[REND] 15.1 - Besties Together, Strong

“So… what did Ramello want?” Deen asked as the car came to a stop at a red light.

We were headed to New Hope for some bestie training session—somehow, that sounded weird. How about Besties Fight Club? That movie was about two guys who turned out to be only one. In contrast, we were two girls who were definitely two. Maybe… What if I were the real person and Deen was a figment of my imagination, a supposedly perfect version of me? She had plenty of traits that most women wanted for themselves.

But if Deen was supposed to be perfect, then why was she blonde? Blondes had to die early in movies. It was rare for blondes to be the main characters of action, horror, or thriller movies.

My mind was flying off somewhere again.

“Why are you asking?” I countered with a hint of defensiveness. I wanted to reel Deen in a bit before telling her about Tower Cop.

“Oh, I just thought you wanted to share.”

“I haven’t thought of you as the gossipy type, Ms. Perfect,” I said, purposely staring at the road as if I was avoiding eye contact. Let her think I was hiding something.

“I’m not gossipy. I’m genuinely curious. Spill it, or else…”

“Or else what?”

“Or else I’m not going to buy you the new strawberry custard croissant from House of Bread.”

I turned to her, despite myself. “You were going to buy me that?” Of course, I could buy it myself. But it was different if given to me for free by someone else. I couldn’t buy free food, duh.

She smiled. “I thought just now of buying it for you. But I’m not going to because you won’t tell me your little secret. Come on, Ramello won’t know. This is protected by the best friend privileged communication rule—I made that up, but that should totally be a thing in evidence procedure. Did he ask you out? That’s it, isn’t it? He had his eyes on you since—”

“Not that,” I said. “It wasn’t about a date. Ramello had asked me to lunch or dinner a few times before, and I’ve always turned him down. He hasn’t given up on that, I think, but… this is… different.”

Deen frowned with concern. “You’re starting to worry me. I’ll help you with whatever it is. Promise. No judging either, if it turns out embarrassing. You know you can always share stuff with me.”

“Fine… I’m going to tell you,” I said. That was enough dramatic build-up. “Don’t step on the gas in surprise or something. Though your Guardian Angel will warn you. Anyway, Ramello told me that his cop uncle, Sergeant Hall, asked him to… observe me.”

“Wha-what?” Deen slapped the steering wheel, accidentally honking the horn. I also heard a slight metallic creak. Hopefully, nothing got damaged. “Observe you? What does that even mean? The police suspect you of a crime? Do they know that—?”

“No, I’m not a person of interest,” I said. “And he’s just one cop doing this investigation; it’s not an official case. Yet. Ramello’s uncle believes that there’s another Adumbrae out there and thinks I may have witnessed something.”

I explained to Deen what happened during my meeting with Tower Cop and how he thought I witnessed something important. Then I told her about what I had talked about with Ramello. Something about Kelsey’s mysterious disappearance. My hunch was that Tower Cop suspected that Kelsey was taken by this mysterious fourth Adumbrae or was the Adumbrae herself.

Deen was undoubtedly invested in my story. Add in my short ‘hide this from Deen’ skit prior about trying to hide this from her encouraged her to want to help me more. I put up a fake front of supposedly hesitant strength, trying to solo a problem, activating her best friend instincts to protect me. Not sure why, but she somehow valued me above others. Probably because she thought that I was the only ‘real’ friend, ironically. I was taking full advantage of her trust.

“The 2Ms made things worse by kidnapping Adumbrae attack survivors,” Deen said, squinting her eyes at the windshield while assessing the situation. “They inadvertently threw more spotlight on the Adumbrae attack.”

“Yeah, they did,” I said. “But the 2Ms also indirectly helped by wiping information about Kelsey and records of survivors they kidnapped, including me. It’s only one guy who’s the problem. Ramello’s uncle saw me on a video before the corrupt cops managed to wipe it.” As much as I hated to do this, I reached out and touched Deen’s arm. “Deen… I’m scared.”

“You are innocent of anything related to Kelsey or the Adumbrae attack,” Deen said.

“I know that. But—”  

“But there are two problems here,” she finished. “If Sergeant Hall continues to investigate you, he might uncover our artificial Core secret. However, this isn’t much of a problem. Dario’s group had mentioned that they had taken care of a similar problem before.”

Wait, what? I didn’t expect this. Was Deen indirectly saying that she supported deleting Tower Cop from existence? We both knew what Everett meant when he said they were able to ‘fix’ that problem—they killed whoever discovered Reo’s secret.

