Now You See Me

Thirty-Four: Warnings

"That was awful," I whispered. Across the pool, Chris glanced at me and offered a smirk that wasn't even pretending to be genuine.

"I knew you wouldn't like it." He touched the bottom of the pool, running his hand over the tarpaulin as if he was envisaging the escape route beneath it, and then he shot a malevolent look at the small camera concealed in the wall. "But it worked, didn't it?"

"It did."

My ears were still ringing with his screams and ramblings, and every time I blinked I saw his convulsing body behind my lids. The fit had been so convincing that I had no choice but to believe that he'd had one before, only it had been genuine: it didn't even bear thinking about, but I couldn't get it out of my head.

As if I needed more nightmare fuel.

I settled back against the side, the rocks digging into my shoulder-blades, and tried not to look at him too much. Since we'd been strong-armed back in here by Rella and Nell, with Vashde shrieking in the background about the goddamn noise, Chris had been as distant as before his transition. I occasionally caught him running his hands over his scales in awe – or fear, perhaps – but other than that, he seemed to be doing his utmost to deny that anything linked us beyond a mutual prison.

"I'm sorry," I blurted, as he felt his gills absently with the tips of his fingers. He stopped, and turned to stare at me with a caustic kind of surprise. "I wanted to stop them."

"You couldn't have," he said dully, brows furrowing in the middle. "You were chained up."

"I know..." I trailed off, and couldn't think of what else to say. Silence spread between us again. I checked Leia's bind; we had fifteen hours to get through before attempting escape. We had succeeded in getting back into this room quicker than I had expected, and now the waiting game was almost torturous.

"You think I blame you for..." he struggled for a moment, and then made a dismissive gesture towards his tail, "...this? I'm not thick, Damien, I know whose fault it was."

"I know," I repeated, the ghost of a smile tugging at my lips when I remembered having a similar conversation with Courtney, whose image now flashed in my mind's eye. I missed her more than I expected to. I wondered vaguely what she'd say if she was here now with me instead of Chris, whose sullen silence was only making the wait worse.

Once I'd let Courtney into my thoughts, everyone else managed to make it in. Lorien's fear in my last moments at St Martin's suddenly made perfect sense, and warmth for him I'd never really been aware of seeped in through the cracks. I frowned. This wasn't helping speed the time along, but the events in my mind just went round and round in my head like a reel.

"Tori's dead, isn't she?"

I didn't realise the voice was mine until I saw the surprise on Chris's face.

"I wasn't going to mention her," he finally muttered, sagging with exhaustion, "I thought maybe you'd forgotten and it was best that it stayed that way."

It was happening again; indeterminable grief was pouring in and yet I couldn't remember why I was supposed to be so upset. My heart clenched like someone had squeezed it, and my body jerked with strange, breathless sobs, half-mangled in my confusion. Chris made a motion as if to come towards me when the hard mask dropped over his expression and he leaned away again. I tried not to show him how much it had bothered me, but the tears that had been on the verge of stopping renewed themselves within seconds.

"If you don't blame me," I said, once I had a modicum of control over my voice, "At least for something, why won't you come anywhere near me? Is it what I look like? Is it because of my amnesia?" With each word, my frustration grew, and I didn't care if I sounded angry. "Are you worried I'll hurt you? Or that I'll disappear?"