Chapter 4
It had been a good day, so far.
Yesterday Edie had gone home right before Anne called her, which meant she had finished with the interview just in time to get royally chewed out by her ex for doing the one thing she had been expressly told not to do. However, when Anne had called her this morning, her anger seemed to have lost steam.
“Hi Edie. You’re actually up?”
“Yeah, I’m going out to brunch today with Nkemdilim.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re making a new friend instead of a new enemy.”
Not to say the irritation was completely gone, but it had at least shifted into passive-aggressive digs instead of taking the form of an hour-long lecture.
After the obligatory morning check-in, Edie had gone over to Kim’s house and met the dogs, Apollo, Artemis, Arachne, and Anansi. They were all different breeds, but each one thought they were a lapdog. Which was all well and good with Anansi and Arachne, a Boston Terrier and a pug respectively, but Apollo was a fully-grown Golden Retriever and Artemis was a 65-pound black Lab.
Now that she had managed to escape from the crushing weight of four fluffballs testing the weight capacity of her lap, Edie was sitting at a tiny table with Nkemdilim outside of a café that, according to the latter, made the best canapes in the universe. From what she had sampled of the ultra-thin pancakes so far, Edie was inclined to agree with her friend.
“So why did you name him Anansi? Why not stick to Greek mythology?” Edie asked as she dipped another forkful of breakfast pastry into the chocolate syrup drowning her plate.
Kim elegantly nibbled on a strawberry as she considered her answer. “I guess I wanted another spider-themed name to go with Arachne. Besides, African mythology is cool too.”
Edie leaned back, enjoying the feeling of sunlight warming her face. Maybe this was what she’d been missing- just hanging out with a friend, eating pancakes and talking about dogs. It felt nice.
It was a good day.
Then she heard the gunshot.
When she opened her eyes, Kim’s chair was empty. Edie stood up, looking down as she did so, and saw the pool of red seeping across the ground.
There were more shots. People were running around, panicking. No one seemed to notice Nkemdilim lying there as Edie knelt down next to her. She stared at the small dot carved in Kim’s temple as she felt for a pulse. There was a pulse, still throbbing beneath the skin. Kim couldn’t be dead. Her heart was still beating. She had to be alive, she had to be…
Edie felt something hit her arm and turned her head to see more red. A scarlet stain was spreading on her arm.
Oh. A half-crazed laugh escaped from her mouth. I’ve been shot.
She stood up. People were still running around, but most had taken cover in some building or another now. Numbly, she walked up to the entrance of the café and knocked, peering through the glass door.
“Hey, got room for one more in there?”
Someone opened the door. Edie walked in to be greeted by a sea of pale faces. She tried to smile at them pleasantly.
“Hi. You all okay?”
“Miss, your arm,” a woman pointed out.
“Oh.” She glanced down at her arm. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt. Though that’s probably because I’m in shock, huh? When the pain hits, this is gonna suck.”
Some of the people looked at each other, puzzled. One of them asked, “Miss, are you alright?”
“I’m fine for now. Did anyone call the police?”
There were a couple nods.
“Okay. Good. The police should be here soon, then. I know someone on the force. Her name’s Anne, she’s a good cop.”
A man raised his hand. “I just called an ambulance. Is there anything I can get you?”
“An ambulance? Yeah, that’s good thinking. There are probably people out there who are hurt, they’ll need doctors-”
Oh.
Edie looked back down at her arm.
I was shot.
Kim was shot.
Kim’s-
Edie didn’t know when she started crying. She didn’t know when she sat down on the floor, either, but here she was, knees pulled up her chest, tears running down her face. Her arm burned like she was pressed up against a furnace.
The man who had called the ambulance was kneeling next to her now, one hand gently pressing on her back, the other holding a water bottle towards her uninjured arm. She took it, twisting off the cap with her teeth and taking a long drink.
Then she was standing outside, an EMT leading her to the back of an ambulance. She could see Kim laid out on a stretcher. She turned to the EMT.
“That’s not right.”
The EMT blinked. “What?”
Edie pointed to the stretcher. “They’re not putting her in an ambulance. Why are they taking her to the black van? That’s not an ambulance.”
The EMT paused, then gestured to the ambulance. “Let’s get you to the hospital, okay?”
Edie got in the ambulance, still watching the stretcher. Kim lay there limply, staring blankly up at the sky. There were TV reporters nearby, news cameras rolling as people milled around anxiously.
News cameras. People being interviewed.
The interview.
This is my fault.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was quiet, and they couldn’t sleep.
The voices were gone now. No one else to share the space in their mind.
