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Tag: Aidan

Chapter 60 – Impact Day

Liz, Impact Day

Charlie’s scream pierced my ears, resonated with every surface I could see. It wasn’t a human scream, but then, Charlie clearly wasn’t human. I didn’t know what she was. A demon, maybe? Something unholy.

I held Aidan, his head resting on my lap, groaning in pain. I tried to say something soothing, but the burning sensation around my throat hadn’t passed. No sound came out.

All I could do was watch as Charlie dropped to her knees, the inhuman scream pouring out of her like a fountain of blood, so forceful I could almost see it. The air around her shimmered as her body vibrated, more and more violently.

On the other side of the room, I saw Rachel, barely able to move. I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad, after what she’d done to us. She had a look of horror on her face, mixed in with the pain she was feeling.

Regretting it now?

Charlie’s bones broke, over and over, repairing themselves before breaking again, and she kept screaming. She fell to her hands, blood dripping from every pore. The screaming was intensifying, like it was bouncing off itself, creating a violent echo that threatened to rip the room apart.

I could still see the shape of the demon around her, but it was vague, translucent. Was it weaker? Was it in pain, too? Was it different to her?

I was shaking, too. Not just from the pain, or the shock. Charlie’s screaming was reaching deep into my core, twisting me until I couldn’t feel anything else.

What is happening?

The walls of the house cracked more, bursting apart in to fragments and splinters, flying away from us. The pool of blood around Charlie was bubbling, almost like it was boiling. Her bones continued to break, and the air around her grew more and more distorted.

I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t shake the sensation that something was wrong, that something didn’t belong.

As Charlie fell apart, I saw her look up, fixated on a spot right in front of her. I blinked, and there was a girl there, a child with lilac hair.

“What—” Charlie began, but her mouth was full of blood.

“I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t do anything with my email,” the child said. “I went through a lot of trouble to set this up, you know.”

“Who are you?” Charlie managed to choke out.

“Nobody~” the child said, in a sing-song voice.

“What’s… happening…?”

“Oh, this? Let’s call it an allergic reaction,” the girl said. “See, Wendy’s blood came from a different Shaper. They’re not supposed to mix, you know. Your body is rejecting it.”

“You… wanted this…?”

“Just one more step,” she said, shrugging. “We’re a long way from the end, yet. No, what I wanted was…” She glanced up at the sky. It looked as though the air above us was tearing apart, like God Himself had decided to rip open the sky. Through it, I could see a glittering night sky, so very different to our own. “There we go.”

As I watched, a futuristic looking plane emerged through the rift, spinning out of control, flames and smoke billowing from the side. I shuddered as it collided with somewhere far from here, causing a booming explosion.

“Finally,” the girl said.

“What…?”

“You broke the rules, Charlie. You’ve let something into this world that shouldn’t be here. Something very, very dangerous.” She rocked back on her heels, looking pleased with herself. “Well, you’ll forget we talked, but remember this. Get rid of them. Send them home. Stop at nothing. And trust the Destroyer. They only want to protect you.”

The entire world shuddered beneath us. The girl didn’t seem to notice.

“Hmm. I should go make sure Sabrina is where she needs to be.”

The girl was gone. She didn’t disappear, she just stopped being where she was. Charlie’s arms gave out, and she collapsed to the floor.

The screaming stopped.

The rift closed.

Charlie pulled herself up, slowly. The blood around her began to evaporate, and by the time she’d stood up, she looked entirely unharmed, save for the wild look in her eye.

Something about her was different. Actually, plenty about her was different. She was thinner, her skin looked softer. Her eyes were lighter, a blueish green now. Her nails seemed perfectly filed. She stretched out, then glanced around the room. Her eyes passed over me, and fixated on Rachel.

She rushed to Rachel’s side, moving inhumanly fast. As fast as we’d been able to move with Wendy’s blood in us, at least. She picked Rachel up like she weighed nothing.

“Rachel?”

“I’m okay, Charlie,” Rachel said, her voice weak. “I’m more worried about you.”

“I feel fine,” Charlie said, and she sounded it.

“What happened?” Rachel asked.

“A painful transition, I guess,” Charlie said. “Looks like I did some damage, here.”

“Looks like it,” Rachel agreed. “What are we gonna do about them?”

Charlie turned to look at us, and any kindness fell off her face.

“After what they did to you?” she asked. “I’ll kill them.”

I tried to speak up, to protest, but no words came out of my mouth. Aidan pushed away from me, tried to stand, but his legs didn’t move, and he fell over.

“Haven’t you done enough?” he asked, nearly spitting at her. “We sacrificed everything to save you, and you… All you did was use us.”

“I needed Wendy’s power,” Charlie said, as if that justified it. “She wasn’t doing anything to keep this city safe. This world safe. I’ve been fighting, every day. Now I can make a difference.”

“All of this, just to be a superhero?” Aidan asked, incredulous. “Immortality wasn’t enough?”

“You saw how little I was doing,” Charlie said. “And now, nothing can stop me.”

“I can,” he said, then glanced back at me. “We can. And we will.”

I nodded my agreement.

“You? What can you do?” Charlie asked. She sounded like a comic book villain. How ironic.

“You’ll see,” he said.

“I won’t,” Charlie replied.

“Liz, I need you to do something,” Aidan said, a quiet note of urgency in his voice. “Focus on somewhere down the street. Not too far. Hold on to me, and focus.”

Charlie loomed ever closer, not in any kind of rush, and more intimidating for it. I couldn’t see any way out, any way to survive. We didn’t stand a chance against her, not with the power she had now. Even still, I gripped Aidan hard, trusted him, and focused.

The world around us changed.

We were somewhere different.

“Again,” Aidan said, and I realised we’d moved to where I was thinking about. I did it again.

We moved again.

“Keep going, until she can’t find us,” Aidan said. I kept moving us, kept teleporting, until I was certain Charlie couldn’t find us.

I still couldn’t speak, but there was a pad of paper on a desk. We were in someone’s house, their office. I didn’t know who. It didn’t matter. I grabbed the paper, found a pen, wrote on it.

What happened? I wrote.

“Whatever happened back there changed us,” Aidan said. “I don’t know how. But you can teleport, now.”

How did you know? I wrote.

“I saw it,” he said. “I… I think I can see the future? No, possible futures. It’s… hazy. Hurts my head. But I saw you do it.”

You can’t walk, I wrote.

“And you can’t speak,” he said. “Seems like we’re being punished, by whatever that thing was. But Liz, we’re still us. We had something taken, gained something else, but we’re still us. And we need to stop her. You understand that, right?”

How? I wrote.

“We use my network. Between the Stars, and my new powers, I can build an army to stop her. And you, you’re an assassin who can get in anywhere.”

I don’t want to kill, I wrote, then underlined it.

“Liz, you know what Charlie is like. You know what she can do, now. I don’t want more innocent deaths, but we can’t let anything stop us. We can’t stop at anything.”

I understand, I wrote, but I didn’t believe it.

“Wait,” he said, holding a hand to his head. “I see something… There’s a way,” he told me. “A weapon that we can use, from the breach.”

What is it?

“Her name is Haylie,” he said.

 

And that’s it for Volume 2! Thanks for reading this far. I wasn’t sure if this format would work, setting an entire volume before the events of the first. I’m still not sure, honestly! But it was important to me that the volumes each have a different feel, and focus on very different events. Besides, it’s fun to mess with the idea of linear storytelling. After all, Impact Day isn’t a linear story. Anyway! As always, if you want to support the work I do here, you can jump on over to patreon and give me a dollar or more monthly. It means a lot. Also, you’ll soon be able to buy the eBook of this volume, which features not one but two bonus chapters that didn’t get published online. 

Next Week: We’re jumping into another mini-volume, just like Roxie! This one is called Glory, and I think you’re going to love it a lot. (Also, there will be an epilogue later this week!)

