After the chaos dies down, Kyle and I wander into the blue house’s backyard, where we slump inside an empty inflatable pool that might as well be a raft adrift in shadows. Once again we’ve got a moment just to ourselves, but man, I have no idea how to focus all my questions about us. Yet Kyle is the one who finally breaks the tension.
“We should talk. . . . About the past, about you and me.”
“Right,” I whisper.
Kyle looks away, and all I can see is her silhouette in profile, until at last, she begins.
“Look, I’ve always been a loner. I love my family, but I’ve always preferred being on my own.” She wraps her arms around herself. “When I was younger, it’s like the whole world around me was a huge public swimming pool, full of splashing people, and all I wanted to do was sit on a far deck chair and read a damn book. I was always happy to hang back, not be a part of things.
“That’s how I felt pretty much every day . . . until I met you. It was freshman year. I was trying to find a seat in the cafeteria, and I saw you lingering in the exact opposite corner. Our eyes met . . . and I dunno, I just knew.”
We’ve been drawn together so many times in the mart, by invisible strings. But this would’ve been the first tug.
“So we really had a past together?” I can barely breathe. “I have this photo in my room. I think it’s us standing in front of a burning dumpster. . . .”
Her eyes light up. “Hah! That . . . Every Sunday we’d explore the worst-ever places in Sundown City—like, diners with one-star reviews, parks where people got mugged, a dumpster that was somehow always on fire.”
“Why?”
“We were just being stupid,” she tells me. “That . . . and also . . .”
“What?” I ask when she wavers.
“Well, ever since I was little, my folks would take me on road trips to see different colleges. I was, like, six and they already wanted to inspire me to get into the ‘best places ever.’ But I never wanted to live the American dream. Not like they did. They wanted me to dive into that metaphorical public pool, but man, all I wanted was to stare at the ocean.” She looks to me. “We both wanted something else.”
“I didn’t want to go to college?”
“Nope. It was like everyone was telling us, ‘Work hard! Go to a great college or your lives will be shit!’ So . . . we ended up seeking out ‘worst places ever’ in order to see up close what that shit was like. Sort of our way to tell everyone to back the fuck off and let us make our own choices. But then, well, everything changed after . . .”
Hell Portal Day.
Kyle places a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry about what happened to your parents.” I don’t know what to say, but I place my hand over hers. There’s a heavy pause before she continues, “After they died, you withdrew from everything. And it all got worse after the subway attack.”
“I got attacked on the subway?”
Kyle pulls her hand away and swallows hard.
“A year ago, we were on a subway platform when a demon broke through a portal zone. The fucker was a beachball with eyes all over it. It chased people in the station and smashed into them to just—” She makes an explosion gesture with her hands. “We were stuck in a corner, and we would’ve died. . . . Like, it was coming right for us. But this beefy Vanguard soldier used a razor sword to slice it in half.”
My heartbeat is pounding in my ears.
“After that, I started thinking about enlisting in Vanguard, while you . . .” Kyle looks away into the shadows. “You got really fucked-up and angry. You couldn’t accept how everyone was so willing to follow VC and carry on in the chaos. It wasn’t long before you started looking for people who felt the same way as you.”
“Which led me to find Suckerpunch?”
Kyle nods. “Yeah. Before long, you were tumbling down their conspiracy-theory rabbit hole.” She leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees, head lowered. “We began drifting apart, and when I actually did enlist in Vanguard, we got into a terrible fight.”
Kyle looks away, breathes slowly like she’s trying her best to hold her composure. “I said things that I didn’t mean. Made it seem like I wished we’d never met.”
Before I can process that, she says, “We broke up shortly after. But then, a few weeks later, I was randomly assigned to the mart, and I didn’t know about your amnesia. So when you said, Hi. I don’t think we’ve met—”
“You thought I was fulfilling your wish?”
She nods. “I couldn’t handle it. It seemed so mean.”
Kyle finally looks at me, and I almost think she’s bracing for the blow-up pool to disappear, along with the ground. I reach out to wrap my arms around her. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry too,” says Kyle, looking into the dark. “I should’ve told you about us the moment I learned about your amnesia. But . . . I guess I felt that we were just doomed to fall apart.” She swallows a lump before quickly adding, “You know, because of Hell Portal Day and the chaos, blood, and everyday nightmare of our world. But now, I think maybe I was afraid to let myself hope for anything.”
“I know what that feels like,” I tell her.
I squeeze her tightly. My head zings, and I realize I’m trying to remember something from my past. Anything about Kyle and me.
The zinging turns to blackness.
“Jasper!” I hear Kyle yelp, but she sounds a million miles from me.
When I come to, I’ve rolled out of the inflatable pool and onto the ground. Kyle is kneeling beside me, helping me up, as I explain in a daze that “this happens every damn time I try to remember my past.”
Her eyes go wide. “Well, maybe it’d be best if you don’t focus on the past right now. We’ve got a shit ton to do—if we want to, you know, save the world and all.”
Before I can respond, the streetlights around us flicker on with a soft hum, seemingly on some city-grid timer. We get up as the neighborhood fills with a grayish light. But seconds later, the giant silly strings drink up this streetlight and convert it into florescent colors. Shimmering hues that turn the rundown houses and dried lawns into an alien landscape.
“This has to be another awesome worst place ever, right?” I whisper.
Kyle reaches for my hand, and I think of what she said about us wanting to find our own way in a world that wasn’t ours. It dawns on me now that our paths have led us right here, right back to each other.
Her hair is stardust. “What’re you thinking?” she asks quietly.
“I just . . .”
I lean closer to try to kiss her. But . . . my lips land between her nose and upper lip. I laugh softly, then realize I’m blowing a warm breath in her face.
Kyle chuckles too as she pulls away. I can see alien colors reflected in her eyes, like sparklers. Our lips finally connect. Her lips, hands, hair—every bit of her might as well be made of light. My head and shoulders tingle and burn.
Only then do I know what this feeling is.
We were more than a couple. We were in love.
Holding on to her, two words echo in my mind.
Still are.
In my dreams, I’m standing alone in the mart, the halogen flickering, the PA buzzing with static. Where is everyone? I walk through the nearest aisle and nearly slip on a wet floor. What I suddenly realize isn’t water . . . but blood.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Footsteps echo behind me, and I turn to see four humans stalking toward me, their bodies obscured by the dimness. Before I can retreat, they’re only a few steps away, and one thought echoes: Horsemen.
They lunge, and one gets close enough to place a hand on my shoulder. The skin-to-skin contact causes an energy pulse to flood into my body, and it burns. I scream and tumble to the ground, and just as my head melts from the inside, one thought roars through my mind:
Powers! They’ll have superpowers.