Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Chapter 325

The swap went with little issue. Being back at the apartments meant being in comfortable mental communications range with Azure. Miles—thankfully—relaxed some, figuratively and literally, from where he lounged on my living room sofa beside my mother. According to Azure, they were halfway through the first season of some island show when Azure used the built-in excuse to get ice from the machine down the hall, which unlike the fridge, didn't flavor whatever it was dropped into metallic, and vaguely acrid.

We met there. I dropped the mask, locked the door, and started changing into the jeans and t-shirt Azure had been "wearing," while he filled the bucket with ice and brought me up to speed.

"We're safe, talking here?" I worked the shirt over my head and pulled my arms through.

"Nothing spying on us. Magical or otherwise. No reason to go overboard when he's got people posted at every exit," Azure assured me.

"Good. Bring me up to speed."

Azure did so, methodically covering and summarizing every topic of conversation, including random asides and idle chatter. Coincidentally, Miles either skipped lunch today or the man just talked about food more than I'd ever realized. Still, I appreciated how thorough Azure was being. The most dangerous part of the swap would be the moment I walked through my own front door. If there was a sudden shift in my mood or demeanor, Miles would pick up on it. So the more detail he fed me, the better.

On the surface he was confident, but his expression was tinged with worry. My summon dumped another scoop of ice in the bucket, and paused, gripping the handle tightly.

"What aren't you telling me?"

He pushed his lips together and sighed. "It could be nothing. Because of the patron interference, I've never gotten a look at Miles' psychology. How he thinks. How he lies."

"We know he lies well.""It's more than that." Azure disagreed, slowly working through what he wanted to say. "Miles got back here not long after I did. At the time he was pissed, on account of us ignoring his advice, fucking around instead of heading straight back here."

I cocked my head. "What'd he say to you?"

"That's the issue." Azure shrugged. "Nothing. Beyond extending initial pleasantries and asking when the others were arriving, he barely opened his mouth. Just posted up on the couch, like a sentry, regardless of what I did or where I went."

"Probably just doing fed things. Throwing a wrench into our usual dynamic as means of establishing his authority." I did a spot check in the window's reflection, adjusting my hair slightly so it matched my doppelgänger's behind me.

Azure shook his head. "Got that impression as well at first. Something felt wrong about it. Like he was doing mental math, working through the situation—your situation—and the numbers kept coming up bad."

"Bad how?"

"Like this whole thing was sunk cost, and he's deciding whether to let it go. Whatever it is, he's worried about something. After your mom showed up, he buried whatever it was and got a lot more social."

"That's not unexpected." Especially for Miles. He'd be buttoned up around my mother. Distressing innocents and a willingness to hang ordinary people out to dry wasn't his preferred flavor of fed. Even if it was, given the many, many ways this could get fucked sideways, he'd want to portray a sense of perfect confidence, so that if it was an "accident," it came out of left field.

Azure pushed the bucket of ice into my chest. "It's not. But she was worried. Given recent events there's been even more rumors circulating around the tower than usual. So she came in with a lot of very concrete, very legitimate fears and concerns. Started grilling Miles."

"And?" I tucked the bucket under one arm.

"He's telling her, as if it's the honest to god truth, that there's nothing to worry about."

It took a second. But I got it. It was small enough that if Azure hadn't pointed it out individually, I wouldn't have seen the issue. "Doesn't necessarily point one way or the other. Whatever they are, he genuinely cares. She doesn't need to know the situation. Looping her in accomplishes nothing other than overwhelming her with anxiety, not to mention making it easier to backslide when the people most likely to check her will be out-of-sight-out-of-mind."

"Which on its own is fine. She believed him. Not surprising, given she likes the guy." Azure leaned close, and pointed to his chest. "Thing is, despite not particularly liking the guy, and knowing for a fact the possibility of safety in the tower is bullshit, I wanted to believe him."

I absorbed that, feeling a rising displeasure. "He blew the baseline. So, realistically, you can't give me a read on him, one way or another."

"Not only that, I'd counsel you to be particularly dubious of any intuition or insight you hold regarding Miles for fear of a misdirect." Azure hung his head in frustration. "We have to face the reality that you could be in real danger, almost immediately. If whatever's chewing on him continues to bother him, he may suddenly decide it's not worth it after all and act quickly, with little warning."

