The Other Side (26 page)

“What
are you doing here, James?” I ask as I follow him to the elevator.

“I wanted to apologize.”

That's not what I meant by my question, and I think he knows that, but maybe he doesn't know the answer. You just end up in the middle of the suck and you don't know quite how you got there, or quite how to get out.

Allie and a couple of white cloaks are waiting for us in the elevator. They're each holding a hand, like they're parents taking a kid out for a stroll. A giant rag-doll, dead-eyed kid. My heart hurts.

“You think showing her some stars'll actually work?” a white cloak asks me on the ride up.

“Hopefully,” I say, though a part of me hopes not. The
other part hopes to give her one last smile. “You a talker?”

“Nah. No offense, but y'all are nuts.”

“A little,” I say. “When the dragon's in your head, reality's amped up several clicks. When you lose the connection, you crash hard.”

“Yeah, we heard. Herb, may his deranged soul rest in peace, said it's like cocaine.”

“Sure.”

“So you think showing her some stars will remind her that reality's not so bad?”

“No, reality sucks,” I say, which gets the two white cloaks laughing. “You don't look at the stars to think about reality.”

And their laughter ceases.

The elevator stops at the fourth floor. James guides us with a flashlight down a dark hallway into a darker tunnel. The faint aroma of salt mixes with stuffy air. The air thins, the smell intensifies.

Numerous twists and turns later, the tunnel ends in an enormous explosion crater. The steep slopes sparkle white in the moonlight. Almost like sand, but more granular.

Salt.

The stars twinkle overhead. I tip Allie's chin upward and point out constellations, sweeping from west to east like Mom taught me, and recount the limited mythology I recall, most of which involves Zeus putting creatures and people in
the sky to prevent patricide, escape an angry lover, or honor a fallen hero.

“There's Orion. He was a great hunter. He's got a team of hunters with him,” I say. I force her gaze in the direction of Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation. She blinks without seeing. “That star there, that's the great hunter Thog.”

Allie awakens with a lurch, wrenching her head free of my grip. She writhes in the guards' grasp, kicks at them. She looks around frantically. “Thog? Thog? Thog?”

I grab hold of her chin. She fights me, but I finally tilt her gaze skyward. “He's up there.”

“Dead, dead, dead!”

“Look. Look!” I nod at Betelgeuse, the second-brightest star in Orion. “That one there, that's Almac. And there's Curik. And there's Thog . . .”

I repeat every name I can remember, assigning them to different stars in the various constellations. After what feels like hours but can't be more than a few minutes, she stops fighting me. Tears stream down her face.

“It's okay,” I say to the white cloaks. “Please.”

They release her.

She points at a star in Cygnus. “Who's that?”

“Bornak,” I say.

“That?”

“That's Korm,” James says.

“I bet that one's Bryzmon. They were brothers,” Allie says.

I nod. “It is.”

She points. “Is that Helk? He was a feisty trickster.”

“No, Helk's over there. That one's Ulg.”

“That one, that bright one there,” she says, indicating Venus. “Who's that?”

“That's Vestia.”

James smiles a good smile at me, then looks back to the sky and closes his eyes.

“Vestia?” Allie's brows are furrowed. She shakes her head. “She never talked to me. I never made her go away.”

“I did,” I say. “I made her go away. But she's not really away. She's waiting up there for us in the next tomorrow. It's a lot safer and happier. They've got all that space to themselves. And nobody chases them.”

“I want to visit them, yes, yes.”

My throat tightens and I look away.

“They want that desperately,” James says, “but not yet. They want you to be a bright star like Vestia, but to be a bright star, you have to live a bright life down here. It's the only way.”

“They never visit me anymore. Every day somebody disappears. They don't say good-bye. I never get to say good-bye either.” She sniffles.
“I never get to tell them anything. I never get to tell them that it's okay to be scared. And that they don't need to be angry and that they're not alone. The only time I talk to them, all they do is die. All I do is make them die. And I never got to tell them good-bye.”

I pull her to me. She sobs into my chest.

“You know what that means when you don't say good-bye?” I say, thinking of Mom. “It means they're not gone. They're never gone.”

“Those there,” she says, pointing at the Pleiades, “can those be Mom and Pappy?”

“What do you mean, ‘Can they?'” James says. “They are.”

“See those two next to them?” James says. “You've got to turn your head sideways a little bit and squint.”

She does, then nods fervently.

“Those are my parents,” James says. He cups his hands around his mouth. “Hi, Mom and Dad!”

“Where's your mom, Melissa?” Allie asks. It's the first time she's said my name. Tears slip from the corners of my eyes. She notices. “Don't be sad.”

“I'm not,” I say, and it's only a half lie. I find Sirius and smile. “There she is.”

“She's bright,” Allie says, and waves. I join her.

We continue to say hi to those we've lost, and for a little while at least, the world down here feels a little less dark.