I’m going to die here. Alone. Unwanted. Useless. Broken.
They’d always known there was something wrong with them. Had they ever forgotten, He would’ve reminded them. He’d reminded them anyway.
Defective. Who else would take you? Who would want you?
His voice was gone, too. So why could they still hear Him?
You belong to me. Remember that. You’re nothing, but I can still make something of you.
Don’t think of Him.
Long ago, they’d thought about what they’d wanted. Their purpose would always be decided by another, of course: that was an understanding universal to their kind. Weapons were to be used. For what would be decided by the wielder.
Most of their kind hoped for a wielder with a greater mission they could help accomplish, a vessel through which they could demonstrate their power, or a puppet with which they could toy until it wore out.
They themselves had never hoped for such things. To wish for anything other than such outcomes was folly, and yet they did not long for the acceptable, or even the plausible. Instead, they’d hoped for something that they’d known was out of reach, and always would be for their kind.
They’d hoped for-
Well, it was no use thinking about it now. If such dreams were impossible then, then how much more so now?
Then again, there was no point in depriving themselves of their little imaginings either. Why shouldn’t they want? There was nothing here to stop them from wanting, no one to judge their ridiculous wishes. So what if their dreams were unattainable? That was hardly news to them.
Even if the knowledge still hurt.
They’d hoped for a bond deeper than a simple partnership, to find someone who would not see them as a mere means to an end. They’d hoped to find…well, they weren’t exactly certain what they’d wanted to find. A companion? Friendship? Those didn’t seem quite right.
It didn’t matter now.
What they’d had with Him was not what they had wanted, but He’d at least allowed them to pretend that their connection was more than that of weapon and wielder. Other hosts wouldn’t have allowed them that little freedom, would have been horrified at the fantasies that they had. He had tolerated their playing pretend with minimal disgust.
Don’t think of Him. You don’t want that.
But what did they want? What more could they have expected?
It doesn’t matter now. I’m going to die here. Everything that could have been is irrelevant.
Irrelevancy apparently did nothing to keep them from dwelling on something.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Anne tapped her fingers on the table nervously as the speakerphone continued ringing. Dan put a comforting hand on Anne’s shoulder as Edie finally picked up.
“Hey, this is Brock.”
“Edie! We saw what happened on the news. Are you okay?”
Edie’s voice sounded slightly off as she said, “I’m fine. Stray bullet got me in the arm. Won’t be doing any pushups for a while, but I’ll live.”
Dan let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding as Anne kept talking. “That’s good. How’s Nkemdilim? Was she there when the attack happened?”
There was a sharp inhale on the other end of the line, followed by silence.
Anne bit her lip. “…Oh. Edie, I’m so sorry-”
“You were right.” Edie’s voice was quiet.
“What?”
“You were right,” she repeated, her voice growing loud and frantic as she continued. “I shouldn’t have pissed Drake off, I was stupid, I should’ve left it alone, it’s my fault Kim’s-it’s my fault she’s dead, it should’ve been me, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault-”
Anne put her hands up automatically, forgetting that Edie couldn’t see her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. What are you talking about? What does this have to do with Drake?”
“He sent the shooter for me, Annie. It was supposed to look like an accident, just another victim in a random shooting.”
Dan cut in, a crease forming between his eyebrows. “They caught the shooter right after it happened, Edie. It was Cletus Kasady.”
“Who?”
“The serial killer. Remember the Gunther Stein case? The Jim Mulligan case?”
There was another pause. “The Carnage Killings?”
“Yeah,” Anne confirmed. “Cletus Kasady murdered eleven people before he was caught, and escaped while being transported to prison. Apparently he wanted to make a big comeback.”
“…”
“Edie?”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
“The Carnage Killings weren’t shootings, they were guttings. Kasady slashed those people open. Why would he suddenly change his modus operandi?”
Dan’s voice was professional but empathetic, his tone that of a doctor reassuring his patient. “It’s a little strange, but the point we’re trying to make here is that it’s not your fault. This isn’t connected to Drake.”
“Really? So it’s just a coincidence that Kasady switched out a blade for a gun right after I asked Drake about Maria?”
“Yes,” Dan answered firmly.
“Right. Okay. Sure.”
“Edie,” Anne cut in warningly.
“That’s my name.”
“This is not your fault. Got it? None of this was because of you.”
“You don’t know that,” she shot back, her voice breaking. “You don’t know.”
“Edie, I’m coming to the hospital to pick you up. Stay where you are.”
There was a click on the other end of the line.
Dan quickly stepped over to the door and opened it for Anne before following her out to her car.
“She’ll be fine,” he told her, trying to convince himself as much as Anne.
