Fade (15 page)

Then it was mostly her, shivering. Lucy wondered if the others had seen things like this. No, she hadn’t just seen, she had
lived
that memory. But Lucy doubted they had. Angela and Cynthia wouldn’t have been able to have gone looking as she had. They didn’t have her abilities. She wondered, after what she’d just experienced, if that might not be a good thing.

Everything became black, but it didn’t take her long to realize she was still him—in his memory, his unconscious mind. It was what he knew but did not know. The things his unconscious mind heard and felt. For instance, she felt the pressure, but not the pain of the butchery they did on his head. She heard them talk, muffled, distant—like sound through a wall. She listened as they spoke in their language. But Jonas
knew
their language and this was his memory. They were proud of themselves for their plan.

She (no,
remember girl,
this was Jonas.) awoke in a hospital the Fade had taken over. Straps dug into his arms, a parabolic curve of light blinded him. His mouth was dry. The pain in his head came like a shaft of widening light. He rose as much as the straps allowed and let out a growling scream so loud that it hurt his ears. He was bleeding. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt natural. Pulling his face together in pain, he felt the stitches for the first time. He screamed out at what he realized the Fade had done.

Hands rough as fresh-hewn wood pulled at him as the straps came free. A fresh blush of blood soared into his tingling extremities, exciting and painful at once. He struggled, but was too weak. Lucy could feel, see, hear it all. But she felt herself too, separating from him. The dog-like stench of the Fade lessened. The feeling that her joints might pop right out of their sockets became his alone once more. The feel of the warm summer air, then the damp hot back of the vehicle they threw him into was no longer hers. Lucy was watching from a distance, seeing him come in, and go out, of consciousness, being driven for miles and then left, alone, bleeding from the wound in his skull.

Then another memory came from a time before this. She watched a blue arch on the horizon set the sky on fire, thousands of the Fade pouring through. Jonas fought the Fade alongside others; watched friends die, watched them be heroes, just as Jonas had said. The memory flickered. She felt the hand of Elizabeth sweep across his forehead after they’d ripped the ability to fight out of him—as he healed. Again. Lucy’s heart jumped as she held Jonas’ daughter for the first time, then yelped to everyone in the room that this was his little girl. The memories started to come more quickly. By the hundreds, then thousands, they mobbed her. Trampling her ability to differentiate and comprehend. What had she done? What string had she pulled to unleash this upon herself? Jonas warned her. He said she didn’t know enough and that something horrible could happen. Why didn’t she listen?

Lucy pushed back, unable to handle all of it. There was no processing this amount of information. This was another life, told in a moment. The pain was immense. She opened her mouth to beg it to stop, but it was over. They had come and gone, like the temporary and raucous clamor of a passing train. She felt herself being pulled away, to the waking world, all of this falling behind until it was a distant memory and then, nothing at all.

TWELVE

T
hey stood in a loose circle right outside the camp the Fade had made in the woods. Kah’en looked up at the two giants that stared back with the respect afforded his position. “Jonas said he will join us. It is a small edge, but any edge is good against Aern.” Kah’en spoke in the harsh, crackling language of his people, but in a whisper, to the two warriors gathered round—the Fade who would be his generals in this rebellion. Kah’en had always been aware of the obvious racial differences in he and the Fade, but he was a Janar—the Queen’s chosen—and it had never mattered. But now he was standing there, planning sedition against those who had been his kind's brothers for generations. Their charcoal skin and iridescent eyes had never seemed so alien to him. Even standing with the Fade who would be by his side in battle, he felt the weight of his actions.

“I still have my doubts about the human.
Any
human.” A tall, thin warrior said.

Kah’en responded, “He can be trusted because he wants Aern dead. He will do anything to accomplish that.”

The shorter, but wide, warrior growled and nodded. “He will have a king’s funeral?”

“Of course," Kah'en said. "Aern still has my respect. He is just misguided.”

“The Queen would understand.” Tall and Thin said, sounding like he were striving to convince himself rather than the others.

“She would understand that all I want to feel is the sun of home on my face once again,” Kah’en said. “And not die on a fool’s quest.”

