Bright Star (25 page)

“Bright Star,” Jackson started again. “He saved you. Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t that what he always does?”

She shuddered. Then her body went dead. She was still when she answered in a sharp, gruff tone. “He didn’t save me.” She didn’t give Jackson a chance to ask the obvious question. “It was automatic. A side effect from the last time. It won’t last. I didn’t even
feel
him,” she spat. “He didn’t even come for me. It’s just… just secondary Perma-Shift, or leakage, whatever you people call it.”

Jackson was silent. He had been there. He would always be there. But she didn’t care. Rush hadn’t come.

“I need to go to bed,” she stated abruptly. She stood and walked away, veritably melting through the walls to her room.

“He won’t save you again,” Jackson couldn’t help but mutter as she left. And though he said it softly, he knew that she heard.

*

They were going to wreck the train.

The day was bright and blustery. The sun had not shown in three days. But that morning, it caused the streets to glitter with the precipitation of the night before. Puddles of melting ice showed signs of the burgeoning warmth from that lone star in the sky. And yet, the wind whipped through the people with a frigid whistle. It cut to the quick, forcing muscles to tense, hands to clench in pockets, bodies to strain toward solid in a brace against it. And yet it was still so very bright out.

Birds circled and cawed above them in a near white sky. Cars and pedestrians went by, barely noticing the heightened Energy pulsing to life around them.

They looked like a tour group.

They—all fifty-five Followers—stood together but clumped into smaller groups. They laughed and talked about their day’s events. Few talked about their night’s plans. That was an insult. Some held steaming coffee cups. Some carried nondescript, small leather journals. Destroy and Harm took turns punching each other as hard as they could in the arm. The stronger, the louder each blow landed, the louder they laughed. Monk stood chatting with someone while holding Point, an arm loose around her shoulders. He stood in the way of the wind for her and let his hands tangle in her thick, free-flowing hair. All of the Followers were dressed in comfortable clothes and carried minimal baggage. Few of them were tense. Few of them were nervous. Most waited as patiently as anybody would at a stop for a train.

They were waiting for the next train. They’d already passed up one that was already filled with passengers. They preferred to ride in a single car together. The next one would be arriving in three minutes.

Darting in and out of the group in uneven but hurried strides was a copper haired woman bundled in a white jacket with a gold and white scarf. She wore very dark sunglasses. She checked with each of them. She made sure they had their tickets. She asked if they needed anything. She gave an encouraging squeeze to trembling hands though those were few and far between. When the train arrived, she called them together, appearing only as a guide for them. She spoke softly for a moment and then the entire group went silent and still.

Passersby who had paid minimal attention to the assembly, stopped to watch. Some of them even lowered their heads as well, as if in prayer. The long moment, only a minute in truth, ended and the group filed into the train. Though it took time to get them all in, the doors did not begin to close. Instead, they waited until all were inside the car. Then the car lurched gently forward.

After they had been in motion for nearly fifteen minutes, Bright Star reached out and touched Point’s shoulder. “It’s a little late for me to ask…”

“What is it?” Point questioned. She briefly covered Bright Star’s hand with her own. It was rare that she had to lend strength to the woman who had become her leader, but she felt honored that Bright Star allowed it.

“I know your…” The red-haired woman paused. “your issue…”

“With pain?” Point questioned with a tilt of her head.

“Yes,” Bright Star told her. “With pain.”

“The second time I was born, I was born with no fear of pain.” It was the first time she had shared this with Bright Star.

Bright Star nodded slowly then her blue eyes ignited and she smiled. She placed both of her hands on the taller woman’s arms.

In turn, Point grabbed Monk’s hand. He looked down at their entwined fingers briefly, then leaned against Ban, whose elbow bumped Destroy, who stepped on Harm’s foot, who tangled his fingers in Mix’s braid. And so on, and on, and on, until they were all connected and one’s Energy could not be distinguished from another.

It was then that Monk said the words. He hadn’t planned for them, but couldn’t stop them from spilling forth from his lips. The softly spoken words reminded them all of where they had come from and why they were there. These words entreated the universe to recognize their plight and to help Rush either deliver them or destroy them. It was at once a prayer and a curse. An ode and a eulogy. And on the final stanza, the High Energy in the car seemed to swell, intensifying as it grew at an exponential pace.

The metal room began to hum. The sound of snapping and whipping wires joined it. The whir of broken wheels enhanced the noise and then the train peeled off its path and crashed over the elevated track. The first indicator of the car folding in on itself was a metal spike that plunged down from the roof of the train. It sheared through Bright Star’s collarbone, shattering it, tearing through her lungs and liver, breaking her hipbone, impaling her, affixing her to the floor. And then there was only the roar. A loud, ear-splitting roar that sounded like Rush.

Souvenir

“How did you get that scar?” Jackson asked, raising a fingertip to her face. Against his own better judgment, he traced the angry, jagged pink scar that marked her from her widow’s peak down between her copper brows and under her gently rounded cheek. The injury’s puckered ridge, both raw and dark, punctuated the softness, delicacy of her pale skin. His fingertips tingled at the touch. The feel of her was pure High Energy. Addictive. He put his hand in his pocket.

