Chapter 8 - In Failure Is Learning
The next time I entered the library was on Monday morning at coffee. The place was empty, but Rebecca was sure to arrive when she felt that tingle. I’d been toying with an idea ever since the day before. While I couldn’t bring beast into her space, nothing stopped me from letting JJ run free. He’d have the same power as me in this space, but the freedom to express himself rather than suffocate at the back of my mind. I felt my mind drift off for a second. It demanded more caffeine after a short rest from Sunday. I’d have to pick that idea up later. I scribbled a message for Rebecca in the air and left.
break
I returned after work on that Monday to find Rebecca reading. She looked up for a moment and scanned for me, but I remained invisible. Before I made a form, I wanted to spy on the few in this space that I could. I found them at Eva’s place who returned to her routine as if Finnelgamin never existed, but when I appeared before them, the sight knocked her into a tangent of memory. Maybe she decided to let Finn only exist when she was around someone he knew, to spare herself worrying for him.
“Any news?” Eva asked.
“Sorry,” I replied. “I was actually stopping by to ask them.” I pointed at Kara and James sitting on the love seat. Eva jumped a bit as if I startled her.
“When did you two get here?” She asked. James looked at Kara with hesitation as if he wasn’t allowed to say.
“Shortly before you turned your vibrator on upstairs,” Kara said. “Sorry. We didn’t want to bother your ‘me time’, so we just waited. Even Dax didn’t bark at us. It was sort of strange.” I looked to Eva who flushed red and put hands over her face.
“After that we just figured you’d notice us when you came down,” Kara continued, as James smiled no doubt at the word “came.” “But you came down, and started cooking as if we didn’t exist. It’s poor writing, Jay- Jack.” I smiled that she remembered.
“Well, what do you expect?” I asked. “I made Rebecca’s neighbors in about thirty seconds. Be glad they have names. The expansion was all up to Rebecca. I don’t even know their names, but also do not mind that.”
“We’re so sorry that we were present for your fun,” James said, and Kara punched him on the shoulder. “What? I can’t even mention it? You enjoyed yours, too.” The next strike hit much harder and James winced at the pain.
“Ok, fine,” Kara said. “You really wanted this public knowledge so that Jack can scribble it down in his dumb notebook? Here it is! James went down on me as we listened to you masturbate to climax. And James wasn’t very good at it.”
“Hey!” He argued.
“You asked for it,” Kara replied. “Too much teeth, not enough tongue. I'm pretty sensitive down there. It’s not chewing gum. Do better next time.” James furrowed his eyebrows.
“Not sure there will be another time,” he murmured. A moment of silence followed their argument.
“Alright,” I said, breaking the tension. “Come to the library. I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
“Who?” James asked, but I was already floating past the room. I arrived to the library to a very agitated Rebecca. She threw down her book and came up to grab my ankle. Unprepared for violence, I gave myself up, feeling the force shift me to the ground as the floor met my back. Suddenly, I was no longer weightless, and felt my excessive weight while standing up.
“Where were you, dumbass?” She asked loudly. I almost expected her to kick me between my legs, so I put a cup in my pants, but she did not go for it. “I was talking to air for the longest time! I thought you wanted me to pretend that you weren’t there so I got naked, then felt stupid and got dressed again.” I chuckled.
“Sorry,” I said. “I went looking for Kara and James. I needed them here so I could introduce you all to someone.” Right on cue, the doorbell rang and Eva walked in with Kara and James.
“I told her that it was probably fine to just walk in,” Kara said. “But she insisted we ring the doorbell. So structured of your little creation. She’s not another gem, is she? ‘Cause I told you that would be strike three with the Rahin.” Kara stopped near me and waited for an answer.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think she is. Eva only got this way after she interacted with Finn. Maybe she’s part of his story, something following what he’s already been through. I hope that’s the case.” Kara nodded and stood beside James, who dodged her hand, still brooding.
“So,” Rebecca said. “Who’s this new someone we’re meeting? Samuel of the stars and sex dungeon? Old lady Maede? Or is this about Erik and Natasha?” I smiled that she revealed all the names I didn’t know, but shook my head at the names.
