It took me a while to get back home and escape through the roof. I was used to it by now. I found better ways to get down, too. Instead of sliding down the drainpipe, wind screaming in my ears, I now used a little bit of Ability to make the jump to the roof of the building next to mine. It was lower and had a fire escape ladder attached to its side. The metal rounds were slippery from the ice, but it was still better than risking my neck every time I needed to get away from the PA surveillance team.
I dropped the last couple of stories and landed on a garbage container with a quiet rang. The path was clear.
An hour later, I was standing in front of Tanya's house. It was a small cottage made from brown brick, with a porch, tidy lawn and a white picket fence. One wall was covered with ivy, which was brown and dead now with winter in full force. It must have been very pretty in summer, though.
I had time to think about what was said back in the library, but clarity avoided me. There were no answers, just more questions.
My phone buzzed.
'Are you just going to stand there like a fool?'
I looked at the screen, then turned around, searching for the camera.
'Knock on the fucking door, Matt!'
I sighed, showed Mickey the middle finger, and knocked.
Tanya opened almost instantly, as though she was waiting by the door. Her expression was grim, and she was holding a half-empty wine glass in her hand.
'Took you long enough.'
I stepped inside, relieved to get away from the cold.
'Had to get rid of the PA.'
She sipped the wine.
'And how, exactly, does one get rid of the PA?'
I unzipped my jacket, looking around.
'Can't speak for everyone, but I usually jump from a roof or two.'
'... Of course you do.'
We were in a small hallway. The interior of the house was tasteful, quaint and cozy. There were wooden panels on the walls, pictures in custom-made frames, well-tended plants in beautiful ceramic pots, and other attributes that only people who've made it tended to possess. People who had enough money to hire a decorator, but not necessarily needed one.
Humans.
I walked to the pictures.
'Is your husband home?'
'Peter? No. He's traveling, for work.'
'That's good, I guess.'
They seemed happy in the pictures. Was Peter a nice guy? He had intelligent eyes, a joyful smile. They were obviously smitten with each other. Holding each other's hands, laughing, dancing. Happy, young. A perfect couple.
But there was coldness deep in Tanya's eyes that no smile, no matter what the circumstance, could reach. A shadow that no one could see.
She coughed.
'Do you want something to drink? I have wine.'
'How about some coffee? I don't get much sleep these days.'
'Suit yourself.'
She led me to the kitchen and turned on an expensive coffee machine.
'This thing was a wedding gift. Were you a barista before we met?'
I smiled.
'No. I worked in a bar.'
'Which one?'
I told her, and she shook her head.
'Never heard of it.'
'It's a little below your price point.'
She poured my coffee into a cup.
'So you've changed careers just to spy on me.'
I made a sip. Damn, it was good coffee.
'I wouldn't call working in a shitty bar a career. I was getting tired of it anyway.'
We were quiet for a minute, and then I couldn't restrain myself anymore.
'So does he know? Peter? About what you are?'
She looked at me, deep shadows in her eyes.
'What is it with you and my marriage, Matt?'
I sipped my coffee, letting the bitterness roll across my tongue, warmth spreading through my body.
'My father is a human, too.'
She raised an eyebrow.
'Oh?'
'Yeah. I don't know him that well, though. He left before I was born. Mom told him when she got pregnant. About what she was. He didn't handle it well.'
There was sadness in Tanya's voice.
'I'm sorry.'
'No, don't be. My mom and I, we were fine. Better than fine, actually.'
I tried to remember my father's face. He was a good-looking guy and a nice person. Honest eyes, kind smile. A hint of silver at the temples.
'He came by once, when I was five or six. I think my mom asked him to. He took me to the amusement park, bought me cotton candy, put me on his lap. He tried very hard to be nice to me, but I could feel the... the revulsion. The tension in his muscles when he held my hand. He really tried to be a dad, even just for one day, but he just couldn't. The scars were too deep.'
I nursed the cup in my hands, remembering.
'I used to hate myself for that day, for not being good enough. Then, for a long time, I hated him for not wanting me. But I don't anymore. I can't forgive him, but I'm also a little… proud of him? Because he at least tried. Most men would not.'
She didn't speak for a while.
'He doesn't know.'
I looked around, at their home. Their life. They were so happy in the pictures.
'How do you do that? Lie to him, every day?'
'What does it matter? He knows me. He knows everything there is to know about me, except for this.'
'But this is who you are. This is the most important piece of you.'
'No! No, it's not important. My convictions are important. My feelings are important. My body is important. This is just a, a thing. A small secret. Everyone has secrets.'
'But you go to the tests. You stand naked in a room, while they scan you. They take your blood, your DNA. They ask you questions. What happens when you can't answer them? When you get the Disease, and they take you away?'
'I'll disappear. People go missing all the time -- perfectly normal humans. How is this different? Peter will mourn, he will hurt. But then, one day, the pain will fade, and he will go on living. Plus, I might not even get the Disease until we're old and senile. Right?'
'What happens when you get pregnant?'
She straightened in her chair.
'I will never get pregnant. That is not for me.'
'Why?'
'Why? Do you have to ask why? Would you bring a child into this?!' She waved her hand, pointing around. Not to the kitchen of her cozy brown brick cottage, but to the world outside. 'Would you wish the same rot we were born into on its innocent soul?'
