Chapter 15

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Saturday 10th October 1998

We’d almost managed to have an ordinary Saturday. Despite the continued pressure hanging over us – Nick still hadn’t resurfaced – we’d settled down at Dakota’s, played videos games and watched TV for several hours.

Of course, we had to cook dinner for ourselves, since Clyde and Amelia wouldn’t let us leave without them being there to watch the house, and they considered it too risky to have any food delivered.

That wasn’t their only instruction.

“I can kinda get Harriet not coming here, but why can’t we hang out with her somewhere else? Spend the day in town or something?” Bao asked grumpily while effortlessly controlling Crash Bandicoot’s movements.

“They explained this…” Zahid sighed, looking up from the magazine he was idly flicking through. “Right now, anyone involved with us is at risk. It’s bad enough you going out on dates with her every week. Imagine her being taken hostage or something.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen,” was Bao’s steely response. Perhaps the most formidable I’d yet heard him sound.

“As soon as we sort this out, we’ll do loads of stuff with her,” Dakota assured him with her usual warmth. “Trust me, I wanna spend more time with her too.”

“Not in the way Bao does, though!” Kendal giggled.

“Yeah!” he chimed in. “Baos need love too! Or err- not ‘too’ but I guess especially? Or… more like, well, she’s my girlfriend so-”

“We got it,” I assured him from the other end of the sofa, probably sounding more irritable than I intended.

“- really it’s kind of ‘Baos need special couples time as well as normal hanging-out time’ or something…”

He marched on regardless. (And still playing the game, the multi-tasking expert.)

“Well… you know…” Dakota started, clearly trying to find the right words. “Somehow, we’re going to deal with Nick. And then everything can go back to normal. Or our version of normal.”

“I miss our version of normal…” Kendal sighed, curling up a little in mourning over the monster-fighting days gone by.

As if on cue, Zahid’s mobile began ringing.

Grumbling, he put his magazine down and picked up the phone. As his eyes settled on the screen, he frowned, before answering the call.

“Yeah?”

…

“Right…”

…

“Why us?”

…

“I don’t see how, but fine… stay put… bye.”

He hung up.

“Melody needs us in town,” he explained, if anything, too succinctly.

“Why?” Dakota asked, to which Zahid shrugged.

“She didn’t really say. But apparently, we’re the only ones who can help. No one’s told her about the weapons, have they?”

“I didn’t tell her, but… she was kind of acting like she knew, last week…” I recounted. “Beats me how she would.”

“You definitely didn’t say anything?” Zahid asked.

“Why would I have said anything?” I countered, getting a little more frustrated.

In all honesty, I’d spent the whole day in an iffy mood. Lucy had been a full-on irritant when I got up. Bao had offered for us to choose games to play but then dismissed my choices. Cooking dinner turned out to be a nightmare, especially as communication broke down between us. A whole load of other little things hadn’t helped, either. With the past couple of weeks having already taken a toll on me, I wasn’t in the best place to begin with. Granted, most of this was on me getting annoyed by dumb stuff.

“Let’s go, then!”

Kendal leapt to her feet, her gloomy mood from moments ago wiped away by the promise of an adventure.

“Hold on, we at least need to wait for Clyde and Amelia to get back,” Dakota reasoned. “And what, are we just walking up there?”

“Let’s not go then…?” a hesitant Kendal spoke while returning to her seat, albeit perched like a coiled spring.

“They should be back soon,” I pointed out. “It’s almost 9pm now.”

“Hey, any excuse to leave the house is good for me,” Bao added. “Juuust lemme finish this level…”

…

I’ll brush past the ensuing stretch of time. Once Clyde and Amelia returned, we gave them a rather hurried explanation and rushed out of the door. The five of us stuck to the roads so that the streetlights would keep the Autumnal night illuminated. It was fortunate that we had coats too, because the windchill was biting at us wherever it could.

No later than 9:30, we arrived in town.

“So. She didn’t say where she was,” Dakota began recapping.

“She didn’t,” Zahid confirmed for her.

“You all know her better than me. Any idea where she might be?”

“You’re a poet and you didn’t know it!” Bao cheered. “Also, no, sorry.”

“Did you hear anything in the background that might help?” I asked Zahid, who began thinking back.

“Music, faintly. Or at least a bassline.”

“So either a club or a music shop…” Kendal mused. Zahid took his mobile out all the while.

“She wouldn’t be in a club, since she’s too young,” our leader pointed out.

