-1-
“I have to stop,” Luce announces to the car. “The solar panels don’t have enough energy and the electric battery is drained.”
Six hours ago we’d sped away from the burning safehouse. Luce had just kept driving away from the city and (as far as I could tell) towards absolutely nothing.
I’d flown across the desert surrounding the Sprawl in Dad’s private jet before but driving across it was a bitch. The ash and sand was endless and the constant nothingness was making me hallucinate. We hadn’t seen a single soul in hours and I wasn’t sure there was a plan except to get me as far from the city as possible.
Luce navigates us towards a flickering holosign advertising the Paradise Springs Premium Truck Stop.
I don’t know who owns this shithole, but they need to rethink the way they used the word premium.
The truck stop consisted of a fueling station, a seedy motel that looked like it was from the last century and a connected restaurant called Paradise Springs Premium Truck Stop Restaurant.
The other vehicles parked at the truck stop are the big commercial solar trucks that carry the supplies and drones that worked on the elevated railway tracks. I always thought the trucks were self-driving but I guess there were still a few who did things the old fashion way.
Grayson had woken up bright-eyed from whatever Luce had done to him, Haley had cleaned and stitched his own arm wound and Grandad had rallied enough for me to tell him about Mom. He'd accepted the news numbly. We did our best to clean up but we still looked like a sorry crew walking into the restaurant.
Grandma Sara leads the way to a booth, completely ignoring the stares from the truckers who were scattered throughout the grungy diner.
“What’s the plan, Ma ?” Luce asks, parking his chair at the head of the booth.
“We eat,” Grandma Sara starts tapping the table so the menu appears. “Then we figure it out.”
She orders water for the table on the diner’s interface and the hostess comes by to inform us half the items on the menu aren’t available. The only thing I can imagine stomaching right now is toast and a ginger ale so I order that.
“Hey,” Luce says tilting his head up to the blurry holoscreen above the diner’s bar.
I turn around and see it’s showing the news story about my house exploding under the words breaking news alert. One of the truckers asks the hostess to turn the volume up and she does.
“Let’s go wash our hands,” Haley says and quickly slides out of the booth with Grayson in tow.
“….Washington mansion explosion,” the reporter is saying, standing in front of the rubble that was once my house. “Cause of the explosion is still unknown but we have reports the home was built on a former nuclear powerline that was thought to be inactive,”
“Tell us about the victims,” the anchor asks the reporter somberly.
“Yes, we’ve been told the remains of Mr. Zacharias Washington and Mrs Charlotte Washington and their daughters have been recovered and identified by DNA match. Examiners have also found the remains of Ms. Minnow Dory, Mrs. Washington’s aunt and a long time employee of The MBC Group. I’m told Ms. Dory was spending the night in an attached apartment of the house when the explosion occurred.”
“Yes. No, tell us about this bizarre latest update,” the anchor inquires
“Yes,” the reporter continues as a picture of a startlingly young Alan Gray appears on screen. “In an inexplicable turn of events the brain implant and what are thought to be the remains of Everett Hawke, son of the former Tempus CFO Hank Hawke, were also found on the scene. The younger Hawke went missing from a party in the Boston-Atlanta Metro are over 30 years ago. The decades long search for him was lead by impassioned socialite Alyson Kyto, the last one to see him alive. This tragic story has both ended a long time mystery but created more questions….”
….the remains of Mr. Zacharias Washington and Mrs.Charlotte Washington and their daughters
Bodies.
Angel. Atsumi. Mom. Dad. Aunt Minnie.
Dead.
How ?
Grandad balks loudly at the report and stands. He walks away from the booth and out of the diner.
“Give him space,” Grandma Sara says in an uneven voice, putting her arms around me and hugging me. I melt into her hug. There is another heavy hand rubbing my back and it must belong to Luce.
From Grandma Sara’s embrace I watch Grandad standing outside the restaurant. He run his fingers through his hair, looks up at the sky and then he walks towards the motel. My stomach sinks for some reason. Something told me I needed to be with Grandad right now.
I slide out of the booth and tail Grandad into one of the motel rooms. I don’t even focus on how gross the motel room is but go straight to where he is sitting in the bathtub, fully clothed in his finery from last night. He even put his one heel back on.
But he’s clutching a long thin knife to his wrist.
“Grandad--”
“I’m so sorry, Bells,” he apologizes softly, tears streaming down his face. I kneel next to him. “I’m out, baby girl. Your old man’s not strong enough for this one. I can’t—I can’t--”
“No. I need you,” I remind him. “You’re all I have left--”
“Minnow… Charlotte….Angel…Atsu--,” he can’t finish her name as a new crop of tears start, eyeliner and mascara running down his face. “I can’t do it Bells…I’m sorry, love I can’t live in a world without my girls--"
“I’m your girl too,” I tell him holding his wrists so he doesn’t cut himself. “I need you right now. Don’t you fucking leave me.”
