A few yards away from the main building, in the dust of the dry lake, Donna stopped running.
“We’re here,” she said.
Brenda and I had run past Donna and jogged a few steps back.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
I wiped the gray fluids off my face with my sleeves and spat to clear my mouth. It tasted foul.
“Donna, she’ll be here any second. We have to go,” said Brenda, nearly out of breath.
“No.” said Donna, dropping her weapon to the ground. “This is how it has to be. I’m sorry.”
Her sense of time was almost expended. All she could feel were the moments we had in front of us. She looked over at us with defeat in her eyes. Neither Brenda nor I had time to say anything. There was a slight blur of something rushing past and then a deafening bang. Donna and Brenda were blown up into the air as a cloud of dust rushed in. They hit the ground a couple of yards from me. I was the only one able to hold my ground. When the dust cleared enough to see, I ran to Donna and Brenda. I stopped when another rush of sound and dust marked the arrival of Daytona. She stood between me and the others.
“Hello, ladies,” she said.
“Hey Charlie,” said Donna.
Daytona’s skin was still its normal color. She wasn’t being controlled or converted.
“You’re free, you know,” said Donna.
Daytona pulled up the goggles from her eyes and rested them on her head. In spite of the high speeds her hair was still perfectly set in a tight ponytail.
“Yeah, I know,” she said.
“Morden’s dead. He can’t control you,” I said.
“Aw. I wanted to kill him,” said Daytona.
Brenda groaned in pain on the ground. I could feel the energy pulsing off of her. It was getting stronger. I could also sense the energy changing. Brenda was changing.
“How you holding up there, rocker?” asked Daytona, glancing over at Brenda.
Brenda just raised a fist in the air and extended her middle finger. Daytona smiled and pointed at Brenda.
“I like her. She’ll die last,” she said.
Brenda looked over at Daytona.
“Oh sure. No face tat for her.” she said.
Daytona smiled.
“Babe, no one touches me without permission and lives. Besides, I’m too pretty to be marked up.” she said.
She put her goggles back on and disappeared. A second later we heard the boom of Daytona breaking the sound barrier.
“Wow. I don’t appreciate the implication that we’re not on her level of pretty. Rude.” said Brenda.
A second later Daytona bolted by us again in a barely noticeable blur. Another second later we were blasted by another boom of sound accompanied by a wave of dust and wind. Since Donna and Brenda were on the ground they were not thrown again, but they were pulled by the wind. I grabbed Brenda and pulled her closer to where Donna was lying.
“So, blondie is just naturally a psycho killer?” asked Brenda.
“She is broken. And the only way she knows how to deal with it is to hurt others,” I said.
“Right. Hurt people hurt people,” said Brenda.
“Grab onto us!” said Donna.
I managed to grab both of them in time for another shock wave to hit. They were pulled with the wind but I was able to hold onto them. Brenda willed herself onto her feet, through the pain, but she was still hunched over.
“Screw this,” she said.
Brenda stood up straight, and stretched her arms into the air. A vortex of wind and dust appeared around us. The column of wind and dust had a roar like a freight train and got faster and higher each second. Brenda encased us in a tornado. It wasn't enough.
“No, get down!” yelled Donna just as another shock wave hit.
Daytona pushed her speed even faster so we wouldn’t have even seen a blur. When the shock wave broke through Brenda’s defense I was still holding Donna’s hand. She was thrown by the irresistible force of the wind and anchored by the immovable object that was me. Her shoulder dislocated. It was a miracle her arm didn’t come apart. Brenda was just out of my reach so she went flying over fifty yards away. The only thing that saved her was her powers. A cushion of air caught her before she slammed into the ground. I picked up Donna and jumped to Brenda. She was on the ground, cringing in pain, and holding her abdomen.
I managed to say “Are you…” before another shock wave of wind and dust slammed into us. Fortunately, I had pushed everyone to the ground and held them down before it hit. The dust cloud moved on and I desperately tried to pull everyone in tighter to one spot that I could try and defend. Then another shock wave hit. I was barely able to hang onto Brenda and Donna. Holding them any tighter would cause more harm than protection. Two more shock waves hit from opposite directions. We could just make out the menacing laughter of a young woman as it faded in the distance.
