Life is Strange, page 15
Nothing’s moving anymore.
All around me is stillness, silence so sharply deafening, it feels like all sound has been sucked into a vacuum. The smell of pond scum fills my nose, and the taste of dewy morning air tickles my mouth and throat. My forehead feels wet, the breeze cool against my cold sweat, and I look up to see my own hand outstretched, embracing the large yet smooth hand of Jonah Macon, and when I look up at his face, I’m unprepared for what I see.
Those once movie-star-like blue eyes have lost their shine. They’re dull, empty, lost. His mouth is a flat line.
“Jonah?” I ask. He’s totally still, staring at my face like he’s gazing into a black hole. He blinks, snaps out of it, but instead of his usual smiling self, he swallows, clears his throat, takes my hand in both of his, and nods.
“Uh,” he says, like he’s forgotten an important meeting. “I, um… I forgot I have somewhere I have to be.”
He slips his hand from mine and turns and walks—no, he flees back down the path, faster than he ran here.
“Jonah, are you okay?” I holler, my voice bouncing off the waters of the lake and sending a flock of Canada geese into the air a few feet from where Jonah is still running.
“I forgot I have an important meeting this morning!”
And I watch him get smaller and smaller around the lake, until he darts left into the birch trees and back through the woods.
I sit in silence for minutes and minutes, until a chorus of honks picks up in the sky and those same geese return to their home on the opposite side of the lake.
I look down at my right hand, where that searing pain ripped through my flesh. I half expect to see burns all over it, but it looks fine. Feels fine.
I sigh and look back up toward the birch trees, wondering if I dialed up Jonah Macon’s fears enough for him to do something, or if I dialed them up enough for him to do something…
…reckless.
I remember the look in his eyes when he said he had to go. Those soulless, empty, terrified eyes, and I get a sinking feeling that I’ve overdone it this time.
I slide my phone out of my pocket, unlock it, find Steph’s number and hit dial.
No reception.
I growl, jump to my feet, and start the long walk back along the path, texting as I go.
Steph, I think I made a mistake
I type. Send.
Steph, I think I made a mistake
Unable to send.
“Ugh!” I grunt.
Damn small towns and their spotty cell service. Maybe if Jonah can reroute that dam money back to Barbazal, they could afford a decent cell tower.
I have to find Steph. Who knows what Jonah will do with that absolute terror I gave him? I reach up and dig my fingers into my hair, noticing my breathing is faster than usual. I shut my eyes against this. I feel my fingers, my hands, my arms, sear with that burning stinging I felt when I connected with Jonah’s fears, and I wonder what the hell I’ve done.
Something horribly, horribly wrong.
I’ve created a monster.
I’m so lost in thought that I lose my footing, my shoes sliding down the gravel embankment, and I go flying.
“Ahh!” I scream as my face hits the water first. Freezing cold floods my clothes, my hair, my shoes, and I scramble for the surface as fast as I can, gasping down air when I get there.
I cough and wheeze, frantically wiping water from my eyes.
“Hey, Doctor Frankenstein,” Gabe would say.
If Gabe were here, he would just stand there, arms folded, smirking down at me. I imagine his voice now, for comfort, for some semblance of stability.
“Converse? Really?” he would ask. “You couldn’t have worn running shoes?”
“You suck, you know that?” I ask aloud, a surprised chuckle taking over my voice as I scramble out of the water and trudge up the rocky side. Out of breath and soaking wet, I cradle my arms around myself and step up onto the path. “And what’s with the Frankenstein thing?”
Gabe would explain with something ridiculous like,
“Isn’t he the most famous monster-creator of all time?”
I freeze at my own revelation, feeling my eyes narrow as the words sink in.
“I didn’t technically create a monster. I just turned up the heat on what was already there.”
“Would you be a different person if you were extra afraid?” he would press.
Afraid of what? I wonder.
“Well,” he would ask, “were you a different person when Jed shot you?”
I stop and think about the implications of that. Was I a different person?
“I barely remember that night. But I didn’t turn into a monster.”
I think back to the night I lost Gabe, the memory of huddling with Ryan under the cliffside while boulders as big as cars rocketed down the mountain toward my brother, at his face, at his eyes, knowing he had no time to—
I interrupt my own thoughts.
What if I were afraid for someone else?
Someone like…
…oh my god.
Steph.
12: Not Out of the Woods Yet
I tear through the trees like my life depends on it—no, like Steph’s life depends on it.
I just unleashed a highly unstable man into the town of Barbazal, where Steph is, and he’s already got a significant head start. I have to make sure she’s not in his line of fire, whatever that ends up looking like.
“Steph!” I holler, darting left at the clothes line and summoning more power into my feet. Why did I leave her? What’s going on? If Jonah so much as laid a finger on her… And I hope, in the back of my head, in the deepest part of my heart, that Steph’s okay.
I look down and try my phone again as I run—a bad idea, but what choice do I have?
The call drops.
“Dammit!” I holler, feeling my foot catch on something hard, a shelf of some kind in the ground. And I land on that same stupid tree stump with an oof!
