Rising (25 page)

I keep my fingers firmly wrapped around
the steering wheel, press the gas, and watch his tall figure turn to shadow as
I drive away.

I walk up the stairs to our room at
Bluebell Estates, which Gabe has taken to calling
Blueball Estates
for
no apparent reason. My bones actually ache. Bone tired. I’ve never really
understood that phrase before now. The wounds I’ve taken over the last two days
remind me that they are not yet entirely healed, and the muscles of my back are
stiff.

And the hunger… So many sleeping bodies
in the rooms around me. So many vulnerable auras.

I slide the keycard and open the door to
our room, close it gently, and then lean against the wall. For a moment, I
close my eyes and try to let it all seep away – the cold, the faces of
tonight’s dead, the song of hunger. This kind of thing never works, but I still
keep trying.

Brownie points for stubbornness.

Then I take a deep breath, all tainted
with the scent of old cigarettes and charred skin, and pull my shit together
the best I can. My brothers need me.

Gabe is closest, stretched out on his stomach
on the king bed. His feet are propped up on the pillows, his head cradled in
his arms at the foot of the bed. The light from the television flickers over
his face, but he’s in one of his dead sleeps where even a 7.0 earthquake
wouldn’t rouse him. Sir Hopsalot sits alert near his chest, nose wriggling as
he stares at me. I still marvel at the fact that the rabbit seems unbothered by
my presence. All other animals sense my “otherness” and let me know it with low
growls of warning and fearful squeaks. Sir Hopsalot either somehow understands
his special dispensation, or something’s not functioning quite right between
those long ears that hang down the sides of his face.

I pull the remote from Gabe’s unresisting
fingers and turn off a show that is apparently trying to answer the age old
question of who would win in a fight to the death between a ninja and a
Spartan. Darkness douses the room, but my eyes quickly adjust. Gabe was never
handsome, not even when he was healthy, but he always had a way of getting you
to laugh so hard that you’d forget his too-big ears and unremarkable face. All
you’d see were those brown elf eyes and wide grin. And now? Now all I see are the
bones of his fingers and wrists so plainly visible beneath his parchment skin
and the flushed face that indicates his low-grade fever still burns.

I gather up the blanket from the cot,
shoo Sir Hopsalot off the bed, and drape it over Gabe. I go next to Tarren who
lies still as a statue on the other side of the bed. In sleep all the hard lines
of his jaw, brow, and lips are softened. He doesn’t even look like Tarren. He
looks…vulnerable and young. And human.  

I wonder where the sedatives have taken
him. Someplace quiet and still? Where would Tarren go if he didn’t have the
burden of the mission lashed to his shoulders? I think about it, but I don’t
know the answer. Mission Tarren, he of the flint eyes, controlled aura, and
granite jaw, I know well. But real Tarren, the man whose face can look so
wistful, so tired when he doesn’t think anyone is looking; that person is a
stranger to me.

I need to try harder.

A note on the nightstand scribbled in
Gabe’s messy hand says,
Fen at 6 AM.
That means the Fentanyl will keep
Tarren under for another three hours, just enough time for me to catch some
blessed sleep before we need to re-medicate him and change his dressings.

Sensing safety, Sir Hopsalot jumps onto the
bed. He sniffs at Gabe’s face, walks over him, and sprawls out in the channel
between the brothers. I must have gotten to the hallucination stage of
exhaustion, because I swear I see intelligence and compassion in those wet,
black eyes.

“Rabbits are dumb,” I mutter to myself
as I turn away from the bed. I’m pretty sure I mean to go to the shower or at
least strip off my bloodstained clothes. But somehow I’m on my cot, and my eyes
are sinking shut. I listen to my brothers breathe out of sync. I can hear the
soft drums of their hearts and feel the pulse of their auras as sleep drags me
down.

I expect to dream of fire and minotaurs and
my dagger sliding out of that angel’s neck, but instead I dream of Ryan. He and
I walk through the quad toward the best Mexican restaurant in town, our hands
linked and swinging. This night Grand doesn’t stand in our path; he doesn’t reach
out and drain Ryan’s aura before my eyes. Instead, we make it into the colorful
restaurant a few blocks from campus with the cliché maracas and sombreros on
the walls. I eat tacos even though a part of me knows it’s wrong. I push those
thoughts away and concentrate on Ryan, whose face keeps shifting to Rain’s
face. I don’t mind this either. I eat taco after taco.

