I have almost completed my third full training session, and I have to say that although the muscle soreness is rough, I kind of love all the exercise. I don’t know why I’ve gone so many years without investing in some kind of routine physical activity, but I wish I’d started sooner than just this week. It’s liberating.
Oh and yeah, Beatrix’s expectation really is already coming true. It’s only my third day and I’m feeling spectacular. I feel awake and alive during these hours, and after they come to an end, I feel like I’ve actually accomplished something. Even if that something is, for now, only getting myself into better shape, I know it’ll help in the Hellion-killing department later. It’ll help me save lives. And that is something I’m willing to work for…if you can even call it work. Like I said, I’m having a blast.
Today, near the end of our time together, Beatrix and I slow down to some stretches so we can discuss the details of killing Hellions. She puts her left hand on her left hip and then leans her torso in that same direction, reaching her other arm over her head.
“First thing I’m going to say: the quicker they die, the better.”
I nod as I sink down into a lunge. “Got it.”
“The best way to kill them quickly is to slice open a main vein—” she lowers her one hand briefly to draw a fingertip across her throat, “—or get Light blood directly into their hearts via stabbing. Any other wound from a Light weapon will definitely help you out, though, because the area around it will start decaying away immediately, which can leave them at a huge disadvantage.” She straightens up and starts that same stretch on her other side. “For example, if you were to somehow sever one of their hands, the flesh going up his arm would crumble away starting at that place. If you throw red powder in his face, it’ll start disintegrating where the powder touched it. But to kill him, you have to do more than just those kinds of things. Get what I’m saying?”
“Absolutely.” I shift to lunge a different way.
“We almost always have control of the situation because they can’t pick us out like we can them. They only know we’re on to them if we give ourselves away.” She stands up again and this time stretches both arms and her torso forward. Something on her pops and she makes a noise of satisfaction. “Still—and I don’t mean any offense—you’re new to this, so for your first official kills, I’ll have you incapacitate them with your red powder before you leap in for an execution. Then once you’ve better seen what their reflexes are like and how the build of your body affects your stealth, you’ll be able to do what the rest of us do and just get in and get out.”
I sit down on the floor and put my legs straight out in front of me. “I’m not offended. That sounds pretty smart.” I stretch as far forward toward my toes as I can…which still isn’t a very impressive extension, honestly.
“Well, you helped Gabe with those two, so I just want you to know I’m not discounting that. This is just what we do with new people.”
I sit back up and mutter, “Oh, Lord,” because I fucking hate the prickling tightness in the backs of my legs. I know it’ll get better the more I do this stretch, though, so I try it one more time and tell Beatrix, “I promise I don’t feel insulted. Those Hellions were completely preoccupied trying to kill him. I was almost cheating.”
She laughs, and I hear her walking over to me. “You know my thoughts on that, darling.” I feel her pat me on the back. Then she adds, “Don’t hate me, k?”
Before I can ask what I should be not-hating her for, she flattens both palms against my back and presses down.
“Aw, fuck!” I gasp as my chest dips seriously close to my legs. “Not comfortable!”
“I love you! Don’t hate me! Seven more seconds!”
“Ohhhh, I don’t hate you,” I tell her, “but my legs might.” When she lets me up, I can’t help but laugh at the utter relief washing up and down my body. “I’m sure I’ll thank you for that someday, but damn it.”
“I know just how you feel,” she tells me, and I believe her. “All of this gets easier, though, just like I told you. And you will thank me, just like I thanked Wes.”
How romantic, I think as I work on standing up. I make a mental note to ask her sometime about how the two of them got together. Right now, I’m too busy ignoring my body’s pleas to lie down flat on the floor and rest.
Once I’m up, I say, “It’s already easier than it was on the first day.”
Beatrix nods. “Kind of like magic, huh?”
Even as my legs wobble under my weight, completely pissed off about the strain I just put on them, I concur, “Totally like magic.”
I’m glad when Gabe and Wes show up, because that means training is officially over and I’m about to enjoy some Gabe Time.
He chuckles as we walk to the door behind the other two. “Are you okay?”
Well, he walks. I’ve got more of a hobble going on.
I nod and give him a smile. “I’ll be fine.”
“Undoubtedly, but I haven’t forgotten how this training feels at first.”
“I’m starting to feel pretty good, but that first day, it felt like someone beat me with a sack of oranges.” I can’t help but laugh a little at my next thought. “Not like being beaten with a sack of oranges would really bother me. Later, I could get a giant jug of the juice from all the destroyed oranges, and all the pain would be worth it because orange juice is the best.”
