Reality (The Girl in the Box Book 52), page 28
“I was set to feel really bad about myself here, Traverton,” Scott said, frowning. “But looking at your life...I guess being dumped by Scarlet isn't that terrible, as things go.”
“Now you're seeing the silver lining,” Traverton said, taking a sip of his beer and promptly making a face. “You're still Scott Byerly. Bartenders still partially swoon at the sight of you and your famous face. Plus,” and here he lowered his head, “I bet you weren't completely scared shitless the whole time you were on that job just now.”
Scott stared at him for a moment. “You were scared? I mean, other than when we were dealing with the Chinese attack team?”
“Oh, yeah,” Traverton said in that excitable way of his. “Man. I don't think my pulse rate has been under a hundred for, like, days.” He chuckled nervously. “I was always expecting something bad to happen.”
“But when something genuinely bad did happen,” Scott said, frowning, “you totally kicked ass and lived up to the moment. If you hadn't taken that dart for us, we'd have been history.”
“Well...I tried,” Traverton said, sort of nervously laughing under his breath. “All I could think was, 'don't be the damned anchor around their necks,' y'know? I kinda leapt out in front of that thing without knowing it was a dart, and once I realized it was, I was like, 'Uh, get clear.' I mean, I thought about trying to throw myself in front of them, and I almost did–”
“That would have been a bad decision,” Scott said. “I'd have felt compelled to intervene, more darts would have flown, I'd have gotten tagged right there, Scarlet might have – and then what?” He shook his head. “No, you did the right thing there, and I told Augustus so. And I'll tell him again.” He patted Traverton on the shoulder. “You're all right in my book, Traverton. I'd work with you anytime.”
“Thanks,” Traverton said, blushing deeply all the way to the top of his pale scalp beneath his few remaining hairs. “Here's to me not, uh...making your life an unpleasant hell the way I apparently have to everyone else in my own up to now.” And he raised his glass, leaving it hanging there for Scott to tap.
“Here's to living the good life, buddy,” Scott said, clinking glasses with him. “You and me. May we have a string of successes in money, in work...and with women.” And they drank to that, though the sick feeling in the pit of Scott's stomach told him he didn't really feel that way anymore.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN
Sienna
I choked back a sob as I carried Eilish over the mountain and into a green valley, the wind beating the shit out of me almost as much as I was. That Heidi had added some weight to her emotional attacks on me with her empath powers seemed obvious; the fact that it had hit me this hard suggested very bad things for my ability to cope with her when the time for final reckoning came.
“Where are we even going?” Eilish called out, through tears of her own. Terror, horror, I wasn't sure which had prompted her crying jag. Maybe she was just dealing with the same emotional toxic waste I was, except related to Heidi's corruption of her own feelings. Or perhaps she was just terrified of me and the fact I was carrying her off to parts unknown.
Didn't know; barely cared. My tears dripped on her as I flew, and hers fell to the pines below like rain.
“Can you please put me down?” Eilish asked, shaking the light webs that bound her to me. “I'd like to...well, I don't know what I'd like to do, except to say I'd like to not be dangling my arse out in the bloody wind any longer.” She lifted a leg and waggled it at me. “You couldn't have webbed up my shoes and a pair of pants when you were grabbing me?”
“I didn't see shoes or pants as I was leaving,” I said, blowing my nose and then burning off the snot. This sucked, and I hated it, and the worst part was...I didn't even know how much of it was Heidi's doing.
Below I could see a cave nestled behind a copse of trees, carved into the side of the mountain. Skint on options, with no other towns in sight and my feelings seeming to choke me, I looped around and headed for the cave. Part of me wanted to just crawl inside and die, let it be my tomb. Maybe in a hundred years someone would discover my bones.
Wow, Brianna said in my head, did she do a number on you.
“I don't even know how she did it,” I hiccupped through the streaming liquid running down my face. “I thought I had my defenses up!”
