It’s Not Alright
Pain and anger go hand in hand with me. They always have. When something pains me, I get angry.
Right now I’m fucking furious.
She described a bearded man in a trench coat. “He was bald... with dark tattoos on his head. I saw him jogging in the bike lane just around the corner from the house.”
She thinks she saw Daemon. She thought she should tell me now since she never plans on seeing me again.
It confirms what I suspected.
And after everything that’s happened to her, to me, my father, and now Eli... I’ find myself in that too familiar place where I have no choice. There is but one path and I have to do what needs to be done.
My Dad used to say that the hard choice is usually the right one. Well, I don’t think there is anything easy about what has to happen next.
I have made the hard choice. All I have to do now is carry it out.
But first, I’ll need some supplies.
I walked down the busy street that ran along the edge of the orange grove and remembered very clearly the confusion and sense of haste I felt last time I was in this plane as I was dragged by a dog that thought he knew me.
World Ten, I remind myself as I wait for a break in traffic to cross the road.
There’s no sign of the big brown dog that met me last time—Bear, his name was Bear—but I find the stucco house with the big trees lining the front yard without any trouble.
And knock.
The second Abi-Two opens her front door; the constant ache in my chest lessens. Because I can tell right away that she knows I’m not her long-gone, probably-dead husband and there’s nary a trace of disappointment to be found when she makes the connection. She still smiles widely, hugs me tight, and invites me inside.
All I have to say is, “I need your help,” and in under a minute, I’ve got an icy glass of fresh lemonade and her undivided attention.
The only way I know to begin is at the beginning, and start with when she dropped me off me at the gas station. She’s shocked at how I arrived in my home plane, uninjured. She’s never heard anything from her G that indicated the stones have healing abilities but the prospect excites her. She thinks I probably didn’t die, but called out to the Threestone for help before I passed out—which seems likely.
She’s also confounded as to how any version of Daemon got so close to her without at least hearing about it through Eli. “I’ll have to call him.” She mutters, pressing two fingertips to her bottom lip in deep thought. She looks up to find me watching her and pauses.
“Are you sure the version of Daemon driving the garbage truck was the same one that killed your father?”
“I don’t know.” Who the hell could take the time to examine him close enough when they’re being skewered?
Moving on with my tale, Abi becomes fascinated when I get the part about what was happening in my home plane, about how long I’d been gone. When I tell her about my Abi and Eli she visibly shudders.
“You must’ve done a number on her.”
“I did,” I admit.
“Still.” She shakes that gorgeous head of hers. “It was wrong. I don’t understand how that Eli could go from mad scientist to home wrecker. The Eli that I know would never do that. You didn’t deserve it, either.”
I almost smile at the way she automatically defends me. Even if she’s wrong, it’s nice to feel supported.
She cringes visibly when I tell how Eli vehemently disapproved of her reasoning to kill all versions of Daemon, but seems much more interested when I get to the part of what happened in Eli’s office.
“What’s on it?” She asks, as I remove the flash drive from the middle of the roll that is my Demron suit, where I stashed it.
“I don’t know.”
Her pencil thin brows draw up. “You haven’t looked?”
“I don’t have a computer anymore.” I don’t have anything anymore. The sentiment is punctuated by the sight of Abi-Two freeing her long—but still shorter than the original versions—hair and tousling in a way that begs, ‘eat your heart out.’
Unaware of my stray thoughts, she snatches the flash drive from the table, promising we’ll plug it into her computer and see what we find, but urges me to first finish telling her why I’ve come.
“He’s dead,” I announce.
Abi-Two stills. “Who?”
“Elijah... he was shot.”
Abi gasps and covers her mouth. “What happened?”
My teeth audibly grind out the name. “Daemon.” That constant thorn in my side, the bane of my existence since our paths crossed that day on the city bus.
Of course, I have to explain everything; every explicit, painful detail, right down the nonsensical fitting of the wooden chip back into the garage door. And my subsequent visit turned confrontation with my Abi.
When I finally finish, she’s shaking her head, a pained look on her face. “You have the worst luck of anyone I know.”
“Getting screwed left and right,” I confirm.
After a moment of silence, Abi begins to speak slowly. “So, Daemon sets his house on fire... and then waits for you to come outside?”
“That’s my guess.”
“You didn’t see anybody?”
“Not a soul. The smoke was too thick. There could have been a dozen people standing a yard away and I wouldn’t have known.”
“Hmm... Maybe that’s why.”
“Why what?”
“Why was Eli the one who was shot and not you?”
“He already shot me. I didn’t die. I figured he was just being Daemon. I’ve seen him purposely target innocent bystanders just to see my reaction.”
“I’ve never heard of him purposely harming anyone, besides other Bearers. No one else is a threat to him so it doesn’t make sense.”
“Abi, he’s a lunatic. He doesn’t need a reason to hurt anyone; it’s what he does.”
“Yes, I know. But it doesn’t jive with what I know of the other versions of Daemon. He’s creepy and dangerous for sure but I saw him once inside a feed store a few miles from here. He looked me square in the eye and I could tell he knew who I was, but he kept walking. I told G about it. He would’ve told me if I were in danger.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I’m not sure it means anything. Or it could mean that your particular nemesis is just worse than the others. But, it also could mean that if someone could see well enough through all that smoke to get off one clean shot, then he knew who he was shooting.”
“What do you mean by ‘someone’?”
“Someone other than Daemon.”
I’m freaking confused. “There is no other threat besides Daemon and his unchecked use of the Threestone. He is the reason that your husband is gone. The reason my dad is dead.”
“I know that.” She agrees, and I check my tone.
“He is the only problem in this equation and the very reason I’ve come back here. I’m taking your advice and going after him. In every age and plane, But to do that, I need all the help I can get. So, have any ideas?”
Abi’s hard expression softens. Her lip gives the slightest curl as she answers. “Tons.”