Chapter 59 – She Deserves This

Liz, Impact Day

Aidan and I arrived back at Wendy’s cafe, but she was nowhere to be seen. There was a piece of paper sitting on a table, with two seats arranged as though people had been sitting in them only recently. Next to the paper was a small case.

Aidan approached the table, opening the case first. He held up a syringe, and shrugged. I walked over, and picked up the note.

Liz, Aidan,

I broke the rules. The price has to be paid.

I’m gone now.

Rachel is clever, but she underestimated me. I should have realised sooner, though.

Still, it’s not too late to stop them, and believe me, you need to stop them.

Go to Rachel’s cabin. Take the syringe. It will nullify the blood of mine in her system.

Go quickly.

-Wendy

We read the note a few times, and Aidan looked at the syringe again.

“She tricked us,” he said, carefully, feeling out the words.

“They both tricked us,” I said. “Right from the beginning. This was a game to them, and we played right into their hands.”

“I loved her,” Aidan said, sounding stunned.

“We both did,” I said.

“We have to stop her,” he said.

I didn’t say anything. I took a moment to be quiet, to let the knowledge sink in. Charlie hadn’t included us because she needed our help. She was building our attachment, so that when she let herself get captured, Rachel could manipulate us into going after her. Because Wendy saw right through Rachel, but Aidan and I, we were genuine.

We weren’t her friends. We weren’t even people to her. We were tools. Tools that she’d used. And why? For power?

“She’s not the person we thought she was,” I said, slowly, deliberately.

“She’s a monster,” Aidan said.

“They both are.”

“Maybe it was all Rachel,” I said, hopeful but not convinced.

“There’s only one way to find out,” he said.

“Let’s go, then.”

Aidan seemed fired up, but I just felt numb. I could barely believe any of it was happening. The one thread, the one thing that had been keeping everything together through my crumbling grip on reality was Charlie, and the hope that I could save her. Now…

We’d fought, but I’d never stopped loving her. I’d never stopped needing her. I would have done anything for her, and I had. I’d gone along with her reckless scheme because I was so caught up in my feelings for her that I…

The two of us ran. It was the fastest way to get there. We didn’t worry about people seeing us. We didn’t worry about anything, except getting there before Charlie and Rachel could finish whatever little plan they’d put together.

It all ended that night. That’s what I genuinely believed.

* * *

I kicked open the door, Aidan close behind me. Charlie’s head whipped around, taken by surprise at our entrance. Good.

“How—” she began, but we didn’t give her a chance to say anything more. We moved, and we moved fast.

Aidan went for Rachel, determined to neutralise the threat before she could retaliate. She was dangerous, but there were two of us.

I went for Charlie, hurling her across the room, away from Rachel. She cried out, but I picked her up, pinning her against the wall.

“Use it!” I yelled at Aidan.

“No!” Charlie screamed.

Rachel didn’t put up a fight as Aidan pinned her down. She seemed languid, almost weak…

It wasn’t until Aidan had stuck the syringe into her that I realised what had happened.

“You took it from her, somehow,” I accused Charlie. She just snarled at me, struggling to get to Rachel.

Rachel began to convulse, twitching and shaking beneath Aidan. Unsure of what to do, he held her still, trying to make sure she didn’t hurt herself. It seemed like the serum was doing a good enough job of that on its own.

It was supposed to counteract the effect of Wendy’s blood. We had no idea what it would do to somebody whose blood no longer contained that, but it didn’t seem to be good. Rachel started screaming in pain. Charlie fought harder. She wasn’t strong, though. She hadn’t taken it yet?

“Fuck,” Aidan said, looking desperately down at Rachel.

“She deserves it,” I said, trying to battle my own guilt. We’d acted rashly, and even if Rachel had played us, she didn’t deserve this. Nobody did.

“Fuck you,” Charlie spat, kicking me in the stomach. I barely felt it.

I noticed her left hand had been clenched the entire time. Was she holding it, somehow?

I pried her hand open, but there was nothing there. An empty hand? Why? I glanced up at her face, and she grinned. It was an awful, cruel expression.

Before I could stop her, she shoved her other hand over her mouth, and I caught a glimpse of a red crystal between her teeth. I tried to grab it from her mouth, but it was already gone.

“Aidan!” I cried, as Charlie’s grin faded, replaced with a look of increasing shock.

Her eyes darkened, turning almost black. Her veins bulged, also darker. That hadn’t happened to either of us. Something different was happening to her. Was it because she took it second-hand? Because she swallowed it?

Because she was different?

Her skin began to blister and break, blood seeping out, covering her. I pulled my hands away from her, and she dropped to the floor.

“What the fuck,” I muttered, as the blood began to peel away from her, floating in little flecks around her, picking up speed, creating the shape of someone, something much bigger.

She moved, and the shape moved with her. It was getting thicker, blocking out the person underneath. Before long, it was all we could see.

The creature, whatever it was, looked around the room, and saw Aidan, still hunched over Rachel, trying to control her seizure. It bellowed, a terrifying sound that turned my legs to jelly.

The creature moved fast, faster than even Aidan or I could. With a single hand, it grabbed Aidan around the waist, and hurled him off of Rachel. He hit the wall and crumpled, collapsing harder than he should have with Wendy’s blood in him.

He didn’t get up.

I tried to run to his aid, but the creature intercepted, grabbing me around the throat, slamming me against the wall. I tried to fight back, but all of the strength had left me. Is that what happened to Aidan?

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” the creature said, in a voice that wasn’t Charlie’s, and wasn’t human. It reached deep into my brain, triggering every fear reaction I had. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. All I could do was stare, and tremble.

It dropped me, and I nearly collapsed. Summoning the last of my strength, I crawled over to Aidan, who was barely moving. He groaned as I tried to check his body for injuries.

There was a grotesque hand print on his back, where the creature had held him. It was black, like the flesh had been burned.

The creature staggered back into the centre of the room, the visage of blood thinning out, revealing Charlie beneath, her eyes glazed and distant.

The blood vanished entirely, and Charlie stood there, unsteady on her feet. She looked down at her hands, looked through them, unable to focus.

Then, she tilted her head back, looked up at the ceiling, and began to scream.

 

Next: Inviolable

Chapter 57 – We Need To Get You Out Of Here

Liz, Impact Day

A splash of cold water roused me from unconsciousness. I was chained to an uncomfortably metal chair. Aidan was beside me, dripping wet and looking slightly confused.

“So, there are more of you?” a well dressed man with a featureless face asked, pacing in front of us.

It took a few moments to get my bearings. We were in a small room with concrete walls, no windows, and a single door. The door was metal, looked heavy.

“Maybe you’ll be easier to break than your friend,” the man said, sneering with unsettling self-satisfaction.

“Where are we?” Aidan asked, looking around.

“Captured,” I said.

“Oh.”

“Enough small talk,” the suited man snapped. I looked up at him.

“Where’s Charlie?” I asked.

“None of your business,” he replied.

“I want to see her,” I insisted. “If you show me Charlie, I’ll answer any questions you want.”

“I think you’ll answer them anyway,” he said.

“Do we have to listen to this?” Aidan asked.

“Think you can find her without their help?” I asked in response.

“Pretty sure,” he said.

“Then no,” we don’t.

“We’ll separate you if we need,” the suited man said.

“Shut up,” I replied.

Breaking the chains was fairly easy. Honestly, I could have wriggled free of them without super-strength, though it would have taken longer and they probably would have noticed. Also, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of the room.

Aidan mimicked me, much to the suited man’s distress. He started to back away, pulling out a gun, but I got to him before he could pull the trigger. I twisted his wrist until he dropped it, then wrapped an arm around his neck until the lack of blood flow to his brain caused him to pass out.

