I SEE HIM IN THE LIGHT, I see him seeping into darkness.
I find him as he turns a corner in the twelfth sector of the city. A drone flies fifteen feet above me, far to my right; I duck my head down, shove both hands into my pockets, take in a long breath of crisp air. The stone pavement is speckled with white remnants of snow from where it's been scraped off. Keeping my trademark hair tucked into the hood of my coat, I quicken my pace. The drone remains alongside me, slightly faster than me, not following me, not supervising me in particular. I can hear the smooth whirring of its engine as it hovers on a perfectly levelled plane, doing its duty.
I turn the corner just a few seconds after him- and I reach out, grab his arm. Drag him under the arch of a doorway; you'd think it'd give us some sort of privacy, but it really doesn't do much, given that the whole building is made of glass. We're close to the edge of the sector; to my right and down the street lies a sliver of the wall, powerful, almighty, brittle, showing us an endless horizon of blue that gradates into a white nothing.
He spins around, surprised and afraid. My fingers fit around his wrist and I pull him back as he tries to leave. He doesn't resist again; a scuffle would certainly attract that stupid drone.
"You."
"Me."
He's always had high cheekbones, a fine face, pale blue eyes, but today his cheekbones are more pronounced, the shadows on his face darker, his eyes paler. Perhaps it's just the cold, a cold I can't truly feel. His manner is jittery; he makes me think of a small animal, the kind that approaches you for food when you crouch, but keeps its distance and is gone the moment you stand up too quickly. His eyes don't stop- won't stop moving. Back, forth. Back, forth. His eyeballs spin.
"What do you want?" His voice is hushed.
"Your help."
His response is a croaky, strained laugh.
He's wilting, like a dying rose. He shakes his head, and three black petals fall to the floor. It's like even simple movement soaks the life out of him. "I can't help you."
I decide to change the subject. I switch it with the aim of small talk (Julian's taught me quite a bit, frankly) and ask him where he's headed. He jerks his head in what seems to be no particular direction, but when I follow his gesture, I'm faced with a large building that scrapes against the grey clouds that hang low above the city, blanketing it.
I'm surprised. "The medical bureau? Why?"
He's hesitant to answer.
"Vance."
"It's- none of your concern." He swallows thickly, Adam's Apple bobbing beneath a layer of ridges, pale skin. I conclude from that that he's not suffering from a cold, or something else as mundane as that.
"I want to know."
He shakes his head. "I need to- I need to go," he stutters. "I'll be late for my appointment."
Reluctantly, I loosen my grip on his arm, and he pulls away. I watch him as he crosses the road, kicking up snow at his heels as he goes, black bangs floppy against his forehead. And the snowflakes wrap him up in a cold embrace, which he shakes off as he disappears through the sliding glass doors of the Medical Bureau.
I press myself against the doorframe and turn my face away as the drone comes down the street. Patiently, I wait for it to pass, then head the other way.
▿
The first thing I hear over the honk of cars outside is the clatter of a paper coffee cup as it falls to the floor.
"What are you doing here?" Vance's voice sounds torn between angry and desolate. He looks like he's about to cry, in the state of a child who's just fallen from their bicycle, and is waiting for the pain to hit and the tears and the screams to start; but there's nothing childish about this situation.
"I'll get that for you."
I walk into his kitchen, grab a wad of paper towels, and kneel down to mop up the steaming mess. The puddle extends slightly, and coffee seeps into my trousers at the knee. Suddenly, I'm reminded of killing Parrish- or whatever his state-given name was. The blood, hot and fresh against my cheek; the coffee is just the right temperature.
"Sit down, Vance."
He doesn't, so I repeat myself, this time with more prominence. He does as he's told.
I get up and throw the brown-coloured, wet towels into the bin, along with his coffee cup. "Considering you've just been to the doctor's, you look like shit," I tell him. "I'll make you another coffee."
"What do you want?"
"I've already told you that." He doesn't look particularly enthusiastic about me making him another coffee, but I do it anyways. I fill the kettle up, flip a switch, and the water starts to heat up. Already there are bubbles forming, clinging to the bottom of the transparent compartment of the machine.
It takes him some time to pluck up the courage to say something. "You're different."
