Authors: Felicia Jedlicka
“Nothing is wrong with me!” Gypsy defended on more than one level. “She has a right to choose.” She looked to Cori who had stopped crying as quickly as she started. “I just thought, given the difficult situation you have coming up, you’d want to know your options.”
“You practically told her having a baby here is insane and she should abort it!” Ethan yelled. “What kind of person does that?” Gypsy tipped her head at Ethan. She didn’t like this version of him. He was turning into Cori’s Ethan right before her eyes.
“Gypsy’s right,” Cori said making everyone turn to her. She looked at her with something resembling pity, but it was more emphatic. “I do deserve to have my options explained to me, even if I would never consider them.” Cori touched her belly as if she were displaying her motherly instincts just by doing so. “Thank you.”
Cori turned to the others and excused herself for the evening. She made the excuse of being tired, but she was clearly getting out of the way so everyone could yell at her. Danato and Ethan emerged from the floor as if gentlemanly behavior still dictated they stand when a lady leaves the room.
“Aren’t you going to apologize?” Ethan leered at her over the coffee table. She could tell he wanted to hit her again. Whatever this button was she had pushed, she wasn’t going to be able to un-push it.
“No, you hit me remember. It’s your turn to placate and pander.”
“I meant to Cori.”
Cori averted her eyes, trying to stay out of the argument altogether.
“I know what you meant.”
He shook his head slowly, nostrils flaring. He looked like he was going to say more, but Cori touched his hand. The gentle gesture was enough to draw his eyes, and reduce the tenseness in his body.
It was fascinating to see how Cori sought to calm the men while Gypsy loved nothing more than seeing their tempers flare. It was a sick hobby indeed, but she might have found a new game to play.
If Ethan was now out from under her thumb, there was only one final play to be made. Win or lose it didn’t matter anymore since she would be dead either way.
Cori disentangled herself from Ethan’s arms and slipped out of bed. He stirred slightly hugging the pillow in her absence. She paused to enjoy the view of his Adonis body once more before she slipped out the door.
She tip toed down the stairs, though she wasn’t necessarily hiding her exit from anyone except Ethan. Sneaking away from him in the middle of the night wasn’t a plan she was proud of, but she couldn’t bear watching his face contort in grief when she had to say her final goodbye tomorrow…today. No amount of explanation would prevent him from thinking that she was abandoning him, so it was just best done quickly and with as little drama as possible.
She slipped out the front door and jogged over to the prison. Once inside, she headed straight for Danato’s office to find the lamp. As agreed, the lamp was left on his desk to await her decision. It was strange to her that he would leave something so dangerous out in the open, but the lamp did come with its own security measures. Plus, it wasn’t like the prop room had ever been secure.
She picked up the lamp carefully by the handle and spout. Before she spoke the words, she did a mental checklist, as anyone would before leaving for a long trip: keys, wallet, enchanted rings, and kneepads for upcoming groveling. There was one thing she forgot; something she wanted to do before she left. She couldn’t do it when she got back—or at least it would be more difficult in her reality. She replaced the lamp and headed for the basement.
Cori was greeted on the basement level by a cacophony of hoots, howls, and cage rattling. She slipped through the section divide and made her way to Cleos’s cell. She hated seeing him behind bars instead of soundproof glass. She had firsthand knowledge of how much he detested the racquet of his neighboring photophobes and unfortunately her presence wasn’t making things any quieter for him.
Cleos was curled on his cot in a fetal position with his ears covered. The creatures hounding her from the nearby cells were so loud that conversation was effectively off the table as an activity. She concentrated on her purpose and managed to create a ball of flame big enough to envelope the corridor and scare back the monsters from their doors.
The majority of the noise ceased and Cleos uncovered his ears. He looked up baffled by the sudden silence accompanying her visit. His eyes looked dark from too much stress and not enough sleep. She couldn’t remember if he even looked this run-down the first time she had met him.
“Cleos.” She smiled and put her hands through the cage. “I don’t have much time. I’m…leaving soon.”
Cleos stood, but stayed just out of reach of her. He examined her with the same almost sexual gaze that he had mastered. “What exactly have you not much time for?” He tipped a brow at her, and she resisted smiling, since it would only encourage further flirtation.
“Cleos, I need…I want to talk to you.”
He furrowed his brow. “I’m not accustomed to getting guests. Nor am I accustomed to entertaining them. I don’t know what trickery you have planned for Danato, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel the need to participate in this.” He turned around making his proverbial if not literal exit.
“In my reality I convinced Danato to put you in a glass cage so you didn’t have to deal with the noise from your unruly neighbors.” One such neighbor struggled in vain to get hold of her from the next cell. She zapped him with a spark that made him yelp and recoil into the darkness of his cage.
“Why would you do that?” Cleos asked suddenly back at the bars, a good deal closer than he was before. Cori drew back a little, but kept her hands on the bars to let him know she wasn’t afraid of him.
“It was a reward of sorts, for helping me take back the prison from the elementals when they escaped…the first time.” Cleos chuckled and walked away again. “I know you don’t believe who I say I am. Since you can’t read me, I can’t prove it, but I do have a question for you. One that you might be able to answer more honestly as a stranger than as my friend.”
He linked his fingers in front of him and lifted his chin slightly, as if he were calling on her in a classroom. “Proceed, if you must, but be forewarned I bore easily.”
Cori nodded and shocked Cleos’s grabby neighbor again—slow learner. “I’ve angered you.”
“Not at all, kill the little rodent if it pleases you,” he retorted misunderstanding her statement as a question.