“She’s toying with us,” said Donna as she slowly stood up.
The low rumble continued as Daytona circled our group. She was miles away, but still close enough to strike without warning.
“How did she break through my tornado?” asked Brenda.
Her breathing was beginning to quicken.
“It’s her power. Her secondary power, I mean. She has to have at least partial control over air to move that fast and not hurt herself,” I said.
“Secondary?” asked Brenda.
“You ever wonder how you can control fire and not get burned,” I asked.
“Oh, right. Makes sense. Hooray for that,” said Brenda.
“Sarah, could you?” Donna asked, pointing at her dislocated shoulder with her good arm.
I walked over, put one hand on her shoulder, grabbed her wrist with my other hand, and snapped her shoulder back into place. She made a sound but she kept her jaw tightly shut to control the noise she would have made. Brenda cringed.
“I can’t defend any of you if I can’t touch her. We need another option,” I said.
Brenda got up slowly. She took a deep breath and calmed her respiration.
“God, I hate that bitch,” she said.
Then Brenda looked at me and said, “Forgive me. I hate that asshole. It’s a good thing she is just plain evil and not some mind controlled puppet.”
Donna looked at her, confused.
“Why on Earth would you say that?” she asked Brenda.
“Because it makes this a little easier,” said Brenda.
She pointed over my shoulder and said, “Heads up.”
The shock wave hit. But Donna and Brenda weren’t thrown. Brenda was able to shield them with her air control. In the rush of dust I felt something had hit my jaw, hard, and a rapid thumping sound trailed away from us in the dust cloud. My face felt wet so I wiped my cheek with my hand and it came away red. I noticed the distinctive smell of blood. I also tasted it in my mouth, too. I knew it too well. I instantly knew what had just happened and it didn’t make any sense to me. Daytona may have been disturbed, but she wasn’t stupid enough to attack someone who couldn’t be injured. Definitely not at those speeds. It would be like punching a stone wall.
My confusion was interrupted by a scream that lasted only a few seconds. Maybe a hundred yards away, Daytona was sitting on the ground, covered in dust, clutching her right arm at the elbow. Where her forearm and hand should have been, was a mangled and torn piece of flesh and bone, bleeding profusely. There was a lot of pain. The shock kept her eyes and mind fixated on what was left of her arm. Daytona’s eyes were wide and her mouth was open in a look of terror. Then the earth beneath her opened up and Daytona fell through a huge crack in the ground.
Donna and I turned to look at Brenda. Her left hand was open and trembling. It was pointed to where Daytona had been sitting. Her right hand was also open and trembling. It was pointed to the sky. We looked up to see a ball of swirling fire. Brenda closed her right hand and swung her fist down towards the ground. The ball of fire turned into a column of flames that shot down into the chasm where Daytona fell. There was a loud roar of fire and wind and then the column vanished. Brenda closed her left hand and the cracked ground closed up. There with no sign of there ever being an opening. Nor was there a sign of Daytona. Brenda laughed to herself, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed. I rushed over to Brenda, knelt on the ground and pulled her onto my lap. I shook her a little and lightly slapped her. Brenda came to.
“What did you do?” Donna asked, jogging up.
“I may have played with the light that was reflecting off of us,” she said.
“More specifically?” I asked.
Brenda pointed at me.
“I made you look like me,” she said.
She then pointed back at herself.
“Then I made me look like you. I can bend and manipulate light now. Crazy, right?” she said smiling.
“You are full of surprises,” I said.
“And you got stuff on your face,” she said.
“Oh, god,” I said, remembering the blood.
I managed to find a cleanish part of my shirt to wipe my face.
“She said she was going to kill me last,” said Brenda.
Then she called out, “Liar!”
“And the ground?” I asked.
Brenda’s put on a guilty/mischievous look.
“I don’t flex my earth bending muscles enough and I always wanted to try that,” she said.