“Double dammit!” I mutter, pushing myself to my feet, feeling my right knee searing with pain. I look down and see the bloody scrape through my jeans, and the scrapes on both my hands, and I force myself to run despite the pain.
I have to find her.
“Come on, Steph,” I hiss breathlessly, lifting my phone again, gingerly this time against my stinging hands, hitting that little green phone button and running on.
Ring!
“Yes!” I scream, my feet bounding through the withered grass until I reach the end of the tree line and the fine lush green lawn. Mayor Biggs’ house stands before me in all its glory, and I look around at the empty yard—empty except for that lone magnolia in the middle of the sprawling grass.
Huh. It’s weird out here.
I was expecting to hear something—anything. Crickets maybe? Birds?
But no, nothing.
It’s quiet.
So very, very quiet…
Too quiet.
I instinctively duck down low, slinking across the lawn like a jungle cat, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I feel a shiver go up my spine even though the sun, which has already risen over the horizon line, is plenty high enough to start casting its merciless heat over the valley, and over Barbazal.
And over me.
I feel the sweat beading on my forehead, and I look frantically around me as I make my way round the side of the house, between the house and the barn where they keep Biggs’ classic car collection.
“Alex?” comes a voice I recognize, but one I’ve only come to know recently. A man’s voice. Too deep to be Jonah’s. Too high to be Elias’s. Too smooth to be Silas’s.
I turn.
Mayor Biggs stands there on the lawn, maybe twenty feet from me, casually holding a glass of water.
His face indicates he’s confused.
No shit.
He told me I could come up here yesterday. When Clover would be home. Not today too, in the wee hours of the morning, creeping around in the woods at the back of his property, soaking wet after clearly having been in the lake.
His eyes narrow, and full-blown panic sets in. I need to think of a story, and quick.
“I-I can explain,” I begin, as he steps toward me, warmly, so he can hear me better. “Clover, uh—”
Oh shit, what do I say?! Clover gave me directions to the lake where she’s been meeting her secret boyfriend?
“Yes?” he asks, eyebrow cocked curiously. “What about Clover?”
Suddenly I hear a noise nearby—something mechanical. A door unlatching?
The sliding glass patio door leading into the living room where Steph, Opal, and I all bonded, slides open, and out steps…
“Clover?” I ask.
Her eyebrows fall at the sight of me, and she steps forward and off the patio, one hand instinctively protecting her belly before she thinks better of it and drops her hand again.
And then I realize…
…Mayor Biggs doesn’t know she’s pregnant.
My eyes grow wide, and Mayor Biggs leans in front of me to break my gaze at his daughter.
“What about Clover?” he asks.
“She, um,” I begin. Come on, Alex, think of something! You can’t just tell him she and Jonah are together, think of something else!
Clover’s eyes are wide with desperation, and I practically hear them screaming, Don’t tell him.
“She gave us the engine parts.”
Mayor Biggs’ face relaxes a bit, but his eyes trail my face, up and down, like he’s reading my expression, inspecting for lies.
“Huh,” he says, glancing at his daughter. “Did she?”
“They came out easy,” says Clover, glancing at me. She seems to relax a little at what I’ve said.
“And what were you doing in the back woods on my property so early in the morning?”
“She was checking out the old stump!” offers Clover, stepping forward, fully in the conversation now. “I… told her about the old stump. You know, the one as wide as your pickup truck, Daddy.”
Mayor Biggs looks between Clover and me like he’s caught his daughters smoking weed at a slumber party.
“Is that true, Alex?”
“Yes,” I say, way too fast.
Way to go, me.
“Is that all you were doing back there?” he asks. “Because I happened to see a certain Jonah Macon sprint out of these woods not too long ago like he had a bear chasing him.”
Clover is frozen still where she stands, and I wonder if she’s trying as hard as I am not to move. Not to flinch. Not to give any indication that we know what’s going on with Jonah Macon.
“Now,” he says, swirling his water and examining it like he’s painting the sides of the glass with it or something, “If one of you were canoodling with that young man, I won’t mind it, so long as it’s you, Alex.”
I gulp.
The hell do I say?
“I wasn’t… We weren’t…”
But then I realize, if I don’t admit to “canoodling” with “this young man”—do people actually say those things? Mayor Biggs is starting to sound like a cartoon character—and I insist that Clover wasn’t either, I’ll have to come up with an explanation for why I’m soaking wet with lake water, and Jonah is running scared for his life through the property.
I realize anything I say right now is going to get me into trouble. I’m on Mayor Biggs’ property, outside the hours he said I could be here. Clover can’t exactly vouch for me any more than directing me to a huge stump in the woods. Neither of those things explains the existence of Jonah.
All I have left to tell is the truth.
I give Clover an apologetic look, and her mouth parts as if to jump in before I can say anything more.
So I say it fast.
“Mayor Biggs, there’s something you should know about Jonah Macon,” I begin, glancing back at Clover, and down at her belly. What I’m about to say will protect them. Both of them—Clover and kiddo. I hope one day she can see that, and forgive me.
“Go on?” he asks.
“That dam up the river? It’s not just generating power for Barbazal. It’s producing a surplus—”
“Alex—” Clover cuts in, but Mayor Biggs shushes her.
