Saving Cayli

[Jay Carpenter]

Cayli was unlikely to see the flows. She was so new, she was unlikely to even notice the light. Which was why Jay attempted to direct her attention to it. Nox tried to tell him that he used the power, too. He rained down fire and brimstone to push him to the point of channel or die. The stress did its job, too. He lost a bet because of that. He almost smiled at the memory, though the fact that he was trying to save his sister's life at the moment barred the emotion from showing itself.

The kid, whatever his name was, had touched him on the shoulder and in a flash Jay threw him to the floor like a sack of grain, edge of a blade pressed to his neck. Only, the blade shimmered with lines of light once Jay gave it a real look. After that, he saw the light everywhere. Always there. Taunting and needing a conduit to put it to use. Restless, angry, violent, thrashing. If he didn't wrestle it to submission it would sweep him away. 

Of course Cayli couldn't see the mechanics of it. The lines would reveal themselves eventually, as power itself would come to be a familiar companion. He scrubbed a hand in his hair without an alternate idea as Natalie settled onto the bed.

Then her words struck him. The entirety of his focus shifted from Cayli to Natalie. Her voice drew carefully like water trickling down a wall, coaxing stormy waves to calm currents. 

The epiphany dropped his jaw agape. She can channel too. He never noticed. Never even tried to notice. So wrapped up with his own demons, he never even considered the possibility that ghosts from her past haunted her. Surely the sparking of any channeler to their first touch at the power was catastrophic. Jay wasn't even sure when his own first touch occurred, himself. Although Nox assured him that the deed was done prior to their meeting. Which meant it had to have been in Africa, though he razed the memories of those days carefully. Too many unpleasant ones to dig around too deeply. 

His was nothing like what she described! Joy and peace?  Jay's couldn't be the same power. Though it was entirely possible that the nature of the wielder shaped the nature of the power flowing through them. Jay's power was hungry and carnal, wild and ferocious, violent and harsh, painful yet thrilling. A storm that had to be summoned, once arrived, had to be conquered. Was that the reflection of the duality of his own soul? Or was it the other way around?  

He fell quiet and the blue flame snuffed.  He thought about sinking into the rocking chair that his mother previously occupied. Instead, he took up post on a doctor's stool, elbows on his knees, fingers at his lips, and watched with unblinking eyes. Maybe it happened the day he wore the power-armored suit and executed Wallace-Johnson. What are you waiting for?! Someone yelled. Their question was justified. Jay stood there, weapon aimed at the devil's chest, but hesitated anyway. To this day he didn't know why. Or maybe he did, but as Jay frequently said, he only lied to himself. Not knowing why, he hovered over the man begging for mercy he never bestowed himself, until sinking into the shell of his own body and letting muscle memory take over. 

Memories of gunfire faded when Natalie's story began. He just stared at her in disbelief. Fire swarmed her soul like a ghost that wouldn't stop haunting her. Fires that Jay could almost smell, even now. 

The helmet filtered black smoke. Bio traced three heartbeats. The second one didn't last long. Jay's bullets made sure of it. The third was Natalie's. 

He paid the price for abandoning the legion wearing a half-million dollar suit in order to take her to the hospital after the embassy fire. But it wasn't the worst punishment in the world. Not like they ripped out his soul and spiked his head on a pole. 

Her voice wrapped his mind like a shroud. 
I burned my dad's office to the ground.
I was in a fire when I was a teenager... months recovering..

His stomach knotted with realization. She started the fire that burned down her house. Her dad's office; the same dad that went to jail. Did anyone die in it? Undulations carried the tone of her voice into the realm of morbid humor. But from the periphery, Jay saw the dispassion buried deep within. Self-protective dispassion buried the guilt of those memories as a means to live with herself. Jay recognized it all too well because the same denial made his life livable. If it didn't, a mountain of corpses would rise up and drag him off to their hell. Maybe he deserved to join them. Someday he would. Preferably later rather than sooner. But someday. He knew what fate awaited.  

He scrubbed his hair, clawing fingers down his scalp like the sting might shake the sickness twisting his gut. Just watching, Jay had nothing to say. Except to stare at the hellish memories surely haunting Natalie like ghosts. More notably, she didn't let herself feel it despite the curl of a smirk on her lip. How many times had he seen that same expression ghosting her with a playful mask? How often had he mistaken the pain of her reality for the mystery of a playful taunt. 

Natalie talked like Cayli may recognize her own pivotal moments. Jay still didn't know when his own came, but he had to assume it was the day he executed Wallace-Johnson. If Zacarias thought he executed Andres Amengual in cold blood, he should have a chat with Wallace-Johnson's demon and set straight. Of course, he was ordered to put down that madman. The exact opposite was meant to stay his hand in Nicaragua. But the evil son of a bitch deserved worse than what he got. Someone in the Pentagon was fucked by the heat of Jay's call that night. 

He looked around the room uneasily. Cayli was focused on Natalie's lights. The two women fixed on one another. All he had to do was sit there and not be a distraction. Just wait.

But hell he was going crazy waiting. He tried the counting thing again. The tile ceilings worked well for that. They were a grid of 12 by 12 squares. The spicket of a water sprinkler struck out from the center tile. The beep and whirl of monitors and pumps pounded like drums in his head. The power ached to be put to use. 

He smoothed his palms across his knees when one began to jump nervously. What was mom and dad doing out there? Maybe he should check on them. But then mom may want to enter if she thought their conversation done. Natalie and Cayli couldn't be disturbed. 

He put his face in his hands, stubble on his jaw pricking deep into his palms. When a cold streak pebbled the back of his neck a moment later, he flinched and jumped to his feet.

Nothing happened. The door wasn't rammed in. Screams didn't pierce the air. No gunshots. Nothing. It was just Cayli and Natalie looking at one another. 

But somewhere down the hall, a male voice muffled, but it was too far to decide if it was his dad's. Jay carefully stepped toward the door, focus honed upon the sound amplified by the power. Words were thrown by someone angry. Male. Footsteps that pounded closer.

Hopefully the girls were done because time was up. Someone was about to storm into the room and Jay was really wanting to avoid kidnapping Cayli just to give her a chance at survival. "Someone's coming," he announced, voice low, tense. He attempted to peer around the hem of the curtain draping the window, but the angle was terrible. He saw nothing.

Hopefully, it was only his father pissed off. Pissed, he could handle dad. It wouldn't be the first time. 

Jay stepped back, braced for the door to swing, waved that Natalie and Cayli stay back.