“No, Cleos, in my version of things, these rings have been troublesome. I’ve done something to anger you.”
“I don’t anger easily.” He shrugged.
“Yeah, but only because you’re a cold revenge type of guy.” Cori’s smirk died before it was ever fully there. “I absorbed some of your powers and ignorantly used them…against you.”
Cleos stepped forward examining the rings a little closer. “
You
read
me
?”
“Yes.” Cori swallowed hard. “I found out why you lobotomized those women.”
“Erased, not lobotomized!” Cleos snapped despite his claims against angering easily.
“Erased,” she clarified.
“So, I am angry because you know the truth about my imprisonment?”
“You were displeased by the invasion, because I delved into an area of your mind that is considered taboo, even for psychics. Apparently, what you do is overachieving, and what I did was…rude.”
“Yes, I can see why you angered me?”
“There was a good deal of argument, but I didn’t gain your full wrath until I forgave you for what you did.” Cleos took in a deep breath, indicating that this reaction was not specific to their relationship. “My question is: why are you angry at me for forgiving you?”
Cleos looked around his cell like he hadn’t bothered to look at it in the last decade. “Perhaps you’re confused about what it is I’m mad about. Forgiveness implies you think I did something wrong. A soldier of war may feel guilty for killing his enemies, but for someone to forgive him for it would be insulting to his pride in duty.”
“You aren’t necessarily mad that I forgave you, but that I thought I needed to.”
“I assume if we are as you say…friends,” the word sounded foreign to his lips, “then I suppose that I would take even more insult to it.”
“I’m still surprised you took it so badly. You’ve never claimed to be the good guy.”
“Even bad guys have to draw a line somewhere. They don’t often do it, but when they do it’s usually inflexible.”
Cori sighed. “I don’t suppose you have any advice for me?”
“You mean other than stay away from me?”
“Many have tried and failed on that particular request. Once I establish friendship, you’re kind of stuck with me.”
“Interesting, then perhaps you should know that I’ve never had a friend that I didn’t use and abuse in some way. It’s difficult to resist manipulating someone’s mind, when it’s right at my fingertips. I doubt you would be the exception to that rule, regardless of our rapport.”
Cori shook her head somberly. “You’re one big act, Cleos. I know deep down that you aren’t as heartless as you pretend to be.”
“And how do you know that?” He double-dog-dared her to answer.
“Because,” she tapped the metal bars, “you’re in this cage.” Cori walked away before he could respond.
He was definitely Cleos, but like Ethan, he was a version that hadn’t been impacted by her presence. She pushed open the airlock to the last section before the elevators. If she gained nothing from this fucked up version of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” she would now know that...walking into a section full of
escaped
photophobes was a bad idea.
“Oh, shit.” Cori stared down the line of snarling, drooling, mostly vampiric creatures that were wondering the corridor section between her and the elevators. They stared back at her, elated by the happy accident. She wasn’t quite as pleased by it, but she was definitely electrified.
Gypsy had a plan. It wasn’t complex or well thought out, but it was artfully diabolic and she was very proud of it.
As with most achievements worth bragging about, she started from scratch. In this case, that meant starting with the bottom dwellers. When she caught Cori in the basement talking to one of the photophobes, she thought her plan might be thwarted before it was started. But Gypsy was nothing if not resilient. A few unlocked doors later, and she was on her way back up the stairs.
She skipped through the main foyer to Danato’s office and removed her gun before entering. She eyed the lamp on his desk warily at first, but then abruptly picked it up by the spout and flipped it up in the air. She barely caught it by the handle and stuffed it into a drawstring bag before securing it too her belt.
She turned around to leave, but found Belus standing in the door to the office. His hard glower said a thousand things, and none of them were nice. She couldn’t help but smile at this little curve ball. He was always so intuitive, which meant it was harder to manipulate him. For once, she didn’t even have to try. The truth was out in the open, and it was ugly.
“I knew you would try something like this,” he said still maintaining a casual lean on the doorframe, even though they both knew he was just staying close to her gun.
“You did? I didn’t. I just came up with it.”
“You’re just a walking time bomb.”
Gypsy clicked her tongue and waved her index finger at him. “No, no, Ruthie, the phrase is bombshell.” She winked at him, but the humor disappeared into the abyss of tension between them.
“You’re a sociopath, Gypsy.”
“Isn’t that just a big scientific word for asshole?” She rubbed her tongue across the exposed teeth in her smile.
“I don’t think you were meant to be this way. I think you just can’t balance out the good and bad memories. I think you would have been better off dying in that alley.”
Gypsy finally lost her cocky smirk. She wasn’t shocked by hearing him say it, but she was surprised by how sympathetic he said it. He honestly thought death was the only way to fix her irreverent cynicism for life. “You could fix that, or at least try.” She glanced to the spot where her gun was on the other side of the wall.
“You think you can pull that sword before I can get this gun.” He glanced to the sword hanging awkwardly on her left hip. She could pull it and stab him in one graceful movement, but whether she would be fast enough to avoid a gunshot wound was another thing all together.
“If I’m going to die, I’d rather it be by you. At least I know you wouldn’t sob over me while I take my last breaths.”
“Even if I did, they wouldn’t be for you,” he said.
She perked an eyebrow at the strange statement, but didn’t pursue an explanation. “Let’s get this over with so I can get back to freeing the prisoners.”
Belus’s eyes widened and he reached for the gun without a pre-emptive catch phrase. He trusted that he would reach the gun before she could even pull her sword so he didn’t duck for cover behind the wall. He was right of course about the sword, but he didn’t take into account the blade she had concealed near the small of her back.