“Fuck.”
It’s the first he’s spoken since mocking Deimos. There’s nothing to see but the red-black luster of his closed eyelids. I thought all these deep, measured breaths meant he’d passed out finally.
“You fucking –” Cain rolls onto his back with a weary groan. He must have been out after all, he sounds groggy and slurred, thickly unfocused. “You’re unbelievable.”
Me?
“Yeah.” He’s hushed, not whispering so much as intentionally quiet. His hands lift into his eyes, he rubs mottled, exhausted circles. The gesture’s heavy and slow. Cain drops his hands into the grass and looks at the sunrise-warm expanse of softening sky.
I’m positive the dew-soaked cold grass isn’t comfortable, but it’s better than where he’d originally tried to collapse. I urged him to find somewhere no one would see him from the street. He’s tucked into a smoking area outside an office complex for now, but he’ll need to leave soon. I just hadn’t wanted to wake him.
Are you feeling any better?
He answers like I expect with, “Sure. Why not?”
It’s lacking in sarcasm. He doesn’t put enough vibrating growl into the words for them to carry anger. I can’t tell if his voice is soft like this because of the moment or because he’s just talking to a voice in his head. He keeps looking at the sky, doesn’t say anything else. I hope he’s okay.
Worrying over Cain is easier than worrying over myself, like where my body might be, or if I’m really only something that thinks and feels inside Cain. If I think too much about what’s happened to me, I’ll stop feeling calm.
Cain?
“Hmn.”
You need to be somewhere no one will find you. It’s a workday. People will be here soon.
“Fuck off,” he groans. It’s a wretched effort. He rolls to his side and struggles onto his elbows, his knees. Cain sits upright to look around at the glass half-enclosure that isn’t more than a wind shield and ashtray. He braces a hand to the ground as he leans to see more of the lit parking lot around the side of the building.
He gets the rest of the way to his feet, sways only a little before deciding to brace himself against the glass. His arms cross over his chest, his shoulders hunch. I think he might be cold. He must be cold. He hasn’t a jacket, a coat, his forearms are bare except for dried blood. He’s just in a shirt and jeans, the things I bought him, the wounds I gave him.
Everything’s inside Aidan’s car or with me, my body, wherever it is. Everything I can think of to help Cain isn’t with him. He doesn’t have any money, no credit cards, no cash. He can’t buy himself a coat, he doesn’t know anyone to give him one. It’s too risky to send him to my house, I don’t dare send him to Aidan’s either.
I have no idea if Aidan is okay. He must be okay. Those bystanders would have called for help, they’ll help Aidan because this is my safe, living world. Cain’s a dead thing running around in it, no one’s going to help him except me, a necromancer — I guess I’m his necromancer, and Deimos wants to kill him.
I’m so full of questions, but Cain gets one out first. “Where am I going?” he asks. Brusque and bossy, even though he’s looking to me for all the answers.
I don’t know. Cain, what are we going to do about Deimos?
“I’ll handle Deimos,” Cain says. “Don’t you worry your pretty head over him. Now, princess, you got a castle for me to hide in, or am I on my own?”
Oh. Well, I – I can probably think of somewhere for you to rest for a bit, but, um, you can’t walk around with cuts on your arms though, so I’m not sure what to do about that…
Cain’s eyes close. His head hits up against the glass. “You’re fucking worthless.”
I think he’s smiling. He sounds so quiet, but it must be because I’m a voice in his head. Surely I’m imagining fond affection in the insult. He’s amused by me at best, annoyed with me often, I don’t know anymore if I knew ever. I’m inside Cain’s head and still don’t understand him.
It’s not my heart beating loud and fast like this, I don’t know if I have a heart anymore, I’ll have to convince Cain to keep sharing his with me. I want to cry and can’t. I want to feel Cain’s arms around me, not this strange half-awareness where I know he’s arms-crossed hugging his chest for warmth in the bitter winter chill.
“Abel,” he says suddenly. Snapping at me, actually sounding angry. His eyes open, through his eyes I see his arms, those cuts I gave him, everything whirls too quick for me to follow as he lifts his head and looks nearly anywhere else. He settles on the sky again where stretching pink glow is overtaking grey dawn. “Stop panicking.”
I’m not. Or, I am, I don’t know. I’m trying to stay calm. Cain, am I dead now? Be honest. Please.
He laughs. Quick, startled, I’m not sure he meant to because he sounds neither angry nor mocking. “Sweetheart, you’re as alive as ever,” he says. I’m pretty sure he’s smiling, but I can’t see his face. He might also be trying not to chatter his teeth at the cold.