“And the fireball?” Donna asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Remember the alley? Well, I grew up with bible thumpers,” Brenda said and shrugged. “The columns of fire in the book of Exodus seemed appropriate given our… you know? Exodus,” she said, grinning.
I shook my head.
“Any other tricks up your sleeve? I feel like you’ve been holding out on…” Donna didn’t complete her thought.
Pain exploded in her head and she dropped to her knees. She slammed her hands into the ground to keep herself steady. Brenda was rocked with equal pain shooting throughout her body, forcing her to curl up again. I didn’t feel anything except the density of my body increasing, making itself more invulnerable. It only lasted for a few seconds and then the feeling was gone. Donna was breathing hard, her body in panic mode.
“We need to move,” said Donna, keeping her voice as steady as she could.
“Yeah. I think that was me. Sorry. Not on purpose. Y'all need to go. I’m just gonna lay here for a bit,” said Brenda.
Her body relaxed a bit.
“You can stop with the jokes. We’re all getting out of here,” I said.
Brenda’s face turned serious.
“No, you two are getting out of here,” she said.
Her face cringed in pain as she cracked a little smile.
“Core breach in progress,” said Brenda.
And then she put on a bad Scottish accent.
“I don’t think she can’t take much more of this, Captain,” she said, fighting to put on a smile.
Donna couldn’t feel anything but danger everywhere and now the only outcome that was safe was leaving Brenda behind.
“This is how…” Donna began.
“How it has to go,” I completed her sentence.
I could feel the energy coming off of Brenda, fluctuating erratically. The pulses were increasing in frequency and amplitude. I could tell Brenda was holding back the tide.
“Do we have code names?” asked Brenda with a strained voice. “Please tell me we had codenames. Psycho blonde had one, did they give us any?”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“In their system, we were given designations, yes,” said Donna.
Brenda smiled.
“Sweeeet. What were they?” she asked.
The pain was growing inside of her but she kept a brave face.
“I was Oracle,” said Donna, cringing.
“Eh, a little on the nose,” said Brenda.
“Sarah is Stone Girl.” Donna continued, causing me to cringe.
It sounded better in Arabic but it didn’t make me like it any better.
“Meh,” said Brenda.
“Leah is Haywire,” said Donna.
“Not bad. What was I?” asked Brenda.
“You are... Mental,” said Donna.
“No really, what is my code name?” asked Brenda.
In spite of the pain, her smile grew.
“No, really. Your code name is Mental.” said Donna. “Your boy Rudy and his crew got recruited, so...”
Brenda nodded.
“Rudolfo’s final revenge. Bastard. And Jess?” asked Brenda
“Jess kept the Jinx code name in the system,” Donna said.
Her eyes got red and tearful. She had tried with every fiber of her being to find a different path but couldn’t see any other way out. But even if there was, she could never stray from the current path. There may have been slightly different versions of this moment, but at her core, Donna knew this was how it would end. Knowing did not make it any easier. Her voice cracked.
“I’m sorry. We have to move. Brenda Vasquez, I am going to miss you so much,” she said.
Brenda started to cry too.
“Dammit, Tate, I’m trying to be all stoic and classy like,” said Brenda.
We all shared a light laugh.
“Twas an honor serving with you all,” she said, giving a quick salute.
I shed one solitary tear. I felt the sorrow as hard as they did. But my body was full on in protection mode, no vulnerabilities. Even the emotional kind. It took all the concentration I could muster just to let this one sign of pain through. Fortunately, the women around me knew how big a gesture that one tear was.
“I’m sorry,” Brenda told me.
I wanted to stay angry at her for what she did to me. But what would that serve?
“I forgive you,” I said.
Brenda smiled.
“I’m going to miss you most of all, Scarecrow,” Brenda said to me.
Then she closed her eyes.
Then she opened her eyes.
“Was that too sentimental? It felt like a bit much,” said Brenda.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked.
“Oh, plenty,” said Brenda, with pride. “Damn. I always thought I’d go with something a little more profound.”
