ yet, but I’d wager it ain’t no coincidence they done come up in here right after them folks from yesterday. And I don’t think they’re here just for a friendly reading over some tea.” Despite her best efforts to remain composed, the rigidity in her posture and the whiteness of her clenched knuckles give her away. Emmaline is scared.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
All three of us jump at the thunderous knock on the door. “Let me in,” Zeke demands from the other side. A collective breath is released.
“Get in here, you spooky fucking prick,” Lin whispers harshly while turning the knob and clutching at his chest, then yanks Zeke’s tattooed arm until he’s safely inside. Inside this bathroom. Safe. Not really on my list of top 10 places to hunker down in as a panic room, especially with it getting progressively more cramped and all. But I guess it’s better than hiding out in the open?
“We need defenses. And a warning system. This is a threat,” Zeke states, arms crossed in front of his chest as he leans against the wall.
“Yes, obviously they’re a threat,” Lin hisses. “But do they think we’re oblivious to it, or have we lost the upper hand of awareness?”
“Pretty sure they know, or at least suspect,” Emmaline pipes up. “Beeline to me, remember? Either they know we know, or they were keen to find out what I’d found out. But y’all were the ones followed last night, not me. Stands to reason they’re keepin’ a close eye and planning something dirty when ours are closed.”
Zeke grunts and nods. “We don’t blink. We prepare.”
My eyes suddenly feel dry and I immediately lose an impromptu staring contests against the universe. Dang.
“And how, pray tell, do we detect nothing? It’s hardest to prove a negative, I can’t imagine proving nonexistence,” Lin questions, flourishing an open-handed gesture. “Emmaline’s the only one who’s so far been able to spot them without being spotted first. Even I had to be right in front of the gentleman from yesterday before I felt their… unique… signatures.”
“But there is a unique signature,” Zeke reiterates.
Lin holds up a finger in protest. “Well, yes, but their signature is that there isn’t one. Thus far, they’ve worked in pairs; one apparently empty vessel, and one barely detectable, tightly-controlled partner. They appear otherwise normal on the surface, and I’d be hard-pressed to even catch a whiff of either from a distance. Yes, we know there’s something wrong, but that’s just the luck of being read by an empath and a truth-seeker. I doubt any of you would have noticed something was off. For all we know, you already hadn’t and they’ve been nearby before.”
My eyes widen; if that’s the case, who knows how long they’ve been stalking us! How many other people have we passed by without a second thought? Maybe Kieran’s constant tailing isn’t as crazy as I thought…
“Are they alive?”
We all cock a brow at Zeke’s question, silence thick as it settles around us.
“…Yes?” Emmaline responds, cautiously.
“Then it’s a matter of detecting something living that does not project an aura of its own, corre
ct?”
Emmaline thinks about it, nodding slowly. “Yes, the empty ones don’t project an aura of… anything. No emotions, no thoughts, no will. Alive, but not living in any way.”
“This is not difficult. We can detect them. The lack of will may be problematic in building defenses. I will think on it.” Zeke launches himself off of the wall with a push of one foot and promptly heads to the door, opening it and leaving without a fuller explanation.
Mouth slightly open, brows furrowed in confusion, Emmaline looks at the space Zeke vacated. Lin and I both shrug.
“He does that,” I assure her.
“Well, until the mad genius throws together another experiment in his lab, would it be safe to assume we’re all comfortable practicing the buddy system? Never come or go alone, check in often, and always endeavor to speak up about suspicions?” Lin looks between Emmaline and I.
Both hands up defensively, I reply. “Hey, I don’t think I could get away from you guys even if I tried. Heck, I DID try, and ended up getting laid out by Monty on that first night. We’re golden, promise. My runnin’ solo days are over.”
Emmaline nods solemnly. “I’ll coordinate with Garrett, but it don’t sit well with me the idea that any of us is unsafe. Maybe this is just how things are here in the big city, but I ain’t never felt like I’m runnin’ from a target someone else put on my back, before. It’d be one thing if I stirred up a beehive on my own, but it’s another trick entirely to go gettin’ stung without hearin’ a buzz.”
“This is not how things are done here at all, my dear,” Lin flirts halfheartedly. “If you don’t feel safe here, you are welcome to retreat to where you do until this abnormality passes over. As one of the proprietors of this establishment, I assure you, your safety and well-being are paramount. We will fully support whatever measures you deem necessary.”
Shaking her head, Emmaline rebukes the notion. “That’s alright, hun, us country gals are made of sturdy stock. I’ll stick it out with the rest if that’s fine by y’all. Besides, we’re closed up for the next two days anyway-maybe this’ll all blow over by Tuesday. No sense in skittering at the first sign of trouble, though I will feel better once we know why trouble’s come a knockin’.”