“JJ,” I said and held out a hand. “After some thinking, I realized that while I can’t free beast into your space, I can certainly let JJ out to play for a bit. What do you say? Do you want to meet the actual writer?” I held the hand there until Rebecca came up.
“About time,” she said, grabbed my hand, and separated the kid within from the hardened shell of a man. As always, he was hyper to no limit, but this was the perfect place for him to learn that even he can get tuckered out.
“Hey, everybody!” He shouted and waved. “Libraries are boring! Let’s go to the pool!” With one clap of his hands, the library vanished, as did all of our clothes only to be replaced in a split second by swimsuits. While he looked fine in his, mine felt awkward at the current stage of overweight. For Rebecca, he made a one-piece bathing suit with a frilly miniskirt at the waist. With another motion, and without asking, JJ dialed back her internal clock to his own age.
“I know you never had a childhood,” he said, running up to her. “So let’s have fun.” He grabbed her twelve-year-old hand and jumped into the pool while pulling her in. The shock on her face was priceless.
For Eva, JJ made a simple yellow bikini that tied with lovely bows. She smiled and jumped into the pool right after them. Kara looked herself over and found she wore the most skimpy outfit of them all, but James filled out his speedos with a visible erection while ogling her. Kara noticed it, but did not give it a lot of notice.
“So, yes,” I said. “He can do all the things I can do, but isn’t all dramatic about it. He’s a kid.” James closed the space to Kara’s back and visibly prodded her butt with his hips.
“Yes, yes,” She said. “Hold your horses.” She turned to me as James held onto her hips from behind. “And we’re what, babysitters?”
“No,” I said, “But get to know him. He’s a fun kid, just a little overactive. Consider him like your son since I bet John missed that stage due to the breeding of birds snafu. Please tire him out. Though I have a feeling he will do that to you instead. And if you want anything, just ask him. He’s a nice kid. Just don’t hurt him, mentally, or you’ll have an existential tantrum on your hands.” James slipped his hand down Kara’s stomach as I snapped my fingers to create a soundproof booth for them off to the side. I pointed it out to Kara and left.
break
After a relaxing night of not having JJ in my ear, I came back to the library only to find it empty. I wondered if they were still at the pool, but figured Rebecca would come find me when she felt a tingle. Would she though? JJ turned her to his age, a part of life not known for punctuality. After waiting a few minutes, I decided to find Kara and James, but as soon as I flew past the library, I saw Eva run up to the house, so I flew back in.
“Hey,” I said, wondering if she would acknowledge my presence, or just behave like an A.I.. She met my eyes with a fierce look of worry that meant something went terribly wrong. Without another word, I followed her out of the library house and over to Rebecca’s place.
It was a modest place from the outside, paling in comparison to the towering library house. All of the houses I made for the neighborhood followed the same design to fit in among themselves as I expected the people would. If Rebecca didn’t interfere with the A.I.s, Jorge would catch Eva’s eye one day while working in his backyard shirtless, and that would set off a relationship for them that finally freed Eva from solitude. And yet, she’d still have fantasies of Avery for some strange reason, ending up at her house to a discovery of her bisexuality, much to Jorge’s approval.
That story never occurred for Rebecca’s viewing pleasure, but I was just trying to distract myself from imagining what could possibly be wrong in this space where JJ could change things with his mind. It no doubt had to involve him and his wildly-childish mind.
Eva led me to the upstairs bedroom where we met a person I haven’t seen before. Some features carried over from Kara, but this person felt human.
“Are you perhaps John?” I asked, meeting his eyes. One was green like Kara’s, but the other brown like James’. This had to be John. I’d never seen him before, but the genetic mix was far too uniform without the blend of features often found in that.
“It’s not,” Eva said. “That’s a fusion of Kara and James, Jara. JJ saw that they spent a lot of time together, but looked to be hurting one another, so he fused them together like that one show.” I cringed at the thought. Fusing in the kid’s show was obviously a not-so-hidden metaphor for becoming one. Namely, it could be sex, involving an attuning dance beforehand, but it was hidden in the premise of love and union of a relationship. Nevertheless, the show would never be as explicit as to define it so.
