Consequences (7 page)

“I think dealing with a sociopath, with that
kind of talent, is actually my worst nightmare.” Although he has an
almost joking tone, I can sense he is being completely honest.

“What happened next? Even though it was blood
money, it had to be kind of cool to have the freedom that only that
amount of money can provide.” Michael is horrified; he puts up an
understanding front, but he is having problems with the direction I
allowed my life to take. That’s all right; I have problems with it,
too; and I haven’t even told him what I’ve done during my time with
V.

“At first, I knew there were going to be
prices to pay, but I rationalized that at least Ellie and Ann were
safe. I thought as long as we were focused on criminal types,
feeding them to V, the pluses outweighed the negatives. V decided
to work on James’s family first.”

Michael's thoughts are muddled and weary as
he speaks, “Good, I mean … well, I’m not sure what I mean. I don’t
know if even criminals deserve torture like that.”

“You sound like Ellie. Working to catch
different kinds of offenders, I think you of all people would want
to see a few of them broken?” Even though we don’t have contact, I
can hear Ellie tsk-tsking from beside me.

“Most of the people I investigate are
harmless, there are those few that I really want to see pay for
their crimes … but I can’t be judge and jury. I try my best to
catch them legally, and put them through the system. The citizens
here need to want to work with me, and if I go off half-cocked all
the time … that attitude undermines protecting the amount of land
I’m responsible for.” He finishes with a resolute tone.

“I’m glad you feel that way, because
realizing that vigilante justice is an oxymoron is part of what led
me here in the first place. I don’t want you to think any less of
me for what I’ve done … but I’m not going to lie to you either.” I
can see, as much as sense, the anticipation on Michael’s face. His
mind is ringing with relief at finally getting some answers, while
also anxious about the rest of the answers left to come. When I
hear the remnants of his thoughts hinting at a different kind of
relief, I have to smile … he is glad to know I make mistakes, glad
to know that I’m just a human ‘kid’.

Michael’s understanding and forgiving nature,
allowed me to continue. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to talk
about these things … I guess confession is good for the soul. “V
was very clever. He knew that even though James had the nicely
polished mask of a sociopath, he was flawed … he had feelings for
his mob family. We worked our way up the ladder, intentionally
starting with James’s friends. James hid from V how uncomfortable
it made him, but he couldn’t hide it from me. I admit, vengeance
can be very satisfying, but seeing him honestly in pain, wasn’t as
enjoyable as I thought.

"Trying to hide the ability to see memories
was becoming more complicated, and the more I tried to pull away
from the memories, the more thoughts I pulled out. After the fifth
person, I started to realize that I was actually removing the
memories from their heads. V knew something was different, but the
amount of pain I caused, kept him appeased, for awhile.

"The side effect of exposing myself to, and
even absorbing, the memories of drug dealers, murderers, and con
artists, deadened my emotions, my principles. No excuses for my
behavior, I just wanted to make sure you understood why I lost my
moral compass.

"I ultimately drew the attention of the
family … living in James’s apartment. The men that came in contact
with me, returned to their boss as drooling idiots. The family knew
about people with 'talents', and used them, like James and Ann …and
they knew that something was ‘special’ about me. So, I soon became
priority number one. Everyone they sent, fell into V’s web and the
angrier I became … thus the more damage I did to their minds.

"James did what he was told, but the pressure
was building inside, until he blew. He told me to gut V’s mind,
revealing my upper hand. I asked him why I would do that … his
money was mine now. What was he going to do … take it back if I
didn’t do what I was told? Feeding off our chaos, V became excited
by the prospect of finishing the argument thoroughly. After
enjoying our bickering for weeks, and after I'd gone too far in
destroying the people James cared about, V asked me what I wanted …
and I told him to kill James.”

“You did what?” I can see a sickness rising
in Michael’s mind. He honestly can’t understand what would make me
think I have the right to destroy minds, and then order the death
of another living being. It doesn’t matter to him that the world
would be much better off without someone like James. Michael is
screaming inside his skull, "We don’t have the right to pass
judgment … implement self-preservation, yes; but not judgment."

