Zoe Thanatos (7 page)

 “I don’t know,” she admitted. She
cleared her throat and stood up straight, feeling a bit indignant that he asked
her to begin with. “I don’t have an answer for you. It’s complicated.” He
nodded silently.

Just say something, anything!
she screamed at him in her head. From nowhere there was a storm of thoughts and
emotions inside her, each one fighting to come to the surface. She needed to
figure things out. He hadn’t told her everything she wanted to know, but then
again maybe he didn’t have to? Who was she to know anyway? True, he saved her
life, but that in no way obligated him to explain his world to her. It was a
distraction on her part, she decided. He had pulled back the curtain on a whole
world of information she couldn’t process all at once and she needed time to
figure things out for herself. And yet she wanted him to say that he would be
around, or would come back.

He put the glass device into one
pocket and pulled a set of keys from the other. That was it. He was leaving.

“I would really like to see you
again soon, Zoe,” he finally admitted.

Her insides lit up. “As would I.” A
string of tension manifested in the space between them. She wasn’t ready to not
see him again, and it had more to do with him than with wanting answers to her
questions.

“I’m staying at the Canary Hotel,
in case you need me.”

She nodded. “I’m familiar with it.”

“I guess I’ll see you later then.”
He took a step towards her, the string of tension tightening in the atmosphere
around them. . She watched in prickling silence as he slowly closed the gap of
space between them until they were mere inches apart. She had to lift her chin
to look up at him. Up close he radiated heat, the warmth making its way to her
body as he stood in front of her. His hands found her arms and gently rested
there a moment before moving up to her shoulders, his thumbs resting lightly at
the ends of each collarbone. Her lips parted slightly to allow the air she had
been withholding to escape. His face move imperceptibly towards hers and her
chest rose up with an intake of air, holding in the oxygen. His intense green
eyes seeped into hers, and she felt like time itself had come to a standstill. She
wondered if that was also one of his abilities.

His eyes left hers and looked to
where his hands rested on her shoulders. His thumbs made soft lines over her collarbones,
feeling them with a touch so delicate she wasn’t sure it was even happening.
His face relaxed ever so slightly as his hands went back to his sides.

“I’ll see you soon,” he whispered.
His eyes made their way back to hers again before he took a step backwards,
followed by another, until he backed his way around the coffee table and walked
towards the front door.

Zoe watched as he opened it to the morning
sky outside. He turned when he was halfway out the door and smiled a handsome
smile that might have taken her breath away if her lungs weren’t hoarding the
oxygen as though they might run out. The door closed shut and he was gone. She
exhaled and sat back down on the couch, still feeling the sensation of his
proximity on her skin. The ignition of his rental car turned over, and a small
burst of engine fired as he backed out of the driveway and turned onto the
residential street.

The house was quiet again. She was
alone for the first time since meeting him. The night sky faded away into early
morning light and all around her the home was bathed in golden light. Time
quickened back to its usual pace. It was a new day.

Her eyes found the box of macarons
on the table and she realized she could still taste the faint sweetness of
strawberry in her mouth. She took another and bit into it. Her mouth curved
into the tiniest of smiles as she chewed, thinking of the way the lights of
Paris reflected in Evan’s green eyes.

The morning sun was in full bloom
by the time Evan pulled into the parking lot of the Canary Hotel. Absent was
the morning fog and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. The
symmetry of the weather and Zoe’s change was not lost on him. It was a new day
for her and he sensed she would make different choices. He felt certain she
would not attempt to take her life again.

Her change in mood was subtle but
still exceptional. He wanted to stay with her longer and felt, or at least
hoped, that she felt the same. Yet, despite the tiny and unfolding attachment to
Zoe Thanatos he knew he must be careful, if nothing else.

After a quick change in his room,
Evan headed to the rooftop pool, hoping exercise would help clear his mind. The
roof had a stunning panoramic view of Santa Barbara, with the Pacific to the
West, mountains to the East, and a sea of terra-cotta roofs topping the Spanish
architecture the area was famous for. The morning light was a canopy of gold
and pink clouds beneath a sky of light blue; another perfect morning in a
beautiful town.

He stripped down to a pair of black
swimming trunks and dove into the water, enjoying the sensation of cool water
slipping over his skin. It was a great feeling to swim outdoors with the
natural world surrounding him. In his world the only bodies of water that
anyone could swim in were man-made and unnatural. They were nothing more than a
system generated program with an artificial environment meant to evoke the
natural wonders of other worlds. The fabricated world he grew up and lived in
was created by visionaries, and built on top of an otherwise dead and desolate
world. It was a rare occasion to see what his home really looked like, and
those with power made sure the artificiality was as convincing as any lie could
be. No matter how elaborate the deception there was no comparing their
fabricated world to the natural one around him there. Not many others had the
opportunities he had, and he never once took it for granted.

He often escaped to other worlds, always
preferring them to his own. The synthetic realities he was used to never
compared to the places they copied, as if they could never quite get it right
no matter how seemingly perfect they looked. Over time he recreated his
memories of foreign worlds in his home space, as a way to walk through his
recollections at will. They offered a fake escape when a real one was
impossible. He thought he might recreate Santa Barbara, the perfect pocket of that
world complete with a rooftop pool and stunning views. It would remind him of Zoe.

He saw her face in his memories, her
almond shaped brown eyes and high cheek bones, waves of brown hair cascading
down her shoulders. Hers was a beauty that could not be replicated. As much as
he desired to stay with her he knew it would merely delay the inevitable. He
was not from her world and she was not from his. Soon he would have to go back
home and leave her behind.

A thought nagged at him. There was
no guaranteeing she would keep herself safe, and she was right that he couldn’t
follow her around waiting to catch her. He had to trust that she would remain,
would keep herself alive. He had to accept not knowing what would become of her,
as difficult as it may be.