“She’s Melody,” I remarked. “If anyone I know would find a way to get into a club…”

“I suppose so… unfortunately, we can’t get in, so if she has gotten into one…”

“She’s not answering,” Zahid interrupted, phone to his ear. “But unless she’d found a quiet spot, it didn’t sound like she was actually in a club. Outside of one, maybe.”

“Right,” Dakota nodded. “Let’s split up and search around. Whoever finds her… send a text to the rest of us.”

Thankfully, Kendal had been given a new mobile for her birthday. Though Bao was expecting it to be broken before Christmas.

With that, we awkwardly sauntered off in different directions, with no solid idea of where any clubs even were (at the very least, I’d never really paid any attention to where they might be while in town). I realised too late that Dakota was still fairly new to the area and might struggle to find her way around. After all, as I was quickly discovering, it all looked different at night. Streetlights lit the streets – appropriate, I know – while many of the shops beyond them were now left in darkness. Even those with lights still on were devoid of people.

… of course I’d worry about Dakota like she’s not capable of handling herself…

My concern about locating any clubs was alleviated soon enough, as I heard faint music nearby.

Thinking about it, I don’t even know how many clubs there are in town…

It took a little trial and error, but I managed to pinpoint the direction the music was coming from and headed off to investigate. As I turned a corner into an area I was less familiar with, neon lighting up ahead signalled that I had found what I was after. The line outside was fairly busy, but my attention quickly wandered elsewhere. Sat on a bench with her head reeled and her arms running along the back, apparently being ignored by everybody else, was Melody.

Yeah, she really looked to be in heaps of trouble…

I approached her, hoping to get this over with quickly.

“I’ve come to the rescue,” I joked dryly once I reached the bench.

“I had a feeling you’d be the one to find me,” she replied without opening her eyes. “I’d call it fate if I believed in shit like that.”

“Right…”

I took my mobile out and began writing a text.

“Why did you even call us?”

“Harmony told me to…” she sighed in exhaustion. “And then she left me out here.”

… I stopped typing.

“You mean she’s in the club?”

“Yeah.”

“How did she get in?”

“She has a way of looking older.”

“… you’re twins, shouldn’t you be able to as well?”

Melody shrugged. I returned to typing. In short order, I’d messaged everyone.

“So, what now? Do we wait for Harmony?” I asked; she patted the spot next to her on the bench.

“I’ll take that as a yes…”

I took a seat, trying not to sit too close to her.

“You were messaging your friends, right?” she asked me, resting her head back again, eyes shut. “You’re doing a good job with them.”

“Thanks?”

Whatever that was supposed to mean, it was seemingly intended as a compliment.

“I mean, who knows how long it’ll last…?”

I knew she was baiting me, but for some reason, that question – or rather, the suggestion that my friendship with the others wouldn’t last – hit me like a truck.

“The thing is… people like us? We’re not worth the effort.”

“Like us…?”

“The wolves in sheep’s clothing,” Melody explained. “The pretenders. We’re not perfect. Sometimes, the mask slips…”

“There’s… no mask,” I spoke truthfully.

“True.”

She opened her eyes, gazing up into the night sky.

“You don’t have a mask. You’re more like the moon. Only ever keeping one side visible. But one day, you’ll turn. You will. You won’t be able to help yourself.”

“Stop it. Just stop it,” I snarled, my temper flaring. “You keep acting like you know anything about me and you don’t.”

“I know enough,” she replied just as forcefully. “I see right through you. The same way you see through me. And when they finally meet the real you… you know what’ll happen.”

I don’t know about “the real me”, but I knew what she meant. The side of me back at the start of August, lashing out at Bao… no, the side that hated them for not being like me. For them shining a light on my abnormality. The side that burnt white-hot and seared my skin.

Melody could see it, somehow.

“I know you won’t – or I suppose can’t – take any of the advice I would give,” she continued. And then, she looked right into my eyes. “But from one monster to another… be ready.”

I stared back silently. She… was right. I wasn’t even sure why my friends liked me anyway; they would surely turn away if they saw that part of me.

My pocket beeped the call of an incoming text. Fishing the device out, I found a message from Kendal. It read simply “nik”.

In one moment, my blood ran cold.

“Shit…”

The text was obviously rushed, which suggested I wouldn’t get an answer if I responded. I had no idea where she was. I could try summoning my sword and seeing if I could track her with it, but that would only work if she’d summoned her bow… and if she hadn’t, I’d potentially wind up taking the sword straight into a confrontation with Nick.

I navigated around to my contacts, and hit Amelia’s name pretty much immediately. After a few moments of ringing:

“Zahid’s told us already,” she spoke immediately. “They’ve summoned their weapons, do yours too and we’ll be with you ASAP.”

