Video in Chapter 95

96.

It took Malcolm much longer to die than Dan. Men were swarming out of the gas station, their mouths opened as they shouted but she heard nothing. The only sound in the world was Malcolm whimpering, the bloody catch in his breathing, growing quieter and quieter. An older man with fine gray hair and a scraggly beard rushed over to Malcolm’s side, checked his pulse and began to do CPR.

“Stop. Let him die.” Freya ordered, but there was no response, and she was not certain if she’d only thought it or if the man had ignored her. In the end it didn’t matter, there were too many holes in Malcolm, the man’s efforts only squeezed the life out of him faster. When he was gone, she turned back to Dan. His eyes were open, staring up, and on impulse she bent over and shut them. That was a thing people did. The blood on her hands left a red smear. He already felt cold.

The other dies too.

Freya wanted to shoot herself, but there were no bullets left. The men came over to her, one bent down and spoke, she could smell whiskey on his breath. Someone was shaking her, she ignored them but they wouldn’t go away.

“Stop it,” she said, and again they didn’t listen, the dead had no voice. “Just leave me.”

They pulled her away from Dan and brought her inside and sat her on a bench, wrapping her in a blanket. She had no strength to resist them. It was only when the police arrived with their flashing lights that Freya realized she could have used Malcolm’s gun.

Now everything would be harder.

* * *

Freya was surprised when the police didn’t put her in handcuffs right away. Everything people said seemed to be shouted at her from a distant hallway and she wondered if her ears were hurt, but she could remember hearing Malcolm so clearly. Her hands and feet were freezing but she was sweating under the blanket, It was very difficult to focus on anything.

“Are you ok?”

The question broke through the confusion, somehow two of the troopers had managed to stand right in front of Freya without her noticing them.

“Not at all,” Freya replied.

“Get an EMT,” the trooper with the mustache ordered the one without.

“You don’t have to. They already checked me out,” Freya explained.

“Are you sure? You’re very pale.”

“I’m sure.”

“OK, well, I need to pat you down, ok? Officer Banks here will observe. I’m sorry we don’t have a female officer on duty tonight.”

“That’s fine,” Freya said. She shrugged off the blanket, stood and complied with their directions. Her body was so numb she could barely feel the hands on her. Instead there was droning insistence that half of her was gone, phantom pain from missing an entire body.

They trooper who was examining her took her wallet, keys, and phone, and then he found the Starball in the pocket of her jeans. The urge to warn him died on her tongue, he was wearing latex gloves and it didn’t seem to jab him.

“What’s this?” the examiner asked, holding the orb up to the fluorescent light and squinting at it.

“Just my lucky marble. I guess it doesn’t work,” Freya said, gesturing out the front door. It was a lie of habit, not design. She was incapable of forming new thoughts, she could only repeat what had been said before. The trooper’s mustache twitched as he frowned, but he gave the Starball back, along with her wallet and keys. He kept her phone.

“OK well, sit tight. Someone will chat with you in a sec. We’re trying to rouse a crisis counsellor.”

Officer Banks stood a few paces from her bench as a sentinel, but otherwise Freya seemed forgotten. She stared out the window as they scurried around the crime scene with their tape and their little flags, taking pictures of everything. Freya drifted in the commotion, waiting for the real suffering to begin. She’d been here before, she knew this was all just a prelude.

“Miss Jokela?”

A trooper holding his hat had just come through the door in a gust of cold air. There were wings of gray stubble above his ears, the rest was bald.

“Hi Sergeant,” Freya said, noticing the bars on his shoulder. He nodded, seemingly surprised she had recognized his rank.

“I’m Sergeant Emmanuel. Can you help us understand what happened here?”

“I have to wait for my lawyer. Everything is complicated,” Freya said, preparing for another fight.

“OK, that’s totally fine. Would you be willing to help us identify the young man who you shot? We’re not finding any ID on him or in his vehicle.”

Freya stared back at him without reply, wondering why he thought she was so stupid.

“I’m not trying to trick you here, we haven’t mirandized you yet.”

“It’s still admissible,” Freya shot back.

Sergeant Emmanuel sighed.

“Let me restate that. Would you be willing to identify the deceased individuals? I promise you I’m not trying to get you. We need to begin the notification process.”

For a moment, Freya wondered if they could use it against her, but it didn’t really matter anyway.

“His name is Malcolm Lewis. I have an order of protection against him. His parents are Charles and Darlene, he lives in West Sillas.”

