Ari’s mind was buzzing as they flew down the road. She kept turning around in her seat to look at Emory, who sat there with wide eyes, clearly in shock. The image of Khal’s throat spurting blood onto the couch was fixed in Ari’s mind like so many grisly accidents she had come upon as an EMT. 

Except, this was different. At no other point in her 34 years of life had she ever plunged a knife into someone. She had never taken a life before. 

A bubble of nausea rose suddenly in her gut, and she begged Rene to pull over. The car skidded to a stop on the side of the road, and Ari jumped out and began to vomit violently. 

What the fuck!

Seriously, what the fuck had she just done?

Why were they running away? She should have called the authorities immediately. 

She shouldn’t have stabbed him. 

Rene was out of the car, placing a soothing hand on her back as she continued to vomit the remainder of her lunch, and all the bile that followed. 

“I’m so sorry, Ari.” Rene said. “I’m so so sorry.”

Ari wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve as she heard Emory get out of the car and walk over to her. 

“What did I do?” Ari asked, looking at Rene as Emory reached out and hugged her back to provide some level of comfort. “I murdered him.” Ari said. She knew she shouldn’t be talking about this in front of Emory, but she couldn’t help it right now. She had to get this out. She had to understand. 

“No.” Rene shook his head. “You didn’t. He’ll be back. He won’t stay dead.”

Ari sat back and held Emory’s hand, which was reaching over her shoulder. 

“What do you mean?” Ari asked. 

Rene sucked in a deep breath, then smiled sadly at her. 

“I fucked up, Ari. Hundreds of years ago, I made a mistake. Then I kept making that mistake over and over, and now everything has gone to shit.”

The three of them jumped as a police car went flying by, a man in an officer’s uniform leaning out of the passenger window and firing behind him at  two other police cars. All three were speeding at least 40 above the speed limit, the last two cars with lights and sirens blaring. Ari looked back at Rene, who was watching the police cars go with fear in his eyes. 

“Explain it to me.” Demanded Ari. “Explain what the hell is going on. Explain why Emory took my hand and touched my face, and suddenly I saw Khal killing Misha. And I saw him hurting you. Torturing you. Explain that to me.”

“I will, but we have to get going.” Said Rene. “And, uh, you should probably drive. I forgot that my license was suspended due to my seizures. I don’t want to endanger you both.”

They all got back in the car, and Ari began to drive, before she realized something. 

“Where the hell are we going?” She asked. 

“I don’t now yet.” Said Rene. “It can’t be somewhere familiar to you, or Misha. It has to be…”

He trailed off, looking pensievly out the window. Ari could hear Aset meowing loudly in her carrier in the backseat, clearly unhappy with being trapped in the car. Emory was scratching her through the mesh of the cage to try to calm her. 

“We need to stop by a store and get supplies, and we need cash, then we need to dump our credit cards. Anything that can ID us. The car. We’ll have to steal a vehicle.” Said Rene. 

“Steal a vehicle?!” Ari shook her head. “Are you insane?! Rene, we have jobs, we have a life!”

“Not anymore.” Said Rene. “Not like before. Khal will be back, and he will be angry. He’ll be looking for us, and he won’t stop until he finds us. And who knows what he’ll do then.”

“He looked pretty dead to me.” Said Ari.

“He’s not.” Said Rene. “Not for long, anyway. I thought about burying him, but it looks like the position of the knife severed something important. Hopefully that keeps him out for a while. Long enough for us to disappear.”

Ari shook her head again, “I can’t believe I did that. Why did I do that?”

“That…” Said Rene, glancing back toward Emory, “is an interesting question. Emory, what happened, sweetheart? Did you do something? Did you show Ari something?” 

“It wasn’t me.” Said Emory, adamantly, as Aset continued to yowl. 

“What was it, Em?” Rene asked. 