He laughs at the last part.
“You sound like your mother,” he croaks in something between a laugh and a cry and opens his arms.
I climb into the tub and he grabs me up roughly, rocking me back and forth. We sit and cry for what feels like hours and I feel the grief pouring out of me.
It’s cathartic.
My head is pounding and my eyes are on fire but it feels like it will never be enough. I don’t want to die but I never want to get out of this bathtub and walk into an existence without my family.
I’m not sure how much time has passed when the door to the motel room opens and Grandma Sara, Luce and Haley filter into the room, carrying bags of to go boxes from the diner.
Grandma Sara walks into the bathroom and crouches beside the bathtub. She takes Grandad’s hand in hers.
“Jean. You’ve been there for me for the worst moments in my life and I hate that we have to share this one. I’m grieving too. But, I’m also angry. And I’m going to make sure whoever did this is not going to fucking win. I need you right now. Are you with me ?”
Grandad curls his fingers around hers.
“Always, darling,” he says quietly.
Grandma Sara helps him out of the bathtub and leads us into the motel room. There is a pastel yellow floral patterned baby blanket draped over one of the beds. Haley and Grayson are laying curled together on top of it; Grayson’s eating cereal, clutching the now blood stained stuffed robot he had last night and engrossed in a cartoon on his tablet.
Grandma Sara guides Grandad to sit in the room’s desk chair near where Luce is pacing in his mobility chair. She slides over the hotel’s arm chair for me to sit in and gives me my ginger ale and toast.
I watch Haley untangle himself from Grayson, turn the volume up on Grayson’s orange ear pods and then walk over to join our huddle. I catch Luce give Grandma Sara a pointed look and then nod his head not so indiscreetly in my direction.
“She’s staying. This is her fight too,” Grandma Sara tells him and I feel like I’m about to be let it on something.
I should be happy I’m finally being treated like one of the adults but a big part of me wants to be like Grayson and just eat cereal, watch cartoons and ignore everything around me.
“Am I going to be the first one to say it?,” Luce spits. “This had to be Kenji. He was staying at the house and his is the only body they didn’t report finding. That's fucking convenient.”
“I know. But why ?,” Grandma Sara asks.
“Money,” Grandad declares somberly. “Take out the whole family in a freak accident, hire people to make it look like I committed suicide out of grief. Kenji is the next in line to the Washington inheritance.”
“But Dad would have just given him money if he asked,” I say. “Dad was probably going to give him the everything. We have to tell Justice, they can check his ID’s last location and they’ll know he was in the house last night--”
“No, they won’t. Shit.” Grandma Sara says. She rears back and punches the wall which seems to surprise only me.
“Ma--”
“When we were stopped by the blueboys on Rias’s birthday I noticed Kenji was fumbling to get his ID. I saw he had more than one ID card but I didn’t question it---I—I thought it was nothing but I should have said something,” Grandma Sara says quietly. “I—fuck, I’ve been out of the game too long. He’s probably using a fake ID so no one can trace him to being in the house.”
“He was sneaking around the house last night,” I suddenly remember. “I mean, I think. We were sitting by the pool and he—he said he was going to see the stars.”
What a fucking asshole. Atsumi and Angel had been talking about ways to include him and get to know him better and the whole time he was planning on killing us.
“I want to know how some Arkham raised neo-luddite motherfucker pulled something like this off,” Grandad says.
“Let’s find out. Let’s ask Hotako” Luce says and turns to me. “Kenji’s father.”
I knew very little about the Washington side of my family. Dad had photos of my other grandfather around the house and he mentioned he had a living brother but I’d never met him
“What if his dad is in on it ?,”I ask.
“He’s wouldn’t be. I know him,” Luce says confidently and turns to Grandma Sara. “Plus Arkham will be a safe place for the kids until we figure this shit out.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Grandma Sara agrees.
“Arkham Academy is a 14 hour drive from here,” Luce tells us. “If the car charges overnight and we leave at sunrise tomorrow we should have enough electric and solar power to get there.
Haley speaks up uneasily. “I don't think Grayson and I--”
“Lex--”
“Luce...I can't put him through this. He wasn’t raised for this and I can't keep dragging him all over the place.” Haley says. “There is a train station at Arkham, right ?. You can drop us off and we’ll go back to the Sprawl. Kenji doesn’t know about you and I--”
“It’s not hard to figure out--”
“If anyone comes around the apartment looking for you I’ll say you and I are estranged,” Haley counters. “I have a real job and Grayson has school. If I keep making excuses for where we are his school might get suspicious.”
