The five of us didn't see each other for over a week after that day we walked out of Hale. We'd all just needed time to ourselves, to understand what we'd been through. We'd all been evaluated for injuries that night and I had to get a special cast on my crushed arm that was taken off after only three days. Surprisingly, my arm was as good as new, though I'd heard Malachi didn't have as much luck with his broken leg. I wasn't sure what kind of condition he was in and I hoped I'd be able to see him soon. He lived in the Laurier Section now, not too far from my apartment that I was finally allowed to go back to.
That first night back—sleeping in my bed, taking a hot shower, ordering a pizza—was heaven. I'd missed all of it so much. Occasionally, I'd go up to the roof at night and watch the city lights twinkle in the distance, feeling the cool wind blowing softly through my hair. Sometimes I thought about Mom and Dad when I was up there.
They'd come and go from my mind in waves every day. It was always worse around dinner time, when the sun went down and I was left in my small, dark room alone. I guess the sudden realization that they were truly gone finally hit me and it was hard to accept. It was those particular nights, when I couldn't stop the tears from flowing, that I wished I was still running around through alleyways with the others.
I wondered how they were all adjusting to their new lives. I knew Malachi was happy to be able to freely take the metro over to the Sera Section to visit his sister and mom. I'd heard Kay was working at the aquarium again, except this time she was running it and she seemed to be doing well, making sure Memorium would never be made there again.
I found out Murl lived somewhere in Barnie now and Ana was awarded a place in the Sera Section. After that first week and a half back at my apartment, I'd decided to visit her and I was blown away by how big it was. She talked nonstop about her giant jacuzzi and she had all of these wild ideas about having some pretty crazy parties here. She told me I would be invited and so would the others and we'd all have a really fun time. Seeing her so proud of herself, that she'd taken down Hale with us and now owned a luxurious penthouse all by herself, made me smile. We both talked about what we were up to now, our plans, and then eventually Reeves came up in our conversation.
"Man, I really wish he could see this," Ana had said, looking around the spacious living room and the floor to ceiling windows. "He probably wouldn't have liked it that much though. Not his style. He likes—liked the really cramped and dusty places," she said with a small laugh. "I miss him."
Once it was time for me to go home, I said goodbye to Ana and took the metro back to Laurier Section, thinking of the gray-eyed man, how at Hale he'd jumped in front of Miles at the last second to save him. How was Miles holding up? I hadn't heard anything about him, where he was, what he was doing now.
It was like I'd just imagined him the whole time and he hadn't really existed. The next day, around lunchtime, I wondered whether I should go to Ana's again and see if she knew where he was. Or maybe I could visit Malachi's or Murl's and ask one of them. But I ended up not having to do any of that because when I'd opened my apartment door to go find him, there he was, hand raised as if he was just about to knock.
"Oh, hi," Miles said, putting both hands in his pockets. He was dripping wet, his hair a little spiky and his clothes completely drenched. I noticed tiny puddles of water out in the hall. "The rain covers weren't working today," he explained.
"Oh," I said back.
He just stood there for a couple seconds longer. "Can I...come in?" he tried. "Unless you're busy."
"Oh! No, sure, come on in," I invited, opening the door more so he could get past me. "How are you?"
He was walking over to my living room now. "Good, I guess," he said, as I shut my front door and let it lock automatically. "Had the opportunity to live in a Sera place but said no."
"So where do you live?" I asked, turning to see him looking out the window in my kitchen.
"Apartment in Barnie," he answered simply. He looked back at me. "Oh, did you know they might be renaming this section?"
I wandered over to my living room. "No."
"Yeah, since my dad's dead, some other guy owns it now," he told me, leaning against my counter. He fell silent then, looking around my kitchen. I sat down stiffly on the couch, watching him take interest in my appliances like they were made of gold.
"Are you doing okay?" I decided to ask, knowing Miles was still thinking about his father.
I saw him shrug. "Doing better than I thought I'd be actually," he said. "Sometimes I see him though, when I'm asleep. Got these weird nightmares with him in them." He turned to look at my fridge, then ultimately walked out of the kitchen.
"I know how that is," I admitted, thinking of all those strange dreams I'd had of my parents when they'd been missing.