“Are you guys ok?” I asked. “Are you even male or female down there?”
“Neither,” two voices answered. It was weird. Two sets of vocal chords vibrated in their neck, but I had no idea if they had separate minds. “It’s all smooth down there. Nothing to play with. Can you please defuse us? JJ said that he won’t do it until we promise to stop hurting each other. We tried to explain to him what we were doing, but he just plugs his ears and runs away.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He avoids that stuff pretty vehemently. Here, let me try it.” I put my hands on both of their shoulders and pulled, but nothing happened. “Ok. This might hurt, but there is another way to separate you.” Without another word, I pulled a sword from nowhere and slashed them in half. There was no blood, as I had control over the space, but whatever spell was on them, popped, and they split apart to Kara and James again.
“Whew,” Kara said. “Sharing a mind was pretty intense, but James, you’d never admit to me that you want to try yoga.”
“Shh!” He said, but sighed. “And you want another child, but a girl this time. I suppose we should try, but don’t you want to get bound first?”
“Bound and gagged?” She asked, then gasped as James got to one knee.
“Will you bind with me, Kara?” He asked and turned to me. “Binding is what we call marriage back on my original.” He looked back to her and raised his eyebrows as Kara sat down on the floor, then curled up into a ball.
“This is from my original,” Kara said a bit muffled. “Deliver me from darkness to the light of the pearl.” James looked at me and I shrugged. With a wave, I created the pearl above them to let her feel it more realistically, but it felt very misogynistic that the man brought her face to light. James put his hands in and drew her face out to appear holy in the white light of the pearl.
“I’ve always dreamed of this moment,” she said, as I faded the pearl light.
“Mine sort of needs you to agree,” James said. “Will you bind with me?”
“Yes, dummy,” Kara said, as Eva burst into tears of joy. I left the room to let them enjoy the moment. On my way out, I whispered into Eva’s ear.
“Doesn’t Kara look pretty hot?” I asked, and watched the subroutine run in her eyes of the story I made for her, Avery, and Jorge. Those hungry eyes opened wider in Kara’s direction as I stepped away to let the events unfold in the confines where they couldn’t shake beast’s cage, or rattle at his gate. Would Kara and James accept Eva into their dance of bodies? I wouldn’t know, and didn’t need to.
I floated beyond the house and tried to tune into where JJ would take Rebecca. I didn’t have to think long, as a new tree appeared to the side of the house with a structure supported on the split of branches. While hovering outside, I looked within to find young Rebecca in a dress, hosting a tea party, while JJ played with toy cars on an assembled track. They were such cliche things, but children didn’t have a word for that occurrence. To them, fun was fun and it had no end until all the energy was spent. I left Rebecca to her tea party and joined JJ at the track.
“Hey, bud,” I said. “So, listen. I heard you fused Kara and James together like the crystal gems.”
“Yeah,” He replied and sent a car down the track with two small loops that made and infinity symbol in the middle. “And?” I tried to have him pay attention by stopping the next car from going down the track.
“You can’t do that to people, JJ,” I said. “They were pretty scared. A fusion is meant to be a special thing, they even explained so in the show. Forcing them together goes against the whole idea.”
“Yeah? Then why do you force me, beast, and robot together with you?” He asked to my surprise.
“Not everything’s a fusion like in the show,” I explained. “Me, you, robot, and beast, happen to be one from the very start. The fact that you can come out here is all thanks to Rebecca. Believe it or not, I like having you in my mind. I just don’t always have time to play with you or listen to your stories. All this adult stuff gets in the way of fun that you have for me all the time. That’s why I figured a vacation away from me would be good for you. You’d get to socialize that I don’t really do.” I let go of the car as it made it past the infinite loop and launched into the wall.
“That was cool,” JJ said.
“I added a piece that launches them after the loop,” I said. “But you understand why fusing people is wrong, right?”
