Peppermint

Chapter 30 - Mr. DNA

***ALEX***

By this time, the evacuation from San Francisco is over, and now everyone who left the city is making their way back in. Which means traffic trouble for us, and if not for a good half of us not having wings, we could simply fly into the city instead. But that's off the table, so let me break out a Yoda-style rhyme: stuck in our cars, we are.

"You okay?" Mom asks. She's sitting by my side, but I'm paying more attention to my other side. My right, where my window is.

"Not really." I breathe on the window and trace the shape of an arrow in the fog, like I'm a little kid. An arrow with a heart-shaped tip. Pointing, roughly, towards home. Or towards the car behind us, where everyone else sits. Everyone who voted in Mr. G's favor, as well as the man himself. This heart shape is meant for all but the man in that car. Not to shoot into their hearts, not like that. Just a symbol to show I care about them as they deserve. No, Mr. G gets a plain old arrow, which I sculpt in my breath-fog as carefully as I can for maximum sharpness.

Mom leans closer to me. I'm not looking at her, but I know she is, because she starts thinking to me instead of talking. Are we sure that Graziadei person is really...? She doesn't finish her sentence, but I know what she wants to say anyway.

I'm sure he is, I say. But he's still an assbutt.

Well, from the way you went up and slapped him in the face... Mom's voice trails off again. Is he really who he says he is?

You can say it, what he says.

Mom scoffs out loud. He says he's God. But then, you slapped him, so...

I don't care if he says he's God, Zeus, or Abraham Lincoln. He's an assbutt, like I said.

Mom scoffs again. You're preaching to the choir, Alex. I don't read as much sci-fi or fantasy as you do, and even I know that guy's plan is bullshit.

I finally turn her way so I can give her a smile. A pained one, yes, but a genuine one all the same. Common sense prevails in this ride.

Mom sighs through her nose as she puts both her hands on my shoulders. Alex... She looks down, sniffing loudly as she starts to cry, and I find myself doing the same purely out of sympathy. You're a strong boy, you know. But you don't have to fight every fight. Now she reaches up to wipe my tears, letting her own drip from her cheeks onto the upholstery. You've been stretching yourself so thin for the last year. Just the last few days, you were in bed-

Don't remind me-

Please. Mom tightens her grip. We're gonna fight this fight here. We can't just give up now. But after that? No more. For your sake. She pauses, drawing breath despite her not having actually spoken out loud. And mine too.

What can I say to this? I can't predict the future. I can't account for future atrocities in which I or Gabe could be involved. Mom's right, my mental health can't take much more strain. But Catholic guilt, it's real. Even for lapsed Catholics. And if I let my friends keep fighting while I don't, and if they died for me, I'd be even less able to live with myself than I currently am.

I'll just have to wait and see what happens, I guess.

Though seriously, I really do hope I don't have to do any more fighting after this.

And of course, that all depends on how much of an assbutt Elliot Graziadei really is. How much he'd be willing to kill me and Gabe just because he's that much of a Breaker-phobe. How much Josh was telling the truth about him. I've been second-guessing him all along, I think, but now less so than ever. Second-guessing Josh, I mean.