“Years and years ago. Before it all went sour and we broke up.”
“And so you knew this would happen to Dex!”
His mouth settled in a firm line before he said, “No, I never imagined this. I’m telling you the truth when I say I’m as confused as you are. I don’t know where Dex grew up, I never had that information, and whatever ways I had to find out are now gone. I’m just like you – I know about as much as you. And believe it or not, I want to find him as much as you do. I care about the damn fool.”
The three of us lapsed into a silence that seemed to stretch over the whole city. Finally Ada clasped her hands together and said, “Some people give up their virginity to stay in a relationship. You gave up immortality. That’s pretty rough, dude.”
He shrugged and rubbed a hand across his chin. “Yeah, well I reckon it was worth it in the end. I still have Rose. She is doing better, she remembers who I am. We’ve had to fight against a lot in the last two months, believe me it was pretty scary there for a while, but we’re both where we need to be. We’re each other’s home. And Perry, I know Dex is yours and you are his. That’s why we’ll find him. Things just won’t be right in this damn universe until we do.”
“Then let me go into the Veil,” I said, bolstered even more now.
He tilted his head to study me. “Your bravery is admirable, little lady, but your stupidity is not.” I opened my mouth to attempt to zing him with something but he went on. “It’s not my place to tell you what to do, just as a friend who knows some things, I know it would be a mistake. Every time you go in there, you come back with something. Either you’re weakening the Veil, or yourself. In some cases you strengthen. But strengths that you don’t know how to use only end up being your weakness.”
I mulled over that. It was true that when Dex and I were in the Veil, we came back changed. He was stronger, physically, and I came back with the ability to project my thoughts and, on occasion, hear them. But having that kind of “gift” was still a challenge to navigate. It only seemed to work half the time and when it did work, it was burdensome.
Not to say it hadn’t saved our lives every now and then. But it was hard to rely on something if you didn’t know how it worked.
Dex, though. Dex was unbelievable. He healed faster, possessed amazing strength and agility, and fought against certain death, coming out a winner. There was no weakness with him, not with his body anyway.
His mind, though, that was a different story. I swallowed a terrible thought, the idea that he could be corrupted. Dex, as funny, loving, smart and sexual as he was, always seemed to battling himself, his inner workings. His childhood and “mental illness” were foils of his, chipping away at his self-esteem and encouraging his self-loathing.
Dex was many wonderful things but he wasn’t perfect – he was his own greatest enemy. I had hoped that I could help him over time – with the two of us together, he finally seemed to put many of his demons to rest. But I knew he had a lot of work in front of him. We both did.
Of course, none of that meant shit if I couldn’t find him, help him. In fact, just recognizing that, despite all his strength, Michael could exploit Dex’s flaws, made everything that more urgent.
Fuck Ginger Balls, as Dex would say. If I had a chance to get him back, I was taking it.
I started scanning the area, wondering how to go about doing this supernatural, insanely improbable thing that I had never done before.
“Perry,” Maximus warned again, reading me. “Don’t do it. I can’t go in there and get you out if something goes wrong.”
“Maybe I can,” Ada spoke up. We both looked at her sternly.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told her. “You won’t be able to handle it.”
“And you can?” she shot back.
I ignored her, hoping that if anything did go wrong, that Maximus wouldn’t let her. That was the thing about the Veil. While it seemed you could use your mind to open doors and create portals, shimmering holes in the air, you actually needed to step in with your body. Usually, anyway. Even if I created or found a passage in the air here in Bryant Park, hundreds of New Yorkers would watch me step through and vanish into thin air. Not exactly a subtle practice.
And it’s not that Maximus and Ada would physically let me.
“Fine, fair enough.” I stretched my arms above my head and eyed the paid toilets in the corner of the park. I thrust my iced coffee into Ada’s hands and said, “Hold this for me, just going to use the washroom.”
She frowned, as if she was trying to scan my mind, but I willed myself to be as blank as possible. It seemed to work and she nodded lightly. Perhaps I could learn to control these gifts after all.
I didn’t even bother looking at Maximus though. Who knows what the lumberjack could pick up on.
I walked across the park, utterly conscious of their eyes on me and disappeared into the toilet. It wasn’t as gross as I had expected, perhaps because you did have to spend a quarter to get in. I went pee anyway and after I washed up, I tried to figure out what to do next.
Usually it was Pippa who either pulled me into the Veil or to some other limbo-like place, somewhere between reality and dreaming. Other times, it was my possessed soul that was banished there while my body stayed behind.
Truthfully, I had no idea what to do or how to do it. I remember how Pippa explained how it worked for her, how she had to concentrate and imagine the air bending before she could physically step through, but perhaps that wasn’t the same for everyone.
I stared blankly at the toilet for a few moments until it began to feel like a smelly tomb, then closed my eyes and decided to try from inside myself. At first I called for Pippa, asking for her in my head over and over again, willing for her help, for her to appear. Then, when nothing happened, I moved onto Dex, asking the same. I pleaded with all my heart and soul.
Just like the many times I had tried since his disappearance, I heard and felt nothing. Sweat had formed on my skin and stuck my t-shirt to my back. The washroom was growing hotter and my head was starting to hurt.
But I wouldn’t give up.
I took in a deep breath through my mouth and tried to steady my heart, which was thumping hard from exertion and nerves and the mounting feeling of helplessness. Maybe I just had to imagine it, create it, concentrate my thoughts like I did when I was trying to project onto people.
I stared at a blank spot right in front of the door, using the sight as a means to visualize and focus. I imagined the air started to shimmer, like a mirage inside of the bathroom, but though I could see it clearly in my mind’s eye, I couldn’t actually see it happen.
I kept at it, sweat pouring down my arms, my face growing hot, trying so, so hard to make this happen. I had almost given up when it happened. As it was, I looked away from the area I was concentrating on for just a moment, enough time to see a small bug crawling up the wall, when the area around the door, just in my peripheral, started to move. I looked back at it quickly and it was still again.
Rubbing my lips together, I tried to both concentrate on the area and look away from it at the same time. I focused but let the focus blur.
And when I did just that, the air started to warp and shift. I slowly brought that into focus and now I could see it clearly. There was a hazy shimmer in the air, like I was looking at the washroom door through clear, moving water.
Cautiously, I raised my hand and put it through the air. Once it passed into the shimmer, my arm turned a de-saturated shade of grey and was instantly chilled. My skin started prickling, all the hairs standing straight up like I was being electrocuted. Every part of my body was telling me to withdraw my arm, to take it back, to stay in this world, this dimension, this universe where the living belonged.
Every instinct told me to not cross over.
But Dex may be on the other side. Answers could hang from trees, ripe for the picking.
Sometimes your instincts were wrong. Your body wants you to survive but sometimes there are more important things than just surviving.
I took in a deep breath and stepped in through the shimmer.
My body instantly froze from intense chill and my limbs grew stiff and rigid as waves of electricity coursed through my body and the pressure inside my head built to a boiling point.
I shut my eyes hard and cried out, not sure where my screams would end up.
I walked another step and suddenly the world was sucked away from me, violently removed, like it was being vacuumed.
I was no longer in the washroom.
I was no longer in this world.