***

“Thirty-two seconds,” Ryan says.

“Thirty-two seconds,” the person in the
booth behind me says, who turns out to be Mrs. Marissa, the overweight woman
who used to cut my hair when I was a kid.

I stare at the half eaten taco in my
hand. “I can’t eat human food anymore,” I say to Ryan/Rain.

“Thirty-two seconds,” the waiter says.

Everyone in the restaurant turns toward
me, and together they chant, “Thirty-two seconds.”

I’m awake, though it takes me a moment
to realize it. I sway on my feet and blink against the light pouring through
the blinds.

“Thirty-two seconds.”

The haunting words seem to slither right
out of my dream. I squint in the sunlight.
Too early for so much light.
My
stomach tries out some inventive knots, as I turn to the big king bed and see
Tarren fighting against the tangle of sheets around his legs. The IV pole
lists, bumping into the bed.

“Thirty-two seconds,” he murmurs. Red-tinged
hues snake through his aura, a run-up to a full-blown nightmare.

“No, no, no,” I hiss at him. “Not that
one.”

I cast a quick glance at Gabe who is curled
on his side beneath the second blanket, still out like a light. Sir Hopsalot is
nowhere to be found, and, as usual, I think the rabbit is onto something.

Tarren moans, and his shoulders flex,
causing more red hues to lace his aura. All the scars along his back ripple and
stretch with the movement of his muscles. I’ve got to stop him. Help him, I
mean.

I set my teeth together hard and
approach the bed. The clock on the nightstand tells me it’s a little past eight
in the morning, which means…
Fuck a peacock,
I’ve been out for almost
six hours. I never sleep for six hours straight. Not since the change. No
wonder my throat feels like sandpaper, and my brain is having trouble plugging
in.

“Thirty-two seconds,” Tarren says again,
louder. “No. No.” He fights against his dream, against the cuffs around his
ankles and wrists the night he watched me drain Gabe. I remember how dark the
blood looked as it trickled from his gouged wrists through his pale hands.  

“Hey, it’s okay,” I whisper as I reach
through Tarren’s ragged aura and gently squeeze his right shoulder.

“Gabe,” Tarren chokes out. “Thirty-two seconds.
Too long. Too long.” He pants against the pillow, and his aura flares around
him. All those emotions he so successfully locks away in wakefulness are loose
and rabid. Fear. So much white fear.

“Tarren, come on, wake up.” I squeeze
his shoulder harder. He can’t be having this nightmare. Not this one, not with
Gabe in the room.

That night flashes back to me, as real
and solid as it always is. Gabe is laid across the backseat of the Murano SUV
as we race to get him to Dr. Lee. His lips turn blue, every heartbeat grows
softer, slower. Tarren in that terrifying robotic voice explains why Gabe is
going to die. Thirty-two seconds. That’s how long I drained him. Too long.

“Gabe,” Tarren moans louder, legs scissoring
under the sheets. His aura engulfs him. Engulfs us. The song, swirling in my
ears. Kicking out every thought. Breaking the locks of my control.

“Tarren, please!” I’m shaking him now,
in a way I most definitely shouldn’t be.

His eyes snap open and rivet onto me, only
a sliver of blue around his dilated pupils.

“You’re having…,” I begin.

“Too long,” he says in a husky, cracking
voice. “You held on too long. Thirty-two seconds.” His eyes are glazed and wild.

I have to get away. Now. Before…before…I
do something…something bad. I force my feet backwards.  

“He’s dead,” Tarren says. Exploding
colors around him. Plumes of red and white.

“No,” I squeak. Back, back, back. The monster
purrs. Another step back. My shoulders hit something. A wall. Still too close. I
try to wrap my hands around my waist, but they won’t go.

“Gabe,” Tarren cries, thrashing against
the bed. “Gabe. Gabe. GABE!”

God, please, no
.

