Chapter 17
I drove with my hands firmly at nine and two o’ clock on the steering wheel of my black SUV, riding through the all-too-familiar night as we headed back to my place.
Mimi sat in the middle of the back seat, easily seen through the rearview mirror, her body sandwiched between Cassie and Monica, the latter of whom was mean mugging Jenna at all times.
Meanwhile, Jenna, for her part, maintained a distinct stillness while observing everything, no doubt processing and memorizing every detail of her surroundings.
And then she stared at the rearview mirror at the same time as me, catching Mimi’s dazzling left eye.
“So what’s your deal?” Jenna questioned. “Imaginary friends coming to life?”
“Barry isn’t imaginary, he’s sitting in my lap,” Mimi countered as she held the black and pink stuffy.
“Well ‘he’ is a stuffed animal.”
Monica interjected. “And he just exposed you for a narc. Put some respect on his name.”
“Do you even know what a narc is?”
“Narcotics division, bitch. Why else would you be dressed that way?” Monica replied with a sassy, insincere smile.
“Is she right?” I asked, looking askance.
Jenna sighed, looking away. “I used to be.”
“Ha!” Monica blurted out. “Actin’ like I don’t know what kind of whoop whoop a po-po makes.”
“I transferred,” Jenna enunciated, turning her head to glare at the back seat.
“Why?” I asked.
Jenna looked at me and then faced forward. “It’s a car ride, not an interrogation. I’d appreciate it if you’d mind your business.”
“Just making conversation, but sure,” I replied, returning my focus to the road. “And if you wanna get technical, you poked your nose in my business first.”
“There’s a difference between my job and my personal life.”
“I thought police work is your job?” I countered with a cocky smirk.
Jenna opened her mouth to speak, then got crossed her arms. “Just drive.”
“I thought we were making conversation?”
“No, you’re making conversation. I’m just trying not to get killed by the Wednesday Addams edition of the Care Bear Stare.”
“Ooh!” Mimi gushed. “Good one! I’m keeping that.”
“You never told me you had powers, Mimi…” Cassie spoke.
Mimi’s cheerful face broke into a sympathetic sidelong smile. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I hope you can understand. It happened by accident. I had to keep it secret cause I never registered myself, and after all the deaths in the news, I’ve been avoiding needles.”
“You’re supposed to self-certify. You know what happens if you get caught?” asked Jenna.
“Are you gonna turn me in?”
Jenna looked at me again while I looked at her with ice in my veins.
“No,” Jenna turned away.
Cue everyone taking a second to stare at Barry, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
“How does it work?” I asked, interjecting with a look through the mirror to observe her gothic features.
Mimi paused to blow air through her mouth with inflated cheeks. “Well, it’s kinda confusing, but if I’m the passive, Barry’s the aggressive.”
“You’re controlling him?”
“Kind of… My left eye sees secrets, and my right eye sees truth. It’s kind of a glow—or an aura. I knew you had secrets when I first met you, that’s why I introduced you to Barry.”
“Huh, okay. So how did Barry enter the picture?”
“Well, when someone lies—untruth, it creates a kind of friction, an energy that you can’t see.
I’ve never been able to stand fake people, and I’ve always been able to feel it, but now I really feel it.
So, to keep it from hurting my head, I move that energy into something I love, and it becomes my protector. ”
“What would have happened to me if you didn’t stop it?” Jenna questioned.
“You would have died. Maybe. Barry would have taken your discordant energy and hit you with the weight of all the pain your secrets have caused—what happens after is different for everyone.”
“Sounds pretty gnarly,” I remarked. “Not like any Mutable I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s because I’m technically not a Mutable. I didn’t get infected by one of those rocks or whatever they found,” Mimi revealed, clutching Barry tightly. “It was a bite.”
“A bite?”
“Or a scratch. I don’t exactly remember…” Mimi took one hand off her stuffy to pat her bottom lip with the pad of her index finger, looking up in thought. “But I did live close by where it happened. Everything was so hazy…”
Mimi’s eyes scanned around, piqued with hyper-vigilance.
“How do you know it wasn’t a meteor fragment if you don’t remember?” asked Jenna.
“Because of this,” Mimi reached toward her neck and undid the clasp of her spiked choker, caressing the smooth skin underneath.
It was like someone had drawn a streak of blue glow-in-dark paint on the right side of her neck, horizontally oriented, roughly an inch in length.
“I don’t get it,” Monica questioned while leaning closer. “I don’t see anything.”
Cassie shifted her head sideways to take a look, but shook her head after. “Me either.”
“I do,” I stated while staring at her neck. “What is it?
“I dunno,” Mimi shrugged before putting the collar back on. “It comes and goes. The only people who seem to see it are… different. That’s why I don’t go out.”
“I thought you didn’t go out ‘cause you hate large groups and people are posers?” Cassie countered.
“That too.”
“We’re gonna have to lay low for a while,” I interjected. “No streaming, no picture stories—fun as that was. At least until the dust settles.”
“And how does that happen?” Jenna questioned with her left eyebrow raised.
“With a few dead bodies,” I stated darkly, meeting her skeptical look with a cold stare.
Jenna shook her head. “I won’t be an accessory to murder.”
“You’re already way off the reservation, Detective,” I retorted. “The fact of the matter is, you don’t get to go back to your normal life until some malefactors are removed from play. Help me out, and you just might.”
“This is insane…” Jenna whispered.
“Not as insane as what’s really going on,” I replied. “If you want your big baddie to go down, you’re gonna have to deal with the people he’s in bed with.”
Jenna stared ahead as if in consideration, then slowly turned her face toward me. “And who is that?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
I grinned, chuckling bitterly before hitting my right indicator to make a turn. “Ever heard of the Ichor?”
“Of course I have.”
“Then you know how dangerous it is.”
Jenna groused, “Dangerous doesn’t even begin to describe it. Gaines has been flooding the streets with it, creating a problem his beneficiaries are winning votes to fix.”
“That’s the checkers. I’m talking about the chess,” I said grimly, looking at Mimi’s face one more time through the mirror as she watched in curious silence. “The Ichor isn’t a drug, it’s a cure.”
“A cure? A cure for what?”
“For whatever was in that meteor,” I revealed. “It reacts violently to Mutables, killing them.”
“Um,” Cassie chimed in. “I don’t get it. I thought Ichor came from Mutables?”
“It does. It’s like an immune response. The body makes it to fight the infection. An anti-Mutable compound. But it doesn’t act the same if you’re a normal human from the start. It does other things. Bad things. Like me.”
All the women fell silent, until Jenna finally breached the silence. “What happened to you?”
I took a sidelong glance at Jenna, then changed the subject, “Nobody gets access to Mutables or a hoard of Ichor without special friends. This guy has deep state connections. If you want him, we’re gonna have to cut the fingers pulling the strings.
I can get to them, but first we’re gonna have to help some friends of my own. ”
“Friends?” Jenna balked before pointing her thumbs at the three women in the back. “What, them?”
“No…” I said in a low tone of voice. “The people they sent me to kill…”