AnCatKatie
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
This is a strange one.
And, god, finally. The idea of this chapter has been plaguing me for the past few weeks.
***
"I was on the inside
When they pulled the four walls down
I was looking through the window
I was lost, I am found
If you walk away, walk away
Walk away, walk away
I will follow..."
—U2, "I Will Follow"
There was a scuffling sound, and Isaac’s voice, somewhere beyond the tight circle both men’s awareness had narrowed down to. But at the moment it was unimportant.
All unwillingness to hurt had left Seamus, but still he held back. He lunged at Marcus with his knife, but of course the other man saw that coming and rolled into the shadows, pushing himself up from the floor until Seamus kicked his knees out from under him. Marcus fell on top of him and immediately twisted Seamus’ wrist around to wrest the knife away from him. Seamus did what Marcus would least expect, let his hand go limp and dropped the knife, catching it with his other hand and rolling away.
But the dance wasn’t as close as it could have been. Marcus would have been more purposeful, his drive leaving no room for hesitation. Seamus didn’t right out drive his knife into Marcus.
The other man had a sharp white-knuckled grip around his wrist again, his face immediate as bleached bone. Seamus kicked him in the stomach then slammed down to the floor again, scrambling on the dusty ground for purchase. As he rose, breathing hard, beneath his shadow he saw a brief glimpse of the glittering anger and betrayal in Marcus’ eyes. Blurrier, more insubstantial at the edge of his sight was Ciarán.
This was safer for everyone, Seamus realized. And Ciarán was all too close to the fight. The building was tiny; there was nowhere for anyone to stay unharmed if anything happened.
I’m sorry, his eyes pleaded.
His neck muscles tightened. He was already turning, his stomach twisting. Past guilt a soft impact behind his eyes, wrenching his organs. In a snap second he decided. Seamus wrenched all his energy into one burst of speed, turning on the balls of his feet and pushing himself off the floor. The rest of the room filtered back like he had surfaced from water, dripping sound: there was the click of a trigger and the high voice of a woman yelling. His purpose gathered into a short knot of an impulse. Instead of lunging back at Marcus, he sprinted for the door, his feet slipping as he ran. He thudded against the wood, icy adrenaline making him fumble with the bolt. He didn’t dare look behind him.
He had to hold the knife between two fingers to undo the catch on the heavy bolted door. His entire body practically vibrated with the awareness that as much of a chance as making it, he might fail.
*
“It’s this one,” Eve said, out of breath, stopping herself from slamming against the door after her dead run. “It has to be this one.” Her eyes were wide, her hair wild, her chest heaved. Larry caught up with her, sweat slippery on his collar. He breathed roughly. Eve was fast. The others were somewhere close behind. He held back from going any closer, as if she was on fire and would burn him.
She pressed a finger to her lips, closed her eyes, and put an ear to the door. Larry knew when her body stiffened and her eyes snapped open. “Oh god,” she said in little more than a whisper. She could hear the voices inside. She heard Ruth. It hurt, the amount she needed to go in and save her sister. But she couldn’t. If she did it on her own something terrible would happen, she knew. Her eyes tore to Larry’s.
“Tell them!” She pushed sudden hands at his chest, then looked back and lowered her voice. “Go back and tell whoever’s closest they need to go get the police.” She caught him against him for a moment, pressing his body very alive to her own. Her fingers in their quickness tore some of his hair.
His heart beat wildly; he was already running back. He had no idea what the hell this was that Eve could do, that she knew the exact place Ruth was. He had a funny feeling at the pit of his stomach, however, that gripped him with nausea.
Eve could have gone back herself…
Midway through running back, he nearly turned and joined Eve. He was very, very unsure about what she was doing.
“Did she—?” Bono asked. He was the closest ahead. Larry nodded intensely. Some of Eve’s franticness had caught hold of him with fingers round his heart. He grabbed Bono’s shoulder and propelled them both in the direction of the nearest building with a phone. It didn’t matter which. They were all beginning to rush together into a whirl of colors, at the bottom of which was a frozen wide-eyed clarity.