The air felt heavy. Suffocating. "Should I run?" I asked.

Azure chewed his lip. "Not yet. If he breaks, confronts you about whatever's bothering him by tonight, consider it an extension. But if he doesn't…"

"It might be time to get the hell out of dodge."

I didn't enjoy entertaining the possibility. Thinking about what I'd lose. How much it could cost me. That I'd gone through hell for the simple goal of establishing a better life for myself and the people I cared about, and upon securing that, continued to stick my foot into shit that had nothing to do with me, and that lapse of selfishness now threatened to undo everything.

/////

Either as a gesture of equanimity or some half-cocked mind game, Miles suggested taking the dogs to the park. I always felt paranoid in open spaces, even more so since the necromancer attack, but somehow the dull amber glow of the streetlamps and the sound of my sisters' laughter as she was playfully chased around by stomping dogs both large and strong enough to knock her flat provided comfort. They were too well trained for that. As wild and reckless as they appeared, tearing up the perimeter, leaping onto and over anything that remotely resembled an obstacle, a snap and whistle would bring them all over, where they'd line up, ready for more trivial directions that inevitably led to treats.

It's odd. The things we take for granted.

I spent a good chunk of time over the last few weeks dodging my mother. Not out of spite. There just… wasn't much point in it. If you've never had the pleasure, it's difficult to interact with someone in recovery while neck deep in your own shit. Always in the back of your mind to not stress them, or bring their mood down, or tip the precarious scale of status quo. Accommodating all of that amid your own personal crisis typically requires some degree of deceit. And for whatever reason, lately, the lying didn't come quite as compulsively as it used to.

So I'd stepped away from her since the first transposition, under the belief it'd be good for her to relax, and not have a crisis brewing for the first night since my father didn't come home.

I just. I always assumed there'd be a chance to revisit. That once she was through recovery and had a good rhythm going, and Ellison was back home, we could just, pick up where we left off. Be us again. The truth was, it was more comfortable keeping her at arm’s length. Because I didn't have to think about it. How I'd simply shoved her in the mental categorization of the unreliable parent, the failing authority figure who never comes through in a crisis, for literal years, all-the-while ignoring the part I played in her slow, decade-long downward spiral.

Ghee leapt straight up, snapping canines ascending directly for the slobbered-on yellow and orange tennis ball clutched in my hand. I released my grip, and the ball bounced off his rising snout as his eyes widened and he thrashed, frantically readjusting and snapping at the ball one final time. The collision sent the ball spinning through the air, where it slammed against the corner of the concession stand, up onto the metal counter, its momentum dying as it made one last small bounce onto Tara's tray. Credit to her reflexes, she nearly caught it, before it rolled off the tray and started bouncing again, eventually landing directly in Miles' waiting palm.

There was a flicker as his eyes retraced the ball's path until he finally disregarded the notion and tossed it back to me. "Is it smart to use that shit out in the open?"

I tossed the ball to a very unimpressed, very annoyed looking Ghee, who caught it, dropped it, sniffed at it, then walked away. "Gotta grind the skill. Practice whenever possible. Making it look natural takes a lot of work. And if you didn't know how I did it, would you honestly put it together?"

Miles made a 50-50 gesture. "Almost did back in the transposition."

"When?" I asked. Then a moment later. "That first scuffle."

He nodded. "When you shot the hanging light down. Nailed a dude with it. That wire was thinner than my thumb. Would have bet my left nut something was up with that, but somethings tend to get lost in everything when there's a million people running for their collective lives. Good chance you're more obvious than you realize."

"Noted and logged."

Tara sidled in between us tray first, and Miles stepped back to make room, eying the contents. "So the legends are true. Doggers and Margis."

Tara ducked her head in amusement. "Can't knock the marketing genius who came up with serving hotdogs at a dog park—but I will warn you, they don't really pair. You're better off eating the hotdog and belatedly remembering the margarita." The cluster of drinks wobbled unsteadily, some accented by small red flags, others by green. "Green-flags are alcohol free, red are Cuervo."

