The drive from Salem to up to Portland was surprisingly pleasant for Finley, since his sister spent most of the drive napping at maximum recline, using a rolled up car blanket for a pillow. He kept the volume from his music on low, despite knowing that Jeri could probably sleep through Armageddon. While he didn’t begrudge her her necessary rest, a petty part of him wanted her to stay awake just so he’d have something other than his own thoughts to dwell on. RJ was many things; boring was never one of them. Spruce trees rolled by in whorls of green while his eyes focused solely on the road ahead.

In his mind’s eye, he was disconnected, far away from the road, the trees, and his sleeping sibling next to him. On some level the disconnect was a relief, because if he wasn’t mentally present it was hard to care about anything. He turned his eyes from the road for a moment to glance at RJ, who had begun to stir in her sleep. I wonder if that’s how she wound up cold. Is that what’s waiting for me? You lose the people that matter, and what’s left of you just . . . drifts, disconnected? No, he told himself. I still have Aidan. The thought of his best friend lifted his mood a little, even if it was followed immediately by a memory of Teegan that struck him before he could suppress it.

Thankfully, but strangely, a static filled his mind. Confused, Fin muted the Jeep’s speakers before he realized it was all in his head - though, judging from RJ’s tossing and turning in her seat, maybe it wasn’t in his head. Sometimes, radio static was all her brain felt like to him - if it wasn’t total silence, it was like tingling white noise. Before he could shake her awake, a sound like a hatchet hitting wood caused him to yelp in surprise while Jeri’s blue eyes snapped open and she sat up, causing her sunglasses to fall down from her head into her lap. Fin checked the dashboard for alarms, saw nothing and wondered whose head it had come from, and contemplated the odds of a telepath developing early onset dementia.

“Fuck,” she breathed, and yawned. “Man, are we still driving? How long was I out?”

“We’re an hour away from your place,” Fin supplied. “You didn’t miss anything. You okay? What was that?” He eyed her in his periphery.

RJ had wiped any traces of distress or sleepiness and adjusted her seat upright. “Phone fell down the side. Had a nightmare.”

“…Wanna talk about it?” He offered uneasily.

She laughed. “What am I, five? No. Ugh. I can’t wait to get home and take a shower.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “you reek.”

She sniffed her armpit experimentally, and winced, while he chuckled. “Ugh! Oh, ugh, that is fucking disgusting.”

Fin smirked. “Your words.”

“This kind of stench, it’s,” she seemed to struggle for the words. “It should be a crime against humanity, man.”

“You’re a crime against humanity,” he shot back.

Jeri snorted and crossed her legs in her seat, fishing around for another cigarette. “I look Armenian to you?”

Finley was so focused on the road that the odd question caught him completely off guard. He did a double-take at her. “What? No. What?”

“Because I’m not a group of Armenian civilians about to be killed by the Ottoman Empire,” she went on, “nor do I own any slaves, support apartheid, import or export groups of people for the purposes of political or monetary profit, so I’m pretty sure I’m not a crime against humanity. Or an airplane. And I’m certain, despite one weird dream, that I was never a member of the Nazi party, nor have I engaged in ethnic cleansing recently. That I know of.”

Finley stared at the road ahead for a few seconds. “. . . You hear yourself right now? Talking?”

She’d lit one of her cigarettes and rolled down the window to blow out a cloud of smoke. “Also, I do my best not to deprive my fellow man of civil liberties, so no, I’m pretty sure I’m not a crime against humanity. Not getting to shower soon may literally kill me, though.”

Fin cracked his own window when, after RJ lifted her armpit again to sniff, the smell wafted over to him and he had to momentarily stop breathing to avoid smelling it.

After two thoughtful puffs of smoke, she added, “I may be guilty of piracy. I think that’s just a regular crime, though.”

“What aren’t you guilty of?” He honestly wondered.

“Aside from everything I just mentioned,” she ticked off on one hand, “rape, espionage, human trafficking, treason . . .”

While Jeri trailed off on a surprisingly long, well-prepared list of all the crimes she was sure she hadn’t committed, Finley tuned her out and stared at the yellow lines on the road going by. Less than an hour later, RJ had already fallen back asleep, and Fin began seeing signs for Tigard.

He’d needed GPS to find Jeri’s house. It had taken her several years to buy one even after she’d had the money for it, since she hadn’t found anywhere she’d wanted to settle down; he’d always felt like relocating to the outskirts of Portland had been an odd choice for her, coming from Los Angeles. She’d expressed a desire for privacy which struck him as unusual, but she had seemed pleased to move into a wooden hillside home with a view overlooking the Willamette and St. John’s Bridge. Nestled cozily into the surrounding mountains and trees, Finley knew from memory that it was a little larger on the inside than it appeared. While he was acutely aware of growing up and living with less means, RJ clearly enjoyed the lifestyle that her career had afforded her.

The winding back road that trailed through her neighborhood edging Forest Park was a pleasant contrast from downtown. As he pulled the Jeep up the hill of a driveway, the abrupt stop and his throwing of the parking break woke RJ up from her nap. She let out a long, tired yawn, sleepily asking, “Are we there yet?”

Fin poked her in the side. “Yep. Come on.”

Jeri let out a whoop of joy and opened the door to get out before taking off her seatbelt. She nearly choked herself in the process, causing Finley to compulsively laugh and her to curse at him for it. She undid the belt and scrambled out of the Jeep, and ran to the main door. I wonder how long it’ll take her to remember she doesn’t have her keys with her? Fin contented himself with slowly grabbing his duffel of toiletries and clothes, and her remaining pieces from the hospital. He noted absently that RJ had dropped her sunglasses, and put them on as an afterthought. He took a few deep breaths of the cool, crisp air and sighed. One good thing about her place: no people. No thoughts. It would be nice to let his guard down, if only for a while.

He heard her shout from the doorway. Chuckling, he watched as RJ turned over every rock and planter around the entrance to look for her spare key. “Try the welcome mat,” he offered.

“Oh,” she blurted, and flipped over the mat to find a small, shiny key glinting in the sun. “Duh.”

“Mandi put it there,” he went on to explain, dropping the duffel over his shoulder at his feet as she unlocked the deadbolt and knob. “Or, I guess I put it there when she left, since she gave it to me. Anyway.”

RJ’s lips pursed at the mention of her old roommate. The red door to her house clicked and swung open. “Ah, home sweet dusty home,” she said as she stepped into the entryway. She looked back at Fin, who followed, with a grin. “Did you see the grass out there? I think it’s been eight months since a gardener has gone near this place. I’m gonna have to pay double.”

Finley followed her in with his cargo without a word, leaving the creaking door open behind him. RJ’s home was uncomfortably quiet, a contrast which stood out starkly against his memories of loud parties and revelry that surrounded his mental image of Jeri. While his sister has expressed a desire to ‘get away’ from civilization, it didn’t stop her from having people over on a fairly regular basis. Her lifestyle drew like minded people around her like flies around feces. Addicts, party animals, and people with little to lose found themselves flocking to his sister, perhaps against their better judgments. Part of Fin was glad that she’d mellowed out a little, at least by his reckoning - though he suspected that after he left, she’d be back to her old habits in no time at all. Though, I guess I have room to talk, all the messed up shit I did after Tee . . . He abruptly pushed his own thoughts into the back of his mind.

“I’mma take a shower!” Jeri crowed from deeper in the house, her voice echoing off of the walls and hardwood giving Fin the illusion that she was closer than she was.

“What about your shit?” He shouted after her, but then he heard the sound of water rushing through the plumbing and sighed. He resigned himself to doing the heavy lifting and grabbed the rest of their baggage from the Jeep outside, dumping everything unceremoniously in the entryway and closing the door behind him with a kick. He made his way to his sister’s living room, past the entryway and the kitchen, and plopped down on a black leather couch and stretched himself out with a creak as the leather adjusted beneath him.