He thought he wouldn’t be afraid of what was going on. But he was. He was so fucking afraid for Eve.
“Do you know the address?” Bono half-yelled, dragged by Larry. They passed Ali, who walked quickly with them, seeing some significance.
Larry nodded, not wanting to waste words. But all he said was, “We need to call right now.”
Bono looked over at Ali, his eyes wide. An unsure vivid contrast upon the landscape, black and white, his eyes stamped dark in not wanting to know.
Meanwhile, like Seamus, Oisín, propelled by some understanding he didn’t try to understand, tore over the pavement at a dead run, his heart pounding ahead of him as he went. It was Eve who waited, but that didn’t matter at this point. He felt the gripping warning. Something was happening. Something that shouldn’t. He tried to pick up his speed but with his footsteps only kept thinking, Ruth, you promised…eight years ago in that phonecall…you’d never be in danger again. You’d try to keep yourself out of it.
*
“What the hell are you doing?” Marcus said, echoing himself from before the fight began. His voice echoed right behind Seamus. The chill gathering along Seamus’ spine crackled and splintered out into his body. His hands shook trying to flip the catch on the door and he desperately tried to shove his fingers through the tiny crack in between and force the door open. Something slipped out of his hand. Purposefully, Marcus’ hand guiding it. He slammed his fingers against the door harder, in futility.
He was spun around like he weighed nothing, until he faced Marcus. Cold-eyed, bone-faced, his scar almost luminous as his face was bisected by the raging crack of light from the door. A tiny precise point of coldness was the knife held just off the center of Seamus’ chest. Seamus braced himself, but—
Marcus wasn’t someone who hesitate. Seamus realized just then that Marcus’ head was turned. He saw the ropy shadows cast off the scar on his cheek. Swollen, riverlike in the contrast. The flash of something across his eyes quick as an industrial lightbulb. What would distract Marcus—
Seamus used this opportunity to shove Marcus to the floor, kicking him against the wall. Bone crunched sickeningly. A brief glimpse of red, deep secret red, before Marcus’ arms tightly tried to push him up to stand again and instead he jerked and winced and glared ice at Seamus.
Who turned around too slowly. He wasn’t one who sensed those slickly turning bearings of time. Those instants when things changed. The heavy instant of the air electric with Isaac’s outrage. There was a perfect balance in the man’s arm swinging from one course to another. An inky infinity, the barrel of the gun.
Seamus, not Marcus, was the one who saw Isaac’s arm, though perfectly balanced with the weight of the gun, shook, saw it as pale and thin compared to before the accident. The slight wideness, the exact thin outline of white all around his irises, the shocked rigidity of his face.
This was the boy who had been briefly like his son. Like recompense from all the stupid shit he’d caused his real son, and Cath. An unwilling part of Seamus still held tightly to that belief. Isaac looked—what was it? In pain? Regretful?
Afraid.
Before the infinity screamed. Hit him with the force of a hurricane. Seamus fell straight back. The weightlessness, it was a curious thing. It started at the tips of his fingers a moment before Isaac pulled the trigger, and dragged buoyantly upward to join the air. Sensation was rushing away, unimportant at the periphery, as he shook and bled out.
Then everything rushed fast. He felt, though it wasn’t real, Isaac was shaking him hard. Trying to knock sense or life back into him. No, it was Marcus, yelling at him. Then with Isaac’s wide-eyed face. Anger was too slow to rush with him. The blue of the eyes washed ahead, punched away by imminence. And bled and whirled into blue-grey. He was sped along a landscape he didn’t understand, one that was at first soft and grey. Oisín stood there with eyes as wide as Isaac’s, that rim of white regret, betrayal in his eyes. The betrayal too slow as well in the colors suddenly punched across the sky. Darkness bloomed in fits and starts across his eyes. Oisín took his hand and—
Phoenix stared ahead in disbelief at the images in her mind. Oisín. The backwards flow. The pain, most of all. She was momentarily held prisoner by the strangeness and the shock of Phoenix’s abilities picking up on someone she didn’t know.
