“You, of all people, know that is impossible,” the woman responded.
I gripped the edge of the table. “I know nothing of the kind.”
The old man sat forward in his chair and clasped his hands together on the table. “What is she transmitting, Paul?”
“She’s angry, sir,” the Protector said.
The old man tilted his head. “Isn’t that interesting. Why are you mad, 102?”
I leaned forward. “Why would I not be?”
The balding man spoke. “Speaker 102, we understand that you are troubled by this. You have been in a partnership with Protector 438 for many cycles. Being as experienced as you are, you understand the necessity for justice.”
“Justice? This isn’t justice. This is murder!” I stared at their astonished faces. Faces with no names. People with no hearts. Only the older man at the head of the table seemed unsurprised by my outburst.
I continued. “You can’t just take an act out of context like that, any more than you can take a sentence out of context. It loses its meaning entirely, just like this bogus hearing has.”
The old man smiled at me, which threw me off balance. “What is the context, 102?”
“I have a name. Do you?”
“Of course I do. We all do. This is Ophelia, and on my right is Robert. My name is Charles. My last name is MacAllen this cycle. I am the elder of this Panel. In fact, I am the director for the IC Coastal Region. Why don’t you tell us your name now?” His smile broadened.
He knew. Somehow this man named Charles knew about my memory loss. From the confused looks on Ophelia and Robert’s faces, it was clear they didn’t.
“What is she transmitting now, Paul?” Charles asked.
Paul was standing just inside the closed conference room door. “Fear, sir.”
“Help me,” the disembodied voice of a woman called to me. “Help me, please.”
“Not now. Go away,” I said.
A male voice came from over my shoulder. “You must help us.”
“Beat it, bogeyman!”
Charles laughed. It was an amused laugh. No malice. “You have always had such a strong pull for the Hindered. It is your emotion that draws them. You and I have rarely had a conversation that was not interrupted by them, have we?”
He had me, and I knew it. Fine. I had nothing to lose anyway. “I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I have no recollection of my past lives.”
Charles leaned back in his seat. “So what is it exactly you would have us do, Lenzi?”
He knew my name. I wanted to scream.
A chorus of Hindered voices began calling out to me.
“There you are.” The deep, gravelly voice behind me was familiar.
I jumped to my feet so fast my chair fell over. I spun around to find no one.
“We’ve gotta talk, babe.”
Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse.
“Zak.” I slumped against the wood-paneled wall.
Charles turned his chair to face me. “Is this Hindered the boy from last night? Is this the same Zak?”
I nodded and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, heart shattering into a million pieces. Zak was a Hindered—he was dead. Just like Dad. Just like Alden was going to be. It was too much. I closed my eyes, wishing I could just evaporate into nothingness and make all this madness stop. My body convulsed with sobs, but no cries came out—only gasps. Zak was dead.
“Would you like one of us to resolve it? Your emotion will make you less efficient,” Ophelia said.
Her words were like a cup of ice water thrown in my face, wrenching me from my grief-induced stupor. “Less effective?” I pushed to my feet. “Well, maybe a little less efficiency is preferable to unfeeling rigidity. Come on, Zak. I’ll help you. What do you need me to do?”
Zak’s voice came from directly in front of me as if we were having a normal conversation. He sounded confused and agitated . I just . . . hell, I guess I just wanted to see you again . . . you know?
The members of the panel studied me, and I realized that being Speakers, they could hear Zak too. I wasn’t quite sure what to say.
Zak was dead.
My chest ached so bad it was hard to concentrate. Focus, Lenzi. You owe him this. “So, is that why you’re here? Why you haven’t moved on?”
“I don’t know why I’m here. I just felt like I was supposed to find you. To let you know I wasn’t mad anymore, I think. But I am. I’m pissed. Am I supposed to tell you I’m sorry? ’Cause I’m not going to. Is that why I’m here?”
I closed my eyes in an effort to not cry. “I’ve no idea, Zak. All I know is it’s my job to help you find resolution. Tell me how to do that.”