“I don’t know.” Said Emory, going quiet for a moment, before speaking again. “It felt like there was someone else, in my head, looking from my eyes, and then she took over. She wanted me to trust her. She said she’d make everything okay, and that I should not be scared. Then, she sort of pushed me aside, in my thoughts. I could watch her. She took mommy’s hand, and looked in mommy’s eyes. When I came back to my eyes, mommy had stabbed Khal. I didn’t know what was going on, so I just did what you told me to do, daddy, and got packed.”

Ari glanced at Rene, who was looking back and forth between her and Emory. 

“Em, this may be a strange question, but was the woman in your head our goddess?” Rene asked. 

“Goddess?” Ari repeated in confusion.

“No, daddy. She showed me a thought when she left, like a movie. I got to watch myself grow up, watch myself get bigger in the mirror and become her. I think she was me, but not now me. In the future me.”

“Future you…” Rene repeated, his voice fading as he seemed to drift off in thought. “Future you. Em, was her hair cut short? Like a bob? Did she look so much like mommy, but different?”

“Rene?” Ari muttered. 

“Yeah, daddy. I saw her in this house on the beach, but it didn’t have doors, it had white curtains.”

“It was you.” Rene muttered, turning fully in his seat to look at Emory. “All this time, it was you? How could I not see that?”

“Excuse me!” Said Ari. “Do you want to tell me what the fuck it going on?”

Rene sat properly back in his seat, looking out the front window, “Yeah. Yeah. I need you to keep an open mind, because  you’re probably going to want to have me committed by the end of this. Emory, I’m sorry you have to hear it this way, sweetheart.”

Rene began to explain everything. 

*****

An hour later, Ari and Rene had pulled out all of the money they could from their debit and credit cards at the bank. They then tossed the cards into the nearest trash bin along (begrudgingly) with their cell phones as they heard sirens and gun shots in the distance.

“What were you thinking?” Ari asked, getting back into the driver’s seat as Rene hopped in the passenger side. 

“I know.” Said Rene sheepishly as they both jumped at an explosion in the distance. 

“No seriously. What. The fuck. Were you thinking?” Demanded Ari.

Rene hung his head in shame, “I thought we were going to make a genuine difference. I thought we were going to save the world for Emory and her generation.”

“You can see now how well that’s working out.” Ari said, pointing to the plume of smoke and flames in the distance that looked to be a former gas station. 

“They would have been handled, eventually.” Said Rene. “I suppose I just didn’t understand how many corrupt cops there were in this world.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Said Ari. “You’re a white man.”

“Not in every life.” Rene muttered. 

“And Khal blowing up the nukes. Are we sure that’s all he was doing?” Asked Ari.

Rene shook his head shamefully, “I have no idea anymore. I was so convinced he was doing the right thing, because I wanted him to. Because he claims he would do anything for me.”

“Ah yes, I’m sure the man who killed your loved ones in multiple lives is very capable of choosing the right path. Definitely happy to turn over a new leaf, that psychopath.”

“He was inside your head, Ari. And he let you go. At least, I think he did. If he didn’t, we’re going to be in a very sticky situation very soon.”

“Jesus.” Muttered Ari, shivering at the violation of her mind. 

“Was that why mommy’s eyes looked strange before?” Asked Emory. 

Ari glanced at Emory in the rear-view mirror, “Did you see mommy’s eyes looking different, honey? What did you see?”

“They were off. Like something else was sitting inside them.” Said Emory. “For months. I saw a lot of eyes like that after we first met Khal. Even dad’s. I didn’t like it.”

“Are mommy’s eyes still like that?” Asked Ari.

“No. Not since daddy went to the hospital for his head. They’ve been normal since then. Nothing sitting in them.” 

Ari looked at Rene, who looked back with a mixture of shame and relief. She realized that she could barely remember the time before Rene had gone to the hospital because Khal had smashed him in the head with the fucking tea kettle. It was all there, all the memories of everything before that from the moment she met Khal, but it was all muted. Distant. Like it was someone else’s memories. 