Why, not-Phoenix inside her raged, pulling her back into her own awareness. It was safe to try and question for a minute before Isaac’s original course continued unbroken. Why would that work with someone I—knew?
And beneath that, the silent shock ithurtsithurtsithurts…they had both been dragged too close to what Seamus felt dying. It was Phoenix who was most affected; she gasped and shook her head, not understanding the question for a moment. Or who asked it.
Then with the sharp systematic understanding that comes in danger she knew: Cath. A rush of sadness-betrayal-sadness-realization came. But that was set aside in decision. There was no room to think of impossibilities. This whole situation was impossible.
The still minute had ended. Isaac no longer stared affected at Seamus’ twitching staring body. He looked down at his arm, at his hand, then at the gun. His other hand still held Ruth where she was. Ruth had closed her eyes. Phoenix saw with unnecessary detail that Ruth was crying.
She’d never seen Ruth cry. Ruth had been through this or worse before, Phoenix had sensed. But…
Isaac looked up then, his uncertainty dispelled. Phoenix was already moving.
Isaac had already wondered: what was worse to Ruth than dying? He’d seen no fear in her eyes. No fear at all. It was concentrated somewhere else.
Somewhere Phoenix’s thoughts were concentrated.
This is for you and for him, she thought to Cath, who was projecting only sadness. The second shot rang out but Isaac was too late. She’d wrapped her arms around Ciarán and whatever happened at this point didn’t matter because her objective was hers and not hers but now as the pain shattered between her shoulderblades hers entirely.
She felt something wet across her face, realized it was a tear. She couldn’t feel her head; why was she crying…she looked down and felt the energy coming back to the boy; he looked up into her face with a combination of outrage, despair, and fierce denial at what had just happened. Gasping fits and starts back into life.
That was why. She used a slow disjointed ebbing strength to push his head down and away from her so he wouldn’t look at the wound, and wouldn’t see Seamus’ body. He didn’t need that. But she’d seen that look.
“It’s alright,” Phoenix’s voice came out spoken. But it held something of that elusive memory Ciarán had had, something just beyond reach. He remained still, in shock and confusion, a woman whose voice he knew-not-knew shielding him with her body beginning to lose grip.
She didn’t have the strength to say anything else. Cath and Phoenix both reflected that was fine. Phoenix was beginning to slip into something different. Not what Seamus had seen. It was far stranger, far more still, more welcoming. The stabbing pain had ceased.
Her awareness slipped too. She found herself not angry at the events that had unfolded, not outraged at the so-little-time-left. Her eyelids felt heavy.
Slipping.
She came up with reasons:
I would have done the same but for Ruth.
Mark will understand at some point.
Someone must be coming to help.
And she’d had the odd feeling that she’d known what she was getting into when the sense of other people’s emotions had returned double strong and definitely not all her. Besides, she’d been curious…as to what could have increased that awareness and that ability she tried to ignore…
That would be me, said her passenger. I’m sorry.
Phoenix was in the midst of slipping away entirely but halted at the curious crossroads a moment. She’d thought there had been a reason why the pain wasn’t so intense.
I didn’t mean to…well…go into your thoughts. I thought I could just keep myself separate and…Paul and the rest…would figure out what Isaac was doing before it happened. I’m sorry, was repeated again.
Did you stop the pain? Phoenix asked the faintly emerging shadow of a woman, that she’d been curious about. The features were growing stronger, Phoenix’s vision blurrier. She could barely feel her body.
Yes. It’s as much as I could do.
Hey…you look familiar, Phoenix said suspiciously, then in the dreamscape gaining reality, grinned, seeing the Los Angeles Airport gain shape and rushing substance around them. There were faint shapes with suitcases and a littler one on an escalator, causing a ruckus. Her companion wasn’t looking at the boy this time, but looked at her with a faintly apologetic expression. The dawn over Los Angeles cast a spark of excitement in Phoenix’s eyes; the horizon was too wide, too great and sunlit. She hadn’t been able to see the borders of the dream before.