“Darlin’, let’s hear what Alex has to say. If it concerns the dam, it concerns us all.”
Clover gives me one last pleading look.
But I have to do this.
“It’s producing a surplus. And that surplus is going back to the city.”
He pauses, staring at me like he’s waiting for more. Clearly this isn’t a revelation to him.
“Well yes, of course, Alex,” he says finally, and chuckles. “That’s how it works. We produce a surplus and bank it for future consumption. It’s why Barbazal’s never without power, and it’s quite affordable for our residents.”
“No, sir, that surplus isn’t getting banked. It’s being sold back to Denver, and the money’s replacing a portion of the public funding you’ve been getting. Jonah Macon’s been paying back your public funding with hydropower to appease his biggest donors. I’m—”
I feel my jaw cramping up from holding back tears.
“I’m sorry, Mayor Biggs.”
I can’t look at him. I certainly can’t bring myself to look at Clover. What must she think of me? Revealing Jonah’s biggest secret. Or… maybe second-biggest.
I stare at my shoes, expecting the inevitable questioning: How do you know this? Do you have proof? Where is Jonah now?
But he stays silent for so long that I wonder if he’s going to say anything at all.
When I finally look back up at him, he looks from me to Clover, and then back to me.
“You’re sure of this?” he asks.
I nod, frantically, hoping, praying he’ll believe me.
For his sake, not mine. Barbazal’s wellbeing depends on it.
But instead of questions, instead of wanting to find out more, I feel a hand clamp around my wrist and another hand slapped over my mouth.
“Hey!” I go to scream, but it’s muffled against warm fingers. Mayor Biggs is pulling me against him and starts to move. He’s dragging me across the lawn.
If I can just get one good scream out…
My teeth search for his fingers, but his hand is cupped. Dammit.
“Daddy!” screams Clover.
“Shut up, Clover, and help me keep her in the house until we figure out what to do.”
“Let go of me!” I holler, my voice muffled under his hand.
I look up as he pulls me along, that brilliant red aura pulsing above him, and then it sinks in. Oh my god. This is my fault.
The whole yard goes blood red, the air swirling with clots of what look like tissue, flying past my eyes. I yank and struggle in his grip, but his fingers against my arms just make them ache more.
This isn’t Biggs.
This is the Biggs I created.
And if I created this in Biggs… what have I done to Jonah?
Clover steps forward and grabs at her father’s arms, trying to pry them off me.
“Let her go!” she shrieks. “She’s done nothing wrong!”
“Not yet,” he hisses. “I won’t hurt her, Clover, don’t worry, but we have to keep her quiet.”
My shoes can’t find traction in the grass because Mayor Biggs keeps lifting me up so far I can barely touch the ground. My screams find no ears, I’m sure, but I release them anyway, scratching at his hands and arms as often as I can get my own hands free.
“Where the hell are you taking me?” I shriek, but it comes out like a pillowed, garbled mess under his palm.
But I get my answer.
Mayor Biggs drags me into the house, and as soon as I’m back in that living room with the leather chairs where Opal drank too much wine and nearly killed herself, he lets me go.
I drop to the floor from the force of it, and wipe the taste of his fingers away from my lips, glaring up at him.
“What the hell, man?” I spit. “I’m doing you a favor, and you’re fucking kidnapping me?”
“Not kidnapping,” he grins as if we’re discussing a news article over a nice lunch. “I just want to talk.”
Maybe I’ve been on the internet too much, but that I just want to talk is my first clue that he definitely does not want to talk. He won’t hesitate to stop talking and start swinging if I don’t do as he says.
“Daddy—” begins Clover again.
“Clover, lock the front door.”
It’s a command, not a question, and I half expect Clover to stand up to her father in defiance. Where is that sharp, fierce woman I met just yesterday? She melts away, and Clover obediently goes to the door and does as he says.
I wince as I hear that door clasp, sealing me in here.
“Now,” he says, folding his hands together behind him and walking around me. I’m still kneeling in the living room as he does. “Alex, you told me you and your friend aren’t journalists, but for a non-journalist, you seem to have uncovered some hard-hitting truths.”
He won’t ever know I can see into people’s emotions. I wish he’d give me one. Just one aura, and I could probably get myself out of this. For a man driven by anger, he’s impossibly locked down.
“The thing about commanding a small town run on love and compassion, Alex, is the people are counting on me to keep them afloat.”
What a horrific choice of words for someone steering a town through a drought.
“And if I have to do that by selling some of our excess hydropower to Denver, then that’s what I have to do.”
“It was you?” I hiss back. “You authorized the dam that’s baking this town dry? Why? You need those farms to pull in revenue! What’s the point? You’re shooting yourself in the foot.”
He chuckles condescendingly, as if he’s realizing just how much dumbing-down he needs to do to get me to understand his position.
“Who said Barbazal was going to stay a farming community?” he asks. “That’s no way to adapt an economy to climate change. Now, manufacturing? That’s sustainable, even in a drought. But we don’t have the experience. Our people know agriculture, and we know tourism. Or at least, we did, when we were the only rest stop on the 202. But we’re not out of the game yet.”