The woods around them—the buzz of insects and the fluttering of leaves in the wind—were the sole sound for a long while. The afternoon sun, fragmented sheets of light through the branches above, flecked their faces. Short but Wide nodded at last.

“Are we in doubt, my friends?” Kah’en swallowed.

“No. No! This is just no small thing that we do.”

“Agreed,” Tall and Thin said. “We make ourselves traitors.” He looked up, eyes wide, ready to clarify. “But we must! …I
know
we must.”

Kah’en lived with that epithet for a moment, feeling even farther away from men he would call brothers. In a way, to be a traitor and a Janar was worse than if one were of the Fade. The Janar had been the first, and they stood with the Queen as she gave her wisdom to the Fade. “We are not traitors. We do that which will save those who follow the Queen. If we all die on this blind quest, who will be left to speak her name?”

Both the warriors nodded, looked more hopeful even. They were nervous. But of course they were nervous. They had served under Aern for all of their adult lives and to betray him was almost unthinkable. He felt that, too. But Kah’en was of the chosen of the Queen. This was his duty—to hold her name high and always. With all of his being, he believed that to be what he was doing. And her name was above Aern’s in all things.

He watched the others go, his mind on his task. The sound of those sent to gather supplies returning brought him out of himself. He heard the clink of the bottles of the human’s alcohol that Aern grew so found of during the war. The muffled sound of struggling females wouldn’t be far behind. But as he came into the clearing in which they camped, it was the various pieces of machinery they had gathered that he was most interested in.

Each wire and tool brought them that much closer to repairing Aern’s powered armor. If they accomplished this before the rebellion, there would be no rebellion. Even if all of them turned against Aern they would be thrown down like dolls of rag. But the first thing Aern reached for was a bottle of the human’s wine, waving at the inevitable young women to be prepared for him.

Aern’s gaze caught his and he beckoned Kah'en as well.

Kah’en watched as he gulped the wine. The women’s muffled screams were white noise. Aern would have at those disgusting things, but then they’d be mutated into Golem as it should have been to begin with. His disgust must have been apparent. Aern put down his wine.

“I revel because we are close.”

You revel,
thought Kah’en¸
because you are a drunkard with no thought for tomorrow.
“Yes, Aern.”

“This is the point where I would search our ranks for some warrior who I thought was worthy enough to share my good bounty with for the day.” He placed a heavy hand on Kah’en’s shoulder, his smile shrank. “That has often been you.”

“Thank you.”

“No.” His cherry red eyes went to the ground. “No, no. I will remember
that
warrior. Not this one.”

Kah’en’s muscles tightened. His head buzzed with anticipation. “What do you mean, Aern?”

“Let’s not… We have fought alongside one another for years. Trusted each other with lifeblood. I try to see your betrayal as having nothing to do with me. But it still must be punished.” Aern’s sharp and yellowing canines showed longer than necessary with his last word. His heavy brow tightened.

“There is no betrayal, Aern.” Kah’en took a step back, stopped by the hands of one of Aern’s personal guards.

“Please.” Aern sat back. “Calm. I would rather you take this as the Janar I respected. One last act of respect for our cause, at least.”

Kah’en’s head dropped.

“Your death will kill the rebellion. This is best. But, you will be remembered as a traitor. I truly find that sad.”

Kah’en believed that he did.

“I will take you myself to your human comrades and they will be punished with you.”

Kah’en’s eyes widened.

“I have known long enough to have you followed to your meeting with Jonas. He has been followed also and I know where he and his hide now.”

“Aern…”

“No more. Sentimentality is at an end.” He nodded at two warriors who took Kah’en from Aern’s makeshift throne of logs and pelts. “When we finally meet, I will not tell the Queen of your treachery. For you, there is that.”

***

Jonas opened his eyes and let out a loud, wavering gasp. Angela jumped, dropping the rag with which she’d been dotting his bleeding nose. Cynthia, looking frail, arms crossed, stared down at him.

“What happened?” He pushed himself from the couch and looked around for Lucy. “Was Lucy hurt?”