So that’s what the dream was…
I did try to warn the both of you, Cath said with a voice gaining substance, looking into the sun. Phoenix caught a reflection of herself in the airport window before she looked, and tilted her head. The blue streak in her hair had left, the dust from the floor from her body, the bruise across her face. She was pared down to a different Phoenix in instants, a much younger one who stared back less defiantly. She looked at this other self curiously.
I hope he’ll be alright, one or the other, Phoenix or Cath, said before the sun rose and both forgot. Which ‘he’ it was, who had spoken, and what existed in the world both had ceased to exist in.
Neither knew, but Oisín was there back in the living world, for some reason had rushed to Phoenix after reuniting with Ruth, a strange feeling of recognition stirring within him now. He hadn’t heard from Ruth how it worked. He just sensed…something.
*
Ciarán was born violently into the world again when Seamus was shot. He had sunk into a sort of despondency, at these days past when the man had said they would escape. Would escape, not just try, but succeed. It was all so much trying to bring him back. Fearangerregretoutragesadnessdisgust. Out of the corner of his eye, there was a little of the bone in Seamus’ chest showing whiter than the walls. Ciarán tensed and looked the other way, towards the door. He was ready to run. The door had cracked open, with Seamus’ weight pushing it.
He was about to—there was nothing stopping him, and Ruth’s eyes urged him to—but then a second click and the totally unexpected feeling of two impacts. One, Phoenix saving. Two, Phoenix dying. Kickstarting his heart.
He emerged again from the roaring absence of sound to blink into the light, remembering that Phoenix had tried to tell him something. Not to worry, perhaps. It had sounded strange. He kept the similarities far in the back of his mind where they settled unheeded with the images of Seamus dying. Both hurt too much. Getting his mother back briefly and losing someone who had briefly cared about him. Both of which he tried instantly to forget.
“Drop the gun,” he’d heard someone say before Phoenix was shot. Something about putting the gun down or Isaac would be shot.
Still it surprised him to see the police, pulling Phoenix’s body off of him. Ciarán emerging into the cold white air, seeing Seamus very real and very dead, looked up at these unfamiliar men. And then back. Isaac lay sprawled out on the ground, his eyes staring upwards. Less of an impact. Ciarán hadn’t heard the gunshot.
But the blood beneath Seamus, the redness of it, hurt. Ciarán looked that way, heard something ridiculous from the policeman about how it was alright, he wasn’t in danger from anyone now, he’d see his father in a few minutes.
It’s alright, he grasped suddenly onto the exact words before both incidents minutes later burrowed back down again. And Seamus’ head still on the dusty floor with those freckles strangely similar in color and shade to his own.
Red blood. White air. Seamus’ open hand. Ciarán looked up at the policeman and despite the police’s attempts at keeping the boy where he was for a minute because he was a witness, walked outside and before he even saw his da gave one great shuddering cry releasing everything for an instant before he rushed forward to meet him and collapsed into familiar arms, the tears and the redness and the darkness silenced into the willingness to forget.
Ruth and Marcus and Eve could be questioned first, the officers finally agreed, perhaps because it would have been impossible to wrest Ciarán away from his father at the moment. Much later, Ciarán, folded tightly in Ali’s arms, his da setting the facts straight with the police, he felt the memories he’d spoken of settle down more peacefully, perhaps to be remembered sometime much later.
And, god, finally. The idea of this chapter has been plaguing me for the past few weeks.
***
"I was on the inside
When they pulled the four walls down
I was looking through the window
I was lost, I am found
If you walk away, walk away
Walk away, walk away
I will follow..."
