The Silent Army

“I can’t say. Just don’t.”

“I won’t.” I opened the flask and took a swig. “I haven’t seen you around here much.”

“You miss your friend.”

I didn’t say anything. My ears got hot and I shrugged.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I just meant to be there for you a little more, that’s all. She’s got me doing something, so I’ve been staying somewhere else for a while. I would have come by sooner.”

“That’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

She was looking out the window while she talked. She actually looked a little upset.

“It’s okay. I’m always alone.”

“Not anymore.”

She looked over at me then and smiled a little, which she didn’t usually do.

“Believe me. I’ll be glad when it’s over,” she said. “I’d much rather be getting loaded with you than doing the other thing.”

I handed her the flask, and she took a big guzzle off of it.

“Thanks.” She handed it back.

“Can’t you tell me where we’re going?”

“Sorry. I’m not trying to be a bitch. It’ll make more sense once we’re there. Just enjoy the ride.”

I decided to go with the flow and just watch the city go by out the window, until after a while, I lost track of where we were. We went through some really nice sections, filled with people, and I felt giddy as the neon trailed by over my head. The inside of the town car was big and comfortable, and talking with Penny was easier than I was afraid it might be. She was a lot like me. We even joked about the visions, and when the flask ran out, she had the driver stop at a corner store so we could pick up more.

It was almost an hour before the car finally slowed down, and by then the lights had tapered off. It got darker outside and the rain was starting up again when I saw a concrete train platform up ahead. It was lit with a single light, and there were three men—one big guy in the middle, and one to either side of him—standing at the edge of the tracks, facing us; there was a black limousine parked in the small area next to the platform.

“We’re here,” Penny said. The car stopped a little ways across from the limo, and the two men got out. One came around and opened the door for us again, and we both got out too.

“Where are we?” I asked. Penny waved to the limo, but the windows were dark and I couldn’t see in.

“Somewhere where no one will bother us,” she said, reaching into her coat and handing me a big white envelope. “Here. This is from her.”

It had my name written in little black script on the front. I opened it, and found a card inside. A message was written on it:

I am sorry I couldn’t be there in person, but know that I am with you in spirit. I have watched you for a long time. I know about what happened to your parents. I know that your ability has been a burden to you, and that while it has provided you with some security, it has done nothing to banish the emptiness from your life. I know that your life has been filled with disappointment and loss. I say this not because I pity you, but because I also know that you recently found a small light in that darkness, and then that light was taken away from you as well. I did not know your friend, but I have an idea of what she meant to you, and words cannot express how sorry I am that this has happened. The words blurred in front of me. I wiped my eyes as the wind blew against the umbrella the man held over me.

Nothing can ever make this right, but what I can do is offer you a choice. You are not powerless. What happens tonight will be entirely your choice, and there is no wrong choice to make. No matter what you decide, we will be here for you. I will be here for you, and if you let me, I will try to be, as she was, that light for you in the darkness. It wasn’t signed, but I knew it was from her. It was from the little one, Ai, their leader.

Our leader.

“Come on,” Penny whispered, and started across the blacktop. I followed behind her. No trains stopped there after hours, and it was dark. The place looked kind of sketchy. I could see broken glass and a lot of graffiti. Wedged behind the corner of a chain-link fence was an old, empty purse.

“Don’t worry about security,” she said. “No one will bother us here.”

I was confused, and so drunk I could barely walk in a straight line. All I wanted to do was go back home and go to bed. The train platform looked like the kind of place where bad things happened. I looked past Penny to where the single light was shining down on the platform. We were getting close to the three men.

It wasn’t until we got right in front of them that I finally realized who the big guy in the middle was. It was Ted.

“You,” I said, but he was too far away to hear over the rain. He was leaning forward, squinting to see who was coming. His face was puffy and bruised. I wished whoever did it had killed him.

When we got in front of him, he realized who I was. He shook his head, and tears actually came up in his eyes.

“You fucking bitch,” he said. “You fucking bitch …”

I took a breath to yell something, anything, at him, but Penny spoke first, cutting me off.

“Quiet,” she said, without raising her voice.

Ted’s face went slack. The way his eyelids drooped and his thick bottom lip hung down reminded me of the way he used to look when I’d go downstairs to …

“What are you going to do to him?” I asked.

“I’m not going to do anything to him. He belongs to you now.”

“For what?” She shrugged.

“For whatever you want,” she said. “But I know what I would do.”

She walked away and the others followed her, leaving me alone with him. His eyes cleared, and when he saw me, the anger came back right away. I focused on him, and I could see the spikes of red flaring up. He hated me. Just the sight of me was enough to make him crazy.

I thought I hated him before, but standing there on that platform, watching him stare at me like the whole thing was my fault, I hated him more than I think I’d ever hated anyone or anything before.

“These more of your goons?” he asked.

“You should shut up, Ted.”

“Who are these guys—your FBI goons? Fuck you and them.”

“She died,” I said, tears coming up.

“Yeah, they told me.” I could see sadness there. Not much, but a little. I saw guilt there too. Mostly, though, it was fear. Under the anger, it was mostly fear. He was afraid of jail, of punishment. He was afraid for himself.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said.

“Wasn’t your fault?” I yelled, but my voice cracked so it came out like a pathetic squeak. “You beat her to death! She died!”

“You’re the ones that sent that fucking—”

He stopped before he said whatever he was going to say. He was still mad, still scared, but I saw something else then. It was shame. He was ashamed, but not because of what he did. It was because of something that happened to him.

“I didn’t send any—”

“She was looking for you, bitch. She called you by name.”

“She?” It took me a second to figure out what he was saying. It was that woman, the one that tried to trap me in the elevator. She came looking for me.

“She beat you up,” I said.

“Fuck you!” he yelled. His eyes bugged out, and the light around him flared out. It swirled, with bright strings of hot red flicking through like they were out of control. He wanted to wreck something. He wanted to tear me apart. I could see it in his eyes, and in the pattern that surrounded him. I’d thought before that by stopping him, I might be making him worse. That night, I thought it might be true. It was who he was. The longer he went without being able to feed his urge, the worse it got. He looked crazy.

“Shut up.”