“They were doing it anyway,” JJ said. “With their mouths and pee-pees. I get it thought. Being fused all the time would be strange. When me and Rebby fused, she didn’t find it funny either.” I wanted to scold him for it, but let it go.
“Don’t like the tea party?” I asked.
“Nah,” he replied. “It’s just juice and chatty plushies.” I burst out laughing and went over to see Rebecca. I was glad that she was having fun as a child. Maybe Finn could also benefit from such a treatment, though he was quite a pyro in his youth, having burned his house down. Still, he deserved to have a vacation after he came back. IF he came back. I left with a smile on my face, but worry in my mind.
break
At the same time the next day, a Wednesday, I felt strange that while I had this concept of seven-day weeks, approximately thirty-day months, and years of twelve named months, Rebecca didn’t count in that manner. She knew of day and night, and divided twenty-four hours accordingly, repeating with no record, endlessly. This would make her unable to track holidays and special occasions with me, but some books in the library had to have this information, as that library was my mind.
Just as I predicted the day before, the young Rebecca didn’t notice when I arrived to her space, and while beast took that into a strange devious corner, I felt that she’d need to turn back to being a woman soon. No doubt I’d get blamed for pulling her out of innocence and encounter a tantrum from JJ. Maybe explaining it could wait a bit, but I commanded the book to my palm and placed it on the desk for when she was ready.
There was a strange sound in the library between the bookshelves, a rustling of a dry bush. I inspected between every two shelves, but found nothing. Rather than throw caution to the wind, I snapped my fingers to turn on a special sort of finder’s eye and scanned the environment again, finding nothing. I sighed and just knew that sound would foreshadow something in the future of Rebecca’s space. I cringed at the negative thoughts and flew off to seek Kara, James, Eva, Rebecca, and JJ. There seemed to be a lot of people in a space built for one. Maybe the rustle in the library were the stories left untold, as I never did ask about the exorcism Rebecca and Finn performed.
Hovering above the whole neighborhood, I felt once more as if I was playing a game of Sims, and yet if I were to put an obstacle before Kara and James, they would tear it down. They weren’t the A.I.s I put in, but Eva was something of a corrupted program, only altered by freedom inside this cage. Beast rattled his cage and thought of a block party orgy with the grandma, the lovers, and a lot of tamales, but I shook the insane idea off my back. That was why he was gagged, blindfolded, chained, caged, and gated. And yet, his thoughts still pierced the impossible veil.
I found JJ first, most as I could see through his eyes if I strained them. There was still an echo of him in my mind, or maybe it was my own imagination that activated only when he was absent to overthink for me. Nevertheless, I saw him in his tree-house, now converted into one giant track with speed booster modules that kept the cars going fast over all of the fifty different kinds of loops. He really took that play time to new heights, but Rebecca was no longer there.
I went out of phase and started going house by house to look for the others, but found nobody at Rebecca’s. There was also nobody at Jorge’s except him left to his meticulous grooming habits. Avery was by herself watching some movie that caused her to shift a hand into her underwear, and while beast rattled his cage, I left her to her privacy. Eva wasn’t at home, but Dax was and he barked as if he could see me. Perhaps I gave dogs too much credit, but was it that hard to believe that a dog would be able to sense me out-of-phase based on other senses that they possessed?
Only three houses remained, but I feared they went to the attic again, so I checked there first. They weren’t there, and Maede seemed to be watching a clip of her late husband back when they were still in love, before the abuse started due to his stress at work. No matter how she tried to please him by being a housewife and giving herself to him, that old bastard went by the way of his father and abused those who loved him. I saw the backstory play in my mind until I felt to check on Erik and Natasha.
Erik’s house was first, and there I found James sitting with him, talking about the played tension I set up between the two lovers-to-be.
“So it’s not that I don’t like her,” Erik said. “We’re just too similar. You see, in magnetism, two charges of the same kind repel each other. I fear getting closer to her because we both may be feeling that-”
“Shut up,” James said and reached out to grab my hand, but his passed right through mine. “Phase in, Jack. I know you’re there. Mr. Barcode played that trick too often for me not to get used to it.” I formed up much to Erik’s shock.
