When I open the trunk of the car to place my groceries, I stare at the unassuming gray duffle bag tucked in the back corner. Tarren’s duffle bag. I can smell his deodorant, his toothpaste, his shampoo permanently in the fabric.

  He can’t be dead. Not when his scent lingers. Not when he looked so strong, so tragic, so perfectly alive the last time I saw him in that Vegas parking garage. I have to pull over on the way to the house, the memory flashing again. The ceiling coming down. Pressing, pressing, pressing. Gem’s blood in my mouth. Heather’s voice, “You are cleansed.”

  What if I’m still in that room? What if this is the dream?

  But then I’m blinking, gasping, and looking through the windshield at an old lady walking a Scottish terrier. One furry leg comes up as the animal pisses perfunctorily at the base of a street light. I decide that when I get home, I will ask Gabe about what happened to Tarren. Not ask. Demand. Nothing is worse than this hole that I fill with my worst imaginings. I see bullets ripping through Tarren’s body or War wrapping big, hairy paws around my brother’s neck and snapping it like a piece of wood.

  Tarren died because of me, I think, and it aches in a deep, faraway place, next to where I keep the memory of Gem, the weight of his head in my lap, and his thoughts unspooling in my mind.

  But I still need to know.

  When I get home, Gabe is snoring on the floor while the television blares in front of him. The bottle of whiskey is only a quarter full, sitting inside a sticky ring on the wooden coffee table, right next to a pretty coaster stamped with a Thomas Kincaid painting.

  I take the whiskey, drain it in the sink, add it to the line stretching across the counter. I unpack my groceries, leaving the gray duffle bag in the trunk. Then, I gently lift Gabe in my arms and walk him up the stairs. My right thigh twinges on the steps. The discharge on the bandages is clear, so it’s healing well. Gabe’s breath is all alcohol, and his aura swings around him in a disjointed mess of color. Lots of red. His eyelids are swollen and red-rimmed, and his too-long hair clumps in greasy disarray.

  “You’re turning into a bad stereotype,” I warn him as I make it to the top of the stairs. I choose the room where Gabe’s clothes are spilled all over the floor, though I’ve found him sleeping in each of the four guest rooms. Why did he pick a place so obviously too big for us, with rooms we have no use for?

  The sheets are rumpled, and I make a note to wash them. I set Gabe down. His eyelids tremble open, and he groans out a stringent breath.

  “Not your fault,” he slurs.

  I lean in close. “What’s not my fault?”

  “Not your fault. You dinna mean to,” he says. His eyes are open now, glazed and unfocused. “Was just instinct.”

  “Did I do something?” I grip the sides of the mattress. “To Tarren?”

  Gabe’s face buckles. “My fault,” he whispers.

  I touch his hair, pushing it out of his face. “Tell me what happened.”

  He just shakes his head and flops his body over to the other side, facing away from me. I wait, hoping he’ll say more, but ten seconds later, he’s snoring big drunken snores. I sit on the floor, legs pulled to my chest and think about the dreams I’ve been having at night. No crushing ceilings, strangely enough. Those nightmares seem to wait until the daylight to tackle me.

  At night, I dream again and again of draining Gabe’s energy those three years ago in Grand’s warehouse. I feel his energy flowing through my body, powering me. I see the fight leaving him, his head lolling forward, his hands dropping down from the welling scratches on my forearms. And then, right at this instant, it isn’t Gabe within my grip. It’s Tarren. His dark head sagging forward, broad shoulders slumping. His energy pulsing into me. It feels different than Gabe’s energy, a whole unique harmony of bliss. And when I start awake in the darkness, I wonder why that flavor seems so real. Why I hear a faint whisper on the currents of power. Good. You’re doing good.

  ***

  The next day, I sit in the backyard of the rented house, and the Prism pours the high afternoon light into my body. I discovered the mirror array folded haphazardly under the bed of the room where I was kept when we first arrived. My duffle bag had been tossed in one of the unused bedrooms. When I’d opened my bag to put on my own clothes, I’d been surprised to find Gabe’s birthday gift still hidden at the bottom, wrapped and waiting for its moment.