Fin hadn’t relaxed for longer than a few seconds before his phone’s default ringtone blared from his coat pocket, startling him. He whipped it out to look at the ID, and was surprised to see a name he hadn’t seen in over a year pop up.

He hit the call button and held it up to his ear. “Hello?”

There was a breath on the other line before his cousin, by his maternal Aunt Mara, Félix spoke (and incidentally he was one of two or three relatives Fin could physically stand to be around anymore without wanting to kill himself or them). “Hey, Fin. Man. It’s been, uh, a while.”

“It has, yeah,” Fin agreed. Félix’s tone wasn’t exactly conciliatory, and given the fact that it had been probably a year since they’d talked to or seen each other, Fin was a little worried about the nature of the call. “Not that I’m not glad to hear from you. It’s been a while, how’ve you been?”

“Well, uh, that’s why I’m calling you. Is this a bad time?”

Fin strained his ears and heard the water in the house moving through the pipes still. “Not at all,” he confirmed. “I’m with Jeri, but she’s in the bathroom.”

“Oh. She out already?” Félix sounded numb, but faintly surprised.

“Yeah, released this morning. Hey, did something happen?”

“Yeah,” Félix confirmed with a weary sigh that caused Fin to stop cold. “Mom’s dead.”

He almost dropped the phone. Fin’s only instinctive reaction was total bafflement. “Sh-what—”

“Police found her last night, man.”

“Oh, holy shit,” Finley breathed. “Are you okay?”

Félix sighed. Fin could picture his cousin pretty clearly. He was darker and burlier than Fin by at least a whole half; he’d always been dirty, covered in grease or sweat. As far as Finley knew, he’d been working as a mechanic for years in the town neighboring Mara’s home, in southern Virginia. Finley had spent a decent portion of his teenage years in Mara’s care, as she was his designated legal guardian. RJ had stayed for a time before leaving for California; she’d run away from home previously after applying for legal emancipation. It had been for the best, in hindsight, even if it had caused a rift between them when he’d felt abandoned by both of his siblings as Sal was enlisted in the military. Félix had filled part of that companionable hole, as he wasn’t very much older than Fin, and neither boys had many friends. Félix had been mercifully skipped over with the abilities that some of them on their mother’s side had, although he knew of them from his religious mother Mara, and was generally a nice person about it. Two years ago, around the time he’d gone to college, Finley’d visited Mara to congratulate Félix on his upcoming nuptials. Félix’d married his pregnant girlfriend and had wanted his family at the wedding. Salvador was even there, back from his first tour of duty with the Navy, and all three siblings had been groomsman. Aidan, who had been Jeri’s reluctant plus one, had gotten hilariously wasted on champagne with their Tía. Jeri had worn a tux, and Fin had worn a dress on a dare. Tee had been his plus one in matching colors - her tie was the same color as his dress. She’d been delighted to do his makeup. Finley vividly remembered Teegan congratulating a proud (if harried) Félix on his beautiful daughter over speaker phone, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the girl’s name. Or, least of all, Félix’s wife’s name. I wonder what that says about me?

He pushed out his increasingly dark thoughts and focused on his cousin. It was hard to imagine Félix as anything other than ‘just fine’ for Fin. His cousin had never really been fazed by anything, and was generally laid back. For a mechanic, he may as well have been a surfer. But when Félix answered, “I don’t know,” in response to Fin’s blurted question, Fin detected a weary tone in his cousin’s voice that he’d never heard before.

“Of course you’re not okay, that was stupid of me to ask,” Fin conceded, cursing under his breath. “Fuck, I don’t even . . .”

“It, uh, it was, they say it happened pretty quickly.” Félix’s voice began to break, so Fin interrupted him, to spare his childhood friend.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Finley assured him. “I’m not even sure what to say myself.”

“Me neither.” There was a pause on the other line, as what sounded like papers were moved around, or possibly the rustling of fabric. “Police say someone broke in, but Fin, man, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s so, I don’t know right now.”

“What happened?” Fin asked, uneasily.

“Someone killed her. They don’t have any suspects yet. I think. Too soon, maybe.” The same rustling noise, and Félix’s voice became strangely quieter, as if he were holding the phone at a distance. “Look, man, I-I gotta go.”

“Alright,” Finley agreed, numbly. The line clicked and went dead with nary a goodbye.

Fin stared at his phone in his hands for a few seconds before walking to the kitchen, depositing it on the counter, and stared at it while his mind raced and a chill went down his spine.

RJ found him perched on one of the island’s stools, still quietly staring when she emerged from her shower with her hair wrapped in a towel-turban. She flicked his ear, giving him a startle. “Shit!” Fin hissed. “Ow.”

“What’s up?” She asked, stepping around him to hunt for food in her kitchen. “God, I’m starving. Fuck, I should’ve told you to stop at the grocery store so we could grab something. We’ll have to order something. T better not have touched my scotch while I was locked up.” She started to open and close cabinets with frustration when she couldn’t find what she was looking for. She looked back at Finley with consternation when he didn’t respond. “Seriously Finny, what is your deal?”

Finally, he responded: “Don’t call me that. Félix just called.”

RJ didn’t stop in her ransacking of her kitchen to say, “Félix? What’s that idiot up to?”

“Tía Mara’s dead,” he reported.

Jeri stopped cold, and her eyes went blank as she stared out at nothing. “Oh,” she breathed, almost mildly. She turned to him and leaned on the counter. “Did he say how?”

Fin’s eyebrows knit together as he processed her question. “No, wh—I wasn’t going to ask him that, and why—why would you even want—he said the police said that someone broke in, but he sounded really messed up and then he hung up because he had to go. It must have happened last night or this morning.”

Again, with a mild, “Oh,” she blinked, and stared at his phone on the counter. “Fuck.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to ask him for details. He said someone killed her at home during a break in.”

After a few seconds of fidgeting, Jeri locked eyes with her younger brother. “So . . . can you help me find that scotch?” she implored.

He couldn’t refuse. I’m gonna need a drink later, too.

Two hours later, over several boxes of Chinese food and shots (they’d found the liquor cabinet miraculously untouched, because RJ had terrible spatial memory), Finley found himself in a familiar position sprawled out along one of Jeri’s long back couches, pleasantly buzzed despite the unpleasant tendency of his thoughts to drift towards his now deceased Aunt, and his long-deceased girlfriend. Jeri was sprawled in a similar way clutching an acoustic guitar of hers and trying to tune it.

“I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet, that she’s gone,” he admitted aloud.

RJ snorted from her recliner and started absently strumming something pleasantly complex. “It probably won’t, until the funeral.”

“I guess I gotta call Félix back tomorrow,” he mused, “find out . . . Find out when it is . . . Shit.”

“Shit,” she repeated with finality, and took a swig of clear alcohol from the bottle she’d placed between her legs. “I used to hate going to church. Remember she made us go? I fuckin’ hated her for making me go and listen to all the God shit.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” he defended. “I mean, it was boring, but I’d pick church over Mom and Dad. Easy choice.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, and passed him the bottle when he sat up and motioned for it. “I guess if I had to pick ‘die hard Catholic’ over abusive assholes for parents, I’d pick her. Is it bad that I’m only remembering how annoyed I used to be when she made me go? I was glad to get out of there. I was so fuckin’ happy to leave and it was just Tim and me and the road. I had no idea what I was doing. Probably because I was high, like, all the time back then.” The tune she struck on her guitar seemed familiar to Fin, but he couldn’t process anything over the numbness of the alcohol. It was the blessing and curse of booze.

Fin thought about it, and then took another drink. “Well, if that’s all you remember of her, then I guess it’s not wrong. Maybe, maybe it was okay because it was just me and Félix there for a while, after you left. She, she used to mother the crap out of me. Didn’t seem to matter that I wasn’t hers, even though I think I scared her sometimes. I responded out loud to a question once she didn’t ask, and she freaked, even though she knew. Refused to talk about it. It was something about our mom. I don’t remember. I was just curious, but after that, I was sorta afraid to bring it up to her. And now she’s—I should’ve asked her.”

