A Shot of Hope
The two women laughed together as they ran hand in hand down the street, the younger woman pulling the other on towards the Prado Museum. Beatrice could feel the wind blow through her hair as the sun shone on her face. Passersby stopped to watch and smile at them as they ran past.
“C’mon Bea!” Ava shouted. “We can finally see it for real! Won’t it be nice to just look without trying to case the joint?”
“Ava!” Beatrice whisper-shouted back. “Can you please not say that out loud?” It wasn’t that long ago that we actually robbed it. Her tone was stern but it didn’t keep the smile off her face.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Ava, winking at the older woman as they slowed to a walk in front of the museum, hands still intertwined. Beatrice could feel her heart beat in her throat as her breathing went shallow from that look. “No one can hear me anyways.”
“I think you mean no one is listening to us, darling.”
Ava gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Let’s go inside.”
The stood outside the club together later that night. The percussion pounded through Beatrice’s chest as she eyed the place, warily.
“Are you sure you want to go here?” She gave a nervous glance to the woman standing next to her.
“Yes!” replied Ava, beaming at her. Beatrice could feel her heart beat in her throat as her breathing went shallow from that look. “It looks so fun!”
Fun was not the word Beatrice would have chosen. Loud, dirty, crowded—these were all much more apt descriptors in Beatrice’s opinion. But she wouldn’t be the one to deny Ava after everything that had happened.
Beatrice took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said quietly, as if to herself. “Let’s do this.”
The lights are flashing, the room spinning. Beatrice feels the walls close in on each side. There are bodies everywhere. Keep moving. “Status report,” she heard Mother Superion’s voice in her mind. “I am disoriented, dizzy,” she thought about herself clinically. “I am inebriated, I feel compressed.” I must get out. She pushes through. She’s made it. She slams down her hand onto the solid surface. The only thing she can feel, or is it the only thing she can’t? Another drink to calm herself.
“You made it,” says Ava, smiling at her from next to the bar. “I was starting to think I’d lost you.”
They walked quietly together, hand in hand once again, beneath the trees in Casa de Campo. Ava had really wanted to go visit Parque de Atracciones de Madrid but relented once Beatrice adamantly told her she would not be getting on any thrill rides.
“Absolutely not Ava.”
“Aww,” Ava whined as she gave Beatrice her most pathetic pout. She stuck out her bottom lip while giving Beatrice eyes that could have rivaled the cutest puppy. She looks adorable. Beatrice could feel her heart beat in her throat as her breathing went shallow from that look. “C’mon Bea, I’ve always wanted to try a roller coaster. I never got to before I ended up in the orphanage.”
Beatrice was close to giving in but decided on a compromise. “How about we go and you ride the rides by yourself?”
Ava scrunched her mouth for a moment giving Beatrice a pitying look. “We both know there’s no point in that.”
Beatrice spent most of the night staring at the white ceiling trying to keep her mind blank. It was interesting that forcing herself not to think about the day was energizing enough to keep her awake. She avoided looking around the room and finally fell asleep.
The lights are flashing, the room is shaking. Beatrice hears a ringing in her ears. A body flies across the room. Keep moving. She hears an evil laughter and looks to see a grotesque figure pushing up from the ground. It walks towards her while a body bleeds in her arms. I can’t move. She screamed as she woke up sweating in her bed.
They sat together on the bus. Ava was looking out the window at the passing countryside while Beatrice read her novel. A sigh roused the older woman from her pages and she put her book down in her lap as she looked up to see Ava smiling at her sadly. Beatrice could feel her heart beat in her throat as her breathing went shallow as Ava reached over and wrapped their hands together.
“You have me trapped. How long are you going to keep me here?”
Beatrice sniffed and gave Ava her own sad smile in return. “We both know you’re not trapped.” She looked down at her empty hands. “You’re not even here,” she whispered quietly to herself.
Suppressing a sob, Beatrice picked her head up and looked past the empty space next to her and out the window at the passing countryside, tears streaming down her face.
She tries again in another town and Ava is there. She tries again in another bar and Ava is there. She tries again with another drink and Ava is there.
She takes a shot.
She tries again to sleep and the nightmare is there. She tries again to keep herself awake and Ava is there. She tries again with another drink.
She takes a shot.
“Where are you headed, sweetie? —I’m making my way to the Alps.”
“Need a place to stay tonight? —Um. I don’t really sleep much. I was probably just going to stay here.”
“At the bar? It’s last call in a couple hours. —Then I’ll move on.”
“Why don’t you come stay with me? —Why don’t you leave me alone?”
She takes a shot.
Sirens blare and lights spin while a body writhes on the ground. She can’t move.
“Okay, you can go,” said the officer as he slid open the door. “Someone is upstairs to take you home.” She could only grunt in response and stumbled as she left the cell. A deep sigh and she straightened her back, bloodshot eyes barely saw in front of her as she made her way up the stairs. Waiting for her at the top was not a face she longed to see. There weren’t any faces on this planet she longed to see anymore.