We came in for a landing and I dispelled Eilish's light webs, letting her drop the last five feet to the earth. She let out an “Oof!” as she rolled, panties flashing as the coat fell away. She clutched at the jacket and shoved her small arms into it; it seemed to swallow her thin limbs up like a child in a parent's coat, and she folded her arms over her chest to give herself maximum modesty as well as protection from the mountain chill. “Well, this is a fine bloody predicament we've found ourselves in.”
I mopped at my eyes with my sleeves, smearing the professional makeup job Heidi's artists had done on me. “I didn't ask for any of this – and are you even sane right now? Do you have any idea what just happened?”
Eilish thrust her hands deeper into her armpits, clearly defensive, maybe a little embarrassed because her cheeks lit up. “I'm starting to. Heidi's an empath, isn't she?”
“Yep,” I hiccupped over my tears, which were still coming. Damned feelings. Damn Heidi. “And a telepath. And a Rakshasa, for the illusions. And – hell, I don't know what else. She's definitely got a suite of powers in the mind control family.”
“That explains what I saw from Val while you were burning the place down,” Eilish said, doing some sniffling of her own.
“What happened?” I'd been too focused on Heidi, I hadn't given the guy so much as a glance after I'd webbed him up.
“Only that he turned hideous on me,” she said, lowering her head. “He went from model-good looks to guy I wouldn't look twice at if he had hundred-dollar bills pasted all over his spotty face.” She shuddered. “I never thought of myself as the shallow sort, but apparently I'm at least a little bit, because seeing him as he was...it was bloody revolting.”
“It might have something to do with the violation of it all,” I said, mopping my face. I tried to use my weak Poseidon powers to do away with the tears, but dammit, they wouldn't frigging stop. All I could think about was Jeremy James Wade and how maybe he loved me, and maybe he'd died thinking I hated him, or that I'd sucked the memories out of his head and then lost them myself, or – or – or–
“I do feel violated,” Eilish said, scrubbing at herself with empty palms through the jacket. “I'd burn this bloody thing if I didn't feel like I'd freeze my pasty arse without it.” She looked around. “What are we even supposed to do now? You going to carry me back to Denver?”
“I don't know,” I said, lifting my chin to see if elevating my face would make the tears stop. It did not work. A sound in the distance perked my ears up. “Uh oh.”
“That's a helicopter, isn't it?” Eilish asked, crooking her back like she was ready to bolt.
“It is,” I said, listening for it. “Sounds like it's coming around the pass over there.” I pointed in the direction of Steelwood Springs. “Could be innocent, either an army chopper or civilian transport – or it could be a search party looking for us.”
“We need to get under cover, then,” Eilish said.
I shook my head slowly, tears dripping off my chin. “Damn it,” I said, wiping them furiously away. “Hiding under the trees isn't going to do it. If it's a search chopper they'll have FLIR – that's Forward-Looking Infrared. They might be able to see us as heat signatures when they get close.”
Eilish darted a look at the cave that we'd seen when we landed. “What about in there? Can they see us in there?”
I sighed. My tomb, indeed. “No. Probably not.”
“Well, let's go then,” she said, and started hoofing it, barefoot, across the short meadow between us and the cave mouth. It loomed dark in the side of the rocky cliff, much more squarish than caves on TV and the movies.
I had made it into the shade of the cavern mouth, still sniffling like a little bitch when a noise ahead stopped me short. “Eilish,” I said, because she was still going forward, feet slapping against rock as the dirt gave way to stone and she hurried inside. “Eilish!”
She stopped, glancing back at me, a pale shadow with a bigger one silhouetted behind her. As she turned, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she realized what she was damned near nose to nose with.
A bear.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT
Sienna
“Ah – ahhhh – ahhh – AHHHHHHHHH!” It took Eilish a minute to get her vocal chords really warmed up and screaming, and in that time the bear that had been moving toward her in a defensive fury had closed the distance between them. She was backpedaling, but not nearly fast enough. A small snuffling sound deeper in the cave told me that this was a mama we were dealing with here, and somewhere back there, in the darkness, was at least one baby.
