Shattered (3 page)

Chris still didn’t let go. After a while,
Sophia’s heartbeat disappeared, and Chris and I just stood in the middle of the
kitchen, crying and hugging.

I loved that she didn’t address the
elephant in the room–
that
I was crying over
people I supposedly didn’t care about. She just let it happen, let me cry, and
let me not tell her why.

I was at the pool again, standing on the
ledge, about to jump in. Mom was there. She was always there. And Kamon. The
red water churned and begged me to jump, and I … woke up.

“Sweetie,” Nate said. His eyes were glued
shut as he turned off the alarm on his phone. “Are you up?”

“Yeah. I had the nightmare again.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Get out.” We laughed, and he
pulled his comforter over his head.

“She has to know we wouldn’t sleep apart
after last night,” I said, and met him under there.

He groaned and got out of bed. Just as I
burrowed deeper into the warm sheets, he snatched them off of me and swept me
up in his arms. “Nate, stop,” I said. “I’m tired.”

He didn’t respond. He carried me to the
house and balanced me on one arm as he opened the door. With his eyes still
half closed, he kissed my cheek and placed me inside. My skin tingled as I
passed through Sophia’s protective magic.

“See you later,” he grumbled.

“Nate,” I whined.

“
You
have nightmares about portals.
I
have
nightmares about Sophia killing me. See you later.”

He closed the door behind him, and I
flipped on the lights in the kitchen. The sun was barely out and I wanted to
get back in bed, but Nate was right. Sophia would be here any minute, and it
was in my best interest to be away from Nathan and in the kitchen preparing to
take my meds.

After the portal, I’d asked my mother to
remove my powers. She’d told me she would have to tamper with my memories again
to do that, and even if we wanted that, she didn’t think it would work for me
permanently. Something about my mind–and my father’s mind–held on
to strands of things, making it impossible for memories to leave completely. She’d
hoped I would forget about my powers naturally as I grew up away from her
world, but that didn’t happen, and it was unlikely that I would ever forget
them. So Sophia’s potion was my only option.

Yesterday, I’d been too focused on Nate
to remember to turn them down to a manageable level, but there was something in
his eyes that kept me grounded all day. But that wasn’t the norm for me. When
my powers were at their normal, lethal level, I found it hard to think straight
and make good decisions. Because Nate’s parents weren’t going to die every day
and keep my head on straight, I had to take the potion.

Sure, it tasted like cough syrup and
magic, but the threat of killing millions of people again made me ignore the
medicinal taste.

I opened the fridge and took out a vial
of green slime. Just as I pressed it to my lips, Sophia appeared in the kitchen
with her husband.

“Wait, love,” she said.

She took the vial, and I jumped into
Gregory’s arms. Since solving the mystery with the portal, I’d seen her husband
every day, and I was in love. He was just like Sophia, without the nagging,
which meant he was the sweetest person alive.

“Good morning, my love,” he said. I
chuckled. He even spoke like Sophia.

“Morning,” I said. “What are you doing
here?”

“I’m here to help. I don’t do many things
better than Sophia, but conjuring potions happens to be one of them.”

I released Gregory and turned to Sophia.
She tipped the vial she’d taken from me into the sink, then proceeded to dump
my entire stash.

Without turning around, she said, “Your
mother wants me to change the potion. She wants it to be easier for you to
remember to take.”

“Is she upset with me for forgetting it
yesterday?” I asked. My powers were still dulled from last night’s dose. I
couldn’t answer my own question. “Does she think I could’ve done something
bad?”

Sophia shook her head. “No, but actually
seeing a ghost, not just sensing them, is very advanced. You could’ve had a
seizure if it had gone on longer.”

I sighed. My psychic fits were painful
and terrifying. My last one was the worst yet. A few days before July 4
^th
,
when I was looking into the future when I should’ve been minding my own
business, I’d pushed my brain way too far and knocked myself out for days.

“You think you can make my new potion
before the last dose wears off?” I asked, thinking of how my weapon of a brain
was even dangerous for me.
 

