Wrath of the Fallen

Jesse clenches his eyes shut against the memories, breathing through the fear. He is sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs on Pamela’s back deck trying not to unravel completely. He’d found Petra on the front porch three days ago—at 10:15 p.m., he’d checked his watch—unconscious and wearing a filthy and bloodstained nightdress that looked like it had been filched from a period drama. She was unresponsive, thin, her skin cool and abraded, her lips cracked. Jesse only missed going into full meltdown because he saw her chest rise, though her breathing was shallow; her pulse was as faint as the kick of a tiny embryo in a womb. Thank God Caitlin had been there. She’d snapped into a manner of cool efficiency that not only got Petra safely installed on Jesse’s bed, but helped keep his panic at bay. Reuben’s girlfriend had assessed the unconscious woman with a poker face.

Petra’s hands and fingernails were a shredded nightmare, but they were the least of their worries. She was tachycardic, severely dehydrated, and her right leg was swollen and discolored below the knee. Bruises dotted her ribs and shoulders, and there were too many cuts and scrapes to count; dirt was embedded in her scalp, forearms and hands. Caitlin determined she had a severe contusion—and likely a bone contusion, or possibly fracture—of her right tibia, a mild concussion, and severe electrolyte loss. He had helped Caitlin immobilize the leg then prop it up on a stack of pillows. Caitlin set up an IV line to rehydrate Petra and they’d taken turns monitoring her until she woke yesterday.

Jesse was immensely thankful for Caitlin’s creation of a survivalist-level first aid kit, though he had mocked it at the time. After Caitlin had been released from hospital, mostly recovered from her gunshot wound, she’d been given a generous severance package from Chronogen when she’d signed their NDA. She’d used some of that package to assemble her dream first-aid kit months ago, and those supplies were now keeping Petra alive.

Jesse hears muted sounds from inside: the television murmuring, Pamela moving about the kitchen. He feels bone-tired, but restless. His thoughts circle round and round. Petra’s waking words have been few and far between. He tries to remember that she is exhausted but it’s difficult to be patient when he so badly needs to know where she’s been, what she’s been through.

Caitlin has reassured him that Petra’s leg is healing well—in fact, faster than expected, which has made Jesse wonder if there is something to the suspicion Chronogen had about Petra having a healing factor—but the injuries he can see aren’t the one that matters most. Petra seems like a husk of her former self. Her thousand-yard stare, the way she startles at nothing, the way she mutters in her sleep. When she’s awake, her silver eyes have a hunted look he’s never seen in them before, not in all their years of vigilante work, not even when she was being chased by demons. All he’s wanted for the last six and a half months was for her to return, but now that she’s here, it’s not enough, because the Petra he knows is nowhere in sight. He understands nothing, feels helpless, and it’s driving him mad.

“You’re thinking loud enough to wake the dead, love.” Pamela says as she steps out through the sliding door.

She has a cardigan over her pajamas, a steaming mug in each hand, one of which she puts on the arm of his Adirondack before lowering herself into the one opposite him.

He manages a smile, one devoid of any joy or humor. “She’s not talking to me.”

Pamela blows at the steam crawling into the air from her mug. “You can’t rush someone back from whatever she went through. Let her sleep. Let her breathe. She’ll talk when she’s ready.”

Pamela’s words barely penetrate.

“When she’s awake, she just… stares. Like she doesn’t know I’m there. Like she’s somewhere else.”

“She was somewhere else. Almost seven months passed for us, but we don’t know how long it was for her. We don’t know what she saw, or what she lost. Give her time.”

Jesse rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how.”

“By waiting patiently.”

Jesse closes his eyes. It is exactly what he feels he can’t do.

Crickets chirp. A dog barks once. They sit in silence for a minute, before she says, quietly—giving voice to what they’ve all been fearing for the first time, “You think they know? That they might come here?”

He flinches, and Pamela sucks in a breath as his reaction confirms she’s not the only one with this fear.

“I hate to pile on,” she continues, “but I have to say that I don’t like having a target sleeping under my roof.”

“She’s not a target. She’s my girlfriend.” Jesse’s tone is a little too hard.

“Oh, Jesse.” Pamela sighs. “You know what I mean. The poor girl’s been through hell, I can see that. But what if they know she’s here, and are just biding their time? We don’t know how she got to our front step or even how long she was there before you found her. What if they’ve been watching us this whole time?”

A bolt of anger shoots through him. “Where do you suggest I take her, Mum? Name a safe place and I’ll start packing.”

“That’s not what I…” She trails off, unable to say what she wants.

Jesse knows she’s of two minds. She doesn’t want Jesse to leave, but now that Petra is here, the fragile feeling of peace that had grown slowly over this house over the last eight months has shattered like a stained-glass window under a thrown rock. 

“I’m just saying, Petra has only been here for a few days and already this family is holding its collective breath,” she says, finally.

It still sounds strange, Petra’s real name on his mother’s lips. He told them Annie Carver was an alias, about a month after Petra’s disappearance. There was no reason not to, no additional protection to be gained, and they’d been a critical support for him while he’d spiraled in her absence. He owed them the truth. He remembers the relief he’d felt after he’d come clean. All that relief was gone now.