“Relax,” I said. “I’m a friend.”
“Anyways, Erik,” James continued, as if I didn’t exist. “Your case is overthinking it. You’re a guy. She’s a girl. You like similar things, so don’t think of magnetism. Think how much more fun it would be to spend time with someone of the same mind, enjoy all the things together. Not to mention how advantageous that could be in bed.”
“Ekhem,” I said.
“Fine, forget the sex,” James said. “Just be friends with her first. Break past the neighbor dynamic. Meet her in her house, or invite her to yours.”
“Where’s Kara and Rebecca?” I asked.
“They’re talking to Natasha about Erik,” James replied. “Let’s say we’re playing matchmakers. We all decided that these two should be together, even Rebecca. She’s growing up, by the way, by about a year per day. I think it’s cause JJ isn’t holding her at twelve anymore. That kid, well, you, have a short attention span.”
“Yeah, he’s like my ADD or ADHD part,” I said. “Depending on the day. I have to get going, but I see Erik and Natasha are in good hands. Just don’t push them to have sex right away. Their thing is a slow meld, not explosive welding. Ok?” I turned, but received no response from James before I left.
break
When I came back the next morning, the library was abuzz with arguments. Everyone was there, even the two lovers, Erik and Natasha. Samuel sat in the corner talking to grandma Maede as the main cast argued in the open space about something involving Finn and Rebecca. As I flew above them, I felt Rebecca’s eyes narrow and search for me in the air with an angry grimace.
“He’s here!” She shouted, as everyone got quiet and settled to look at the ceiling where I heard that rustling sound again. I turned and fell into phase with gravity at what I witnessed. On the ceiling was a large swath of paper in the shape of a person. It was Finn, somehow turned into a large poster, or maybe trapped within it. Each of his limbs was stabbed through by a letter opener. The only part of his body not stabbed, was his tongue that somehow rolled flat out rather than only appear on the poster. The length rustled to draw attention in a slight draft.
“JJ’s a brat!” Rebecca said, walking up to me with anger on her face that was a defining characteristic of puberty wreaking havoc to the body. “We asked him to help us out, but he got really involved with his race cars and tracks. There is something WRONG with that kid!” I tried to recall why he’d devote so much time to that one plaything, but answered my own question. He got stuck on an idea I approved for him by helping one time. It was ridiculous to think that just because I once added a jump track, he’d make it his life to make the best one to impress me, but those his age had illogical mindsets.
“I’m sorry,” I said and looked up. “I’ll get you down right now.” I looked to Kara and James who looked defeated for some reason. James met my eyes and it was too clear that Finn failed to bring little Johnny home. With a few motions, I released all of the letter openers from the poster as they all shifted back into one. Finnelgamin started falling onto us, but I rolled him up and stuffed the roll into a tube. With a motion of expansion, the dimensions of the tube changed to fit a human being and I opened half of it like a door into a darkness within.
“Finnelgamin?” I asked. The inside was empty, but I did see a tiny fruit fly come out and suddenly produce a giant sword that was meant to cut me, but my hand turned it to molten metal. “Oubedo.” With that word, Finn dropped the weapon and turned human in the space as the dark cylinder poofed out of existence. Before he had a second, I summoned the Queen of White Thorn and had her create a more stylish glowing hat for Finn to wear, so that we could find out what happened. Everyone watched him silently as he stood up.
“Bad news,” he said. “Akier Vil Moredo sends his regards and is amused at the try. Before posting me up, or rather throughout it, he told me that he will move John to a new location so I will no longer be able to find him. He says: ‘Nice try, but there is no cheating me out of my prize.’”
“The prize being me?” I asked. “I’m no prize. I’m just a mentally unstable individual. Oh. Just like him. What does he even want with me?” I inspected Kara and James, feeling the air of deception. Before they could do anything, I asked two metal snakes to bind them discreetly. It was right on time, too, as they both rushed me. The snakes bit into their heels and wrapped around their legs.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll figure this out.” I withdrew the model twenty-four Keir out of Kara’s back pocket and tucked it into mine. Rebecca ran up and tried to remove the metal binds, but only hurt her hands.