Aidan kicked the door open, hitting it with enough force to leave a small dent. I suspected the doors weren’t as strong as they were supposed to look.

“So, where to?” I asked, as an alarm started blaring.

“Follow me,” he said, taking off to the left.

There were plenty of guards between us and the room they were keeping her, but they barely slowed us down. Bullets hurt, but not for long, and we had more than enough strength to overpower them. We didn’t even need to kill them, though a great many of them would wake up with concussions later. Hardly good, but there had to be some price for throwing their lot in with a gang like Vengeance.

The facility was huge, so much deeper than I’d have assumed from the outside. Frustratingly, they’d kept us pretty far from Charlie. I began to worry they’d have a chance to whisk her away somewhere before we could get to her. They wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice.

“Down this way,” Aidan said, ducking off to the side. I took out a thug who was aiming a pistol at my head by hitting him in the chest hard enough to snap several ribs. He dropped to the floor, wheezing and choking.

Aidan kicked a door open, and I rushed to his side, wanting to be there when Charlie saw her rescuers. Instead, the room was empty.

“What?” he asked, sticking his head in further.

“You’re sure you got the right room?” I asked, though I knew he did.

“This is where they were keeping her,” he said.

“Maybe they moved her,” I suggested.

“Well, we need to find her fast,” he replied.

My mind raced as I considered what they could have done with her. Next to me, I could tell Aidan was doing the same, running through the mental map of the facility.

“There are no easy escape routes,” he said. “And they haven’t had a lot of warning.”

“What about the interrogation room?” I asked. “Maybe they’re questioning her about us?”

“Good call,” he said, and the two of us took off again.

Thankfully, that room wasn’t far. Obviously, it was one of many, but this was the one we knew they used for her. As soon as we arrived, it confirmed it.

There were two unconscious guards outside the room, and inside, someone very dead.

“Do you think Charlie did this?” Aidan asked.

“I believe she could, but she wouldn’t kill,” I said.

“It’s been six months,” he pointed out. “Who knows what they did to her.”

I hadn’t even considered that. The amount of time we’d spent finding her, getting to her, finally saving her, she would have endured so much. The Charlie we were rescuing was not the same Charlie we’d lost.

That was a problem for later, though. First, we needed to figure out where she’d gone.

“Where would you go, if you were in her shoes?” Aidan asked.

“She doesn’t know the facility,” I said, thinking aloud. “She’d want to avoid being seen as much as possible, while figuring out where the exit might be.”

“Unless they told her about us,” Aidan said. “Which they probably did.”

“She’s probably avoiding being moved, so we can find her.”

“Close,” came a third voice, a familiar voice, behind us.

We turned. There she was, just the way we’d last seen her, only with longer, shaggier hair, and a slightly wild look in her eye.

“Charlie!” Aidan cried, rushing over to her. He wrapped her in a crushing hug, which she reciprocated.

She and I looked at each other, awkwardly. She moved towards me, embracing me in a more gentle, but no less enthusiastic hug.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, beaming. “Not that I lost hope, but…”

“We finally got through to Wendy,” Aidan said. She stared back at him.

“That explains the rescue, but… Where’s Rachel?”

“We can explain later,” he said, grabbing her arm. “Right now, we need to get you out of here.”

“No arguments here,” she said.

The three of us ran. Aidan led the way, and I carried Charlie on my back. It hardly slowed me down at all. The sensation was slightly addictive. It was almost a pity we’d need to give this power back to Wendy after.

The sensation of sunlight on my skin was invigorating, and sorely missed. I could only imagine how good it felt to Charlie.

“Guys… stop…” she said, sounding pained. Not what I’d have expected. I let her down.

She collapsed to the ground, clutching her stomach. Aidan and I exchanged worried glances.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, kneeling beside her.

“Get away!” she said, nearly shouting, through gritted teeth and an increasingly red face.

“Charlie?” I asked, as Aidan backed off.

“They… fuck… I can feel it…” she said, struggling to breathe. “There’s a… hnng… in my stomach, a… fucking… a bomb.”

Aidan and I took a bigger step back.

“No,” he whispered.

“A final fallback plan, in case she escaped?” I asked. He just shrugged. “What do we do?”

“Find… me…” she said, groaning in agony.

We took another step away, as a blindingly bright explosion filled the air between us. Everything about it felt surreal, like it was happening far, far away.

The light, the burning sensation, the shockwave, the deafening sound, all of those sensations completely overwhelmed, and all of them happened all at once, vying for supremacy. We were thrown back, and it was obvious that without Wendy’s blood, we wouldn’t have survived. Even still, it was incredibly painful.

I recovered from the disorientation before Aidan did, rushing towards the smoking crater left on the ground. There was no sign of Charlie at all.

Aidan joined me, looking frantically around as the burned skin on his entire front half began to heal.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Gone,” I said.

“Bullshit,” he said. “She regenerates, no matter what. That’s what Rachel said.”

“There’s no piece here for her to regenerate from,” I told him.

“We just have to wait,” he said.

And so we waited. We waited until Vengeance thugs began pouring out of the facility, guns aimed at us, and she still hadn’t appeared.

“Maybe they kept a piece of her,” Aidan suggested, as we ran for cover. There were too many of them to take on, and we were still recovering from the explosion.

“We have to go back in, then,” I said.

“The facility would take hours to explore,” he replied. “And now they’re ready for us.”

“So, what, we just leave her here?” I asked. “We don’t get a second chance at this!”

“I didn’t say that, just…”

“I’m going back in,” I said. “I’ll wipe out their whole fucking gang if I have to. I am not abandoning her, not now.”

He looked at me, then back at the advancing thugs.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “She is gonna owe us big time for this.”

 

Next Week: That Was A Horrible Experience

Chapter 55 – For Charlie

Liz, Impact Day

“This feels incredible,” Aidan said, flexing his fingers in front of his face. I just watched the rise and fall of his chest, wondering if he was feeling the same thing as me.

If I didn’t know better, I’d have described it as anxiety. My body surged with restless energy, discontent with simply standing still. It wanted to be in motion, to act, to live.

“What is this?” I asked. Wendy pushed her glasses up her nose, and smiled enigmatically.

“You don’t want to know,” she replied.

“Do you always feel like this?” Rachel asked.

“Yes,” Wendy said.

“No wonder you ran away,” Rachel said. Aidan and I swapped looks, but neither of us really followed.

“Don’t waste this,” Wendy said, ignoring Rachel. “I shouldn’t have done this, shouldn’t have given you… Just save Charlie. For all our sakes.”

“That’s the plan,” Aidan said, stretching his legs out. “Man, I could just run for days.”

“You could,” Rachel said. “Longer, even. Without eating or sleeping or resting.”

It seemed almost too good to be true, and I couldn’t help but wonder about Rachel’s cryptic hinting, or Wendy’s deliberate avoidance of the topic. What cost had we payed for this power? Where did it come from?

Wendy wouldn’t tell us. Rachel might, but she was just as likely to lie. Asking her would be as useless as asking the internet.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The power was a means to an end, and the end was saving Charlie. And I knew I would pay any price for that, even selling my own soul. If we had the chance, maybe we’d find answers afterwards, but that wasn’t what was important.

“Alright. Are we all clear on the plan?” Aidan asked.

“We’ve been over it a dozen times,” Rachel complained. “We let ourselves get shot, but make it convincing. Make them think we’re immortal just like Charlie, so they take us to where she is.”

“And then we show them that we’re so much more,” I added.

“The more you use it, the quicker you’ll run out,” Wendy pointed out. “You should be strong enough to get out of any situation they put you in, but don’t push your luck. Be smart.”

“That’s why they’ve got me,” Rachel joked. Aidan scowled at her.

“Let’s just go,” I said.