“She’s okay. You were doing your thing and then just fell out. She’s lying down.”

“I guess…” The memory—Lucy’s memory—punched into the forefront of his brain and he flinched. “I guess I was pushing myself harder than I thought.”

“Don’t kill yourself, old man.” Cynthia tried to smile, she and Angela following him to his room. He could feel how unsteady he must seem to them.

“I’m—” He swallowed hard. “I just need to lie down. I’ll be fine. Thank you, girls.”

They left Jonas sitting on the edge of his bed. He
was
tired. He had indeed pushed himself too far. But what he had seen in Lucy’s mind played itself, full-screen. He wondered
why
he had seen it. Perhaps a part of her had wanted him to. But the content was much more compelling than any question of why.

He heard Cynthia clear her throat as she passed, and then her door closed. If Lucy hadn’t gotten up, that was Angela he heard in the kitchen. He caught himself, realizing that he was planning on sneaking out. He couldn’t do that. He had to be sensible.

Staring down at the gray carpet, his breathing picked up. He gritted his teeth, that sick bastard’s face clear in his mind.
Screw sensible!
He stood and put on his shoes. There was no place for sensibility in this situation. His girl had been molested by her own damned step-father. He stopped.
Don’t overreact, Jonas
, he told himself. Do
be sensible.
He stood by the door of his room for a long time, then grabbed his jacket and walked out into the hall.

“Jonas? Where are you going?” Angela asked, meeting him in the hallway with a cup of what smelled like tea. She had thick bags under her eyes.

“I need to go out. Fresh air,” he said, moving past her.

“Um,” she said, staring after him.

Cynthia opened her door and poked her head out. “
Where’s
he going?”

Jonas pushed through the door and out into the warm afternoon. Second thoughts were more distant now than they would be later—as regret would be later. He drove. The address, like the memory, was clear in his mind. As was the tactile memory of every recoil at every fetid touch; it was fading—that deep sense of being there—but the memories alone fueled him like gasoline. He saw the
Fat
Sack
in his mind’s eye, and everything he had trained to do to
his
world’s worst enemies ran riot in his brain, vying to be chosen.

Flares of the setting sun leapt from the hood of his rental into the nothing that was behind him. Trees,
oaks
, tall and thick, were a blur. The motor growled as fierce as four cylinders could manage. Fleets of trees turned to shabby, out-of-the-way homes where the paint peeled like dead skin, and then to what Black Oaks might call downtown with its country stores-slash-gas stations, Kroger and various shops offering everything from haircuts to shoes, none of which Jonas noted. The sign which said: Turner 8 Miles,
that
he saw, and pressed harder on the pedal.

The memories he shared with Lucy were becoming simple facts now. The emotion she associated with them was almost faded, but his own deep emotional response was fierce. He still knew the way. He still knew that her step-father would have gotten off work half an hour before, and would be tinkering in the garage until her step-mother got home. Much of what she knew had leaked in around the edges of that memory, begging him to do something about it. Lucy’s step-mother wouldn’t arrive for another hour. Plenty of time.

The neighborhood was flush with blooming trees and the same basic house design every three or four homes.
Turn right.
People walked their dogs, kids skateboarded and rode their bikes, a woman jogged.
Left. Then right.
A small group of kids slid out of a minivan in their filthy football gear.
One more right.
Life went on all around him, but he was not there to observe life, but to avenge for a type of murder. Ahead, on his left, a shabby, red Ford truck sat half in the garage, and a man in a blue work shirt leaned into its cab.

Jonas slammed on the brakes; his car slid, squealing to a stop, a loud bump as he hit the curb caused the man in the blue shirt to jump and turn. That face. The wretched face that haunted his daughter—that face would never be the same, by damn.

***

The fact that it was several miles to town hit her the moment Cynthia felt a safe distance from the shelter. Any thought of turning back was edged aside by her cold, nagging need. There was still light, but it would be getting dark before she got to Joey’s. She had nabbed two hundred bucks Jonas left lying on the grimy dresser in his bedroom after he left, and would spend every penny sating the hungry thing in her brain.