Sunshowers - Part Eight
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
As I sprint through the sunlit forest, fighting the rising wave of pure panic rushing up through me, the thoughts going through my head are surprisingly straightforward. Mostly restricted to:
Shit, oh my god, oh no, oh fuck, oh shit, what a disaster…
“Aiden!” I cup my hands around my mouth, shouting at the top of my lungs. “Ralph! Noah! Where are you?”
My voice echoes through the quiet of the forest, to no response. All it does is startle a few birds out of the trees. My fast-blinking eyes flit back and forth all around me, searching the forest. Finding no one.
I just don’t understand. How did this happen? Where even am I? In the forest, obviously, but I don’t see the hotel anywhere, or any other landmarks I recognize. It’s all just endless trees, standing silent and still, rising up on all sides.
“Aiden!” I try again, with mounting desperation. “Noah!”
Oh, god, where the hell are they?
“Ralph!” I sprint up a steep rise in the forest floor, hoping for a better view of my surroundings. “Aiden! N-”
I break off with a sharp gasp, stumbling backwards just in time to avoid crashing into someone who was racing up the hill from the other side. An eyeful of ink and piercings flashes across my vision.
Noah moves on reflex, catching me by my wrist before I can fall. He lets out a heavy, shuddering breath of relief when he sees it’s me, tilting his head back. I do the same as soon as I realize it’s him, pressing one hand over my heart.
“Oh - Noah, thank god! Jesus, am I happy to see you!”
“What the fuck happened, dude?” he pants, just as out of breath and wild-eyed as I am.
“I don’t know! For some reason I thought that Aiden and I had left the hotel together, and headed out to the villas! I remember him being right next to me! Then he said something Aiden wouldn’t have said-”
“What’d he say?”
“Hey, you go on without me. I’ve gotta take care of something, I’ll catch up. You’ll be fine on your own.”
“Yeah, no,” Noah says firmly.
“Yeah, and when I turned around to look at him, I realized he wasn’t even really there!” I’m trembling a little, having an all-out battle to hold back my panic. “The Witch gave me a fake memory of leaving the hotel with him and coming here together, and now I’ve seen through it, but I don’t remember what actually happened! The last thing I remember is walking across the hotel lawn to meet up with you guys, and noticing something, and then thinking, like - uh oh, oh shit, this is very bad.”
“That’s the last thing I remember, too!” Noah shakes his head, at a loss. “I know that something happened at the hotel, ‘cause I remember thinkin’, oh, we’re in for some trouble. Next thing I knew, me and Ralph were walking to the villas together. I felt a little confused over it, but I remembered him leaving the hotel and telling me to come along. But he was being weird, and - not like Ralph, I don’t know.”
“We know each other too well for that shit to work for long,” I answer gratefully.
“Yeah, so I was trying to figure it out, and then I heard you shouting for me, and that snapped me out of it. I saw right through the - shit, wait a second, Jamie… where’s Ralph, if he wasn’t really with me?”
“And where’s Aiden?” I ask fearfully, gripping Noah’s wrist.
He gazes at me in dismay and alarm, his grey eyes very wide. We stare at each other in motionless silence for a second.
Noah can raise his voice to a roar much louder than mine, and he does.
“RALPH! AIDEN! WHERE ARE YOU?”
I drop my gaze to my malachite necklace, lifting it to see which way the cutting turns. Before I can calm my trembling fingers well enough for a clear reading -
Noah and I both freeze, hearing the faint sound of someone shouting back to us.
We glance at each other to confirm that it was real, that we both heard it. As one, we set off racing down the slope of the hill, sticking close together.
“That you, Lanham?” Noah shouts.
The distant, almost unintelligible voice yells back to us again. I can just barely make out the words.
“Accounted for, Raunier! Follow my voice!”
Noah and I both take a hopeful breath, picking up speed, racing across a mercifully flat stretch of the forest.
