Devour

Epilogue - Dax

I don't think I believe in anything anymore.

I don't know if anyone knows what's wrong me or as much as it is.

I think I've stood here in the dorm they've lent me for over an hour, staring at the wall.

Blood drips down my face.

I've been trying to find them.

It never works. They're not there. I was hoping---since Rose was.

But they aren't there.

And I don't know if I even care. It's more like they should be alive and I shouldn't because they would have cared about things. I feel my cellphone vibrating in my pocket. Miss Cora gave me one, though I'm not supposed to own one. It's for emergencies obviously. Lots of mutants have them if they're handlers let them. My dad doesn't because he can talk to anyone he likes at any time. Well I guess so can I. Not that anyone needs to know that.

Almost anyone.

I'm fine. You don't have to call me. Go to bed.

Rose is glad I'm okay and hopes I'm not bleeding and sitting alone like I do.

Of course I am.

I lie down on the bed without undressing. Miss Cora isn't around to tell me to shower and go get changed. Sometimes I don't mind her, then I feel guilty and then I do. But anyway she isn't here to tell me so I don't do it. It saves time in the morning and I don't care what I look like. It's one of those stupid assessment things. Follow up since the incident. I tend to do poorly. Not so poorly they remand me as an Agent, but poorly enough that they don't put double cuffs on me and register me as a dangerous person like my dad. His status has gone down since the incident, since he claims injury. Injury he healed from a long time ago.

The incident is what we call Patch now. We don't talk about him much. Miss Cora doesn't know him, or remember him. My dad thinks about him often, but he won't say much. And Emma and I still can't speak of those days so far away, when everything was all right and we were all safe.

Me? I think of Patch every day. Every hour. Someone who so carelessly took so much from me. Twice.

I know my dad doesn't expect him to be dead. He thinks he's still alive somehow. And he's waiting for him to come back. Him or the mysterious American who took him away.

But neither of them seem to care to return. Maybe someday they will. For now we have to live knowing they exist and could come back. Or creatures like them. What if Patch's birth had never been reported? Or the records altered like Quincy's? Would we be this bad off? Or worse?

I don't know. I don't have the right answers to questions. Maybe there aren't right answers.

I don't know if I fall asleep, but I definitely wake to noise in the hall. That's odd at this time of night.

I sit up slowly. It's not noise. It's music.

All Star.

I stand up, looking at the door, from underneath it shines a bright light. I walk up to it, the noise is a bit louder, clearly coming from the hall.

I look at my phone. Dozens of texts to the effect of 'Are you okay? Call me now'.

I look back at the door, then confidently open it.