“Beatrice,” Camila said, looking prim and proper in her habit. Was she always so prissy?
“I’m sorry,” said Camila, unamused. “Would you rather I left you here?” Damn. Was that out loud?
“I’m sorry, Camila,” responded Beatrice. “I’ve simply had too much to drink.”
“That was your excuse two days ago,” replied the smaller sister warrior icily. She turned to walk out the door as Beatrice followed. They walked together along the sidewalk underneath the early morning sky.
“I think you’ll be pleased to know there won’t be any charges,” Camila began her lecture. “Apparently, you embarrassed him enough that he’s afraid of you. He also seemed reluctant to tell the police why you would attack him.”
“He got what was coming to him,” Beatrice replied darkly.
“You could have killed him!” Camila stopped to stare at Beatrice. “What then? Was grabbing your ass worth a death sentence? We couldn’t have protected you then.”
“I don’t recall asking you to,” came the cold reply.
“Beatrice.” Camila’s voice was softer now, reminding Beatrice of the quiet rookie she used to be only a year ago. “Come home to us. You know you’ll always have a place at Cat’s Cradle. We can help take care of you. Get you through this.”
“I don’t need your help!” Beatrice’s reply was swift and severe. “I don’t want to be molly-coddled and I don’t need sympathy, especially not from the likes of you. Go back to Mother like a good little girl. You can tell her all about how you had to save me. Sweet Sister Camila having to bail out cold, hard Beatrice!”
Beatrice knew she was cutting and she knew where and how deep. That’s what she did, always; drive the knife home. It’s disgusting. The problem was she couldn’t bring herself to care anymore. It had been almost two weeks since she had cared about anything. Funny how that corresponded so well with the last time she slept.
Camila took a deep breath, her body shuddering in anger. “Mother Superion,” she began in a harsh voice, “doesn’t know about this. And I have no designs on telling her. As far as she is concerned, your biggest sin has been a couple of drunken phone calls and a missed check in. I came here to get you, Beatrice, because you are my friend. You are my sister. I’m sorry if you no longer feel the same.”
Camila walked away for a few steps before turning back to her fellow sister warrior. “You are not the only who lost someone you love,” she said, derision dripping off her words. “You told me Ava told you to go try and live. I’d say you’re doing a pretty pathetic job of that right about now.”
She turned and walked away. Beatrice’s “I’m sorry” was carried away on the wind.
A foggy haze clung to the bar as the regulars started coming in for their evening libations. She turned her head quickly to eye the newest group and was a little startled to find that the room had to catch up with her line of vision. Of course, when you start your drinking at 10 AM the world is bound to stop keeping up with you at some point. Beatrice rapidly blinked her eyes until her vision cleared and realized that the room was not hazy at all. Well, at least I figured out how to clear up the weather.
Beatrice had been sitting at that same spot at the bar for most of the afternoon, as was her ritual on her days off. It wasn’t that she had nowhere else to go; she could go wherever she wanted. Her thoughts after leaving Cat’s Cradle had been to head back here, the only place outside of the OCS that had ever felt like home, and use it as a home base to travel the world and keep her promise to Ava.
Ava.
Just the thought of her even now caused Beatrice’s chest to tighten and her stomach to clench. I tried, Ava. I really did. It was true. She left the OCS with what she believed was a new lease on life but it turned out she was a lot weaker than she thought. It had been two weeks since her run in with Camila.
My God I’m pathetic.
“Beatrice,” a voice said gently, carrying through the rising noise as the regulars got into their swing. “Why don’t you head home? You don’t want to spend your entire day off in that chair, do you?”
“Hans,” Beatrice wiped some tears from her eyes before replying, “I will spend my days off wherever I damn well want. I appreciate the concern. I don’t need it.”
She didn’t need anything, from anyone. What was it in her dossier? Loner. That’s what she preferred anyways. She had always been better off alone. Of course, that flew in the face of her other promise to Ava…
"What scares me is being alone. Abandoned..."
“…that will never happen…You would still have us. And we will never leave you.”
“You mean that?”
"You know I do."
God damn it! She took another shot as the clamor from the bar grew with the loud conversation and laughter from the crowd around her and the increasing volume of the music. The headache began as soon the onslaught was completely overwhelming her already hampered senses and she could only see in blurred lines and hear a wall of noise. As the sensations pressed in upon her and seemingly forced the air from her lungs, she heard a single phrase slice through the din, “the Halo Bearer.”
Beatrice immediately snapped her head around and saw that the room moved with her. That magic phrase blasting through her drunken haze. She pushed her way over to a crowd of regulars she sort of recognized.
“What did you just say?” she asked, breathing hard and feeling slightly manic.
“Pardon?” a tall middle-aged man responded. He might have been handsome once but looking back at it later Beatrice would only be able to recall him as being completely nondescript. “Name’s Daniel,” he said, holding out his hand towards her.