I was thinking about leading Deen down this path of corruption. She would've made a pretty good scapegoat, or a distraction, in case the authorities catch the wind of me. Yet, she was already ahead of me. Dammit. We were skipping all the drama and conflict of Deen turning into a twisted-minded sidekick for my main character arc.

Oh, well. Nothing goes according to my plans since that fateful Monday.

“The more pressing concern,” she continued, “is that the cops in the 2Ms’ pockets might notice Sergeant Hall investigating you and alert the 2Ms that someone supposedly eaten by a mutant at the warehouse is alive. This brings us back to the solution of Dario’s group.”

“What… solution?” I dug my nails into my palm to stop myself giggling.

Deen sighed as she drove the car forward. Several seconds of silence passed. She certainly heard my question. I didn’t repeat it. Instead, I sank into my seat, appearing dejected and depressed.

“Erind,” Deen said. “We’ll have to tell Dario about this.”

“If we do… This is Ramello’s uncle! You can’t be suggesting what I think this is. You’re friends with Ramello, too.” I was laughing in my head. My best friend could be quite insanely heartless when it came to protecting me—I could weaponize this someday.

“I’m not suggesting anything beyond consulting with Dario first.”

“But you know what his solution would be.”

“Then, that’s on them. We’re not liable for their actions, especially if we verbally disagree with them.” Spoken like a true lawyer.

“O-okay…” I meekly replied. That was the best course of action—let the hero wannabes do the dirty work. Whatever crime they’d commit wouldn’t be traced to me. However, I kind of want to do the killing myself. I mean, this situation would lead to a tense confrontation with Tower Cop, plus the insane plot twist reveal that I was an Adumbrae all along. I couldn’t just let all the potential drama go to waste!

“It’s very okay,” Deen sternly said. “We should focus on our safety. Speaking of…” She adjusted the rearview mirror. She then looked at the side mirror.

“What is it?”

“I’m just checking if we’re getting followed.”

“Do you even know how to tell if a car is tailing us or just moving in the same direction?” I asked, beating myself up for not considering the danger posed by Tower Cop. I should think like a criminal since I was one. I was a disgrace to other criminals.  

“I don’t,” Deen said. “But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t check for anything suspicious in our surroundings, given what you’ve learned from Ramello. We should be vigilant—keep that in mind, Erind. What else could Sergeant Hall investigate about you? Can you think of things that might connect you to Kelsey? To anything that possibly suspicious and incriminating?”

“Anything suspicious? I don’t know…” I do know. Beanie Twig and Corpo Slave came to mind.

Those two corpses in Marsh Row were a possible danger to me. The kills looked like the work of an Adumbrae… which they were. Was Tower Cop aware of them? Hopefully, not. Marsh Row was far from the station where he worked. Those two were proof of his fourth Adumbrae theory.

Yeah, I really sucked at being a criminal. I trudged dirt everywhere because I wanted to have fun—erm, I mean, it was Corpo Slave’s fault. That’s right. And my second trip to Marsh Row was to save Tattoo Sleeves’ group. I did manage to save them, making me a hero. On the other hand, several people at Marsh Row had seen me, even if I was masked. Heard my voice, too. Should I kill them all?

Wait, wait, wait! I was becoming too murder-happy. Was that a term? I needed to brainstorm what to do here.

“A silver lining,” Deen said, cutting into my thoughts, “is that the 2Ms are preoccupied covering this huge mess. It buys us time until they think of kidnapping us again. This might be why we’ve been safe so far. Maybe the 2Ms will forget about us altogether?”

“I don’t think so. They were desperate enough to find Kelsey that they kidnapped a whole bunch of people who would be missed by friends and families. The 2Ms would eventually look for us again once things have died down.”

“This is further reason for us to continue training,” Deen said. “I hope you get your special power soon.”

“I hope so too,” I said, wishing it was cool as fuck.  

As we approached New Hope, I kept checking if anyone was following us. Our car was alone when we passed over the lone road leading to the abandoned development. And we were certainly alone in New Hope.

The homeless wouldn’t live here because it was too far to walk to anywhere with food. Even a driving here wasn’t a short trip because this was outside the city, an expansion that never came to be. Those involved in illicit activities preferred Marsh Row; there was electricity and water there, unlike here. Myra had also mentioned they hadn’t seen anyone else during the months they had been using New Hope as their base.