I grabbed one of the reds, as Miles lifted a green. Tara shifted one of the red-flagged drinks to the side and snuck a sip until I pulled it off the tray and held it for her. "You realize you already clocked out for the day?"

Tara shrugged. "Hospitality is muscle memory." She glanced at the glasses we'd chosen. "You boys get your colors mixed up?"

"I'm working," Miles said, side of his mouth pulling a little. "On call, anyway."

Classy.

She looked at me a little closer and leaned in. "Sure you want that?"

I did. Want it. I wanted that margarita, and another margarita, and the entire half-full handle of whatever well tequila was leftover after the employee refilled the machine. Alcohol wasn't like nicotine. Too much could severely affect my judgement and my ability to function. If I played my cards right, and some bets from earlier in the day paid out, I would need to be at the top of my game for the latter part of the evening. So one at most. But my fight or flight had been malfunctioning in a partake heavy direction for the greater part of the day, which Jackson's pack of cigarettes could attest to. Tara's concern wasn't necessarily warranted, but it was, perhaps, appreciated. An excuse to not take a step in an unwise direction, even if I didn't think I'd make it very far.

I snapped my fingers. "Dang. Forgot. I'm straight edge."

Tara smiled a little as she passed over an alcohol free beverage and put the original back on the tray. "Not judging. From the sound of it, you've all had one hell of a day. Just want to be sure it's a conscious choice."

I nodded appreciation. There was a brief, quiet moment before Miles stepped forward and smoothly lifted the tray from Tara's palm. He grinned at her, pulling the tray away when she reached for it. "I'm making a conscious decision to give you the night off."

"Look, babe." I elbowed Tara. "New federal subsidies just dropped."

"He's just mad I beat him to it." Miles grinned.

Tara smirked. "Fine. Just set whatever's left on the picnic table. Lets see your form."

Never one to back down from a challenge, Miles raised the tray into the serving position, his face dead-serious as he walked a surprisingly competent line, turning back towards us at the end for comment.

"Stiff as hell." I called over.

"Ignore him. That was good. Really good!" Tara giggled. "I swear you've done that before. Just relax a bit."

"Sway your hips." I suggested helpfully.

Miles stared at Tara intently. "Am I being led astray?"

Tara slowly nodded, somehow maintaining a straight face. "I was thinking shoulders, but… a little more fluidity in your gait could help. Not to mention, you'll get better tips."

"Wait—" I slowly dropped my hand as Miles sashayed across the dog park in my mother's direction, hips full-on swinging rather than swaying, tray readily in hand. "See what you did?"

"It was your yes, my and." Tara stifled a laugh, then paused, still watching Miles. "He really is a natural."

"Man of many talents." It was a throwaway comment, but in the moment of levity, I'd forgotten that Tara had a natural talent for sniffing out anything inauthentic. She peered at me, seeming to weigh the pros and cons of commenting, eventually siding with the pros.

"You know it's alright, if it feels weird." Tara ventured.

"Hm?"

"Miles, dating your mom."

"Oh, no. That's the least of my worries." I waved her off, a little relieved she'd drawn that conclusion instead of another.

"Really?" Tara cocked her head.

"If he was a piece of shit, we'd have problems, sure. But he's good with people, intuitive, pretty agreeable if there isn't a bug up his ass, and, to top it all off, has experience dealing with loved ones with substance abuse issues."

I watched with a degree of grim satisfaction as Miles' loafer caught the ground. He didn't trip—all told he was too methodical for that—but the slight hitch in his step was confirmation that he was listening in to my conversation with Tara somehow. It was a reasonable precaution. Tara was a civilian, completely vulnerable to which made any contact I had with her a potential security risk.

"What's the story there?" Tara prompted with interest, fishing for tea.

I shook my head. "Out of the loop. It only came up briefly as a side comment. Something about his ex-wife." There was a loaded pause, as Tara processed that. "What?"

"Nothing." Tara said carefully, glancing over to where my mother was laughing, dabbing something off Iris' mouth with a napkin. "A less… magnanimous person might consider the history along with how that particular relationship ended with divorce and draw a less generous conclusion."