“Okay, on the way!” Noah yells. “Just hang on, I’m coming!”
“Just from the sound of my voice?” comes the distant, answering shout. “Flattered, buddy!”
“Now that was him!” Noah calls, flashing me a relieved grin over his shoulder. “The real him!”
I nod at him, momentarily overcome with relief. “I know!”
We stumble out into a clearing, and Noah nearly crashes straight into Ralph, who was tearing across it towards us. Both of them pull up short just in time, but they have to catch hold of each other so they don’t go flying to the ground.
I catch Noah’s shirt and shove him onto his feet before he can fall. Ralph straightens up, panting, his grey-green eyes wide with worry. A sharp, audible breath of relief breaks from him when he sees that it’s both me and Noah, and that we’re unhurt.
“Jesus Christ!” He touches Noah’s arm, then turns to me, searching me with his eyes. “Are you guys okay? What in the hell-?”
“The Witch, somehow she got all of us at once!” I blurt out frantically. “She led all of us way out into the forest, then sent us in opposite directions!”
The relief in Ralph’s eyes abruptly vanishes as it dawns on him that someone is missing. “Where’s Aiden?”
“We don’t know,” I answer, my voice faltering.
Ralph absorbs that information silence, his face going pale. He tilts his head back and shouts into the empty air. “Kasey!”
I smack a hand to my forehead, feeling like a stupid ass for not thinking to summon her. It’s hard to think when I’m panicking like this, in my defense. Thank god Ralph is much better at that, although - he actually doesn’t seem to be panicking in the first place. His face is composed into an expression of determined calm, despite the fact that all the color just vanished from his cheeks.
Kasey appears before the echoes of his summons have even faded from the air. She’s also out of breath, her shiny dark hair swinging around her jaw. She arrives looking terrified, but when she sees us she looks infinitely relieved, then instantly furious.
“You idiots!” she shouts, swiping a hand right through me. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! You know I can’t find you if you don’t summon me, when I have no idea where you are! Especially out in the whole entire forest! Hang on, summon me back in like thirty seconds. I need to get up high to see where you are, and then I should go tell Aiden that you’re all okay. He’s freaking out, just like I was-”
She vanishes before she can finish her sentence, but I could honestly sink to the ground in relief just hearing what she’s already said. It sounds like Aiden is okay, in fact primarily worried about us. Going off the way Ralph and Noah briefly slump against each other in relief when I repeat Kasey’s words, they think so, too.
“But I don’t get it!” Noah looks to Ralph in confusion. “What really happened at the hotel? When and how did we actually leave?”
“I don’t remember.” Ralph’s voice drops to a low, frustrated growl from deep in his throat. “Which I assume means the Witch ambushed us back at the hotel. Sneak attack, this time. Probably since that flanking maneuver she tried on us last night didn’t work. She knows now that a direct attack on a team with Aiden might not go her way.”
“Well - your plan to strike fast was a good one, Ralph,” I stammer, trying to force my fingers to stay still around the malachite necklace. “Unfortunately the Witch had the same idea.”
Noah is gazing down at my shoulder with a puzzled frown. “Why is there broken glass on you, Jamie?”
My eyes blink up to his face in bewilderment, then drop to my own shoulder as a sparkling glint catches my eye. He’s right, there are a few broken shards of glass caught in my flannel. Some wood splinters, too.
I have no idea why it’s there, but I can think of someone who might know. It’s been about thirty seconds, anyways.
“Kasey!” I call out.
She appears with a little burst of silvery white light, looking flustered and stressed out.
“Okay, Aiden said to tell you guys that you should start walking back to meet him, and hurry up about it. He doesn’t want you to go on to the villas without him.”
“Is that where we are?” I ask, once I finish repeating what she said. “Near the villas?”
“Almost, you dummies, and you left Aiden all the way back at the hotel! He’s on his way to meet you, so get going back that way now, right now!”
