Mena locks her eyes with mine. “You are the kindest, most loving person I know, January.”
“How could you say such a ridiculous thing?”
“Because of the choice you are about to make.”
The strength returns to my spine. I feel the way I felt traveling the stream. Saving people. Righting wrongs. Doing the thing I always wanted: providing people with the safety and protection I never really felt.
“I love you so much,” I tell her.
“Mi reina,” she says, and she presses her lips to mine, and I am flooded with the taste of cherries, but also, the knowledge that she has fulfilled her vow.
I am alone, but I’m not alone.
I never really was.
The pain is gone. There is only one thing ahead of me.
* * *
—
I click the button for the elevator and nothing happens, which I guess is fair, so I head for the stairs. As I make my way toward the lobby I’m amazed at how good I feel.
Lighter. Transformed. Energized. Whether that’s my body releasing the tension of being Unstuck, or just releasing the tension of being a prick, I do not know, but otherwise, I should have tried this sooner.
The lobby is still packed with people, everyone frozen in place. Which, on one hand is good, because it means with this place stuck in time, it’s not going to disappear on me again. What I don’t like is how much potential there is for collateral damage. Nik—or even I—could still hurt these people. I slow down a bit, wanting to catch Nik by surprise if I can.
No movement. I can’t hear anything. I move to the edge of the room and make my way slowly around it, trying to figure out what he might be up to. I think he knows we’re on to him. Could he be going after Allyn?
No, Allyn is running toward the stairwell, probably headed up to the gateway.
Maybe Nik is downstairs. Are the trillionaires still down there? Is he going after one of them now? I move in that direction, toward the ramp that’ll take me down, moving between the crowds of people, careful not to touch them. No need for anyone to suffer a heart attack because they were nudged by a ghost.
It’s creepy though. All these glass eyes. People midstride so they’ve got one foot in the air. Cameo is arguing with a woman, their hand stuck out, gesturing midsentence. An old woman is filling a cup of coffee from the urn, but she lost control of the mug, so now it’s tumbling through the air, halfway to shattering on the marble floor, drops of coffee suspended in space. I want to go over and grab it, move it to safety, just to save Brandon from having to clean it up.
But then there’s movement beside me.
And Nik slams into me, knocking me across the floor.
We hit a couple of people on the way down. I do a rear breakfall, trying to keep myself from taking too much of the impact, and scramble to my feet before he gets too close. He’s pushing people aside, their bodies moving slightly but not really reacting, and I square myself, next to a man pulling an expensive, solid-looking roller suitcase.
“Really?” I ask.
Nik pauses. “C’mon. You know the pay is shit.”
I grab the suitcase and arch my body, using my weight to swing it his way, and it connects, distracting him enough that I can rush in and throw a kick into his midsection. But he manages to move a little and my foot glances off. I tumble into an old woman carrying her tiny dust-mop dog in her arms like a baby. The dog is knocked free from her hands, and will probably go flying when time restarts.
Nik manages to land a shot on my back, and I move with the momentum, trying to stay on my feet, and land on a young frat guy. It’s like hitting a wall. He doesn’t go down, doesn’t move the way a normal person does, which works to my advantage because I’m able to regain my balance and turn around.
Just as Nik charges me again.
We go down, and he’s on top of me, swinging at my face. I get my arms up, trying to block, but he’s straddling me, the weight of his body pressing down into my hips. He’s slamming his fists into me and it’s all I can do to protect my face and I’m not doing a great job.
I tense up, brace my body, and buck my hips, at the same time managing to turn him to the side, so that I’m able to reverse our stance and climb on top of him.
And then it’s my turn.
I pick my shots, waiting until I have an opening, and then crash my fist into his forehead. A bone cracks in my finger. The back of his head dings off the floor and his eyes go a little fuzzy. Guess he’s not as good at BJJ as he thought.
In the process of my hitting him, something clatters to the floor. I hear it. I don’t know what it is. I don’t really care. All I know is that this is my chance to incapacitate him. He drops a hand, which opens his face up a little more, and I focus in, go for broke, and by that I mean breaking his skull.
But then pain screams through my side.
I roll off him and reach for the source of it.
Find my knife.
My lucky knife, having betrayed me, sticking out of my flank now.
Pain blinds me, and even as I’m yanking it out, I know I should not be doing this, that the blade is wedged in, holding things in place, and when I take it out the floodgates will open. But pain makes you do stupid things.
The bloodstained knife clatters to the floor and I wait for my life to leak out of me but it doesn’t. There’s blood, but it’s not gushing. I must be lucky, for once.
Nik comes at me again, lumbering now, feeling the hurt I put on him. My pain crystallizes my focus. Or maybe it’s something else. It feels like I’m tapping into something, and as he reaches for me he seems to slow down. I move to the side and grab his wrist, twist under his arm, and the momentum and torque send him spinning onto his back. With my free hand I jab straight down into his face. Once, twice. On the third shot he stays down.
I let go for long enough to grab the shawl off a young woman standing next to me and spin him onto his stomach, lashing his arms behind his back. I get it tight and knot it a few times and once I’m sure he’s properly secured, my body takes it as permission to collapse.
I touch my side again. Still not too much blood. I move back against the concierge desk and the two of us sit there, breathing hard, our ragged lungs the only sounds in the entirety of this crowd of people.
“Okay,” I say, “let me see if I worked this out.”