We had the location of a Vengeance hideout, a perfect target for getting attention. We were all dressed in outfits that matched Charlie’s Vigilante wear, to really sell the connection. All we needed to do was convince them we were worth taking in.

I’d underestimated just how difficult that would be. My body was so overflowing with energy, it was a challenge just to move like I used to. With a minimum of effort, I found myself launched across the room. A simple movement of my hands carried more force than I’d ever been able to muster before. It felt like the rest of the world was happening in slow motion, and I had to struggle to match that speed.

How did Wendy manage it, when she felt like this all the time? She seemed so normal, her movements so gentle. She had a dancer’s grace, but it always seemed natural.

If we’d let loose, we could have run to the hideout in less time than it would have taken to drive. Instead, we used that time to walk, and get used to controlling our movements, making them convincingly ordinary.

“Do you think there are any others out there?” Aidan asked, as we walked. “Like, superhumans.”

“I’d never really considered it,” I replied. “But it stands to reason. One was an anomaly, but two…”

“Two starts to look like a pattern,” Aidan agreed.

“Takes more than two to create a pattern,” Rachel said. “And nothing about Charlie or Wendy’s specific circumstances suggest there would be more of either of them. Not in this world, anyway.”

“I dunno, Liz and I seem… Well, you wouldn’t suspect us from what you see on the surface, you know? Or you, for that matter.”

“Anything special about us is an extension of Charlie,” Rachel said. “We’re special because she wanted us to be special.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, pondering the implications.

“I’m saying too much revolves around Charlie to call any of it a coincidence,” Rachel said. “You can figure the rest out from there.”

“You can do that later,” Aidan said. “We’re here.”

The three of us were standing in front of a large, two-story house on the edges of a fairly well-to-do suburb. There was nothing about it aesthetically to suggest it was a gang hideout.

“You sure this is the right place?” I asked.

“Yes,” Aidan said. “Now that we’ve got the obligatory uncertainty out of the way, do we all know what we’re doing?”

I frowned, but Rachel grinned. She formed a fist, taking a step towards the house.

“We get this party started,” she said.

“And we don’t kill anyone,” Aidan said.

“Yeah, yeah.”

The three of us approached the front door, Rachel in front. She banged on the door, and a few moments later, it opened.

“What?” a surly man in a surplus army jacket asked, before taking in our outfits. “Oh, shit-“

“Surprise,” Rachel said, before breezing past him, twisting his arm and slamming him into the floor.

“Vigilante!” the guy shouted, before Rachel’s boot connected with his throat, choking him up.

All of a sudden, the house was full of the sounds of clamouring, dozens of footsteps pounding through doors and down stairs. Aidan and I braced ourselves, but Rachel just stood there, as if looking forward to the assault.

The first of the Vengeance thugs poured into the front hallway, and the three of us spring into action. We moved as a unit, taking them out like Charlie would have, with reckless abandon, agility and a better understanding of the weaknesses of the human body than any of our opponents. Within minutes, we’d bound nearly twenty of them, leaving just enough of a window for one of them to call for backup.

“That was almost too easy,” Aidan said. “Maybe Charlie’s job isn’t so hard after all.”

“Charlie doesn’t have Wendy’s blood making everything slow and everyone weak,” Rachel pointed out.

“The hard part is still ahead of us,” I reminded them.

Several cars pulled up in front of the house, and I felt my stomach churn. Gangsters poured out of them, brandishing automatic weapons they shouldn’t have had access to. Any sense of subtlety they’d been adhering to was well and truly out the window now.

“This is gonna hurt, isn’t it?” Aidan asked.

“Speaking from experience, yes,” I said.

“Wendy’s blood only accelerates healing and provides the energy to do it without demanding the tonnes of food that much healing would usually require,” Rachel said. “The pain will be exactly the same, only fast-forwarded. If anything, it’ll hurt more.”

“How comforting,” I muttered.

The armed men were making their way up the lawn, guns pointed at the house. If any of the neighbours noticed, they didn’t give any indications. Well, they’d notice soon enough.

“Charlie would do this for us,” Aidan said, reaching for my hand. I took it, and squeezed.

“Charlie does do this for us. Every time.”

“So let’s repay the favour,” Aidan agreed.

We both looked at Rachel, who only rolled her eyes.

“You two can make this as sappy as you want. I’ll save mine for Charlie.”

“Suit yourself,” I said.

“You ready?” Aidan asked me.

“As I’ll ever be,” I told him.

“For Charlie, then,” he said.

“For Charlie,” I agreed.

The two of us opened the front door, stepping out in front of the house. Almost instantly, the gangsters all opened fire, filling the yard with blinding flashes, deafening booms and enough bullets to shred every muscle and tendon in our bodies.

They’re not taking any chances, huh? I thought, as Aidan and I crumbled to the ground, searing pain threatening to overtake everything else.

Just before passing out, I noticed one last detail.

Rachel hadn’t joined us.

 

Next Week: Tell Me You Weren’t Expecting This

Chapter 54 – Charlie Can’t Know

Liz, Impact Day

It felt strange, being in the café with nobody else around. There was something strangely transgressive about it, like being behind the stage of a play. Wendy seemed different, too. In a sense, she seemed relaxed, as she shed the veneer of innocence and banality. In another, there was a different kind of tension filling her, like she was dreading a coming storm.

She sighed, resting her hands on the table. They seemed too delicate for her, somehow.

“I’ve done everything I can,” she said, her voice hollow, defeated. There was no soft, cute charm to it now. “I tried. I really, really tried.”

“Bullshit,” Rachel said, her voice full of venom. “You could walk right in there and pull her out. You could share your power with us, and we could do it. What have you done instead?”

“I’ve played by the rules,” Wendy snapped. “The one rule, really. The one rule that lets an immortal, superhuman abomination like myself live in a world like this one.”

“And how long have you lived in this world?” Aidan asked.

“Two hundred years,” she said, hanging her head.

“Six months,” Rachel said. “For six months, you’ve let her sit in there, being tortured and pulled apart and god knows what else, so you can continue with your two hundred year existence, as… what, a barista?”

“It’s not that simple,” Wendy said. “My life isn’t… It’s not just my own. It’s not something I can recklessly throw away. And I’m not just a barista. I’ve lived so many lives, trying to save as many people as I can, while still playing by the rules. With the time I have left, I could save so many more.”

“I think I understand,” I said. “It’s hard to turn down the chance to do good in the moment, so you can do more good later.”

“Sounds like a lazy justification to me,” Rachel growled.

“You’re not exactly neutral,” Aidan said.

“Let me make this as clear as possible,” Wendy said. “I owe my existence to more sacrifices than I’d care to count. To throw that away would be more than irresponsible. It would be selfish. What you’ve asked of me, without knowing, is so far beyond what I could ever do for you, I very nearly cast you out and ran so far away you’d never find me again.”

“Well, this is off to a good start,” Aidan said.

“Believe it or not, I actually like Charlie,” Wendy said. “Even before I realised what she was. And when I did…”

“You know what she is?” I asked, leaning forward.

“You wouldn’t like the answer,” she told me.

“I can handle it,” I insisted.

“You really don’t want to know,” Rachel chimed in.

“You know too?” Aidan asked.

“I have a pretty good guess,” she said, shrugging.

“I’m not telling you,” Wendy said. “And that’s that.”

Aidan and I both looked at Rachel.

“Hell no,” she said.

“Then why bring it up?” I complained.

“Because it’s important,” Wendy said. “It’s the reason I changed my mind.”

“You changed your mind?” I asked.

Wendy sighed, slumping in her chair. It seemed unnatural to see her without perfect posture, to look so utterly defeated.

“You’re missing the important part,” she said.

“You won’t tell us the important part,” Aidan countered.

“You know enough,” Wendy said.

