Vicious Memories

Chapter 49 - Alice

The recent deaths left a horrible taste in my mouth, curdled milk from a jug that hadn't even expired yet. Death was not a warm part of the world we lived in. Death as a result of murder was worse yet.

On my way back to the caves I swung by the monkeypod tree - my graveyard tree, my spirit tree - and picked a fresh bouquet of flowers: blue and yellow and orange. Their scent and positivity would bring a much needed aura to the caves. Maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to combat the terrible events of the past week.

I sighed as I lay down in my nook, but sleep refused to come.

A group of half-seen spirits swished through the dark with the night owls and moths, laughing at me as an ocean's riptide laughs at a child's ankle. They threatened to clamp down, to wash me out to sea, to drown me beneath the waves. They mocked me and claimed that I was not enough - that I would never be enough.

I hated them.

I hated the new duties that Gabriel had thrust upon me when he named me Fist of the village.

I cringed and rolled over restlessly as I thought about all the people who would now openly rely on me. They would come to me for support and guidance, talk to me as soon as anything went wrong. I thought of Neema raising her eyebrows as she asked for assistance, Mads cursing in French as she cried out for help, Finn and Cooper stumbling around with their hair hanging over their eyes, unable to see, blinded by an unknown enemy and asking me to save them. I thought of Jessica and Sirus and Shana and Mads' unborn child, their spirits set loose into the great unknown before they were ready to go.

I had always felt protective of them, loved them. But I had never felt adequate enough to be their sole guardian, their last line of defense.

That was my responsibility now... That was what came with being named Fist.

Wind blew its moaning song through the caves. Overhead, the universe's dark void fought its unending battle against the twinkling white stars. It might be time, I thought deliriously, finally falling asleep. Time to see what this is all about. Time for some answers. Time for all of this to end, to see if I have become enough... enough to survive, to be accepted, to make a real connection with somebody.

But I didn't want to think about that. I wanted to fall asleep thinking of something better. Something warmer, and kinder, and full of laughter and good intentions.

My thoughts landed on him immediately.

A half-smile tip-toed across my lips as I thought about his big eyes, so deep and green and full of wonder; of messy brown hair that had probably never seen a comb; of the playful kink in his nose; of the shoulders emerging from the extra weight that seemed to be melting away. I thought of his mischievous smile and his need to constantly fidget - shifting from foot to foot, cracking his knuckles, looking this way and that. I thought of the scars running down his left arm, remnants of a past life I would never know.

I liked the way he cared, and loved the way he tried to do good as a reflex. I empathized with the way he tried to overcome whatever demons plagued him, the ones that drove him beneath a relentless whip of obsession toward a quest for answers.

But more than anything I thought about the way he had looked at me last night, as if I was the only person in the world, the only one that made him real, the only one who could save him...

The only one he could connect with.

I hummed with contentment as I fell asleep—

And didn't wake up until an hour later, when a metal knife came to steal my life away.