“STOP!” I shouted, thinking quick and channeling the soul of Priscilla, queen of the wild, whose ghost was still in my head.
The bear halted, a paw already lifted to strike out at Eilish, claws pale in the half-light. What? the bear asked, sounding very confused to be speaking with a human.
“I need your cave,” I said in bearish. “Take your baby, get out, go for a walk. Maybe come back tomorrow.”
Who. The. Hell...do you think you are? the bear asked. I mean, that's not an exact translation, because bears don't have a concept for hell, but...basically that's the gist of what she said. This is my cave.
“I think I'm the person who's going to burn your fur off,” I said, lighting a fire on my hand and sending a quick burst past her nose. I was careful not to hit her, nor aim it in the direction of her baby, but I wanted her to get the message.
She did. Okay, we're out of here. She turned and bounded backward, grabbed a cub by the scruff of the neck. It produced a whine that I heard as, Mamma! and then she bolted out of the cave giving us the widest margin possible. All yours, she mumbled around the cub in her mouth as she hit the entry and headed for the woods beyond.
“You just scared the shite out of that bear, didn't you?” Eilish said, looking like she was trying to get her pulse and breathing under control after a very large start.
“Same as I would have done for a human,” I said, brushing past her, still mopping my damnable eyes. “I don't discriminate.” I found a rock and plopped down on it. “Gyah. What the hell did Heidi do to me?” In the corner was a patch of old leaves, and I lit it on fire with a quick flame burst to give us a little light.
“What the hell did you do to Heidi?” Eilish asked, picking around until she found a rock to sit on. “Because it certainly looked like her head cheese was melting before we flew out of there.”
“Head cheese isn't actually cheese, you know,” I said, trying to get comfortable on my rock, tears still streaming down. “It's–”
“Would you focus on the fooking problem?” Eilish glared at me. “We're hiding in a cave from a gal who's got mind control powers and just bloody well wrapped me around her finger. And let's not mention the fact your face has a double leak.”
“I didn't really do anything to her except strain her,” I said, still mopping at myself. “I don't think she handles stress well.”
“Who among us does,” Eilish muttered, looking away. “I suppose I should thank you.”
“I wouldn't leave you to be used and abused like that,” I said, waving away her thanks. “I don't care how mad at each other we are.”
Eilish sighed. “Dammit. I did get used, didn't I? A taste of my own bloody medicine, I reckon.” She looked down. “You told me not to bend people to my will, and I denied and ignored.”
“Take it from someone who's really had to confront her denials and the things she let stay 'hidden in the fog' as a certain famous psych professor might put it,” I said. “It's really easy to ignore your flaws and screwups. Just...y'know...take this and learn to maybe not bend your boss around your finger. It's bad form.”
Eilish's cheeks glinted, tears coursing down in the firelight. “I didn't just use it on Augustus. I've been using my powers for a long while to do whatever I want. Bad old habits and all that. I go to the liquor store and sweet talk the clerk into giving me a freebie. I go to the car dealership and convince the salesman to give me his best possible price and throw in some sweeteners–”
“I wouldn't feel that guilty about that one, to be honest.”
She stared at me through watery eyes. “I've had men this way. Not often. Maybe once a year or so. Just...quick, y'know, because the next morning I find them so bloody boring, and myself so disgusting that I don't do it again for a long while. Most of the time it doesn't require much of a push–”
“Because they're men, yes,” I said, starting to feel deeply uncomfortable. “But still...that's not really right, Eilish.”