I remembered the smell of my mother's sweat, the muffled sound of her screams. I couldn't imagine allowing someone I care about to go through the same thing.
'No. I guess I would not.'
'Then that's your answer.'
She finished her wine, turned away.
'But they fucking did. Our parents.'
There was an edge to her words, as if she thought about it for a long, long time.
'Do you think it was easier for them, that things have changed? Or were they stronger? Or did they just care less?'
I hesitated.
'I think they were closer to it.'
'To what?'
'The camps. Purity. Corpses hanging from the street lamps.'
Tanya looked at me, a bitter smile on her lips.
'So what, we're just smaller? Too soft?'
'No.'
How can a thing made of broken shards, edges sharp, be soft?
'It's like when you get hurt, and you think you're about to die. The adrenalin kicks in and suppresses the pain. Fills your lungs with air, makes you fight harder, run faster. It's only after, when you're in a safe place, that you start to shake, and the pain comes in a tidal wave.'
I looked at her.
'Back during the Purity, the wraiths got hurt. We managed to get to a safe place. Our parents got the shakes. And we? We're under that wave.'
'Drowning?'
'Time will tell.'
She stood up, went to the other room, and came back with a leather-bound photo album.
'Here's your proof, Matt.'
She threw it on the table in front of me. I didn't move.
'No need. I believe you.'
'Fucking look at it.'
I opened the photo album. She was there, in the photos. A little dark-skinned girl with wavy hair, innocent, happy. Zero was there too. He was younger. The same handsome man from the photo the Protector showed me, with humorous sparks in his eyes, confident, charismatic. His wife looked at him with such love. She was very beautiful, just as her daughter was now.'
'Is it him?'
I closed the album and nodded.
'Yes. That's Zero.'
'Bastard!'
She breathed in, angry.
'He's back in town after all these years, and who does he come to see? His daughter? No. Some fucking stranger having fun in a club. No offense, Matt.'
'None taken.'
Her anger faded away, replaced with anguish. She looked at me, and said:
'Why didn't he come to me?'
I didn't know what to answer. After a while, I said.
'Could he have contacted your mother?'
She shook her head, still distant.
'No. She lives in the West now.'
Zero was so close. I was sitting across the table from his daughter, holding his family album in my hands. I knew his name now. And yet I was no closer to finding him than a month ago.
'Can you help me find him?'
She raised he head, looked me in the eyes.
'And what are you going to do if you find him?'
'Ask him questions. How does he know my mother, why did he...'
'No. I mean, what are going to do if you find him, and he's too far gone? If the Disease turned him into a monster?'
A dirty mattress, burned through, springs melted by unimaginable heat. Scorched marks on the walls. Madness in his eyes, feverish gleam. Are you real? Am I real?
'Don't worry about that. I can handle Zero.'
She raised an eyebrow.
'You said he was strong. Stronger than anyone you've met before. How precisely will you be able to handle him?'
Will I, really? Mickey said: the hospital was like an inferno. The walls had melted. And it was guarded by the PA, the heart of their operation in the city. If none of them were able to stop him, what makes me think that I will?
'I've done it before.'
She leaned back, holding her empty glass.
'What do you mean?'
'I've suppressed a sick wraith before. My mother. Even when the Disease made her more potent than she ever was, tenfold, I fought her Ability off for weeks. I was sixteen. I grew stronger since then.'
She looked at me, thoughtful.
'How do you even fight against the Ability?'
I carefully put the cup of coffee down.
'You learn to feel it moving. Predicting it. And then you mirror it. For every Affect thrown at you, you create an opposite. If you're quick enough, if you're concentrated enough, if you strong enough, you'll survive.'
She was silent for a long time, studying me. Then she said:
'You're stronger than Mickey.'
'What?'
'Back in the library, Mickey said that he's Category Four, and you're somewhere around Six, and you didn't correct him. But he's wrong. You're stronger than him. Strong enough to be considered too dangerous, if the PA ever finds out.'
I put on my best poker face, froze inside, and raised an eyebrow.
'Why would you think that?'
'Because of how you condition yourself to always be in control. Mickey is powerful, but he's nowhere near your level of mental discipline. And why would he be? He doesn't have to. He's not afraid of his Ability. But you are afraid of yours, which means that it is far more potent than his.'
'That's an interesting thought. Have you considered that, maybe, I'm just cautious? And Mickey is just a hothead?'
'Of course I did. But no, that's not it. The way you live... no one would endure that just to be cautious.'
I smiled.
'Agree to disagree.'
'How many Affects can you handle? Seven? Ten?'
I didn't answer, and her eyes widened.
'More than ten? Twelve? Fifteen?'
'You're imagining things.'
She looked almost shocked.
'More than fifteen.' She whispered. 'How is this possible? How can anyone hide such power from the Protectors?'
I played with my cup, silent. Tanya leaned back in her chair. After a while, I said:
'You're wrong about me. I'm nothing special. But if you were right... I wouldn't call it power. This is the mistake that everyone makes, thinking that Ability makes you powerful. It doesn't. The only thing it makes you is a target.'
She looked at me, considering something. I could see weights shifting in her mind. When she spoke, I could see that she was close to making a decision.
'Hypothetically... how would someone survive with a target like that painted on their back?'
'By being cautious.'
She nodded slowly, and then smiled.
'Alright. I will help you find my father.'