Love Lost, Chapter 13b: Phobias, concluded.
#26 of Love Lost
Love Lost, Chapter 13b: Phobias, concluded.
Grace and Alice continued onward as Sam walked up the path to his house. "Do you feel that?" Grace asked of Alice.
"Yes. It's like a fight, but not." Alice's antennae raised. "And it's coming from your home."
Grace took Alice by her wrist and glided forward, almost pulling her friend off of her feet. "Our home."
As the porch came within sight, Grace noticed that the window near the front door was wet and garnished with a little frost. Grace teleported herself inside, intending to unlock the door for Alice, but Alice turned its unlocked knob and entered as the glow around Grace faded. A double voice, one of a bird pokemon and another of a synthesizer, spoke from Burner's room. "Quit fussing. When you make me miss, it hurts both of us."
Alice and Grace tossed their medication onto the telephone's table and appeared in Burner's doorway. Alice stood in silence, but Grace's gasp alerted Ivana, who twisted her neck to see.
She eyed both for a second. "A lousy little lucario? You're not on his master's roster. You must be the one he's been saving himself for. Good, you watch me take what you were too human to share." Ivana forced her body down on Burner again, but failed to capture him. Hoping for a dramatic moment, she had used more strength than before, making both grunt with pain as Burner writhed to the side, causing each's nether to merely collide with its other.
Burner glanced through the gap between his body and his assailant's, seeing the shock and horror on Alice's face. "Ali--" Burner cried out as Ivana flexed her gripping talons into his flesh and re-positioned herself. "--help me, I can't..."
Alice's sixth sense lit up in her mind. Burner was about to fail; Ivana, to succeed. Alice also sensed Ivana's strength. Although she knew articuno was a legendary species, she had never felt one's aura before. It intimidated her. But, she was not a riolu anymore and she was done with being intimidated. Striking the spikes on her paws together against the one on her chest and scraping them along its length, Alice generated a metal-sound that enervated everyone in the room. Recognizing that her Fighting-type repertoire was almost worthless against a flying-type, she bared her steely claws and lunged at the recovering articuno. Ivana released her grip on Burner, stepping off and away to let Alice's swipe catch nothing but an air current. Alice stumbled, trying to make another attack without tripping over Burner's vulnerable form when she felt that air current breeze around again. With only a couple flaps of her wings, Ivana got off the ground, entered a spin, and whipped up a hurricane that slammed Alice against the wall, knocking her unconscious. Even in the living room, loose objects fared little better as the compression wave rebounded and entered the home proper.
Ivana started to laugh, but choked up as Grace targeted her with a confuse-ray. Then, Ivana laughed again, with greater contempt. Grace sensed Ivana's plan to attack while her laugh served as a distraction. Kicking herself backwards into a hovering glide, Grace pulled the door shut telekinetically as she passed through. With a loud thud it splintered and fell away as it took the brunt of Ivana's sheer-cold, intended to end the girl's interference. Ivana stomped through the broken-through doorway, preparing another attack.
Burner leapt through the doorway behind her, delivering a blaze-kick to the back of Ivana's head. She stumbled and fell halfway to the floor. Grace shivered as the temperature in the room dropped suddenly. Burner attempted to approach Ivana, intending to make good on that offer to evict, but she sprang up when he touched her, spitting a stream of icy fluid that immediately froze on his body, immobilizing his upper half. She knocked him away with a brush of her wing and cursed something that her computer could not interpret. His momentum sent his head into the side of James' liqueur cabinet, shattering its door's glass. She turned her gaze to Grace.
The gardevoir knew that her only alternative attack was magical-leaf, which meant nothing to her foe. She prepared to teleport away, just to escape this enemy, when everything began fading to a purple shade and turned into a blur. She felt immediately disoriented as the world swung around her in a split second. Then, the blur was normally colored. Then, cyan, darkness, and absolute brightness in a flash; all this, accompanied by an ear-splitting shriek.