I give up trying to keep track of what Cain’s doing, not when he’s willing to answer questions — able to answer questions, which prompts further worry from me.
Are you going to be okay? Are you okay now? How could I hurt you that much? It doesn’t seem possible.
Cain’s started snarling halfway through my torrential outburst of fretting, but I’m a voice in his head now. He can’t easily get me to shut up.
What are we going to do? What am I going to do? Cain, where am I?
He tries anyway, growling a harsh, “Shut up! Abel, cut it out! Just, stop talking. Calm the fuck down.” I’ve quieted, but he keeps going without pause to block my blathering terror. “Let me handle this.”
How? Fight it? Fight me?
“Sure. Why not?” Arching sarcasm accompanies the flick of his gaze over the parking lot. Cain starts walking, arms folded against his chest. “Fought to keep hold of you, didn’t I? Some fucking gratitude won’t hurt you. Think I’m any happier about us sharing a body than you are?”
No…I guess not.
“Damn right, but you don’t see me panicking about it, do you? No? No. Because that would be stupid, and I know that you’re a complete fucking dumbass, but try to appreciate the fact that you freaking out makes it really fucking hard for me to stay calm about the fact I have a goddamn necromancer up in my head controlling me around like a fucking puppet.”
Cain’s snarled monologue is mostly hissed and whispered, so I have a moment of clarity to appreciate the full ridiculousness of the situation. He’s walking around talking to a voice inside his head. I’m the voice he’s talking to, and even I think he sounds crazy right now. Sudden empathy strikes me, a new understanding of Aidan’s perspective, but thinking too much about what happened to Aidan will only make me panic.
Okay. I’m sorry, Cain. Um, am I really controlling you? I don’t mean to. Don’t listen to me. Or, no, don’t do that, you need to listen to me — no one else can hear me, please don’t stop listening to me.
The dark, ominous rumble of Cain’s laugh seems more annoyed than usual, less amused — not amused at all, really, and Cain stops walking. He comes to a halt there on the sidewalk and glares up at the sky, mouth flat and brows tight to such an extreme that I can feel them through the echoed sensations that form all my awareness of Cain’s body. This terrifying, confusing impossibility where I’m inside Cain’s body makes so little sense to begin with, but I’m positive that Cain is glaring.
So I expect his voice to sound harsh. It’s soft instead, barely a whisper. “Forget I said anything. You’re fine, sweetheart. You’re fine. I’ll handle this.” He glances to the street, turns to look back at the building, and then eyes the sky again before sighing. “Yeah. I’ll handle this,” he says.
The lack of confidence hits like a physical blow, even though I’m nothing physical anymore. I’ve lost my body, and now I’m terrified to ask Cain if he knows where I am because the answer might be no. I might have done something Cain doesn’t understand, not just that he won’t tell me or doesn’t want to tell me, but that he can’t explain this. Cain’s been able to explain everything so far, or seemed like it at least.
Cain stops watching the sky, starts walking like he’s got a destination in mind. I’m too scared to ask. Too scared to do anything, other than feel scared and think about feeling scared, even though that runs counter to exactly what Cain and I just talked about. He doesn’t snap at me for it, so maybe I’m doing okay. Maybe my fear is such that he can’t notice, or it’s been a constant enough emotion that he expects this.
I don’t realize what Cain’s doing at first. I’m not exactly keeping that close of tabs on him, despite the temptation and lack of distraction otherwise. He’s the full focus of my unfocused attention, but it’s only when the car door opens that I realize he’s been walking along trying each door handle for just this moment.
I ask even though it’s obvious. Not many other reasons for Cain to pry his blunt-edged nails under the steering column and rip off the front panel.
What are you doing?
“Handling shit.” Cain’s smug, cocky response is a balm of soothing comfort. I’m actually pleased to watch him yank apart the multi-colored wiring, at least until he mutters, “What’s all this shit?” and hesitates over two identical-looking green wires. Cain lifts his head to check the street before tipping his head under the steering column again and yanking both green wires close to a red one.
A whooping protest comes from the bowels of the car, the alarm shrieking and wailing now that Cain’s sparked it into a fury. His head slams into the wheel as Cain jerks upright. “Son of a bitch!” He slaps the center of the console in retaliation and then abandons the car.
Only once he’s gotten several streets away and slowed to a normal walking pace do I dare comment.
I’m not sure it’s possible to hot-wire a car anymore. Um, you’d need to override the alarm lockout on the computer…? And I’m not sure how you’d do that, honestly, but maybe —
“The what?” Cain’s head shifts as if I’m walking beside him. He hisses, “There’s a fucking computer in the car?”