He laughs, too.
I can’t believe he seems to find me as funny as he does, but I don’t question it out loud. His laugh is just too great a sound.
For the past couple of days, when the time came for me and Gabe to go one way and Wes and Beatrix to go another, she’s given me an encouraging goodbye. There’s always an endearment in there, too. Today it’s, “You’re doing awesome, Friend Bear! Tomorrow will be even better!”
I only manage a smile before Wes busts out laughing. “Did you just refer to Mari as a Care Bear?”
She gives him a questioning look, like he’s weird for asking that and she’s totally normal. “Yes?”
He laughs even harder.
It turns her look into one of exasperation. “What? It’s a compliment.”
“A Care Bear,” he barely gets out through his laughter. I can’t help a grin, and from beside me, Gabe starts laughing, too.
I adore these people.
Beatrix waves a hand dismissively. “Okay, whatever.”
Gabe proclaims, “Only you would have the names of the Care Bears memorized so you could use them in everyday conversation.”
Wes doubles over.
Even as a smile comes onto Beatrix’s face, she says, “Right, well, we’re going now.”
“Later.”
I wave at them. “Bye.”
Wes waves back at us, still laughing, as Beatrix drags him away asking, “Was it really that big of a surprise? You know who you married, right?”
It cracks me up pretty badly.
Once we’re in the car, Gabe says promptly, “Okay, so, questions?”
Getting started already, I see. No problem. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one of us who thought about this more than a little bit. “Yes. I’m listening.”
“Have you always lived in Fayetteville?”
“Yep. Have you?”
“Nope. I lived in Hot Springs until my freshman year in high school. We moved because my mom got a good job offer.”
“Ohh. At the start of high school. Wow.”
“Yep. What do you like to do in your free time?”
“Mmm,” I hum reflectively. “Listen to music. Read. Draw.”
“Those are some nice hobbies.”
I chuckle. “Well, a few months ago, I might’ve added, ‘Having a drink with my friends,’ in there.” I shake my head as I put my seatbelt on. “Not now, though.”
“Yeah, alcohol is quite a hindrance to us now.” His seatbelt clicks into place, too. “Do you miss them? Your friends?”
It takes me a few seconds to figure out my answer. “I don’t think so. They haven’t really turned out to be who I thought they were.”
He nods slowly. “I can understand that.”
I tilt my head to one side as I observe him. “Yeah?”
“Maybe, anyway.”
I know today is supposed to be Interrogate Marienne Day, but I still ask, “What happened?”
He shrugs. “Nothing specific. Just that after I turned Light, the number of people who wanted to be around me dropped to zero really fast. You’d think even sixteen-year-olds would be invested enough in their friendships to help out the guy who’d just been shot and lost his only parent, but no.” He gives me half a smile. “So I don’t miss them, either, anymore.”
Despite his smile, I frown. I can’t imagine going through something like that by myself. At least I chose to distance myself from the people I was hanging out with.
I decide to go ahead and tell him what happened with that.
“I really only had two good friends. I’d actually been dating the guy for a little bit, but I caught him sleeping with the girl the night I turned Light.” I look down at my hands. “In fact, that whole thing was the catalyst for…for…uh….”
The only thing flashing in my head is ‘my car wreck,’ but I won’t say that. I’m not going there.
And oh, God, I hope Gabe doesn’t ask me how I almost died. I’m terrified of admitting that to him.
Maybe Beatrix handled it all right, but...
…well…I like him in a really different way from how I like her.
I realize I need to finish my sentence. If Gabe is anything like his teal-haired friend, he’s going to pry into my discomfort any second now, and I can’t have that. But since I can’t seem to figure out what exactly to say, I just gesture to myself, to my Light state, and hope he’s satisfied with it.
He sucks in a breath and starts to say something.
Please don’t ask. Don’t ask.
“He—?” is all he gets out. Then, after a pause, “Hold on. What?”
I look up from my hands and see he looks confused all of a sudden.
I give him a mildly quizzical look, too. “What?”
“He cheated on you?”
Oh, thank you, stars. He’s curious about Rafe. I can handle that—as long as he’s not curious about what happened after the thing with Rafe.
“Yeah,” I say, clenching my fists in my lap. I think about mentioning where exactly I found him and Audrey, but it doesn’t come out.
