People caring about you can be very inconvenient. In the wake of my recently sustained injuries, my best friend has kept me restrained to her property. I’m literally not allowed to leave. I can’t even resist because Nettie, in a surprising turn of events, is being supported in her act of imprisonment by my boyfriend? Significant other? Romantic partner? My waiter, at any rate. These two had to pick the most untimely moment to agree on something, that something being that I was prohibited from walking, standing, moving and altogether thinking too hard.
I had been tied to the sofa with several blankets and Kit Sutton had taken it upon herself to entertain me with all the songs from her planned upcoming album played live unplugged and in chronological order. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t demanded a detailed review for each and every one of them. Still, I have to admit there were some, as Eli put it, “real bangers” among them, with Ruby-Red Rash and Rhinestone Princess ranking among my favorites. The latter was a lot more poetic than what Kit usually does. Not that that was a point of criticism. I did think the subject matter of My Roommate Kinda Scares Me was a bit too personal, though.
I checked in with Elijah Carter earlier. I was glad he was hanging around, especially since I had been worried about how the entire affair had affected him. When I asked him about it, he actually seemed slightly amused. “Did you think I’d lose my shit or something?”
I shrugged. “It was a tense situation, and with what you told me happened at that school…”
He stayed silent for a beat, clearly thinking of and discarding several possible answers. “I’d tell you it doesn’t affect me anymore, but that just wouldn’t be true. I got good and bad days, and you got me on a good one. It was tense for sure, but I’m feeling fine and I’m glad I could help.” Smiling, he raised the cup he was holding to me in a mock toast.
“Are there more good days or bad?” I inquired.
“I still jump at loud noises sometimes… always feel so awkward when that happens. And occasionally, I’ll get the jitters out of nowhere and my heart’ll beat something fierce. Overall though?” He hummed. “More good days, definitely.”
I smiled at him, truly pleased at this response. Mary Markov came calling later that day. She looked completely out of place surrounded by Nettie’s quilts, decorative plushies and pastoral scenes; her crisp business attire made her stand out like a sore thumb. “Very, um… cottagecore,” she commented as she sat down in the large, cushy armchair across from me. My savior human offered her some tea, which she politely declined. “It’s a relief to see you’re quite well,” she told me. “I’ve come to address the matter of the impending apocalypse.”
“As I would expect,” I replied, sitting up in my sofa nook.
“The heads are unfortunately not at the old warehouse, though that would have certainly been convenient. Jewel has regained consciousness and is currently being held in one of our agency’s own prison cells, which is most likely where they’ll spend the remainder of their life. We might use them to conduct some much-needed scientific studies on your kind, but that’s undecided as of yet.” She steepled her fingers. “The issue at hand is that all our efforts at interrogation have failed. They’re not very forthcoming with their knowledge. Of course that was to be expected, but it’s still… not good.”
“Have they said anything at all?”
“No. Well, yes. They’ve expressed a desire to speak with you.”
I raised a brow. I had not expected the cultist to ever want to see me again.
Mary’s painted lips tilted and she gave me a considering look. “I understand your apprehension, but that is in fact what Jewel told me. Using a more peculiar choice of words.”
I motioned for her to elaborate and she sighed. “I did ask them about it and they claimed their feelings about you were complicated. To quote them directly, ‘I want to kill Evangeline Shirley but I also want her to sit on my face.’”
A sharp cracking noise rang out from behind me and I turned to see that Frankie had crushed an empty cup he’d just picked up from the table in his fist. “‘Scuse me,” he said, smiling in his affected server-kind of way.
Mary Markov reached up to massage her temples. “I’ll assume that Mr Preston will insist on accompanying you for the interrogation. While you’re there, you may as well check in on Phoenix.”
“We can do that,” Fran agreed, voice tight as he bent to collect the shards.
“I’ll come along, too, if that’s alright,” Elijah added. “I kinda wanna see this cult-thing through.”
The newsreader shrugged her confirmation. We got going right away, the three of us squeezing into Eli’s car and following the lead of Mary’s black truck. The drive lasted upwards of two hours, taking us along a lonely country road—one of those things I always knew existed despite never having been down it before. Eventually, we reached a more civilized-looking area and finally pulled up in front of a huge industrial complex. Three separate guards waved us through three consecutive barbed wire fences barring the enormous building from the outside.
On the side of the giant cube, the name of some fictional company was written. Eli expressed doubt as to whether anyone would actually fall for the pretense of this being a factory, to which Frankie pulled up a quick google search to show him that the agency had, in fact, created a facade to the full. “Better than Flowers By Irene or something, I guess,” Elijah remarked, pursing his lips as his gaze traveled the perimeter.