“On it, thanks,” I replied, before hanging up.

“Sounds like you’ve got work to do,” Melody muttered, hopefully having only heard my side of the call. “I won’t keep you.”

“Just… stay here, or something,” I told her even as I began dashing off.

“Not making any promises!” she called after me.

As soon as I passed the corner and was out of Melody’s sight – for what it was even worth at this point – I summoned the Lokon sword into my hand. I didn’t really have any experience using it to track the other weapons, so I simply followed my instincts and ran back to where we started. The sword’s glowing blade pulsed softly all the while, all the more prominent in the low lighting; moving it back and forth as I went, I found it shining stronger in a certain (if general) direction.

It took what felt like several painstaking minutes of trial and error, but I eventually managed to find myself heading towards a back alley. Because of course…

The blade of my sword was glowing intensely now, though that no longer mattered as I could hear familiar voices around the corner.

“Alex.”

Thankfully, it was said softly enough that I only jumped a little. I turned to see Dakota standing there, spear in-hand and already in her battle costume. The green elements of it – the emblem on her chest, the trim of her jacket, her skirt, parts of her trainers – were all glowing too. Guess our outfits are glow-in-the-dark…

“What’s the plan?” I asked, hoping she had something figured out. From what I could make of her expression, she wasn’t confident.

“Confront him. Wait for Clyde and Amelia. Only fight back if we have no other choice.”

She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“Suit up and follow me,” she concluded, before striding past me and around the corner.

Nervous as I could possibly be, I raised my sword and donned my Painter garb. Like Dakota’s, the coloured parts were glowing almost like the sword itself. Still, not the time to admire my clothes… with something of a mental push, I headed off after Dakota.

Bao, Kendal and Zahid were all, fortunately, on the same side of the alley as us, in full regalia and with weapons in-hand. Nick was stood around two thirds of the way down, flanked by eight others with guns trained on us. His people, clearly.

“And that makes five,” Nick cheered lightly, hands deep in his pockets, as I joined my friends. “I was just apologising for taking so long to get back to you.”

“And I was telling him we didn’t miss him,” Bao added.

“What’s the point of having guns?” Kendal shouted out to our opponent. “You know you can’t kill us! Not for real!”

“I don’t need you dead permanently,” he replied casually, “just long enough that I can take my weapons back.”

There. That was another thing. The fact that he kept calling them his weapons pissed me off even though they kind of were. His arrogance…

“You’re not taking them,” Dakota told him, stepping forward a little now.

Nick… smirked.

“Dakota Radley. I knew that surname rang a bell. Had to rejog my memory…”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare,” she replied, fear lacing what was meant to sound forceful.

“I assume it’s not coincidence that you’re involved in this,” Nick continued on, utterly ignoring her pleas. “Did they make the weapons a family heirloom? Did your mum and dad- oh. Sorry.”

He was sneering now, utterly relishing in this.

“That’s right. We killed your dad, didn’t we?”

All at once, I felt the strangest rush of emotions.

There was sorrow, of course, for Dakota’s loss. And absolute despair for her being taunted like this – that alone made me want to punch Nick in the face, hard.

But, stupid as I am, what stung me the most was a tremendous amount of guilt.

I should have realised, so much sooner. I should have pieced it together. From how little she mentioned him, from the way she behaved whenever he was brought up. How in the hell had I missed it?!

Here I was, worrying over stupid little things like how she would find her way around town at night, when she had such a gigantic loss and I-

And her panic. Her near-breakdown when Bao was shot. The instinctive reaction to, very briefly, losing another person. The depth of the wound. And I hadn’t even realised. I was so busy crushing on her that I never realised.

“If you’re out to avenge him, or something, I wouldn’t bother,” Nick carried on. “I have no idea who out of my people was the one to shoot him. Probably one of the ones who got arrested. You’ll never get justice, girl. So give it up.”

Even with the poor lighting, I could see Dakota’s shoulders shaking.

Somehow – in the moment – I felt responsible for this. I no longer recall what logic, if any, took me to that conclusion… it was probably more an immediate reaction.

Everything, every emotion and frustration, finally peaked and boiled over.

I gripped my sword tightly.

Gritted my teeth.

And the entire town fell dark.

In the moment of blackout, only the colours of our clothes and weapons remained visible.

I had no idea what was happening, but I no longer cared.

Almost immediately, all of the lighting powered up again, only this time it was the same shade of blue that I wielded. Everything was now illuminated, it seemed, by my power.