“Do you know their address?”

“No but it will be in the order of protection. My lawyer knows, do you want her number?”

“That’d be great. What about the other boy?”

“That’s—“ Freya tried to say his name but she couldn’t. She shut her eyes and hung her head, plunging.

Sergeant Emanuel didn’t touch her or say anything, he only waited. Freya was glad he knew what not to say.

“Dan Gregulus,” she said at last. Every syllable hurt, her voice was barely there. “His mother works at Flying Horse Regional Hospital.”

“Can we phone your parents?”

“My mother is at Spring Harbor right now. I think our lawyer has custody of me,” Freya said, not sure if that was technically true.

Sergeant Emanuel stepped outside of the store and called Lynn Harris, she watched him talking, noticing the way he pulled the phone an inch away from his ear, Lynn must have been shouting. After several minutes of talking he came back in.

“She’d like to talk with you,” he said.

Freya shook her head no.

“I can’t.”

Mercifully Officer Emmanuel told Lynn she wasn’t up to talking. Freya wondered how many times he’d been in a situation like this. Outside they were putting Dan’s body on a gurney.

“They won’t put them in the same ambulance, will they?” Freya asked. She didn’t know why it mattered to her, they were just bodies now. But it was important.

“No ma’am, I think they’ll bring another one.”

“OK, thank you,” she said quietly. “How will they tell his mother?”

“We’re transporting the decedents to Flying Horse, a uniformed trooper and a medical examiner will let the mother know in person.”

Something in her face made Sergeant Emmanuel drew back slightly, with a look of concern.

“I just realized, she’ll know right away. As soon as she sees the two of them,” Freya explained.

His lips were tight as he nodded.

“Yes, she’ll likely recognize what’s happening. The positive is that as a nurse she’ll be better equipped to deal with this than most. Was Dan her only child?”

Freya shook her head, the word “was” dug in like a knife.

“He had a twin. They lost his sister five years ago.”

Sergeant Emmanuel inhaled deeply and made a little clicking sound with his mouth.

“God damn,” he muttered.

They didn’t speak for a long time after that.

In Freya’s head there was a sucking void, drawing in light and sound and giving back nothing. It took physical effort to form any kind of thought. She couldn’t rise to it, she remained in the vacant limbo, buffeted by every sound, burnt by every light.

The ambulance with Dan’s body was leaving and felt her mind clawing out, seeking the missing Unity, and when it was gone she sank back into the maelstrom. There was something important, a question she needed answered, but the idea came apart, the chain broke into links of nonsense. A vision of Samantha Gregulus’ face rose in its place, her dark eyebrows quivering, the cold fire in her eyes sputtering out as they told her. What was left for her after this?

The river.

When they were loading Malcolm into the second ambulance, Freya tried to find the hate she’d felt, but that too had been ripped from her. If she had just gone under, none of this would have happened. Everyone would be alive. Lassa would be free. The Starball would be buried in a riverbank for a thousand years.

The Starball!

The idea led her back to the thought that had fallen apart. The Starball had been hiding behind her grief, shunting away her questions. The rage she couldn’t find before was suddenly white hot.

You made this happen! Freya accused, squeezing the orb with all of her strength. She tried to crush it between her thumb and forefinger but it was suddenly as rigid as steel. She could feel its heat, and she shot her eyes around, eyes alit on the wood burning stove. She visualized flinging open the cast iron door and throwing the Starball inside. Starsickness rose at the thought but the worst the Starball could summon was as nothing before her suffering. She felt a hot pulse of activity between her fingertips.

Are you afraid? Freya wondered, and she flooded her mind with malevolent urges. Smashing the Starball with a hammer, crushing it in a hydraulic press, cooking it in a microwave, she probed at each, trying to find what it was most afraid of. Her eyes alit on the trooper’s pistol, wondering if she could get it away from him, shoot the Starball then herself.

Officer Emmanuel followed her eyes, she looked away, caught. But he didn’t press the point, maybe everyone got caught staring like that.

“Can I get you anything? Water, coffee, tea? Something to eat?”

She looked at the ambulance.

“Can we ask if they have Lorazepam?”

“Do you take that regularly?” he asked, she could tell he knew exactly what it was. Freya shook her head.

“Not regularly but I had to take it after my father was killed. It helped.”

Emmanuel nodded, inhaling through his nose, Freya knew we was wondering just how deep this all went.

“Come with me and let’s ask them. How long ago was that?”

“May.”

“Jesus Christ.”