Ralph wastes no time once I share these instructions. I think that was already his plan, anyways.
“Which way?” he asks.
I hold up the malachite necklace, watch as the cutting slowly turns in the sunlight, then point to my left. “That way.”
Ralph sets off immediately, Noah and I falling into line at his back. Kasey trots alongside us, still reeling with relief.
“Kasey, what’s up with all the broken glass and pieces of wood all over me?”
“That’ll be because of what happened back at the hotel, the disaster before this disaster!” Kasey groans, then pauses, biting back a sudden laugh. “Wendy just laid into Hanely for it. It was brutal. I mean - he really did do some damage, to be fair. That sofa is destroyed, along with a lot of other - well, I guess that doesn’t matter right now. It wasn’t your fault, Jamie, so don’t worry about it. Hanely’s the one who broke everything.”
“Um!” My eyes widen in alarm. “I’m slightly worried that you felt the need to clarify that it wasn't my fault!”
“Focus on what’s important, Jamie! As soon as they got away from Wendy, Hanely and Grimm got in their squad car and took the road that goes towards the villas. Pretty sure they were following you guys, and that they’re out here somewhere looking for you. They’re pissed, they really want to catch you getting into trouble. I heard them talking about it when they thought they were alone.”
“Fuck,” Ralph murmurs, softly but emphatically. “Okay - Kasey, go find Aiden. Tell him that we got his message, and we’re coming back. Tell him the Witch fucked around with our memories, led all of us out into the forest-”
“He realizes that, believe me! The only reason he didn’t leave the hotel sooner is because he was pretty sure she led you three away so she could get at him alone. She can’t attack when he’s around a whole bunch of hunters, though. He thought if he stayed in the crowd at the cafe, the Witch would be focused on trying to figure out how to get him, and meanwhile I could figure out where you guys went and get you to safety.”
“He only just left the hotel?” Ralph asks, wincing deeply. “Fuck, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover before we can regroup.”
“No, he’s much closer than you think. He left as soon as he didn’t sense the Witch near the hotel anymore. He’s already headed towards the villas, since he guessed that must be where you guys went.”
As soon as I finish relaying Kasey’s words, Ralph comes to a sharp stop, almost causing Noah to walk into his back.
“The Witch left the hotel,” Ralph repeats slowly, his brows knitted, his eyes very wide. “Because she couldn’t get to Aiden while he was holed up with the hunters.”
Noah is watching Ralph’s expression nervously. “Is that bad?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” Ralph says, in a deceptively calm voice. “Because if she needs to lure Aiden out, who do you think she’d use to do that? She knows where we are, she’s the one who sent us here. She also knows that we’re helpless against her. We don’t have Aiden with us, and Aiden is the only one who can actually stand a chance against a magical opponent.”
My lungs seem to be having trouble getting any air. The thought of being used against Aiden, to lure him out, without even knowing what I’m doing… that turns my stomach.
“What do we do?” I ask, struggling not to panic.
“We need to get back to Aiden as soon as possible,” Ralph says, quietly but urgently, picking up speed. “We need to really, really hope that we don’t cross paths with the Witch on the way.”
“We’ll be okay!” I protest in a trembling voice, then turn to Kasey. “Can you go tell Aiden we’re on our way to meet him, and ask if he could please do his best to get here as fast as possible-”
“I will, but believe me, he is! He’s running down a river, he should be here soon. You guys hurry up, too!”
Kasey pauses, then adds worriedly - “Be careful, my mortals.”
She vanishes mid-stride, melting into the golden afternoon sunshine.
“Jesus, fuck.” Ralph swiftly strides through the trees, a few paces ahead of me and Noah. He hikes up a mossy stone rise before us to get a look at our surroundings, his gaze scanning the trees. “Every time this team tries to do anything, someone or something bites the pin out of a grenade and tosses it directly into our fucking plans!”