Grace was on the carpet. She rolled over a little and looked to see Ivana suspended in the air, entangled by tendrils that coursed with electricity. The legend thrashed in the air until her left leg touched ground and provided a path for the current to reach earth. Ivana lashed out with an ice beam, and Marianne immediately returned the favor, whipping sharp crystals of a few semi-frozen tendrils around Ivana's neck, and pulling them partially through while strangling the bird.
Alice's bloody nose dripped onto the carpet as she struggled to crawl out of Burner's room. She ignored the action but three meters away and went to Burner, trying to shake him awake. She nestled her muzzle beneath his beak, defrosted by his weak but ever-warm respiration, and whispered, "I'm sorry, B; I tried."
Ivana whipped her neck around, untangling herself and sending the ghost into a tumble. She shook her head and let some blood drain from her beak. Looking up at her current enemy, Ivana caught a shadow-ball that bowled her over.
Marianne looked around the room. Grace was standing in the corner beside Joe's room, feeling terrified and impotent. The irony of Grace's fear helping her to power her attacks was not lost on Marianne, but this battle was out of the gardevoir's league. "Teleport to Percival's house, come back in exactly one minute. I'm about to show Snowflake my ugly side."
Grace nodded in agreement and vanished as Ivana started to stand again and as Marianne's necklace glowed pure white. A haunting scream managed to follow Grace through her teleport. She appeared in Delilah's kitchen unannounced. Mrs. Finnegan was preparing a sandwich for her son's impending arrival from school. Frankie was getting busy with a banana.
"Wha--hey, now you know you're welcome to visit anytime, girl, but I'd appreciate you ringing the doorbell before you come in as a courtesy."
"I'm sorry, things just got really out of hand."
Delilah's eyebrows raised when she got a look at Grace's face. "No kidding. You're so pale you look like you'd seen a ghost. And knowing your usual skin-tone and situation, that's saying something."
"I wish I'd seen a ghost. I'm used to that, now. Something, some big blue bird pokemon is in our house. It tried to," Grace glanced around and sensed through the walls to be sure Li'l Sis was out of earshot, and whispered, "rape Burner. Alice and I came home and caught her on top of him. She knocked out Alice with one hit and she tried to freeze me but missed. Burner stopped her from taking another shot at me but she knocked him out, too. Then, Marianne came in and electrocuted her and told me to go here and come back in a minute and," Grace took a deep breath, closing her eyes and facing upward, "I hope she has a plan."
Delilah could hardly believe Grace's report. "I haven't heard about pokemon breaking into people's houses and doing things like that in years. Not unless they were told to by a crooked trainer."
Grace looked at Delilah with a serious stare. "Remember the men who came through our backyards? The ones who killed my mother after she left me with Joe? They worked for this blue bit--bird's owner." Estimating a minute had passed, Grace returned to her living room, rudely leaving Delilah hanging. She went straight to Burner and Alice, finding both unconscious. There was no trace of Marianne or the invader, only pools of melted ice and splatters of crimson. She peeked into the pokemon room and found nothing but disruption. She tried to sense emotional presence, but felt only darkness surrounding her. Darkness was surrounding her. Struggling, she wrenched herself away from the tendrils that descended upon her.
"Hey, let me feed. I need some more juice. I still have to haul the trash away. You, on the other hand, need to deal with them. Burner has a ball, but you'll have to carry Alice. Don't forget, she's a Steel-type; they're denser than they look."
Grace held out a hand and focused to teleport Burner's ball into her grasp. She felt strange recalling him. Alice, however, "I don't think I can do this. I mean, it's such a long way to the pokecenter."
"What? Were you thinking of walking? I checked them out. They need help right now. Unlike me, they are part of your family, aren't they?"
"Yes, but, how? I can't teleport that far by myself, much less carrying someone too."