“We know it’s enough for you to change your mind,” I said, thinking out loud. “Whatever Charlie is, that’s somehow tied into your desire to do the greatest good you can.”

“It’s important you understand that,” Wendy told us. “I want you to understand what I’m giving up, so you understand why I’m giving it up. Because I only get to do this once, and you’re the ones who will make it count.”

“Does Charlie know?” I asked.

“No,” Rachel said. “And it would be better to keep it that way.”

“Why?” Aidan asked.

“Let me put it this way,” she said. “If I put a button in front of you, and told you not to press it, what would you do?”

“I wouldn’t press it,” he said, though he didn’t sound sure.

“And how would that make you feel?”

He pondered that for a moment.

“Curious. Stressed, if I’m being honest. Tempted, too.”

“You would always be thinking about that button,” Rachel said. “And that’s why Charlie can’t know.”

“I don’t follow,” Aidan confessed.

“Me either,” I added.

“Good,” Rachel said. “For you, and for the sake of Charlie not finding out.”

“I have to agree with Rachel on this one,” Wendy said.

“Fine, Charlie doesn’t know,” Aidan said. “What happens now, then?”

Wendy held a hand up, delicate and graceful. She flexed her middle finger, and from under the nail, a small needle extended out.

“What the fuck,” Aidan said.

“Wow, that’s even weirder in person,” Rachel said.

Wendy gave Rachel a concerned look, but didn’t address it.

“Here’s how this goes. I inject you with the smallest amount of this that I can. It won’t last long, but while it does, you’ll be as strong and as fast as I am, and your body will recover from almost any wound as fast as Charlie might.”

“What if we got shot in the head?” Rachel asked.

“Huh?” Aidan gave her a confused look.

“A healing brain is a problem,” Rachel explained. “Thoughts and memories aren’t physical, they’re electrical patterns and signals. You can’t regrow those.”

“There’s a psychic web,” Wendy said. “Think of it like an impervious mental backup.”

“Impressive,” Aidan said.

“You have no idea,” Rachel told him.

“Alright, so it’s as simple as that?” I asked. “You inject us, we have superpowers, and we go rescue Charlie?”

“Pretty much,” Wendy said.

“And what about you?”

“In all probability, I’ll be gone by the time you get back,” she said. “If not… Well, I won’t have long, at any rate.”

There was a sad, hollow sort of smile on her face. Rachel and Aidan seemed oblivious to it, but I couldn’t look away. I wanted to know so much more about her, and I was only just realising I would never get that chance.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Rachel said.

“Maybe. But I’m not doing it for you,” Wendy replied. “Remember what I said, Rachel. Remember what’s at stake.”

“I know,” Rachel said. “Better than you give me credit for.”

Wendy just shook her head.

“So…” Aidan said.

Wendy stood, moving to his side so quickly I almost missed the movement. He jumped.

“Are you ready for this?” she asked. “The process is not pleasant.”

“How unpleasant are we talk-“

Wendy slid the needle into a vein on his arm, and his entire body just froze up, as if in shock. She pulled the needle out, and he started to convulse, as every muscle in his body contracted and expanded against his will. After a few seconds, he started screaming.

When he finally calmed down, he just lay there, breathing heavily.

“That did not look fun,” Rachel said. She held her arm out to Wendy. “Me next.”

She went through the exact same process, but didn’t scream like Aidan did. She grunted through gritted teeth, but she didn’t scream.

“Last one,” Wendy said. “Will you do this, seeing the results?”

I looked at the other two, sweating and panting, slouched in chairs, barely able to move.

I extended my arm.

“Anything for Charlie,” I said.

 

Next Week: For Charlie

Chapter 52 – This Is Some Real Conspiracy Theory Shit

Liz, One Day Before Impact Day

Six months, and we weren’t any closer. Six months of one plan after another failing. Everything we tried seemed to almost be sabotaged. Either that or we had the worst luck in the world.

“What do we do?” Aidan asked, pressing his forehead into his desk. “What else is left?”

“I could try to get in,” I said. “If anyone could…”

“It’s a slim chance, and if you get caught, you die.”

“And if I don’t, we’re out of options,” I retorted. “So fine, I might die. I probably will. But at this point, it’s all we have left.”

“No, it’s not,” he insisted. “If you die, Charlie loses the best chance she has of ever getting out.”

“So what do we do, then?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Do you think Rachel’s making any progress?” I asked.

“I think we’d know,” he replied. “Whatever else she’s up to, she does care about Charlie. She’d do anything to save her.”

We were pretty sure we’ve managed to lock her out of all our systems, but with Rachel, it was impossible to be sure. We always made sure never to be too careless with what we discussed, just in case she was listening.

“What would Charlie do in this situation?”

“Exactly what you just suggested,” Aidan said with a sigh. “Rush in and cause a mess.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “She acts reckless, but I don’t think that’s who she really is. She’s… clever.”

“Not clever enough to keep her from getting caught,” Aidan muttered.

“I said clever, not infallible. But it does make me wonder.”

“What, you think she got caught on purpose?”

“I didn’t say that,” I insisted. “But I don’t want to completely ignore the possibility.”

“Why would she possibly want something like that?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe she thought she could take them out from the inside. Maybe she’s gathering intel. Maybe she wanted the drama. Who knows with her?”

“Okay, let’s assume she did,” he said. “It would stand to reason that Rachel would be in on it, right?”

So much for being careful.

“Most likely.”

“So what does Rachel want? What is she pushing us towards?”

“She’s pretty keen on getting Wendy’s help,” I said. “But she’s also been minding her own business for months now. Mostly.”

“She interfered with that assassination,” Aidan pointed out. “Who knows what else she’s pulling the strings on.”

“But why?” I asked.

“Because there’s only one thing she wants,” Aidan said. “She wants us to go to Wendy.”

“But Wendy already refused to help.”

“Because she doesn’t trust Rachel or Charlie,” Aidan said. “But she doesn’t have a reason to doubt us. And if we’re kept in the dark, she won’t see through any deception or ulterior motive.”

“This is some real conspiracy theory shit,” I said.

“That’s what we’re reduced to,” he muttered. “It’s all we have left.”

“But it doesn’t help,” I told him. “It doesn’t get us any closer to saving Charlie.”

“I guess I’m starting to wonder if we should be saving her.”

“What?”

“I don’t like being a pawn,” he said darkly.

“You don’t know that you are,” I retorted. “And besides, even if we are pawns, even if Charlie is pulling all these bullshit strings that you think she’s pulling… Does it really matter? Would you really abandon her because of that?”

He looked at me, defiance shining in his eyes. Then he deflated.

“No,” he said. “Of course not. I’d do anything to save her.”

“I won’t say I’ve never questioned it,” I admitted. “Some days, I wonder why I even…”

“Love her?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “I mean, it never really felt like a choice. She’s just this… You just have to, you know?”

“I know,” he said. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve felt…”

He trailed off, and I knew why.

“You can say it,” I told him. “We’re so far beyond judgement right now.”

“She’s supposed to be like a sister to me,” he said. “But I…”

“It’s not healthy, is it?”

“No,” he said, without needing to think about it. “But it’s too late to do anything about it now.”

“Maybe this is just what love feels like,” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like that with… uh…”

He shook his head, and turned away from me.

What?

“Aidan?”

“Forget it,” he said. “We have more important things to talk about.”

“Aidan, if you’ve got something to say…”

“It’s stupid,” he mumbled.

“Aidan.”

“Come on, don’t act like you don’t know,” he said.

“I really don’t,” I promised.

“Then let’s just forget about it.”

“After all that build up?” I asked. “Not a chance.”

“Uuugghh.”

“Aidan, we’ve spent six months with nobody else in our lives, desperately trying to find our best friend. Do you really think there’s anything you can’t say to me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Why?”

“You don’t even like me,” he said.

“What?”

