Chapter 2 #2
The math there doesn’t math, but math was never my strong suit, and I’m fairly sure I have three fingers on my right hand.
The gloves are normal, everything was fine when I put them on, but when I look at my hand now, I can’t even count as high as I need to.
So no, it’s probably my math that’s off, not his.
“I am so thirsty,” I tell him. I didn’t even realize that until I said it, but now I’m pretty sure it’s not the cancer that will kill me. I have a thirst, and it is fatal.
The man laughs and grabs me by the waist to put me on my feet. I shriek, startled, the move unexpected and still hitting that odd math part of my brain, but I’m on my feet, my heels anchored on hotel lobby carpet.
“Relax,” he says, his voice so close to my ear I can feel it slithering down my ear canal. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”
His hand feels funny on my waist, but I have a waist and he’s a Red Shirt. He’s a corpse. Everything is weird. “Sorry, I’m just wobbly today.”
There’s an open seat at the bar, although it looks like a guy in a Deadpool costume, his mask flipped up enough that he can drink a beer, is holding it for someone. The Red Shirt guides me toward it, and I resist until he says, “That was my seat.”
The Deadpool nods. Slowly. So slowly. Like he’s forgotten where his eyes are and needs to retrieve them. Acid does crazy stuff to time. It was probably a normal nod. “It’s your seat now,” he tells me.
The Red Shirt is tall, the bartender is tall, even the seated Deadpool on one side and the Ghostface on the other side are tall. Everyone is tall, and I’m tiny. Shrinking. Vanishing. Alice in Wonderland eating the biscuit.
Drinking the potion.
Eating the biscuit.
Drinking the potion.
Oh no, am I too short or too tall? How do I fix it? What if I go too far and wink out of existence, vanishing as though I never was in a couple of decades?
“She okay?” Deadpool asks Red Shirt.
“Oh yeah, she’s great, just drunk.”
I should tell him I’m not drunk, I’m hallucinating, but not in a schizophrenic way. In a drug way. Instead, I’m so hung up on whether I’m Alice or not that I say, “Eat me.”
Red Shirt brays, an over-excited mule, and gets behind me, effectively blocking me into the seat as he puts his arms around my waist, resting his hands on my thighs.
My thighs are bare, nothing to fill the expanse between the tops of my black stockings and the hem of my white superhero bloomers.
Sotchoku is one of those characters that doesn’t seem particularly risqué on screen, what with her being an anime character and a superhero, until an actual human being is wearing what amounts to little more than lingerie.
Red Shirt’s hand is directly on my skin in a spot only a nudge away from groping with nothing more substantial than two layers of control-top panties there, but if I was wearing jeans right now, this would be fine.
This is fine.
“I’ll eat you later if you want,” Red Shirt promises. “We all will. You can eat us, too.”
“Right, yeah,” I agree, confused. Will that balance things out? If they eat me and then I eat them, will I be a normal size again? Can I be eaten? Am I edible? I frown and shake my head. “No, I’m toxic.”
“Okay, Britney,” says Deadpool.
“No, I’m Tilly. You’re . . .” I know this. I’m positive I know this. Emerson has me locked down on the Bulletproof Cinematic Universe forever — not that I’m complaining, since it’s hard to get steady work as a costumer and it’s good money — but I know Marvel well enough. I know this.
“It’s—”
I shoot him the biggest grin and sing, “It’s Wade Wilson. You’re Wade.” I look over my shoulder at the too-close Red Shirt. “And you’re dead.”
Actually, that makes it all feel much better. If he’s dead, then he’s not touching anything. He’s not even here. He didn’t pull me down off that wall. He doesn’t exist.
“What did you just say?” Red Shirt asks, a shimmer to his voice. I swear I can see it, sliding over my shoulder and slithering into my corset, curling in my womb.
I smile sympathetically at him. “It’s okay, we all die sometimes. Can I have your drink?”
From the other side of me, Ghostface chuffs. “Oh, she’s fun. We’ll like her.”
“Are you their friend, too?”