This was about as an appropriate ending as Brenda could have. And we all knew it.
“You guys better go,” said Brenda, fighting through the pain. “You can’t be around for what I think is going to happen next.”
Then she looked directly at me. “I’m not sure even you could handle it.”
I leaned in to kiss Brenda on her forehead.
I think she thought I was aiming for her lips because she said, “Yeees,” closing her eyes.
Then she said, “Noooo,” when my lips touched her forehead.
Donna rolled her eyes.
“I’m actually going to miss you,” I said.
“Get out of here, loser,” Brenda said laughing.
Donna, looking impatient, and sniffling said, “Um, ladies. It’s really time.”
“Yeah, dorks, get moving,” said Brenda.
I gently moved Brenda off my lap. Then I stood and picked up Donna.
“Oh, one more thing. One more thing,” said Brenda.
“Seriously?” said Donna.
“It’s important,” said Brenda.
“What is it?” asked Donna.
“Sarah likes girls. Sarah likes girls,” sang Brenda.
“You wish,” I told her.
The last words we heard from Brenda were, “I really do. Now get lost. I gotta change. Can’t have you pervs watching me.”
Looking increasingly stressed, Brenda closed her eyes again. I crouched, and jumped away, disappearing over the horizon carrying Donna. Brenda felt her body getting hotter and her mind pulling away somewhere. Then she had a thought.
“All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain,” she said.
She opened her eyes and looked over to see Jess standing where Donna and I had been.
“Dude, they left already,” said Jess.
“Shit!” said Brenda.
“Are you done being all dramatic? We got work to do,” said Jess.
“But I just closed my eyes for a second. God damn…” she began to say.
Boom.
Well, not a traditional boom. Not like a bomb, boom. Maybe boom adjacent? The noise was something like the feedback of a microphone left next to a speaker and those weird random tones you get in your ear. Only painfully louder on a scale I can’t even describe. And there was a bright light. So, a big boom of sound and light. You really had to be there to appreciate it.
A few yards away from the main building, in the dust of the dry lake, Donna stopped running.
“We’re here,” she said.
Brenda and I had run past Donna and jogged a few steps back.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
I wiped the gray fluids off my face with my sleeves and spat to clear my mouth. It tasted foul.
“Donna, she’ll be here any second. We have to go,” said Brenda, nearly out of breath.
“No.” said Donna, dropping her weapon to the ground. “This is how it has to be. I’m sorry.”
Her sense of time was almost expended. All she could feel were the moments we had in front of us. She looked over at us with defeat in her eyes. Neither Brenda nor I had time to say anything. There was a slight blur of something rushing past and then a deafening bang. Donna and Brenda were blown up into the air as a cloud of dust rushed in. They hit the ground a couple of yards from me. I was the only one able to hold my ground. When the dust cleared enough to see, I ran to Donna and Brenda. I stopped when another rush of sound and dust marked the arrival of Daytona. She stood between me and the others.
“Hello, ladies,” she said.
“Hey Charlie,” said Donna.
Daytona’s skin was still its normal color. She wasn’t being controlled or converted.
“You’re free, you know,” said Donna.
Daytona pulled up the goggles from her eyes and rested them on her head. In spite of the high speeds her hair was still perfectly set in a tight ponytail.
“Yeah, I know,” she said.
“Morden’s dead. He can’t control you,” I said.
“Aw. I wanted to kill him,” said Daytona.
Brenda groaned in pain on the ground. I could feel the energy pulsing off of her. It was getting stronger. I could also sense the energy changing. Brenda was changing.
“How you holding up there, rocker?” asked Daytona, glancing over at Brenda.
Brenda just raised a fist in the air and extended her middle finger. Daytona smiled and pointed at Brenda.
“I like her. She’ll die last,” she said.
Brenda looked over at Daytona.
“Oh sure. No face tat for her.” she said.
Daytona smiled.
“Babe, no one touches me without permission and lives. Besides, I’m too pretty to be marked up.” she said.
She put her goggles back on and disappeared. A second later we heard the boom of Daytona breaking the sound barrier.