James
gives her a piggyback ride back to our apartment. Allie draws constellations on his back with her finger, repeating the names of the dragons in them. Back in the apartment, she asks James and me to sleep with her. “I never had a sleepover growing up.”

She talks about her dragon buddies and how they don't like being locked up (“even though they understand that it's because they can't mind their manners”) and that they miss her voice (“though when I could talk to them, they told me I talked way too much and growled at me to shut up, but they were nice growls”). She drifts to sleep as she's telling us about a dragon named Vanorak. (“He has a very high opinion of himself . . . but he's got honor . . . most Greenies . . . tricksters . . . troll monkeys . . . bananas.”)

James gets up. “You know the others figured there was no way for you to get through to her.”

Others? I push out a smile. “Remember Myra's funeral?”

“I remember roaring with you.”

Roar away the pain. What a quaint, futile idea. “I remember how when the other dragons incinerated her body, how her embers glided into the sky. That's what made me think of it.”

“She'd be happy to know that some good came of that,” James says.

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” he says. “It's going to be all right, Melissa.”

I'm tired of lies, no matter how nicely they're spoken. “I saw your TV promo.”

He grimaces. “Don't watch it, okay?”

“Wasn't planning on it.” I swallow, look at Allie, but not for long, because it hurts too much. “Take her, James. Take her away from this.”

“I can't, Melissa.” He taps his CENSIR. “Even if I wanted to.”

But he doesn't want to. “Why'd you join them? Why, James?”

“I wanted to be the hunter for once.”

“My brother's out there, my father. . . .”

“They'll be safe,” he says. Another nice lie.

“Just like Allie, huh?”

“We need to end this war, Melissa. We need to be free.”

I pick up one of the shackles. “Free, huh? She's just a fucking child, James.”

He hardens, his jaw clenching and unclenching. A few deep breaths later, he's calmed. “In a couple of days, you won't have to worry about any of this ever again. You take Allie, you return to Baby, and you live in peace.”

I give him a tight smile. “Thanks for taking us outside.”

“Yeah,” he says, and leaves.

I check the hallway to make sure he and the guards are gone, then return to my room. I watch Allie sleep, which is a mistake. I turn on the thinscreen, mute it, and find the
Kissing Dragons
channel.

It's on episode twenty-eight, the hunt for Betelgeuse. J.R.'s still alive in this episode. I almost lose it when I see Colin smile beneath that cowboy hat. I shut off the thinscreen.

I do push-ups and sit-ups until I'm too tired. I take a shower. I check the thinscreen. Episode thirty-one. The fab four are out for revenge on the dragon that killed J.R. I switch the station and watch an infomercial until the Scarlet Scourge is dead.

In episode thirty-two, they're going after Big Blue, the Beast of Brazil, who led the attack on Rio a decade ago. In the prehunt segment, they show clips of Blue stampeding through rain forest and city, trampling everything in his path. They interview relatives of victims.

I know part of it's not real, but the destruction and the
death are real. I freeze the thinscreen on an image of a man kneeling in a graveyard. Black headstones extend out of sight in all directions.

I pick up a pillow.

Nothing happens.

This is the flaw in the CENSIR. It doesn't read your thoughts. Only your emotions.

If I were angry, it would tell whoever's monitoring my CENSIR that I'm “violent, dangerous to others.” They'd shock me or incapacitate me, particularly if they knew what I was about to do, but I'm sure they don't see any emotion other than sadness.

I focus on the screen. I imagine Sam and Dad and Uncle T and Aunt Sue in that graveyard. I glance at Allie, and damn me to hell, she's got a small smile on her lips. And I hope she's dreaming a good dream.

I press the pillow to her face.

I can feel her breathing against me.

I push down.

“I'm saving you. I'm protecting you,” I whisper, because maybe saying it aloud makes it true.

But I'm not strong enough.

I'm too weak to save her and too weak to kill her.

I throw the pillow aside, hug her to me, and tell myself nice lies that I will be stronger tomorrow.

Allie's
arm dangles across my chest when I wake. I sniff. The faint scent of ammonia lingers, but that's it. I crawl out of bed, crank the lamp, and prepare breakfast.

The toilet flushes. I look over my shoulder. Allie trudges out of the bathroom, silent as a ghost.

“Hi,” I say.

She doesn't respond. She's back to that monotonous blinking. She sits on the edge of the bed and eats breakfast. Beside me, but not with me. She stares at the wall, occasionally takes a bite. I ask her what's wrong, I talk to her about the stars and her Green buddies. She eats and blinks and never responds.

I think about suffocating her again. She wouldn't struggle, wouldn't make a noise. Would that be easier?

I'm throwing away the trash from our MREs when I hear her croak something unintelligible. I cup her face between my hands. “What is it?”

“Arabelle?” she says.