“Let them go!” she shouted at me.
“I can’t.” With a wave of my hand, all the A.I.s returned to their routines, but I held Finn back to speak with me rather than leave with Eva. She paused at the door and looked back as if she were to disobey me for Finn, but also left. Rebecca hit me with her bloodied hands, but I just healed her and put hands on her shoulders.
“We have no time to age you back slowly,” I said and met her eyes. With that one look, I aged her back to the woman I created in her own space, though her clothes tore from the expansion. beast roared, but I fixed his gag back on and redressed Rebecca into her old clothes.
“Oh, thank god,” She said. “Well, thank you. Being a kid like JJ was super fun, but when I started growing up, my body started changing. It made me so mad, so ashamed of myself.” I nodded.
“Yeah, that’s called puberty,” I explained. “I had to go through that once, too. It’s the origin of beast, but I punched walls and broke my hands a lot. And of course there was a lot of adjusting to sexuality and stuff. You’ll have to go through it eventually, but this isn’t the time. Finn, can you please put Kara and James upstairs for now?” The metal covered their mouths so they didn’t yell or try to bite. Finn picked them up, now considerably weightless, and headed off.
“I think saving John is up to the two of us, Rebecca,” I said. “I think I need to let beast loose and let him get tamed by you somehow so that you can take him into the Infinity Void and use him as a weapon against Akier Vil Moredo. The reason I am resistant to bringing him out is because he is like me in the same respect that JJ is, and you saw how difficult that kid is to control.”
“Yeah, he’s a brat,” Rebecca said, as Finn returned from upstairs.
“A brat that can create anything he wants to,” I said and turned to Finnelgamin. “I’m sorry I sent you. The plan didn’t work.” He lowered his head.
“I’m sorry that I failed to get John back,” he said. “But I had him. I just had no way to come back, so I had to try and use something of Aki’s. This led him to finding Rebecca’s space, and posting me on the ceiling as a warning.”
“Right,” I said. “So I think Rebecca will need your help to tame beast, but here is the twist. She will need the fully functional Finnelgamin.” Finn held his glowing hat down in shock.
“No,” he said. “I’m not myself at full strength. It’s like I have a beast of my own and the dull-o-hat helps me cage him. Please don’t take it away!” I put up a hand for him not to worry.
“I won’t,” I said. “I had the Queen of White Thorn make it a hat this time for a reason. It’s meant to be removable by Rebecca. Rebby, if you want a chance to tame my beast, you will first have to get Finn under control. I know it’s a lot to ask, but-.”
“Challenge accepted,” she said, with a wacky grin from that one show. I smiled for a second, but frowned at the amount of danger I was putting her in.
“In case he goes wild,” I said. “Remember that one word from before. It’ll still work to subdue him.” I sighed. “And with that, I have to go. Be careful, Rebecca, and good luck.” She said nothing, only nodded. I could see the fear in Finnelgamin’s eyes when I left.
break
When I returned the next morning, I thought back to Kara and James, bound in the upstairs bedroom. Rebecca and Finn didn’t really have the means to free the two denizens of the Infinity Void, unless they somehow asked JJ to turn the woven steel into string. I arrived upstairs to Tiarto’s old bedroom to check on them, and was right, at least about Rebecca and Finn not being able to free them. With a wave of my hand, each steel weave melted to a pair of handcuffs.
“Hey,” I said, as Kara sat up first.
“Where is it?” She asked. I pulled the Keir version twenty-four out of thin air for a moment to show her before I put it back into the hidden space. Kara almost leapt for it, but narrowed her eyes at me as the device vanished.
“Relax,” I said, and kicked James who was still asleep, just lightly enough to rouse him. “Rebecca, Finnelgamin, and I have a plan to get John back from Aki. It will involve patience to a degree, because we have to find his ass again. Once Finn is tamed, he might have some insight. Speaking of finding things, what about your old man? Did you ever find that gemstone he was bound in by Mr. Barcode’s lekerator?”
