SHE LIIIIIIIIIVES!
Fireworks. Three red hearts. More fireworks. Party hat. Party hat. Kiss face. Party hat. Margarita. Clinking champagne glasses. Inexplicably, some kind of goblin face. A sneeze. Three crying faces. Party hat. Was he having a stroke? Probably. A birthday cake.
Ok I moved all the plants just for u lol, followed by photographic evidence. At least ten potted plants sat in a circle in the garden, near the roses.
PROBABLY NOTHING WILL GO WRONG! Ten more party hats. A thumbs-up. Two salsa dancers. Love u mean it
Reina shook her head. You should be arrested. Bye
She put her phone away and sighed, yawning a little from beneath the thinned-out canopy of an adolescent oak. It was November. This kind of warmth was absurd. True, she’d recently spent too much time on an island known for fog, but the heat of the sprawling Maryland park was inexplicably unbearable by anyone’s standards. The weekend prior had been near-glacial with storms, and yet now the forecasted high far exceeded the region’s most optimistic seasonal averages, to the point where the sparsity of remaining foliage made little difference. The lawn beneath Reina’s feet thirsted loudly, tickling her ankles like tongues lapping roughly at her skin.
“I’m going to need to run an errand for the empire,” Callum had told her that morning, presumably referring to the Forum’s report of the Nova Corporation’s wrongdoings (many of which Callum cheerfully confessed with stunning, unsolicited frequency). “Can you keep the divinity running without me in the meantime, or should we just put you on ice?”
“I’ll be fine.” Reina had wondered if he’d been feeling some heightening measure of responsibility as the investigation progressed. She was alarmed to discover she’d gotten used to Callum’s presence, but did manage to recall that she hadn’t always relied upon his magic (or his sarcasm) to get herself through the day. “Is going back to London something related to your family,” she prompted, temporarily concerned he might shock them both with the truth, “or just your revenge project?”
“Oh, always,” he said in an unhelpfully distracted tone. He’d been comparing two identical white shirts before throwing one in an overnight bag.
She wondered what drove him to his version of filial piety. Perhaps whatever it was that drove her to the opposite of such things. It was really for the best they’d never discuss it.
“Great.” She lingered insouciantly near the door, allowing him to prolong the lie in what she considered a charitable endeavor. “Bring back Tristan’s ear for safekeeping.”
“Sure,” he said, before looking up with a frown. “Mori, do you expect me to dismember him?” he asked, and to her shrug of obvious ambivalence, he made a face of repulsion. “And for the record, his ears are hardly anything of note.”
“So true,” she agreed. “Bring back his pectorals.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re disgusting,” Callum informed her admiringly, and then was gone, both of them fully aware that Tristan would be alive and well and completely unharmed and Callum would never admit that this particular matter was his version of philanthropy. Once or twice over the last hour Reina had considered reaching out to him to ask if his field trip was going well, but then narrowly managed to remember at the last second that 1) it didn’t matter and 2) she didn’t care.
It was true that without Callum there were fewer actionable items to cross off her list, which wasn’t ideal, but not all the elements of her plan required him. She chose to pay a visit to Charlie Baek-Maeda’s reelection celebration in Maryland, figuring she did not need to influence the crowd so much as observe them. Quietly check in.
She glanced at the time, which was what she’d brought her phone out of her pocket for (and not to check Nico’s text again, though she did feel grudgingly amused by the picture. For fuck’s sake. She had missed that damned fig). There were still a few more minutes before the event was scheduled to begin. Several people hovered nearby, trying to find some semblance of shade amid increasingly skeletal vegetation. They were mostly young, obviously liberal. Baek-Maeda’s campaign slogan was splashed across their chests in rainbows, bright and cheery. BE THE REVOLUTION! in the entire spectrum of Roy G. Biv.
Beside Reina, a young Japanese American girl was standing with her white boyfriend, stickers with Baek-Maeda’s face on them dotting her cropped tank top. “Oh my god, babe, look,” she gasped, a thrill running through the crowd at the very same moment that Charlie Baek-Maeda appeared, his dog’s leash in one hand, his baby daughter Nora bouncing on his hip. Reina followed his motion through the crowd, realizing that she was straining to see him.
