Agrippa
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Periodical Cicadas – Chapter 7
🕑 Added 2022-06-10 21:18:16 +0000 UTCEmma’s living room is silent, her whole family staring at me in a way that I doubt I would have been comfortable with even before I stopped visiting—
They are silent. Let’s leave it at that.
Which, given Noah’s here, it seems like a small miracle.
Of course, going by the way the resident motormouth is currently vibrating as he alternatively stares at the disfigured, bleeding man lying on top of a sofa covered by a transparent, blood-stained plastic sheet that does the floral design beneath it absolutely no favors, and the other man in the room, the one cuffed to a very sturdy chair with some scuffed marks on the armrests and front legs… well, something else may currently occupy Noah’s one-track mind than the uncomfortable social circumstances he, Audrey, and I are currently embroiled in.
That, or, going from the way he keeps fixating on the bright red ballgag, he’s just discovered another way for his mind to go fully one-track.
Boys.
I swear, if we get out of this room with Noah having learned he’s into BDSM, I’m never approaching another Emma for the rest of my life.
They just keep piling ungodly amounts of trauma on me. The name’s cursed.
“So…” I finally speak, a bit tired of our current stand-off, “I think I speak for the three of us when I say: what the fuck, Emma?”
The uncomfortably pretty girl (damn you, Audrey, and your bi-panic inciting ways) blushes prettily (because of course) and tucks a strand of shiny, glossy hair behind her ear—all right. Stop.
Noah’s the one with a one-track mind. A one-track mind focused on murder, trashy films, and the aesthetic connections between the two things.
…
That seems… overly elaborate for a one-track mind.
Still, the important thing is that I am not the one suffering from such an affliction. I am perfectly capable of looking at a pretty girl while remaining aware that I’m currently in what looks suspiciously like a snuff film studio except for the lack of cameras, so it’s more like a live theatre performance.
Yay. I am a patron of the arts. Mom would be proud.
“You seem… surprisingly at ease, given the circumstances,” the blonde woman who looks to be Emma’s mom says with a slightly inquisitive lilt.
I arch an eyebrow. I think it’s the part of my body that’s gotten more exercise since I arrived at Murderville and got introduced to their quaint customs. Maybe I should diversify, spread out those gains.
“Lady, no offense, but we’re in Florida, and I control bugs. I can murder anything within my area of influence and have the remains disappear in under an hour. It’s not me that should feel uncomfortable.”
There, informative and polite. I am the best at making first impressions.
“I have a gun, you know?” the older girl who looks somewhat like Emma and is most likely either her sister or an Alabama-close cousin points out, her own eyebrow inspired to join me in exercising as it tries to jump over the rim of her glasses.
“Thank you for telling me. You’ll be eaten first,” I tell her with a deferential nod.
Politeness. It’s important.
“Taylor…” Emma grumbles, rubbing her temple with the tip of the fingers of her right hand as her eyes narrow in a pain whose source is a complete and utter mystery, seeing as Noah’s still not speaking.
Seriously, I’m starting to get worried. Quick, Audrey, hit him so we can check whether he’s alive.
“Stop beating around the bush and just explain… this,” Audrey says, a hint of anger in her tone as her arm sweeps in front of her, not quite clear on what ‘this’ fully entails.
Because she felt like being dramatic rather than heeding my silent plea and smacking Noah like she usually does, just to be contrary. Really, I expected better from you, Audrey.
“What she told us in the forest… That was partially true,” Noah says, rousing from his trance and easing my worries not at all. “That,” he points at the gagged, mostly unresponsive man, “is Emma’s… biological? Yes, biological. That’s Emma’s biological father, the one who shot Brandon James.” Now he points at the disfigured man who’s looking at him in a way that maybe has some fondness for the bully-bait, but may as well be pondering where to hide his body. “Brandon James, who’s Emma’s real father and has been hiding in the body of his would-be murderer since he triggered, unable to stay out of his meat-suit for too long because he’s still hurt and he can’t go to a hospital, so Mrs. Duval studied medicine so she could keep treating him—smuggling supplies from the coroner’s office? But… the blood bags don’t fit; it would’ve been easier to work in a—”
“I have my ways,” Mrs. Duval pointedly interrupts as Emma looks at Noah with wide eyes, and Emma’s possibly incestuous cousin smiles at him and quickly licks her lips (what?), and…
And Brandon James laughs.