Dario’s group wouldn’t be here right now. Most of them had work—Johann was at the police station as some sort of technician; Reo had a shift at a fast-food place; and Everett was helping out at his parents’ appliance repair shop. Myra should be at Eloyce; we had asked her about her schedule before.

As for Dario… we had no idea what that bastard was doing. Possibly being an asshole elsewhere. There was no reason for him to at New Hope on his own. We were going to avoid thein base anyway, just in case he was there, being all assholey and bastardy on his lonesome.

“I can’t believe we destroyed a building,” Deen said as we passed over the demolished structure from yesterday. It wasn’t like the whole building was turned into rubble. Only a third of it collapsed. We went this way to check it out.

“It was probably bound to collapse,” I said. “Shoddy construction. We just helped it along.”

“Will anyone notice it?” Deen asked as she turned left, going deeper into New Hope to look for our training site. “A building mysteriously collapsing on its own would draw questions.”

“Who’s going to question it? Who’s keeping track of buildings here anyway? And who’ll be here to check stuff?”

“Sergeant Hall, for one, if he had followed you.”

“Oh… good point.” So annoying to have a stalker. On the other hand, this was main character material to have a detective side character investigating me. I was quite conflicted about Tower Cop.

“If Sergeant Hall becomes too much of a danger,” Deen said, “our priority is your safety…” She left unsaid what was supposed to be done, but her grim tone explained everything.

Wow, Deen is such a natural at this. Did her family kill business rivals or something? I doubted anyone could be super rich without doing some crimes on the side.

However, the circumstances of Tower Cop’s death shouldn’t be traceable to me. It’d be suspicious that he died after telling his nephew, Ramello, to observe me. Now, I was thinking like a criminal. I probably needed the help of Dario’s group to set up Tower Cop’s death in a not-suspicious way, maybe use Reo’s fairies. Maybe a simple method without using powers, like cutting the brakes of Tower Cop’s car, was better.

“What about we train inside here?” Deen stopped a car next to a half-built building similar to our base, but this was on the opposite end of New Hope.

It looked much sturdier than the building we had destroyed. Through the unfinished walls, we could see massive pillars that were probably supporting more floors than the four it had.

As an improvement to yesterday’s practice, we wrapped our hands the way boxers did. It was supposed to keep the bones aligned and in place to prevent injuries. We fumbled a bit trying to follow a video, but when we succeeded, the difference was incredibly apparent. It just felt so right punching with wrapped hands. Helped our forms, too.   

Thuds echoed around the building as we started punching the pillars. Chunks of concrete flew as dust clouds spread. This building didn’t tremble much compared to the previous one.

“I didn’t break any bones,” Deen said while we changed our wraps. It didn’t take long for them to be torn and bloody. “I can feel that I’m hitting harder than yesterday, but I just can’t push myself to…”

“To give it your all, even if it injures you?”

“I’m already injuring myself.” She dangled a piece of red cloth. “It’s very different to intentionally break my bones.”

“We’re not doing it intentionally. We’re not supposed to, anyway. Think of those stories of hysterical strength. Those people don’t think of their own safety because they’re focused on saving a loved one. If we keep our minds focused, we can do it.”

“Focused on what?” Deen asked. “Do you visualize the pillar as the enemy? I’ve been trying that, thinking of it as an Adumbrae about to kill me. It doesn’t work.”

“Hmmm… It’s not like we can method-act our way into unleashing hysterical strength. What if we go the opposite route?”

“By opposite, what do you mean?”

I raised a fist with fresh bandages. “Completely blank our minds. Just get into the zone of punching.” I chose an untouched column. “I’m going to try again.”

“Sure,” Deen said, her tone made clear she didn’t believe that my plan would work. “I’m going upstairs. Let’s space out the columns we destroy.”

I took a deep breath and shooed my thoughts away. I listened to Deen’s footsteps as she went away. With each step, I descended more into myself until I couldn’t hear anything.  

I started punching. This wasn’t it. I timed my breathing with each punch, lulling myself into a daze as I continued. The strikes blurred into each other, and everything else faded into the background. Eventually, I was numb to the impact, but I still kept going.   

There is no pain.

BAM!

No pain.

WHAM!

Punch. Just punch.

BAM! BAM!

“Er-Erind…?” A distant sound.

BAM!

“Erind, that’s enough.” It was Deen.

BAM! BAM!!!

“Erind?” Deen raised her voice a notch. “Erind!”

I threw another punch, but my fist didn’t reach my target. It was moving away from me.  

“Erind, stop! Stop now!” Deen hugged me and dragged me away from the column.