  That moment is long passed, I think as I watch a colorful array of birds dance around a bird feeder twenty feet away. Their impossible stick legs hop lightly across the short-trimmed grass, and their little heads swivel from side to side. I close my eyes and let my own head fall forward as the powerful sunlight nourishes my weak body. At least this part of me is healing. My strength is coming back, my thoughts sharpening. I feel a tickle in my right thigh as the sun’s energy super charges the healing process. The sickness of hunger fades back to a dull, steady throb.

  “Mother Fucking Chuck Norris!”

  The voice is a big boom from within the house that I could have probably heard even without my sensitive hearing. Here we go, I think and then carefully pack up the Prism, accompanied by the sounds of banging cabinets within the home.

  “What the goddamn hell!” Gabe’s voice is the bellow of a mad bull as I open the back door and walk into the kitchen. In the midst of a furious search, Gabe doesn’t notice me, not until I slip around him and take a tall glass from the cabinet.

  “Where is it?” he asks me.

  I fill the glass with tap water and hold it out to him. He ignores the proffered drink.

  “Where is it?” he asks again.

  I set the glass down on the counter, open the fridge, and pull out the jars of peanut butter and jelly.

  “I don’t want a fucking sandwich.” Gabe is still drunk -- the colors swirl loosely in his aura – but less drunk than he’s been since I regained consciousness here. I take down a plate and pull off the little wire thing clamped around the bread bag.

  “When’s the last time you ate anything?” I ask.

  “Alcohol has calories.” His face looks particularly gaunt. Aren’t we a fine pair? The emaciation twins.

  “You didn’t throw it out,” he warns. “You better not’a thrown it out.”

  I start pulling open drawers, looking for the silverware. I find a butter knife and dig it into the peanut butter.

  “You didn’t.” The two words are a warning.

  I put the knife, loaded with peanut butter, down on the plate and turn toward Gabe. “Tell me what happened.”

  Gabe bends over the sink, sniffs at the drain, and then glares at me. I wait, wondering what he’ll do. I wish it was anything but the ugly smile that curves up his lips.

  “I’ll just get more.”

  “And I’ll pour it all down the drain too.”

  “I’ll hide it.”

  “Not from me!” The words come out as a scream. “I don’t care how long it takes, if I have to kick down doors. I’ll find it. I’ll get rid of it.”

  “Well there goes the security deposit then!” Gabe’s yelling too.

  “You can’t do this. You can’t be so pathetic,” I bluster.

  Gabe flinches like I’ve hit him. Scarlet rage fills his aura, and all I see in his eyes is wrath. But then he laughs – a short, harsh, horrible sound.

  “I was always pathetic,” he says. “The weak link. Tarren knew it. So did you.”

  Actually, I’d come to believe over the years that Gabe was the strongest of us, so less brittle than Tarren and I. Able to pull humor from the blackest situations.

  “Tarren wouldn’t want this. He wouldn’t want you to drink—“

  “Tarren’s not here, or didn’t you notice?” Gabe snarls, and his aura sparks, RED, RED, RED. He leans both elbows on the counter and barks that grating laugh again. “Oh, he’d be so disappointed at me right now. I should be taking care of you, not the other way around. He’d want us to continue on the mission without him. The noble mission. Save the innocents. All those fucking, faceless, innocent people!”

  “What—“ I start.

  “You drained him.” The words are cold, almost muffled between his arms. “And he didn’t fight. Didn’t try to stop it. He wanted it to happen.” Gabe finally turns his face to me, eyes bright and bloodshot over the crook of his elbow. “He wanted to die. To fucking abandon us.”

  “No,” I croak.

  “Now you know.” With a shrug, Gabe dismisses the conversation, dismisses everything. I see the shift in his aura, those reds shivering into mucky pinks. He rakes the car keys off the counter and walks out of the kitchen.

  “You’re drunk,” I call after him.

  “No different than driving on no sleep for two days,” he says back. “Don’t wait up.”