“That’s what Gregory is here for,” she
said. He honked my nose and met his wife at the sink. He had a funny walk,
caused by him never lifting his feet from the floor. She gave him one of our
huge pots, and he snapped and snapped until he filled the counter with magical
ingredients.
 
 
  

“Now you’ll get to find out what you’ve
been drinking,” he said. He tilted a green bottle into the pot and made a sour
face. “Worm guts.”

I covered my mouth, and he laughed. “Don’t
do that, Greg,” Sophia said. “It’s not worm guts, love.”

He winked at me and tilted a pink bottle
into the pot. “Fly brains,” he whispered. I giggled, and Sophia shook her head.
“So, dear, how long do you plan to drink fly brains?”

“Forever,” I said. He looked at Sophia,
and Sophia looked at the ground. “What?”

“You must be joking,” Gregory said. “No
powers? Forever?”

“Gregory,” Sophia said. “It’s what she wants,
and her mother and I agree. Drop it.”

“That’s such a waste. She could be-”

“Drop it,” Sophia said. Her sweet voice
was almost a growl.

I couldn’t imagine what Gregory thought I
would become … other than a hazard to myself and others. Actually, out of
everyone, he should’ve been the most upset with me. Sophia tried to put me out
of his study the night we put everything together, but he told her to let me
stay. And I … ended the world.

“It’s for the best,” I said. “No more
doing crazy things. No more fighting my powers. No more seizures.”

“That’s right, love,” Sophia said.

Gregory silently went back to mixing,
Sophia started cleaning, and I watched my lifesaving potion come to life. Once
the new batch was finished, Sophia asked me to taste test it. With an
apprehensive look clouding his gray eyes, Gregory dipped a spoon into the pot
and lifted it to my lips.

It singed my tongue before spreading
across my taste buds with a burst of unexpected flavor. “Yum,” I said. “Kiwi. I
love it.”

Sophia applauded, but her husband’s
wrinkled lips turned down into a frown. “You realize what this is doing,
right?” he said. I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s slowing your brain down, child.
It’s a powerful sedative. You’re choosing to drink a
sedative
. Permanently.”

Sophia poured me a glass of the powerful
sedative. I stared at it for a moment, wondering if it was worth it. Then I
thought about the portal world, setting a copy on fire, and my mother’s face
after we’d told her what I’d done. Seeing Lydia Shaw’s disappointed face felt
like someone was trying to rip my heart out. I never wanted to see it again, not
for something like that, so I chugged the entire glass.

“Greg, she’s happy. Let it go,” Sophia
said. “Christine, honey, be careful. Space the doses out through the day. When
you take them is up to you now, but don’t drink more than five glasses in a
day.”

“Four,” Gregory cut in. “It’s a bit
stronger than you’re used to, so you won’t have powers at all. Let us know if
you get tired or woozy. I’ll tweak it.”

No powers at all? That was even better
than dulling them. Now, I wouldn’t be at risk of losing my mind again. Maybe
the nightmares would stop.

Sophia poured the kiwi-cocktail into a
pitcher and stored it in the refrigerator. She lectured me about my
responsibility to keep up with my doses until she and Gregory left.

Nate dragged into the kitchen a few seconds
later. He was wearing plaid pajama pants and still hadn’t bothered to put on a
shirt.

“I heard them leave. Are we up?” he
asked.

I folded my arms over my chest and
narrowed my eyes. “
I’m
up because you
put me out. You can do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

He smiled and met me at the counter. He
planted soft pecks on my ear until I forgot to act upset with him. “Thanks,” he
said.

“For what?”

“For being you. Last night, I thought you
were going to ask me a bunch of questions, but we just hung out and slept. That
was exactly what I needed.” He kissed my ear again. “You are exactly what I
needed.”

“Glad to help.”