Gabe doesn’t press me about that, though. He says flatly, “That motherfucker is stupid.”
And just like that, I’m laughing.
It’s real laughter, too, not the kind people let out when they’re on the brink of an emotional breakdown.
“Ah, thanks,” I sigh. “And you don’t even know the half of it.”
He laughs, too. “Well, tell me some more tomorrow.” He quickly starts the car, like he’s just noticed we’re usually on the road by now. “This information is so fucking preposterous I’m going to have to digest it slowly.”
“Preposterous!” I echo, laughing again. “Okay, then. Next question.”
“Okay,” he says slowly, seemingly gathering his thoughts. As we leave the parking lot, he asks, “What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?”
“Oh, wow,” I murmur, dropping my head back against my seat. As I ponder the question, one thing in particular stands out above everything else in my mind. “When I was seventeen, I overcame my massive fear of water to save a little kid from drowning.”
“Did you really?” He sounds interested.
“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know CPR or anything. I just got him out of the water. So I know that’s not—” I wave a hand lazily, “—it’s not an accomplishment like feeding the poor in another country, and it’s not cool like meeting someone famous.” More quietly, I confess, “But it’s always felt great to me.”
“It is great,” he says, and I know he really thinks that. “Fear is a really hard thing to deal with. It’s hard to look past it. In fact, I think a lot of people would’ve reacted differently than you did.”
I admit, “Yeah, there were others around who didn’t help.” Then I shrug, feeling my skin flushing. That whole thing isn’t something I brag about. It’s just something that silently makes me feel nice.
He snorts a little. “That’s exactly what I mean. So you’re scared of water?”
“Bodies of water, yes.”
“They can get pretty crazy. God only knows what’s out in the oceans and stuff.”
“Yeeeeah.” I’m getting anxious just thinking about it.
I think he can tell, because he swiftly moves on. “What’s something you think would be fun to do but that you’ll never actually do?”
After some consideration, I decide, “Be an extra in a movie.”
He chuckles. “Why won’t you do that?”
“I suspect it’d end up being pointless. I mean, I’d be able to say I was in a movie, but what would they really catch me doing? Standing by a wall?”
“Yeah, exactly,” he says encouragingly. “It’s not like they’ll turn you down for something like that. You should go for it.”
“Ha!” I turn my head to grin at him. “Thank you, Gabe, for believing that I have what it takes to stand by a wall.”
Also grinning, he glances at me. “Don’t thank me, Marienne. Just give me a little bit of the twenty bucks you make.”
I laugh heartily at that. I don’t know how much movie extras make, but it’s probably not much for the ones that only get half a second of camera time.
When I’ve calmed down, he says, “Speaking of movies, I’d like you to know that I actually watched one last night when I got home from work.”
“You did?” I ask cheerfully. Based on what he told me about how he spends his free time, I think this is a pretty big deal for him.
Indeed, he looks like he’s proud of himself. “The Breakfast Club. It was on TV and edited all to hell, but I watched it.”
I wrinkle my nose, feeling slightly dejected because I don’t know much about that movie. “I’ve never seen that.”
“It’s a good one. My mom would call it a classic—a must-see.”
I’m glad he can talk about his late mother so easily. I can’t do it. It’s really pretty awful; the torture of being suffocated by that pain isn’t something I’d wish on anyone.
Maybe someday I’ll come to terms with my parents’ deaths, too. Maybe I’ll be able to tell someone about them without feeling like a strong, cold hand is closing around my throat, keeping the words in so they can rattle around all sad in my head.
Or maybe not, since Gabe’s mom died at the hands of a criminal, not at the hands of her own kid.
I shut the thought down fast and tell him sincerely, “I’m happy you did that.”
He nods. “Me, too. Thanks for putting the thought in my head.”
I smile at him even though his eyes are on the road, and then I turn to look out my window. I realize that for the first time in days, there isn’t any snow falling whatsoever.
“Favorite song?” he asks shortly.
“Oh, that’s a difficult one.” There’s definitely no way I can choose which lyrics I love the most, or which beat, or which voice. I think the easiest thing to do is offer up the song I’ve been listening to the most lately. “I don’t think I can pick, honestly, but for the past month or so, I’ve been playing the daylights out of ‘Edge of Seventeen’ by Stevie Nicks.”
“Hmm. I don’t think I know that one.”
I grin and look at him again. “Oh, I bet you do.”
He smirks and glances at me. “Yeah? You don’t think I’d know it by its name?”