Briefly, she smothered Callum’s voice in her head. You loooooove him.
She didn’t. Not the way Callum suggested, anyway, a fact he understood perfectly well or he wouldn’t bother haranguing her with it. If anything, Charlie’s wife, Jenni Baek-Maeda—a pediatric surgeon, because Charlie Baek-Maeda could not be more perfect—was considerably more aligned with Reina’s interests, but it was this that Reina loved: the atmosphere that Charlie Baek-Maeda created. The crowd that his politics drew. The girl with her boyfriend. The baby. The undeniably adorable dog. Even if the whole thing was curated—even if the parasocial nature of an audience feeding off one man’s convictions and loving his progeny was problematic and alarming—something about their tiny glimpses into Charlie Baek-Maeda’s world made everything else feel … less pointless. It made everything seem, at least for the moment, right. Or at least a world that was capable of being fixed, and Reina needed that, the reminder that all this effort was for something. That a generation existed somewhere that authentically clung to something good, to the creation of something meaningful.
All gods had their chosen ones. Reina’s just happened to be—according to both Callum and The Washington Post—conventionally hot.
Speaking of heat—the late-autumn sun, or what should have been fall but was still punishingly summer, was indomitable, borderline profane. Bare branches of the oak tree nearby swayed overhead, fanning her with an upbeat teenage whine of Mother hot hot aeeeeeee!, and Reina realized she’d drawn a few glances here and there as a result of it.
“Stop it,” she muttered to the tree, which angstily huffed its irritation. Reina took a few steps away, moving closer to the stage.
There was a local band on stage playing a mix of original songs and covers, and Charlie Baek-Maeda—having handed his daughter off to his wife—took the stage, accepting the lead singer’s proffered guitar and strapping himself in with a laugh. He played a few chords, joining in, a song that everyone around Reina seemed to know. She thought of Callum again: I wonder how many women just spontaneously ovulated. Inwardly, she rolled her eyes. The song was infectious, like a disease. She was overcome with a sudden desire for lemonade. But other than that, she felt centered, and fine.
She looked over at Jenni Baek-Maeda, at the chubby baby in her arms, a pair of tiny headphones fixed around Nora’s tiny ears to block out the ceaseless din of adoration for her father. Reina didn’t even like babies. Jenni was wearing a red dress and she reminded Reina of someone. Long black hair, an irrationally perfect figure; the sense that, if challenged, she could easily outsmart everyone in the room. Someone handed baby Nora a petite bouquet of flowers and Reina thought of standing beside the manor house’s garden, staring into a set of ice-cold eyes and reading something in them. Something desperate. Something true.
But then the song ended, Charlie Baek-Maeda took the mic, and Reina pushed all thoughts of Parisa Kamali aside.
Or tried to. She wondered what it was Callum had seen in Parisa that he refused to explain to Reina, probably because he assumed she wouldn’t understand. Whereas what he didn’t understand was that if Parisa wasn’t a rival, then Reina was just a bully—a role reversal that didn’t make sense—so he should really tell her the truth and spare them both the trauma of her having to worry, or worse, to care.
Maybe that was really the worst of it. That if Reina couldn’t hate Parisa then she’d have to acknowledge something else she felt about her, something far more complicated, like the fact that Reina wanting to win didn’t work out so comfortably if it meant Parisa had to lose. So maybe Callum was doing her a favor in the end?
But that didn’t seem likely. This was Callum, after all.
Mother, let us fix it. A patch of dandelions were restless. Mother let us grow, let us goooooooooo—
Charlie Baek-Maeda’s speech was punctuated every now and then by applause, some cheers, some fervent nods and whoops. Reina’s mind drifted as she listened, growing drowsy beneath the morning sun. Nearly everyone had thin patches of moisture spreading over their Baek-Maeda T-shirts, hands alternately framing their brows from the glare. There was motion in the crowd, like a breeze that riffled the grass, parting a path that nobody resisted. They were all equally melting, Reina supposed.
It was strange, though. The quickness. It was disruptive. Reina wasn’t the only one who looked away from Baek-Maeda and into the crowd, from which a ripple of motion suddenly bloomed. A gasp. A scream.