“You don’t know?” James asked, as Kara avoided eye contact. He looked to her as if for approval to discuss it, but she didn’t meet his eyes either. “Guess you’re not as all-knowing as we believed you to be. Yes, we found the old man whose name makes too many connections to mention. As a result of being inside a space where matter ought not exist however, his temporary containment became his final resting place. We have him at home, a green gem within a robotic doll created by Barc. He travels with us when we’re all together, but John is priority above the survival of worlds.” I looked to Kara who was a bit doom-and-gloom at the re-visitation of the past.
“I failed him,” she said. “Now he’s gotta live as a robot like Barcode, and Moredo has my son. Tell me, Jack, what plan could you possibly have?” She met my eyes on the verge of tears. I didn’t like seeing her like this. Kara was the most kick-ass, portal-walking, world-traveling, tomboy-princess-balancer, and it was all my fault she had that weakness. I was still confused about one thing. What did Moredo want from me?
“Right now, Rebecca is trying to tame Finnelgamin,” I said. “He will be the insight to finding Aki again, as for how to beat him… There is me, and there is the both of you.” I turned to James.
“I need you to go to all the worlds you visited, James,” I said. “Bring back all the items you can that you once had in your satchel, magical, mysterious, and scientific. Then, we will need Mr. Barcode to work on making them simpler to use.”
“And then what?” Kara asked. “You send Finn equipped with all that to try again?”
“No,” I replied. “Finn’s just our possible insight, and for Rebecca, he’s just practice. The one going after Moredo will be me, or one particular part of me, beast.”
“You can’t tame beast,” James said. “You said so yourself.”
“If Rebecca can tame Finn in some way,” I said, “I will give her beast to do the same. While she’s in her space, she cannot die, but there is pain.”
“You realize that you’re putting her in harm’s way, right?” Kara asked. “Her mind will never be the same again after interacting with your controlled insanity.”
“To be honest, this was bound to happen,” I said and popped their handcuffs off on a hunch that they would not attack me anymore. “It was only a matter of time until my darkness infected those I cared for. That’s mostly why I keep away from people I start to care for. I’m a sort of poison at a certain point, only coated and masked to look normal.” Kara and James were silent. I shouldn’t have told them that. Kara stood up and waved for James to stand as well, I felt a bit cautious as she walked up to me. I had a last resort ready with a twitch of my pinky, but Kara stepped up and hugged me.
I was shocked for a moment, but this could have been a ploy to subdue me, take me in and trade for John. A mother would do anything to save her child. I expected James to rush me with a drug and put me to sleep, but he stood back as Kara put her mouth to my ear.
“Don’t ever think that shit again,” she whispered. “You believe that for any longer and I will personally seek out your gem in the void and crush it out of existence. We clear?” I nodded against her neck with tears building up in my eyes.
“I felt this way once,” Kara said. “I will never allow another to suffer if I can do something about it.” With that, she let go, and stepped to the side as James embraced me stronger. His arms forced me into his muscles as he put one hand behind my neck and the other held me to him at the back. He said nothing for a moment, only held me as if inside a mold until I felt myself come apart from the solid I created myself to be. He was the support for that moment. Once I re-stitched my fabric of mind, he spoke.
“Others once did this for me,” he whispered. “Held me so tight that I could restructure my thinking. That’s why you can’t keep away from people, Jack. Others have problems, too, and sometimes they need to unweave and restitch their mind. Find them for yourself and hold them through that metamorphosis. Be there for them and they will be there for you.” He let go as I felt a cold all over my body until a blazing hand touched my shoulder. We locked eyes, and he nodded curtly with a smile. It made me smile in kind.
“Thanks,” I said and felt tears spring forth. “I didn’t even get to check on Rebecca. Can I ask you to do so before you leave to collect the items from the void?” Kara and James held out their thumbs up. “With that, I’ve got to go. Here.” I pulled the twenty-fourth version of the Keir from the hidden dimension and tossed it over to Kara as I vanished from the space.
break
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