“Michael, do you believe in justified
homicide because of the certainty of an imminent threat?”

“Yes, I do, when you’re talking about a
habitual victim … like a battered wife. They are the underdog
taking advantage of a momentary upper hand, in order to protect
themselves in the future. You, on the other hand, were a habitual
victim, maybe ... but not the underdog by any means. I do
understand why you feel it was justified … you saw what they did to
Ann, and then the possibilities of what they could to do to Ellie.
I also understand that you felt your hands were tied, because there
is no system that you know of, to hold these creatures responsible
for their actions." Deflating a bit, he continues. "In your shoes,
I guess, I would have made similar choices … I’m just very
uncomfortable with the fact that to fight the beast, you had to
become the beast.”

I can hear the fear that I've been waiting
for, finally seeping into Michael’s excited revelations about the
mist holding so many answers to his mythical questions. He is
starting to see why I made him answer the simple question “Give me
an example of evil, please.” This isn’t story time … finding out
that the Grimm brothers’ demented stories are more real than
Disney, should scare the crap out of you.

I hadn’t realized the time passed by so
quickly, until I notice that the stove has burned down to embers.
Lune and Ursa wait patiently in the pen to be let out one more time
before bed. The pup wriggles around on the floor, blind and
helpless, whimpering for her mother’s warmth. Michael, seeing that
the pup might be cold stokes the fire, while I let Ursa and Lune
outside. Going into the pen, we clean all the paper and lay down
towels that will give Ursa and the pup more comfortable
bedding.

The baby is hungry again, and roots around
while I hold her. Michael cleans up Ursa’s bowls and puts out fresh
water. Then he chops up some squirrel and rabbit meat, and mixes it
with more cottage cheese; all the while explaining that Ursa will
need to eat about three times her normal amount to produce enough
milk for the little one.

When Ursa returns, she goes straight to the
pen and lies down, waiting for me to replace the pup. She sniffs at
the food with little interest, and goes about cleaning up the baby
while it starts suckling. I step outside and yell for Lune to hurry
up. When he comes rounding out of the trees with something feathery
in his mouth, I know what was keeping him … he was hunting
again.

“You know, he keeps this up, and I’m going to
have to take him in for poaching.” Michael steps up behind me and
even though his voice is monotone, the joke is obvious. He admires
Lune, for taking such good care of his family.

Wrapping the bird in plastic, I figure I’ll
pluck it tomorrow, saving me from the mess of Ursa pulling out the
feathers and leaving them around the cabin.

I am relieved to see the exhaustion written
on Michael’s face; hoping that means I don’t have to delve any
further into my time in Vegas. The question about my scars is
forgotten in the flood of information I've just dumped into his
exhausted mind. I am saved, temporarily, from talking about my
greatest shame. Michael may never speak to me again after he finds
out what my scars are from, what actually drove me to come here …
but mostly, why I’ll never trust my own conscience again.

Standing in our place again, I miss our
place. Dreaming about the ghost town of Gothic, Colorado is just
about the only thing that makes me homesick for my childhood. Even
in sleep, I usually don’t allow myself the chance to miss my old
sanctuary, because acknowledging its absence mixes with my
anticipation of my one glimpse of Ellie. Tonight though, something
like peace counteracts the eagerness. I sit on the banks of the
stream and listen to the water lightly smacking against the smooth
river rocks at the base of the waterfall. I watch the tips of the
surrounding aspens sparkle, while their leaves sway and twist in
the breeze.

Letting my heart rate match the patterns of
motion and sound, I start rocking back and forth; closing my eyes I
can almost feel the pressure of Ellie’s back resting against my
chest. Keeping my eyes closed, I wrap my arms around her, feeling
her warmth swaying with me. I know she is gone, at this moment far
away, probably touching others’ minds … I wonder if she dreams
about me.