“Wow. I don’t appreciate the implication that we’re not on her level of pretty. Rude.” said Brenda.
A second later Daytona bolted by us again in a barely noticeable blur. Another second later we were blasted by another boom of sound accompanied by a wave of dust and wind. Since Donna and Brenda were on the ground they were not thrown again, but they were pulled by the wind. I grabbed Brenda and pulled her closer to where Donna was lying.
“So, blondie is just naturally a psycho killer?” asked Brenda.
“She is broken. And the only way she knows how to deal with it is to hurt others,” I said.
“Right. Hurt people hurt people,” said Brenda.
“Grab onto us!” said Donna.
I managed to grab both of them in time for another shock wave to hit. They were pulled with the wind but I was able to hold onto them. Brenda willed herself onto her feet, through the pain, but she was still hunched over.
“Screw this,” she said.
Brenda stood up straight, and stretched her arms into the air. A vortex of wind and dust appeared around us. The column of wind and dust had a roar like a freight train and got faster and higher each second. Brenda encased us in a tornado. It wasn't enough.
“No, get down!” yelled Donna just as another shock wave hit.
Daytona pushed her speed even faster so we wouldn’t have even seen a blur. When the shock wave broke through Brenda’s defense I was still holding Donna’s hand. She was thrown by the irresistible force of the wind and anchored by the immovable object that was me. Her shoulder dislocated. It was a miracle her arm didn’t come apart. Brenda was just out of my reach so she went flying over fifty yards away. The only thing that saved her was her powers. A cushion of air caught her before she slammed into the ground. I picked up Donna and jumped to Brenda. She was on the ground, cringing in pain, and holding her abdomen.
I managed to say “Are you…” before another shock wave of wind and dust slammed into us. Fortunately, I had pushed everyone to the ground and held them down before it hit. The dust cloud moved on and I desperately tried to pull everyone in tighter to one spot that I could try and defend. Then another shock wave hit. I was barely able to hang onto Brenda and Donna. Holding them any tighter would cause more harm than protection. Two more shock waves hit from opposite directions. We could just make out the menacing laughter of a young woman as it faded in the distance.
“She’s toying with us,” said Donna as she slowly stood up.
The low rumble continued as Daytona circled our group. She was miles away, but still close enough to strike without warning.
“How did she break through my tornado?” asked Brenda.
Her breathing was beginning to quicken.
“It’s her power. Her secondary power, I mean. She has to have at least partial control over air to move that fast and not hurt herself,” I said.
“Secondary?” asked Brenda.
“You ever wonder how you can control fire and not get burned,” I asked.
“Oh, right. Makes sense. Hooray for that,” said Brenda.
“Sarah, could you?” Donna asked, pointing at her dislocated shoulder with her good arm.
I walked over, put one hand on her shoulder, grabbed her wrist with my other hand, and snapped her shoulder back into place. She made a sound but she kept her jaw tightly shut to control the noise she would have made. Brenda cringed.
“I can’t defend any of you if I can’t touch her. We need another option,” I said.
Brenda got up slowly. She took a deep breath and calmed her respiration.
“God, I hate that bitch,” she said.
Then Brenda looked at me and said, “Forgive me. I hate that asshole. It’s a good thing she is just plain evil and not some mind controlled puppet.”
Donna looked at her, confused.
“Why on Earth would you say that?” she asked Brenda.
“Because it makes this a little easier,” said Brenda.
She pointed over my shoulder and said, “Heads up.”
The shock wave hit. But Donna and Brenda weren’t thrown. Brenda was able to shield them with her air control. In the rush of dust I felt something had hit my jaw, hard, and a rapid thumping sound trailed away from us in the dust cloud. My face felt wet so I wiped my cheek with my hand and it came away red. I noticed the distinctive smell of blood. I also tasted it in my mouth, too. I knew it too well. I instantly knew what had just happened and it didn’t make any sense to me. Daytona may have been disturbed, but she wasn’t stupid enough to attack someone who couldn’t be injured. Definitely not at those speeds. It would be like punching a stone wall.