"Because he married an addict and it ended in divorce?" I summarized. Across the park, Miles didn't move, didn't even flinch. If I hadn't caught the reaction earlier, I'd be inclined to believe he wasn't listening at all.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"You didn't have to say it like that, but… yeah." Tara inclined her head, wincing a little.

"It's alright. In my experience, addiction doesn't work that way." I thought through the many recoveries, the subsequent relapses, the endless meetings and mantras and pontificating on the process. "What you do simultaneously matters and doesn't matter. The threat of relapse is never more than a shot glass away. You can go out of your way to make it easier to make better choices, but when it gets down to the wire, the only one who can make that choice is them. Even if you're endlessly supportive, tend to their every need and want, they may just decide one day that it isn't enough. That they'd rather have your support and access to whatever they've sworn off."

A sudden gust of wind kicked up the scent of freshly cut grass as Tara swayed a little under the park lights, her mouth tight. "That's what you really believe? There's no point in trying to help?"

"Not at all." I shook my head. "Support can make all the difference in the world. Especially if you're all that person has. But like so much else, it's possible to do everything right, and still lose."

I zoned out for a while, watching the dogs run donuts around the field, dodging various obstacles and leaping through hoops unprompted. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tara draw closer and felt sudden warmth as she slipped her arm through mine. "Are we still talking about addiction? Or are you stressing about the timer?"

I smiled at the read and squeezed her arm. "Two things can be true. But… yeah. I'm worried. We tried this before. Me and Nick, bull rushing the tower. Sneaking around whatever we could, strong-arming whatever we couldn't. Bum rushing the elevator."

"You never mentioned that." Tara tilted her head.

"Well, it's not exactly a fun story. It almost got us killed."

She rubbed my arm, a little too hard, like she was trying to start a fire from the friction. "It's different this time. There's safety in numbers. You've got a larger group. All big hitters—I've seen Sae punch straight through a brick wall before."

"When?" I asked, curious. Beyond being there when they'd met, the night of my maligned birthday party, I had no idea they were spending time together socially.

"Snapped me up for a girls' night not long after you introduced us. Barhopping in Deep Ellum." Tara chuckled. "Really took me back."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course she did."

"Relax. It was fun."

"She didn't interrogate you?"

"Only a little." Tara half-shrugged. "We bonded at the party, so there were plenty of other things to talk about. Some dude kept following us around and would not take a hint until Sae made it… uh… less of a hint."

"By putting her fist through a wall." I finished.

Tara rounded on me, placing her hands on my shoulders. "It makes me feel better to know she'll be looking out for you, but I'll say it, anyway. Come back in one piece."

I smiled, letting her kindness distract me, if only for a moment. "That was always the plan."

"Was it?" Tara let the moment hang, her eye-contact unflinching.

"Uhuh."

"Good."

/////

Tara took off not long after. Something about her brother needing a ride. I was pretty sure it was bogus, the real reason being she wanted to give me some time alone with family. As always, her presence was a balm, so, part of me didn't want her to leave, but I'd had precious little time with my mother and sister as of late, and tonight might be the last chance.

I'd made sure Tara would land okay. But I didn't want her to worry. So all the arrangements went through Kinsley, who'd reach out to her in my stead should something happen.

Iris was exhausted by the time we got back to the flat, so I spent an hour lounging beside her in the guest bed reading as she fended off sleep, covers pulled up and tucked under her chin. The book was alright. Some YA novel about two teens who met in a cancer ward and the relationship they built. It struck me as a little morose, and I had a sneaking suspicion from the horrific amount of foreshadowing that it didn't end well, but it was one of Iris's favorites, so I held it out in front of us, tracing along with my finger to help Iris associate the spoken syllables with the text. I read it in my typical plodding monotone, and she was gracious enough not to complain.

Mom watched us from the chair in the corner. She'd been chatting with Miles and come in partway through. The longer she listened, the more her eyes glistened. After about ten minutes the sniffles began. I was worried Iris would hear her and panic, but that never happened.

It pained me that since we'd come back from the park, Iris was mostly nonverbal. She got like this sometimes. When the world got too overwhelming or scary, she shut down.

"I don't want to push you, when you're feeling this way." I hedged, signing along to make sure she caught the meaning. "But if there's anything you want to talk about, now's the time."