We got out and let Mary Markov lead us inside. Some lengthy corridors and an elevator ride later, we found ourselves in something resembling a prison block like I’d often seen on TV. The newsreader announced that she’d be taking us to see Phoenix first. The doll’s holding cell was nicely furnished, a cozy space that was more like a regular living room than anything else.
“She hasn’t done anything wrong; not really,” Mary remarked, a hint of compassion seeping into her normally stern voice as she pulled the reinforced chamber door shut behind us. “We’ve been trying to make her comfortable.”
The room was bigger than anticipated. There was a bed beneath the barred window in the far wall and a small sofa in the corner but Phoenix was occupying neither of them. It took me a moment to locate the doll. She was cowering in the nook behind the now closed door, completely motionless and with her back turned to us. Long, singed hair hung down to her waist, covering however much we might have glimpsed of her features otherwise. I instinctively sought to put as much distance between the doll and myself as possible, backing off into the opposite corner of the room. I was distantly aware that she posed no actual threat to me anymore, but the sight of her alone was still enough to make my hackles stand up.
Silence hung heavy above us as we stood unmoving, undecided. I only noticed that I hadn’t blinked in far too long when I took note of the burning pain in my eyes. Elijah apologized in a dry voice, murmuring that he was going to stay in the hallway while we handled this after all. Mary quickly let him out, unlocking and opening the door for him which briefly obstructed the view on the doll. When it fell shut and we could see Phoenix once again, I instantly shrunk back, my heart dropping into my stomach. Within the short moment that had passed, the puppet had risen to her feet.
She stood upright, her arms hanging limply from jagged, partially skinned shoulders. I could now see the plastic and gray metals jabbing out beneath the artificial flesh, the mechanical joints and cables lying bare. She was teetering slightly, like a leaf being swayed in the wind. I tried to soothe my racing mind. There was no need to be afraid. All she had done was stand up.
“Phoenix?” Frankie asked, cautiously breaking the uneasy silence. “Is that your name?”
No response.
“You don’t need to talk to me if you don’t want to. It’s all the same to me,” he went on, burying his fists in the pockets of his racing jacket. “I’m the one who made you, at any rate. I didn’t build your body, but I’m the reason you can move around without anyone telling you. I know it sucks, and I’m sorry. Can’t change it now, though, so… yeah.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, Phoenix turned around. Mary let go of a quiet sigh of relief that turned into a high-pitched shriek of shock when the doll leapt forward. She charged, her movements practically too fast for me to process. I had no time to dodge or duck, only managing to feebly raise my arms to shield my head as I staggered back. She was upon me, toppling me over and sending me sprawling onto my back. Her face was inches away from mine, her mangled, molten visage looking like something from a nightmare. The burnt plastic had dried to form lumps and welts, framing the big, lidless eyeballs staring at me from within the mess of metallic parts and wires. Her artificial teeth were bared in a stiff, menacing snarl, no cheeks or lips to cover her jaws. She opened her mouth, letting out a hiss that sounded like steam escaping a kettle as she snapped at me.
It all happened in the span of a mere few seconds. She had buried me beneath her and I pushed against her frantically, trying to shift her weight off my body. She was heavy and brutal, clinging to me in a frenzy. Her jaws caught my lower arm and I cried out in pain. Before her teeth could actually pierce my skin, though, I regained some semblance of mental agency. My extra limbs wormed their way out from under me and I used them to shove myself off the floor. Phoenix, propelled by the sudden motion, was flung to the ground. She caught herself, landing belly-up on her hands and feet and scuttling off backwards like a spider. Frankie rushed forward, grabbing her by the arm and forcefully dragging her up.
She didn’t make a single sound, merely glaring at me with those same round, far too bright eyes. Then her teeth began to chatter, the harsh, dull noise coaxing a strong shudder from my already trembling body and making my skin crawl. My heart was still hammering wildly, threatening to beat out of my chest. I attempted to steady myself by patting down my shirt and readjusting my braid with shaking fingers. “We should go,” I muttered. I hadn’t meant for the words to come out quite this meekly, but I found I couldn’t raise my voice to anything beyond a whisper.
“Right.” Mary Markov pinched the bridge of her nose, then ran a hand over her cheeks. “I, um… I’m very sorry about this.”
“Her.”
All three of us froze at the other voice joining ours. It was rough, clangy and grating, no cadence or intonation to soften or control it. It sounded like it was hissed straight from the back of Phoenix’s throat, the lack of a proper tongue and lips to help shape the words turning the simple exclamation into a crude, deeply unsettling rasp.