MOTHERMOTHER, something shrieked. MOTHER AIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!
A sound went off, explosive, ringing in Reina’s ears by the time she finally clocked it. The thin wail in warning had come from the bouquet of cut flowers clutched in Nora Baek-Maeda’s chubby hands. Reina felt herself turning to find safety, her pulse racing, but before she could decide where to turn, another shot went off. She was jolted apart from the girl’s boyfriend beside her, a shock of her own power surging so abruptly at the suddenness of the sound that a root had burst forth from the asphalt, tearing through the crowd and leaving the ground below them to heave like tectonic plates in a wave of rippling aftershocks. Reina fell unsteadily backward onto the undulating ground, knees buckling as she tried to keep her balance and failed.
A high-pitched whine of static screeched in Reina’s ear as she struggled from her back to her knees, heart thudding with the sudden recollection of a similar scene. A set of familiar balustrades, gunmen emerging like toy soldiers from the dark. Nico’s laugh, ringing from somewhere just out of sight. Reina blinked, vision obscuring as she lifted her head, a rush of blood loud in her ears. The crowd had blurred into a sea of colors and shapes. There was a woman screaming, a dog barking, someone was shouting, shoving Reina aside just as she’d finally pushed up to her feet.
MOTHERMOTHERMOTHER WAKEUPWAKEUP—
Yes, wake up. Focus. Charlie Baek-Maeda had dropped out of sight, his body flung backward and now sprawled, lifeless, on the stage. The everyman pair of jeans, the revolution pin, the sunny rainbow insignia were drenched now by a pool of dark red, like a shadow. People had swarmed around him, everyone was yelling. An ambulance, Reina thought. Someone should call an ambulance. She looked, bizarrely, for the baby. Where was the baby? Someone cover her eyes. She shouldn’t have to see this. She shouldn’t have to hear her mother scream.
Reina took a step, she didn’t know where, her blood was pumping in her ears, she was going the wrong direction. She thought she heard Callum’s voice—Callum, was he okay? Where was Callum? When had Callum’s welfare begun to matter to her? Would Callum have known this was going to happen and had he seen the baby, was she safe?—and turned, Mother are you listening, Mother pay attention—
MOTHER THE TIME HAS COME TO OPEN YOUR EYES!
Reina felt an arm grab her around her waist, followed by a hand that came over her mouth. She bit down and threw an elbow blindly, with a burst of something crude. She heard a masculine voice cry out in pain and turned, ready to strike again, when she realized her attacker was in uniform. His expression of fury from the blow she’d landed to his nose morphed rapidly to a knowing smile; a blatant invitation to try it again and see how that went.
What would happen to her if she attacked an American police officer in plain sight? Reina’s breath came haltingly and she took a hasty step back, colliding with yet another fleeing member of Baek-Maeda’s swarming crowd.
The officer came toward her, signaling to someone out of Reina’s range of sight while her heart hammered in her chest. Breathe. Think. The police officer who’d grabbed her had a partner, at least one. She could see out of the corner of her eye another blur in her periphery, another oncoming attack. The lawn below her was screaming and she nearly tripped over the root of the oak that had burst up from beneath the stampeding crowd, stumbling long enough to reward her attackers with an opening. They were coming for her, no question about it, she’d forgotten to pay attention to her surroundings, or maybe this much unintentional magic on her part had been what set them off. Either way, someone now had a hand on her arm, wrenching it back as she tried again to pull away. Nobody would notice if someone took her, of course nobody would notice, everyone else was equally running for their lives. What a fucking country. Two sets of assassins and now a baby would grow up without a father, and as for Reina …
Fuck, what loss was Reina to anyone? Fuck, fuck, fuck. At least if nobody was paying attention they couldn’t stop her from fighting back. She wrestled out of the grip of the second attacker, striking blindly at the face of the first. Her chosen one was still on stage bleeding to death; she was going to be taken—arrested, maybe, or killed—and had this been the whole point? Her whole life? This was what she had fought for—her agency, her right to exist independently of anyone or anything—just so she could go down somewhere in a foreign country where no one would even see her, a tree brought down in the forest as if she’d never existed at all? Some mother she was. Some person, some daughter. Some friend. The cop she’d punched had reeled back like a pendulum while the other had thrown an arm around her neck from behind, an artless chokehold. Reina scrabbled blindly at the hand around her neck, kicking at the other, but she was tiring quickly, exhausted and hot, straining so hard it ached in her lungs, a breath she couldn’t quite catch. She heard Parisa’s laugh in her ear, the mockery of Parisa’s little smirk. Parisa, who never found herself cornered. Parisa, who always found a way out. Oh, Reina. Are you a naturalist or aren’t you?