“I’m right here,” Gabe says softly. He’s
sitting up on the bed next to Tarren. “Not dead. Well, mostly not dead.”

In all the chaos wracking my mind, a
clear thought pierces through.
How much did he hear?

“We’ll have to…have to bury him…in the
grove,” Tarren chokes, his words thick and slow. “With his coat. And his hat.
Where’s his hat?”

“Not yet. Tarren, come on, look at me.”
Gabe puts his hand on Tarren’s shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

Tarren reaches out and takes Gabe’s
jacket in his hand. “I promised her,” Tarren says, “that I’d protect you.”

“Mom?”

“It was the last thing she asked. The only
thing.”

“Who Tarren?” Gabe asks.

“Tammy.”

“Oh.” Reds fuse Gabe’s aura.

“I promised, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
Tarren mumbles. His eyes are distant, like he’s seeing into a different world. “Maya’s
gone,” he says. “I lost her. She ran into the snow and disappeared.”

“Maya, hand me the last syringe,” Gabe
says.

I’m in the corner of the room trying to
merge with the wall. My hands are bundled fists, nails digging into my gloves.

“They’re hurting her,” Tarren mumbles. Tendrils
of gold weave through his aura. I can’t take my eyes off those glittering hues.
Sadness. Sadness…for me?

 “Maya, syringe,” Gabe says.

“What if they’re cutting her?” Tarren’s
voice is a hoarse whisper. He tries to push up from the bed, but Gabe plants a
hand on his uninjured shoulder to keep him down.

“You’re staying right here.” Gabe’s
voice rises. “Maya, fuck, come on!”

The words penetrate, and I lurch toward
the med kit on the table.

“I have to find her,” Tarren mumbles,
still trying to push up. “I can…can…set up a perimeter on the motel.”

The remaining Fentanyl in the bottle
fills the syringe halfway. When I look up, I see Gabe watching me. He turns his
gaze back to Tarren who has stopped fighting against him.

“I’ve lost them all,” Tarren says, his
voice dropping to a whisper. He trembles. “I’m the last one left.” Colors
cascade throughout his aura – whites, reds, ambers, neon yellows, and rich
umbers. I recognize this collection of colors, this particular configuration of
pain. This is the crescendo of his nightmares.

“The last one,” Tarren says again.

Gabe’s face is a wreck, lined and weary.
He slides down onto his stomach so close to Tarren that their foreheads almost
touch.

“No Tarren. No. That’s not going to
happen,” he says. “Not ever. I swear on Mom’s grave that Maya and I will be
annoying the holy shit out of you until you die of old age in an intergalactic
nursing home. Okay?”

Using baby steps, I approach the bed and
extend my arm. Gabe sits up and takes the syringe from me. As soon as the
needle is out of my hand, I retreat back to the corner, pressing myself up
against the wall to get away from the red chaos of Tarren’s aura.

“I need you to go back to sleep for a
while, okay Tarren?” Gabe says softly.

“There was a fire,” Tarren says.

“Yeah. You got hurt.”

“Mom set it. That’s how she escaped from
Grand.”

“That was a long time ago.” Gabe flicks
the needle to get out the air. When he’s satisfied, he presses it into the IV
port attached to the back of Tarren’s hand.

“No sleep,” Tarren says and reaches for
the needle.

Gabe blocks his hand and pulls the
needle out.

 “I can’t sleep. You can’t let me sleep,”
Tarren moans. The fear is back in his voice and in his aura. That terrible,
un-Tarren-like fear. The scars shine on his flesh as his muscles lock out.

“I’m sorry Tarren,” Gabe says.

“No sleep.” Tarren grabs handfuls of
Gabe’s shirt. The IV pole tilts over the bed. “No….sl…” His aura flags, all
that red spiraling away as if it were being sucked down an invisible drain. I
think he’s out again, but then he raises his head and slurs, “I’m sorry I made
you wear a dress.”

His eyes close, and his head falls onto
the pillow. The last pale hues dissipate from his aura.

“Not as sorry as I am,” Gabe mutters as
he unlocks Tarren’s fingers from his shirt. He tucks the sheet around his
brother’s shoulders, and for a while the room is filled only with the sound of
Tarren’s slow, heavy breaths.