“Alive.” She took a faltering step towards me, only to be pulled back by Fran. “Need,” she uttered.
“Yeah, you aren’t getting her,” my waiter interjected. “It doesn’t work like that, you don’t feel it more when you eat her.”
“Feel what more?” I inquired.
He let out a low sigh. “You have, like… an atmosphere. Or an aura. It’s hard to describe. You know how I don’t really need to eat or breathe?”
“I haven’t thought about that a lot,” I admitted.
“That’s okay. You don’t need to concern yourself with it. But, like, I don’t get hungry and I don’t sleep, and I can’t actually feel things either. None of us can. Whether or not we got infested with consciousness, our bodies just aren’t equipped for the human experience.” He let go of the other doll, sympathy softening his features. “Remember how I told you that I knew right away you weren’t human? When we first met? That’s how. Imagine a radio. You go through the frequencies, but all you ever get is static. Then, suddenly, it starts picking up on music. Faintly, but it’s definitely there. It might not be as loud as it’s on regular radios, but it’s something.” He paused, throwing me a smile. “Your aura is our music, Sunshine. It’s an interdimensional thing, I guess. It’s tingle, and it’s the closest thing to any physical sensation for me. I think Phoenix noticed it and wanted to internalize it somehow.”
“That’s a good reason for trying to eat me.”
“It wouldn’t work. Let’s go. We still need to talk to Jewel.”
We didn’t visit the former cult leader in their cell but in a special interrogation room. When the four of us entered, they were already there, wrists and ankles cuffed to the beams of a plain, uncomfortable-looking metal chair. We took our seats across from them, a shiny chrome desk separating us. I glanced up at the camera in the upper corner of the room before shifting my attention to the person before me—the one who had put me and my friends through hell and back this last month. The one who’d invaded my privacy, my apartment, my subconscious; who’d stabbed and gutted me, who had taken steps to end the world I’d come to love.
Jewel was wearing a set of simple, white scrubs, crinkled but spotless. Oddly enough, the color complemented their pale eyes and hair, lending their appearance a surreally sacred, unearthly quality. When they looked up at me, their gaze was piercing. They didn’t say anything right away and it ended up being Mary Markov who broke the silence by clearing her throat. “Now that Miss Shirley’s here, perhaps we can have a more productive discussion. Unless you’re just going to make more vulgar jokes?”
“What’s wrong with a bit of filth?” The corner of Jewel’s mouth quirked into a half-smile. “Sex is, like, the one good thing that humans do.”
“You’re okay,” I observed, nodding at their uninjured neck.
“Sorry to disappoint the lot of you.”
“We forgive you,” Elijah Carter said graciously, a dry, insincere smirk playing on his lips. He shifted in his seat, his large form looking uncomfortable cramped on the tiny chair.
“Why’d you two come?” Jewel inquired, addressing Eli and Frankie. “Don’t get me wrong, the more, the merrier; I’m just curious.”
“Well, Blondie’s just here ‘cause he’s jealous. As for me—” Elijah rolled one of his shoulders, coaxing a crunching sound from the joint. “—I honestly don’t know. I guess I lost some sleep over you, too. Not as much as Shirley did, but… yeah.”
“I get that,” Jewel replied. “Feels weird being treated like a zoo animal, but that’s on par for you humans. I don’t hold it against you.”
“You’re literally chained down and wearing a prison uniform, and yet you still manage to act this high and mighty.” Eli shook his head in disbelief. “Not gonna lie, that’s quite an achievement.”
“Thank you.”
“He’s saying you suck,” I supplied, feeling that they had misunderstood each other.
“Oh, I know.” Jewel’s grin became a little more toothy. “You guys haven’t found the heads yet, I’m guessing? I mean, otherwise you wouldn’t bother coming.”
“Precisely. So are you going to give us the location? Consider; what I said in the catacombs still rings true. If that resonated with you, that’s because it’s simply how it is. You’ve done some awful, awful things, and it’s up to you to avert an even bigger crisis. Was that sufficient for you?”
Jewel let out a sharp laugh. “It’s fine. I doubt you could top that speech you gave in the tunnels anyways. That was your magnum opus.” They regarded me with a weirdly gentle expression. “You’ll have to check out my room. At the big house. You know, the one that belongs to the guy who’s not really my Dad.”
“Sure, go on.”
“There’s a notebook in there, should be on my desk. That’s where I wrote down the coordinates.”