“Let us take over from here,” Ophelia said. “He is borderline Malevolent.”
“Not a chance.” I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt. Adrenaline raged through me like flames. They thought I couldn’t handle it—that I was incompetent. Well, I’d prove them wrong. They planned to kill Alden; there was no way I’d let them screw Zak over too. He wasn’t a Malevolent, and my last act as Speaker would be to prove it and get him to heaven. It’s never too late, Alden had said.
I grabbed my overturned chair and placed it upright. “Zak, please let me help you. If you feel compelled to apologize, maybe that will make it right and you can move on.”
“Why should I apologize? You cheated on me. You never even gave me a chance. You chose that punk from the cemetery over me.”
“Zak, calm down.” Maybe his agitation was because he didn’t know what was going on. I sat in the chair. “You know you’re dead, right?”
“Of course I know I’m dead! I wrapped my car around a tree last night. I didn’t even make it back home.”
My heart pinched painfully. “Do you remember what happened right before you . . . before you wrecked the car?”
“Yeah, I was partying at a friend’s apartment.”
I folded the paper in front of me into quarters. “Was that before or after you came to my house?”
There was a beat before he answered. “I didn’t go by your house.”
“You did.” Maybe that was it. Maybe he didn’t know what had happened and that was holding him back.
“Stop screwing with my head, Lenzi.”
“I’m not, Zak. I’m trying to help you.” If only I had Alden’s ability to transfer memories, but I didn’t. “I wish I could show you what happened.”
“You’re lying, just like you lied about the guy at the cemetery. I never went to your house.”
“You did, Zak.”
“Bullshit,” Zak yelled. “This is some mind game you’re playing with me. Why am I here?”
“You are losing him.” Ophelia again.
“I can handle it.”
What was I supposed to do? Zak was getting angrier. Ophelia was right—I was losing him. I could resolve Zak; I was certain of it. I folded the quartered paper into quarters again, feeling the tension ebb through my fingers.
That was it! Folding paper soothed me. If I could get Zak calm, I could pull him away from this Malevolent edge.
“Why the hell am I here, Lenzi?”
I had to resolve Zak successfully so that Alden’s death wasn’t for nothing. I turned to Charles, who was watching my hands with interest as I pressed the creases tighter on the paper. “I need something,” I said to him. “I need a guitar. There was a guy playing one in the foyer upstairs.” He lifted a white eyebrow. “Could Paul get it for me? It’s really important.”
He looked at the glass bubble on the ceiling that no doubt contained the camera feeding to the monitor in the hall and nodded.
“Zak, I want you to enter the vessel so I can help you. Do you know what I’m talking about? You can put your soul in with mine.”
“Yeah, I know what to do. I don’t know how I know, but whatever.”
I suppressed a scream when Zak entered. It hurt, maybe because he was so close to being a Malevolent. I felt his emotions, which hadn’t happened with the other
souls I had allowed in other than Smith.
I dug my nails into the arm of the chair as I experienced a wave of darkness coursing through me. It was awful. Poor Zak. “Why can I feel his emotions, Charles?”
Charles’s voice was calm. “Because you knew him in real life.”
Zak was confused and angry. Really angry. Maybe I was too late to help him. I remembered the Malevolent from Kemah and how he had dissolved into a black cloud, still cursing.
No. I wouldn’t let that happen to Zak. I had to make this work.
Paul entered with a guitar. Zak’s soul shifted slightly away from anger when I placed it in my lap.
“Will you stay please, Paul?” Charles asked. “Speaker 102 is soul-sharing and will need your assistance.”
Paul nodded and stood near my chair.
I strummed a few chords. “Want to play, Zak?”
Yeah, why not?
I relaxed and allowed him to gain control of my body. He shifted the guitar on my lap and changed the angle of it. When he began to play, his soul lightened again. It was going to work; I just knew it. If I could get him to relax, maybe he would remember what happened and would understand his compulsion to apologize.
He transitioned from simple chords into the classical piece he’d played for my birthday. I’d given him complete control of my body, and I was amazed how quickly he could make my fingers move over the strings. My vision blurred from the tears filling my eyes. Zak’s tears.