“Told you the kid was bright,” he cheerfully points out to his… wife?
“He’s a walking security risk. He’s gonna get somebody killed if he keeps investigating,” she replies, her tone far drier and more sardonic than I would expect given what she’s actually said.
“Noah’s… right? Emma, you—” I say.
“I am sorry, Taylor, but… why did you think I knew so much about triggers?” she cuts me off with a warm, shy smile and a one-armed shrug.
…
This is all your fault, Audrey.
“You knew Broody was a parahuman?” Audrey sharply interjects.
“I… I promised I wouldn’t say anything—”
“She told you—”
“No! No, Audrey, I just… deduced it. Because… I know how capes work, all right? And… And Taylor has all the signs, and you saw how she saved Brooke, how she—”
“Right. Stop,” Audrey tells her.
And Emma shuts up, looking hurt, almost shy, and…
And …
Noah! Do the thing!
No, Noah, gaping at the two girls silently is not the thing. The thing is to say something inappropriate and intrusive that abruptly changes the mood so all of us can focus on what a goof you are rather than on what I’m pretty sure is Audrey acting toward Emma like she’s an ex-girlfriend she never actually dated yet still cheated on her, and Emma reacting like she deserves it.
This is all making me very confused, and it isn’t like I was that clearheaded after my bouts of bi-panic and the, you know, murders.
…
Maybe I should say something?
“So… On the bright side, that’s something Emma deduced before Noah—” I try to lighten the mood.
And stop when I see Noah’s eyebrows shoot up, his eyes wide and—
“I could have deduced it! She just had more data points—”
I smack him upside the head.
There, that’s soothing.
And Brandon James, yet again, laughs.
For somebody with a torso full of holes, he looks pretty jolly.
“Mags, I really don’t think you need to worry about them keeping the secret,” he cheerfully points out.
Oh. Right.
We are witnesses to an ongoing kidnapping.
The kidnapping of a man who’s thought to be the hero who put down a serial killer and whose body has been hijacked by said serial killer and the girl he was supposedly obsessed with, who now has a family with him and keeps taking care of his wounds.
Funny how the little details can slip from your mind, isn’t it?
“Right. So, in the interest of keeping the stalker duo and me—”
“I am not a stalker—”
“You enable Noah, Audrey, that counts. Anyway, while I a priori sympathize with destroying the life of the one man who tormented you in high school and leaving him a catatonic husk with no hope left but the numbing release of death, I may as well inquire as to the, you know, multiple murders you were accused of? Because I think there’s a serial killer on the loose who’s pretty invested in your legacy.”
And now everybody shuts up.
There! A nice, coordinated reaction that can be succinctly summarized. Was that so hard to do?
“How dare you—”
“No, Mags, she needs to know,” Brandon interrupts his wife. Or the wife of the body he usually wears. Some divorce lawyer somewhere is having wet dreams, and he doesn’t know why. “I… didn’t kill them. He did.”
And he looks at the silent, still body, Brandon’s mangled face… Impassive. There’s no hatred, no fear, no resentment. Nothing.
And I guess that’s natural after years of seeing that face looking back at him in the mirror. Years waking up inside that body, knowing it wasn’t his, that it was the body of his tormentor, and now it had become both a jail and a refuge.
Brandon James looks at Kevin Duval, and I wonder…
Would I ever be able to look at Emma Barnes like this?
Audrey’s hand’s once more on my shoulder. It’s not warm, and it looks pale, as if all the blood has been drained from her body. It’s heavy, as if she doesn’t have the strength to hold her own arm. It shakes almost imperceptibly, as if… afraid.
I look back at her, at the girl sitting to my left and slightly behind me in another of these cushioned chairs that match the floral design of the covered sofa, the dark, reddish wood shaped into swirling whorls contrasting nicely with the light, faded print.