My confusion was interrupted by a scream that lasted only a few seconds. Maybe a hundred yards away, Daytona was sitting on the ground, covered in dust, clutching her right arm at the elbow. Where her forearm and hand should have been, was a mangled and torn piece of flesh and bone, bleeding profusely. There was a lot of pain. The shock kept her eyes and mind fixated on what was left of her arm. Daytona’s eyes were wide and her mouth was open in a look of terror. Then the earth beneath her opened up and Daytona fell through a huge crack in the ground.
Donna and I turned to look at Brenda. Her left hand was open and trembling. It was pointed to where Daytona had been sitting. Her right hand was also open and trembling. It was pointed to the sky. We looked up to see a ball of swirling fire. Brenda closed her right hand and swung her fist down towards the ground. The ball of fire turned into a column of flames that shot down into the chasm where Daytona fell. There was a loud roar of fire and wind and then the column vanished. Brenda closed her left hand and the cracked ground closed up. There with no sign of there ever being an opening. Nor was there a sign of Daytona. Brenda laughed to herself, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed. I rushed over to Brenda, knelt on the ground and pulled her onto my lap. I shook her a little and lightly slapped her. Brenda came to.
“What did you do?” Donna asked, jogging up.
“I may have played with the light that was reflecting off of us,” she said.
“More specifically?” I asked.
Brenda pointed at me.
“I made you look like me,” she said.
She then pointed back at herself.
“Then I made me look like you. I can bend and manipulate light now. Crazy, right?” she said smiling.
“You are full of surprises,” I said.
“And you got stuff on your face,” she said.
“Oh, god,” I said, remembering the blood.
I managed to find a cleanish part of my shirt to wipe my face.
“She said she was going to kill me last,” said Brenda.
Then she called out, “Liar!”
“And the ground?” I asked.
Brenda’s put on a guilty/mischievous look.
“I don’t flex my earth bending muscles enough and I always wanted to try that,” she said.
“And the fireball?” Donna asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Remember the alley? Well, I grew up with bible thumpers,” Brenda said and shrugged. “The columns of fire in the book of Exodus seemed appropriate given our… you know? Exodus,” she said, grinning.
I shook my head.
“Any other tricks up your sleeve? I feel like you’ve been holding out on…” Donna didn’t complete her thought.
Pain exploded in her head and she dropped to her knees. She slammed her hands into the ground to keep herself steady. Brenda was rocked with equal pain shooting throughout her body, forcing her to curl up again. I didn’t feel anything except the density of my body increasing, making itself more invulnerable. It only lasted for a few seconds and then the feeling was gone. Donna was breathing hard, her body in panic mode.
“We need to move,” said Donna, keeping her voice as steady as she could.
“Yeah. I think that was me. Sorry. Not on purpose. Y'all need to go. I’m just gonna lay here for a bit,” said Brenda.
Her body relaxed a bit.
“You can stop with the jokes. We’re all getting out of here,” I said.
Brenda’s face turned serious.
“No, you two are getting out of here,” she said.
Her face cringed in pain as she cracked a little smile.
“Core breach in progress,” said Brenda.
And then she put on a bad Scottish accent.
“I don’t think she can’t take much more of this, Captain,” she said, fighting to put on a smile.
Donna couldn’t feel anything but danger everywhere and now the only outcome that was safe was leaving Brenda behind.
“This is how…” Donna began.
“How it has to go,” I completed her sentence.
I could feel the energy coming off of Brenda, fluctuating erratically. The pulses were increasing in frequency and amplitude. I could tell Brenda was holding back the tide.
“Do we have code names?” asked Brenda with a strained voice. “Please tell me we had codenames. Psycho blonde had one, did they give us any?”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“In their system, we were given designations, yes,” said Donna.
Brenda smiled.
“Sweeeet. What were they?” she asked.
The pain was growing inside of her but she kept a brave face.
“I was Oracle,” said Donna, cringing.
“Eh, a little on the nose,” said Brenda.