“I think a lot of people our age probably don’t because it’s kind of old.”
He puts his eyes back on the road. “Bet me.”
“Okay. I’ll play it for you, and I bet you a quarter you’ve heard it before.”
“What good is a quarter going to do me?” he asks, laughing. “Bet me a dollar. That’ll at least buy me a pack of Juicy Fruit or something.”
I snicker. “Fine, I’ll bet you a dollar, but don’t get too attached to your future gum purchase. I’m the one who’s going to win.”
“I really think it’s going to be me,” he disagrees.
“I don’t.”
He points a finger at me and insists good-naturedly, “You and Wes should stop underestimating my gambling skills.”
“What? Me and Wes?”
He nods. “I’ve got a bet about Beatrix going with him. Twenty dollars.”
“Oh, man.”
“Yeah, you’re both in trouble.”
“We’ll see.”
“You’ll see.”
The boy better be glad he only has one dollar at stake with me. I know I’m right.
When we get to the apartment, he tells me to run in and get “Edge of Seventeen” for him to hear. I go grab my CD, come back, and then cross my arms and watch his face as he turns the song on.
The opening guitar filters through the speakers, and his forehead creases just a tiny bit. When the singing starts, he presses his lips together against a smile and turns away.
“Gabe,” I say knowingly, cutting the volume down some.
His shoulders shake with poorly-stifled laughter as he stares out his window.
A grin spreads across my face. “I told you.”
Even as he laughs, he says, “I’ve never heard this.”
“Yes, you have.”
He turns to face me again and holds a hand out, trying to look serious. “You owe me a dollar.”
I lean toward him slightly and stare right at him. “Gabe.”
His seriousness crumbles and he grins widely—guiltily—at me. “Marienne.”
“The dollar,” I prompt him.
“Yeah, exactly. Hand it over.”
“Oh my God!” I laugh. “Admit it! You know this song and I know you know it, so deliver unto me the dollar I’ve won fair and square.”
He laughs, too, and then sighs dramatically and slides a hand into his pocket. “Fine, I’ll give you the dollar, but only because you asked nicely.”
“Pff.”
“It absolutely won’t be because I’ve heard this song before. That hasn’t happened a single time.” He holds the money out to me and bites down on a smile. “Definitely not a hundred times.”
I take the dollar and smile, too. “Whatever you say.”
“Thank you.” He nods like he appreciates my cooperation.
I laugh and shake my head, then take my CD from the stereo. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
He says, “Yes,” without hesitation, and that single word is infinitely more serious than anything else he said just now. It does something funny to my stomach.
It’s just a word, Marienne. A regular-ass word. Calm down.
It’s a no-go.
My cheeks start warming, so I get out of his car again. “Okay, well, I hope you find some white Radiances in the meantime.”
“Thank you.” Then, “Hey, before you go….”
For all my nervousness, I can’t help bending down to look at him again, so I’m grateful when the frigid wind blows my hair across my stupid flushed cheeks. “Yeah?”
He smiles at me. “I’ve always thought the last verse is the best verse. What do you think?”
Even though I’m not surprised by his admission to having heard “Edge of Seventeen” before, I am surprised that his favorite part is my favorite part, too. The lyrics remind me of my parents without completely breaking my heart every time I hear them. I wonder if the same is true for him somehow.
Giving him a smile that I hope doesn’t look sad, I say, “I think that, too, actually.” Then I give him a little wave and shut the door.
The apartment is delightfully quiet. Claire is a social person, so on her time off from working three days a week from 5 A.M. to 5 P.M., she is frequently out doing stuff. Today is one of her workdays, though, so I have three-ish hours to myself before she gets here.
It’s weird that I can be so averse to being alone with thoughts of my parents and at the same time be really happy I actually am alone in the apartment.
I guess encountering Claire is just that painful.
At first it was because of what I did to our parents, but add to that my knowing she’s the one who let Rafe into my room the other morning, and I have absolutely no interest in being around her.
Not like she wants to bother with me anymore. All she is these days is a poised and beautiful ice woman. Even though I’ve known for forever that she’s the opposite of tempestuous when she’s angry, I never really felt it for myself until after the car accident. She doesn’t keep her fury on ass-blast all the time, doesn’t come home and start screaming at me and following me around to assail me with insults; instead, her rage sits still and silent and solid all over everything. It tenses her body when she’s around me, hardens her gaze when she looks at me, chills the quiet when she doesn’t talk to me, cuts across her tone when she does happen to speak to me. It even weighs down the atmosphere in the apartment when she and I are both simply in it. And it’s torturous.