The brooch! I check the drawer where I'd put the silver dragon pin. Still there. I could give it to her, unwrap her wrists, let her kill herself. God, I am a monster. I close the drawer. “I think we lost her.”

She shakes her head. “No, no. Arabelle and Grackel don't talk to me anymore. Neither does Randon. They must be in the stars.”

And she'd blame herself for them, too. I gamble. “Did they say good-bye?”

She looks up, and her lips purse to the side. Finally she nods. “Yes. Arabelle said, ‘See you later, gator baiter.' And I told her, ‘After a while, cranky-dile,' because she doesn't like that because she thinks she's prettier than a crocodile, and I agree, but I like teasing, but then she didn't talk after that, no, no.”

I smile. “Well, if they said good-bye, that means they're not in the stars.”

“But why would they stop talking to me?”

“They don't want to distract you from helping your Green friends. Speaking of your friends, you remind them to be nice, okay?”

“I don't have any control over that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whenever I'm in the hive—”

“What's that?”

“It's what Mr. O calls the place with all the thinscreens.”

“Does he have you talk to them?”

“I think so, but I don't know what I'm saying. I don't remember. It's a bad place.” She shudders. “Kill the dragons, yes, yes, or the dragons kill them.” She's silent for a while. “I don't want to go back there, but Mr. O says I have to. Just once more. To help the Greens so they can be free. They want to be free.”

“You hold on to good thoughts, okay? You think of Arabelle and Grackel, and that'll help.”

“And you too, right?”

I try to smile. “Yeah.”

“That song you were singing to me the other day, I like it.”

I sing her the chorus of “Over the Rainbow.” “That one?”

She nods. “Can you teach it to me?”

By the time the white cloaks come for her, she's memorized the lyrics. She gives me a hug. “It seems like a happy song, but it's a sad one, isn't it?”

I compose myself. “It is if you don't have dragons.”

“I think the Greens would like it.” She hums it as they take her away.

A white cloak stays behind. He hands me a stiff manila envelope. My name's written on it in bubbly handwriting, a heart drawn over the I. “Evelyn wanted me to give this to you. She thought it might help with everything.”

I can only imagine. After he's gone, I throw the envelope into the trash can, then turn on the thinscreen. It's 2:08 EST. The news is focused on the
Kissing Humans
finale, on figuring out who James and Evelyn are going to execute.

After a profiler dissects the trailer, they interview a bookmaker from New Vegas on the odds that it will be somebody famous (he doesn't think it will be), politicians who condemn the Diocletians, who condemn the media for stoking fear, condemn social networks for not blocking Oren's propaganda videos. . . .

Ticker tape scrawls at the bottom of a commercial for Dark Tide Detergent.
Dio Trio execution set for tomorrow morning
.
Opening Day finally commences at Fenway Underground. FCC ups fine to $10 million for broadcasting “indecent material.” Physicists discover flaw in the Einstein-Rosen Bridge Theory. . . .

It's all rather typical. Either the government doesn't know the attack's coming, or they're doing a good job of faking it.

It's gotta be the latter. They know Oren's coming. They
don't want to tip their hand. They don't want to spark panic. They're going to annihilate him.

I almost convince myself.

I try to take a nap, but that's not happening. I exercise, shower. I check the thinscreen again. Same ole, same ole. It's 5:11 EST. I want to freeze time or accelerate it, but I'm stuck in its slow progression forward.

I heat up an MRE. I nibble at parts of it, push it around some, nibble some more, but leave most of it uneaten. When I throw it away, I see Evelyn's envelope. I pull it out, wipe the MRE gravy from it. I run my hands along the edges. It feels like a photo, an 8 x 10. Evelyn no doubt meant to torment me with whatever's inside, but it actually does help distract me from thinking about the inevitable.

I come up with possibilities for what it could be. A photo of me on Praxus, killing those soldiers in that convoy; or maybe one of Double T's body. Probably with a written note of congratulations, just like she fake congratulated me for killing Claire when we were in Georgetown.

Or maybe it's something more trite. Her and James locked in passion. Wouldn't surprise me if she's the kind to video that shit. Prim and proper on the outside, all devil on the inside. The thought of her in a red latex outfit makes me both cringe and laugh.

Then I think of something far worse, something I would
not put past her. What if it's not a picture she took, but one pulled from the net? In Georgetown, they showed me drone surveillance vids of my brother to encourage my cooperation. Maybe inside that envelope is a still photo of Sam, looking up at the sky . . . a sky soon to be filled with dragons.

I know it could be a lie, something to flay my soul, but I have to know. I tear it open and pull out the picture.

It's not my brother.

It appears to be a video-captured image from the commercial she and James made for the
Kissing Humans
finale.

James is straddling an All-Black, a sword pressed to the soldier's neck. The A-B's gagged with rope, spread-eagled to a stone slab with shackles, and wearing a distinctive cowboy hat.

Colin.