From here on, everything I did was essentially automatic. Perhaps Lokonessence was guiding me, or perhaps I was tapping into it more deeply, somehow. It’s hard to recall precisely. Even my movements are hazy to me now.

All I know is that I screamed out, and charged, and began fighting off Nick’s gunners.

I’m confident that I didn’t seriously injure any of them. My strikes were all with blunted arcs of blue, knocking them away or into the walls. As for any shots they may have taken at me… I can’t recall feeling any, at the very least. Perhaps I lost all sensation and was left a bullet-strewn mess as I attacked.

It was all a blur, until I reached Nick and pinned him to one of the walls, sword inches from his neck.

“Leave us the fuck alone!” I shouted in his face… even that couldn’t remove the sneer plastered on it.

“Go on, boy. Do it. Just try.”

I didn’t, of course. I couldn’t even bring myself to punch him no matter how much I wanted to. I must have looked so pathetic to him.

“That’s enough, Alex…” Dakota ordered soberly.

“No,” I growled. “He’s staying right here. And then Clyde and Amelia can fucking… bury him or lock him up or fucking whatever.”

“You called the grown-ups, huh?” Nick asked. “You’ve got me quaking.”

His line of sight moved over my shoulder.

“Guns down. He’s harmless.”

I don’t know how many of his lackies were back on their feet. Maybe none of them were and he was lying to freak me out.

“Keep pushing me and see how harmless I am.”

I moved the blade a little closer to his throat just to make a point.

Gunshots rang out, and Kendal yelped in surprise.

“Alex, step back!” Clyde cried out from the other end of the alley. I did so with an aggressive huff, and witnessed from close range as Nick was shot in the arm. He howled out in pain, yet seemed to quickly gain his composure.

“Cover!” he yelled, signalling more gunfire to my right. My left hand was grabbed and I was dragged off – I realised quickly that it was Dakota leading me off, the five of us escaping while the gunfight began behind us.

We ran out of town, not stopping for anything, until we were halfway back to Dakota’s. Out of breath, we slowed to a halt, saying nothing, panting, recovering, terrified.

“It’s… too risky to go back to mine just yet…” our leader managed to say after a minute.

“Then… should we split up and all go home…?” Bao suggested.

“You can come stay at mine, Dakota,” Kendal added, putting a hand on her shoulder.

And I…

I said nothing.

I had nothing to say. Not right then, not feeling like that.

Still gripping my sword – streetlights, house lights, all still blue – I began walking off to mine.

“Alex!” Zahid called after me. I paid him no mind.

“Come on…”

The worst of it was over, but the scolding rage remained. They couldn’t see any more of it. I refused to let them.

…

A short while later, I reached the front door of my home. The lights were all back to normal now – I have no idea if they had faded back across with the passage of time or if my little slice of suburbia happened to be far enough away from ground zero to have never been affected at all.

I had hit deep remorse at this point. I didn’t even want to go inside and be seen by my family. To look upon the idiot that is Alex Matthews.

I dispelled my Painter clothing, but I had no idea if I would be able to sneak my sword up to my room without it being seen. My cover was likely about to be blown regardless.

Perhaps I was lucky, then, that Lucy opened the door before I could knock.

“Hey bro,” she purred.

“Yeah.”

“Did you cause the blue-out?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes glanced down at the weapon in my hand, then back up.

“Are you gonna tell them?”

“No,” I grunted. “Can you distract them while I take it upstairs?”

“Okay, but-”

“Make things difficult for me and I swear to god…”

I stared intensely at her; she raised her eyebrows, clearly surprised by how much anger I was holding back.

“Right. I’ll just put on a song and dance, I guess…” she nodded, stepping aside for me.

“Thank you…” I replied, passing her and slipping my shoes off indoors. She darted off all the while, pushing the living room door up behind herself and singing Who Do You Think You Are with gusto. A literal song and dance, then…

“Lucy, please, you’ll wake the neighbours…” I heard Mum grumble as I hurried upstairs.

Reaching my room, I opened the door and walked inside.

I left the light off. I didn’t want to sting myself some more by looking at my “dumb robots” (thanks, sister), and the Lokon sword illuminated the room faintly anyway.

Grabbing a pillow case from my wardrobe, I wrapped the blade up before sliding the weapon behind the wooden structure.

And then I stopped, stock still.

And exhaled, shakily.

I spent a fleeting moment reeling from the tempest of emotions surging within my head, and then did the best I could to conceal them.

I put the mask back on.

And then I left the room, shut the door, and headed back out of the house to make my formal return like nothing ever happened.