“You think I don't know that?” She did a little mopping of her own with her comically large coat sleeve. “Let me say something to you I think you'll understand – life's tough. It's full of loneliness and suffering, and even when you've had your fill of both, it seems to go bloody onward.” She looked down at the blazing fire. “I thought after I lost Breandan, after lurching around Ireland listlessly for a few years, that maybe I was just fated to wander alone. Then I met you, and you gave me a purpose, but...you also left me be after bringing me here. And Olivia and Angel and the lot...they're good shites, but I don't always feel I know them that well. I'm just the oddball, always the third wheel in any pair, the one that just doesn't quite fit. I never fit anywhere, anymore. Not since Breandan.” She stared at the fire. “I always fit with Breandan.”
She lapsed into a deep silence, until finally I felt compelled to say something. “I got married.”
Eilish looked up at me, watery eyes almost clear for a moment. “Yeah, I heard Heidi say that and I didn't know what to make of it. Obviously, her words hit you hard. But my question would be–”
“When and where?” I asked, and received a nod from her. “Las Vegas, April 13, 2018. I'd tell you more, but I literally don't remember it. At all.”
Eilish sniffled, and her mouth fell open. “Rose? She didn't–”
“Apparently she did.”
“Oh, that ginger–” And she launched into a terribly descriptive tirade that was only occasional decipherable to the non-Irish. When her anger subsided, she looked right at me. “How long have ye known? Wait – just since you came back, am I right?”
“You are right.”
“Now it's all clear,” Eilish said, looking up as she ran her perfectly manicured fingernails over her bare knees. “You've been sitting on this the last three months, then? Just stewing on it? Not saying anything to anyone?”
“Come on, Eilish,” I said, feeling the heat of her accusation here. “You may have saved me in Scotland, but we haven't exactly been close since. Hell, no one's that close to me, and for good reason – being close to me puts you in the splash zone for utter destruction.”
“Well, I'm close enough to you already to catch the attention of a Chinese kidnap squad,” she said irefully. “You might as well talk to me, too. Not like I can get much in the way of worse consequences than that. But seriously – this is why you're black in the heart and down in the mouth these last few months?”
“I guess,” I said, still unable to stop the flood. “It's funny, right? I don't even remember him and I mourn him–”
“So he's dead, then?” She shook her head. “What a bloody capper to the saga – you forget him and he dies. Murdered?”
“I don't think so,” I said.
“Why couldn't you just open up for bloody once?” Eilish asked, turning her face away, grimacing because her ass was directly on the rocky stone. “Why do you always have to do everything your stupid self? I know you think you've got the weight of the damned world on your shoulders because no one else can bear it, but I mean, emotionally, couldn't you try and be not so constipated?”
“What would I say?” I asked, throwing my arms wide, frustration leaking out. “And to who? Reed knows, Augustus knows–”
“Oh, yeah, tell the men, because they're so bloody fantastic at understanding how a woman feels–”
“Who among you could understand how I feel?” I exploded.
“I don't know,” she said, coming right back at me, cheeks flushed, “how about the girl who lost her childhood sweetheart, a man she as good as married, to a war she didn't even get to participate in. But hey – nah, you've definitely got a monopoly on loving and losing. What could I possibly know about all that?” She crossed her arms in front of her, giving me a searing glare. “What would I know about not being able to sleep at night for thinking of him, of feeling like you're in the grave, too, and wishing you genuinely were?”
My own face paled as her hot words hit me right between the eyes. “I'm sorry, Eilish,” I said. “You're right. Of course you're right. I guess I've just lost...so many people since Breandan, and because I never saw you two together, it almost doesn't feel real to me that you were connected.”
“Yeah, you're up your own arse in that regard. As usual.” She still wouldn't look at me.
“As usual,” I agreed.
She sighed, and slowly executed a quarter turn to look back to me. “I can't stay mad at you right now. I wish I could, but I just don't have it in me.” She shifted on the stone again. “I think I'm madder at this rock than at you. And at myself, for getting suckered into this stupid reality TV show. What was I thinking?”
“Mind control.”
“Right,” she said, then frowned. “How did Heidi manipulate you into doing this if you're telepath-immune?”