“It’s alright, man.” Noah pulls his beanie down over his ears, shivering as the forest around us grows a little colder. “We just need to get to Aiden, he’ll take care of-”
Noah breaks off as Ralph, who just crested the mossy stone slope, comes to a sharp stop.
He goes perfectly motionless, staring at something we can’t see from here. Noah and I stand on the forest floor at the bottom of the rise, staring up at him in confusion.
Ralph slowly, silently takes a step back, then another. Moving completely noiselessly, he takes Noah’s wrist in one hand, then mine in the other. Bewildered and alarmed, we let him back us away from the direction we were going.
There’s a dip in the sloping forest floor, at the base of the stone outcrop. A little nook, half-hidden by a rocky overhang. Without a word, Ralph silently pulls me and Noah down into it with him.
We all crouch down on one knee, with our backs to the stone, taking care not to make any noise. Noah opens his mouth to whisper a question to Ralph, who catches his eye and quickly shakes his head, then casts a meaningful glance at the forest. As one, we all turn to gaze out at it.
A few seconds pass in silence and stillness. The sound of my own breathing seems unbearably loud to me, and I wish I wasn’t trembling. Ralph can definitely feel that, with us all crushed in here, and he’s not trembling at all. He’s holding perfectly still, holding onto me and Noah tightly.
I narrowly manage to suppress a gasp as a blot of darkness smothers the sunshine. Noah starts to open his mouth, and Ralph clamps his hand down over it.
The Witch glides down from the wall of rock we’re hidden beneath. Very lightly, she touches down on the forest floor. She pauses right in front of us, with her back to us.
I thought the Witch would be much less scary in the sunlight. Now I almost wish the darkness was back so I didn’t have to see all this. Her towering, bone-thin, crooked form is a black hole of all light and warmth. Her presence brings a cold so deep, like sinking into Antarctic waters. Everything about her makes my animal brain scream in fear, warning me that something is wrong, wrong, wrong…
Even the darkness surrounding her feels wrong, jerking and twitching erratically, like something broken. Even when she holds still.
Noah, Ralph, and I are holding perfectly still, too. We watch without breathing as the Witch slowly begins to go forward, her head on a swivel as her eyes search the trees. She’s going down the path we just walked.
She pauses again on the crest of a little hill we just came up. I bite my lip, silently begging her to keep moving, just go over that slope and out of sight -
Her head snaps all the way around like an owl’s. Just like that, her enormous, hollow eyes are fixed exactly on us. Burning with purple fire, smiling with icy triumph.
Noah drags in a shuddering breath, and Ralph springs into action. Suddenly I’ve been shoved out of hiding and I’m on my feet and Ralph is shouting for me to run.
Gasping for breath, I lunge after Ralph and start sprinting in his wake. Noah is bringing up the rear, but not because he’s the slowest. He’s actually pushing me, trying to help me move faster.
Moving at speeds no human being could hope to match, the Witch easily outstrips us, then comes to a stop directly in front of us. She rises up like a towering cyclone of erratic darkness, those two horrible eyes shining down on us. Blacklight purple, so unbelievably, burningly cold.
Ralph was leading the way, so he’s the closest to her. He throws his weight back to stop his momentum, almost sliding down to the forest floor. He catches himself on his hand just in time, but he’s more or less right at the feet of the Witch.
He stares up at the Witch as she looms up over him, making him look very small by comparison.
Noah’s hand disappears from my back. He sprints for Ralph at top speed, running right at the Witch. I’ve been frozen to the spot in horror, but now I rush to catch up with Noah, to get Ralph out of there.
“Noah, Jamie, run!” he shouts, scrambling back to his feet.
We know it’s the opposite of what he meant, but we both run right for him.
The Witch, without concern, without even hurrying, raises one of her long, spindly hands. Purple fire glows around it, strange and broken and flickering. I watch in cold horror as she sweeps her arm out, releasing the power shining at her fingertips.