“You never did,” he told me. “Charlie was the only thing that kept us around each other. Even now that she’s gone, she’s the only thing we have in common.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked.

“Am I wrong?”

“…Maybe it was like that one,” I admitted. “But you have to know it’s different now.”

“I don’t know that.”

“Aidan, you’re the only person in my life that knows I killed someone. Three someones, now. What could you possible have to hide that’s worth than that?”

“I love you,” he said abruptly.

“Wh-what?”

“I know, I know, I’m pathetic,” he said. “Just another sad white boy who falls in love with every girl who’s nice to him.”

“Charlie was never nice to you,” I said, and he laughed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to make this… You know. You don’t even swing that way.”

“According to who?” I asked.

“Well, Charlie is…”

“You’ve never heard of a bisexual?”

“Wait, are you—”

“I never really thought about it,” I confessed.

“Right.”

“You’re special to me,” I told him. “Of course I love you.”

“What a delightfully weird triangle that forms.”

“I’m gonna be honest, I never really thought of you as the, uh…”

“Yes?”

“The loving type,” I said.

“Wow.”

“Not like that! Just like, in that way. Charlie being the obvious exception.”

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, no, I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

“It’s all very confusing, alright? It feels different to me. It’s supposed to be normal, but I never really wanted anything to do with it.”

“What’s ‘it’ in this context?” I asked.

“Any of it,” he said. “Dating. Sex. For a while, I thought I was gay, because I wasn’t interested in any girls. But I wasn’t really interested in boys either. Or anyone else.”

“So, you’re like…”

“Asexual,” he said. “According to the internet, anyway. “And maybe aromantic? I don’t really know. Like I said, it’s weird. And I guess I’ve fallen in love twice, so…” Just then, his phone rang. “Now? Really?” He answered, and his eyes widened. “Alright. We’ll be there.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“That was Wendy,” he told me. “She wants to talk to us. Tomorrow.”

“You’re kidding.”

“She sounded upset,” he said. “Something must have happened.”

“Should we go?”

“I think we have to,” he said. “This could be the chance we’ve been waiting for.”

“Or the beginning of a trap,” I said.

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

I sighed. “Me too.”

 

Next Week: Impossible Is Her Bread And Butter

Chapter 48 – I Just Want Him Dead

Liz, Five Months Before Impact Day

I arrived at the meeting place ahead of time, scoping it out for a possible ambush. I made sure I knew where all of the exits were, and anywhere someone might hide or eavesdrop. I checked obvious places for someone to plant surveillance devices, and mentally prepared three different escape routes.

It was a private city car park, the kind that requires keycard access to get in. I wasn’t provided one, but it didn’t stop me finding a small gap I could squeeze through. Presumably, it was a casual sort of initial test. If I couldn’t get to the meeting location, I probably wasn’t very good at my job.

Once I was satisfied I knew the area and could handle any situation that was thrown at me, I found a dark corner to hide in, and waited. It was uncomfortable and very, very boring, but carelessness is an express ticket to an early grave.

Eventually, the contact arrived. It was a middle-aged woman in a grey suit, with a grim expression and impractically long nails. I took in her gait, her frame, the lines of her clothing. She didn’t seem dangerous, or even armed. Still, I watched for a while longer.

She stopped beside a concrete pillar, and looked around. When she didn’t see me, she sighed, and checked her watch. Then she sighed again.

“I’m not late,” I said, stepping out of the shadows. She jumped, then tried to play it cool, smoothing down her suit.

Is this really the person Aidan was talking to?

“You’re the, uh, freelancer?” she asked, a slight quaver in her voice. “You look awfully young.”

“Yep,” I said, smiling at her.

“Right. Um, well. You know the terms?”

“I know what I need to know,” I said. “Except the details I’m here to get from you.”

“Yes. I’m sorry for insisting on meeting in person. It felt wrong to not talk to you face to face.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” I replied.

“Okay. The target is Jason Bradson. I wrote down his address for you.”

“Any special conditions?” I asked.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Right now all you’re telling me is that you want him dead,” I said. “That’s easy. Sometimes people want it to look like an accident, or they want to send a particular kind of message.”

“Oh. No, nothing like that,” she said. “I just want him dead.”

“Cool.”

“Do you… Do you want to know why?” she asked.

“Not particularly,” I replied.

“Right. Um…”

“Our mutual friend will contact you when it’s done,” I said. “You won’t see me again. Well, so long as you hold up your end of the deal, that is.”

She visibly flinched.

“Okay.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You can go now,” I said.

She just nodded, and left the way she came. I waited for her to leave completely before exiting the car park the same way I came in.

That was either the least professional contract ever or a very convincing ruse…

But why would she act so skittish and uncertain? I didn’t like any of it. As soon as I was a safe distance away, I called Aidan.

“Yo,” he said.

“I met your contact.”

“And?”

“Who was she?” I asked. “She hardly seemed reliable… Are you sure she’s gonna deliver?”

“Dude, that was the CEO of the biggest defence contractor in the country,” he said.

“You’re kidding.”

“Unless she sent a decoy, but the end result is the same. She’s got the goods.”

“Alright. I’ll get it done, then.”

“You’re sure?” he asked, a note of caution in his voice.

“Do we need to have this conversation again?”

“No, no, it’s not that,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure everything seemed fine to you.”

“It seemed super weird to me,” I told him. “I’m gonna do some research first.”

“Is that not normal?”

“It’s generally harder to kill someone when you know more about them.”

“What if they’re a huge arsehole?”

“Statistically unlikely,” I told him.

“What? Most people are arseholes,” he said.

“Most people are people,” I said. “Very few deserve to die.”

“Fine, fine. Do your thing. Let me know if you need any help, but don’t make her wait too long.”

“You got it, boss.”

“I’m not—”

I hung up on him.

Time to figure out what’s going on here.

I did a quick map search for the nearest internet café, not wanting any compromising information in my own search history. Luckily, it wasn’t far. I made my way there on foot, signed in with a fake ID, and started researching my target, as well as the client.

Hours passed, and nothing came up. Finding them both was easy. The client was exactly who Aidan said she was, though by all accounts, the target was nobody at all. He was just a schmuck, a low-level manager of a supermarket. It didn’t seem like there was a professional reason to target him, so maybe personal?

Neither of them had kids, neither of them lived anywhere near each other. If they’d ever had a romantic connection, there was no record of it. Their work had never intersected, their families had no ties. There was nothing at all I could find.

I tried looking for any sign that either had changed their name, but their records dated as far back as their childhoods.

“Where’s the connection?” I muttered.

Rachel would be able to figure it out.

“Rachel can fuck right off.”

I kept digging. If there was a connection, a reason, it didn’t seem like I was going to find it publicly available. I left my computer long enough to buy a cup of low-quality coffee, pushed up my glasses, and prepared myself for round two.

Instead, I found a message on the computer. Someone had pulled up a text editor, and written a short message. I looked around, but nobody seemed to have moved. Nobody seemed to be paying attention, either.

“You were taking too long. I got bored. The answer is:

She deliberately picked a target with no connection. She’s testing Aidan because she expects a long term trade relationship.

You just wasted three hours.

~R”

“How did she—”

As I watch, the cursor blinks, and another sentence is typed out.

Just keeping an eye on you~”

I turned off the computer, swallowed the last of my coffee in an angry huff, and stormed out of the internet café.

I needed to talk to Aidan.

 

Next Week:This Is Brilliant, Even For Me

Chapter 47 – Shades of Grey

Liz, Five Months Before Impact Day

“So what do we do?” Aidan asked, leaning back in his chair.

I wished I had an answer for him. I wished I knew how to take on an entire gang. I wished Rachel wasn’t right.

She was wasting her time, though. Of that I was certain. We wouldn’t get any help from Wendy. Maybe we needed help, but it wouldn’t come from her.