Her vision smeared, airpipe faltering. She felt the impact of her own kicks landing, but not nearly forceful enough. Everything was diminishing, everything was fading.
Help, Reina thought desperately. Help!
For a moment she thought she’d been swallowed up by rage. She thought she’d disappeared inside it. The earth was trembling and she thought, Fuck, Varona, I’m sorry, the whole thing was so stupid, I just honestly thought I had more time. I thought it could wait, that we could talk about it later, when I was over it, when I felt nothing anymore, when I felt nothing at all. But here we are, I could die at any moment, and that day still hasn’t come. I don’t know why you intentionally seek this feeling out, Nico, why you love to put yourself at risk, you’re not meant to face this down and thrive, it’s counterintuitive, it’s bad for the species. I’m sorry I didn’t just tell you that even though you’re an idiot, it’s still a hell of a lot easier to miss you than to hate you. I’m sorry I wasted a whole year trying to live a stupid lie.
Everything went black. Reina was braced for disaster, twisting with less and less proficiency out of her attackers’ reach, when a sudden shift in momentum sent her plummeting to the grass beneath her. The officer who’d grabbed her from behind had abruptly released her, and Reina twisted around to prepare for another attack, her vision still dangerously compromised. It was dark all around her, pitch black like a sodden, heady midnight. After a moment, she realized it wasn’t just exhaustion that had blurred her vision. Color had gone away because the lawn, the ground itself, had opened up.
The charge she’d been expecting still hadn’t come. Blearily, as if from a dream, Reina’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and she caught sight of a set of vines that had materialized from somewhere, stretching and twisting until they’d braided themselves across the flayed open ground, forming a set of restraints. The cop who’d held her in a chokehold was now screaming obscenities, thrashing, disappearing slowly into the molten blackness of raw, unopened earth while the other, visibly purpling from Reina’s kick to his face, aimed his gun at the teenage oak tree, which was reaching out for Reina with its spindly branching arms.
Mother help! wailed the tree, younger now, no longer filled with juvenile tedium. Frightened and lost, like brand-new innocence. Tiny headphones, cut flowers, the kind of world no baby deserved. The kind of violence no child should have to see. The fragile voice grew distant, smaller and smaller, shrinking and fading, like departing through annals of time.
The gun went off, deafening, a ringing left in Reina’s ears where the sound of nature’s voice should have been. She felt her equilibrium topple and fail yet again, knocking her dizzily prostrate onto the earth, unable to discern which way was upright, which path was forward. She forced herself to her knees, her view of the park still a bloodstained darkness punctuated only by occasional blurs of motion. The cop’s silhouette swam again before her as dirt cycloned up from the ground, obscuring her view of his hand wrapped tight around his pistol. The smell of gunpowder burned familiarly like smoke in Reina’s lungs. She retched up bile, spitting out of the side of her mouth, and for the first time that Reina could remember, she understood that nothing was coming to her rescue. She could hear nothing but the sound of her own pulse.
A wave of momentary stillness brought her clarity. The thick cloud of dirt—or ash—cleared from her eyes for the brevity of an instant, and she saw, seemingly in slow motion, the truth of her distance from the cop. A few short but painful steps. His head was turned and his arm was raised in the direction of the teenage oak, his finger resting on the trigger for a second, more lethal shot.
The world resumed its frantic pace, momentum spiraling through her.
“No,” said Reina, launching to her feet and clawing at the officer’s arm, scrabbling blindly, recklessly for the gun. “No, you don’t get to touch her—!”
He threw an elbow into her nose, breaking it. Reina bit her tongue, tasting blood, and crumpled limply to the ground.