Life is Strange, page 4
If I was drinking water, it would be flying out my nose and all over the carpet.
“Oh my god,” I snort.
“Besides,” she continues, pulling her drumsticks out of her back pocket, “I have a feeling we’ll get outta here a lot faster if we assert ourselves, you know?”
“Are you insinuating we start threatening people with drumsticks?”
“Hell, no. These are way too expensive to be used as weapons,” she says. “Unless we’re secretly in the middle of a LARP you forgot to tell me about, and these are actually magic wands.”
I roll my eyes.
“That’s what I need,” I sigh wistfully. “Another LARP.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot I still owe you my hand in marriage.”
“Oh yeahhhh,” I tease, “and all its associated benefits.”
“At least wait ’til we have a room,” she whispers, reaching over and intertwining her fingers in mine. I go warm all over.
We both look up at Silas and Jude, who are in the middle of a quite heated discussion, probably about the room in question.
I overhear a conversation right behind us, and I don’t dare turn around.
“That Maisie miss is gonna get us all killed,” says a woman.
Someone else lends their voice.
“Right? How can she support this?” they ask.
“Yes, we should get to decide what to do with our bodies,” chimes another, reinforcing the first two. “This isn’t a morality question, it’s a question of healthcare.” Damn. Zero regard for the environment and opposes the right to bodily autonomy. Yikes. I glance at Steph, who doesn’t seem to notice the conversation happening behind us—she’s still watching Silas and Jude.
“So,” continues Steph, “what was up with Elias anyway, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“He really freaked out at us. And you seemed really bothered by whatever you saw in his… uh… aura. Did you find out what his deal is?”
I grow quiet. I can only imagine. Clearly cars are Elias’s thing, and… actually, they’re Jonah’s too. His whole procession was filled with them—classic ones, even that bright red one with the chrome rims and white walls. It looked just like the one in the music box.
“Uh, hello? Earth to Alex?”
“Ah, sorry, I was… thinking.”
“Let me know if this is too personal a question but… since you saw his aura…”
She pulls her hand away and steps in front of me, all ears now.
“What was it like?”
“Blue, mostly,” I say. “I can’t figure out why. Something about Jonah Macon makes Elias so sad. Maybe they had a fight at some point?”
“Or maybe they fought over a lover.”
Yuck. “Or maybe, given the fact that they look like they’re thirty years apart, Jonah used to work for him?”
“You seem really invested in all of this,” says Steph. She squeezes my hand and leans in. “Remember to protect yourself, alright? I know you feel for people. Deeply.”
“Thanks, Steph. I promise, I’m looking out for me.”
But, these people have a pretty dire situation on their hands. A drought? An election coming up? Isn’t that happening this week?
I remember what the woman somewhere behind us said: That Maisie miss is gonna get us all killed.
“Or,” I continue, “what if it has to do with Maisie Dorsey?”
Steph shrugs, just as Silas and Jude wrap up whatever they were discussing and walk toward us.
“Alright, ladies, here’s what we can do for you,” says Silas, hands out apologetically again.
Steph and I both know the answer we’re about to get. Nothing. That’s what they can do for us. Where the hell are we going to stay tonight?
“Shit,” mutters Steph so only I can hear. I squeeze her hand back, letting her know that it’ll be alright.
“I can call Darius. He’s the town deputy. He can see if we have the resources to get y’all to Fort Collins. He’s good friends with Henry, who leads the weekly convoy into the city for farming supplies. They might be able to get y’all there by Saturday—”
“Saturday?” asks Steph, shaking her head. “Our show is Friday night. We can’t get anything sooner? Isn’t there a bus out here or anything?”
Jude and Silas look at each other in humble disappointment.
“’Fraid not,” admits Silas, lowering his voice to almost a whisper. “Oh, and uh, that room Elias promised you is being rented out to the man himself—”
Jude conducts the most aggressive throat-clearing I’ve ever heard in my life.
“Is occupied.”
“The man himself” has to be Jonah Macon. Steph has to be thinking the same thing judging by how she’s looking at me.
So he’s already in his room, and all these paparazzi are standing around for nothing.
“Well, so much for that,” says Steph, shrugging.
“Well, hold on now, I ain’t finished yet. Y’all need somewhere to stay tonight, right? I don’t have much space in my trailer as it is, but I got room in my backyard for a tent and a couple sleeping bags.”
Steph and I exchange a smile. Camping doesn’t sound so bad.
4: Camping
Silas owns a chicken coop. Chickens are loud.
“What if one of them shits on the tent?” I ask, staring up at the coop.
“Relax,” chuckles Steph, engrossed in something on her phone. “We’re not in the coop. When’s the last time you saw a chicken projectile shit on anything?”
“Fair.”
I watch Steph as she sits there, extremely focused. Her lips hang slightly open as she types, the light from her phone flickering in her eyes. She’s sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag. Both of the sleeping bags smell like animal, probably from Hector’s dog, Chrissy. Poor Silas was so kind to let us stay in his yard, but his love for animals is quite… perceptible.
Steph sighs, and then notices me looking.
“What?”
“Does this count as a ‘room’?” I ask, throwing in an eyebrow wiggle for good measure.