Um… yes.
Cain stops and turns. He looks back the way he came and frowns. “When?” he demands. “When did hot-wiring a car get so fucking complicated?”
It seems like a rhetorical question, and Cain seems angry asking it, so I decide not to answer. He keeps standing there on the sidewalk with an impatient, attentive air until I realize the question was literal, not rhetorical. Cain really expects me to answer him.
When did…? Oh. Um, gosh, I – I don’t know. 90s maybe?
A slow-crawling, deliberate stare moves along the quiet side street with dense-packed lines of parked cars on either side. Cain turns his head, this is such a deliberate thing he is doing and I have no idea why. Not until he demands, “Any of these made before then?”
He answers his own question with, “Doesn’t look like it,” and starts walking. Cain sets a brisk pace, I can’t tell if that’s to keep himself warm or just the way he walks, or maybe he’s turned into a bloodhound on a trail now. We go up and down the streets looking at cars trying to find one older than me, but they’re all barely older than my jeans. Cain circles a sedan and even peers inside to let me check out the interior, but the CD players nixes it as a possibility.
“Here we go,” says Cain. I think he means the hybrid parked in the street, but then his gaze stays steady on a beige-colored tarp draped over the low body of a car parked in the narrow driveway. Cain sweeps his attention over the brick townhouse and then keeps going, past the car, right up to the front door. On the way he kicks one of two plastic-wrapped newspapers toward the steps and succeeds in sending it sideways into the flowerbed.
Cain. Cain, what are you–?
Behind him, briefly, a painfully casual yet tense check, and then his elbow goes into the glass pane of the entry.
You’ll cut yourself!
Cain’s already bloodied forearm knocks the broken glass out of the way so he can reach inside and unlock the door. I’m braced for an alarm system, voices, a barking dog, anything other than Cain humming nonsensical, self-satisfied melody as he lets himself into the house. He even closes the door.
Did you hurt yourself? What are you doing? You can’t be here.
“Wrong on that one, sweetheart. I’m here,” Cain whispers. “Now shut up. I’m getting me a fucking coat. Maybe breakfast.” His gaze flicks away from the empty kitchen to check the equally empty living room, and then Cain retreats toward the entry and front staircase.
For several minutes Cain stands at the bottom of the stairs and simply looks up at the second floor landing, the brief corner of hallway visible. At last he decides to go for it, even though Cain’s figured out there’s a blind spot. I’ve realized it as well, just from tracking Cain’s vision over the scene. He goes up the stairs with his head turned, body tense. The half-open door leading into mysterious darkness gives him a long pause before he continues.
Cain’s searching each room like leading a SWAT raid when I realize as worried as I am about Cain getting caught, I should be more worried for whoever tries to catch Cain.
Don’t kill whoever you find. I don’t care even if I need a new body, don’t do it.
Cain scoffs. The timing and degree of amusement is somewhat reassuring. I think it means he wouldn’t have use for a dead body. I don’t think it means he wasn’t planning to kill someone. I have all kinds of new reasons to be grateful Cain finds the upstairs as empty as the downstairs.
I’ve put together a weird understanding of the man whose house Cain is ransacking. No family photos anywhere, an immaculate home office, the third bedroom looks like an honest guest room with an untouched, impersonal bed and empty closet. Cain finds the master bedroom and finds the crisp business suits I expect in the closet. His digging turns up two different black coats, both of which he tries on and then discards. I pay more attention to his arms than anything, because each time I get a glimpse of the fresh cuts from the broken glass, the harder it is, until finally I can’t any longer.
Cain’s holding a third black dress coat at arm’s length when I decide to start bothering him. Rather than ask, though, I decide to give him the answer first and just see what he says.
The cuts I gave you didn’t heal, but the ones from the glass did.
Cain’s response is to stop what he’s doing and demand, “So?” He then tosses the coat to the floor in disgust. A hard shove sends hangers and clothes squeaking along the bar in the closet. “What about it?”
I don’t actually have anything for him. I’m still thinking when Cain hauls one of the coats up from the carpet and slings it on. He holds his hands out to check the too-short length. “Fuck this guy. Ought to burn this fucker down, make him get better shit.” He kicks aside the other two coats and then leaves.
Downstairs, Cain goes right out the front door and even closes it behind himself even though the narrow entry window is smashed to pieces. From the street that might not be obvious, maybe, I don’t know. It isn’t like Cain’s fingerprints will match any in the system, or —
Have you ever been arrested? Was this body ever arrested?