“I’m your friend.”
I try to look closely at him, but my belly churns, and I’m not sure why. Acid makes me queasy; that’s nothing unusual. And sick was my default for so long that it’s not something I think too much about anymore, but this is a different kind of sick.
Ghostface is not my friend. I don’t know if I know who Ghostface is.
I don’t think I’ve seen the movie. I sift through my brain, pushing through recent memes, pin-up shots and sexy videos of shirtless men in Ghostface masks, scrolling back to that time everyone who smoked pot said what’s uuuuuuup in that obnoxious way, and that came from Ghostface, too, finally reaching the scant knowledge I have of the movie.
Drew Barrymore.
The call is coming from inside the house.
Two guys stabbing each other.
“There’s two of you,” I murmur, “but only one. I need water.”
“Wouldn’t you rather a shot?” Deadpool says.
The bar has rows and rows of bottles, most of them clear or brown, but their labels come in all different colors. I could rearrange them into a rainbow.
I close my eyes, trying to force the thoughts to clear and reset. I’m not having a good time, and that nausea isn’t the lysergic acid doing something funny to my belly. It’s an alarm. Danger, girl. The call is coming from inside the bar.
“Just water,” I whisper.
Deadpool’s hand goes on my back, rubbing the laces of the corset I worked so hard to tighten to give me the waist I wanted my entire adult life. Just another thing in my world I got entirely by luck, more of the bad-good-bad-good luck because, yeah, I had cancer, but at least I’m thin now.
The thought curdles.
There are so many hands on me.
I just want water.
“Let’s get you up to our room,” Deadpool says kindly, and I try to remember if Deadpool is kind or not.
He’s a lot of trouble, I remember that. He fights bad guys, I know that too, and usually that makes a good guy, but sometimes the enemy of the bad guy is also a bad guy. “We have lots of water there for you.”
He says it with that kind smile, but he’s got his mask half on. I can’t see his eyes. They’re whited out, hidden behind the scrim of the mask. I can’t even tell if he has eyes.
And Ghostface, his mask is fully on, with the loose black fabric like a cowl covering his neck. He has a drink, but he’s negotiated the mask by sipping through a straw he’s tucked up under the fabric. He doesn’t have a real mouth, just a scream.
I smile, but it feels weak and watery, a dog cowering. “I, umm, I don’t . . . I just need water,” I whisper so softly I can’t hear my own voice.
They do, through ears I can’t see, other than Red Shirt’s, but he’s dead. He isn’t real. They all stand and put their hands on me, coaxing me off my stool, but it’s too many hands.
I crawl right off the stool, wishing it was my skin I was crawling out of.
I find myself facing them as they crowd me, pushing forward so I don’t have a choice but to walk backwards toward the exit of the club, into the heavily trafficked thoroughfare.
They’re all laughing, enjoying themselves, and even though this feels wrong, I wonder if I’m being paranoid and I’m going to laugh like this when I come down. Maybe they are nice guys.
But then Ghostface runs a hand down my arm, along my bicep and down to my elbow.
The panic wells then, and I don’t know if I’m being as clever-footed as I think I am or if it’s just another round of exceptional luck that happens to be good, but I manage to slip through the space between Red Shirt and Ghostface.
The moment I pass through them, I slam right into another body. Dark bronze chest, naked all the way down to a simple gold codpiece. Despite my heels, it hits me above the navel, owing not just to the man’s height but also the incredible thigh-high boots he wears.
I tip my head up to see the prosthetic-encased face, recognizing him not as someone I truly know but as a character that fits well with mine.
We are fated mates, I, the voice of logic, the voice of truth, good and bad and never holding back.
He, the golden god of chaos, telling only lies, so many lies that they circle back to truth, but we lock together seamlessly.
“Mokushiroku.”
He smiles.
It is kind.
And I can see his eyes, their intensity, their support, their protectiveness. Their anger, but not at me.
At the men who dared pull me away from him when we are fated mates.
He teases a synthetic white curl that’s framing my face. “Sotchoku-chan, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”