"I know." He seems to prefer ground coffee beans, so I scrape out the rest from the last pot in his cupboard with a small spoon and dump it into a mug. It's emblazoned with the Tetrahmon logo; a spiked city skyline, white, surrounded by a black circle. On the other side of the mug are printed the words 'unity is strength. strength is unity.' I raise a brow at them.
"N-no. I don't mean it like that. You're different. From last time."
"The last time you saw me I was behind bars, Vance."
"Not so loud," he says, almost urgently. "You're not you." He presses his argument.
I smile. One spoonful of ground coffee. Two spoonfuls. "Do you expect me to to hold you against a wall and suffocate you or threaten to break your neck if you say you won't help me?" I ask. "I can do that, if you'd prefer it?"
"Are you carrying a firearm?"
"No." But I don't really need one when it comes to you. I hold the comment in.
The kettle makes a soft clicking sound to signal it's done. Kettles don't scream like they used to.
I pour the water into the mug, using the spoon to stir the ground up coffee. I'm left with a dark solution, patterned with streaks of frothy brown. "Milk? Sugar?" I ask, and he shakes his head, so I just bring it to him. He won't take it from my hand, so I set it down beside him and pull up a chair to sit down across from him.
"Why me?"
"Bernard thinks you can help us..." I trail off, noticing a camera in the corner of my eye, embedded in the glass wall to my left. I draw a pen from my coat pocket and walk back to the kitchen sink to grab a paper towel.
It's a bit hard to write on, but it's not too hard to get a hang of it.
He thinks you can help us win.
I shove the paper towel towards him, and he replies with a puzzled look. I sigh, take it back, and write again.
Thus ensues an hour of an exchange of words and looks, under the watchful eye and the all-hearing ear of the camera. Me passing the paper towel towards him, then pulling it back to write again. He contributes little, usually using hand signals, or expressions, occasionally saying something. The colour seems to return to his cheeks. The wilted flower stands slightly more upright, but every petal that has fallen is already lost.
I tell him everything, and by the end of it, the towel is black with inked-on words. There's just one more thing to write down.
He freezes, and goes fearful as soon as he reads it. It's not a statement, but a question.
Are you going to tell me now?
He knows what I'm talking about, and he assumes the same stance as earlier, on the street; eyes wide and rolling, fingers tapping against his thigh. But he's preparing to tell me, so I go to crumple the paper towel and destroy it under a fast-flowing stream of water in the sink, but he stops me, hand slamming down quickly onto mine.
Looks like someone's got their own secrets, too. He's definitely not daddy's boy, is he?
What he writes is almost like poetry. It feels like a cloud that drifts beside him, light, airy, surreal, and yet real, just not in the way you'd expect.
I've been dreaming. I've had colourful dreams, about the past. About my true family. I've been trying to take medication to help stop them. It's a secret. Nobody knows.
I know. And what do you mean, trying to take medication?
I don't want them to stop.
Come with me. Bernard will treat you as an equal.
He's my father. I can't turn my back on him.
Family means nothing anymore.
Taking the paper from him, I go to destroy it as he sits there. Finally, he picks up his previously-untouched cup of coffee, and take s a sip from it. I watch him quietly, a broken man in some ways- but unbroken in other ways, as the paper towel laps up the water that flows from the tap, causing the ink to pool and blot out, causing it to travel across the paper's creases like fine, black veins. It sags between my fingers, and the weight of the water soon causes it to break and tear. I crumple it up into a sodden ball and throw it away.
Vance watches me do up the buttons of my second-hand coat, my hair still tucked up in the hood, done up in a tight braid. "Will you do it, then?"
Solemnly, he meets my eyes and gives me a single nod. Satisfied, I turn on my heel and leave the glass apartment and him; a traitor, a saviour, a troubled man.
HOW TO BE THE BEE'S KNEES: vote ⭐️, comment, add shiver to your reading list!
Hey everyone, here's the latest chapter of shiver! hopefully things are starting to get a bit more exciting; let me know what you think of this chapter compared to the last one! Also, I'm so sorry for the rubbish timing when it comes to updates, but hopefully I can sort that out soon!
- Sarah x