Where could we get help, then? I couldn’t go to my parents, not with this. Taking on one of their more profitable employers? The idea was laughable. I could try and weasel information out of them, but I doubted they’d give up anything useful. We needed something better.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Alright, well, let’s work backwards,” he said.

“I’m listening.”

“Well, we need to get her out of what is basically a fortress,” he said. “That means we need an exfiltration route. Given who we’re up against, stealth is going to be more effective than brute force.”

“Stealth I can do,” I said. “So we’re going to need… Hmm. Access to the fortress. Access to her. A way to get her out unnoticed.”

“We could join the gang,” Aidan suggested. “I’m using Rachel’s hacking software, but I can’t get anything that’ll get us people on the inside. But we could be the people on the inside. We’d learn a lot more that way, and we’d get direct access to her.”

“Not necessarily,” I told him. “Vengeance are big, and they’re careful. It would be months, maybe years before new recruits were given access to something as valuable as Charlie.”

“So we steal identities,” he said.

“Could work,” I said, considering it. “Won’t be easy, but I don’t think any part of this is gonna be easy.”

I began to lay out what we’d need. An understanding of their operation, especially within wherever they were holding Charlie. A way to trick anyone we encountered there, and the credentials to navigate it freely. Disguises so we wouldn’t be recognised, or perceived as as young as we were. Once we had that, we could go in, get to Charlie, and… Well, we needed a way to get her out, but we couldn’t do that until we knew what the set up was.

“One step at a time,” Aidan said, echoing my thoughts.

“How do we figure out what’s going on internally?” I asked. “Is that something you can get access to?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Information is always obtainable, but it’ll take time. I’m still new at this, you know.”

“Do you need anything from me?” I asked.

He pondered that, the wheels and cogs in his mind turning over.

“There might be something,” he said. “But…”

“But?”

“I don’t want to ask for it,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s…” He sighs. “Look. You know that I value you as a friend, and as a person, right?”

Now I know this isn’t going anywhere good.

“Just spit it out, Aidan.”

“I might have a contract for you.”

Oh.

“You want me to kill someone,” I said, feeling slightly hollow.

“Well, not me,” he said, hurrying to explain. “One of my sources. It would be an exchange for new connections.”

“I see…”

“I didn’t want to ask,” he said. “Really. I mean, you know I don’t think of you as a… you know.”

“An assassin?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Aidan, I am an assassin. Or at least, I’m ready to be one. And I won’t be made to feel ashamed of that legacy.”

He looked at me with a pained expression on his face.

“Since when do you think of yourself as an assassin?”

“Since my best friend went missing, I guess?”

That wasn’t entirely true. I’d thought of myself as an assassin my entire life. It was how I was raised.

Being an assassin didn’t mean being a killer. It meant being a weapon, a tool. There was blood on your hands, but it was blood that was bound to be on someone’s hands. At least if it was you, you could ensure the death was clean, painless, beautiful.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine,” I replied, not really meaning it. “Tell me about the job.”

“You’ll do it?” he asked.

“I’ll consider it. Especially if it will help save Charlie.”

“Alright,” he said, a little flatly. “I’ll set up a meeting.”

“Now you sound disappointed.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I just found out my friend is willing to kill.”

“You brought it up,” I told him.

“I didn’t expect you to say yes!”

“Let me ask you something, then,” I said. “All this information that you’re buying and selling. You think that isn’t hurting anyone? You think that won’t get anyone killed?”

“I’m not killing someone with my own hands!”

“And that makes you so much better than me.”

“I didn’t say that,” he argued.

“Didn’t you?”

“Ugh, fuck, I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to fight about this.”

“Me either,” I agreed, my shoulders slumping. “We’re living in shades of grey, here. And I think we’re both willing to push the limits of our own morality if it gets Charlie back.”

“Are we bad people?” he asked.

“Maybe. But right now I care less about being a good person than I do about saving my best friend.”

“This sucks,” he said.

“There has to be a reason for it,” I told him.

“I wish I had your faith.”

We sit like that for a while, neither of us saying anything. Aidan sighs, and reaches out to me. His hand touches mine, and I hold it.

“We’ll find her,” he said.

“I know,” I said, without really believing it. “So let me do what I can to help.”

Aidan returned to his laptop, and quickly composed and sent an email. Minutes later, he got a response.

“That was fast,” I commented.

“They’re very eager,” he said wearily. He wrote down the details on a piece of paper, then deleted the email. “You’ll only get one chance to impress them, so…”

“Leave this part to me,” I said. “This is my business, remember?”

He didn’t say anything in response to that.

 

Next Week: I Just Want Him Dead

Chapter 46 – Willing To Die For Her

Rachel, Six Months Before Impact Day

We arrived late in the day, with only a few people left in the cafe. Wendy noticed us immediately, as expected. She was sharper than she gave the impression of being. A quick glower at me, unnoticed by the others.

“You’re Wendy, right?” Aidan asked, with his usual friendly charm.

“That’s me,” Wendy replied, with just a hint of venom in her voice. It was clear she knew why we were here.

“We need your help,” Aidan asked, and I bit my tongue. Don’t say anything, I told myself. She won’t respond if you’re leading the charge.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a sudden movement. Two high school students, wearing Charlie’s uniform. Neither Aidan nor Liz responded to them, but there was a strange energy to them.

“You need help from a barista?” Wendy asked, playing coy. She did have an audience, after all.

“Not exactly,” Aidan said.

“We’re looking for a different kind of help,” Liz said, with a surprising lack of tact for a trained assassin.

“Well, I only have the one kind available,” Wendy said, with forced ease.

Aidan sighed, and pulled the envelope I’d given him out of his pocket. Charlie’s letter. Our trump card. If that didn’t work… Well, we weren’t out of options. It just made it trickier.

“You might change your mind when you see this,” he said.

“What’s this?” She took the envelope from him.

“Open it, and find out,” he said.

Despite the awkwardness to him, there was an underlying confidence, a sense of control that put me off. Like the awkwardness was a front, an attempt to seem more accessible, more harmless.

“Okay…” Wendy said, glancing over the letter. I watched her eyes as she read it several times in the space of only a few seconds, growing more and more tense each time. By the time she lowered it, she was practically shaking with anger. “Ah,” she said. “That clever little…”

“So?” Liz asked, a little too smugly. We haven’t got her yet.

“Back room,” Wendy said sharply.

The four of us moved quickly to the back room, the secret one beyond the kitchen. Liz and Aidan reacted with surprise. I remained silent.

“Wow, Charlie was right, huh,” Aidan said, glancing around.

“How much did she tell you?” Wendy asked sharply. Her demeanour had changed dramatically. We were seeing the colder, more guarded Wendy now.

“Not everything,” I said. Wendy relaxed slightly, while the other two looked at me carefully.

“What do you want?” Wendy demanded.

“Your help,” Aidan said. “We need to save Charlie.”

“Save?” Wendy asked.

“She’s been taken,” I explained. “Vengeance, we think.”

“I warned her,” Wendy grumbled. “What are you worried about, though? You know what she is, don’t you?”

“We know she’s immortal,” Liz said. “That doesn’t mean she’s not in danger.”

“Not my problem,” Wendy shrugged.

“Bullshit,” Aidan said. “We read that letter. Something is going to happen if you don’t help her.”

“So Charlie assumes,” Wendy said easily. “She assumes a lot about her own importance. That doesn’t make it true.”

In that moment, I was struck with a realisation. Wendy doesn’t know. She had some idea, certainly more than either of the other two in the room, but she didn’t know.

My brain whirred, filling in some of the blanks. Wendy had seen beyond the world. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but she had experience beyond that of a mortal. Beyond that of any of us. She understood, intellectually and instinctively, more about the world, and the metaphysical scaffolding behind it, than she should. But she didn’t know.