—U2, "I Will Follow"
"I've got a feeling
I've got a feeling so strong
Maybe someday our paths will cross"
—Tom Petty, "You And I Will Meet Again"
I've got a feeling so strong
Maybe someday our paths will cross"
—Tom Petty, "You And I Will Meet Again"
"Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say, it's all right"
—The Beatles, "Here Comes The Sun"
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say, it's all right"
—The Beatles, "Here Comes The Sun"
(1986)
There was a scuffling sound, and Isaac’s voice, somewhere beyond the tight circle both men’s awareness had narrowed down to. But at the moment it was unimportant.
All unwillingness to hurt had left Seamus, but still he held back. He lunged at Marcus with his knife, but of course the other man saw that coming and rolled into the shadows, pushing himself up from the floor until Seamus kicked his knees out from under him. Marcus fell on top of him and immediately twisted Seamus’ wrist around to wrest the knife away from him. Seamus did what Marcus would least expect, let his hand go limp and dropped the knife, catching it with his other hand and rolling away.
But the dance wasn’t as close as it could have been. Marcus would have been more purposeful, his drive leaving no room for hesitation. Seamus didn’t right out drive his knife into Marcus.
The other man had a sharp white-knuckled grip around his wrist again, his face immediate as bleached bone. Seamus kicked him in the stomach then slammed down to the floor again, scrambling on the dusty ground for purchase. As he rose, breathing hard, beneath his shadow he saw a brief glimpse of the glittering anger and betrayal in Marcus’ eyes. Blurrier, more insubstantial at the edge of his sight was Ciarán.
This was safer for everyone, Seamus realized. And Ciarán was all too close to the fight. The building was tiny; there was nowhere for anyone to stay unharmed if anything happened.
I’m sorry, his eyes pleaded.
His neck muscles tightened. He was already turning, his stomach twisting. Past guilt a soft impact behind his eyes, wrenching his organs. In a snap second he decided. Seamus wrenched all his energy into one burst of speed, turning on the balls of his feet and pushing himself off the floor. The rest of the room filtered back like he had surfaced from water, dripping sound: there was the click of a trigger and the high voice of a woman yelling. His purpose gathered into a short knot of an impulse. Instead of lunging back at Marcus, he sprinted for the door, his feet slipping as he ran. He thudded against the wood, icy adrenaline making him fumble with the bolt. He didn’t dare look behind him.
He had to hold the knife between two fingers to undo the catch on the heavy bolted door. His entire body practically vibrated with the awareness that as much of a chance as making it, he might fail.
*
“It’s this one,” Eve said, out of breath, stopping herself from slamming against the door after her dead run. “It has to be this one.” Her eyes were wide, her hair wild, her chest heaved. Larry caught up with her, sweat slippery on his collar. He breathed roughly. Eve was fast. The others were somewhere close behind. He held back from going any closer, as if she was on fire and would burn him.
She pressed a finger to her lips, closed her eyes, and put an ear to the door. Larry knew when her body stiffened and her eyes snapped open. “Oh god,” she said in little more than a whisper. She could hear the voices inside. She heard Ruth. It hurt, the amount she needed to go in and save her sister. But she couldn’t. If she did it on her own something terrible would happen, she knew. Her eyes tore to Larry’s.
“Tell them!” She pushed sudden hands at his chest, then looked back and lowered her voice. “Go back and tell whoever’s closest they need to go get the police.” She caught him against him for a moment, pressing his body very alive to her own. Her fingers in their quickness tore some of his hair.
His heart beat wildly; he was already running back. He had no idea what the hell this was that Eve could do, that she knew the exact place Ruth was. He had a funny feeling at the pit of his stomach, however, that gripped him with nausea.
Eve could have gone back herself…
Midway through running back, he nearly turned and joined Eve. He was very, very unsure about what she was doing.
“Did she—?” Bono asked. He was the closest ahead. Larry nodded intensely. Some of Eve’s franticness had caught hold of him with fingers round his heart. He grabbed Bono’s shoulder and propelled them both in the direction of the nearest building with a phone. It didn’t matter which. They were all beginning to rush together into a whirl of colors, at the bottom of which was a frozen wide-eyed clarity.