There was a long hesitation. Her gaze remained fixed on the book, as she slowly signed. "Do you really think Ellison's still alive?"

"Of course. You don't?"

"He left us. And I was so angry at him for leaving us that I pretended not to care. But now he's in trouble… and…" The signing stopped as Iris gripped her hands together tightly, pressured skin turning white.

I brushed a lock of curly hair out of her face. "That's not how it works. Manifesting isn't real. And if it doesn't work for us, it doesn't work against us either. You can't wish someone into disappearing. Trust me. If you could, I would have managed it by now."

"But I didn't message him. I thought about it, but every time I started writing him I just got so angry. And maybe if I'd just gotten over it and just sent him some messages, just let him know we were thinking about him and missed him, he would have been more careful." Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she sobbed.

"Ellison's smart. But he's always been a free spirit. I expected too much from him. Constantly called him out for being a kid when that's literally what he was. Let the friction between us fester instead of addressing it, and now we're here."

"It wasn't your fault. You were just trying to take care of us."

"Okay. But if you don't want me to fault myself—considering how I did far more to contribute to the current situation—you can't take the blame either. What do I always say?"

"Don't waste time pointing fingers. Find a way to fix the problem instead."

But repeating the mantra didn't seem to help her fear much. Without knowing what else to do, I pulled her to me, and let her disappear into my shoulder as she quietly cried, clinging tightly to me until sleep finally took her, and her grip eased.

I caught mom's eye and gestured towards the living room, where she followed me. We caught Miles blankly staring at a wall near the door, displeased.

"Don't bore a hole."

"Hm?" Miles startled slightly and looked between me and my mother, then seemed to realize he'd been a million miles away. "Sorry. As soon as we're all supposed to be spending time together work won't leave me alone. Tale as old as time."

"All good?" I asked.

"I think so. Getting some odd intel." He smiled thinly. "Ever heard of the Steward?"

My heart jumped into my throat even as I remained perfectly impassive. "Rings a bell. Leader of a decent sized guild. Couple heavy hitters on the roster, but the guild is mostly civilians who stay off the radar. The Drifters?"

"The Driftless." Miles nodded. "But close. Any chance you've met the guy?"

"Haven't had the chance." As a region leader, it was to be expected that I'd have some degree of awareness of any guild larger than thirty people operating within the dome. It was my business to know who they were and how they operated, but there were simply too many to be on speaking terms with all of them.

"Damn. That would be too convenient." Miles smiled thinly and shrugged, letting it go. "Gonna step out to make a call. Either of you kids want something from the QT?"

"I'm good." I said.

"Debatable." He looked at my mother. "Decaf?"

"Please."

"Alright. I'll be back."

As he left, I wondered if there was actually a phone call, or if this was bait. If I was rattled and reckless, the logical conclusion would be to follow Miles and listen in to the conversation. The Steward callout dropped the floor out from under me a little, but one reason I'd chosen The Driftless as my backup plan was because of the existing tensions between them and law enforcement. If there was an actionable problem, it was almost guaranteed they'd deal with it themselves. Snitching wasn't in their vocabulary.

I reminded myself that even if he had something substantive, I'd been wearing the mask the entire time.

Still, it took a while for my heart rate to return to normal.

While we waited for Miles, I finally took a much overdue look at Mom's most recent project. The forum. It was basically Reddit with a mildly improved UI. She hadn't gone out of her way to advertise it, but word-of-mouth spread quickly, and there were already dozens of threads on the front page.

Missing Female, 38, Hispanic, pictures in thread.

ALERT: Active Bounty Near Henderson West

Dungeon Thread - PLEASE mark submissions as Open, Occupied, or Closed and provide the region and street address along with difficulty if known. Submissions without an address will be deleted.

Is this sword any good?

The Cat Corner - FOR ADMIRING ONLY, THIS ISN'T EBAY DON'T PUT IN BIDS FOR OTHER PEOPLES PETS

Darius's Guide to Reaching Level Fifteen Without Fucking Dying

Missing Female, 21 or younger, answers to sweetheart and calls me DADDY

The last thread was deleted in real time as I scrolled through the list, genuinely surprised at how well it was all put together. The missing persons sub-forum had the most posts by far, though the others appeared to be slowly getting more traction. Like any forum, it was primarily composed of two camps, people who were mostly clueless and asking questions, and people who were pretending to be less clueless.