RJ rolled her eyes into the back of her skull so hard it looked like it bent her neck back, and she let out a dramatic groan, cutting off his ruminating and ceasing in her strumming. “How, how can you be so smart and still be so fucking stupid, Finny?”

“Don’t call me that,” Finley objected on reflex. He childishly kicked her foot, and she kicked back, harder. He gave up. “And don’t gimme that - it’s not like I was trying to pay attention! I was just happy enough to have someone outside of our fucked up family that I got along with. I didn’t want to cause any problems. Is that so wrong?”

“Don’t throw Sal under the bus,” RJ threw in, and sat up, readjusting so she was sitting cross-legged on the floor across from him. She held up the bottle of malt liquor, dangling it tantalizingly, and Finley had to give in. He snatched it from her. “And you know,” she went on, while he took a few chugs. “You know, you know th-that Mara wasn’t so bad before, before that shit.” She waved her hand in a circle in the air, as if that were the ‘shit’ she was pointing to. Maybe it was the rum speaking, but she was starting to make more sense when Fin was drunk. How terrible was it, that alcohol was possibly the only way that he could legitimately bond with her anymore?

“That shit sucked,” Fin summarized, recalling all of the shit she was talking about. “Poor auntie…” He took another drink, and handed her the bottle. She drank half of the remainder.

“She was nice,” RJ said squinting her eyes at something behind him. Fin looked back, worried it was a cockroach, and was legitimately relieved to find nothing. “She was nice, and that’s what got her killed. You realize that, right?” She explained, like it was the most obvious conclusion in the world.

Finley shook his head. “No, no, no I don’t follow that. I can’t follow that. I can’t follow that line of thinking, because then—”

“Then what?” she interrupted. “You’ll finally wake up?” She took another drink.

Fin glared, but couldn’t keep a straight face, and started laughing. “Okay, no, I—I’m not turning into you.”

RJ tried to glare at him right back, but couldn’t suppress a grin. “Oh please, you can’t ever turn into me. I’m so far out of your fucking league in terms of coolness. You’d hate all the attention being me would get you.”

“That’s true,” he chuckled. “I never . . . I never understood why you could. Seems . . . I don’t know. Like a lot to handle.”

She shrugged, and finished the bottle, not even coughing afterward. He wondered how much he’d have to drink before you stopped noticing the burn down the throat. She’d at least been doing it for a while, but when had it gotten this bad? While he wasn’t looking? While he’d been buried in his own life? In his grief? In his own, more private addictions? “Yeah, well,” she huffed, and then they made eye contact, and bright white noise filled his mind for a moment, like a ringing in his ears that was shattered by the sound of meat chopping through flesh—

Blood.

Blood.

BLOOD.

“Some people, they like being alone - but no one likes being lonely. Except, me, I can be in front of a crowd of hundreds of people and still feel like I’m totally alone. But, at least I’m never lonely. How could I be? Thousands, hell millions of people know who I am. Some hate me, some love me. Either way, I get to do what I love, and other people get to share in the experience. Isn’t that what being with other people should be like? Where we all just meet in the middle, share shit? Except, I do it with music, through speakers that deafen the mosh pit, shredding like a motherfucker, ripped up on cocaine, which, by the way - you’re the only one in my life who has a genuine problem with. That’s also kind of why I care about you Fin - because you’re the only one who actually seems to give a shit about me personally. Aside from maybe T, you guys - you and Sal are the only ones I have. Everybody else - the ones that don’t look down their noses at me - everyone else just cheers me on.”

He blinked. What the fuck just happened? How drunk am I? Did I just have a psychotic episode while she expressed genuine human emotion? “Hang on, could you repeat that?” He asked, feeling a little numb.

She snorted. “Fuck off, I’m not repeating myself, that’s all you’re getting.”

“No, I didn’t—”

“For fucks’s sake, give it a rest!”

“What was that about blood?” He demanded.

Something happened to Finley in that moment that had never happened before. His head reeled sideways before he had time to process it. The noise was the first thing. Then, there was the telltale burning on his cheek. His sister had slapped him instead of responding to his question. Or maybe the slap was her response? He was kind of drunk, so he forgave himself for the slip up easily, but it appeared his sister did not.

“You stay the fuck out of my head!” Jeri growled, put down her guitar and stood up to grab another bottle from the low cabinet along the living room wall.

“I’m sorry,” he called after. He wasn’t really sorry, but apologizing was a reflex. RJ had always enjoyed talking to him about his gift when he was using it on others, but seemed to loathe the idea of him intruding in on her own mind. Or maybe it wasn’t loathing, but fear; he mused on it as he rubbed the tingling in his cheek away. Something in his sister’s eyes in that moment wasn’t drunk at all - it was frighteningly lucid, and he wondered how unlucky he was to have caught his sister in a moment when her mental guard was down while he was drunk. He felt like he might have hidden it better or controlled himself if he hadn’t been. Why was she thinking about blood? I picked up on that noise before . . . She never lets me in . . .

The sound of her rifling through the cabinet and clinking glass against glass as she rifled for the right bottle stopped, and Finley leaned around to see what she was up to. He was surprised to catch her looking at him, but she didn’t look away. “I’m sorry I hit you,” she said in a quiet voice that he rarely ever heard. “I didn’t mean to, it - it just happened.”

“Me too,” he offered. He shrugged, and then grinned. “I’ve had worse.”

She grinned back and pulled out a bottle of vodka, with two shot glasses in the other hand. “Then get your ass up here, so we can make a toast.”

“Toast to what?” He asked as he leapt up onto his feet, momentarily stumbling from dizziness at his sudden movement. Oh. Bad idea.

“To our scars,” she said, with a smirk that seemed so characteristically her that he couldn’t stop himself from laughing and taking the offered shot. “Down the hatch, bro,” was all the warning she gave before downing the thing in one gulp. Finley winced as he did the same, and coughed afterward, shaking his head of his remaining dizziness.

“Ugh, that’s godawful,” he groaned. “Why are we doing this our livers?”

“Cause we’re stupid,” his sister helpfully supplied, and deposited his slowly melting body into a very comfy lounge chair.

“We are,” he agreed, collapsing back and slouching, inch by inch, until he was almost hanging off. Only then, did he achieve maximum comfort. “This is, this is the maximum comfort,” he told his sister, because it was important stuff that Jeri needed to make note of. “Make m’note in the log, bo’sun.”

“Mhmm,” she agreed. “You know you’re a cheap drunk? How are we even related?”

A thought happened to Finley. “Why, uh, hang on,” he struggled to sit up for a moment when he realized he couldn’t ask his very important question if he was slouched in so far that he couldn’t properly speak. “Why are male otters bulls, female otters sows, but their offspring are called pups? Are they dog-cows? Think about it, it doesn’t make sense! Fuck’s up with that?” He was a little outraged, and had maybe said this louder than necessary, but it was all to get across his point.

“Why do they sell cigarettes at gas stations when you can’t smoke there?” she asked, pulling out a pack he didn’t even know she had and took out one to light while she searched around for a lighter in the couch cushions. “I don’t know the answer to everything, Finny. I do know that you have the alcohol tolerance of a chinchilla. Or more like an otter pup. Hang on, where… oh.” She pulled out her electric lighter to scorch the end of it. Finley remembered then that they were indoors… but couldn’t really find it in himself to care, because the chair he was in was too comfortable, and it was her house anyway.

“I’mma sleep here,” he decided, and closed his eyes.

“Whatever,” RJ said.

“Are you lonely now?” He wondered, finally remembering what she’d said earlier once his eyes were closed.

Jeri was quiet as she took a long drag from her smoke. “I’m never alone, Finley.”

It seemed as much an answer as he was going to get. He fell asleep. It was nice, not to have a nightmare.