Marianne became visibly furious and leaned in closer with every statement. "Listen to me you pathetic sack of psychic garbage! You are going to pick that lucario up and sling her over your shoulder, you are going to close your eyes, you are going to reach out with that chest mounted emerald of yours, you're going to find the silver posts at the pokecenter, you are going to teleport there, you are going to pass out about two seconds afterward, and when you wake up, maybe you'll find out they pulled through intact if the center's crew is Johnny-on-the-spot about things like this." Marianne shoved Grace toward Alice.
With a grunt, Grace hefted Alice up and over her narrow shoulder, forcing her body to twist and curve and to receive a gash from a lucario spike in the process. She squinted and strained. "I, I can't do this. I can't levitate her weight and sense the posts and teleport there at the same time. It's--"
Marianne appeared before Grace as she opened her eyes, losing her tenuous vision of the pokecenter posts, three tiny specks far off in a hazy distance. "Grace," the ghost spoke with a terrifyingly calm and level tone, "when the time came to save your life, did your mother ever think for a moment that she couldn't?" Marianne flew through Grace's body, chilling her to the bone. Somehow, it was colder than even Ivana's ices.
As Marianne drifted toward the garage--where a troublemaker lay unconscious, victim of a powerful perish song and a few other forms of mistreatment--she saw a bright flash behind her, surrounding her own purple shadow cast on the wall she was about to drift through.
"Good work, Kid. I knew you had it in you."
Joe stood in his doorway, stunned by a disaster before him. Granted, aside from one internal door and the glass of his father's liqueur cabinet, nothing was totally broken so much as disarrayed, but the blood and general sogginess of the carpet discouraged walking inside even if only to survey the damage. He worked his way around most of the mess and entered the kitchen. A piece of the pokemon room's door rested on the table with an abbreviated message scrawled into its surface, likely done with a shard of broken glass that lay beside it.
"G AT P/C W/ B + A"
Joe deciphered it and placed a phone call on his trainer's device.
"Yes," replied an attendant after hearing Joe's query, "we received all three via the teleportation room a little while ago. Do you know what happened? I see. Your gardevoir is exhausted from performing a long teleport and had one injury that required stitches. She's resting in our lobby; if you bring her ball she can be restored to full health immediately. Your blaziken was lucky, there was no nerve damage and the rejuvenation machine did most of the hard work. He should avoid straining his neck for a while just to be safe, but there should be no lasting complications. I can't disclose information about the lucario. It's not under your account. But, I will say, whoever owns it needs to bring its ball in immediately."
Crying-Tree alerted his master, despite it being an interruption to his meditations. Iwamoto shuffled into his backyard and called for Harmony to stand beside him instead. Beneath the shade of a cherry tree soon to shed for autumn, he watched a purple haze form and displace as a large blue bird emerged from the ground. A small part of that haze remained, a shapeless heap between the bird's wings. Iwamoto approached slowly, Harmony two steps before him.
The mass became less distorted, but its crystals were dark as pitch. A hat formed in the haze and flopped back to reveal weary looking eyes. "It's been a long time, Gramps."
Iwamoto chuckled faintly as he recognized her. The misdreavus's form had changed, but her attitude was eternal. "It sure has, Granny."
"You flatter yourself, and in poor taste. As you can see, I brought another old friend of yours to visit."
"Not exactly, but we have met in the past, on both good and bad terms."
Marianne recovered enough to drift away from Ivana. "She's been in a 'bad terms' sort of mood. I figure you're the only man in town who can convince her to choose good terms for a while."
Iwamoto started walking toward his home. "We will talk about it, but that choice will be hers. It's not my duty or my place to train her; it's his. I have a bowl of berries on my kotatsu, you're free to take a himeri if you like."
"I'm having two; dragging that squab through half of this town's sewer system took it out of me and then some." She struggled to lasso a leppa berry with a tendril, and glanced at Crying-Tree. "Hell, I'm so beat I might lose to you if we fought." Giving up, Marianne descended over the bowl.