"What do you think?" My mother asked, perched on the edge of the couch, antsy for a reaction.

"You really outdid yourself." I commented, still scrolling through. "It's so nostalgic."

"Hopefully more useful than nostalgic." Mom rubbed at her still red eyes, and laughed to herself, nonplussed. "People certainly post a lot about nothing."

"Well, that hasn't changed. Best thing about an algorithm system is that the best posts are pushed to the top." I paused. "In a perfect world. Where there are no bot farms, or advertisements, or scammers and so on."

"I've taken some precautions there." She pulled her horn-rimmed glasses from the side table and put them on, all business now that we were talking about the project.

"Oh?"

"Verification methods." She held up two fingers, one after the other. "You can either register with your full name, your street address and market account, or through an established Guild."

"Nice. You got the guilds to go for that?" I asked, checking the Guild section. My eyes widened. There were dozens of sub-forums dedicated to the guilds. When I tried to access one I didn't recognize, I was prompted to register. "You got a fuckton of guilds to go for that."

She shook her head. "Kinsley did most of the selling. I just made the thing."

"Was it her idea to give them their own private sub-forums, or yours?" I asked.

"Mine." Mom admitted. "There are system dms that can accommodate multiple people, but they're basically big group chats. And group chats were a little unwieldy even back when the platforms we used were more feature reach, so I figured giving them more tools to coordinate would be a good incentive."

"Well played. Seriously. This is impressive." I looked up at her, imagining how this would change things long term. It'd make coordinating against any large-scale threat infinitely easier. Encourage people to cooperate.

Mom grinned in a way that was utterly unlike her. It was light, even a little mischievous, a side of her that almost never rose to the surface after Dad died. "You're not going to ask?"

"Ask what?" I deadpanned.

"I'm your mother, Matthias."

"No idea what you're talking about."

"Well, if you're not worried about it, I guess I'm not either." Mom leaned back on the couch, utterly smug.

I cleared my throat. "You… of course, have some sort of method to access said sub-forums."

"I do." She confirmed curtly, scrolling through something on her UI. "And now, so do you."

"Look at that." I clicked on a random Guild and found that my access was now unrestricted. The posts contained within were more casual and personal. There weren't many of them, which was to be expected, as this was a recent development and there still weren't that many people on the main forum, let alone the private ones. But I could see the potential.

I closed my UI and sat back, feeling more than a little guilty that I'd put this off for so long. She'd been working her ass off, and I'd just… done what I always did, kept her at arm's length. Because it never stuck. Her moments of clarity. The manic half of the manic-depressive. They were always temporary. It was only a matter of time before she backslid. Which was why I kept distancing myself. Taking the lapse from addiction for what it was, a momentary reprieve, had always been a better option.

But she'd been sober for months now. Which had never happened before.

Since the dome came down, I'd recovered memories. Details about the way my father died, the blacked out vengeance that followed, and the ordeal my mother went through to cover my ass. The shit I put her through. The shit that contributed to what she was. To who she was.

So I said the words I hated. Because she deserved them. Because there was nothing else to say.

"I'm sorry."

Her head snapped up, attention fixed on me as her breath hitched. "For what, sweetheart?"

"I…" The words stuck, like I couldn't quite get them out smoothly. "I didn't know. I'd forgotten… most of it. Suppressed the memories. What happened after Dad died." That was all I could manage, without taking a moment, working through it. Mom was silent, her face impassive, posture perfectly still. "It uh. It sucks? It really, really fucking sucks. Because I spent so much time hating you for the drinking, and the fucking off, and refusing to pick yourself up like we all did. When we—when I—was at least part of the reason you had so much pain. Because it was the worst day of your life too, and you had to spend it… learning what I was. And cleaning up my mess."

I stared at the floor so intently that I didn't notice she'd moved until her arms wrapped around me from behind. "What's the first step?"

"Acceptance." I recited numbly.

"You can't take it from me. The blame."

"I can share it."