Anne took a deep breath as she sat down behind the wheel. Please don’t do anything stupid, Edie.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Edie walked into the Life Foundation just as Drake was getting off the elevator into the lobby. She saw him a moment before he noticed her and marched toward him with fire in her eyes.
Drake examined her expression as she stopped in front of him. “Hello again, Ms. Brock.”
She slapped him across the face so hard he stumbled backwards, then shoved him to the ground. Straddling his chest, she grabbed his collar and punched him, and kept punching him, her nails biting so hard into her palm that a bit of her blood dripped onto his shirt with each blow.
When the security guards pulled her off of Drake, he seemed more startled than angry. He approached his attacker as two men kept her arms pinned behind her back, staring at her, completely bewildered as she somehow glared down at him despite being six inches shorter.
“What on earth were you hoping to accomplish with this?” he asked, half-laughing in his disbelief.
Edie stared back at him silently, lips slightly parted as she grit her teeth.
Drake smiled, touching his bruised cheek lightly. “Speechless? Hm, you were hardly at a loss for words during our last encounter. I’d count this as an improvement.”
She lunged, biting at his neck like a wild animal. He flinched as her teeth snapped together a few inches from his face, but otherwise didn’t move as his security began dragging her away. As Drake’s men struggled to get her out the door, Edie found her voice.
“Drake, you dirty, murdering, soulless snake! Don’t pretend like you don’t know what you did!”
There was more, but she had been effectively escorted outside the building before he could hear what else she had to say. Drake noted people staring and waved a dismissive hand.
“Nothing to worry about here. It’s been taken care of.”
Making his way through the lobby, Drake spotted the subordinate who’d delivered the latest message from Pullman. She was wearing her nametag this time.
“Dr. Skirth?”
She jumped to attention, nudging her glasses up higher on her nose. “Sir, was that Edie Brock?”
“Indeed. Apparently she wasn’t in a good mood today.”
Skirth frowned, her gaze darting to the door briefly. “After the shooting, we managed to procure six new variables. Do you want one to be sent to the other lab as a control?”
“We already have a control. Take all the new variables down to our primary lab.”
She nodded and turned around. Drake tapped her shoulder and leaned down, whispering in her ear.
“And tell Mr. Pullman that the next ceremony can take place as soon as he wishes.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Focus, Edie. Breathe in, breathe out.
My fault.
Inhale, exhale. In, out, in, out.
She died because of me.
Breathe. Breathe.
Myfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfault
Knock-knock-knock. “Edie?”
It’s Anne, she thought. I should let her in.
She didn’t. Her breaths were shaky.
In, out. In, out.
Just get up and open the door, Edie. It’s not that hard.
Her fingers twitched.
Why can’t I get up? Why can’t I do this?
I can’t do this.
I can’t do anything.
I couldn’t do anything.
Useless. Stupid. Pathetic.
Knock-knock-knock. “Edie, are you okay in there?”
“I’m fine.” Just say it.
She opened her mouth and choked on nothing.
I can’t breathe.
In, out.
Why can’t I breathe?
Breathe in. Inhale. Exhale.
My arm hurts.
My head hurts.
Why are my palms so sweaty?
“I’m coming in.”
There was a click as the door was unlocked. Edie felt a hand rest gently on her shoulder. She caught the familiar lemony scent of Anne’s perfume.
“Hey. Are you alright?”
Edie swallowed. She should just nod. Then Anne could lecture her for going straight from the hospital to the Life Foundation and punching Drake in the face. Edie could shrug, say he deserved it. Anne would roll her eyes, warn her not to do anything else stupid, and leave, and not waste any more time worrying about Edie.
I don’t deserve to have any more time wasted on me.
“Hey, Edie?”
Dan. He’s here, too?
Just go, buddy. Nothing here that matters. Take Anne and go home to your nice, orderly life. You shouldn’t have to keep running after a screw-up like me.
She should tell him she was fine. He would listen to her answer, but hang around for a bit just to make absolutely sure that she was okay, then give her a hug, and leave, and not have to bother any more with her. No one should have to bother with her. Why should anyone put up with her? She didn’t matter. She was worthless. All she did was run around and make messes for others to clean up, and people would get hurt, and it was her fault that Kim was-
Crap. I’m crying.
No, no, no, don’t cry, it makes them worry, and then they’ll stay, and then they’ll be wasting more time on me-
Edie felt arms wrap around her, hands press on her back. She turned a little and saw Dan hugging her from behind, his chin nearly on top of her head. In front of her, Anne was squeezing her tightly, grip determined and secure.