“And you don’t have to worry about me.
I’m fine. I won’t be crying anymore. I just want us to forget it altogether.
The last two days. All of it. Can we do that?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Just let it
go?” I asked. He nodded. I guessed I understood why he would want to forget the
last two days. He never wanted to talk about his mother, and now she was dead.
She’d said to tell him she loved him in the morgue. I wasn’t surprised. I’d
sensed that in their home. She loved Nate in her own way, but he either wasn’t
aware of it or wanted to pretend it wasn’t true.

“What do you think? Can we leave
everything in the past?” he said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the
other and back again. “Even the things that happened in the bathroom?”

I rubbed his arm. Only I would notice the
shiny scars there. Two nights ago, they were huge gaping wounds that a normal
person would have needed to go to the hospital for. Now they were slightly
pinker scratches that could’ve come from falling. No one would suspect he’d bitten
into his own arm as a dog.

We’d cleaned the blood out of his tub,
and it would be more than easy to throw our bloody clothes and towels away
before Sophia saw them. “It can be our secret,” I said, knowing he was embarrassed
about losing it. “We can forget it all, if you’re okay.”

He picked me up and spun around, blurring
the cabinets and the curtains into a brownish red blob.

“I love you,” he said. “And I’m fine. I’m
happy because of you. And now you have to promise me to be happy, too.” His
face stiffened, going from playful to serious in the blink of an eye. “Unhappiness
made you
open
the portal.”

“I know. I promise I’m done with that
side of myself. I’m sorry I did that. I really am. If my mom weren’t my mom, I
would be in jail right now … or worse. And, the most egregious part of it, I
left you.”

He shrugged and pecked my nose. “I’m not
mad at you. It’s not like you broke up with me to be with your parents. You
took a huge risk because you know what I know– that even if you changed
into a fish, I would somehow become one too.” I laughed and kissed him. “No
more risks?” he said.

“Nope. I promise. I’m taking my meds,
being happy with you, and getting on with my life.”

Someone cleared their throat behind us,
and we turned around. “You two made it to the kitchen first, so breakfast is on
you guys,” Paul said, reciting a house rule we’d never enforced. Emma peeked
around him and waved. Oddly, they were fully clothed already.

We prepared four bowls of cereal, and we
all took our breakfast to the pool. Paul and Em took one lounge chair, and Nate
and I took the one next to them.

“Chris, can you tell your dad to call
me?” Paul said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I want to know how someone manages to
make money like he has without going to college. He’s rich, right?”

“I think so,” I said.

“I know so,” Nate said.

I peeked up at him. He looked annoyed. I
assumed it was my father’s money or money in general that was bothering him.

“I need to pick his brain,” Paul said. “In
the meantime, I’m going to start selling my body.”

Emma smacked his shoulder, and Nate
raised his hand for a high-five, agreeing with Paul. I yanked his arm down
before their hands could connect.

“I think you three should all cool out on
the job thing for now,” I said. “The last one … well, I’m not going to point
fingers, but…” I pointed at Paul. “Someone really screwed us with that one.”

Paul grabbed for my finger but missed,
and we laughed about the Peace Group like thousands of people weren’t dead
because of them, including Nate’s parents. We all seemed to notice it at once,
and our laughter faded until there was no sound other than the slushing water
in the pool.

Paul broke the awkward silence first. “Em
and I sort of have an important announcement,” he said.

I gasped and said, “You’re pregnant?”
Paul pretended to strangle himself. There wasn’t a hint of a smile on Emma’s
face. “If you’re pregnant,” I said. “…everything’s going to be okay. I’d be a
great godmother. I know you don’t have a job, but we can figure something out.
Just tell me what you need.”

“Chris, I’m not pregnant,” Emma said.

“Oh.”

“Wait … do I look pregnant!?” I shook my
head. She sighed and smiled, like the world was suddenly perfect because of
that. Slowly, the smile melted away and returned to the grimace she had before.
“You know how much I hate coming clean about things. It’s like the time with
Paul when I couldn’t tell him I loved him. I just hate big confessions. That
reminds me, there’s a huge sale on-”