A wall of dark purple magic sweeps forward like a blastwave.
Ralph turns to sprint back to us, horror-struck when he sees we didn’t leave him, that we’re still running right for him.
“No! Noah, Jamie, run, just run-!”
The silent blast of magic takes him in the back. He shudders, his grey-green eyes going wide with surprise. He sinks to his knees, then collapses to the forest floor, motionless and silent.
With a choking gasp, Noah dives for Ralph. The magic hits him while he’s still in movement, knocking him right out of the air. He spins onto his back, tumbles limply into the forest undergrowth, and lays still.
I’m only a few paces behind Noah. I don’t even have time to react before the magic hits me, too.
Every cell in my body shivers, swept with some strange, powerful electric shock. Something hits my chest hard, followed swiftly by something else. A one-two punch of some kind.
I kept my feet, somehow, but the impact shocks me down onto my knees. I try to crawl towards Noah, but the forest floor is rushing up to meet me, and I’m almost happy to see it. My dazed mind is only grateful to notice the blanket of thick, springy moss.
A soft landing, at least, I think to myself, as my eyes flutter closed and my cheek hits the ground.
~~~~
I don’t… I don’t think I’ve lost consciousness, exactly.
My mind did go completely dark. But only for a moment, like it was restarting. I was only out for a second or two, I’m pretty sure.
Very slowly, I manage to open my eyes. My cheek is smushed flat on the forest floor, but in the very corner of my blurry vision… there she is. The Witch. Slowly and leisurely drawing closer to me.
All of a sudden she stops, tilting her head to the side, listening to something. Without making a noise, she spins around and retreats. I watch her vanish off into the woods, moving faster than any roughly human-shaped creature has any right to.
I lay there in a daze. I can’t be sure she’s really gone, but… the warmth is returning. I can feel the sunshine through my flannel. The cold that comes with her presence is blowing away on the balmy summer breeze.
I slowly push myself up onto my knees, conscious enough to be confused and nothing more. But my eyes land on a form laying sprawled out on the forest floor in front of me, and I snap right out of it.
“Noah?” I gasp hoarsely, shakily pushing myself to my feet. “Ralph?”
I go staggering over to them, numb with shock. Both of them are right where they landed, Ralph facedown on the earth. Noah’s hand is still reaching out for Ralph, although his fingers have gone still.
Noah is the closest to me. Trembling from head to toe, I drop down beside him, catch his face in my hands. I turn it towards me, blinking back panicked tears. He makes no move to help me, no movement at all. But when I peer anxiously down into his face… Oh, thank fucking god. He’s breathing, if alarmingly pale.
I stumble forward to check on Ralph, then nearly let out a shattering sob of relief when I find him breathing, too. But why the hell won’t they wake up, either of them?
“Ralph!” I give him a hard shake, a begging tone coming into my desperate voice. “Please, please wake up-”
I freeze mid-sentence as a voice inside my head answers.
Alright, stop it, I’m awake… What… what the fuck? Is that me?
My eyes go perfectly round. “Wh - Ralph?”
What the fuck! sputters a second voice, also from my own mind. Bro, how the fuck am I seeing myself right now, and why can’t I move?
“Noah?” I stammer, frozen in disbelief.
Noah? Ralph asks, at the same time. How am I hearing you, if I’m looking at you knocked out on the ground?
I dunno, that’s pretty weird…
“Oh, no,” I whisper, pressing my fingers to my lips. “Oh, what the fuck…”
What happened? Ralph asks, bewildered. Did we go off-plan?
“Um…” I try to sound composed, but there’s definitely a hysterical edge to my voice. “So, a little bit, yeah, we did. Promise you won’t get mad, Ralph?”
No!
“I think the Witch knocked you and Noah out of your bodies and - into mine? With me?”
Fucking what? Jamie, what?