So I’m grateful for the hours I don’t have to suffer her. When she is around, I do what I can to ignore her, like listen to “Edge of Seventeen” a bunch of times. Or I’ll finally get tired of the tension and go to Grove Lane.
Presently, just as I’m about to turn the song on in my room, I hear the front door slam.
I stop moving.
And now for the Scary Moment Reaction Deliberation we always see in horror movies. I can stay where I am and hope that’s not anyone who’s going to walk in here and see me and murder me. Or I can run out there and hope that’s not anyone who’s going to see me go past and catch me and murder me.
I hear a sniffle and a miserable-sounding, “God, what is wrong with me?”
A simultaneously relieved and unhappy sigh leaves me.
It’s only Claire in there, home early from work for some reason. It’s not a burglar or rapist or killer.
But now I have no time to prepare myself for her being around, and that’s a huge letdown.
I decide not to turn Stevie Nicks on. I don’t want to get bitched at, even though when Claire’s friends come over for get-togethers (as they try to call them all posh-like), they run the apartment through with the worst rap and pop music ever. And to think they call themselves classy.
After a minute, I hear what sounds like vomiting coming from the other end of the apartment, where Claire’s own bedroom/bathroom combination is. She’s sick, then, I guess. Definitely a good thing I didn’t turn my music on.
Part of me feels bad for her and wants to go see if she needs help. I know, though, that she won’t accept anything from me—know that she’d just tell me to go fuck myself, except not quite like that because that’s not her style. So another part of me hopes she’ll lie down and sleep the day away, get herself some rest, and also save me from potentially running into her.
And I guess that’s what she does, because I don’t hear anything else from her all afternoon.
I don’t hear her dragging around looking for a cup of water or crackers. I don’t hear her watching TV in the living room, which is something she always did when she was sick back when we were still living with our parents. I don’t even hear a sneeze leave her bedroom. I go to bed later with the apartment as locked up, still, and silent as it was when she got here.
But I wake up in the middle of the night to desperate, bloodcurdling screaming.
“Claire!” I yell through the darkness. I fully expect my cry to go unnoticed, and it does. She screams and screams and screams and I run to her as fast as I can, flipping on lights as I go. When I make it to her room and get the light on, I find her thrashing around in her bed, eyes squeezed shut, face red and contorted by horror. I race to her side, my heartbeat going insane. “Hey! Claire!”
“Please don’t do this to me!” she wails, arching her back. Her veins are standing out against her skin. “Please don’t! I’ll do anything!”
“What the hell is—?” I start to shout.
But I suddenly realize what’s happening: she’s still asleep. She’s having a nightmare.
I bend over and put a hand on her forehead, which is burning hot and slick with sweat.
“Claire, it’s me!” I say over her cries. “It’s Mari! Wake up!”
Just like that, she’s motionless and quiet.
Her eyes snap open and find mine, and I see the whites are completely red, turning her irises a strange color.
I yank my hand away from her. “Jesus! Are you okay?”
Her expression blackens, twisting a look I never dreamed she could manage onto her face. It is the starkest look of hatred I have ever seen.
She starts panting, her eyes clouding over with pure, unbridled, un-Claire-like wrath that is so ominous it halts my heartbeat for a second, steals my breath from my lungs, sends panic straight into my bones.
If she could kill me with a look, this would be my last second on this earth.
Something is way wrong with her.
Before I can consider what the hell I should do, she sits up in her bed, her lips peeling back to bare her teeth to me, and lets loose a hand.
Her fingernails rake viciously across my cheek, digging into my flesh and lighting it up with pain.
“Claire!” I shout, stumbling away.
She slinks over to crouch on the edge of her bed like a feral beast, her fists aggressively gripping the sheets as if she’s about to throw her whole body at me.
“Get out,” she says, and underneath the guttural tone is an unnaturally sharp one that gives her two voices instead of one.
That coupled with her violent gaze disturbs me all the way to my core.
I get out of her room faster than I’ve ever done anything in my life.
Back in my room, I shut and lock the door. Then I grab my pillow and blanket and phone, and I lock myself in my bathroom. Only after I’ve curled up in my bathtub do I let myself even think about freaking out.
What the fucking fuck is wrong with my sister?