“Rush left it for me,” Bright Star answered with a flippant shrug of her shoulders. Her red hair rustled and settled with the movement. Her eyes were heating up, casting blue light everywhere they touched. No blue light warmed Jackson: she would not look at him. He knew she was hiding a bashful and enchanted smile.

Jackson touched her face again in an attempt to erase the mark. He failed. In fact as he touched it this time, he could feel Rush’s pattern in his fingertips. Rush would not allow him to repair her this time. And, obviously, she did not want to be repaired.

Jackson tried to stop his hackles from rising. That was before he saw her get up and walk to the sink, dragging the blanket she’d been cocooned in with her. She was dragging her right leg as well. The same leg he had been sure she injured before the train wreck. “What happened, Bright Star?” he demanded, coming to stand in front of her.

She only gave him a sunny smile then averted her eyes. She washed her hands slowly. Jackson stood there crowding her space. Silly of him to think he could intimidate her into answering his question. Even realizing that she would not succumb, he didn’t budge. She smelled like tropical flowers. For the first time in months, Jackson was reminded of that isolated island, the beliefs of its people, and the promise that Bright Star had made them.

Finally, she turned toward him, her face tilted up and waiting. Jackson reached a trembling hand into the warmth underneath her blanket and laid his hand on her hip. With a mental flex, he read that her leg was broken from hip to ankle in three places. He could sense the mending injury to her lung. Her hip had sustained the worst of the injury. He swallowed and his heart began to beat rapidly, his chest started to constrict, but before Perma-Shift could take place, he realized his efforts were for nothing. He wasn’t repairing her.

Her small hand came down and lay over his briefly before she grasped his hand and pushed it away from her.

Jackson felt a spark of anger. Violent and visceral, that spark flared but he quickly tamped it down with long-practiced discipline. His anger was tempered by well-honed logic. He would reason through this… this state of affairs that didn’t seem to make sense. Bright Star didn’t want to be fixed. This, she had, in effect, done to herself. She had caused the train wreck, the wreck that had the Followers give themselves to Rush as sacrifices as well. She had stood in the valley intending to cheat death that day. She intended to cheat death every day. The train crashing had merely been the most recent and most cataclysmic of her attempts. Jackson had heard her explain many times, “I’m not suicidal.” No, she wasn’t suicidal. She thought she was saving the world.

And somehow, she managed to draw Rush out each time. He saved her each time. This last, he had shown his anger, his emotion, by leaving her the scar on her face and the apparently serious injury to her leg. But Bright Star did not appear to mind. In fact, she seemed proud of the mark.
Rush left it for me
. It was as if she were a child finding a gift beneath her pillow. She had said it with reverence, with love. Jackson’s anger thundered again like the aftershock of an earthquake.

The urge to grab her was powerful. It consumed him. He shook with it. The only thing that stopped him was the fact he didn’t know what he would do if he did. Hit her? Kiss her? Equally damning.

She turned to him, shifting her weight onto her good leg. One sleeve of the white tank top she wore slipped over her shoulder. He realized that the oversized garment only stopped when it caught precariously over her breast. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. He could see the soft slope to the dark peach halo, but even when he strained, he couldn’t see the tip. Unconsciously, his hand moved toward his sharp, quick, and painful erection. Before it was too late, he moved his hand to a dish instead. He closed his hand over the cool hard glass and threw it at the wall. It shattered into countless pieces. Bright Star jumped and the shirt slipped beneath one heavy, cream globe. She hurriedly pulled the sleeve back up on her shoulder and rewrapped the blanket around her.

Jackson walked away from her. He couldn’t do this. Damn, he couldn’t do this.

In the doorway he paused, but did not face her. “Bright Star, how could you have led those people to die?”

“None of them died,” she contradicted. Her expression was one without remorse. She had already slipped down to the floor to clean up the mess he had made.

“You made them sacrifices,” Jackson accused her.

“They made themselves sacrifices, Jackson.” She slid a waste bin close to her and began to dump pieces of the plate into it. “And I’ll tell you again—
None of them died
.”

“God,” Jackson gritted. “Do you have to do that right now? We are talking.” His voice broke. “Do you have to do this now?”

“Yes, Jackson,” She looked up at him briefly, “Yes, I do. “

“They could have died.”

“No, they couldn’t have,” she debated. She wrung her hands and sat back on her heels. Jackson could tell she had reached the point of exasperation. “Rush wouldn’t let all of them die. You don’t understand, Jackson. He couldn’t.”

“What makes you think so?” Jackson finally faced her as she said that. He thanked God that she had pulled her blanket up to even cover her shoulders. “He’s been gone for six days, Bright Star. We don’t know everything he can do. What if he wasn’t able to save all of them?”

“He was.”

“What if he hadn’t come?”

“He hasn’t gone anywhere, Jackson,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“What?”

“He never left the house.” Bright Star explained. “The others understandably believed he was gone. And if he wanted them to believe it, I wouldn’t tell. I was hurt that he sought to hide from even me, but that is his prerogative.”

Jackson could barely focus.

“He never left,” she repeated. “He just cloaked himself. Like I do.”

In truth, she didn’t have to repeat the words. Jackson knew them to be true just as he knew himself to be a fool. He’d grieved just like those other poor souls when he should have known that his brother was right there in the house with him.