33. Zeke
Thirty-Three
Zeke
Two minutes earlier
The feeling in Tania’s place was familiar, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. If I focused on the sensation, this was warmth. Friendliness. Acceptance.
When I turned my attention away though, it was as if I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Except this wasn’t visual. It was the lingering horror of a dream—a nightmare—that left my skin crawling, but that I couldn’t quite remember.
Putting a thought on paper had never been a problem for me, but now I hovered the tip of the pencil over the blank white sheet. What did I fear the most?
The world ending. That the people I was raised around were right. That I might get hit by a truck when I walked out the front door. That life was fleeting. That my mother’s death was —
That Finn’s faith in me was deserved. That I might actually kill Azzie and ascend. That she might succeed instead of me.
It was as if an invisible hand guided mine as I wrote, That the prophecies are real .
The words glared at me, stark black ink on flat white. I forced my gaze away to see everyone else folding their own notes in half. We all slipped them under our plates.
“This is just for me.” Azzie’s shift in tone sent off alarm bells in my head.
“No. I’m hungry too, and I’d like all of you.”
Before Tania finished speaking, I was reaching for my gun. The instinct kicked in, and I had the weapon drawn.
Azzie and Davyn were trying to stand, but Finn was just sitting there. Then Davyn was on the floor on his ass, unconscious, and Azzie and Finn were passed out in their seats. It all happened in the half a second it took me to thumb off my safety and level the weapon where Tania should be.
Fingers on my shoulder told me she wasn’t, and I froze.
Hot breath brushed my cheek. Tania’s face was next to mine. “You should’ve had the beer.” Her voice was lilting. Temptation and beauty. “The hangover isn’t as bad.”
The bakery vanished and my hand was empty.
Light streamed through a window near the top of a vaulted ceiling, and dust particles danced in the beam. With the sun hitting me so brightly, the rest of the attic was in shadows. I knew this place, but how did I get here? I was just?—
Just what? I was with?—
Who?
I hadn’t been up here since after Mom’s funeral. This was our old house. The reminder brought back the pain, fresh and potent, as if it happened yesterday.
Didn’t it?
No.
Compulsion pushed me toward a stack of boxes against one wall, and one sitting open in front of them. I was going through all our old things, but as I looked inside, none of this was familiar.
I extracted a wooden box that was maybe three inches long and almost as wide and tall. The edges of the finish on the deep red wood were worn, and the hinges tarnished. A knot formed in my chest before I pressed the latch open with my thumb.
Don’t open it .
Why not?
I lifted the lid, to find a pocket watch inside. The bronze was as tarnished as the hinges, the darker color clinging to details on the engraving. Why couldn’t I focus on the image? It was a flag. Or a wolf. Or a shotgun.
It’s a dragon .
The voice in my thoughts was mine, but younger and filled with awe. As I looked again, the carving solidified. It was a dragon. Intricate and winding, unconstrained by the circle of the watch.
I almost didn’t dare touch it. What if it changed again? But as I ran my fingers over the bumps and lines, it was all familiar. I could close my eyes and know what I would feel next while I traced the design.
My thumb landed on the watch's latch, and I looked again as I pressed the button.
The top flipped open smoothly. That made sense. I’d cleaned and oiled the hinges the first time I found it, and Mom didn’t know I snuck up here on a regular basis, to look at it.
The watch face inside was marked off with sixty tiny lines, but there were no hands or numbers.
Why didn’t it tell time?
“ It’s damaged. ” Mom’s voice, even as a memory, ached through every inch of me.
“It doesn’t look damaged ,” I’d argued. “Where did it come from?”
“It was your dad’s .”
The memory yanked at me. What was this place? What ever happened to that watch?
No, that wasn’t the important bit. I’d lived this before, but this wasn’t why I was here. I was supposed to be doing something else.
The attic changed, and my insides twisted into knots before my mind caught up. An old memory flashed in my mind, as fresh as the day I lived it, though I stayed kneeling in the middle of the wooden floor. I was at the side of the road, and my legs were getting cold. My hands were wet.
Slick with blood.
Mom .