Pamela reaches out to stroke a leaf on the potted fern near her elbow. “Have you told the scientist that she’s back?”

“Hiroki?” He blinks. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust him.”

Her brows lift. “You trusted him enough to work with him.”

“That was when no one else could explain where she went—it’s not like I had a choice.” He rubs a hand over his face. “He said she was on her own, nothing we could do, and no way to reach her. Case unsatisfactorily closed.”

A week after Hiroki had declared the situation hopeless, Chronogen had not prevented Jesse from walking out the front doors. No questions. No directives. No threats. No final exchange of ideas. He is a non-issue for them, and he doesn’t disagree with that assessment. He isn’t Petra, and without her, he barely cares about anything anyway.

“You have his number, though?” Pamela asks.

“Sure. I have it. I called him nearly every day for eight weeks after we parted with every crazy idea I had—maybe she was stuck between times, maybe we could triangulate the residual energy—he shot them all down. We haven’t spoken in months. If I tell him she’s here, I don’t know what will happen. I don’t think he would tell Chronogen, but he once told TNC to terminate her”—his voice turns bitter—“so there’s always that.”

“You said that was his professional advice to his corporation about a supernatural with too much power, not that he wanted it personally.”

“Does it matter? She’s Petra. A walking WMD. I’d get it if I didn’t know her, but I do. She trusted him once. Betrayal is betrayal.”

The screen door slides again. Reuben steps out, his phone flashlight aimed straight into Pamela’s eyes. She winces and he redirects it with a muttered apology.

“Can’t sleep,” he says. 

Reuben still hasn’t forgiven Jesse for dragging Caitlin into the path of danger, but at least they’re back on talking terms. He plops into the chair beside Pamela, looks from his brother to his mother and back again.

“Anyone else feel like we’re one bad algorithm from being invaded by a bunch of goons in black?”

Jesse groans and puts his face in his hands.

“So we agree, then.” Reuben nods. “Excellent family meeting.”

The door opens again and Caitlin steps out, hair messy, wearing one of Reuben’s t-shirts, leggings and oversized socks. “You three realize it’s midnight, right? The neighbors can hear you plotting.”

“We’re not plotting,” says Pamela.

“Good, because I’d have to chart your vitals.” She crosses her arms, looking at Jesse and leaning into one hip, which is the position she takes when she reports. “She’s asleep. Her pulse is steady. She’s fine.”

“She’s not fine,” says Jesse.

“She’s alive. That’s my current definition of fine, given the… you know…” She doesn’t say time-travel out loud, presumably because of the aforementioned neighbors.

Pamela gives a low sound that isn’t quite laughter. “If she’s fine, then why does my home feel like a crime scene?”

Reuben snorts. “Because you’re paranoid, Jesse is brooding, and Caitlin is fearless, which means I’m the only sane one left.”

Caitlin arches a brow. “You cried over burnt lasagna last week.”

“Emotional resilience isn’t my strong suit at the minute.”

Jesse shakes his head, the tension easing for a moment as the familiar rhythm re-emerges.

Pamela looks at Caitlin. “What makes you so sure Chronogen is done with us?”

Caitlin shrugs. “They got what they wanted—Petra in exchange for you and Reuben. The fact that she vanished from a sealed Wolfram cell has nothing to do with us and they know it. We have nothing else that they want—”

“As long as they don’t know she’s here.” Jesse finishes the thought.

Caitlin nods. “They’ve moved on to whatever other psychotic plan they had on a back burner. We should too. Move on, I mean. Petra needs peace and quiet.”

“So do we,” replies Pamela. “Every time a car slows out front, I freeze. The fact that we fortified all the locks and Jesse rigged up some space-age security that I still don’t understand isn’t making me feel any better.”

“Careful, Mum,” says Reuben. “If you’re any more honest, Jesse will pile Petra into a cab and be gone with no forwarding address.”

“He’ll do no such thing,” snaps Caitlin. “Because he knows I would track him down and skin him alive if he so much as tries to change her sheets without my permission.”

Reuben’s face shows awe-tinged fear. “I didn’t know I was dating Psycho-Nurse.”

Caitlin ignores him and looks at Jesse. “She’ll talk to you.” Her voice is quiet. “It’s too soon to ask anything of her. Just give her time.”

Pamela gives him the I-told-you-so look he’s disliked since childhood. He grunts his acknowledgment that he heard, but that’s all he gives them. Caitlin returns inside, followed shortly by Reuben. Pamela rises and kisses the top of Jesse’s head after five minutes of silence; when the door closes behind her, only the cicadas remain. Jesse stays until his muscles ache, then tiptoes to his bedroom.

Petra lies curled on one side, her leg propped in its brace. Jesse eases down onto the mattress on the floor beside the bed, stretching out with a tired sigh. The house is silent—until Petra stirs. Words tumble softly from her lips and into the dark, broken phrases she’s uttered before. None has ever made sense, but then two names come out clearly.

“Elias. Connie.”

He sits up, looking at her, leaning closer. Listening.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispers.

Frozen, he waits for more. But Petra doesn’t speak again. Her breathing evens out. “Don’t worry, Pet. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.”