I gasp unsteadily and dab at my face as tears run over my wounded cheek. The scratches burn something fierce, and for the first time, I wonder what they look like. But I can’t check—not right now. I’m not sure my legs could support me for another second, especially if the cuts look bad.
Unfortunately, though, when I pull my blanket back, I see blood on it.
“Oh, God,” I moan around the aching tightness in my throat.
I’ve never seen Claire like that. She’s never hit me before, even when we were younger and I occasionally pissed her off being the annoying little sister. The woman never even cusses. What brought it on? Her being sick? Was the combination of that, her nightmare, and her resenting me so much enough to bring such violence out of her?
Maybe, I try to tell myself. Maybe. Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All I know is that was the scariest expression I’ve ever seen on anyone’s face, and it was directed straight at me.
For what feels like forever, I try to decide whether or not I should call someone. My options are pretty limited and none of them sound particularly enticing: 911, Beatrix, and Rafe.
I don’t think this is really an emergency—Claire hasn’t come busting into my room threatening to kill me—so I’d rather not call 911. Rafe…well, he’s really close by, but I don’t want to talk to him.
And I think I’d be a huge asshole to bother Beatrix at 3:36 in the morning, which is the time my phone is giving me. I don’t think she’d mind, but what would I say? Definitely not, ‘Hey, it’s Mari. I’m calling because I’m scared. My big sister freaked out and scratched me like some kind of wild animal and I can’t figure out why, even though she’s been having a pretty rough time lately.’ That’s lame as fuck.
So I don’t call anyone. I sit quietly in my bathtub and keep my ears open (don’t have to try to keep my eyes open because I’m so on-edge). I wait and wait and wait, trying to figure out what I should do the next time I run into Claire.
I don’t come to any solid conclusions other than that I should be prepared to duck.
It’s 8:55 when I finally leave my bathroom. I’m ready for training except that I need some clothes. My hair is already pulled back, my teeth brushed, my scant black eyeliner touched up. I also tried to clean the deep, angry claw-marks on my left cheek, but they still looked gruesome even after I got the dried blood off of my skin. Claire’s nails really did some damage.
Once I’m appropriately dressed, I quiet down and listen hard for Beatrix’s knock on the front door. I haven’t set a toe outside my room yet, and I don’t plan to until it’s time to go.
When she arrives, I tiptoe out into the silent apartment. It’s Saturday, so Claire doesn’t have work; I feel pretty sure she’s still asleep in her room. There’s no way in fiery, torturous hell I’m going to risk waking her up—thus my very dramatic For God’s Sake, Don’t Make A Noise gesturing when I ease the front door open.
Beatrix looks confused, but she nods compliantly.
Then she sees my cheek, and her eyes widen in horror.
Then she’s pissed.
“Who the fuck?” she demands despite my frantic attempt to push outside and shut the door. “No! No!” she says, reaching around to shove the door back open. She must understand that I’m trying to keep her quiet and out of the apartment because the culprit is in there somewhere. “Who did it and where are they?”
“Beatrix, come—”
My whisper-yell cuts off in the middle of my sentence, because upon glancing into the parking lot, I see that Claire’s white Prius is nowhere in sight.
Is she gone?
I hurry into the apartment just as Beatrix appears from the direction of my bedroom.
“Mari, baby, make this easier on your girl,” she says, eyes blazing, “and tell me where the fuck I’m supposed to be looking.”
Wordless and full of curiosity, I lead the way to my sister’s room. Now that I’m with a veritable badass, I don’t feel so afraid of Claire, if she’s even here.
(I realize that makes me something of a sissy, but ask me real fast if I care.)
Indeed, her door is open and the room looks devoid of human life. I walk in and check her bathroom to find that it, too, is vacant. And as I look around, I realize there’s not an item out of place in the whole area. There’s not a single tissue in the bathroom trashcan or on the nightstand, no pajamas on the floor. Even the bed is perfectly made.
Everything looks chillingly normal.
“What the fuck?” I ask, dumbfounded.
I fully expected the place to look like a physically ill and emotionally distraught woman spent the night here. It’s weird enough that she got out without me hearing her or without her stopping by my room to give me hell with her suddenly crazy ass. Now this? It looks like nothing out of the ordinary happened for even a second—no sickness, no nightmare, no violent outburst.
“Sweetheart,” Beatrix says from behind me, “why don’t you just tell me what happened?”
I frown and turn to look at her. “Gladly.”
Maybe during her time on this earth, between being a smart woman and a Defender in the Lightforce, she’s found a way to understand craziness.