The Rift (14 page)

“
Aww, you killed me,” Pieter
said.

“
Not funny.”

“
Vicodin’s ruining my aim
anyways.”

He sat back in a large blue recliner with an
Xbox controller in his lap. As far as games went, Pieter wasn’t
much of a player. After an awkward first boyfriend who was attached
at the hip to his computer, Vero had forever sworn off gamers. But
even Pieter sometimes ended up with a controller in his
lap.

Vero sat on the couch and yawned. The world
seemed a bit out of focus; a double-strong cup of instant coffee
kept her awake. Guilt and fear and uncertainty all rumbled around
inside. The peace and clarity of that light had faded in the
morning. Turned out a mysterious form in her room couldn’t fix all
her problems. Here, in Pieter’s house, the thought of the thing
seemed silly. It had just been part of the dream.

Though the turmoil was bearable, unlike the
night before. She could continue with life, feeling like this.
Maybe that’s what
continue
had meant, if it had meant
anything.

“
So, you… all right?” she
asked.

Pieter fired a few times and missed. “Yeah,
doctors patched me up good. Sixteen stitches thanks to dear,
deep-fried Jed. I’d say that he got the worst of it.”

She didn’t need reminding of that. Vero slumped
in the chair.

Pieter pointed at his torso. “After they
patched me up, the doctor asked me how I got a stab wound in a car
accident. But right then, a bunch of ambulances blew in with people
from the fire, and in the chaos, he dropped it.”

“
I thought you’d be with your mom,”
Vero said. “She seems to take better care of you.”

“
Yeah, well, she decided to let
Steve stay with her. So I’m stuck here.”

“
Oh, uh…” Vero paused for a moment,
then asked, “When are the others coming?”

“
Soon.”

Somebody bludgeoned Pieter to death with a
rifle.

“
So get off that recliner and over
here before they do.”

He tossed the controller onto the floor. “Oh?
You mean you didn’t just come to watch me play Call of
Duty?”

“
You’re confusing me with
Neil.”

“
Nah, you’re a lot prettier.”
Pieter staggered to the couch and plopped down, breathing
hard.

Vero leaned against his uninjured side. He
wrapped an arm around her, and she closed her eyes and breathed. As
soldiers shot one another in surround sound, he tilted her head and
kissed her.

Warm happiness waged an intense war against her
dark regret. Somehow, they both existed inside her simultaneously.
Tears slipped from her eyes.

Pieter pulled back a little. “Why you crying,
pretty girl?”

“
I… I killed two people last night.
My soul armor just burned so hot. But I was the one who killed
them. And…” She stopped. He didn’t want to hear about the light in
her room or her conviction to turn in the soul armors.

“
You did what you had
to.”

His words didn’t help the sinking guilt inside,
but his lips did.

The door opened.

“
Whoa, Pieter. Hey, I come at a bad
time?” It was Neil, carrying a two-liter bottle of soda in one hand
and a rolled-up blanket in the other.

Vero jolted back. “Knock,” she told
him.

“
Haven’t done that for years here,”
Neil said. He tossed the blanket on the coffee table. It fell with
a thud. “Got Pieter’s sword and Gloria’s staff there, by the way.
Anyways, sorry to spoil your moment. Not the first time you’ve been
making out with someone when I came over.”

“
Ugh, I’ve tried to forget that,”
Pieter said.

Neil held up the soda. “Brought the Cactus
Cooler, by the way. It’s a victory party, right?”

“
Yeah, sure,” Pieter said, rolling
his eyes. “Get some cups.”

“
It’s your house.”

“
Injured, remember?”

Neil returned with four glasses of ice. He
poured the soda and passed them around, leaving one on a coaster
for Gloria. Vero sipped hers, glad for the sweetness.

“
Get any sleep?” Pieter asked,
downing half the glass in a single gulp.

“
Nah, had an Army of Pwn raid.”
Neil’s voice went really deep. “Flawless slaughter.”

“
Wait… you got in a real sword
fight, and then you played WoW?” Pieter asked.

Neil picked up the controller and took a turn
at Pieter’s game. He scored a quick kill. “Mace fight, actually,
and yes, that’s exactly what I did. Great way to wind down. Even
got an epic drop.” Despite a smile, Neil’s eyes held heaviness,
sadness.

“
In other words, you’re better at
WoW than real life,” Pieter said.

Neil scowled. “Hey, I would’ve got him.
Eventually.”

“
You had him just where you
wanted?” Pieter said. “Overconfident from disarming you and
knocking you to the ground? Oh, and disabling your armor was just a
feint, right?”

Gunshots echoed; Neil fell to the ground and
died. “I just needed another moment to think, I think.”

Vero stared him in the eyes. “You’re
welcome.”

He met her gaze then immediately turned back to
the screen. “Yeah, well, thanks. The AoP DPS paladin might have
been MIA last night if it weren’t for you.”

Vero smiled and shook her head. It was probably
a good sign for Neil to be back to speaking in gamer
gibberish.

Neil turned the game off. A Panasonic logo
floated around the screen. “By the way, I tried the soul armors
from Jed and Dek.”

“
Yeah?” Pieter asked.

“
They’re broken. I couldn’t
activate them.”

“
Hmm… then no new recruits,” Pieter
said.

“
I definitely got better drops in
the AoP raid. And I do remember James saying something like if he
died with the armor on, it’d kill the armor, too. I think that’s
what happened.”

“
And the car?” Pieter
asked.

Neil turned the controller over and over in his
hands. “The insurance is sending out an estimator tomorrow. But
it’s definitely totaled. And since it was a hit and run—that’s what
we told them, at least—I might only get five thousand on collision
for it. Assuming they don’t ask any strange questions about the
damage, that is. Not sure if they’ll figure out that a mace
destroyed it.”