“I don’t like this,” Luce grumbles.
“You need to protect Ellie and figure this out without worrying about us too.” he says. “Having us here only makes it harder.”
They have what seems to be an entirely unspoken argument through stares.
“Fine,” Luce says finally but he doesn’t sound happy about it.
-2-
“I think you need to plant your feet more. And keep your arm
taught,” Grandad says, accessing my form as I pull the trigger on the little
pistol Grandma Sara had forced on me.
The recoil hits me less hard this time and the rubber bullet flies from the silencer, across the motel’s parking lot and into the Paradise Spring’s holographic billboard, making it flicker.
“Every time I pull the trigger I feel like I’m having a mini heart attack,” I admit breathlessly.
“That’s why I don’t mess with them,” Grandad says, pulling a thin knife from his pocket. “With this beauty all you need to do is aim for a juicy artery and step back from the spray.”
“Have you ever had to do that ?”
He looks almost offended.
“Yes, love. Lots of times. I know it may be hard for you to believe but we all had a life before you, Bells.”
Grandad and I were sitting outside the motel room. I’d decided to do a little shooting practice. It was getting close to sunset but it was still somehow hot as hell outside. I was down to a glitter lined sports bra and a pair of cutoff shorts. I’d had so much fun picking out these clothes just a few hours ago but now it just felt so frivolous.
We couldn’t use my accounts to get another hotel room because I was supposed to be dead so we’d had to pile into one room that Haley was paying for.
The two bed motel room was small and not really made for more than two people. Luce’s mobility chair didn’t fit through the bathroom door, so we’d gone outside to give him some privacy to get ready for bed. The plan was for us to all get as much sleep as possible, get up at 3AM and start the trek to Arkham Academy.
“What exactly did you and Grandma used to get up to ?,” I ask.
Grandad gets a distant look in his eye and smiles.
If had always confused my friends who came to family events that the only two grandparents I’d ever had weren’t married or related even though they acted like it. When our family parties winded down we’d find them in a corner together reminiscing for hours over a few bottles of wine. They'd been friends for over 50 years. I’d only hoped I would find someone to have a friendship with like theirs.
“We worked. Did jobs. Me, Sara, Luce and sometimes…Minnow. Alan for a little while. It all changed when your Dad was born--”
“What’s the deal with Alan Gray anyway? Is he really that missing Eastern State guy ?”
He shrugs.
“He’ll always be Alan Gray to me…Really thought she was going to take Alan’s identity to her grave—speak of the devil!”
The motel door opens and Grandma Sara comes out of the room rolling Luce’s empty chair. It was weird seeing the cybernetic chair without him in it.
“Has there been a miracle ?,” Grandad jokes.
“The chair needs to be charged,” Grandma Sara responds ignoring his joke. “I’m going to find an adapter and charge it at the fueling station.”
“Can he survive the night without it ?,” Grandad asks.
“Yes, but we had to shut him down…he keeps portable servers and batteries for backup at the apartment but we didn’t think to bring them---didn’t think we’d be gone for more than a few hours.”
After a beat Grandma Sara rolls the chair down the hotel's maintenance ramp and across the lot to the fueling station.
I follow Grandad back inside the motel room. An incapacitated Luce is laid out on the floor in front of the beds. He’s flat on his back and Haley is kneeling beside him, tucking a softly beeping breathing monitor under Luce’s shirt. Grayson is kneeling at Haley’s side, studiously draping the yellow baby blanket over Luce’s unconscious body.
“Should we get him into the bed ?,” Grandad asks, bending to run a finger across Luce’s cheek.
“He insisted on the floor,” Haley responds dryly.
I grasp on to the little tasks and routine of it all to keep
myself from spiraling into the bad thoughts. I shower and set out an outfit to wear tomorrow. I
read to Grayson and Ruby the plushie robot while Haley showers, I help Haley reapply
his bandages, check Luce’s breathing monitor, repack the bags and even
volunteer to go down to the diner when Grandad whispers to me he needs a vodka lemonade. The best they can do is a beer with a wedge of lemon in it.
When everything is settled I’m sandwiched in one of the beds between my sleeping grandparents. Grandma Sara is curled up tight on her end of the bed, taking up as little space as possible. Grandad is sprawled out on his side. He’s holding on to my arm like I’m a security blanket and hums little song in his sleep.
I’m glad Grandad is sleeping, but I can’t get there. I’m sick to my stomach and afraid if I close my eyes the next time I open them something else will be taken away from me.