Chapter 38: 38 Missing Stair, Part Three

"Do you think Jin is very sick?" Sophie asked. "It came on very quickly."

Angharad leaned her head against her hand and looked at Tabitha, who seemed to be pretending not to be looking straight back, but not doing a very good job at it. Or maybe she wasn't actually pretending? Maybe Angharad was supposed to know that Tabitha was watching them talk?

Save me, Angharad thought, and sighed.

"No, probably not," Angharad said. "That's how it always happens with boys. They never pay attention to their health so when they get sick they turn into total babies and need to be mothered a lot. Daddy is just the same."

"But Jin has no one to mother him!" Sophie protested.

Clearly, Tabitha wasn't getting Angharad's psychic messages. Why couldn't they develop the mind-speech? That would be so much cooler.

Angharad looked back at Sophie's concerned face and Darren's strange, smiling blankness. Creepy.

"Okay, well, like, that's what Dr Yeoh is for. If he'd just ask she'd probably be all nurturing and stuff. It would give her something to do, and then I wouldn't have to constantly hide her whisky."

"I can't place your accent," Darren said.

Angharad felt both her eyebrows crawling up her face without her will. "Okay. Because I had speech therapy on both sides of the Atlantic. What does it matter?"

Sophie laughed. "I'm sure Darren's just trying to get to know you."

"Sure. You know, I just remembered a thing I had to do for Dr Yeoh. I'll talk to you guys later," Angharad said.

"We can come with you!" Sophie said.

Wow, there really was no escaping them, was there? "Fine." She totally planned to make up something as soon as she got to the hospital.

Angharad stalked out of the building, as fast as she could. She looked back, briefly, at the sound of footsteps behind her and there was only Darren walking behind her. Sophie was still trying to pick something up off the table.

So annoying. She walked faster in the hope that she'd lose him, but he was taller, so she knew her chances were low. Sophie could run to catch up when she was ready. Angharad wasn't in the mood to wait.

When she stomped her way forward faster, gravel flew everywhere, and she almost tripped. Seriously? Now she knew why Jin was annoyed all the time. And on the one day she bothered wearing nice shoes, the shiny surface of which she totally ruined with every step.

"I've noticed you like the machines," Darren said, his voice too smooth behind her.

"Uh, I mean, yeah."

"That's good. You should like her machines."

Angharad stopped walking, a dozen steps from the hospital. "Her machines?"

She turned, slow and careful, just in case a sudden move would make this moment stranger.

The expression on Darren's face slipped, wobbled about, like he wasn't sure how his face should work. He widened his mouth into something that could almost be a grimace, then closed it again, lips tight.

She stayed still, barely moving but to breathe.

For some reason the temperature dropped. Like whoever was in charge hit the wrong dial. She started to shiver and her breath came out white in front of her face before dissipating into the air.

Darren settled on a too earnest grin.

"The goddess of this place. I didn't meet her but I know she's there. I can feel her. She made the machines for us," he said.

Angharad took one step back.

"Please believe me," he said, arm reaching out in some strange supplication.

Sophie bounced up toward them, her steps slowing as she got closer. "What's wrong? You both look so serious. What happened?"

"I think Darren needs to go to the hospital for another check up," Angharad said.

"Please," he said, stumbling one step closer. "You have to believe me. She's so powerful. I can't hold it inside myself all alone like this."

"W-what?" Sophie said.

Angharad took another step back. "Go see the doctor. I can't help you."

"She made this place for us. Gave us food and water and shelter. We just have to accept this without struggling so much." He started to cry.

Angharad hated seeing men cry. So uncomfortable, like someone dragging rusty nails along her exposed spine. She shivered all over and tried not to fall when she took another step away.

"Darren, stop it! You're being kind of weird," Sophie said.

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"I was trapped in a bubble for months," Darren said. "In a little cage, just for me, until she wanted to let me out. She decides how much space we have to breathe. She decides who lives and dies. I can't keep it in any more!"

Angharad tried to keep her voice level. "You're freaking us out, Darren. I think you need to chill out."

Sophie, eyes wide, grabbed at his arm. He shook her off so hard she fell onto the gravel. Angharad moved toward Sophie and tripped, nearly falling onto the gravel next to her. Tried to get her hands to stop shaking long enough to touch Sophie's arm.

"How about you leave them alone, you freak?" Tabitha's voice, strong and loud.

Tabitha's eyes were sharp, her stance sturdy. Unwavering and unafraid.

Darren, still crying, rose from a crouch and said, "You can't understand. You're not like this. You're not worthy of the knowledge."

"I said to leave them alone," Tabitha said, one hand in her jacket pocket.

He lurched all the way upright. "I w—"

His words were cut off by the speed of Tabitha's shot, before Angharad had even realised she had a gun in her hand. He stumbled, his breath loud and ragged, then put a hand to his bloody shoulder.

Angharad felt dizzy. "T-Tabitha, I don't think you needed to shoot him."

Darren's loud breaths turned into sobs.

Angharad found herself sitting down, already tired somehow. Someone, no, two someones rushed past her view. She closed her eyes and leaned against Sophie's shoulder for a moment, to anchor herself to the world. That was Tsuyoshi's voice yelling at Tabitha to put her gun away.

When she opened her eyes the doctor steadied Darren and checked him over, voice low and efficient as she said whatever it was she needed to say. Angharad couldn't quite focus yet.

Tsuyoshi dropped to his knees in front of them and reached out to drag Angharad's hair behind her ear. "Are you okay?"

"M-me? I'm fine. Sophie fell over. Sophie is not fine."

"I'm okay!" Sophie squeaked.

"Sophie's boyfriend just went psycho and got shot, so I think she needs help more than me," Angharad said.

"He wasn't actually my boyfriend!" Sophie said, eyes panicked. "I don't move that fast."

"That's really not what anyone cares about right now," Tsuyoshi said.

Angharad leaned against Tsuyoshi and used the solid weight of his body to lever herself up. "I'm going to console myself with a pretty girl."

"Don't do something stupid," Tsuyoshi called out, as if she was actually capable of stopping herself doing something stupid just because he told her not to.

She walked away before the doctor could try to check on her, too.

*

She couldn't find a pretty girl so she settled for Mac, the clingy adult waiting at her door.

"Wow, that's so intense," Mac said. "And weird."

Angharad looked up at her bedroom ceiling. The breath still felt strange in her chest, like her lungs didn't want to work right. Being alone with Mac didn't make her feel any less alone.

"Right? Like, who could have seen that coming? I actually feel kind of sorry for him. I mean, he's deeply not right but he's obviously kind of miserable. And he just got shot. That probably hurts," Angharad said.

"That's why I don't like Tabitha."

"She's my friend so shut up about that."

"Sorry." Mac leaned back into a pillow and looked suitably abashed. "Do you think he was right about what he was saying? About the person in charge?"

Angharad rolled her eyes. "No, of course I don't. He was all like, oh, there's a goddess and I haven't met her but I just totally know. He was sounding as crazy as those people who think Australia doesn't exist. It totally exists. I've been there."

"Right."

"I think maybe just being here has sent him crazy. I mean, I kind of get that. Just not all the other stuff."

"I feel most bad for Sophie. She was really into him."

"Yeah." Angharad leaned back and let her eyes rest on the plain white ceiling. The room was quiet but for their breathing. She didn't want to think anything at all.

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