What did that mean? What had she seen, and how? She wasn’t from here, I knew that much. I’d assumed she’d time traveled, given the advanced technology required to create something like her. I understood now that that was wrong. She wasn’t from the future. She wasn’t avoiding involving herself from some fear of creating a paradox.

She came from an alternate reality, then. The very concept struck me like a bolt of lightning. More realisations flooded in, one after another, as my perception shifted violently. Multiple realities changed so much about… everything. Literally everything. I couldn’t make sense of it yet. Too many missing pieces. I needed more.

“The terms of your agreement,” I said. “What are they?”

“Do no harm,” she said. “I do not hurt anyone. I do not change anyone. I just live.”

“Change?” Liz asked, as my brain already began planning what came next.

“Never you mind,” Wendy said.

“So you won’t help?” Aidan asked. “You’re happy to let a teenage girl be tortured by a cruel gang because you made an agreement?”

Wendy faltered for just a moment, but held strong.

“Charlie’s tough,” she insisted. “More than you know. I told her not to play with fire, and she ignored me.”

“And when she breaks?” I asked.

“She’s strong,” Wendy said.

“Everybody has a breaking point,” Liz said. “What happens when she reaches hers?”

“Ask your friend,” Wendy said. Liz and Aidan looked at me.

“I don’t know,” I said, and it was the truth. I had fears, but nothing I could say for certain. “But it’s bad. For everyone.”

“This was a waste of time,” Aidan said.

“Sure seems like it,” I said, glaring at Wendy.

“You know the way out,” Wendy said.

“What happens if you break your word?” I asked Wendy, one final ditch attempt.

“I end,” she said.

“And that’s worth more than the sanity of an innocent girl?”

She didn’t say anything after that. The three of us left, walking through a now empty cafe. Once we were out, Aidan slammed his fist into a nearby wall.

“What do we do now?” he asked, shaking his wrist.

“We take care of it ourselves,” Liz said.

“How?”

“We find her, we get her out,” Liz said. “And I kill everyone that gets in the way of that.”

They were determined. That was good. I could use that.

“I have something of my own I want to work on,” I said.

“You’re not gonna help?” Aidan asked.

“I didn’t say that. But you two have a flow that clearly doesn’t need me. I’m going to try a different approach, and between us…”

“What are you going to do?” Liz asked.

“Work on Wendy,” I said. “Without her, we don’t have a chance.”

“Great,” Aidan said, sarcasm dripping off his tongue.

“Look, I love the optics of three teenagers taking on the largest gang in the city, I do. It would make a great comic book. But the three of us, we’re mortal, and we’re not exactly experienced. We will die, and we won’t achieve shit. And hey, if you’re willing to die for her, great. I’m not. So we need this, whether you like it or not. Whether you like me or not.”

“That’s not—” Aidan began, but Liz cut him off.

“Do what you want,” she said sharply. “Aidan, we have a lot of work to do.”

“I guess so,” he said. “Bye, Rachel.”

“Have fun, you two,” I said.

As they left, I glanced up at the security camera watching us. Good. I needed Wendy to hear that. I needed her to believe that what I really wanted to do was save Charlie. I needed them all to believe that.

 

Next Week: Shades of Grey

Chapter 45 – Too Bad We Don’t Have Superpowers

Liz, Five Months Before Impact Day

“This is impossible,” I moaned, staring at the mess of paper sprawled out across the table.

“I hate to admit it, but I think you’re right,” Aidan agreed.

Rachel glowered at the two of us, but there was resignation in her eyes. Her shoulders slumped.

“There’s got to be something we can do,” she said. “We can’t just give up.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Aidan said.

“Even an army couldn’t take that place,” I muttered. “No wonder they’re the largest gang in the city.”

“What if we drop a bomb on it?” Rachel said. “Blow the whole thing to pieces.”

“Charlie would survive that?” Aidan asked.

“Almost certainly,” Rachel said.

“It’s designed to be bombed,” I pointed out. “Even a nuke wouldn’t get through.”

“I could build something bigger than a nuke,” Rachel said indignantly.

“Yeah, and you’d take half the state with it,” Aidan said. “I don’t think that’s an option.”

We all sighed, racking our brains for inspiration. None of us were willing to give up, but it seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

“What would Charlie do?” Aidan asked.

“She’d try and punch her way through,” I said.

“She’s reckless but she’s not stupid,” Rachel snapped.

“I could try and buy her,” Aidan said. “But I don’t think there’s enough money in the world to get them to give her up.”

“It’s too bad we don’t have superpowers,” I muttered.

Rachel’s eyes lit up.

“What if we did?” she said.

“I’m not sure I like where this is going,” Aidan said.

“You don’t have some weird comic book power machine, do you?” I asked. “Because I don’t think I’m willing to take that risk.”

“Even I couldn’t build something like that,” Rachel said, sounding a little disappointed. “But I know of the next best thing.”

“Wendy,” Aidan said.

Charlie had tried to explain how Wendy was important, but neither of us had really put much stock in it. A weird video from an anonymous source did not prove that Wendy was anything other than a normal barista.

“I guess it’s worth a shot?” I said, not really feeling it.

“She already refused to help once,” Rachel said. “She might again.”

“At this point, I’ll try anything,” Aidan said. “Even if I am skeptical.”

“Do we have any proof she even can help?” I asked.

“My hunch says she can,” Rachel said. “And my hunches are never wrong.”

“We’re building a whole plan off a hunch?”

“It’s not like we have anything else,” Aidan said. “Why not try?”

I didn’t have an answer for that, so I just shrugged. Rachel gestured for us to stay put, and disappeared into the bedroom. A minute later, she emerged, holding an envelope.

“Charlie left this with me,” she explained. “Just in case.”

“A letter?” I asked.

“To Wendy. Said it might help convince Wendy to help, if something happened.”

“That’s… vaguely suspicious,” I said.

“You don’t give Charlie enough credit,” Rachel said. “She thinks things through, she’s just more willing to take risks. Especially when she has back-up plans.”

“What does it say?” Aidan asked.

“You want to read it?”

“Is there any reason why we can’t?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

She handed it to him, and he opened it. I read over his shoulder.

‘Wendy.
I know what the cracks mean.
If you’re reading this, it’s only a matter of time.
If they break me…
Well, I think you know better than I do what happens then.
Make your choice.
Live with the consequences.
After all, they don’t really matter, do they?
Help me, Wendy. You’re my only hope.
-Charlie.’

“What is she talking about?” Aidan asked. “What cracks? What consequences?”

“I knew there was more we weren’t being told,” I said.

“She didn’t want to tell anyone,” Rachel said. “She’s been seeing cracks that nobody else can see. Even I don’t know what it means.”

“And the consequences?” I asked.

“Wendy wouldn’t tell us,” Rachel insisted. “Just that she couldn’t help because there would be ‘consequences’. I think Charlie is calling her bluff.”

“So even you don’t know what this means,” Aidan said.

“Not entirely,” she said, shrugging. “But I think it’ll help.”

“So that’s it?” I asked. “This is what we have? A hunch that Wendy can help, a vague letter from Charlie, and your word?”

“A general goes to war with the army they have,” Rachel said. “This is what we have.”

“This is stupid,” I insisted.

“It’s not the strongest plan,” Aidan said. “But at least it’ll get us out. And who knows? Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it’ll lead us to something better. Maybe it’ll distract us for a few hours. But at this point, we have literally nothing to lose.”

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go talk to a barista.”

“I could use a coffee, anyway,” Rachel said.

As we packed up and got ready to leave, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more Rachel wasn’t telling us. I made eye contact with Aidan, and he nodded.

If Rachel thinks she’s playing us, she’s got another thing coming. Once we’ve rescued Charlie, everything changes.

 

Next Week: Willing To Die For Her