“New - new mind tampering magic,” I stammer helplessly. “She put your minds in mine. Maybe she thought she could lure Aiden out more easily if - if all three of us that he cares about are packaged up in one? Pretty wild misunderstanding of how humans think, but - look, I don’t fucking know! You’re in my head! That’s the situation, accept it!”
Okay, no, Noah answers firmly. I don’t accept that. Put me back in my body, Jamie! That’s the one my wife wants!
“I can’t! Aiden has to do it!”
Where did the Witch go, Jamie? Ralph cuts in.
“I don’t know, it seemed like she heard something, and then she took off in a hurry-”
Wait, wait a second, did you hear that?
“Yeah, I did!” I leap anxiously to my feet, struggling to catch my breath. “You’re hearing with my ears!”
What we all heard was voices, far off in the distance. Someone must have heard the commotion, because I can discern running footsteps headed our way.
I strain to listen to the voices, then draw back, aghast.
“Oh my god, it’s Hanely and Grimm! Shit, they found us!”
The panic starts to close in over my head, and… stops, surprisingly. As if a firm hand reached out to hold it back. Steadiness that isn’t my own takes over my body, stops me from trembling.
Jamie, Ralph says, in a voice so calm it’s almost unbelievable in this situation. You can’t be found here alone with two bodies that won’t wake up. There’s no explaining that to the cops, especially not given your lying capabilities. You need to listen to my instructions carefully, okay?
“Okay!”
Get Noah’s beanie, put it on. Make sure all of your hair is covered, since it’s bright as hell. Then get my hoodie and put it on instead of your flannel.
I wrestle Ralph’s motionless body out of his hoodie and steal the beanie from Noah’s head, taking care to be gentle with both of them even in my rush.
“What now?”
Now you gotta let them see you, but not our bodies. And then you have to run.
“What? No, I can’t just leave your bodies here!”
We’ll be coming right back for them, trust me. But right now you need to lead the cops away from them, keep them away until Aiden can get here. Don’t actually get caught, though, or it’s game over.
“Holy f-fuck,” I stammer, backing away from their bodies as Hanely and Grimm’s crashing footsteps grow louder. “Holy fuck, holy fuck-”
Jamie, Ralph says imperatively. You’re up. You’ve got this, Sharpshooter.
I drag in the biggest breath I can, pull the hood up over the beanie on my head, then sprint up the rock slope before me. I pause at the top for a split second, staring down at Hanely and Grimm.
They’re still a good distance away, but they spot me immediately. They stop where they are, taken by surprise. I spin around before they can get a clear look at my face, then set off running.
“Hey - hey!” Grimm shouts, starting to speed up. “Who-? Hey, you there! What are you doing? Stop!”
I’m already sprinting away, tearing off in the opposite direction of the little glade where I left Ralph and Noah’s bodies. Hanely and Grimm shout a few more times, then break into a run as they decide to chase me.
I just run and run, trying to put as much distance between them and me as possible. I don’t know where I am, or where to go. I’ve struck aimlessly out into the trees, focused completely on going as fast as I can. I’m setting a personal heart rate record for myself, but even still, I can tell that Hanely and Grimm are catching up.
Gotta be faster than this, Keane! Noah tells me urgently. They’ll be right on your ass soon enough, otherwise!
“I’m - doing - my - best! It’s not every day that I - run from two - giant - juiced - cops-”
Jamie, Ralph interrupts suddenly, like something just occurred to him. Let me.
“What?”
Hand it over to someone with experience running from the cops!
I don’t know what he means, hand it over. But at the same time, there’s some - some strange sensation running through my body, a tug, like it’s asking permission to do its own thing. There’s a way it wants me to run that isn’t what I’m doing.
Experimentally, I stop fighting it.
Calm falls over me, clearing away the panic that was blurring my vision. Without any directions from my own mind, I roll my neck out, then my shoulders, lengthening my strides to stretch my legs. Feeling the fear-stricken expression fall from my face, and a confident, determined one take its place. My eyes narrow in focus, my jaw muscle flexing.