“Oh my god,” she laughs. I love making her smile like that. I live for it. “Hold on, rowdy, I’m putting out an APB first.”
“For what?”
“To see if anyone from Haven Springs knows anyone in Barbazal with a spare actual room.”
“Wow, you must really love roughing it,” I smile.
“I actually don’t mind. It’s beautiful out here. But the smell, and the… squawking—”
The rooster interrupts her just as she says the word squawking, sending us into an eruption of laughs.
“Exactly, buster,” she gestures toward the coop. “Even the birds have started mansplaining.”
I shake my head and look up at the sky. The stars are twinkling like diamonds, and here I am with the girl of my dreams, in a stranger’s backyard with chickens and sleeping bags, our instruments safely covered under a tarp in the back of his truck. On our way to Fort Collins to start a new adventure, traveling the world, taking on everything, for real this time.
Hopefully.
And I think I must be the luckiest girl alive.
“You were right, Gabe,” I mouth to the heavens, “I’m making my own way.”
I’m facing my fears, Gabe. Finding new spaces, I hum, keeping the words to myself while Steph enjoys the scenery. I reach for my guitar case now, click it open, and pull out my friend, give her a quick tuning, and strum my fingers along her strings as I hum the next line.
You know how I feel about brand new places.
But under the stars, there’s a world to explore,
I watch Steph as she stares up at the sky in wonder, smiling to herself.
With the girl of my dreams. How could I ask for more?
A summer breeze rolls through the yard, through the mesh of the tent, and makes the hair on my arms stand on end. And I realize why it feels weird. It’s been so hot all day, sitting here outside feels like being in a refrigerator. It reminds me how cold that icy blue over Elias’s head was—how it felt, how it weighed heavy on my chest.
I suddenly remember his words. Jonah Macon won’t bring home the bacon until he makes it rain.
“What do you think Elias meant?” I’m asking Gabe, really, but this time I say it loud enough for Steph to hear.
“I think he meant business,” says Steph absentmindedly as she scrolls.
“I mean about Jonah ‘making it rain’?”
“Usually people mean strip clubs,” she smiles.
“You think Barbazal has a strip club?”
“Horny people are everywhere.”
She has a point.
Ugh, what am I saying? I’m letting her distract me again.
“I mean, this whole drought situation must be really serious. Silas couldn’t even spare us more than a water bottle each. The hotel with the emergency water supply is now out of water too. The trees are dying. These people are desperate.”
That gets her attention. She sets her phone down on her sleeping bag, curls her knees up to her chest, and stares at me.
“Yeah,” she says, “I hope Jonah comes through for them.”
Silence passes between us until Steph puts together what I’m thinking.
“You don’t think Elias wants Jonah to play dirty, do you?”
“I don’t know what else ‘make it rain’ could mean, with the way he said it. He pointed right at me with the Uncle Sam face like,” I lower my voice and imitate exactly how he said it, like a grandpa, “make it rain.”
Steph scoffs. “That could mean anything.” But after a moment, she humors me. “But… with how much he hates Jonah, it could be why he’s mad at him. Maybe Jonah won’t ruffle feathers, and given the water situation, maybe Elias thinks it’s high time they should?”
“‘High time’?” I chuckle. “We’ve been in Barbazal too long.”
“Anyway, again, don’t get too invested,” she says. “There’s not much we can do anyway, you know? We’ve got a show to pull off in a couple of days and, for now, no way to get there.”
I look out through the tent screen on the other side, where we can see half the town square. Up on this hillside, despite the noise of the chickens, Silas has a pretty sweet setup. The view is unbeatable. So many twinkling lights in the town. The Crown Inn has quieted down since we were there. Most of the guest room lights are off or dimly lit, everyone having given up on catching a glimpse of Jonah Macon. Then I notice something I never would have without a view like this.
Atop the inn, there’s an extra block of building, like it was an afterthought when the engineers were designing the place. Windows on all sides, with curtains blocking the view in. The lights are all on one minute, and the next…
…they’re off.
But before the last of the light dims, I’m sure I see, against the curtained window, a figure just inside.
Is… is that the penthouse suite? That’s where penthouses usually are, right? On the very top floor? Surrounded by windows? Where no one can bother the super-important people inside?
Where else would Jonah Macon be staying but the penthouse suite?
Would Elias have access to it at all times like that? Confident enough to tell us to drop his name to Jude and guarantee it would be ours for the night? How does he have so many connections in this town?
I remember how easy it was for Jed to give me a room upstairs. He owned Haven Springs.
What if Elias “owns” Barbazal? How would he?
And then it clicks.
It’s got to be Jonah.
Elias and Jonah have some kind of connection, after all. Who else would cause so much fanfare?
“Steph?”
“Oh no,” she says, playfully. I look back at her. “You said my name like you’re about to suggest something really crazy.”
“Crazy? Or… brave?”
“Probably both, given how you’re looking at me.”
There’s a hint of flirtation in her voice, a golden halo around her head, warm and bright and electric. I feel it zipping all over me like tiny shocks, and that glow in her eyes, as they travel down me and back up to my face… I shiver inside, and wish I didn’t have to direct this conversation where I do.
