Chapter 20
Ezra
Wendover reveals itself on Nevada’s border, at the foot of a jagged, rocky mountain.
A sore, stinging tiredness tugs at my eyelids.
When they droop downwards, I’m jolted awake by the rumble strips on the edge of the highway.
Conin startles and now we’re both painfully awake.
Minutes later, we pull into the bright luminescence of Wendover’s nightlife; the view of the Rainbow Hotel Casino is a reminder that life moves on, even when it feels as though ours has ended.
“Let’s grab a motel,” Conin mutters. His voice is tired but steeled off. I want to ask how he is, but he’ll only avoid the question. Shooting someone . . . that’s not easy. Neither is kicking someone ruthlessly in hopes it’ll end their pathetic life, but I shove that thought far, far away.
“Are you sure?” I ask, matching his tone of exhaustion. “What if the Barclay Network comes this way?”
“Ezra . . . you’re tired. I’m tired. If we continue like this, we’ll get in some accident, and then what would have been the point of everything we just went through?”
That’s fair.
“Besides, I can’t see them exerting their resources on just one recidivist, no matter how coveted your power is. If the mercenary on the interstate isn’t dead, it will take a while for them to get back to the Network. We should be long gone by then,” he says.
“I’m not sure about this, Co,” I say.
“Can you just trust my judgment for once?”
When have I not? But, like usual, I shut my trap.
He’s staring at me expectantly, so I concede he navigates with the map, and we drive off in search of a place to stay for the night.
Or what remains of it. The mercenary’s vehicle feels evil and vile.
Using it is necessary, but I feel just as estranged driving it as I did Conin’s Chrysler.
We end up at a decent-looking establishment, where Conin pays for our stay with the wad of cash he pocketed at the ATM.
Conin tells me not to fret when the clerk walks away to grab our key, probably noticing the panic in my eyes.
I’m fretting, okay? I’ve been doing nothing but fretting since my dad shattered what remained of my good life in the Gray household.
Now, I’m fretting some more, though this time under the roof of a piss-covered motel.
A single queen bed greets us upon entering our room.
We turn to each other with equally coy expressions, though this should really be the least of our worries.
Sharing a bed, after everything that’s happened, should mean nothing, right?
Besides, he and I had sleepovers all the time while growing up—shared an intimate space that could only come from years and years of friendship.
He eyes me warily and says he wouldn’t mind taking the floor.
I refuse. And part of my refusal, I admit, is my selfish desire to have his body next to mine, the safety of his strong frame against my back, the reassurance of his closeness.
When the awkwardness mellows, we situate ourselves on the bed.
I told him I didn’t mind if he slept in nothing but his sweats.
I’m thinking about things I know I shouldn’t.
It’s crappy timing: leaving our lives behind, the shit we’ve seen, his injured foot, the mercenary’s uncertain status.
But I want him. Despite all that, I want him, if only he’d have me.
A gag reflex surfaces, and I forcefully swallow the sensation down.
While I wait the horrid feeling out, sleep swallows me whole. And when I wake, Conin is gone.
Time passes slowly and it’s excruciating.
It’s sometime in the afternoon when I wake up.
I stand, a tremor in my movements and an uncomfortable buzz centering at my fingertips, creeping up my nervous system.
The curtains are closed horizontally, blocking light from entering the tiny room.
I part them slightly, that tremor persisting, enough to ascertain that I slept for an ungodly number of hours, evident on the digital clock that reads 2:43 p.m.
I have no idea where Conin is.
He isn’t in bed, nor is he sitting on the only chair. The bathroom’s vacant. Conin is gone.
There are no telltale signs of struggle, nothing that indicates something bad went down.
Do I wait him out or do I go in search of him?
There’s the option to shapeshift—a tool I haven’t utilized since the night at the party due to all my efforts to just fucking forget.
Now that the one person in my life I actually care for is missing, I should probably get over myself and put my powers to some use.
A mirror that’s seen better days is plastered to the bathroom wall.
Looking at my reflection in one makes it easier to transform.
The shift is simple—getting the looks right, however, can be difficult.
Two distinct eyes gaze back at me: one green, one blue.
My eyes. The ones I was born with. They are the first to change.
I decided on complete blue since it’s the color that comes to mind after imagining Conin’s azure in my head.
It’s oddly intimate and awkward, so a vibrant hazel it is.
I contour my face next, mold it to my will.
My jaw and cheeks fill out more, my long brown hair shortening until it’s cropped around my head with some length at the top.
My stomach, chest, arms, and thighs grow until I’m roughly the same size as Conin.
I’m . . . attractive. No acne, no scars, the perfect hair, the perfect angular face .
. . the perfect body. My clothes have shrunk—I should have considered that.
It looks nice, in a way. You can see the most prominent features through the tight clothing.
They’re not mine, and a part of that makes me feel defeated. None of this is who I am.
An unsettling pain lingers, starting at my clavicles and spiraling down through my ribcage.
The buzz returns with a vengeance—a panic attack-level of reprisal.
The creak of the motel room door opening, then abruptly closing, sends vibrations to the bathroom.
In a flurry of panic, I rush to see who it is, if Conin’s arrived.
Underneath the entrance stands Conin Bresshet in the flesh—alive and well.
He carries bags loaded with items. And when he sees me in a body that isn’t mine, he freezes and stares at me with equal parts childlike horror and curiosity.
“Ezra?” he says, uncertain. I’ve forgotten I’ve only shown him my ability once.
I shift to my normal self and feel the clothes loosen around my frame. Conin visibly relaxes.
“I was going to look for you,” I say.
“Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you.”
I’m mad at him, but I keep the sentiment to myself. Frankly, I’m not sure I have the right to be angry when he’s done so much for me already just by being here.
“What’s all that?” I ask.
“Stuff for the road,” Conin answers, heaving the bags onto the bed. Right—what we had was destroyed in the fire.
I spy clothes for him and me: shirts, sweats, joggers, underwear, and socks are in plastic bags while the rest are filled with mostly non-perishable foods and other miscellaneous items. He even bought a cooler to stuff the frozen goods inside of.
He produces a box of store-bought hair dye, sunglasses, and a baseball cap from one of the bags.
I glare at the box of bright red hair dye.
My eyes flick from it to Conin and back.
“You can’t be serious,” I protest. “Out of all the colors you could have gone with—”
“This one will make me the most unrecognizable. I mean, as far as cheap hair dye goes. I need to disguise myself and you have powers that can transform you into anyone, so you’re set.”
Conin’s about to ruin his perfect hair, but there’s no stopping him.
I hate to admit there’s apt logic to his idea.
Dreadfully, I watch as he tears open the box and gets to work in the bathroom.
I pace, making occasional glances at the map we bought.
Fifteen or so minutes pass and Conin’s hair is already shifting into a vibrant, unnatural red.
“I made sure to get an ankle brace, too,” he says, lifting the hem of his joggers. He sways on his feet, the momentum driving him forward, a limp in his gait. My hands levitate in the space between us, ready to catch him if he falls over. Conin smiles, recognition dawning on his face.
“I’m okay.”
I’m not.
Hopefully, the brace will help him get back to normalcy. There’s no way we could go to a hospital without outing ourselves. Perhaps the Angelics, or this Atlas, will have resources we can use.
The dye settles for a little while longer.
Eventually, Conin escapes to the bathroom to wash off the excess color.
The door shuts and the sound of cascading water spills into the room.
I am not thinking about him undressed. It wouldn’t be the first time, but these thoughts are entirely inappropriate, given everything.
Guilt for harboring these thoughts in such a difficult situation racks me.
They’re normal, sure, but I shouldn’t feel this way, shouldn’t submit to these feelings after Conin’s left his life behind, injured himself in the process, and had to abandon his mom to aid me in a life that may inevitably end regardless of how hard we try to escape.
That’s what I don’t tell him. I’m not confident we’ll get out of this alive.
I possess half the mind to abandon Conin at the earliest convenience, but what that would do to him .
. . what that would do to me, is beyond what I want to allow myself to think about.
It is, in a sense, a betrayal. Leaving him would essentially act as the biggest “fuck you,” and I can’t do that to him.
I can’t do that to him. I can’t. Conin’s complicit now, whether I like it or not.
Abandoning him would be like offering him to the Barclay Network, exactly what Thax did to me.
I will not sink that low, no matter how terrified I am.
And if I’m being honest, I can’t survive on my own. I hate this.
“Let’s map out our way to Eureka,” Conin says while he exits the bathroom.
His bright burgundy curls are tousled. The room’s low lighting reveals a glistening, damp sheen.
I gape, not sure what to think. It makes me sad, almost, as if I’m mourning something that belonged to me.
Conin’s shirtless. His skin shines and I follow the thin trail of hair on his stomach that dives below his waistband.
His soft belly erupts me into flames. I dart my eyes away.
And Conin, to my relief, obliviously reaches for the ball cap and sunglasses.
He puts them on and looks like he could pass as someone else. This could work.
“See? A whole new person,” he says, satisfied.
“Sure,” I mutter.
“I was thinking of growing out a beard, too.”
“Oh god, but it’s so patchy when you do!” I exclaim. He’s tried it before. It was a rough time.
Conin is unimpressed. “Ezra—”
“Fine, it’ll look good.”
“And I don’t need your sarcasm, thanks,” he says and slips on a new shirt. No longer able to ogle at his perfect body, I deflate on the bed.
He joins me, pulling up our gas station-bought map.
He unfolds it, smoothing its creases. Conin draws his index finger across it, circling it uncertainly, before settling on a spot.
Eureka isn’t that far. He estimates it should take us three to four hours from Wendover to arrive there.
In the meantime, he says that we should spend another night here—get some more rest, and be masked by the shade of night, before we attempt our journey again.
I agree with him.
The night is subjectively scary. Too much can happen in the dark—too much dangerous potential.
But for me, night has always felt safe and comforting.
In the dark, no one can see you. In the dark, expectations are subverted.
We’re less exposed. I don’t have to be self-conscious of myself, as if I’m a grave disappointment.
And at night, Thax and Lukeman Gray sleep.
At night, I can be myself. It’s a reset. A reminder tomorrow might be different.
When morning comes and the sun shines on our corner of the world, I must remake myself as a different person with a different alias.
Conin sits against the headboard, turns on the TV.
My legs drape off the bed, my body facing the masked windows.
I breathe again. The curtains are musty. The carpet is laden with stains.
“What should my name be?” I ask. Conin’s frame rustles against the sheets. “In case it comes up . . . I should go by a different name. You should, too.”
“Our IDs say otherwise,” he deadpans.
“Yeah, but like . . . in passing. What do you think I look like?” I say and transform into the outline from before.
“Oh fuck. You look like a Brad,” Conin says.
I feel like socking him in the gut.
“Hell, no!”
“Wait . . . what about your middle name?”
Tatum. It’s not a bad idea.
“I was hoping for a superhero’s name, but that’ll work,” I say, sarcasm dripping off the edge of my tongue.
Conin erupts into a fit of laughter.