I can see she’s afraid to ask, but she manages to get the words out. “What happened?”
“Can you still get in my head?”
“I’ve been trying not to,” she says. “Since I blew the whole engagement thing.”
“Good call,” I say. “But I want you to try to do it now. Just like when it’s Christmas morning and we’re both kids, but I want you to let go. Let me direct the path.”
She doesn’t say “okay,” or put her hands on my head, or anything else. One second we’re standing in an abandoned morgue, the next we’re standing beside a Christmas tree in my childhood living room. But neither of us are kids. We came here because I was thinking about this scene.
I shift my attention forward in time, to the day following Maigo’s recovery from Washington. We managed to sneak her back without anyone knowing. She was cleaned up and attended to by a doctor we had sign a DHS non-disclosure agreement. The diagnosis was something close to a coma, but with a lot of brain activity. She called it ‘a deep sleep brought on by extreme exhaustion,’ and felt confident Maigo would wake soon.
And she did, later that day.
The memory returns.
I’m sitting beside Maigo’s bed, bleary eyed and twisting my red beanie cap in my hands. Maigo’s eyes are closed, but shifting back and forth rapidly, like she’s in some kind of frenetic REM sleep cycle. Just as my eyes start to slide shut, Maigo lunges up in bed, eyes open wide, gasping.
The sound and sudden motion pull me to my feet. But it’s a mistake.
Maigo reels toward me, acting on defensive instinct, throwing out a punch that catches the side of my head and knocks me into the wall. Then she’s out of bed, slamming her body into mine and wrapping her fingers around my throat.
Tears streak down her cheeks.
Her breathing is fast and deep.
She looks back and forth, eyes darting, confusion enveloping her.
Despite having the life choked out of me, all I feel is pity. I can’t bring myself to fight back, and when Maigo finally looks at me, her grip loosens. Then her eyes widen with recognition. “Jon?”
“If...you...don’t...kill me.”
She releases me and steps back, bumping into the bed and sprawling around, looking for an attack. She’s used to being Nemesis, I think. Used to being attacked every time she steps out of the ocean. Her last memory would have been of dying.
Of saving me.
“You remember me?”
Her head snaps back toward me. “Christmas.”
When I nod, the strength goes out of her, and she falls into my arms.
“Are we alive?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“Am I safe?”
“You are.”
“We protect each other, right?”
It’s then that I know I’m talking to the will within Nemesis, who had been protecting me, in Beverly and again in Washington. This is the girl who gave her life for mine, and I would do everything I could to return the favor. “Always.”
She reaches up for my swelling face, grasping it with both hands. A flash of...something, like memories, but simpler. Something like love, like what fathers—the good ones—feel for their children, drives its way into my soul, taking root, depending on me for growth. For life.
And then she’s gone. Unconscious again.
The memory stops, but we haven’t left the dream room. Maigo is still in my arms. But she opens her eyes. Stands. “I understand now.”
Thank God.
“I knew that you loved me. That you accepted me like a daughter. I never doubted that. But I didn’t know about this. I didn’t know what you promised me. I didn’t know you really felt like my father.”
“Kinda weird, right?”
She smiles. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For doing this to you.”
“I’ve never regretted taking you in. I never will.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you—oh...” I walk to the window, which isn’t real, and look out at the view of Beverly, which isn’t charred like it is in the real world. “You’re still going through with it.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my father.”
“That’s...stupid,” I say.
“Because you taught me what’s right and wrong. From the first time I saw you, and tried to eat you, you have been risking everything to help other people. And now I have a chance to do the same, and maybe make up for some of the horrible things I did with Nemesis.”
“That wasn’t you.”
“Part of it was. Nemesis might have blinded me to the death and destruction, but the thirst for revenge? The need to kill Tilley? That came from me. I need to do this...”
When I say nothing, she steps up next to me, our faces warmed by the sun. “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“This is what Hudsons do, right?”
I turn toward her. “What?”