I loved you, babe, he said.
The song reached a crescendo and his tears streamed freely down my face.
I had to keep my emotions out of it. I had to stay focused. “Think, Zak,” I said. “You left your friend’s apartment and you came by my house. You saw Alden drop me off. You wanted to talk. Remember?”
He loosened my grip on the guitar and the tempo slowed.
“I was cold, so we talked in your car. When you saw Alden, you freaked out and took off with me in the car. You almost hit the bridge guardrail. Do you remember?”
He stopped playing. The silence in the room was stifling and dragged on forever.
Yeah, that guy told me to turn right and miss the bridge railing. Oh, God. I remember now. I . . . That guy made me stop and take you out of the car.
I didn’t say anything. I felt his soul shift to absolute remorse as he remembered.
If that guy’s voice hadn’t gotten in my head, I’d have . . . Really, I mean . . . I almost killed you. If he hadn’t made me stop and let you go, you’d have been in the car when I crashed. Oh, babe, I’m so sorry.
“It’s okay, Zak. I wish things had happened differently.” I looked straight at the three Speakers. “I wish lots of things had happened differently.”
That guy. Where is that guy from the cemetery? I need to talk to him. I think that’s it.
“He’s not here, Zak.” I handed the guitar off to Paul, who leaned it against the wall.
I felt Zak’s emotions shift to something that felt like desperation. I knew he was struggling to hang on to what was good in his soul and not give in to darkness. How could I help him? Rose would have known, dammit! What was I supposed to do? I didn’t even try to stop the tears running down my face.
I need to talk to that guy, Lenzi. That’s definitely it. I owe him one.
Because Zak was in the vessel, the other Speakers in the room couldn’t hear him. “You can’t speak to Alden directly, Zak, but you can pay him back another way.” I felt his emotions spike to hope. This was the best his soul had felt—the first time he hadn’t felt like a Malevolent. If I were lucky, this would work on two levels: resolve Zak’s issue that was keeping him Earth-bound and, even though it might be too late to save him, I could clear Alden’s name. “You can come on out and tell the people in this room what you were going to say to him.” I looked over my shoulder at Paul. “He’s ready,” I said.
Zak’s emotions surged to what felt like joy right before Paul entered and Zak’s soul ripped out of my body. I covered my face and held my breath as Paul exited.
“Now, babe?” Zak asked from somewhere behind me near the door.
“Yeah, now.” I glared at the three Speakers. I knew they could hear him because they were looking in the direction of his voice. “Go ahead, Zak.”
“Um, cool. Okay. Yeah, so it kinda hurts to stay here, and Lenzi thinks telling you what I want to say to that guy who jumped into my head last night will help.” He was silent for a moment.
“Please proceed,” Ophelia said.
“I guess I was going to tell him thanks. Tell him that he was right about something. He said that there was hope until the last second, and yeah, I think he nailed that. I’m a screwup. Always have been, but he kept me from messing up bad. Real bad. If he hadn’t convinced me to get Lenzi out of the car, I’d have killed her too. He knew that.” He was silent for a moment before he began to speak again. So, uh . . . wow, I feel weird. Like I need to go somewhere. It feels good, babe.
I wiped my eyes with a Kleenex Paul handed me. “I’m glad, Zak. You deserve to feel good.” He was such a cool guy. One of the best guitarists I’d ever heard. And a great friend when I needed one most. A sob escaped my lips.
Zak appeared by the door in the familiar blue luminescence of a Hindered, dressed in his tattered jeans and Metallica T-shirt.
“Bye, Zak,” I whispered.
“Take care, babe.” He flashed me the dimpled grin I loved so much and gave me a thumbs-up as he was absorbed in a white shaft of light.
Gone.
I folded my arms on the table and put my head down. First Dad, now Zak, and any minute, I’d lose Alden too. The pain in my chest was intense—unbearable.
Alden’s words ran through my head. Pain lets you know you’re alive.
