Prologue
In the end, they were going to fail. I was going to make sure of it.
I watched them, the two of them, not quite hand in hand, but almost. One of the women was wearing bracelets that stretched down her wrists and transition lenses in her glasses that darkened the view of her eyes. But I could feel what they were. I could feel it all the way from here. I always could. It was something in the way they walked, too light on heavy feet, like they were navigating a field of ice. It was in the way they breathed, full-chested and expansive. And it was in the fear, the little sidelong flickers as they wondered how long, how long, could it possibly last.
What they were trying to do was impossible. And watching them even try it made heat fill all of the empty spaces in me until I was nothing more than limbs made of flame.
I did not understand them.
I could not because I was not one of them.
The difference between us was simple: I still cared. I could still feel it. Even now, I could feel the ghostly presence, like shadows in a mirror from the corner of my eye. It was people I was feeling, nothing more sinister than that, but their essence had barbs, and the barbs were at the ends of ropes, and the ropes were wrapped around something vital in me--my stomach, or maybe my lungs. I could feel the people I was meant to help. I could feel how much they needed me. Thinking about them made me nauseous, though physical nausea was a thing of my far past.
I didn’t think about them much.
Instead, I focused on the pair in front of me, zeroing in on the girl with the bracelets. Watching her move in a way that told me she never thought about the people she’d abandoned. Maybe she was lucky, and she really couldn’t feel them. Or maybe she was only thinking of herself. Either way, she was only concentrated on one thing. One impossible thing: she was trying to live. And she’d do it at the expense of everyone who’d ever needed her. She was a Guardian with nothing to show for it except a string of selfishness and pain.
When the presence came up behind me, I did not look around.
My new companion watched with me for a while, then asked: “Her?”
Now I did turn. The person behind me was not different from the girl I was watching. If anything, the fear wafting off of her was far stronger. I despised her. But then, I despised them all.
“Maybe,” I answered.
She tried to look away before frowning but didn’t succeed.
“A problem?” I prompted.
“Just thinking.”
“Don’t.”
She looked back at me with a fire I did not like. She had no right to that heat. But it would be inconvenient to change companions now. More than inconvenient. After everything, I couldn’t lose her. No telling when I could get another.
I softened my features.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking too. It’s tiring. Tell me what’s bothering you.”
She gave it up more readily than I’d anticipated.
“That day. At the park.”
“That day at the park, you met people who could not accept the truth.”
She bit her lip, either remembering or doubting. She hadn’t been conscious for long enough that day for remembering.
“Spit it out,” I encouraged. “I can’t help you if you don’t spit it out.”
My companion tossed her head, a bold and insolent gesture that I liked even less than I liked her fire.
“What about Tess?”
My lip curled up before I could stop it. Tess had been different from the woman who stood with me now. This one was a tool, an ill-made, if effectively blunt, cudgel. Tess had been a honed dagger, sharp with anger. She was still angry, still searching. Tess could have been a partner, someone with the closest chance at truly understanding me that I’d seen in years and years. Instead, she’d fallen all the way backwards into the old lie. The lie that any of this mattered. That we could do something useful. That there was hope.
But there wasn’t hope. Not when people like the girl down there could saunter along while I could only watch and feel the strain. Not when friends like the ones Tess had betrayed me to protect were more likely than enemies to stab you in the back.
“Like I said,” I reentered the conversation as steadily as I could. “Tess can’t accept the truth. The truth is that none of this is fair. All we’re doing is making it a little more fair. You know that because you know what John tried to do to you.” The name made my tongue sting, but I was used to it by now. Much as I hated the syllables, they were certainly useful.
She considered this. I could see the thoughts in her eyes as she processed them, one thread at a time. I saw the moment she gave up fighting. She stopped because she did know the truth, yes, but also because it was all just too much.
“Yeah,” she eventually said. “I know you’re right.”
“It makes sense,” I insisted, cutting it in deeper. “The best we can do is give ourselves a purpose.”
“I know.”
She took a deep breath, the kind of breath that would hit the bottom of her lungs, fill her up, let her feel relief. All I could feel was the angry heat because such a breath would be forever denied me.
“So,” she said when she was done taking advantage of her stolen body. “Her?”
I brought my attention back to the person I’d been watching. She was still moving with her counterpart, body language full of longing. So much longing and longing was so painful. I had been more than ready to deal out punishment, but as I looked, I changed my mind.
“Not yet.”
My companion gave me a look that wasn’t quite dubious, but wasn’t far enough away from exasperated, either.
“Not yet,” I repeated firmly. “I want to watch for a while longer.”
It was a strange enough order, built on enough of a seemingly random whim, that she stopped questioning me. That suited me fine, but really, it wasn’t a whim at all. I recognized the look on that Guardian down there. She was hurting. She was frightened. And no matter how close she was to holding that hand next to her, she was alone.
I could have my companion take this one out of the equation. Or I could leave her. Leave her until the fear built up and her overburdened mind grew shaky. Leave her until she felt helpless like those people tugging at my middle, crying for her guidance while she played at being alive. It was punishment enough.
Satisfied by the idea, I closed my eyes. For a brief instant, a fragment of a thought, I focused inward. I grabbed at the invisible string that existed inside of me and followed it to its inevitable end. For a spark of light, I felt her there, always there, never the brightness I remembered, but determinedly her. My Guardian, who deserved everything that was coming to her.
I closed the connection before she could feel me. It left a hole that was somehow also a wall, corroded and unnatural.
I opened my eyes with renewed resolve.
I could end it for her. But I didn’t think it would take much for her to fail all on her own.
