The Last Knights of Cambria Book 2: Reflections of Dancer

Chapter 3: Escape from the wrong century

Dancer
"So let me get this straight. Dear old mum and dad lose me, completely, after already letting Cameron and Bobby smash up my leg. You feel the first bit of paternal affection you have—ever —felt in your sorry life for me who you've seen let's be generous three times since I was born—,"
"Four—yeah go on," Jay says, loading his arms with bags of gummy bears and chips. We are standing in a CVS. It is four am. The fluorescent lights flicker. For whatever reason the Americans running the place have decided not to become involved in the two British men who look like escapees from the set of Dead Poets Society, who are having this very personal argument in the middle of salty crisps aisle.
"—four times since I was born. You feel the first spark of paternal affection. Get sober probably for the first time since you were ten. And sober-Jay decides that the best way to remedy the situation at hand is to get revenge, by gruesomely murdering entire family in a way that somehow looked like an accident. After fifteen successive funerals and becoming the sole heir to a billion dollar fortune and still unable to find me—you up and decided that sober-Jay WAS NOT the best version of Jay we could hope for, and have since spent the past nine years living off the family fortune being as high and drunk as possible, constantly, to forget that sober you is a psychopath. Is that—does that about cover it?" I ask, hands on hips, "That's what you're trying to tell me happened while I was gone?"
"I mean—yes. But I sound a lot worse when you say it, than when I say it," he mutters, picking up a case of beer, "Come on, do you have what you want?"
"Oh yes," I say, walking up to the counter and setting down a pack of razor blades.
"Do whatever you want with the change," Jay tosses some American money on the counter and herds me out of the warmth of CVS into the cold morning. He throws the food basically on me and the damp rubber floor mats, and slides into the front seat.
"Well?" I look at him, "That was it? This—was your best?"
"I didn't not—I never didn't care about you. I just figured you were better off without me. For—lets go with obvious reasons," he says, quietly.
"That your response to basic concern and trauma is 'yes murder'? Yeah, I think I did fine," I snarl.
"Eat something," he mutters, opening a beer.
He drives us to some sort of abandoned dock and parks. Judging by the yellow cones and fences we drove through to get here, I'm just going to assume we're not meant to park here. But we do, staring out at the filthy water of the harbor, on a cold New York morning. It was the solstice. So what, a couple of days before Christmas? No wonder it's cold.
"Eat something, what do you want?" He asks, holding up a packet of Slim Jim's.
"I have everything I need," I say, tearing the razor packet open, hands trembling. I roll up my left sleeve, and dig the blade into my skin, waiting for the satisfying, sharp pain. I breath out, slowly. Four cuts on each wrist. Soon my skin is stinging and sticky blood is running down it.
"You're as messed up as I am," Jay says, quietly watching, doing nothing to stop me.
"I'm nothing like you," I say.
"Do you remember me calling you Dancer?" He asks, quietly.
"Yeah."
"I was over, whatever, from college I guess, and I was drinking, and I turned on Fall Out Boy and for whatever reason you kept spinning around and laughing. You were probably three, you kept tugging me to dance with you. You didn't remember who I was," Jay says, lighting a cigarette that, given the envelope he got it out of, isn't a normal cigarette.
"I don't remember," I say, cutting the back of my arm as the pain slowly begins to clear my head from the other pain vibrating around in it. At least now my skin is a reflection of the torment I feel inside. And something is real.
"I guess you don't want me calling you that," he says, quietly.
"I don't care. I don't plan on being here much longer," I say, quietly, turning the blade over in my bloody fingers. Breath. Just breath.  The car's heat is pumping and the blood quickly becoming coagulated and lumpy on my skin. I carefully wipe the clots away with the side of my hand to watch the wounds bleed afresh.
"Who have you been staying with?"
"Just people. I need to go back," I say, "I wouldn't have bothered you except for the cops."
"I didn't—I looked for you. I couldn't find you."
"I know. I was far away," I say, staring out the fogging up windshield at the slow sunrise, "And I didn't want to be found."
"Okay, I guess I deserve that."
"Yeah, I guess you do," I say, quietly.
"Someday you're gonna fall in love with someone you shouldn't, and have your own smart mouthed kid, and I'm gonna be dead and not even get to watch," he mutters, cracking his window to hold the cigarette out of it.
"Dad's current girlfriend was a pretty big 'shouldn't', I can add you were fifteen," I snarl.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Know that you not only brought me into this world but you left me with them, you gave me up to your parents who made you like this," I say, "I'm not going to forgive you for that."
"Okay."
"Okay then," I say, tipping the blade back to the soft skin of my left wrist. Just one more time. It's always just one more time.
"Were you happy?"
"What?"
"Whoever it is you've been staying with. Were you happy?" Jay asks.
"I suppose so, yes," I say, "I'm going back. I just needed out of that police station. Just drop me off at a library or something. I do well in libraries. I do very well in libraries."
"I'm not just dropping you off someplace—will you eat something?" He sighs, "And stop doing that to yourself?"
"I don't want to eat something. I don't want to be around you. It's been ten years, I'm seventeen years old, Jay. I've actually probably killed more people than you have. The person I love is dying because of me a million miles away and to save him I had to kill my best friend," I say, my voice cracking as I feel tears well up in my eyes. "You are nothing to me anymore. Whatever I wanted from you when I was a child is long since gone. I don't need you. I have my own life now."
"I know you do. And I want to help you with that. In whatever way I can," Jay says, softly, "I don't make good decisions—obviously. Or we wouldn't be sitting a stolen car waiting to meet my dealer so I can get high so I can live with how badly I've let you down. But I'm fine with directions so tell me what you want. Tell me what I need to do for you and I'll do it."
"Got all the money in the world don't we? And not a single person to care about us," I say, tipping my head against the cold glass of the window.
"Something like that. What do you need? We'll do it. I've got—time obviously. I don't have to meet anyone and you don't have to talk to me again but let me help you get home," Jay sighs, "Let me at least do that. If that's what matters to you now."
"I need probably ten thousand pounds, because I need to get to England," I say, rubbing my face, "But I don't even know I'm sure you don't have my old passport and I'm probably legally dead by now."
"Well, we have a private plane that could help," he scoffs.
"We do?" I ask, hopefully.
"Yeah, I'll fly you to London—don't look at me like that no not personally I've got a pilot. Is that where you've been staying? London?"
"Not exactly," a plan is beginning to form in my mind. The start of one anyway.  I can get back. I can do this. I can get back and I can make everything right again.