"Please, none of that," said Harmony, whose voice sounded like a growl even though she tried to sound as pleasant as possible at most times.
Marianne scowled at Harmony as she siphoned juices from her first berry.
"Please, none of that, either." Harmony placed her paws on the edge of Iwamoto's kotatsu and leaned over, getting far closer to Marianne than the ghost liked. "I remember hearing about his accident. I'm sorry for your loss. I know he meant a lot to you." Marianne reeled up another berry. "And, I wish you would stop holding your grudge against me. It has been a very long time."
"You know, it's kinda embarrassing to be on a journey and not have a badge from your own home town, or whatever gym's nearest."
"I fulfilled my duties as a gym leader's pokemon. Mister Tavers chose to use only one pokemon, and one that has a weakness that the gym leader's team can exploit. If he wanted easy badges, he should have tried another region where they sandbag with teams of low level pokemon flushed by type for the beginners."
"Well, never fucking mind that he wasn't willing to sacrifice his education or travel abroad for the sake of League glory! He had time for one pokemon--"
"And he earned one badge. Barely."
Iwamoto walked by, carrying a revival salt crystal. "Getting along well, ladies?" He ignored their lack of response.
Marianne took a third berry. "He gave up because of you. Sure, until they converted the basement, we were king and queen of the ring on Jolly Roger's fight nights more often than not, but it didn't matter that I kept rising in level, he was still afraid to put me in against you after what happened that last time. Later, after Masato retired to become a wanderer, Harvey just didn't care anymore. He didn't care enough, anyway."
"You can't deny that you went too far, and I went only as far as I had to to stop you. If that incident is what put Harvey off of discovering how far he could go in Pokemon League, then the only person who is to blame is yourself. You are welcome to continue eating three times your fair share of our berries, but I will not stand here and listen to you wh--"
Crying-Tree covered Harmony's face with his wing, severing their conversation.
A moment later, Iwamoto entered with Ivana staggering inside behind him. He laid her down across a tatami mat and slipped a thin pillow beneath her head. "We will discuss matters when she recovers enough. Mister Tavers' Mismagius--"
"Marianne. He named me after we quit visiting your gym."
"Marianne, it would be most appropriate if you went home now."
Somewhat re-energized by the berries, Marianne lifted up and drifted back outside. "I'd like to be able to do that. I really would."
At Rennin Pokecenter, Joe released Grace as soon as he got her ball back from the hopper. She motioned to finish the hug that he rebuffed when he arrived in favor of recalling her immediately for rejuvenation. This time he permitted it, but his attention was divided. "Oh, look, Grace! They said that Alice needs her ball right now. Do you know where it is?"
"No, she only ever said that she had to keep it hidden."
A nurse interjected. "I know you came in with her; are either you two related to this lucario somehow?"
"Yes!" Joe barked as Grace released him. "Not legally, but we're the only family she has."
Vanessa glanced around and spoke low. "She has a lateral skull fracture. Right now, they're working on preventing swelling and fluid accumulation. If you get her ball, the machine will take care of almost everything and she'll just have to stay out of fights until the bone knits. If you don't, there's a risk of brain damage if we can't keep the pressure down."
Grace stepped forward. "Let me see her."
After a brief discussion with the manager, Vanessa led Grace into the treatment rooms. Burner was resting in one of the beds, Alice was in the next, being examined. The manager explained what Grace intended to do.
Doctor Haskin spoke to them but did not look away from his patient. "I cannot recommend what you want to do, but given her current state, I will agree that it is probably worth the risk. Do not touch her head. You'll have to make-do with someplace else."
Grace gently felt around Alice's body, looking for points of contact, settling with one hand beneath her neck, and the other on her chest. Establishing a connection was like sifting through mud for a lost contact lens, but after a couple of minutes, she found something.