When he woke up from a dreamless sleep approximately eight hours later, he noted that his head felt like a bowling alley being rented out for an eleven-year-old’s birthday party, his sister had thrown a comfy afghan blanket on him before crashing fully clothed on her own bed, and nearly all the alcohol in the house appeared to be gone. Did I really drink that much with her? It wasn’t until Jeri started stirring that he remembered Félix’s call, and a feeling like a stone sank into his gut and settled there. It erupted into nausea before long, and it was all Finley could to to hold the vomit in. Unbidden, memories of the aunt who was more like a mother to him than Dana Ravara ever was surfaced, flashing by in his mind alongside memories of Teegan. Tiny little Mara, her home suffused with the smell of apple empanadas, laughing as she shooed them out of her green apple-wallpapered kitchen. Teegan, moving seamlessly through katas like a movie, like a dancer, like a fish slicing through water; Tee, meeting his aunt for the first time, hugging and thanking her for taking care of him for so long—

At that point, he couldn’t hold it in and bolted to the bathroom, barely making it in time. Before he knew it, his eyes were stinging and he was hanging over a clean toilet bowl while his raccoon-eyed sister patted him on the back.

When he stopped heaving, he accepted a glass of offered water and sat on the edge of the adjacent tub, holding his head in his hands to keep the world from spinning away from him. “Thanks,” was all he could say.

Jeri hummed an approval, and tamed her bed-head in the mirror while she waited for him to gather himself. It was as normal a morning as either of them could expect. “I’ve got some codeine around here, but it might have expired,” RJ offered, almost absently.

“A world of no,” Finley said, and sipped at the water, spitting out vomit-flavored saliva into the toilet bowl.

“Your loss. I’ll deal with Félix.”

“What?”

“The funeral,” she stated simply, in a tone that suggested he was an idiot.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Call your boyfriend, I think he texted while you were passed out.” Before he could correct her, she swept out of the bathroom looking unfairly refreshed, leaving him alone to his thoughts.

Aidan. The thought of his best friend was a balm, at that moment. He’ll understand.

After his head stopped pounding and he could look at the world without getting vertigo, Finley composed a few messages to Aidan to update him on the situation. Without knowing exactly when the funeral was, he wouldn’t be able to make any plans around it, so he left it simple and put his phone down after, figuring Aidan was probably busy anyway. He heard his sister talking loudly to someone on speaker-phone in the kitchen, which made him grimace as he had to walk past her to get to his duffel. After a shower, clean clothes, and a whole lot of water, he felt more human and ready to face the world.

“You look dead,” Jeri complimented after the end of her phone call. She was in clean sweatpants and a black T-shirt, and looked fresh despite. He flipped her off. “Wanna get breakfast?” He nodded, thinking that something greasy might help with the pounding in his head. “You want a shot before we go?” He looked at her like she was a madwoman. “Hey, it’ll take the edge off. Trust me. I’d make you a Bloody Mary, but I got no produce.” He shook his head, and she grumbled something before rummaging through the junk drawer to find her keys. It took them both a full minute for Finley to remember they’d used the spare, and before long, they headed out. Without thinking, he almost let her drive the Jeep, which he felt said more about his mental state than hers.

He let her give him directions, trusting her to have a good handle on the area, and she led them to a small diner full of pancakes and nice old ladies. It almost made up for the hangover. Mid-way through their meal, he started to ask about Félix and the funeral, before Jeri stopped him and suggested they go to local arcade.

“A what?” He mumbled around a mouthful of cinnamon pancake. “Why?”

“I haven’t been there in ages,” Jeri complained. “Come on, I just got out of the hospital!” And just like that, he couldn’t refuse either - both because he didn’t have a good reason to say no, and because RJ would probably have that ace up her sleeve until he died. He considered himself lucky that all she did was pressure him into binging and arcade games, as recompense for time served on his behalf.

“Alright,” he begrudgingly agreed, and pulled out his phone. “After I get a refill on this coffee, though.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure. Gotta get that bean juice.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

The arcade she wanted to go to wasn’t just for kids, luckily - though since it was a weekday, there was hardly anyone there. The occasional teenager, a few parents with their children milling about, and every game known to man and a few that were only known to Japan with indecipherable rules. Finley found himself staring at one such game with bright anime colors, tempted to try and figure it out while his sister went and grabbed some tokens - but before he could, she reappeared at his shoulder and dragged him off to the arcade version of a guitar simulator. Something about watching her fail to play a game that her own band was featured in amused him so much that he actually had trouble choking back laughter. RJ cursed and had to lower the difficulty twice, unable to accept that she wasn’t an expert at something that had the word ‘guitar’ in its title. Even he was better at it than she was in versus mode, which put such a stick in her craw that he couldn’t help it and doubled over with laughter. Things didn’t get really bad until she agreed to play against one of the teens milling around, who had arrived with a group of her friends and had been waiting a turn.

“What a bitch!” RJ roared as the pale teen and her friends all high-fived each-other, and gave Jeri the finger. “How am I bad at this fucking game? I fucking play the actual guitar, Finley! Alex and I wrote that riff! What the hell?!”

“That’s not- it’s—” he didn’t know how to explain, so he latched onto the idiocy of hearing his sister curse out a veritable child who had beaten her at a simple arcade game.

“Jeri, she’s probably like, thirteen,” Fin pointed out with a frown.

RJ drew back with a serious expression that, despite appearing genuine, Fin knew had to be fake. The sister he knew was pathologically unable to take anything seriously. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you by calling that little, that teenage girl a lil’ bitch. I am so sorry. What I meant, was to call her a fucking cunt!”

Finley sighed. “Okay. Well, you suck at this game whether or not you like it, so let’s go play some pinball.”

“You’re totally right,” she agreed easily and dropped the plastic fake-guitar down on the ground with a clatter. “Everybody sucks equally at pinball.”

The second time he beat her score at pinball, she demanded that he pay her back in shots at the nearest pub. Finley caved into her demands and wondered if it was just his lingering guilt, or something else that made him unable to say no.

When he woke up on a park bench around four in the afternoon, cozied up to a snoozing, bearded homeless man in a worn out jersey, Finley had a moment upon waking where he didn’t remember anything from the last day. It felt like he had simply passed out while waiting in the car to pick up his sister from the hospital, and had just now woken up on a park bench. Then, the details rushed back to him, and he sat up with a bone-cracking snap that caused him to lean over in pain with a yelp. Sleeping on a cold bench, curled up in a fetal position, hadn’t done his back any favors.

“Hey, asshole,” his sister’s voice cut into the quiet, causing Fin to let out an involuntary curse. “Glad to see you’re up. Look, you gotta get up and drive, I’m way too messed up right now.” Fin slowly unfurled himself like the hungover, washed-out flag he felt like he really was deep inside. From his position, he looked up and blinked several times to make sure that what he was seeing wasn’t a hallucination. RJ was, by contrast, dressed to the nines. While he was passed out, she’d somehow cut the cobalt out of her hair and now sported a choppy blond shag cut with a smattering of bangs, had recovered a few of her piercings (at least the ones that hadn’t healed over), put on dark makeup, squeezed herself into leather pants, and also gotten drunk in the process.

“God damn. How long have I been laying here?” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes. The jersey-man next to him fell over and curled up next to Fin, reversing their positions. Annoyed, Finley extricated himself and stood up to brush the rumples out of his clothes.

RJ shrugged, and snaked a hand into one pocket to fish out a fresh, purple-colored pack of smokes, packing them against her palm. “I dunno, like, three hours?”

“And you just left me here?” He spat, feeling outraged.

It wasn’t until she lit one and blew the smoke in his face that he realized it was cannabis. “You seemed comfy and I made sure you didn’t have your wallet on you, so you fit right in with the locals.” She laughed, like it was all in good fun. “Hey, I didn’t stick you there, okay?” She defended when she saw his darkening expression. “You were drunk, rambling about deficits and shit, and decided to park your ass down here. I tried to get you back to the car, but I got bored with trying and you were sleepy. I don’t know where that homeless guy came from,” she added, looking thoughtful and took another puff. “I got my hair cut across the street so I could keep an eye on you. He must’ve cuddled on up to you while I was being dried.”