“Great,” Mary Markov groaned. “So the heads are—”
“Buried ‘em.” Jewel smiled mirthfully. “What, was I supposed to make it easy for you? I didn’t think I’d change my mind and when Eva turned on me, I figured I’d need a much safer spot for my beacon.”
Something about that felt off to me. I scrutinized Jewel with probing eyes, taking in their features. “You’re not lying to us, are you?”
They shook their head no.
“Really? Because unless you really did drop all of your delusions, you could just be making stuff up,” I reminded them. “This is the only thing you had to hold over our heads, and you’re simply giving it to us?”
“Would you rather I make demands?”
“I’m simply suspicious,” I admitted.
“You’re not entirely wrong,” Jewel conceded. Turning to Mary Markov, they added, “Eva and I would speak alone.”
“The hell you will!” Frankie gripped the side of the table with such force that the metal groaned, his fingers leaving slight dents as he retracted them. Eli looked briefly shocked, but made an effort to pull himself together. “It’ll be fine,” he said, assuming a somewhat reassuring tone. “They’re tied up and everything.”
I threw him a thankful look. Reaching over, I gave Frankie’s hand a quick squeeze, forcing a smile. “I’ll be okay.”
The chairs squeaked as they were pushed back, my three companions rising to their feet. “We’ll be right outside,” Mary promised.
“Please give us some privacy,” Jewel spoke up again, fixing her with alarmingly bright eyes before pointing at the surveillance camera with their chin. “Just… don’t watch or eavesdrop, okay? She can yell if anything’s wrong, but I wanna be left alone for only a minute or two this once.”
Reluctantly nodding, Mary led the two men outside, Frankie throwing me one last, deeply concerned glance as the door fell shut. I straightened up in my seat. “So?” I prompted.
“I wanted to congratulate you. I’d give you a thumbs-up, but…” They rattled their handcuffs. “You know.”
“Congratulate me on what?”
“Oh come now, this was really exciting, wasn’t it? All this chasing and running around. Don’t you feel a little satisfaction seeing me this way? You brought me here. You did this to me. We faced down square and you beat me. You won.”
“I defended myself and my people. That’s all. This wasn’t some kind of game I wanted to win.”
“It’s okay to gloat, you know. I won’t fault you for it.” They cocked their head at me.
“I don’t feel like it,” I answered, uneasily shifting my weight in my seat. “So what now? You want something, don’t you? Why am I here?”
Jewel sighed. “Straight to the point, as always. Look. I’m pretty much at the bottom now. There’s nothing I can do. They’re not gonna let me go, ever. And I think you and I both know what they’re going to do to me. I’ve got doctors and surgeons circling my cell like vultures. Markov says there’s not much known about dimension hopping as an ability and the people who can do it, so… I’ll be pretty much vivisected, I’m guessing.” They barked out a laugh. “They’re gonna take me apart like some kinda Russian nesting doll.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
They lowered their head, pale eyes narrowed. “I want to ask a favor. You don’t owe me shit, and this is extremely humiliating, but not as much as what’s expecting me on the other side of that door.”
“What favor?” I asked, clenching my trembling fingers into fists. My palms were laced with cold, nervous sweat.
“Show me your teeth and finish what you started.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“Kill me, for pity’s sake.”
“Jewel, I’m not gonna—”
“Why the hell not? You wanted to! You almost did! Now I’m literally letting you!” Their voice had risen to a hurt, cutting yowl.
“This is different, I don’t—”
“It’s not, it’s not fucking different; don’t make me beg!” The cultist’s eyes were filling with tears again, though if they were of grief or fury I couldn’t tell. “What do you want me to say?” they bellowed. “That you were right? That I fucked up? Because you are and I did, okay? I know that. I knew I was never getting back, I knew it wasn’t gonna happen, but I… there’s no point to this, to any of this! A-and I had children. I had children on Raek-Vi’ir, I had, and here, there’s not even…”
It was getting harder to make out what they were even saying at this point. Their voice, choked up and strangled, had become nearly unintelligible. I rose from my seat, the legs of my chair screeching across the hard floor. “Goodbye,” I muttered, though I’m unsure if they heard me as I was already making my way over to the door.
“Don’t go!” Jewel cried out behind me, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn and face them again. Gemstone tears hit the floor like raindrops, creating a patter, almost like a drum. “I don’t wanna live!” they uttered in-between hair-raising shrieks and blubbering gaps for air.
Something in my chest felt like it was breaking when I slipped outside, Jewel’s wails fading into silence as the door slowly fell shut behind me. “I don’t wanna live—”