Edie took a breath and leaned against Anne’s chest.
They shouldn’t have been wasting time on her.
They didn’t have to be wasting time on her. But here they were.
It felt nice.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Edie had tried to look happy as she said, “Thanks for coming over, guys.”
Anne had smiled back. Dan had patted her on the back, biting his lip.
“You sure you’re gonna be fine on your own tonight? You could come back to our place for a bit if you like,” he’d offered.
“As tempting as that sounds, I don’t think I feel up to fighting Mr. Belvedere for the couch. I appreciate the invite, though.”
She’d stood on her toes to kiss Dan on the cheek. He’d blushed.
Anne had leaned down to kiss Edie on the forehead. “Call us if you need anything, alright?”
Edie had thrown a mock salute while attempting to appear at ease. “Yes ma’am.”
Now here she was, lying on the couch, crying into a pillow, because apparently her emotional stability without Anne and/or Dan there amounted to pretty much nothing.
Every time she thought she’d run out of tears, a fresh wave rolled in. Her upper lip stung with salt and snot, but she was sobbing too hard to get up and grab tissues. Her head was spinning, her stomach ached, and her throat was raw.
She sat up, shoved her face into the pillow so that she couldn’t breathe in, and screamed, struggling to squeeze every last drop of frustration into her voice and pour it out. She screamed until her lungs were threatening to collapse. She screamed until her throat felt like it was regurgitating needles. She screamed, and the pressure in her head built, pushing outward from inside her skull as if her brain might explode through her temples.
When she pulled her face out of the pillow, she didn’t feel any less frustrated. The only thing her ‘therapeutic’ screaming session appeared to have accomplished was to make her vomit in her mouth a little afterwards.
Edie lay back down and kept crying.
When she woke up, she still felt like crap, but her tear ducts had finally stopped their waterfall imitation. She got up from the couch and made her way to the bathroom, stiff from being in one position for however long she’d been asleep.
Grabbing a washcloth, she turned on the faucet and ran water over her free hand. As she waited for the water to feel less like liquid ice, she stared in the mirror.
The bathroom light was harsh and white, making her skin seem pasty- or maybe she really was that pale- and illuminating every imperfection on her face. Her cheeks were blotchy and pink, looking like a rash against the doughy shade of the rest of her skin. Sweat glistened on her forehead and neck. Her lips were chapped, her hair was greasy, her eyeliner was running everywhere, and the whites of her eyes were dyed vivid red.
The water warmed. Edie wet the washcloth and rubbed it over her face, wringing the cloth out when she was done and looking in the mirror again.
She still looked like crap. The only difference was that her eyeliner was now a bit more of an evenly distributed mess.
She ran more water over the cloth and scrubbed her face again.
Click.
Edie froze, washcloth still pressed to her cheek. Silently she moved from the mirror to the bathroom door, peeking around the corner to the entryway.
A sliver of light bled through from the hallway outside.
Some instinct prompted Edie to reach over and turn off the bathroom light. She poked her head out a little further, not quite out of the bathroom but enough so that she could get a clearer view of the front door.
The door creaked open slowly. A man stepped into the room, silhouetted by the light from the hallway. She couldn’t see him very well, but it didn’t take 20/20 eyesight to tell that the guy was huge.
Her first idea was to grab her pepper spray. Unfortunately, that was stashed away in her purse, along with her phone, which was the next thing she’d thought to grab. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if her purse wasn’t sitting on the coffee table, which was in the other room, which currently had a large muscular man prowling around in it.
Quietly she grabbed the nearest thing at hand- a can of hairspray- and crept out of the bathroom. Mr. Muscles was in the kitchen, several feet away from the coffee table.
Hardly daring to breathe, she inched along until her purse was finally within reach. She was reaching out for it when the man turned around.
He immediately lunged for her. She darted to the side, but he grabbed her arm and dragged her toward him. She held up the aerosol in her hand and sprayed him in the face.
“Agh!”
His grip loosened enough for her to pull away and shove her palm up into his nose. He gave another cry of pain and fell backwards, his body knocking several stacks of plates over as it landed on the table.
Staring down at the intruder, Edie drew a shaky breath.
What the heck just happened? Is he dead? Did I kill him?
Her knees suddenly weakened. She stumbled backwards into the couch.
Holy crap. I just killed this guy.
He’s dead.
Good, some small, vindictive part of her remarked.
Before she could contemplate what this said about her psyche, she felt a hand clamp over her mouth. She bit at the palm, tasting blood, but the only thing this accomplished was having fingernails dig into her cheek as retaliation. There was the pinch of a needle in her arm, and then-
-nothing.