“Take a right here.” Said Rene, pointing. Ari did so, not sure if she trusted his judgement now, but knowing it was probably the only choice they had.

“So when prince charming wakes? What exactly should we be expecting?” Ari asked. 

“Retribution. Revenge. Him hunting us down to the ends of the earth. You know, the fun stuff.”

“And then forcing me to flay myself alive, I assume?” Asked Ari.

“Probably.” Said Rene, before he suddenly told her to stop. She immediately saw what he was looking at. An old junker car, for sale on the side of the road. 

“How much cash do we have?” Rene asked. 

“I have about 4-grand.” Said Ari.

“And I’ve got 6k. This is good. We can do this.”

They ended up ditching their car in the woods, taking a very angry, and at this point very hungry Aset into the new old Carolla with them. Their pockets were 3-thousand-dollars lighter, but the purchase was worth it. At least according to Rene. 

They drove another hour before Emory began to whine about being hungry. They grabbed some food at a subway drive-through, including some extra tuna for Aset, who hungrily lapped away. Rene led them on, having them stop for a few supplies at an old mom and pop store on the way to wherever he was taking them. They got water, a decent amount of food, toothbrushes, two burner phones, some baseball caps, and some essentials for the cat. Then they were on their way. 

It was nighttime by the time they headed down a long secluded driveway and pulled into the location Rene had been leading them to. Ari could just make out the reflection of the moon on a large body of water behind the dark outline of what looked to be a cabin.

“Home sweet home.” Muttered Rene. 

“Where are we?” Asked Emory. 

“It’s a house one of my foster families owned.” Said Rene. “Not the best memories, but not the worst. They’d take me and my foster siblings out here to get exercise. We weren’t allowed to play, so much as make the place look nice by raking, mowing, and cutting wood, while their bio-children went swimming. Oh well. Looks deserted now, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s ours for a while. I never told anyone about this place. Not even Misha.”

Ari got Emory out of the car while Rene grabbed everything else, including the angry little black fluff that was Aset. They headed into the house, which, while dusty and sporting more than its fair share of spiderwebs, was actually in decent shape and had working electricity. 

Emory somehow managed to fall asleep in Ari’s arms, despite all the excitement. Rene quickly shook out the blankets on a bed, and Ari laid Emory down, before climbing into bed next to her. She was too tired to help put anything away or brush her teeth. Besides, they didn’t have anything perishable anyway. Rene covered them both in an extra blanket, and left the room after pointing out to Ari where the bathroom was. 

She lay there in bed with her daughter in her arms wondering what was going to happen now. She could never have imagined the way her life had turned out. What she wouldn’t give to go back in time and change everything. To stop Khal, save Misha and everyone else. It was too much. 

Ari realized that tears were leaking from her eyes as she rested there on that musty pillow. 

*****

As Ari transitioned to her new life, she often thought about her grandmother Ha-na, living in Korea, a pregnant woman, all alone, surviving on the water pump she had outside her house. At least Ari had electricity. She mentioned this casually to Rene one night as they watched the sunset, roasting smores as they looked out at the rippling reflection of blue, pink, and golden beams on the pond behind the cabin. She had been in awe of Rene’s ability to catch fish with a net, and prepare it so easily, it appeared he had done it his whole life. In fact, Rene was adept at a number of survival methods that Ari never would have pegged him for previously. He thrived in that life in a way she struggled to do. The benefits of remembering his past lives, it seemed. 

“My grandmother lived like this over 70 years ago.” Ari pointed out. “Honestly, I’ve always been in awe of her. I never imagined living like this myself.” 

Rene glanced at her and smiled.

“I met her.” He said quietly. “Ha-na. When I was a soldier in Korea, I reached her home. Something had happened to her husband and she was alone. She cooked for me. She…she was very kind.” 

“You met her?” Ari asked, sitting up straighter, incredulous. 

“Unfortunately, I had a friend with me at the time, well, not a friend. He tried to attack her, and I…or, that is to say, Adam, stopped him. We both died that night, but she made it out okay. Had your mother, and now we have you and Emory.”