"Reeves has been in them too," Miles mumbled, stepping into the living room where I was. "It's always me trying to save him from something." He rubbed the back of his neck and I saw him glance at one of my chairs, then look at me.
"Do you want to sit down?" I said. He was just hovering there, clothes still damp from the rain. I could hear it pouring outside, drops pelting the metal fire escape.
"Only if you don't mind water all over everything," he replied with a smirk.
I smiled. "I don't mind, it'll dry."
With that, Miles sat heavily in the chair diagonal from me and sighed. "Thanks," he said tiredly, then looked over at me. "So what have you been up to?"
Me crying on the rooftop of my apartment building was the first thing I thought of. Eating leftover pizza was the second thing. I really hadn't been up to much except thinking about Mom and Dad's double funeral coming up and Reeves' the day after. It was going to be a pretty depressing week and I didn't really want to bring the mood down. But I guess Miles noticed how my shoulders slumped along with my lack of words because he sat forward then in the chair, tilting his head a bit.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
I didn't answer right away, a lump forming in my throat, which prompted him to fill the silence. "Is it because I'm ruining your chair?" he said all seriously, but I knew he was joking since he couldn't keep a straight face. All I could manage was a weak smile, tears building in my eyes as I kept my gaze trained on my feet. I appreciated how he was trying to make me laugh, but it didn't seem to be working very well. "No really, Cory," I heard him say, "what's wrong?"
"I don't know," I whispered into the room. I risked a glance up at him and saw that his eyes were fixed on me. "It just feels different here, now that I know where my parents are. And then I'm gonna have to see their faces again at the funeral and I don't know if I'll be able to keep it together," I told him. "It's just like when I heard they were dead the first time. I have to go through it all over again."
Miles was looking at me like I was an injured animal, all helpless, and in a way I guess I was. At least right now. I'd never really had anyone to talk to or rely on before I met the others, so admitting stuff like this was fairly new and strange to me.
"I'll go with you, if you want," he said after a moment. "To the funeral."
I turned away from him and wiped my eyes with my shirt sleeve.
He continued. "Murl and I are going to Reeves' funeral too so I'm sure I'll be able to make it to another one."
Miles' kindness was luring the rest of my tears out of me, so before I became a sobbing mess, I had to change the subject. "How's Murl doing?" I asked quietly.
"Oh," Miles said, "he's uh, good. Enjoying his freedom. He got another tattoo of a wasp the other day."
I looked up at Miles then. "Why? Didn't he almost get killed by those things?"
Miles shook his head. "Nah, he told me they wouldn't have stung him. As long as he wasn't 'provoking them' and stayed calm, he said they wouldn't do anything," he explained. "If he'd freaked out at all then, well..." he swore under his breath and sighed.
He didn't say any more about it and I watched him sit back in his chair. "He says you're welcome to come over anytime by the way," he added. "He bought a guitar recently and said he needs an audience."
I laughed a little and Miles grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. "I guess I'll have to go over there someday. I've already been to Ana's anyway," I said as Miles' eyebrows raised.
"Oh wow, what was that like?" he asked.
"It definitely suits her," I answered. "It's got these really high ceilings and a nice kitchen. And her bathroom is huge." Ana's penthouse successfully pushed away any unhappy, incoming thoughts from my brain.
"So the exact opposite of my place," Miles put in and I paused, then shrugged.
"I guess." I hadn't seen yet where Miles now resided in Barnie and I was a little curious as to what his apartment looked like. I found that no matter how hard I tried, I really couldn't picture it.
It was like he could read my mind because he spoke again before I had a chance to ask him about it. "It's not anything fancy," he mumbled, glancing at me. "And it's pretty empty right now. Kinda spooky." He smiled.
With that, a flash of lightning lit the gray sky outside my window and a roar of thunder sounded only a few seconds after. Miles and I both shared a laugh at this perfect timing and my fridge decided to bring up the weather forecast for the upcoming week. All rain. Maybe it'd help me sleep better at night.
"Yeah, I don't think I'd want to be there right now," Miles commented about his apartment. "I've been out all day today. Went to Malachi's earlier and he mentioned you lived pretty close so I thought I'd drop by and say hi."
I felt a warmth surge through me and looked away when his eyes locked onto me. "I was actually trying to find you, so you saved me from having to go out in that storm," I admitted. I could still feel him looking at me and I just knew I was getting all red.