  The door opens. Closes. I stare down at the naked slices of bread, the knife filled with peanut butter.

  I drained Tarren.

  The truth is a cut – one long, deep slice that severs the last strands of hope I didn’t even know were holding me together. Tarren came to rescue me, and I killed him. The energy I taste in my dreams is real. That’s his life, and I took it.

  A shudder hits me hard. All that untethered hope drifts away…. “No.” …leaving nothing left. “No. No. No. No. NO!”

  The plate on the counter wobbles. Water laps up the sides of the glass. “NOOOOO!” I screech. The glass of water jerks off the counter and tumbles to the floor, making a satisfying crash. I let the scream pour out of me. The cabinets bang open. Plates and bowls and coffee mugs slide out and tip over the lip of the shelves.

  CRASH. CRASH. CRASH.

  I push with all the power I just absorbed and feel my latent ability ignite and burn hot.

  Gabe, Rain, Gem, Tarren. How many people can I hurt?

  CRASH, CRASH, CRASH.

  I’m on the floor of the kitchen, and the cups and wine glasses still fall around me. My howl of anguish dries into a long, low moan of pain. I lie on the kitchen floor for a long, long time as tears scroll down my face. The cool tile under my cheek grows warm. I wish I could just close my eyes and go away. Where? To a dark, quiet place of no memories, no knowledge. Maybe back to the time before I was born, when I was nothing but an undreamt dream before violence and betrayal brought me into this world.

  And then, without quite realizing it, I’m moving, crawling through the debris. Up the stairs to the master bedroom that neither of us claimed. Tarren’s duffle bag sits on top of the bed where I placed it.

  No thinking. Only this sucking void inside me. I pull down the zippers and look inside at his neat, rolled clothing, each piece fitted precisely into place, like a puzzle. I take them out, one by one, Tarren’s long-sleeve shirts, the black pants he preferred for missions, the two pairs of jeans. His socks. His black, plain boxer briefs. The thick journal filled with neat block script in his coded text. I hold the journal. Feel the weight of his words and thoughts. He was a person, big and strong with eyes that hid so many emotions. How can he be gone when I can see him so plainly in my mind, when I can hear the deep rumble of his voice?

  How can he be gone?

  Then I’m ripping open the side pockets, gripping his toothbrush, the travel bottle of toothpaste so carefully rolled up at the end. His comb. His face wash. His deodorant. The floss he used twice a day like clockwork. All these little accessories of his life.

  Finally, fingers trembling, I pull open the last side pocket and gently lift out Diana’s copy of The Odyssey. Everything else fades from my notice. Those were all just props. These well-worn pages, this dingy cover held on by threads – this is Tarren’s soul. I hold the book to my chest as if I could somehow pull Tarren back into this world through this talisman of his life. How many times did his eyes fall upon these words? How many times did they move into his brain, that groaning ship sailing forever in his thoughts with its tragic hero always so far from home?

  I killed you, I think to the book, to whatever part of Tarren’s ghost lingers between its covers, and now the sight of me is killing Gabe too.

  Still clutching the book to my chest, I wander down the hallway into the room where Gabe’s clothes litter the floor in a tangled, unloved mess. I search through the small pile and then scour the room until I finally find a cheap burner phone shoved in a dresser drawer. Dead battery, of course. It takes another minute of searching to find the knotted charger next to a battered sneaker with the word Excelsior scribbled in faded ink across the side.

  As soon as I jam the charger into an outlet and plug in the phone, it brightens to life. I flip through a series of text messages, most from the same number.

  CALL ME! The latest one says. I WANT TO SEE MAYA.

  I read the previous messages from this number, most asking some rendition of WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? in furious all caps. Rain. My throat swells, but my emotions are too raw. Did he have something to do with my rescue? I see his handsome face in my mind, those sleepy eyes, but he’s not the one I need right now. I keep scrolling through the messages, each frantic note from Rain another sharp stab.

  But then I find it. A message from an unknown number with a very well-known voice. Tell Tarren to call me. Ass wipe. The message includes a highly inappropriate emoji.