“You? You were the one who died at my grandmother’s house?” Ari asked, shaking her head, feeling a nauseating sense of deja-vu.

“Yeah.” Rene said. “Why? Did she talk about me?”

“The soldiers left great-grandma the gun that saved her life, right mommy?” Emory asked.

Ari nodded slowly, and proceeded to tell Rene the story that had been passed down to her. Ha-na had taken Adam’s weapon that night and managed to figure out how to use it, thankfully. The next morning, with the rifle at her side, she had heard soldiers coming around the house. When they blasted inside, standing in shock at the sight of the two dead soldiers on the floor, she discovered they were North Korean. She opened fire on them, and managed to kill them before they could kill her. Two more soldiers entered, and she did the same to them. 

That’s when she left to find somewhere safe. If she had not had the rifle, and if the bodies had not been on the floor, stopping the soldiers in their tracks, Ha-na was absolutely convinced she would have been killed, right after the solders had their way with her. 

Rene looked thoughtful as he stared into the fire. 

“Something pulled me, pulled Adam towards that house that night. Like it was meant to be. Like you were meant to be.” Said Rene. 

Ari felt a shiver of awe. Rene was the reason she was here. Such a strange thought that their lives were so connected throughout time. She looked at Emory and smiled at the thought of every special moment that had to happen for her to be in this world. Then a frown overcame her. Rene had explained, when Emory was resting one night, that their goddess had designs on Emory. That she wanted to possess Emory in the future, and use her as a vessel to return to earth and fix everything as she saw fit. 

Perhaps it really was Aset then who had been pulling the strings of existence to bring Emory into being. Ari wasn’t sure how she felt about that. 

*****

It had been a month. They needed to head into town for supplies. Emory was excited, hoping they would get her some ice- cream, as she was getting tired of living on fish and stale crackers. Ari and Rene were anxious to hear news of the world. They wanted to know if Khal was back yet, and if things were getting better or worse. Rene wasn’t quite sure how or if Khal’s powers worked when he was dead. 

It had snowed that morning. They made their way through the pristine white fluffy stuff all the way to the plowed main road and on into town. They headed to a gas station, all keeping their heads down under their baseball caps to avoid any possible cameras. Ari perused the candy with Emory while Rene grabbed some essentials. When Ari passed a newspaper, she snatched it up and began to read through it. 

A number of corrupt officers around the country had been arrested, unfortunately, they had taken a lot of lives in the process. Many were still on the loose, and were thought to be building armies of far-right groups to stand up against what they believed to be the tyranny enacted across the world. In fact, groups across the planet were coming together to fight. Right, left, center, it didn’t matter. Everyone was affronted by the sweeping changes, and wanted to make sense of it all. 

The devastation from the fallout of the dropped nukes was only beginning to be understood. It looked like thousands had died across the world, and still more were missing. Radiation sickness was spreading far and wide. A number of cities were straight up burning since so many were rising up to fight, and everyone was depleted of non-corrupted forces to control them. 

Ari heard a strange shrieking noise, and looked over to see Rene suddenly tense up, and collapse. His whole body was seizing violently on the floor, which was now spattered with blood from where his face had hit it. 

“Call an ambulance!” Someone shouted, and Ari watched the lady behind the checkout counter pull out her phone and begin to dial 9-1-1.

“No, don’t!” Ari said, perhaps a little too forcefully. She rushed over to Rene, and carefully put him in the recovery position, turning him on to his side and making sure nothing was obstructing his airway. “It’s okay! I’m a trained EMT. There’s no point calling the hospital now, they’re probably overwhelmed with everything going on as it is.”

“Mommy!” Emory whined, shocked at seeing her daddy seizing on the floor in such a state. 

“It’s okay, honey.” Ari lied. “It’s gonna be okay.”

God, how she wished she could believe that. 

Chapter 47 – Hysteria