The pain inside this body was unbearable and the darkness absolute. Alice's subconscious was in complete panic and wondered if she was feeling herself die. A faint glimmer of light streaked by and left a trail that slowly spread until it became a vague form. More followed, forming basic shapes, and Alice began to calm down as she established some bearings.
"Are you there?" a familiar voice called out.
"Grace? Is that you? I can't see you!"
"Yes, hold on, I have to talk to you!"
The geometric structures slowly became more definite, and more familiar to Alice. "Grace, do you know where we are?"
Grace spotted Alice and ran to her. She was curled up on the ground, as it were, but reached out to Grace when their eyes met. Grace helped her up, but she could barely stand.
"Alice, we're inside your mind, sort of. You're at Rennin Pokecenter, and you're hurt very badly. They need to put you in your ball to use the machine on you. If they don't, you might not be okay. Do you understand?"
Alice collapsed into Grace's arms, but the gardevoir's dream-form caught her before she fell through. "Can't tell where my ball is, someone will steal me."
"Alice, you have to. No one is going to steal you. I won't let them; we won't let them. I promise you, Alice."
"Can't tell, ball, can't let them know. They still want to take me, they still want to hurt him. Have to stay safe. Have to follow the rules."
"Alice, please, listen to me," Grace tried shaking Alice's subconscious mind, but the form was limp and responded only by mumbling its mantra. Unsure if the simile would work, Grace placed her palms on Alice's mind's head and tried to probe it to find out where her ball was. Delving back was like watching a recording play in reverse very quickly, with fragments of it projecting spontaneously in the space surrounding them for the briefest of moments. A few frames stuck in her mind even though she did not actually notice, interested only in finding the ball. A sound distracted her--like the clapping of a pair of hands--and she released Alice, who returned to her crumpled position. She turned and faced herself. Only green.
"It didn't work before, it won't work now."
"What didn't?"
Her head tilted one way. "Have we forgotten?" Then, the other way. "Applying leverage."
"I don't understand what you--look, whoever or whatever you are, help me with Alice or quit bothering me." Grace attempted to get Alice back on her feet again.
"We have forgotten, but not completely." The green gardevoir started walking away.
Grace palmed Alice's head again, but turned when she heard a crunching sound. The other gardevoir was kicking at an electronic panel. One of the devices on it ruptured, and filled the area with a bright red light.
Grace collapsed onto the cot, amid some loose wires connected to machines that hummed alert tones.
"Get on it, hot stuff." Marianne tossed Alice's ball to Vanessa, who rushed it to a rejuvenation machine.
The gardevoir turned and faced the ghost hovering nearby while she got off of a now empty bed. "Marianne? You knew?"
"Of course." Marianne leaned in close and loaded a question, "Knew what, pray tell?"
"That she needed her ball. And, where it was."
"I'm familiar with bodily traumas, in case you forgot. Also, I know my own house, including the best hiding places, and also the cruddy ones that squatters would pick and think themselves cunning. Now, why don't you go tell Joe about how you saved the day and run along home." Marianne added as they entered the lobby, "Choose your words carefully, I'm not going to be there to take the blame for you this time."
"I do hope you won't hold this against her," said Mr. Well as he entered James' home after knocking on the opened front door's frame. "Ivana gets this way every few years. I asked her not to go slumming, but her tastes care more about form and function than propriety and discretion, and of course fear is a powerful motivator."
James was looking at scorch marks on his ceiling. "You're responsible for this?"
"Of course; a downside of owning property with biological imperatives." Simon looked around at the mess and lifted his left leg, comparing the outline of his foot to the largest patch of drying blood. "She's done worse. Shall I arrange to have some of my men perform the restoration, or would you rather I write you a cheque?"
"Blank?"
Simon scoffed. "I'll ball-park estimate the cost of replacing your carpet and repairing that cabinet, that doorway, and add a zero to the end as a courtesy."
James pushed his love-seat back to its normal position--covering the largest stain--and took a seat, thanking his stars that his television survived.