"No, you really can't." Her voice shook, laden with emotion but resolute. "I stopped drinking for your father. Because he was worried about me, and loved me, and even then, my god, it was barely enough. But I stopped. Because we were getting older, and I had children, and none of the other neighborhood moms carried flasks in their purses. So I learned to say no. Put the bottle down. And when he was gone it just… came back, same as it ever was."

"You were afraid of me."

She shook her head, gripping me tighter. "No, baby. I was never afraid of you. I was afraid of losing you. Every day. It just seemed so obvious. You were dripping wet. And the police that were there… I was convinced they knew. Terrified that they were biding their time, gathering evidence, getting their ducks in a row, and that one day they'd just… come and take you away, and that would be it. But they never did."

"All the fights we've had. All the terrible things I've said to you. All this time and you never threw it in my face, not once."

"Because I wanted you to move on." Her voice broke. "And you did. And I'm so proud of you. Everything you've achieved. The way you took care of Iris and Ellison when I couldn't. I got knocked on my ass for years and you picked up the slack. I wanted to get clean and despite what you must have thought, what anyone would have thought, you got the pills and made it happen."

"You want to be a family again? A real family?"

She circled around in front of me and knelt, clasping my hand. "It's all I want, Mattie. All I've ever wanted."

"Then I need you. We don't know where Ellison is. If he's even alive. I'm going to go in there, and I'm gonna tear that place apart looking for him. I'll give it everything I've got. But shit happens. You saw how bad it can get, during the transposition." My shoulders shook. "If something happens to me, that's it. It's just you and her. And I need you to take care of Iris. Really take care of her. Sober."

"Mattie..."

"Promise me."

My mother grasped my hand, as tears of joy and sorrow streamed down her cheeks. "I promise."

/////

The usual helicoptering followed. Demands that I be safe, followed by counseling to stick close to Miles and do whatever he told me. It was, at times, comically off-base, but she meant well, and she was only lacking better context because I kept her out of the loop.

We watched TV and talked on and off until midnight. When my mother retired to the guest room with Iris, Miles still hadn't returned from the gas station.

I turned off the light, slipped into my bed, and waited.

Around one in the morning, the doorknob silently turned, and the door pushed open. Miles stood in the doorway, half of his face covered in shadow, the visible half emotionless and grim, clad in the same style of gray and black weaved armor he'd worn during the transposition. The gray in his blonde hair seemed more pronounced than it was back then, the lines on his face far deeper.

"Here to finish me off?"

He grimaced a little. "Hey kid." Slowly, he raised his arm and brandished a hand crossbow, its bolt's dark tip glistening with an unknown coating.

"That was supposed to be a joke."

Miles didn't smile. Didn't banter. "I've been reading over the sheet you sent me. Probably read it thirty times between then and now. It's taken a while to parse. Consider it from every angle. Tell you the truth, I have half a mind to just go through with what we agreed on. Because I'm still not sure. And I prefer to be certain before taking action."

"Oh?"

Again, he didn't smile. "Here's the rub. Several generally unpleasant people in our shared sphere have vanished, as of late. People who were obstructive, destructive, or causing problems in some way. It's been suspiciously smooth sailing lately. And I'm guessing most of that was you."

"Can't take credit for every Joe Dickhead that goes missing."

"But more than a few."

There was no point in lying. "Yes."

"Some of those people had it coming. Others didn't." Miles' grip tightened on the hand crossbow. "Either way, there were a lot of them. They all dead?"

"See, it's tough." I blew air. "Because no matter how I say this, it'll sound like I'm leading you into a trap."

He bared his teeth, the smile vicious and mean. "Try me."

"Some are dead." I stated simply. "No way around that. Like you said, they had it coming, or there were limitations in place that stopped me from doing what I did to the others. But believe it or not, most of them are fine. Thriving, even."

"Uh-huh. And you can take me to them, if I just drive you somewhere in the dead-of-fucking-night."

"Told you it'd sound like a trap." I watched him carefully, ready to cast at the slightest movement. "Besides, we could have had this conversation earlier. If you didn't spend all night jerking off behind the QT."

"Joyless as it was. Fine. I'd rather deal with this now than later." Miles stepped back, smooth and slow. The tip of the bolt left me briefly as he gestured down the hallway towards the door, then aimed it back at me. "You first."