Page 84 of Avelina

“No!” I snapped. “I don’t want to get in the car with you. They pushed me down and ruined my present, and you just let them go. You don’t even care about me!” The tears made trails down my dusty face. Molly whined from the back seat and scratched at the window.

He’s even worse than Mousehead, I thought.

My dad gazed down at me with compassion, then squatted next to me and rubbed my back. The sun gleamed off the top of his bald pate.

“Lina, you’re gonna learn that, while there is a time and a place for punishing evildoers, most of the time they hang themselves. That tall girl thought she got away with it, but did you see the other two girls?”

I shook my head.

“They looked mighty anxious. They weren’t smiling at all, especially that girl on the left. I think she was pretty upset. I think she might be wondering if it’s a good idea to be friends with a bully who pushes people down and gets her in trouble. If you wait, you might see that the tall girl gets exactly what’s coming to her and you didn’t need to lift a finger.”

I crossed my arms and pouted, refusing to get up. I wanted justice. I wanted Mousehead’s mousy head on a platter. With chips!

“Lina, a lot of times you have no choice but to fight, but there are always consequences to that route. When you can, it’s better to step away and let people suffer the consequences of their own bad choices. It gets you into less trouble and teaches them a lesson that fighting never could.”

He was right. That girl on the left, Emily, told her parents what happened, and they forbade her from being friends with Mousehead. Then the other girl, Jess, chose Emily over Mousehead, and she also abandoned her. Then, those two girls called her “Mousehead” in school, and the name stuck.

She had that name until I moved away a year later, and probably beyond. I actually felt kind of bad for her, though not really because she blamed me for the whole thing. Maybe he wasn’t entirely right about the lesson part.

The wave of exhaustion passed, and I opened my eyes again to see Axel’s corpse. In death, his eyes had fallen open just a crack, staring at nothing, his pupils huge and black. I looked away, not wanting to see the ugly result of my work. I had fallen asleep just long enough to dream about my first enemy, Mousehead, the one I’d destroyed with words and patience. That was the beginning, and now here I was at the inevitable progression of my corruption. My first kill.

I told myself that it wasn’t I who’d pulled the trigger, but I couldn’t escape the fact that I could have saved Axel and chose not to. He was dead because I wanted him that way. Period. Did he deserve it? Probably. He was a murderer himself, wasn’t he? He was a rapist and a sadist and a child killer. I couldn’t think of someone who deserved it more, yet it left me feeling empty, like I’d just lost a part of myself that I could never recover.

Aaron crouched behind me, still holding me up, waiting for me to finish mourning my lost innocence. The only light had come from the fire in the doorway, but it was out now. The rain had flooded into the entryway and put the torch out before it could do anything more than make a black circle on the wood floors. Lucky.

Aaron picked me all the way up and held me in his arms like a baby. His zombie opponents had landed a few good hits on him. He had a goose egg forming on his left temple. There were fingernail scratches on his forehead that trailed toward his right eye, but his eyes were clear and bright.

“I let him die,” I said, staring into his shadowed face.

“Yes,” he said, “but don’t take responsibility for it. He did that to himself. What you have to decide is if you can stomach it again because if we stay here and fight, this will not be the last death you witness. It will only get worse, and they won’t all be pure evil like Axel.”

I mulled that over for a moment. I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel. I was glad the man was dead. He was an evildoer, as my dad would say. But who was I to decide his fate?

“Put me down,” I murmured. “I can stand now.”

Aaron set me on my feet and rubbed my back. I was still bone-tired and overwhelmed by a deep longing for home. I need to learn how to use this Teleportation fragment as soon as possible.

Spirit appeared in front of me. Well, that was super creepy. Are you aware that you just ripped up a person’s soul?

I gave Spirit a flat stare. A ghost is calling me creepy. I’ve hit a new low. Wait, Aaron can’t hear when you send thoughts to me, can he?

“They’re all thoughts, sort of,” she said aloud, “just projected differently, but no, thoughts go to one person. Words go to all.” Aaron glanced in Spirit’s direction, then squinted as if struggling to see something far away.

He’s starting to see me, Spirit thought to me, grinning. That will be fun.

I decided to change the subject. “Axel has a girl tied up in his house,” I said. “A kid. We have to save her.”

“Cobb took my brother too,” Ellis said, walking toward us. “Back over a bridge to Neesee. It doesn’t matter that Axel is dead, Cobb will do whatever he was told.”

Ellis picked up the umbrella and brought it over to us. He handed it to Aaron, who held it over me. His Protection reservoir had grown significantly since we met, and his wounds healed in front of my eyes.

“Thanks,” I said, leaning into Aaron.

Ellis was covered head to toe in mud, but he was full of life now, unlike when he’d arrived. I really had strengthened him. A little too hard, perhaps. I felt my cheeks heat up, and I looked away from him.

Then, my stupid brain processed what he’d said. I spun around. Cobb, the umbrella-toting not-quite-über-zombie, was gone, and so was Ward.

“Dammit!” I exclaimed. I spun around again, still not convinced, but I had to grab Aaron again to steady myself. “Axel must have sent them back while I was . . .” my voice trailed off. Best not to discuss what I had done to Ellis.

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