He thought he wouldn’t be afraid of what was going on. But he was. He was so fucking afraid for Eve.
“Do you know the address?” Bono half-yelled, dragged by Larry. They passed Ali, who walked quickly with them, seeing some significance.
Larry nodded, not wanting to waste words. But all he said was, “We need to call right now.”
Bono looked over at Ali, his eyes wide. An unsure vivid contrast upon the landscape, black and white, his eyes stamped dark in not wanting to know.
Meanwhile, like Seamus, Oisín, propelled by some understanding he didn’t try to understand, tore over the pavement at a dead run, his heart pounding ahead of him as he went. It was Eve who waited, but that didn’t matter at this point. He felt the gripping warning. Something was happening. Something that shouldn’t. He tried to pick up his speed but with his footsteps only kept thinking, Ruth, you promised…eight years ago in that phonecall…you’d never be in danger again. You’d try to keep yourself out of it.
*
“What the hell are you doing?” Marcus said, echoing himself from before the fight began. His voice echoed right behind Seamus. The chill gathering along Seamus’ spine crackled and splintered out into his body. His hands shook trying to flip the catch on the door and he desperately tried to shove his fingers through the tiny crack in between and force the door open. Something slipped out of his hand. Purposefully, Marcus’ hand guiding it. He slammed his fingers against the door harder, in futility.
He was spun around like he weighed nothing, until he faced Marcus. Cold-eyed, bone-faced, his scar almost luminous as his face was bisected by the raging crack of light from the door. A tiny precise point of coldness was the knife held just off the center of Seamus’ chest. Seamus braced himself, but—
Marcus wasn’t someone who hesitate. Seamus realized just then that Marcus’ head was turned. He saw the ropy shadows cast off the scar on his cheek. Swollen, riverlike in the contrast. The flash of something across his eyes quick as an industrial lightbulb. What would distract Marcus—
Seamus used this opportunity to shove Marcus to the floor, kicking him against the wall. Bone crunched sickeningly. A brief glimpse of red, deep secret red, before Marcus’ arms tightly tried to push him up to stand again and instead he jerked and winced and glared ice at Seamus.
Who turned around too slowly. He wasn’t one who sensed those slickly turning bearings of time. Those instants when things changed. The heavy instant of the air electric with Isaac’s outrage. There was a perfect balance in the man’s arm swinging from one course to another. An inky infinity, the barrel of the gun.
Seamus, not Marcus, was the one who saw Isaac’s arm, though perfectly balanced with the weight of the gun, shook, saw it as pale and thin compared to before the accident. The slight wideness, the exact thin outline of white all around his irises, the shocked rigidity of his face.
This was the boy who had been briefly like his son. Like recompense from all the stupid shit he’d caused his real son, and Cath. An unwilling part of Seamus still held tightly to that belief. Isaac looked—what was it? In pain? Regretful?
Afraid.
Before the infinity screamed. Hit him with the force of a hurricane. Seamus fell straight back. The weightlessness, it was a curious thing. It started at the tips of his fingers a moment before Isaac pulled the trigger, and dragged buoyantly upward to join the air. Sensation was rushing away, unimportant at the periphery, as he shook and bled out.
Then everything rushed fast. He felt, though it wasn’t real, Isaac was shaking him hard. Trying to knock sense or life back into him. No, it was Marcus, yelling at him. Then with Isaac’s wide-eyed face. Anger was too slow to rush with him. The blue of the eyes washed ahead, punched away by imminence. And bled and whirled into blue-grey. He was sped along a landscape he didn’t understand, one that was at first soft and grey. Oisín stood there with eyes as wide as Isaac’s, that rim of white regret, betrayal in his eyes. The betrayal too slow as well in the colors suddenly punched across the sky. Darkness bloomed in fits and starts across his eyes. Oisín took his hand and—
Phoenix stared ahead in disbelief at the images in her mind. Oisín. The backwards flow. The pain, most of all. She was momentarily held prisoner by the strangeness and the shock of Phoenix’s abilities picking up on someone she didn’t know.