Simon sat beside him. "Are you going to turn it on?"
"The remote went somewhere."
"That's rough. You should ask your pokemon to find it and bring it to you."
"Do all female pokemon do shit like this and just nobody talks about it, or are yours special?"
Simon felt his T.D. vibrating, removed it from his suit jacket, and began tapping at its screen. "Only when they become truly desperate. Ivana is deeply worried that she will never produce offspring. I'll admit, I've spoiled her, and that is something which I can't provide. It seems she thought that a pokemon living here could. Speaking of things I can and do provide, how is our experiment going?"
"I haven't been bleeding out after shaving, but I'm not feeling five years younger, either."
Simon pocketed his trainer's device. "Let's keep the faith, shall we? I'm expecting replenishment before your supply runs out, and there is another option we can try if this can't keep you afloat." Simon took his leave, and met with Joe and Grace on the sidewalk. He began to smile; but hid it behind a gesture meant to look like he was scratching his nose with a hand adorned by a ruby ring. Watching fury build in Grace's eyes, he reclaimed his composure. "You'd like to kill me, wouldn't you?"
Grace said nothing, but she did growl.
"Yes. But you won't, because you would lose everything. You would lose him."
Her lip curled into a sneer.
"You would've made somebody very happy if your mother had not made such a terrible mistake. And, she would be alive today, along with Gates and his hounds. I'm truly, deeply saddened to see four fine pokemon go to waste. If you change your mind and want to make something of yourself, your boy has Max's number. Now, if you'll both excuse me, I have a long ride home ahead of me."
She imagined how much energy it would take to teleport him and herself someplace secluded. Maybe the reserve. That would be a fitting place for a private conversation; a chance to show him how she really felt. And as long as there were no witnesses...
"Grace, let's go inside." Joe took her hand.
She watched as Mr. Well reached out of his window to wave goodbye. The ruby ring on his finger no longer sparkled red in the setting sunlight, it faintly glowed white.
"Joe," she drew him into a close hug, "about my mother and I; he's wrong. Neither of us were wasted."
"Grace?" Alice cracked open one eye. The ceiling lights seemed a little too bright.
A creaking sound preceded scratchy footsteps and a warm presence taking up her right paw. "She was here, but she is home with Joe right now. I'm happy you're awake."
"B? I don't remember what happened. Just, that monster was on you, you needed my help, and then we were together in the, I don't know, and... Grace wanted my ball."
"You were really hurt. You needed to be in your ball to get healed. Grace was trying to ask you where it was, but Marianne brought it. You're going to be fine real soon, now."
"My ball, where--?"
"Marianne took it after they had you in the machine. She said she was going to hide it again, and do a better job than you did."
Alice cracked a weak grin. "I knew she was part of this family, all along." Alice squeezed his hand and fell asleep.
Burner brought her paw to his cheek and cawed something gentle. He turned to lie on his own bed, and found Marianne hovering above it.
"In my opinion: that's gotta be the meds talking."
"I'm not going to argue with her, or with you, Ghost."
She drifted aside while he climbed into his cot. "Ooookaaay, I'll let you take a bye this time." She faded away.
"Ghost?" She faded un-away. "Where did you hide her ball?"
"What's the point of hiding it and then saying where out loud? And don't try to claim you were testing me, because you're not that clever. Her ball is in good hands."
"Are you sure? Her last hiding place wasn't very safe, even though that was a good thing this time."
"I gave it to someone special. I trust him with my ball, and I have precious fewer rights in this world to lose than she does." Marianne faded away again, slowly. "Whatever, it's the best I can do. Try doing a better job of keeping her from needing it again."
With help from an old man tilting her cup, Ivana enjoyed a drink of the finest tea she ever tasted. To a human's ears, her response was a short, complicated chattering sound, but his decades of experience with pokemon was enough to know that the meat of her message was, "None better." Her translating computer was fried and provided no assistance.