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hisses. “Are you scheming again? Don’t. Your ideas are shit, remember the exorcism?”
No, I — I was just curious. Um, your fingerprints? Police trace people that way, so, your fingerprints are probably all over that house now. And —
Cain’s gotten up close to the tarp-covered lump on the driveway. The whisking reveal is of a sleek black sports car definitely older than me, definitely older than computers being small enough to fit inside anything. It’s locked, Cain tugs twice to make sure, and then he’s back inside the house searching.
A car like that is so flashy, it must be really expensive. The owner will report it missing. The cops will find you right away, Cain, they’ll arrest you —
“Relax, sweetheart.” He snags a set of keys from the junk drawer. As Cain turns, I catch sight of grocery list on the fridge pinned in place with a retro sports car-shaped magnet. It’s the only bit of personalization I’ve spotted so far in this catalog-perfect townhouse that seems like somewhere my dad should live.
“Cops show up, I’ll handle it,” Cain says. “You worry too much.” He hums a bit as the key slides into the door, the lock lifts, he plunges the squared-off mechanism of the handle flush with the panel — I’m actually not sure I’ve been inside a car this old. There’s an obscene amount of sloping, pointlessly aerodynamic hood in front of the dash, a ridiculous 200 at the bottom of the speedometer, a terrifyingly loud roar of engine as Cain cranks the car to life. I’m pretty sure he laughs. It sounds like a cackle, a gleeful burst of fiendish excitement.
Cain. Cain, maybe you shouldn’t — no, check your mirrors!
He’s already out of the driveway, in the street, he didn’t look at all before reversing so there’s not much point now in his brief glance at the rearview mirror. He’s not buckled either. Did cars have seat belts this long ago? Didn’t we all just learn a valuable lesson about seat belts? Then again, Cain walked away from that wreck. Ran, actually, he ran from the wreck, even if he had to crawl his way out of it at first.
Cops will arrest you for driving reckless, Cain, please, that is a stop sign. That is a — STOP! Cain, stop the car!
His foot smashes the brake so fast that the car lurches, the transmission groans, I think there are more parts to this car than I can name because I only ever learned to drive an automatic, and Cain’s fury gets tangled in the gear shift, the clutch — I’m pretty sure that’s called a clutch — but, I really don’t —
“Abel!” Cain’s done with keeping the car alive, now he hits it, pounds his fist into the center of the wheel. The horn beeps slightly in protest. Cain shakes his fist like he wants to punch it again for talking back, and it’d be comical if the car wasn’t taking this abuse in my place. “Abel, goddammit, you are going to get us both killed if you don’t shut the fuck up!”
I’m not sure it’s helpful that I immediately become grateful Cain can’t do anything like hit himself to hit me, because I have no doubt he would try. At least I’m calm. I don’t think Cain would like it if I pointed that out to him, especially since it’s actually I’m calm now . Emphasis on the present state of the car being stopped.
Let me drive. Can I drive? Will it hurt again if I try to control you?
“Shut up,” Cain snarls. “Shut up, or I am kicking you out.”
Of the car?
“Of my head,” he snaps.
I have no idea if that’s possible. Regardless of whether or not he means the threat, I genuinely have no idea if he can get rid of me. I couldn’t get rid of him. Then again Cain’s had so many of the answers, even if he won’t share them with me, so maybe he could get rid of me. If I stop being a separate set of thoughts and feelings inside of Cain, than what am I? Am I still anything?
I don’t dare ask Cain. He already said I wasn’t dead, he obviously doesn’t want me talking any longer, it’s probably distracting him. I don’t want to distract Cain while he’s driving. I am terrified to do anything now that Cain’s driving.
I resist the urge to scream when the stop light changes to yellow and the car accelerates. I can’t imagine this car has any side-impact safety rating. I’m still not even sure it has seat belts. It probably does, that seems reasonable, I’m not sure I’m staying calm but at least I’m thinking about things other than screaming at Cain. He doesn’t beat the yellow, cruises right through on a lazy red, gets caught at the next light despite trying to run it again. He stops, though. Cain at least understands stop lights.
Surely stop signs were invented first. That seems reasonable, he must know what stop signs mean if he knows how to drive a car, and clearly Cain wasn’t lying about being able to drive. He even obeys a stop sign, waits more patiently than Aidan to make a left turn at it. I shouldn’t have angered him so much, because now I can’t ask how Cain knows to drive but had to ask me about car alarms and the internet. I can’t even ask him where he’s going, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m just along for the ride.