“What if…” I begin. Steph’s right, it’s crazy.
And brave.
“What if I just… talked to Jonah?”
“You want to talk to Jonah Macon?” she asks. “You think he’ll give us a ride to Fort Collins?”
“No, I mean,” I say, scrambling for words. How do I make this sound like a good idea? “What if I talked him into helping these people with the drought?”
Steph does her absolute best, I can tell, to give my idea a chance.
“How would you do that?”
While I think of a way to answer that convincingly, she continues, “I mean, he’s a politician, right? I’m sure he’s heard every argument in the book about why he should help these people with their drought, and if he hasn’t said yes yet, what can you do to convince him?”
“I just thought maybe if I just… tapped into his emotions?”
The longest pause in the history of pauses settles between us, and at exactly the most inopportune time…
Cockadoodle-doo!
“Not now, I heard what she said!” Steph exclaims vaguely in the direction of the rooster. I smile, and she smiles back at me, but her eyes are also huge with disbelief.
“You’re kidding,” she says, scooting closer. “You want to read Jonah?”
“No, just, I mean, not invasively, exactly? Just… if I could see past that smile… past the mask, past all the curated image that makes up Jonah Macon, maybe if I could see the real Jonah and make him realize what’s important to these people, maybe I could explore his feelings about the dam?”
Her eyes are huge and hopeful, but then her smile falters slightly.
“Think you can do that before we get to Fort Collins?” she asks.
And I know what she’s really asking.
It’s Wednesday night.
Our gig is in two days.
“You want me to tap into a politician’s subconscious, find out what makes him tick, and convince him to change his political position days before an election, in forty-eight hours?”
“I saw you take down the seven-year farce that was Jed Lucan’s legacy in just a week. If anyone can do this, it’s you. I just… our gig. What if we don’t make it?”
I lean forward and take her hand in mine.
“It’s us, Steph,” I say, with more confidence than I feel. “We always make it.”
Besides, I have to try. I saw the sadness in Elias, felt the sadness in Elias. “I know I can’t fix everyone’s sadness. I can’t fix one person’s sadness. Not even a licensed therapist can do that. But, if I can alleviate just a bit of the suffering I’ve seen here…”
I saw the pain in Elias’s eyes as he watched Jonah’s procession, and I saw Jonah’s shell start to crack when he returned Elias’s gaze. Whatever’s going on with this drought, and that dam, and Elias, and Jonah, it all has to be connected. And if Jonah Macon the politician has a canned answer for any crowd question—and I just know he does—I have to get to Jonah Macon the man.
And given my powers, I might be the only person who can.
“I have to try, Steph. I can’t just… do nothing. I can’t leave these people like this.”
I feel her squeeze my hand.
“I know,” she says. “And… I meant what I said in Haven Springs. Wherever we go, whatever we do, as long as I’m with you, I’m in.”
“Come on, Steph, I’m not giving up on Fort Collins, or the rest of the world with you,” I say. And that’s a goddamn promise.
Steph wouldn’t say it to me. She knows how much this means to me—helping these people. But I know how much Fort Collins means to her. Another shot at the big time—a chance to perform in front of Isaac Harson and play music for anyone we want, wherever we want. A chance at a record deal and seeing the world with someone again. After all, that was Steph’s goal before Haven Springs. Before me. She was on her way too.
And now?
This is our chance to do it and make a living. Together.
Who could pass that up?
“I promise,” I say.
And I mean it.
And then I realize I’ve forgotten something. Something extremely important. Something I should have said this morning, and probably would have if I hadn’t been so frazzled.
“I’m sorry I didn’t check the oil,” I say. “If it weren’t for me, we’d already be in the city, taking it all in, playing together on some rooftop somewhere—”
“Gazing into my eyes,” she says, leaning in dramatically close.
“Not having to ask your forgiveness like this—”
“Which you already have,” she finishes, squeezing both my hands.
Her phone buzzes on the ground beside us and neither of us can resist looking down at it. A new message from Ethan Lambert.
I can help! My uncle lives in Barbazal. He might let
you sleep in the room I sleep in when I’m there!
I look at Steph in shock. “What did you put in that APB?”
She shrugs. “I just asked if anyone in the Haven Springs group chat knew anyone in Barbazal who might have an extra couch to crash on.”
“Small world,” I grin, and I hope she sees the pride in my eyes. “Thanks, Steph.”
“Don’t mention it,” she shrugs, pushing herself to her knees.
“You sure, uh… you don’t want to stay out here and enjoy the stars with me?”
…and maybe each other? I want to say it… I want so badly to say it. I lean forward, toward Steph.
But then…
Pfffffft! All down the side of the tent, a thin white liquid drips, and one of the chickens bawks and flaps away from the side of the coop.
Steph jumps back from the wall, scrambles to grab for me.
“Eww, is that—?!”
I’m not ready for the weight of her, or her tripping over the blanket between us, and the tent goes tumbling. After we untangle a tentful of screams, tent poles, zippers, and projectile chicken shit—thank god this tent is waterproof—we escape, and twenty minutes later, we’re knocking on the front door of Owen Lambert.