She was in my arms, and there was so much blood. Her eyes were blank. Why wouldn’t she wake up?
“We need to take the body,” someone said, and a hand rested on my shoulder.
The night she was shot.
This was where I would fight and scream and refuse to let them take her away. But I didn’t want to live this again. I’d tortured myself with this memory too many times on my own.
“Can you tell me what happened?” That was the officer who investigated the shooting.
I opened my mouth to answer. I’d relived this an infinite number of times too, but this time the answer didn’t come. Something happened before this. Something I didn’t tell them. What was it?
The thought fled my mind before I could grasp the rest of it, and I was staring down at myself. There was blood dried on my jeans and staining my hands. I should’ve washed after I talked to the police, and instead, I came up here.
The place was dusty. Empty. We’d been in the process of moving. I held an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel’s that I’d found in the cupboard downstairs.
This was something I remembered distinctly. Next I would screw the top off the bottle, and drink until I passed out. Then I’d spend the next six or so years doing more of the same.
A bitter taste surged up my throat, while rage and frustration spilled inside. I didn’t want to be here again. I wouldn’t live that part of my life again.
When I threw the bottle at the wall, it hit with a thunk and dropped to the ground. The heavy glass sat there, taunting me and stealing even the satisfaction of watching it shatter.
This wasn’t what I was doing. I’d moved on from this and had been living again. Holding onto the thought as hard as I could, I pushed to my feet.
You should’ve had the beer. The hangover isn’t as bad . The memory was more recent. As in, from a few minutes ago.
I was with Azzie and Finn. With Davyn. I needed to find them.
As I walked toward the opening that would lead me downstairs, my shoe nudged a piece of paper on the ground. This wasn’t part of the original memory. I bent to pick it up, and unfolded the blue-lined sheet.
Make it to the front door.
Great. I climbed down the ladder stairs, into a hallway that wasn’t familiar.
Why did I have a feeling getting to the front door wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought?
I followed the strip of rug that ran down the center of the hardwood, past one door and then another and then half a dozen more. How long was this floor? Should I have gone in the other direction?
I kept walking. If this was the wrong way, I’d run into a wall or something stopping me, but the path kept going. There was something ahead in the shadows, and I sprinted to reach it. As I drew closer, the ladder came into view.
The same one I’d just climbed down. I ran my hand loosely along the side, careful not to catch splinters under the flaking paint. Notches were carved in the side. My initials. My first attempt at carving an image. My last.
I couldn’t be going in circles. I turned and sprinted in the direction I’d come from, passing door after door after door, until I reached the same ladder again.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled at the empty space.
If this was a movie, Finn and Davyn would argue about how cliche this was, even though they both had the same opinion. Azzie would be screaming at the main character to try the doors.
That made sense. I grabbed the nearest doorknob and tried to turn it. To push it.
Locked .
So was the next, and the next, and the five after that.
“If there’s no way out, you’re cheating.” I didn’t know who I was talking to, but someone had planted the note at my feet in the attic.
“ I don’t cheat. ” The voice was in my head. Or in my ear. Or?—
I didn’t know, but they sounded offended.
“If there’s no way to accomplish the final goal, you’re cheating. If you’re hiding the rules, you’re cheating.” Now I was talking to an invisible voice. Wonderful.
I’d done crazier. A lot of it before I met Finn or knew there was real magic in the world.
There was no response.
I dug in my pockets for anything that could mark or gouge the door I had just tried. My keys were gone, and so was the pocketknife I kept on hand. My gun was still in the holster, but I wasn’t shooting at the doors. Not until I was at least a little more desperate.
Instead, I pulled my belt off, wrapped the length around my fist, and carved an X into the wood in front of me. Then I moved onto the next door, and the next, marking each one that didn’t work.
I continued until I reached the ladder again, then kept going.
A few doors down, I reached one with an X on it. I was about to shout about cheating again, when something caught my eye. I tilted my head. This mark dug deeply into the wood. It was neat and clean, as opposed to looking as if it had been carved with a belt buckle.
I tried the handle, and anxiety and anticipation cranked inside.