No, thanks. I couldn’t hurt like this for lifetimes. Not without Alden. “So, how do I get out of this Speaker gig?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. “What witches’ brew do I drink or what incantation do I chant to end this?” I pulled my hair aside, exposing my soul brand. “Do you just cut this thing out or is it removed with some hocus-pocus?”
Robert cleared his throat. “Really, 102. This is unnecessary. You’ve had centuries of success. Why would you let something like—”
Charles cut him off with the wave of his hand. “Don’t try to talk her out of it, Robert. You’re wasting your time. I know her well. I was her mentor for her first three cycles. I’ve never met anyone quite like her.” He’d been my teacher? He turned his wrinkled face to me. “You changed over the cycles, Rose. . . . I beg your pardon, Lenzi. And it appears the gap in cycling renewed you and made you more like your original self.”
My wish. He was one of the elders. Is he the one Rose approached? Is that how he knew about my amnesia?
He scanned a sheet in front of him. “Your points are high too. In fact, with the exorcism from yesterday and the resolution just now, you and Alden are in first place for the region in daily averages.”
I made no effort to hide the anger in my voice. “I’m sure Alden was thrilled to hear that.”
“He doesn’t know yet.”
Does that mean they’ll tell him? Does that mean there’s still a chance?
Charles folded his hands in his lap and waited. “Tell me what’s happening, Paul.”
“Um, it’s hard to say,” Paul replied.
Charles swiveled to face him. “Now, Paul. You cannot be effective if you can’t discern the condition of the Speaker.”
“Why don’t you ask the Speaker yourself, Charles? Stop using me as a teaching tool and take me seriously,” I said.
“I take you very seriously. We are about to lose a fine Protector, and now one of our best Speakers is requesting to be removed from service. It could not be more serious.”
I turned to Paul. “What is my condition now, Paul?”
“Um, I . . .”
I rose from my chair and began pacing. “I’ll tell you my condition. I’m outraged! ‘There’s hope until the last se
cond.’ That’s on the inside cover of the IC Rule Book, isn’t it? You can stick to your immovable zero-tolerance rules, but I’m going to stick to the motto ‘There’s hope until the last second’ !” I paced behind the head of the table so that they had to turn to watch me. “Why are you here if all you’re going to do is follow an absolute rule? No gray scale. No way out. Is this hearing being held just to make you feel better?
“Alden is going to be killed because he did his job. He protected the Speaker. Without a doubt, I would be dead if he hadn’t made the decision he did. You’re Speakers, so you heard Zak. If Alden hadn’t put his soul in Zak’s body, Zak’s resolution would have been much different. Would you destroy a soul for the crime of saving two others?” I circled back to my end of the table. “I was on a dead-end track before Alden came into my life. Without his influence, I could have ended up just like my dad. Alden is the kind of person who makes things happen, a catalyst for positive change. His destruction would be unconscionable and detrimental to the purpose of this Council.”
I grasped the back of my chair and caught my breath.
Charles folded his hands on the table. “You may not remember being Rose, but she is definitely in this room, my dear.” He gestured to Paul. “If you would wait outside with Lenzi for a moment, I would like to confer with my colleagues.”
Paul opened the door for me. Race was right outside the door, trying a little too hard to look nonchalant.
“You were eavesdropping on a private Council session,” Paul said after he closed the door.
Race shrugged. “Not a chance. That would be reckless and dangerous. As Protectors, you and I both know that’s just not in our nature. Didn’t they teach you that at Wilkingham?”
Race and Paul looked at each other before breaking into smiles.
“How’d you get stuck with this duty?” Race asked Paul.
“I’m Charles’s current prodigy. It’s an honor.”
Race stepped closer to him. “What’s going to happen?”
Paul shrugged. “It’s hard to say. These things never turn out well for Protectors, but she had them going in there.”
“I couldn’t feel any of them except Lenzi. Her soul drowned them out,” Race said.
We heard footsteps coming toward the door. “You’d better get scarce before they find out you were here, man,” Paul warned him. Race made it up the stairs just before Robert opened the door to call me back.