"Thank you for your compliment, Ivana," said Mr. Iwamoto as he sat and slipped his feet beneath his kotatsu. It, and the tea, were the only warm things in the room, as he allowed his guest to reduce the ambient temperature to a level more fitting her comfort. Iwamoto wore a thick hat that did not seem to suit him at all to protect his mostly-bald head from her cold, and Harmony leaned against him to share warmth. Crying-Tree stood motionless in a corner, feathers ruffled to trap extra air. He picked the warmest corner but that was not helping much.
"It's not fair," Ivana sang, and Crying-Tree telepathically translated for her, "I never wanted to be special."
Iwamoto stroked Harmony gently. "Your life seems to be one where wants are not often heard."
Ivana sifted between the berries and pecked a nut from a bowl on the table, cracking its shell effortlessly. "A sad thing to say about someone whose credit limit could buy a second private island."
"I want you to consider your true motivation, because it is not what you have told me it is." Ivana crunched another nut. "If you wanted to be a mother, to raise young, you would have done so. Your master owns countless pokemon, surely some are needy and newly-hatched, if not still in their eggs. That you have not simply adopted one or many and given to them a mother's love tells me that either he forbids it and your actions are rebellion, or what you desire isn't motherhood but the triumph that would be producing an egg of your own species."
With a sighing trill, her head hung shamefully and the room's temperature dropped further. It became too cold for Iwamoto to bear, and he rose to leave.
"I will put the rest of your tea in a decanter you can operate. Please, enjoy it all and rest here tonight as our guest."
Ivana nodded gently and thanked Iwamoto in her own tongue, again understood without aid of translation. Iwamoto exited with Harmony beside him. Crying-Tree stood motionless for a time longer, until after Iwamoto returned with a substitute vessel, leaving with him. She called to the xatu when he was about to slide shut the door, and looked at him with begging eyes.
Crying-Tree stared back for only a few seconds before closing the door behind himself, on account of the cold. Ivana again lowered her head, but soon heard him inside her mind: "I see paths whose endings you would like to visit, but their beginnings are beneath your contempt."
Despite his best efforts not to wake her, Alice stirred as he placed her into her own bed.
"Unnn, B?"
"Don't move, I've got you, Alice. They said it will be okay for us to go home but you need to rest for a few days." He did not mention the cost of extended care that would be assessed if they remained when no longer regarded as critically injured.
" 'Allie.' I'd like for you to call me that sometimes; at least, when we're alone."
"Anything you like," Burner straightened her sheets, and slipped in beside her, "but sleep now. I need you to get better."
"I'll try. But, you don't have to stay with me."
"You need to sleep, and sleep well. I'll keep that nightmare away, so it won't make you hurt yourself. You protected me when I was vulnerable, I'm protecting you while you are."
Alice did not agree with his describing her effort as though it were successful. "Burner, if we weren't there when we were, would you and her have... mated?"
"She did something to me. I couldn't really do anything to stop her, except resist and struggle. I think she would have won, but I was fighting her with all my heart."
"Good. Because anything less, and I'd never forgive you."
"Me neither."
Grace entered Joe's bedroom carrying a cup of juiced berry while he re-packed his backpack. Noticing her, he asked, "Any idea?"
"Your father told me to stop trying to read him passively and that you'll discuss it after school tomorrow."
Joe zipped up his bag. "We're all in deep dookie."
She set her drink on his dresser and added one cubic centimeter of supplement, according to the instructions and a mark engraved on the bottle's dropper.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Some vitamin stuff." She took a sip and made a face. Her berry juice had a strange flavor thanks to the additive. If she had ever tasted quality dandruff shampoo, she would've noticed a similarity. "The jerk doctor said I have to have it, and that it'll make my skin shed."
"Is that good?"
"He thought so."
They slipped into bed, and Grace captured Joe's thoughts and memories for the day. All night long, there was one thing on her own mind: "Who the hell does this Scarlet think she is?"