Afterward

Char finally spluttered awake after Katie had given him CPR and I'd stuffed ice in his pants. He swore and babbled unintelligible things to us, and then fell off the couch to try to get the ice out of his clothes. After writhing on the ground for a while, the ice cubes fell out and he lay there, sucking in air, staring at us with wild eyes.

"You overdosed," I said.

"What?" he gasped.

"You overdosed," I said again, "On heroin."

Char's chest rose and fell, his eyes on me, his mouth open like a fish out of water. "Oh," he said, "Oh."

And I struck him, right across the face. It wasn't even me, it was the monster, but at that moment, I felt that Char deserved it. Katie grabbed onto my arm and the beast subsided. I could still hear the shadow's cruel laughter inside me.

"Fuck!" Spit flecked the sides of Char's mouth, but he did not try to hit me back. His head lolled on the floor where it fell, but his eyes were trained onto mine. His wide, dark brown eyes on mine, staring into me. He lay there, breathing heavily through his mouth.

"Char..." Katie said quietly.

His eyes moved from my face and turned to her. "Katie," he said breathlessly, "Katie..."

I looked at her,and she didn't reply to him. I saw her face turn into a grimace, and she shook her head, as if not believing this at all. Her shoulders shook. And I saw tears well up in her eyes.

"Katie, it's okay, Katie." Char took in breaths. "Please don't hate me. Everyone hates me."

This time her tears spilled over and I wanted to kill Char. Katie shook her head again and then got up, rushing out of my house. Char's eyes followed her as she left.

"She hates me." Char didn't look at me. He breathed in and out on my floor. In and out. "She hates me like J--- does."

"You're wrong." I said. And I got to my feet, feeling the monster rumble within me, its iciness fraying the edges of my mind. "You're wrong, Char."

The boy's eyes looked into mine.

"J--- hates you a lot more." I said.

---

Ray

I struggled to get out of the crowd. People were everywhere. And everyone looked the fucking same, everyone was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. How the hell was I supposed to find Olice!?

The crowd roared again. The man continued talking on every screen. It felt like my whole being was going to explode. What the hell was this, claustrophobia? Or anxiety? Holy fucking shit.

I pushed past people roughly, but I swear to God there was no way out of this mass. There were people everywhere. The whole fucking continent was here, I swear it. After shoving people around and getting cussed at for a while, I finally made it to a solar panel wave and slumped onto the metal. Which was a bad choice, because it was hot, and I kept forgetting about that. I cursed every curse word in the book and did a fuck-I-just-burned-my-skin dance, but thankfully no one was watching me. Everybody was looking at the reincarnation of Hitler on the screen.

I needed to calm down. Caaaaallllllm down, Ray. We'll get this. We'll get this. Caaaallllllm down.

I shut my eyes and focused. The brain-waves of people were surging though all the technology around me. A lot of them were security. I felt the energy gathering into the curving structure of the solar panel, and I felt it distributing to the buildings around me. That was blocked off their security. Security was everywhere. I probed my way through the buildings, trying to find a phone line, but the fucking security zapped my brain all the way down to the stem and I got unfocused and had to start over again. Fuck. This usually wasn't so bad. If I could just trace Olice's phone number I could find him. But the stupid police or whatnot was completely on guard. They were controlling the entire phonelines. And I wasn't a good enough tectrixer to get past them, or more importantly, get past them and get away with it.

I opened my eyes and sent out a mind-speak blurb. People were going to get pissed, but they probably wouldn't know who it was distracting their minds from the speech. <Olly, where are you?> I shouted. Olly was what his little brother called him. That way no one would know who I was looking for too. And hopefully now one was fluent in English to know what I was asking. I shut that thought down though, because the fucking technopaths knew just about every language anyway...

I felt a my watch tug. I looked down at it. The hands were spinning wildly. Oh praise Jesus, Olice found me. I could feel every metal thing on my body vibrate and get tugged by an invisible force. Okay, enough with the tectrix feel-up, where the hell are you?

The hands on my watch pointed on two o' clock.

I moved in that direction.

I pushed past a bunch of people again, but eventually I could see Mr. Seven Feet Tall towering over everyone. Okay, Olice wasn't actually that tall, but he was pretty close. I could see him pushing through people to get to me as well. Someone was with him. His brothers and... a girl?

I ignored that, though. "Olice!" I nearly screamed. "We need to get back to Earth, NOW!"

"Ray, hold on, what are you shaking in your boots for?" Olice caught up to me. His brothers, Trae and Wes, were too surprised to greet me. They saw the fear on my face. And that girl, she was older than me, probably Olice's age. She had a hand on her wide hips, her plump lips curved into a smirk. She wasn't overweight, but damn, that girl had curves everywhere.

"Fuck - shit!" I spluttered, beginning to slip back into my insanity-mode, but I forced myself out of it. "Fucking Char! He overdosed on heroin! Help him! You're a doctor!"

I knew he wasn't a doctor, and I knew it bothered him whenever I told him how smart at medical stuff he was, but my conflict hit him hard. Shock crossed his face. His brothers looked at each other, and suddenly I felt bad for swearing in front of the little eleven-ish year old Wes, but I couldn't do anything now.

"Wait, Char? Is he the kid, the Guardian's apprentice, J---'s apprentice? The one Matt's having the hitch with?" Olice was flustered.

The girl looked at me, grinning, not at all realizing, (or maybe not caring about) my panic. "So bubby, this is your little guy? He's pretty cute, a little small-fry for an apprentice."

"Let's just get to Earth," Olice said. "This is quite the stack-up."

---

We warped back to Earth and found Matt and Katie outside. Katie was crying. Matt had an arm around her, but I could tell he was more upset than feeling about comforting her.

"Is he fucking dead!?" I demanded, "Are we too late!?"

Olice and his posse went into the house, but the girl stayed out and watched us. Matt slowly looked up at me.

"He's fine." Matt's voice had a sickening tone of evil to it, and he was trying to hold it back. I swore and put an arm around him in an awkward side-hug, but that seemed to help. He let out a sigh.

"What's up Matt?" I asked briskly, trying to find out what was going on.

"He woke up after we dumped some water on him. There wasn't much I could do else," Matt said. Katie removed herself from him and rubbed her eyes, sniffing. I went over and gave her a hug too, just because she looked so pathetic.

"So he's fine," I stated. It was a relief, but I was also worried. If he was alive, then we'd have to deal with him more. But I guess that was better than having a dead body on our hands any day.

"Yeah, he's fine." Katie's voice wobbled. I looked at her, and she looked so broken. I didn't even want to know what happened, but I asked anyway. Katie sad brown eyes just killed me.

"He's dead, Ray. He's just dead inside."