Finley rubbed his brow, feeling like he could hear his own heartbeat in his head through a throbbing forehead vein. The world started to tilt on its axis and he found himself stumbling in order to brace himself against a wave of vertigo. “Fuck, you know what, I think I’m still drunk,” he realized.

“No shit,” she agreed. “You’re a lightweight and you always have been. Look,” and she groaned, “we’ll get some food and coffee in you and keep driving.”

He blinked. “Huh?”

“Yeah. I’m flying out of Sacramento, remember? And you gotta get Aidan his car back? So… do you not remember that entire conversation?” She blinked. He shook his head. “Wow. I can’t believe I’m the one who remembers the important stuff. This is sooooo backwards. I wish I were more drunk than stoned right now. Ooh, man, I want a burger. All I’ve had since this morning are disgusting bar nuts. Okay, okay, so,” she breathed in through her nose and out her mouth, and took another quick drag. Then, she offered it to Fin, who pushed it away, looking annoyed. “It’ll help with the nausea,” she reminded him, which made him cave and take a few hits.

“It makes me paranoid,” he reminded her. “And I can’t block stuff out when I’m high, you know that. It’s like everyone’s brains are screaming at me with the volume up to eleven.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m with you. You’ll be fine. I’ll even hold your hand if you ask nicely. When has bad shit ever happened with me around?”

Maybe it was the pot kicking in, but that made Fin start laughing hysterically. “Oh, man, where do I even begin!” He crowed.

RJ punched him in the arm, making him groan and stumble. “Bitch, please, you’d be helpless without me. Now come on, it’s burger time. There’s a place I saw earlier around the corner.” That, at least, Finley didn’t want to argue with, because a burger sounded divine at that moment. He trailed after his sister, pushing through the nausea. The smoke actually did help, to his chagrin. A split second decision caused him to run back to the park bench and deposit his own peacoat on top of the man, like a blanket. RJ watched the entire exchange with a bored expression. “I see you’re still a simpering socialist,” she commented blithely.

Finley shrugged, and jogged to catch up to her. “He was my cuddle buddy for a few hours. And as for that comment, you can take a hollowed out dildo, fill it with all of your royalty checks, and go fuck yourself with it.”

She quirked up a dark brow. “You know, that’s not a bad idea . . .”

Finley refused to think about that and closed his eyes, shaking his head as she lit up another.

“Let me get this right,” Finley said around a mouthful of burger. “You made travel plans with my best friend over my head. Even though I’ve already dropped you off home.”

RJ chewed her food thoughtfully as she tapped her tattooed fingers rhythmically on the diner table. The faded Gothic lettering on her knuckles spelled out ‘MARY LIES’ for reasons she’d never honestly explained; she generated a new explanation at random for every person that asked. She’d told him she ‘had a dream about something important’ once that she had to remember, then had gotten the tattoos to remind herself, but had gotten drunk and forgotten what the dream was originally about. It was probably as close to the truth as he’d ever get. “Sounds about right,” she said after swallowing. “And it’s like you have this tone in your voice right now, and I can tell what you’re about to say—”

“Please tell me what I’m about to say,” he dared, putting down the half-eaten burger to glare at her petulantly, “I love that trick.”

“—that you’re really looking forward to this road trip with me, Finley, and it’ll be easier for us both to just fly out at the same time to Mara’s funeral anyway, and you remember how you fucking owe me,” she pointed out, maintaining uncomfortable eye contact as she took a bite out of her food.

Fin sighed. “I—I can’t argue with that. It’s just—”

“—nothing, you’re being a drama queen, eat your food Fin, you’re bitchy because you haven’t eaten in seven hours,” RJ insisted. “Eat your damn cheeseburger and shut the damn hell up.”

That was true enough. He focused on his burger while his sister rattled off about her plans - she’d apparently thought about flying to LA from Sacramento as well, to get in touch with her label again, but then they had the funeral to consider. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask when it was, since she’d promised she would handle it the other night - and Finley felt something in his gut churn at the idea of his sister being responsible enough to handle such a delicate family matter. Family reunions were usually about suppressing fist-fights and chain-smoking, especially if Sal wasn’t there to bat for them, but the man had been out of service for weeks overseas. He doubted Sal had even heard the news yet. He also hadn’t heard from Félix again, so apparently it had been well indeed handled. In a few days, it appeared he’d be flying to Virginia with her to the funeral. He thought, road trip with Jeri and the most depressing family event yet. Why did I quit smoking again? Damn it if I can’t smoke, I’m going to need enough alcohol to kill a whole family of otters to get through this. Jeri had a damn good point, though; as dark as his mood was, the burger was definitely improving it.

“Alright,” he finally agreed after finishing his hash browns. “Fine. I gotta call Aidan, though. It feels weird that you talked to him while I was passed out. I feel like I got so drunk last night that I stepped into a parallel dimension where you became the responsible one, and now I’m not sure how to handle it.”

“Whatever,” Jeri scoffed, “he’s your boyfriend.”

“He’s not—agh,” he was about to uselessly object, but decided midway it wasn’t worth the effort (or putting up with her bad jokes) and stood up with a groan. He fished his phone out of his pants and wandered outside of the diner, leaving his sister to her meal.

Aidan picked up after the third ring. “Carl’s Junior, how may I take your order?” he drawled over the crackling connection.

“That was funny the first eleven times you said it,” Finley criticized, “but it feels like you’re beating a dead horse and do I gotta remin—”

“You really, really don’t. Your sister is flying out of Sacramento when you get here to go to the funeral in under a week. As far as I know, you’re going with her, but knowing her, she didn’t tell you she already bought you a ticket.”

Fin grumbled. “No. None of that. She told me all of none of that. Probably she did, and I got wasted and forgot. I-I’m sorry.”

There was a rumbling laugh on the other end. “I expected worse. It’s Jeri, and she literally just got out of the loony bin.”

“Yeah. So—”

“You’re both flying out of Sacramento in a few days, as far as I know,” Aidan added, interrupting. “Although, I can take the time off and come along for moral support.”

The idea gave Finley some pause. “Don’t you have exams in a few weeks? I don’t want to interrupt your studies with my family bullshit. It’s bad enough I have to borrow your Jeep.”

“Those were last week,” the other man practically chirped, “not to mention I’d actually like to go and at least pay my respects to the woman who basically raised you, and to the empanadas she raised you on.” There resurfaced a bittersweet mental image and lingering smell of apples associated with the memory that hurt Finley deep in his breastbone. He felt his hand move and rub at the place of its own accord. “Besides, I’m entitled. I liked her, and I’m sad she’s gone.”

“I’m sad too. It’d be nice to have someone other than RJ to talk to,” Fin admitted. “Or, you know, as a witness. Just in case. And, sorry, yeah, I haven’t really been on top of shit.”

It felt awkward apologizing for something he wasn’t even sure of, but it seemed like the right thing to do - still, after years of knowing Aidan, a part of him struggled to know what to say. It was a warm and complex feeling he couldn’t define until he was out of Aidan’s presence, so at least he know for certain it belonged to him, and not his best friend.

“You really haven’t,” Aidan seemed happy to confirm, “thank you for noticing, but honestly I’m more worried about everything else. Feels like this is all rushed and at the worst possible time. Did you talk to RJ about it yet? I can understand you not wanting to talk about it.”

“Not yet. I’m fine, really.”

“She said something about the condition of the body when I asked, I’m not sure exactly what. It had something to do with the wake, or it being an open casket, I don’t remember exactly. Ask her. She actually already bought my ticket, by the way, since I guess she really is psychic. It’s not even a question if I’m coming or not; I just manipulated you to make it seem like it was your idea.”