Why, not-Phoenix inside her raged, pulling her back into her own awareness. It was safe to try and question for a minute before Isaac’s original course continued unbroken. Why would that work with someone I—knew?
And beneath that, the silent shock ithurtsithurtsithurts…they had both been dragged too close to what Seamus felt dying. It was Phoenix who was most affected; she gasped and shook her head, not understanding the question for a moment. Or who asked it.
Then with the sharp systematic understanding that comes in danger she knew: Cath. A rush of sadness-betrayal-sadness-realization came. But that was set aside in decision. There was no room to think of impossibilities. This whole situation was impossible.
The still minute had ended. Isaac no longer stared affected at Seamus’ twitching staring body. He looked down at his arm, at his hand, then at the gun. His other hand still held Ruth where she was. Ruth had closed her eyes. Phoenix saw with unnecessary detail that Ruth was crying.
She’d never seen Ruth cry. Ruth had been through this or worse before, Phoenix had sensed. But…
Isaac looked up then, his uncertainty dispelled. Phoenix was already moving.
Isaac had already wondered: what was worse to Ruth than dying? He’d seen no fear in her eyes. No fear at all. It was concentrated somewhere else.
Somewhere Phoenix’s thoughts were concentrated.
This is for you and for him, she thought to Cath, who was projecting only sadness. The second shot rang out but Isaac was too late. She’d wrapped her arms around Ciarán and whatever happened at this point didn’t matter because her objective was hers and not hers but now as the pain shattered between her shoulderblades hers entirely.
She felt something wet across her face, realized it was a tear. She couldn’t feel her head; why was she crying…she looked down and felt the energy coming back to the boy; he looked up into her face with a combination of outrage, despair, and fierce denial at what had just happened. Gasping fits and starts back into life.
That was why. She used a slow disjointed ebbing strength to push his head down and away from her so he wouldn’t look at the wound, and wouldn’t see Seamus’ body. He didn’t need that. But she’d seen that look.
“It’s alright,” Phoenix’s voice came out spoken. But it held something of that elusive memory Ciarán had had, something just beyond reach. He remained still, in shock and confusion, a woman whose voice he knew-not-knew shielding him with her body beginning to lose grip.
She didn’t have the strength to say anything else. Cath and Phoenix both reflected that was fine. Phoenix was beginning to slip into something different. Not what Seamus had seen. It was far stranger, far more still, more welcoming. The stabbing pain had ceased.
Her awareness slipped too. She found herself not angry at the events that had unfolded, not outraged at the so-little-time-left. Her eyelids felt heavy.
Slipping.
She came up with reasons:
I would have done the same but for Ruth.
Mark will understand at some point.
Someone must be coming to help.
And she’d had the odd feeling that she’d known what she was getting into when the sense of other people’s emotions had returned double strong and definitely not all her. Besides, she’d been curious…as to what could have increased that awareness and that ability she tried to ignore…
That would be me, said her passenger. I’m sorry.
Phoenix was in the midst of slipping away entirely but halted at the curious crossroads a moment. She’d thought there had been a reason why the pain wasn’t so intense.
I didn’t mean to…well…go into your thoughts. I thought I could just keep myself separate and…Paul and the rest…would figure out what Isaac was doing before it happened. I’m sorry, was repeated again.
Did you stop the pain? Phoenix asked the faintly emerging shadow of a woman, that she’d been curious about. The features were growing stronger, Phoenix’s vision blurrier. She could barely feel her body.
Yes. It’s as much as I could do.
Hey…you look familiar, Phoenix said suspiciously, then in the dreamscape gaining reality, grinned, seeing the Los Angeles Airport gain shape and rushing substance around them. There were faint shapes with suitcases and a littler one on an escalator, causing a ruckus. Her companion wasn’t looking at the boy this time, but looked at her with a faintly apologetic expression. The dawn over Los Angeles cast a spark of excitement in Phoenix’s eyes; the horizon was too wide, too great and sunlit. She hadn’t been able to see the borders of the dream before.