“Sarah is Stone Girl.” Donna continued, causing me to cringe.
It sounded better in Arabic but it didn’t make me like it any better.
“Meh,” said Brenda.
“Leah is Haywire,” said Donna.
“Not bad. What was I?” asked Brenda.
“You are... Mental,” said Donna.
“No really, what is my code name?” asked Brenda.
In spite of the pain, her smile grew.
“No, really. Your code name is Mental.” said Donna. “Your boy Rudy and his crew got recruited, so...”
Brenda nodded.
“Rudolfo’s final revenge. Bastard. And Jess?” asked Brenda
“Jess kept the Jinx code name in the system,” Donna said.
Her eyes got red and tearful. She had tried with every fiber of her being to find a different path but couldn’t see any other way out. But even if there was, she could never stray from the current path. There may have been slightly different versions of this moment, but at her core, Donna knew this was how it would end. Knowing did not make it any easier. Her voice cracked.
“I’m sorry. We have to move. Brenda Vasquez, I am going to miss you so much,” she said.
Brenda started to cry too.
“Dammit, Tate, I’m trying to be all stoic and classy like,” said Brenda.
We all shared a light laugh.
“Twas an honor serving with you all,” she said, giving a quick salute.
I shed one solitary tear. I felt the sorrow as hard as they did. But my body was full on in protection mode, no vulnerabilities. Even the emotional kind. It took all the concentration I could muster just to let this one sign of pain through. Fortunately, the women around me knew how big a gesture that one tear was.
“I’m sorry,” Brenda told me.
I wanted to stay angry at her for what she did to me. But what would that serve?
“I forgive you,” I said.
Brenda smiled.
“I’m going to miss you most of all, Scarecrow,” Brenda said to me.
Then she closed her eyes.
Then she opened her eyes.
“Was that too sentimental? It felt like a bit much,” said Brenda.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked.
“Oh, plenty,” said Brenda, with pride. “Damn. I always thought I’d go with something a little more profound.”
This was about as an appropriate ending as Brenda could have. And we all knew it.
“You guys better go,” said Brenda, fighting through the pain. “You can’t be around for what I think is going to happen next.”
Then she looked directly at me. “I’m not sure even you could handle it.”
I leaned in to kiss Brenda on her forehead.
I think she thought I was aiming for her lips because she said, “Yeees,” closing her eyes.
Then she said, “Noooo,” when my lips touched her forehead.
Donna rolled her eyes.
“I’m actually going to miss you,” I said.
“Get out of here, loser,” Brenda said laughing.
Donna, looking impatient, and sniffling said, “Um, ladies. It’s really time.”
“Yeah, dorks, get moving,” said Brenda.
I gently moved Brenda off my lap. Then I stood and picked up Donna.
“Oh, one more thing. One more thing,” said Brenda.
“Seriously?” said Donna.
“It’s important,” said Brenda.
“What is it?” asked Donna.
“Sarah likes girls. Sarah likes girls,” sang Brenda.
“You wish,” I told her.
The last words we heard from Brenda were, “I really do. Now get lost. I gotta change. Can’t have you pervs watching me.”
Looking increasingly stressed, Brenda closed her eyes again. I crouched, and jumped away, disappearing over the horizon carrying Donna. Brenda felt her body getting hotter and her mind pulling away somewhere. Then she had a thought.267Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaTTRgUrSVy
“All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain,” she said.
She opened her eyes and looked over to see Jess standing where Donna and I had been.267Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb2clSTkO9t
“Dude, they left already,” said Jess.
“Shit!” said Brenda.
“Are you done being all dramatic? We got work to do,” said Jess.
“But I just closed my eyes for a second. God damn…” she began to say.
Boom.
Well, not a traditional boom. Not like a bomb, boom. Maybe boom adjacent? The noise was something like the feedback of a microphone left next to a speaker and those weird random tones you get in your ear. Only painfully louder on a scale I can’t even describe. And there was a bright light. So, a big boom of sound and light. You really had to be there to appreciate it.267Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVaSfPu6t5s
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