And she looks back at me, piercing blue beneath inky black bangs, and I don’t know what it is that she fears so much in my eyes.
“So, you see it too?” Noah mutters from my other side, low enough that only the three of us catch it. And Audrey nods.
And I still don’t know what they’re talking about.
***
It’s almost evening by the time we leave the Duval’s house, and Noah’s bouncing with barely repressed energy before he darts to his own home to do whatever it is people with corkboards full of colorful threads do.
Which leaves me alone on the deserted streets of Lakewood, just walking in silence, enjoying the cooling breeze of the hour, the mild warmth of fading sunlight on my skin, and the rustling leaves of possibly non-hostile flora.
Oh, and Audrey also tags along. For some reason.
“Do you believe them?” she says after nearly three houses of silence.
“Yes,” I answer.
If I believe some high school bully would murder his friends just to have something to pin on Brandon? If I believe he would do something so horrible for such a petty reason as jealousy about the way Emma’s mother treated her childhood friend? If I believe he would’ve tried to force himself on…
Three schoolboys chasing me down a dark alley, just because Sophia was egging them on with I don’t know what kind of promise or deal. My clothes torn off, the chill of the night damp on my bare skin, their footsteps echoing off walls that kept getting nearer and nearer…
If I believe people, regular people, can become monsters for the pettiest of reasons? Yes. Yes, I do.
“Broody… Are you really all right with that? With them—”
“He deserves it.”
Her hand’s once more on my shoulder.
And she stops walking, and so do I.
“Does… Does anybody really deserve—”
I turn around.
To face Audrey, to face the stubborn girl who refuses to let me be alone, sticking to me for reasons I can’t understand, claiming I am… Hot. Interesting. Somebody they kept trying to convince me I’m not, and damn them for making me believe them.
She doesn’t flinch back, but… I think it’s a near thing.
“Audrey… Nobody deserves anything. In a… a better, kinder world? Kevin would’ve gotten the help he needed not to become a monster long before he hurt Brandon or Maggie. But... this is not that world, and what’s the better option? To have Emma’s father die, branded a murderer?”
She steps a bit closer, her blue eyes looking right through mine.
“You don’t believe that,” she says.
I take a deep breath.
“You don’t know me, Audrey.”
She smiles.
“Not yet. Not as much as I’d like. Wanna get started on solving that?”
I look back, returning the intensity of that piercing azure, and…
And I…
I look away.
“You wouldn’t—” I start to answer.
And she hugs me.
“Stop. I do. I want to know about you. You’ve… you’ve saved someone’s life right before my eyes, shown me a brain on par with Noah’s, tried to save Emma… Of course I want to learn more about you, Broody.”
I stand there, beneath a streetlamp flickering on as shadows creep longer and longer, and I don’t know what to do about this girl who seems to think I’m worth…
What? Worth what, Audrey?
“Let go… Please, let go,” I tell her.
Her arms tighten around me, the leather of her jacket squeaking against my bare arms.
“No,” she whispers.
And I lean my head on her shoulder and shake as I hold back my sobs.
***
“We were best friends, you know?” Audrey says as we both sit on a white wooden bench, the quiet of the night unbroken until she decided to speak.
She’s… close to me. Not touching. But close.
“You and Emma. It… shows,” I answer.
She nods, as if expecting me to have noticed the obvious tension, the way—
“And you wre in love with her,” I add. Because I’m still that clumsy, awful mess who should never be allowed to have a conversation—
“I was,” she says.
And it’s casual. Barely strained. Just… an acknowledgment of fact.
I stare at her.
“Don’t look at me like that; you’re gonna make me blush,” she says, laughter in the corner of her eyes as she keeps her head hanging over the backrest and barely twists it to the side enough that I can see both of the twin points of bright color in the dark.
“You… Seem over it?” I finally say, the notion alien to me.
“We… I felt betrayed. I still do. But… it’s nothing like what I think you went through. She just drifted away, started hanging out with the kind of people I’d always enjoyed being snarky about. It hurt, but… it was… the regular kind of pain? Not—”
“She was called Emma, as well. She was my best friend, my sister in all but blood. And she almost killed me.”