"Oh," he said, "why were you trying to find me?" I heard him sit forward now in his chair.
Maybe I shouldn't have let those words slip. I'd been searching for him because he was the only one of us five who'd seemingly disappeared from me this past week. And I told him this, all while stumbling over my entire sentence. Maybe I could've convinced him (and myself) this was the only reason I wanted to find him, except my cheeks wouldn't stop heating up like an oven.
At first, I'd thought Miles didn't catch my sudden change in demeanor, because he spoke to me seriously, explaining why he hadn't visited until now (he had his own things to sort out and also didn't want to bother me). Though, once he finished speaking, I saw that he was trying to hide a smile.
About ten minutes later, after talking about the weather and our plans for the rest of the day, Miles decided it was time for him to leave. The rain had settled down somewhat and he wanted to get to Murl's before it'd start pouring again. The entire time he'd sat in my chair, I'd wanted to ask him whether or not he had his memory restored, but it hadn't felt like the right time to bring it up.
When I walked him to my front door, he passed by me and turned around to face me, lingering in the hall. "See you around, I guess," he said.
"Yeah," I replied with a smile. And then he walked off and was gone and I shut the door.
The rest of the day was a blur. I didn't do much besides eat dinner and watch TV. I saw that Hale was apparently getting turned into a hospital and the search for more lost civilians (the new, brainwashed officers and workers) was still going on. I also saw that there was now a divide between the older Hale officers, the ones who still had memories and could think for themselves. Some of them (Jack Hale's trusted allies responsible for removing civilian memories) were in handcuffs, while another large group of officers stood separate, claiming they had no part in all of this mess.
There really was no way of knowing whether these officers were telling the truth, but I watched later as the mayor spoke about getting everything under control and finding out who was at fault here. He stated that since Hale was no longer in business, there was no need for Hale officers anymore. Therefore, if there were any officers out there not guilty of Hale's crimes, they would join with the city's law enforcement rather than solely serving that evil building.
As for the workers, many of them were oblivious as to what was truly happening inside Hale. One of them claimed they were never allowed on certain floors and couldn't have known was what going on. However, a handful of workers knew exactly what they were doing and knew it was wrong and were fiercely loyal to Jack, the masked man. Of course they were arrested after making these statements.
I told my TV to turn off after I'd seen enough. The screen went black, the room went quiet, and the rain was back and rapping against my window.
Here I was again. Another dreary night. I didn't know if I could take this much longer. There was this weird emptiness that hung in the air when I was alone and I realized it had formed after my parents' deaths. This miserable stillness was never a problem I had to deal with before.
I laid awake that night in my bed, grief blanketing me as I thought over and over again about Mom and Dad's last words, about the condition they were in when I had run to them, about their sickly, pale faces and the worry in their eyes. They were gone and I couldn't save them.
It wasn't just this guilt that was gnawing at me. It was the shock of everything going back to how it was before I'd stolen the device. I was living in my gloomy apartment again, only this time, I found I had little motivation to leave. I knew where my parents were now and Miles, Malachi, Ana, and Murl all seemed to be doing their own things. I had a hard time believing everything had actually happened between the five of us. It should've been six.
We'd escaped officers, snuck into the aquarium party, taken down James Frost and destroyed the Memorium, been betrayed by Rich and Alvin. We'd jumped off a waterfall, finally got into the Hale building, lost Reeves, and shut that building down before it could harm anyone else in this city.
And then, just like that, we all went our separate ways, like it never even happened. I realized then, as I stared up at the ceiling, that I didn't just ache for Mom and Dad. I missed Malachi and Murl, Ana and Miles, and having a purpose. Sure, I'd visited Ana, and Miles came over today to see me, but I knew I'd see each of them less and less and eventually it'd just be me and my fridge.
I needed closure at least, to see all of them one last time before we never spoke to each other again. Maybe I was just in a sad mood, convincing myself we'd all split apart when in reality we'd hang out with each other every day from here on out. But I still felt the need to talk with everyone about what we went through together, if it had all really even happened.
So that was why, with a sigh, I rolled out of bed and stumbled out into the darkness of my living room. I ordered my TV back on and with the white light of the screen illuminating my face, I told it to call Ana Grayson, knowing she'd still be awake right now.