His arms and legs eventually tired
from swimming laps He emerged from the pool, toweled the water from his skin
and walked back to his room.

He hoped she wasn’t sitting on the
couch, going over everything that had happened in the previous twenty-four
hours. He imagined her opening the doors and windows to let in the fresh air,
breathing in the scent of the ocean and of the citrus trees that perfumed
behind her house. He pictured her smiling, the sun on her face and in her hair.
More than anything he wanted her to find happiness, to have a genuine reason to
smile and live.

Evan stopped just short of the
door, thoughts of Zoe gone. There was a difference in the atmosphere in the
hallway and a prickling sensation disturbed his skin. With a casual look to his
right and left he determined he was alone in the hallway. He inserted the key
and reached for the door handle, only to receive a small bolt of electricity.
Unhurt, he opened the door and shook out the light twinge in his hand.

A woman’s figure was silhouetted
against the large window overlooking the city. He recognized her even before
she turned to reveal her face.

“What are you doing here, Eva?” he
asked, defenses subsided.

“I could ask you the same question,
Evander,” she replied. He bristled at the sound of his full name,. She was the
only one who ever called him Evander.

“You know why I’m here.” He draped
the wet towel hanging around his neck on an upholstered chair and headed into
the bathroom to change, leaving Eva by herself. When he emerged a few minutes
later, freshly dressed and clean, she was sitting on the couch looking out the
window in silence.

“It's lovely here,” she noted
without looking at him. “Quite a change from home, isn’t it?” She looked at him
finally, an eyebrow raised in mild amusement.

“Why are
you
here?” he
asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

Eva sat on the couch a few feet
from the bed. “Your absence from Terra has been noticed. The Stratons have been
asking for you.”

“Don’t you mean the Queen and
King?” he asked dryly.

Eva’s lips pursed. “Yes, well
Queen
Kyra and
King
Owyn have between them an indelible curiosity. It seems
the King fancies you his closest friend while the Queen just fancies you. I’ve
told them I don’t know where my dear brother travels to for long stretches of
time, but that I would do my best to find him and bring him home. So here I
am.” She upturned her palms and smiled generously.

“Congratulations on finding me but
I am not coming home with you. Not yet anyway.”

Her smile tightened and she took a
deep breath in an apparent attempt to not lose her patience.  “It isn’t a
request, Evander. We’re lucky that they give us a long leash and a modicum of
trust. If either one of us tests their patience or stretches that trust even an
inch,” she pinched both hands in front of him to illustrate the point, “we
would both suffer the consequences.”

Evan allowed himself a moment to brood
at her words before standing and walking to the bureau. He produced a clean
pair of socks and slid them on his feet one at a time. He mentally cataloged
the places he’d been to since escaping from his home; he wasn’t ready to go
back yet.

“It’s not as easy this time,
Evadine,” he said with Zoe in mind.

“Your
home
is Terra. Your
life
is Terra. I know you fancy yourself to be some kind of inter-galactic traveler
bringing other-worldly culture back to the masses, but that is not your job. We
both have responsibilities to Terra, and we need to respect those if we want to
continue living as a family.”

He sat on the chair draped with the
wet towel and took a deep breath, avoiding her inquiring gaze. “I like it
here,” was all he could manage. He knew she was right. It was because of his
relationship with both the Queen and King that he was allowed to get away with
so much. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if they no longer
extended him that courtesy.

Eva stood and crossed the space
between them and crouched down at his feet with her hands on top of his. She
took in the sight of his face for a long moment and frowned, comprehension
dawning. “Something is different about you.”

His look was meant to convey a
warning but she seemed to misinterpret it. Her face lit up, her eyebrows
reaching for the sky as a sly smile spread across her lips.

“It’s not some
thing
; it’s
someone
,
isn’t it?”

“Eva, don’t,” he warned, though he
knew it would be pointless.

“I’m right, aren’t I? What’s her
name?” She jumped up and moved to the bed, tucking her legs underneath her like
a child as she sat down.

“It’s nothing worth talking about,”
he lied in an attempt to abate her curiosity.

“Liar,” she smiled.

He sighed and shook his head. She
was tenacious and not likely to give up once intrigued. “I’m not telling you
her name,” he conceded.

“Ah! She exists. So, you’ve met a
girl who lives an entire world away. How do you think that will work out?” Her
ability to be both annoying and charming at the same time grated his nerves.
Sarcastic rhetoric aside, he knew she was only looking out for his best
interests.

“I haven’t even thought that far
ahead,” he admitted.

“How did you meet?”

“On a boat,” he answered. He
pictured Zoe sitting in the plastic chair on the boat, Pacific wind in her hair
as she quietly stared out at the water.

“Recently?”

“Yesterday morning.”

Eva’s brows dipped into her face.
“You’ve only known this girl a
day
?”

He cocked his head and glared at
her. “We’re not going to talk about it.”

Disappointed, she fell silent and
tried to avoid his eye contact. “Irrespective of who you’ve met here, the fact
remains that you’re expected to come home. If I come home without you how do
you think that will make me look?”

“Tell them you couldn’t find me.”
He didn’t care how it would make her look. It wasn’t her job to fetch him.

“They’ll just send someone else to
look for you, Evan.” It was an inconvenient truth he had no interest in hearing
and he would stubbornly ignore it for as long as possible, the monarch be
damned.

“Well, they don’t know where I am,
right? So I have some time.”

She scowled at him, stood up from
the bed and put her hands on her hips. “You’re acting like a fool!” she
admonished. A cursory glance at her and it was as if he was looking at their
mother, right down to the way her hands wrapped around her hips. He tried to
ignore the stabbing sensation in his chest, knowing that tears would follow if
he allowed himself to dwell on the past.