That car had looked new. That meant Neil’s
family might lose, what, ten or fifteen thousand dollars? With that
kind of money, Vero could buy cars for her whole family. How was he
not freaking out? He definitely lived in a different
world.

“
I still don’t get how Jed
had
a vehicle,” Neil said.

“
Stolen,” Pieter said. “I overheard
the cops talking about finding a stolen van last night. Must have
been Jed’s. If we’re lucky, he’ll get blamed for the fire,
too.”

“
Doubtful,” Neil said. “The news
this morning said that people saw a
girl
at the gas station,
though the security footage burned with the building. We’re just
lucky they’d never heard of an offsite backup. Three houses burned
down in the neighborhood where you finished Jed off, and they think
that the two fires are related.”

The safety of her mask suddenly seemed about as
thin as the plastic that composed it. “Hey, still saved you
all.”

Neil looked at the ground and sighed. “Can’t
deny that.”

Pieter nodded to his friend. “So, you still hot
on scenario two, save the world?”

“
That was scenario three,” Neil
said, voice flat and uncertain. He fumbled with the controller
again. “But you think a little car accident is going to stop
me?”

Someone knocked on the door. Gloria came in and
sat on the couch. She looked as exhausted as the rest of
them.

“
How’re you?” Vero
asked.

“
Been better,” Gloria said. “Bill
and Lisa seemed pretty freaked out about the break-in.”

“
I’d be, too. At least their house
didn’t burn down,” Vero said.

“
Yeah, well, they were a lot more
worried about their house than me.”

“
Huh?” Vero said.

“
Let’s just say it hasn’t been the
easiest relationship,” Gloria said.

She seemed casual, flippant, but her sarcasm
wasn’t like Pieter’s. Pieter joked for fun, to liven things up.
Gloria sounded really dark.

“
This is some victory party, yeah?”
Pieter said. “You sound like we lost.”

“
Well, I did manage to destroy a
couple houses and a gas station,” Vero said.

“
Details, details,” Pieter said.
“We got the Ruachians. We’re safe.”

“
Assuming the police don’t find
us,” Neil said.

“
No, there’s more,” Vero
said.

“
What?” Pieter asked.

They’re coming, little girl.
They’re coming for your world. You’ve picked the wrong
side.

“
Jed, right before he died, said
the portal was open. That more people were coming through from
Ruach.”

“
A bluff,” Pieter said.

“
I don’t think so,” Gloria
said.

“
What?” Pieter asked.

“
We… well, while we were still in
Neil’s car, I felt something. A little like a soul armor, but
really far away. It makes sense. The portal.”

Vero stood up and faced the others, full of her
conviction from the night before. “Look, we’ve been fooling
ourselves this whole time. All this stuff about just beating Jed
and getting our lives back… we lost our old lives the moment James
stepped out of that tunnel. All Neil’s scenarios, all our attempts
to hide—we’ve been lying to each other, pretending that we could
just slip out of this.”

Neil started, “Hey, those
scenarios…”

Vero turned to him. “Were your way of
manipulating us so you could live out some childhood superhero
fantasy. Am I wrong?”

Neil slunk in his seat. “Look, there was a real
need for us…”

“
A real need for us to do what
makes sense,” Vero said. “We turn these things in to somebody—FBI,
police, army, whoever—and tell them about the war, whatever the
consequences.”

Neil sat up straight. “Oh, whatever the
consequences?”

“
Yeah.”

“
How about you going to jail for
thirty years?”

“
Because of…”

“
Vero, you blew up a gas station,
torched some houses, and killed two guys. And we’re all
accomplices. Last I checked, those were felonies, even if those men
came from another world.”

She felt like a balloon that had just sprung a
leak. “But… it was self-defense, right?”

“
Good luck convincing a jury that
torching the Trex station was self-defense.”

“
But, I…” She hated Neil for it,
but he was right.

“
But you’re right about one thing:
We’ve been thinking about this all wrong,” Neil said. “We’ve been
thinking about how to undo meeting James and get our lives back.
That’s not happening. Especially if James was right and Terian
brings the war here. Especially after last night, we can’t just
hide. I, for one, say we continue.”

Continue.
As though if they did, some
good would come out of it.

“
Count me out,” Pieter said. “This
has been enough trouble.”

“
Me, too,” Gloria said. “I said it
that first night, I’ll say it again. I’m not a fighter.”

This from the girl who’d dropped a tree on Jed.
“You’re wrong on that,” Vero said. “Timid or not, you’re a fighter.
You’re strong.”

Gloria looked back at her, a flat expression on
her face, her lips sealed. But hope registered in her eyes, as
though she wanted it to be true.

Pieter looked up at Vero. “And you? You’ve got
a good life here. Why spoil that?”

A good life. He was the best part of her life,
but the rest? He’d never seen her house. He didn’t know her family.
His parents might be divorced, but at least he
had
a dad.
Pieter had grown up in wealth, she in poverty. He might have a good
life to return to; she didn’t.

“
Yeah, Vero? Hide or fight?” Neil
asked.

She pictured that light floating in her room.
She wanted it to be real, wanted it to mean something. Until now,
Ruach invading her world had meant fear. Magic had meant armed men
robbing her brother-in-law and stabbing her boyfriend. But if that
presence had been real, that strange visitor that had wrapped her
in serenity like a blanket and chased away her fears, then magic
could also mean things more beautiful than she’d
imagined.

How strange that she’d end up agreeing with
Neil. She kept a few inches between her and Pieter. “You can try
and run away. But the rift was open. See how long you can
hide.”