Finley couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. “She told me once I’d have two wives, four great loves, five kids, and one of the kids would grow up to be queen of the fairies. Don’t take her too seriously.”

Aidan was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, she said you’d say that too.”

Fin rolled his eyes. “Just don’t let her tell you about anyone’s death.”

“Too late for that,” Aidan scoffed, sounding a little disturbed. “Apparently I need to keep an eye out for colon cancer. I do have to go, though, I need both hands for salad-tossing. Drive safe, don’t talk to strangers, bye!” Fin was left feeling confused and gypped after the conversation, also with a nice pornographic mental image. He knew it was somehow all Jeri’s fault. He pocketed his phone and headed back into the restaurant, not for the first time in a few months really craving a smoke.

It took a fair amount of work, but Fin was an expert on Jeri-wrangling and after he devoured at least a gallon of coffee, he managed to drive them back to her house. “Gimme five-teen-twenty minutes!” She chirped as she stepped out of the Jeep door, slammed it behind her, and meandered on inside. Knowing her talent for understatement, Finley walked in after her anticipating at least an hour before they were allowed to hit the road again. He glanced at his watch as he stepped inside her unlocked door.

“We might have to stop somewhere for the night, because I am not letting you drive—” Finley began to say as he calculated the eight or so hour drive it would take him to get back home, but he stopped himself when he saw his sister wasn’t in front of him. He heard a noise from the direction of the master bedroom, and the water pipes began to run overhead with a hiss. Sighing, he deposited himself onto a couch and decided to take a power nap.

The events of the last twenty four hours rushed into his head as soon as his eyes tried to shut, in a disorienting blur. He tried to put it out of his mind, but Fin had the strangest sense of spiraling out of control as he lay there. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t even twitch; he could only sit there and panic as a thousand regrets and memories slammed his consciousness. Parts of it belonged to him, he knew; he saw Teegan again for a moment, cooking breakfast with Aidan, but he didn’t understand the stab of guilt that pierced him when he thought of her. He saw Tim, Jeri’s drummer and longtime best friend, dancing with a woman Fin had never met in an outdoor garden under a dark canopy of stars and fairy lights, and the same piercing guilt that followed as Tim asked him, “what do you know about her?” He saw Mara, their sweet and fierce Tía pulling himself up into a dance as a child as if through another’s eyes; she swayed and sang Feliz Navidad as Fin laughed, and the same pain followed him. He saw Sal dressed to the nines in his Navy blues, smiling at him, “do I look dashing?” Finley saw the basement again where he’d spent too many nights screaming at the walls, and it was guilt, guilt, guilt that screamed back at him through the silence. Dozens of memories and thoughts slipped by each more painful than the last, but he couldn’t open his eyes to see what was happening.

Finally, there was the Sound.

It was the same as before in the car, a hatchet chopping down, splitting wood. Or, at least that’s what he’d thought it was at first - a sort of shucking noise really, more wet than anything. It sent a chill up his spine and startled him right into wakefulness with an involuntary shout. “NO!” He screamed without really knowing why, and immediately his right hand went up over his mouth and clamped it shut without him telling it too. Ssssshhh, something told him from within. Be good.

He was still on the couch. Still taking a power nap. Finley counted his faculties, one by one, and rubbed his eyelids of their crust. He glanced at his phone. It had only been twenty minutes, almost exactly. “Fuck,” he muttered and started to shout for his sister. “JERI!”

RJ didn’t answer. Confused, Fin sat up and ambled toward the master bedroom. The door was only half-shut and the shower was still running, but he knocked anyway. “Jeri?” He called in, knocking again. “You better have clothes on. I’m coming in. Are you ready?”

She didn’t answer. More worried than confused, Finley stepped in and looked about. Clothes were scattered everywhere, as if she’d had a panic trying to figure out what to bring or what she might need. It was a riotous mess, the kind he’d expect from her. There was a duffel bag sitting next to her acoustic guitar case on the floor, only half-full of underwear. The shower was still running, but the door was wide open and he could see his sister inside sitting in the walk-in shower on the tile, her head buried in her knees.

Figuring this probably wasn’t the time to worry about decency, he opened the shower door and poked his head in, and turned off the handle. “Hey,” he offered gently.

Slowly, like it was operated by an pulley, Jeri’s wet head pulled up by an invisible string to regard him. Her eyes were rimmed with red and still pouring out tears, and the heat of the water had only minimally helped her shivering. In the absence of the warmth, she clutched her arms tighter and her teeth started to chatter. The tattoos made it seem as though her form was encompassed by skeletons, guns, arcane symbols and vines. “F-f-f-f-f-f—” she tried to curse, but couldn’t.

He grabbed the nearest towel and opened it up for her, hoping she’d take the hint. “Come on, you big crybaby,” he accused without any heat. “Let’s find you something comfy to wear. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”

“A-A-A-Aid-d-dan,” she started to chatter as she stood up and slipped over to the towel. He caught her deftly and wrapped the towel around her like a burrito and let her lean on him all the way out of the bathroom.

“Aidan’s a people person, and he likes you a lot,” Finley explained. “So don’t ever worry about him. He’ll understand this even better than we do. Come on, let’s find you some sweatpants.”

Jeri looked around at the mess in the room and started to cry again. Part of Fin’s heart broke to see it. “Everything’s a fucking mess,” she sobbed, “I’m a fucking mess,” and started to fall down again. He managed to aim her at the bed instead, and pulled up the blanket around her. I don’t know what else to do, he could admit mentally but never aloud.

“Yeah, big whoop,” he said instead and curled up on top of the covers opposite of her in an old, familiar cuddle. “Fight me about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, over and over for a while until he got tired of hearing it.

“Stop apologizing,” he demanded, not unkindly but with force. “You’re not sorry. You just feel guilty for something, and you’re putting it on me. You’ve got nothing to apologize to me for. I’m the one who should be sorry for putting you here. This is all my fault.”

It was the first time he’d ever admitted it out loud: that he was the one who put her in that prison, when she’d purposefully taken the fall for his crime. All because he was afraid, not her. Jeri sniffled pathetically and grabbed his hand with her own. He stared down at the skeletal tissue superimposed over her fingers and wondered at how painful it must have been to get considering how sensitive musicians’ hands are.

She had calmed down a little bit when he spoke up, and holding the hand helped. He felt nothing at her touch - she was guarded once more - but he tried something new that Aidan had slowly been attempting to teach him. Rather than soaking up what everyone else had to offer, he tried to instead to give something back. Something calm, and nice, and pleasant. A good memory he struggled to find, but he did eventually find one. “Remember when we used to lay like this?” He whispered, drawing in his sister’s eyes, identical to his own.

The memory she found hit his with her sapphire gaze and he could see them both almost at once. They’d often laid together in the same bed when they were young, or in bunk beds - at least until they moved to Mara’s, and Tía didn’t put up with any of that. He still occasionally had trouble sleeping alone with insomnia, and as he thought of that, he suddenly realized that Jeri had always had the exact same problem he had. It was strange, but not unwelcome, when she offered something personal like that. “Yeah,” she whispered back. “I know. I know. I—is this okay?” She wondered.

It wasn’t really a question, more of a weird way that she sought out assurance when she wasn’t used to an experience. It troubled Fin deeply that Jeri hadn’t received enough human kindness to recognize it when it was given to her. “Just go to sleep,” he told her, and patted her head, stroking her wet hair away from her brow.

“Okay,” she agreed contentedly and closed her eyes. After a few seconds of silence, she opened them again. “Hey Fin,” she hissed, even quieter than before.

“Hmm?” His own eyes were closed at that point, and his brain was hungry for rest. He was only half-listening.