Michael is here this time, mumbling in the
background about Lilly. At first I am angry about the intrusion,
but when I open up my slumbering eyes, I realize he isn’t talking
to me. I was listening to his dreaming mind, while I was asleep.
This is a first; I guess not living under the same roof with
another human, for almost a year now, changed my ability to deflect
others’ thoughts. As a defense mechanism, when I was a little kid,
my mind naturally filtered most people’s thoughts from invading my
own. When James and I talked about the development of our talents,
he thought they were probably strongest when we were born. Then as
time went by, we learned to suppress them for the sake of sanity
and conformity. He told me he remembered his mother’s moods
changing, coinciding with his own. He learned quickly that he could
force emotions on those around him. The problem with his particular
‘talent’ was his strongest emotions tended to be negative ones,
especially when he was little. A tantrum from him would result in
his mother angrily breaking his arm. Then he figured out that he
could share the hurt she caused, and that was when he would make
her feel the pain she had inflicted. Later he discovered how to
control, and focus, his manipulation of others … but in turn, his
mind had to learn to not feel … and a sociopath was born, or so he
thought.

Ellie is a different creature altogether;
instead of retreating from emotions, like me, or suppressing
emotions like James, she yearns to touch others so that she can
understand what they, and in turn, what she is feeling. Kind of
like: calmly forcing yourself through a maze, because it's the only
way to find the exit. Ellie is the strongest person I’ve ever met,
just for embracing her own vulnerability.

The voices of loss, always here, start
yelling again from within my dream forest… “She left you, promises
broken, pain left behind; she is just like everyone else in your
life. A LIAR!” The voices are so much more pronounced now that I am
not enveloped in my typical obsession with Ellie. I can hear it
clearly; it isn't just one voice, but many voices speaking together
… a legion built within the loss, anger, and pain, coming from
trusting, and being let down. I can hear one voice above the others
… James.

Focusing on his voice leads me to memories of
the night he was killed by V.

Gothic, Colorado disappears and I find myself
standing in James’s penthouse apartment facing the wall of mirrors
in his bedroom; subsequently, an unknown sensation waves over me
from James: admiration and jealousy.

“I almost think you look better in Armani
than I did. It would be a shame to let my wardrobe just collect
dust; even though you’re a loser, you’re better than nothing.”
James’s backhanded compliments were about as annoying as a fly
buzzing; at first they were like listening to fingernails down a
chalkboard, but with time and desensitization, I simply stopped
noticing.

When another sensation drifted into the room,
emptiness and frigid hatred, I heard the sound of James’s voice
again, “What can we do for you, Sir?”

V’s presence always brought about fear and
regret in James. Luckily for us, V’s ego kept him from
acknowledging James’s outpouring of emotions as a form of lie
detector. If V actually had cared to look closely at the
unintentional feelings that James forced into the air, all of our
withheld information would have been obvious in a moment. To tell
the truth, I think V’s only reason for keeping James around was to
feed on the emotions that oozed, so freely, out of every one of his
pores.

When V spoke, he left the impression that the
words were being sucked in, like a whispered whistle that was
inhaled instead of blown out. Dry and aged, his voice alone made me
feel like I was standing in the middle of an empty, lifeless
desert. I imagined the heat evaporating every fluid in my body, and
taking away all of my prized memories in the vapors. My brain
seemed to reshape into a comatose position, rocking back and forth
in my skull, completely withdrawn, while I tried to ignore V's
impact.

I felt more than heard his command to call
James’s mob father, “It’s time we met the man that helped create
our dear friend here.” V's whisper had as much force as a
tornado.

Still looking in the mirror, and only seeing
my own reflection, I answered the command with a slight nod in what
I thought was V’s general direction. Walking over to my cell phone
and picking it up, I waited patiently for James to tell me the
number for his father’s direct line. I imagined the drain placed on
James, as if a movie was playing in the back of my head, where I
could pretend I wasn’t watching what was happening. His weak,
pained voice, forced the numbers out between clenched teeth.
Releasing James momentarily, to focus on me, V drained everything
from my emotional banks … everything but anger.