Audrey’s feline laziness fades away like mist in the morning as she straightens up, and a warm hand wraps around mine over cool wooden slats.
“And then you triggered,” she whispers.
I nod.
And she leans toward me, the hand that isn’t holding me rising to brush back my hair, to caress burning, soothing lines above my left ear that make me feel a warmth inside my chest I never…
A warmth I never thought I’d feel again. That I wasn’t allowed to feel. Not after being thrown away, rejected, pushed down, almost killed… By the first girl that made me feel it.
Damn it. Bi-panic is retroactive.
I nod, finally answering the question that isn’t a question.
Audrey kisses my forehead. Slowly, softly, and entirely too confusingly.
And I don’t even have a handy Noah upon whom to inflict careless violence as a handy stress relief.
“Audrey, I—”
“I’m not coming onto you,” she immediately says.
“Wha—”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d definitely would—those legs of yours are tempting enough it’s challenging not to run my hands all over them—but I won’t ever make a move when you’re this out of balance. It wouldn’t be right.”
I blink at her.
“I swear, between Noah and you, it’s a wonder the people in this town aren’t even crazier,” I finally say.
She smirks. She fucking smirks.
“I know, right? I give it two years before the Virgin turns full supervillain and everybody tries to guess what kind of power he has other than being Noah. Heh, think our current slasher will get jealous?”
“Of Noah? Yeah, sure. I can already see it, the murderer with a corkboard full of Noah’s pictures with hearts drawn over them, trying to guess his taste in movies for the next murder.”
“Right. The perfect date: two nerds, one murder,” she adds, almost laughing.
“Dinner and a show,” I comment.
“No, no: first a movie, then a stroll through the museum.” And now the laughter is nearer to the surface, and her eyes glint.
“How romantic,” I add, not quite knowing how to keep the joke going, and—
And Audrey’s blue eyes are right in front of me, full of something I refuse to understand, and—
“See? This, right now? I could kiss you just like this,” she whispers, her breath hot on my lips.
She stays still, right there, and she finally closes her eyes, her smile softening yet not leaving, and then she stands up.
“Good night, Broody. Try not to find any corpses on the way home.”
She turns around, waving over her shoulder without looking back, like somebody who wears black leather and tries too hard at being aloof and cool.
And she pulls it off.
***
The streets of Lakewood are emptier than I would’ve thought, the clouds of mosquitoes assuring me that there’s nobody looking at me from any dark alley, that I’m really, truly alone.
It’s freeing.
No one to put a mask on for. No father to pretend to be all right (yet angry and frustrated with) to, and no pretty girls to pretend not to be confused by.
And no Noah. I don’t feel like elaborating on that point.
So my steps softly echo as I walk down the middle of the road, not feeling like taking the sidewalk when I know there are no cars in sight. I just enjoy the chill and quiet, even the humid feeling of the air on my bare arms. I enjoy being me, by myself.
Just… me.
Not Taylor Hebert, Last Girl of Brockton Bay. Not the Locker Girl. Not… nothing.
Just me.
I don’t even think about what I’ve learned today. About how Emma’s life is far more screwed up than her goody-two-shoes façade could’ve ever let me know. I don’t think about Audrey’s mundane pain of betrayal. Don’t think about Brooke’s shaking body between Gustavo’s arms.
I just walk, breathe, exist.
And try very hard not to think about what would’ve happened if Audrey had stayed just a second longer, her lips just a smidge closer, and I would’ve stupidly gone ahead and—
My phone rings.
It’s not Dad, because he already told me he would be late for dinner, and there are not a lot of people who have this number. Just Dad and the rest of the lunatics at school, so I pick it up.
And it’s an unknown number.
…
Well, I guess this will be my first time getting to tell off a telemarketer. I hope it’s as cathartic as I always hoped it would be.
So I put the phone to my ear, and a masculine, garbled, messy voice greets me.
“Hello, Taylor. Have you been enjoying my art?”
…
I think this may be the first time in human history where somebody has been legitimately distressed at not getting a telemarketer’s call. Only in Lakewood, people. Only in Lakewood.