“I saw Mom,” she said irrationally, because their mother had been dead since he was three, and she and Sal were six and nine, respectively. Thereafter they had lived with their father Patrick Ravara and his new wife, Dana, in a waking nightmare. It didn’t make sense for her to say something like that when Fin didn’t even have a memory of what their mother looked or sounded like, and he didn’t want to think about its implications in such a state.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he promised, opening his eyes to address her again. No memories or feelings came through when she met his gaze that time, but she clutched at his hand a little tighter. He glanced down at the hand that was holding his in a vice and eased apart her fingers gently, imposing his own over her ‘MARY’ knuckles. He knew without knowing, in that moment, that Jeri was deeply afraid of something he couldn’t see or hear or fight. “What’s wrong?” He had to ask. I wish Sal was here. He always dealt with this better. He always knows what to do.

“She’s scared for us,” RJ went on lucidly, worrying at her new central labret ring with her tongue. It glinted gold in the faint light. “She’s so scared, Fin.” Her voice was bleak and factual, and if he weren’t so tired he might have read into that.

Out of options and too tired to handle complex emotions, he sighed and uttered desperately: “Jeri, I love you. You’re my sister. In the morning, you can talk to me about this, but right now I’m tired as shit. Just please, let me sleep.”

“Okay.”

And they did, thankfully without memorable dreams.

Finley woke in the same position he’d fallen asleep in to the sun gracing his face, and the sound of birds warbling outside the window obnoxiously. He groaned and pulled the pillow beneath his head and put it on top, attempting to smother out the noise.

“Fuck off, dick birds!” He heard Jeri shout out the window next to her side of the bed. Fin pulled the pillow off and was pleasantly surprised to see her poking her head out the open window, fully dressed with one leather boot half-zipped up.

“Did you wake up before me?” He wondered in amazement.

Jeri pulled her head back inside and squinted at the dimmer light. Her hair shined in a messy halo of gold as she rifled with the curtains for a moment before grunting in affirmation and sitting back down on the bed with a plop to zip up her remaining boot.

“Am I in Quantum Leap?” Finley continued to wonder aloud. “This has to be some kind of parallel universe.”

“Believe it buddy,” Jeri chirped, seemingly right back to her old self. She sighed in satisfaction when the boot was finally zipped up to her knee and stood up to test it out. She gave her brother a weary, toothy grin. In the sun, her eyebrows, lip, and nose glinted with metal as golden as her hair in the brassy early sunshine. “I’m gonna pack,” she went on, ignoring his dumbfounded expression, “and then we can hit the road.”

Something about this was fundamentally wrong, but Finley was struggling to remember exactly why. “Wait, what about last night?” He blurted as his fuzzy morning brain, minus its necessary dose of coffee, fumbled for the right recollection. It was as if his entire mental library had been upended.

RJ stopped in her packing but for a moment to address him. “What do you mean? Nothing happened,” she insisted, and then kept stuffing clothes in her duffel.

He stared at her for a few seconds, debating the costs and merits of challenging that statement. Ultimately, he decided it wasn’t worth it and shrugged it off. She’ll talk about it if she wants to. I’m not going to pry. That was his rule of thumb when it came to Jeri; whenever he did pry, it usually resulted in a shouting match - or the other night when it had been done by accident, and she had instinctively slapped him. He didn’t want a repeat. “Hurry up,” he demanded instead. “I need coffee stat.”

“There’s a good stand down the road,” she promised. “I’ll buy.”

He grunted and stumbled out of the bed into a joint-cracking stretch. It wasn’t natural for her to be so active so early in the morning, but Finley didn’t want to jinx his luck by questioning it. She quickly packed her things and was locking the door behind them before long, an unlit filtered cigarillo between her lips, her duffel slung over her shoulder and her favorite acoustic slung over Finley’s. “How about we go to that diner with the nice old ladies?” Finley suggested, recalling the cinnamon pancakes on the menu with a light drool.

“Yeah, I guess,” she agreed with a shrug. He stared at the back of her head as she loaded her things into Aidan’s Jeep. She was never this agreeable, or compliant, or that much of an early riser. Shouting at the birds was the only normal thing she’d done so far.

There was a brief pit stop at the stand she’d directed him to at the end of the road, and then another to refill his tank with gas before they made their way to the diner from yesterday. Two cinnamon pancakes later, and Finley was content to be in the new bizarre parallel reality he lived in. “You know,” he said around a mouthful, “all things aside, this universe isn’t so bad if it means we get to eat these every morning.”

“Pretty good, right?” RJ chirped - it was so unnatural to hear the tone from her voice that he immediately stopped chewing and stared at her in suspicion. “What?” She groused. “Do I have something on my nose?”

“Just your face,” he shot back. “And maybe some bullshit right here.” He pointed to the corner of his mouth with his middle finger.

She rolled her eyes, rubbed her face, and went back to her own pancakes. If he wasn’t paying attention so closely, he wouldn’t have noticed that she pulled out a flask from somewhere on her person, probably her boot knowing her, and dumped some of its contents into her coffee.

“Hell of a way to start the day,” he noted.

“Fuck you, I have a hangover,” she replied mildly and sipped at her new Irish coffee. “I’m honoring our father’s Celtic ancestors by observing their ancient tradition of ending a bender with, uh . . .” She trailed off confused, and sipped at her drink. “Ah, shut up, idiot,” she finished eloquently with a punctuating burp.

He rolled his eyes. It was her prerogative, and as long as she wasn’t driving he was content to let her do as she pleased after a night like the last.

Finley shot Aidan a brief explanatory text while he ate, or at least as close as he could get to an explanation. On our way now, be there by evening. There really wasn’t a proper way to explain everything that had happened in the last day or so over a mere text message.

He got his coffee in a to-go cup from one of the smiling old ladies. Fin made the mistake of touching the lady’s hand as he got out and made a mental note to buy gloves when what she was thinking about in that moment had him blushing to the roots of his hair. Fin knew he wasn’t the ugliest guy around, but sometimes he wished he was.

Jeri made a nest for herself by dipping back the seat as far as it would go and piling a car blanket on top of her. “I’m not feeling so good,” she announced with a pout. Her eyes squinted in the morning light and he noticed for the first time the intense dark circles underneath. “Will you stop by a liquor store on the way out of town?”

“No,” he told her as he started the Jeep’s ignition.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Ugh, you’re such a bitch.”

“I know. Bite me.”

He was still a bit groggy as made his meandering way onto the I-5 South, heading back down past Salem toward Sacramento. It was quiet when Jeri decided to take a nap, or at least not complain - but he found himself swerving in and out of lanes to get ahead which seemed to make her nauseous.

“Jesus, stop,” she pleaded. “Pull over.”

“Why?” He glanced over and noted her greening complexion. “Oh. Oh, you’re serious. Oh, do not puke in here, I’ll have to—just hang on.” He signaled for the nearest exit and managed to make it to a pull-out exclusively designed for cops to entrap speeding passerby. Grinding to a halt with a slight skid, he threw on the emergency break just as Jeri opened the door and toppled outside.

She was retching on the ground within a second. A selfish part of him felt like she deserved it, for the alcoholic bender she’d dragged him on for the last few days, but he kept that part of him silent. Instead he reached into the glove box and looked for some kind of medication - napkins - anything - that might help.

She was spitting up bile and her voice was warbly as it made it back to his ears: “you got any dramamine?”

He perused Aidan’s selection of over-the-counter meds, but found nothing that would help. “Just some excedrin. Maybe some of that and a joint will help?” He offered. Climbing into the back, he managed to find an emergency water bottle from his and Aidan’s last hiking trip that didn’t look too old or like it had been sitting too long in the car. “I have some water.”

“I don’t drink water,” she sighed and clambered back in, smacking her lips. “I don’t trust it. Dolphins fuck in it. Got any Altoids or something to wash this taste down?”

“Drink some dolphin jizz, you’ll feel better,” he offered forcefully and handed her the water bottle. She nonetheless took it and guzzled half of it down, then put it between her legs to light a joint with one hand and roll down the window with the other.