  Fingers fumbling, I call the number.

  “About damn time,” Lo snaps halfway through the first ring.

  Chapter 37 – Tarren

  The day warms quickly as the sun rises over ragged mountains in the distance, but the air is dry and pleasant for now. My legs feel weak beneath me, but I push myself into a steady, controlled jog down a dusty desert trail. The mountains watch me in passive serenity.

  As I move, I carefully observe myself. My legs are heavy and slow. The ache of my ribs grows steadily, unappreciative of the jostling. I hold my arms tight to me, limiting their movement. My right arm throbs, so that the bound wound grows a pulse of its own. My breathing is already increasing as I try to suck in heavy breaths of the dry air. After the first mile, it feels like I’ve run ten.

  It’s to be expected after a draining. My body has no reserves of energy, no glucose to burn. It ate away my fat, cannibalized a portion of my muscle just to recover. I will have to build my body back up, keep pushing it to go farther and faster. And I will need to find a local MMA gym to continue my training.

  For what?

  My feet stumble. I catch myself and force them onward. I’d forgotten for a moment that my mission is over. Even now, my eyes shift around, always wary of my surroundings, calculating my distance from the car, feeling the small knife strapped to my ankle, the only weapon I’m carrying.

  As I continue down the path, I appreciate the irony of my situation. I spent my entire childhood and teenage years denying the mission, running from it. In my adulthood I accepted it as an adequate punishment. The mission, the terrible mission, was the only meaning I had. The only thing I was good at.

  I roughly judge that I have completed three miles of distance and allow myself to walk. My breaths are shallow, panting, and sweat runs freely down my body. The large muscles of my legs twitch, and the scientific part of me is fascinated by the vast change – what the draining did to me. Five days ago I could have run ten miles in only a little over an hour. Despite the large amount of calories I’ve been imbibing every few hours, today I can barely push my body three miles in 30 minutes.

  I will have to obtain a new journal to record these notes, which means requesting money from Danielle. She will enjoy buying it for me, which is exactly why I will not ask. I need to establish an alternative source of income.

  I turn and start back toward the car – also Danielle’s. On the slow trek back, I allow myself to think of Gabe and Maya. Carefully I pluck away all of my emotions, the concern and fear and the foolish heartache, and tuck them each away in their own little metal box. Why should it feel like I’ve lost them? I know rationally that they aren’t gone at all. Just distant. They still continue to exist right now, and they are safe. That must be enough.

  Maya will recover. Gabe knows how to care for her. Maya will be enough to keep Gabe afloat, and his sorrow will pull her from self-pity. They will fight on. The Totem will continue to grow.

  I am not needed.

  ***

  Danielle waits for me in the kitchen when I return. She wears a white bodice-like top cinched with ribbons. Dark jeans highlight the curves of her hips. Her black hair is loose, a waterfall down her pale shoulders. My body reacts to her as it always does, but I keep my mind calm and clear, unwilling to let her read my desire in my aura.

  She must see something anyway, because her crimson lips turn up into a knowing smile.

  “Went for a run, dear?” she asks.

  I move past her, take an artistically designed glass from the cabinet with my left hand, and fill if from the faucet.

  “I’ve got bottled water in the fridge,” she says.

  I slowly drain the water, watching her over the cup’s rim. The kitchen is sleek and modern, the cupboards stacked with plates and bowls, the drawers filled with utensils, pots, and pans that are never used. The kitchen of an angel – perfect utility but no soul. The rest of her home flairs in rich colors, decadent fabrics and tiled floors. Bright abstracts hang on the walls. At first, I assumed they were merely dancing shapes, but the longer I gaze on them, the more I see bodies pressed together.

  “You should conserve your energy,” she says. “You’re still recovering.”

  Something in her voice catches my attention. I study her intently as I place the glass down on the granite countertop.

  “You were worried,” I say. “You came home and I wasn’t here.”

  “I was worried about the BMW. I like that car.” She gives an errant shrug.

  “I’m not going to leave,” I tell her. “I made a promise.”

 

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