She ignored it. “You said something. I thought I heard...” What? Halo Bearer? Nobody is going to know what that even means!
“We were just talking about Ava, the bartender.” He smiled at her. “We all miss her around here, right gents?” There was a general murmur of ascent as he looked around the table. “Not that we’re not happy to have you back, of course, but it’s a shame she didn’t come back with you.”
“Yeah,” said Beatrice sadly, “I wish I could’ve brought her back. Sorry to bother you.” She turned away and started heading back to her seat at the bar.
“C’mon lads, let’s have a toast to the Halo Bearer!” Beatrice was on him again instantly.
“You said it again!”
“Said what? A toast—to Ava, the bartender.”
“That’s not what you…” but she cut herself short. What was she thinking? The desperation must have been starting to eat away at her sanity.
“Say Beatrice,” one of the regulars piped in, “why didn’t Ava come back with you? We were all thinking you were—kinda close.”
She fixed the fake smile that she put on whenever people in town recognized her and asked about Ava and shrugged. “I lost her along the way.”
“That’s too bad, we liked that girl.” Of course they did. Everyone liked Ava. How could you not? She was a breath of fresh air wrapped in a hurricane. Two months she lived in this town and from the way people talk about her you’d think she was born there.
“Yeah,” she replied, eyes turned down. “Me too. You know how these things go.”
“I hear you on that one, sister,” replied Daniel. She stared at him. What the hell?
“Why don’t you join us for a couple rounds?” She kept staring at him trying to figure out whether she should be worried about herself or about him or just wondering if he was simply a clueless idiot.
“Sure,” she said, deciding that at the end of the day she simply didn’t give a shit. “What the hell?”
Cotton. That’s all she could taste. She should be used to that feeling in her mouth by now. Slowly and carefully, Beatrice cracked open an eye and immediately slammed it shut. In that brief moment, God’s light pierced straight through her brain and out the back of her skull. Okay, I had that coming. She started to moan as her melted brain began to leak out her ears.
“Hey! You awake?” A man’s cheerful voice called to her from nearby but she could only bury her head deeper in the pillow as she silently begged him to shut the fuck up.
Wait. Him?? Who the hell is that?
Beatrice shot straight up in the bed and instantly regretted her existence. She grabbed her head and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes, willing her brain to ignore the shards of glass that were slicing it to ribbons. A few deep breaths and she chanced opening her eyes again and realized she had no idea where she was. She was on a bed in an otherwise empty room. Light poured in from two dusty windows and a door was off to her left. Slowly, she looked up to see the middle-aged man from the bar walk in from a small kitchen on the other side of a small table and chairs.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked in that obnoxiously cheerful voice. “That was quite the night!”
“Um, where am I?” She really didn’t want to know the answer.
“Oh! This is my place! I brought you here after you stumbled out of the bar last night. You weren’t quite in a state to let me walk you home and my place was closer. I put you in the bed and I slept on the couch over there.”
She looked down under the covers to see that she was still wearing pants. At least Da—David? Damian?
Oh shit! I wake up in a strange man’s bed and I can’t even remember his name? Is this what rock bottom feels like?
The shock and embarrassment must have shown on her face. “Don’t think too much about it,” he said quietly. “We’ve all been there, I suppose. I’ve woken up in plenty of awful places. One time I even woke up buried in snow!” He looked off into the distance as if reliving a fond memory.
She looked at him, unsure what to say, head reeling as the potential outcomes of the previous night slapped her in the face. Her body began to shiver as it became hard to swallow. It was as if molten balls of disgust and fear began mixing and building inside the depths of her stomach. Beatrice attempted to push it down until she risked the pressure becoming too much.
“Bucket’s on the floor beside the bed on your left.”
It became too much. Beatrice dove over the side of the bed and vomited.
“It’s alright,” said Dav—Daniel! “Get it all out. Thanks for hitting the bucket.” Beatrice looked up and glared at him.
“Can I have some water?” She asked thickly. He got up and went to the kitchen. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he said casually as he filled a water glass, “what exactly was going through your head last night? You outdrank the whole table, and some of us are twice your size.” He came back to offer her the water and took a seat at the table.
She was sitting back up on the bed by then. What the hell?
“Ava, the bartender,” she said simply, taking a sip of her water.
“Ah,” he replied, “I thought so. It seemed to me like she’d gotten under your skin a bit. You said you lost her; interesting way of putting it. Any idea where she is?”
“Not really,” Beatrice said quietly. “I think she’s trying to make her way back here, though.”
“Think?”
“Hope,” she said with a sad smile.
“Well,” he said kindly, “There are worse things than hope. Have faith, right?”
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Thank you,” said Beatrice, getting up and making her way toward the door. “I appreciate the help.”
“Anytime,” replied Daniel, getting up with her and walking her out. “You all set to get yourself home?”
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“Hope,” she told him with a half-smile.