As they pulled back onto the freeway, her only question was, “so can you stop by a liquor store, then? I could use some whiskey.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

Fin considered using this as an excuse to drive off the road and just, end it. It was a fleeting thought, but it put a strange smile on his face. “You know, I could just . . . Crash the Jeep. No one would blame me.”

Jeri pouted. “You’re being a dick!”

“If I stop somewhere, will you shut up?”

She nodded with consideration. “Just a little bottle is all I need.”

His conscience warred with his impatience. Am I enabling? Do I care if I am? “Fine,” he growled, assenting. “But please, no more pit stops unless it’s to take a piss or eat. We have an eight hour drive ahead of us.”

He made a pit stop when Jeri essentially demanded it after he put it off for too long and then she threatened to grab the wheel. He could see the gears churning in her bloodshot eyes and took the warning seriously, and pulled over at the nearest gas station outside of Salem. True to her word, she ran off and came back only with a little bottle - a forty. While he wasn’t happy she was using her newfound free time to drink away her problems after being so long denied the ability to do so, a selfish part of him wanted to pour it out and shake her out of complacency. That won’t work. It never has, and it never will. It only pushes her away.

Fin took the opportunity to actually gas up the car and relieve himself. When he got back, he saw RJ sitting on the bumper with another lit joint and wanted to smack himself and her in the head. “We’re at a gas station!” He pointed out, because, “Obviously, a gas station—why would you—you—frustrate me,” he finally managed to admit.

Jeri blew a perfect, skunky smoke ring in his face. “You were born frustrated.”

“You’re probably right,” and Fin found it easy to admit when he thought about it. The gas nozzle behind him whirred in its operation. “Did we ever get along, outside of being kids?” He asked, feeling a rare wave of emotional honesty.

She brushed a bit of choppy blond bang out of her eye and sniffed, as if her nose were lightly clogged. “I thought we did,” she answered uneasily, “but now that you ask? I don’t know, Fin. I always thought we were tight. I know I give you shit, but that’s because you give me shit too.”

“I always thought you and Sal were tight. I felt like the odd one out.” The gas’ nozzle’s click grasped his attention and distracted him momentarily while he finished the transaction. Jeri jumped off the bumper and got back into the passenger’s seat with nary a word. He stepped around and slid back into the driver’s, and there was a moment of contemplative silence that passed between them.

“I didn’t mean that I thought—that you and I—not whatever you thought I meant,” he clarified.

“Well that cleared up everything,” she shot back and laughed. “I feel better. I’m glad we had this heart-to-heart. Can we talk about something else? Literally, anything else?” Her eyes became fixed on the driver’s mirror as she started fiddling with it.

“You always deflect,” he accused, and batted her hand away from the mirror.

“Literally anything else,” she begged, “like, maybe the guy in the back seat? Can we talk about him instead?”

“What the fuck are you—” and then he turned to look out of the corner of his eye, and saw him.

Where there had been no one before was a man whose mind was made of howling white noise. He was small, but Finley didn’t really get a good look at him until he dived under the driver’s seat for his birthday present and turned to point it at the intruder. It wasn’t loaded, but it wasn’t as if the intruder knew that. He was Asian with short dark hair cropped close to his skull in a Roman style, in strange teal flowing clothes that belonged on an extra in a Star Trek episode about space hippies. The one thing that stood out beside the strange, almost painful feedback Finley got on a mental level from the man, was the peculiarly colored golden almond eyes that shined the color of the sun. There was no pupil, only a shining metallic lidded gold. It was definitely unnatural.

The gun pointed at him didn’t seem to faze him either. “Who the fuck are you, no—get the fuck out of my car,” Finley corrected from down the barrel of his .44 special that he’d stowed under Aidan’s seat. It’d always made him feel safe until the moment he’d had to point it at the golden-eyed man; in that moment, it felt like a liability.

Jeri burped. She’d just taken a gulp of the forty. “Oh thank Christ, I thought it was just me seeing him. I hate feeling crazy,” she lamented. After a moment of drinking, she seemed to process what was going on. “Holy shit—where’d you get a gun?”

“You gave it to me?” He reminded questioningly, turning to her briefly but still keeping the gun trained on the intruder. The golden eyes didn’t blink. He didn’t even twitch. “For my twenty-first? We took it to a shooting range together?”

She was clearly drawing a blank. “That sounds like something I’d do. I believe you.”

Finley turned back to the man. “Why haven’t you gotten the fuck out of my Jeep yet? If you make me use this, you should know I’m a pretty good shot.”

“It is not your commode, and your gun is not loaded,” the man answered slowly, stretching out the words with no discernible accent despite sounding unsure of the sounds he was making. It made listening to a person interesting, so Finley pointed the gun down and back on his lap, effectively disarmed in every way that mattered. Still, the teal-dressed golden-eyed man did not flinch.

“Why isn’t it loaded?!” Jeri looked like she wanted to throttle him. “Have I taught you nothing?”

Fin glared at her. “It’s not like I expected this to happen,” he shot back, and this seemed to settle her. She went back to examining the man in the back seat in the driver’s mirror, whose golden eyes passed between the two siblings with something like interest.

“Fine, weird dude,” she spoke addressing him, and his golden-eyed attention shifted from Finley to her slowly, his head coming to a halting stop as it did. “So how the fuck did you get in here? You weren’t in here before.”

“Irrelevant,” he stated. “I have come with portents to deliver.”

“Portents?” She laughed darkly, still eying him through the mirror. With shaking hands, she tried to light a smoke. “You’re delivering portents? Finley, kick his ass!”

“I don’t even know who this guy is,” Fin defended, “and my gun isn’t loaded!”

“Well whose fault is that?” Jeri accused.

Fin’s eyes narrowed on her. Every part of him acknowledged that now was not the time to argue about semantics, but the largest part of him couldn’t stop himself from trying. “Like I expected someone to—to beam into my car like some kind of—excuse me,” he directed at the Asian intruder who had the grace to nod politely as if he’d expected as much, and so Fin went on, “like some kind of Time Lord or Star Trek shit? Besides he already called me out on it and, I can’t get a read on him, so—”

“I felt your attempt,” the man interrupted in that slow, awful, even voice that crept like a caterpillar up your spine, “I felt it shake my walls with great intensity. You may yet survive what is to come, Finley Ravara.”

Neither Finley nor Jeri knew what to say about it, but they knew what the other person was thinking and looked at each other for a split second. Both of them knew a threat when they heard one. “You’re going to want to get out of the car, slowly,” Finley suggested, and began to focus on that obnoxious white noise with gritted teeth.

“There is no time,” the man answered, blinking those golden orbs as slowly as he enunciated his words. “You must leave this place when I do and continue on your journey. In your path ahead lies the Prodigal Son. Protect him from the one who named himself Asmodeus, and protect Rose of Jericho, Finley Ravara. Your sister must live. She is the last.”

Where the was a strangely dressed Asian man with glowing gold eyes was nothing but an empty Jeep seat littered with receipts. RJ’s ‘MARY’ hand suddenly darted onto Fin’s own and clutched it in desperation. In her other, she clutched her unlit joint. In less than a blink, and with no sound at all, the transported man had ceased to exist in the spot where he was. Finley and RJ had no idea what had just happened or why, or even if it had happened at all.

“What the in the holy fuck was that?” Finley summed up both of their feelings. He pried Jeri’s fingers off of his own and scratched his brow in confusion, and rubbed his eyes. He stared down at his lap where the empty .44 lay lifeless and unused. “Did I just—hallucin—did you drug me?”

“Not this time,” she promised, equally wide-eyed and confused. “I thought someone might have laced my joint. This must be a sign.” She punctuated this by taking a long swig of her forty.

“Sign of what?” Finley dared to ask.

“That I should quit drinking so much,” she admitted with a sigh. Fin couldn’t help himself and started laughing uncontrollably.

The drive home was the most awkward either had ever experienced.