So that’s what the dream was…
I did try to warn the both of you, Cath said with a voice gaining substance, looking into the sun. Phoenix caught a reflection of herself in the airport window before she looked, and tilted her head. The blue streak in her hair had left, the dust from the floor from her body, the bruise across her face. She was pared down to a different Phoenix in instants, a much younger one who stared back less defiantly. She looked at this other self curiously.
I hope he’ll be alright, one or the other, Phoenix or Cath, said before the sun rose and both forgot. Which ‘he’ it was, who had spoken, and what existed in the world both had ceased to exist in.
Neither knew, but Oisín was there back in the living world, for some reason had rushed to Phoenix after reuniting with Ruth, a strange feeling of recognition stirring within him now. He hadn’t heard from Ruth how it worked. He just sensed…something.
*
Ciarán was born violently into the world again when Seamus was shot. He had sunk into a sort of despondency, at these days past when the man had said they would escape. Would escape, not just try, but succeed. It was all so much trying to bring him back. Fearangerregretoutragesadnessdisgust. Out of the corner of his eye, there was a little of the bone in Seamus’ chest showing whiter than the walls. Ciarán tensed and looked the other way, towards the door. He was ready to run. The door had cracked open, with Seamus’ weight pushing it.
He was about to—there was nothing stopping him, and Ruth’s eyes urged him to—but then a second click and the totally unexpected feeling of two impacts. One, Phoenix saving. Two, Phoenix dying. Kickstarting his heart.
He emerged again from the roaring absence of sound to blink into the light, remembering that Phoenix had tried to tell him something. Not to worry, perhaps. It had sounded strange. He kept the similarities far in the back of his mind where they settled unheeded with the images of Seamus dying. Both hurt too much. Getting his mother back briefly and losing someone who had briefly cared about him. Both of which he tried instantly to forget.
“Drop the gun,” he’d heard someone say before Phoenix was shot. Something about putting the gun down or Isaac would be shot.
Still it surprised him to see the police, pulling Phoenix’s body off of him. Ciarán emerging into the cold white air, seeing Seamus very real and very dead, looked up at these unfamiliar men. And then back. Isaac lay sprawled out on the ground, his eyes staring upwards. Less of an impact. Ciarán hadn’t heard the gunshot.
But the blood beneath Seamus, the redness of it, hurt. Ciarán looked that way, heard something ridiculous from the policeman about how it was alright, he wasn’t in danger from anyone now, he’d see his father in a few minutes.
It’s alright, he grasped suddenly onto the exact words before both incidents minutes later burrowed back down again. And Seamus’ head still on the dusty floor with those freckles strangely similar in color and shade to his own.
Red blood. White air. Seamus’ open hand. Ciarán looked up at the policeman and despite the police’s attempts at keeping the boy where he was for a minute because he was a witness, walked outside and before he even saw his da gave one great shuddering cry releasing everything for an instant before he rushed forward to meet him and collapsed into familiar arms, the tears and the redness and the darkness silenced into the willingness to forget.
Ruth and Marcus and Eve could be questioned first, the officers finally agreed, perhaps because it would have been impossible to wrest Ciarán away from his father at the moment. Much later, Ciarán, folded tightly in Ali’s arms, his da setting the facts straight with the police, he felt the memories he’d spoken of settle down more peacefully, perhaps to be remembered sometime much later.
Dammit, why did you kill them off? Poor, poor Phoenix. At least now I understand why Bono was so attracted to her. This will be the last ever heard of Cath... which was a bit cruel, seeing as I'd thought she was gone forever already! 
And yes, I want to see the other peoples' reactions.
Maybe I'll tie the two together. I mean, we do need Oisín to get all 'wtf is going on' along with Eve and Ruth. And Ciarán's still not all that happy. 
This could go on forever...I'm liking cliffhangers!