Alright, Ralph growls. Let’s go.
Just like that, I’m just along for the ride, in my own body. Ralph has taken over the controls.
Moving with grace and speed that aren’t my own, I cut sharply out of the path I’d been running, then zig-zag down a silty, gravelly slope. I slide the rest of the way down on my heels until I can spring free and leap onto solid ground again.
“Shit, where’d he just go?” Hanely shouts from behind me.
I’m sprinting faster than I thought was possible, the wind rushing against my face. I charge up a wooded hill, catch myself on a tree trunk, and use it to change directions again. Vaulting over a huge log and then shoving myself off of it, I use the momentum to leap over a ditch, and find myself staggering out onto a hiking trail. It’s built directly into the uneven, rocky terrain, and there’s a ladder to get down to where the trail continues below.
I hop onto the ladder, hugging the outside of it with the inside of my boots. I slide all the way down it, and spring off to race up the path. Spotting a stretch of muddy terrain approaching, I swerve immediately back off of the path, then start running practically sideways down a very steep hill.
Hanely and Grimm are still yelling, but they sound pretty far behind me, now.
Whoa, Ralph, that was awesome! I blurt out admiringly. I bet I look so cool, doing this!
“Jamie,” he gasps, using my voice. “What’s - what is this, what’s going on? Why’s my chest feel this way?”
Oh - be careful, dude, I have asthma!
Wheezing a little, Ralph thinks the question instead of asking it. Inhaler?
It’s in my back pocket, but you should probably stop running before you use it!
Ralph has my gaze locked on something that just rose up into view: a row of shambling, old wooden buildings, clustered at the bottom of the hill. Close to a road, although I don’t see any cars driving on it. These must be the villas, the ones Aiden didn’t want us going to without him. Oops…
Ralph lets the momentum take my body the rest of the way down the hill, sending me flying towards the closest of the villas.
Ralph, I ask in alarm, are we about to bum-rush the-?
Without breaking stride or slowing down, I turn sideways and ram my shoulder into the aged wooden door. It explodes open, and I burst into the villa, staggering to regain my balance. My muscles are burning with the effort of all this, but my lungs are decidedly the more immediate problem.
Struggling to drag in laborious, heaving breaths, Ralph uses my hand to slam the door shut. I press my back to the wall by the dusty window, then lean around to cautiously peek out, working my inhaler out of my pocket.
Here, let me take care of that, Ralph! I’m the one who knows how to use it! Let me back in charge!
It’s easy to slide back into control of my body, once Ralph releases it to me. I give my inhaler a shake, then lift it to my mouth, scanning the trees for signs of Hanely and Grimm. But there are none.
Shit, Ralph says. I think we actually lost them! We can’t have that, we need to keep them away from our bodies! They might go back to poke around if they can’t find you!
“What do I do?” I ask frantically, as my grateful lungs flood with medicated air.
We need a distraction, something big enough to attract their attention, something noisy -
Hey, Noah cuts in eagerly. Hey. Hey.
He’s already pulling for control. I stuff my inhaler back in my pocket, send up a silent prayer, and give it over to him.
My body suddenly loves all the adrenaline spilling through it. Feels great, honestly. I give myself a shake, mostly to spread around the euphoria.
Excited laughter bubbles up in my chest and bursts from my lips as I throw open the broken door of the empty villa and dart back outside, trying not to bounce on my heels in my enthusiasm. I can feel the giant, manic grin turning up my lips.
“Let’s see, let’s see,” Noah says cheerfully, racing around the side of the building. “What do we have to work w-?”
He comes to a sharp stop, having seen with my eyes what’s parked on the road beside the villas.
Hanely and Grimm’s squad car, sitting empty and unattended.
“Oh, yes,” Noah breathes, my voice giddy with his delight.
Want to leave a comment? I would love it if you did, and you can do so on the Tapas episode!