Dwindle

  Chapter Twenty: New and Powerful Beginnings

  I watched Fisher without the ability to take my eyes from her. She was disturbed and disturbing. There was a new fear in her that I had never seen. She spoke out in a rush, spilling dangerous words wherever she was going.

  And she was angry with me. I would not address the possibility that she had overheard me – it was too painful. So I didn’t.

  I found myself aching to speak with her with a desperation I’d never known. Every time I tried to talk, she’d shut me down.

  “Hey, kid,” I began but she interrupted me with,

  “You need to get your gun up, Ollie.”

  I closed my eyes in frustration as she turned away. Fisher moved up into the darkness towards the Skyway for the millionth time. I followed her. She turned her head in my direction a little, but she did not remove her eyes from the dark. I could have sworn I saw movement within the black.

  I decided that I had no time to beat around the bush. I wouldn’t have time to do otherwise.

  “Listen,” I said as I approached. “Can you just listen?”

  “I have listened, Ollie,” she said. “I’ve listened, and I am still here. So speak or do not. It no longer matters, either way.”

  This speech stirred something inside of me that ached for release. I grabbed her forearm and turned her toward me, but she would not be moved.

  “Ollie, just stop!”

  I squeezed her arm.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked her with clear frustration. “What do you expect me to do?”

  My own words were spoken close to her own mouth. Her eyes flitted once to my lips, and I instantly felt hot. But I knew I had to convince her of something.

  “Don’t you think –?” I began, but she stopped me.

  “I don’t know what I think!” she said weakly.

  Her voice finally broke. I knew I softened at the sight of her crumpled features, but for once I didn’t care. I would soften for her because I wanted to.

  Fisher’s own face turned less aggressive.

  “Could you let go of my arm, please?” she asked, a little sheepishly.

  I loosened my grip for a moment before releasing (slower than I had intended or expected.)

  “Sorry,” I said numbly.

  Fisher shifted a little bit and looked at the ground. She wiped her eyes with more resignation than I had ever seen in her. Her face had a cut on it – surely it would turn into a scar. She had so many scars. She lightly brushed her fingers against it and sighed heavily – so, so heavily. Her laugh was weak when she looked up at me. It was one of her magical smiles.

  “I heard what you said,” she said to me plainly.

  I felt an explosion of fear and anguish.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “Enough,” was all she said.

  A thousand things overtook me, but the loudest voice had the final say.

  “I’m sorry!” I whispered angrily. “I wanted to tell you everything before, but I…I couldn’t. I wanted to help you.”

  “Sure,” she said, snorting. “Help me die, maybe.”

  “Now, you can’t believe I was really going to –”

  “You came outside with me alone, Ollie!” she snapped. “What was I to think? There were two options. You were there to take the knowledge of me or murder me. Either one doesn’t really reflect that well on you, now, does it?”

  “No, of course not!” he said louder. “But you have to understand. Things have changed. I’ve changed. Things aren’t the same as they were.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m just politics because of Alpha and Omega, whatever that means. And maybe it should just stay that way. We shouldn’t be friends.”

  She stared into the dark so furiously that I was sure she wouldn’t hear my heart breaking.

  “Is that what you want?” I asked quietly.

  “Since when has it mattered what I wanted?” she asked harshly.

  And I retracted. It hadn’t mattered. Not to me. Not before that very moment.

  “Are you really leaving?” she asked me suddenly.

  I felt very, very guilty at the hopeful worry in her face.

  “I…”

  A sigh escaped my lips.

  “Yes.”

  She looked quickly to the ground and I took both of her arms in my hands. She winced. It filled me with even more heart-wrenching agony. Despite that, I pulled her up a little encouragingly.

  “But – hey, it’ll be okay!”

  My words were hollow and she knew.

  “No, we won’t.”

  She shrugged out of my grip. Then, she looked into my eyes. She was afraid of me. She really had heard.

  The things I’d said…the things I’d said about her…

  It was the most damaging and convenient lie I had ever told.

  “Don’t lie to me, Mr. Dark,” she pleaded, and her voice goaded my already mounting guilt to tremble within me.

  I searched her face. And I knew what she knew about me.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said.

  But my softness was her pain.

  “You’re too confusing – this is all so confusing – how…”

  Fisher began to struggle to breathe and put a hand on her forehead.

  “How can this – can this be, it doesn’t, it can’t make sense!”

  Her being filled me with the deepest concern. I tried to make her look at me. I needed her to look at me. But I didn’t know how.

  “I don’t understand – Skate was Tainted!”

  She grabbed my shirt and pulled me a little closer to her. I glanced at her hands then at her. They were small and they were touching my body for what seemed like the first time. They brought me closer to her.

  “Tainted! He couldn’t get Undeath!”

  “But he did,” I said distractedly, still staring at her hands.

  “He couldn’t have – he shouldn’t have…” She swallowed, whispering, “We’re all in horrible danger. Terrible, terrible danger…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Skate couldn’t get it, but he did. Can’t you understand that? Undeath as we know it is changing…”

  I leaned back in realization.

  “That must be why they’re –”

  “Thinking!” she said, relieved and incredibly, intensely satisfied at having me agree with her.

  So much so, she fell a little. I caught her. She was weak. I pulled her close to me without knowing how and she held on nearly without hesitation. I didn’t – I couldn’t let myself hold her back. I had had women, but I had never held anything – never like that.

  “You didn’t kill me,” she whispered, almost a question.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Because you like me?”

  I was afraid to agree. If I put words to it, I was sure I would poison it somehow.

  “You know, Ollie,” she said, relaxing into my arms with surprising ease, “I didn’t think you’d be good at giving hugs.”

  I laughed in my chest once and she leaned back to smile up at me sadly.

  “I know you don’t see it,” she whispered now, staring into my eyes. “But…I think there is good there.”

  I furrowed my brow.

  “Where?” I asked her, barely able to move my lips.

  “Here,” she whispered, gently putting a finger to my chest, right where my heart was. “There is good right here. You just haven’t found it yet.”

  It made me feel like some part of me was winnable.

  I pulled her up to my chest and buried the side of my face in her hair and held on. I couldn’t imagine her death. I couldn’t imagine killing her. I simply didn’t want to. I would never kill her. I couldn’t. She was such a small thing in my arms where she belonged, safe. I should have known she couldn’t stay there.

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