9.
He answered the phone without thinking about it. None of us thought about it. Yash and I were mixing cookie dough in the kitchen, the afternoon light deceptively warm. The phone was next to Alex, so he answered. He listened for a while, then dropped the phone and walked out, his face empty.
"Alex!" I shouted, grabbing the phone, and staring at the open front door. It was Jackson left hanging on the other end of the line. "What the hell did you say to him?"
"I was just asking if he wanted to come down for this. Beebe's back and we got a lead on Hawthorne. Might be a good one. Maybe we can get her this time. Just wanted his input, cross reference-"
I dropped the phone despite hearing his distant voice still talking to me.
"Yashie! Get your coat. We're going for a walk!"
It seemed to take an age to feed her arms into the coat, make the zips connect, stuff on her hat, but I knew it would go no faster even if Alex had not just turned into a zombie and left. I pulled Yash out the door and stopped, scanning the street.
He was gone.
He was nowhere. The street was an empty dirty grey, the dark, bare skeletons of trees the only inhabitants. It was too cold for anyone to be out. Think, Flame, think… I stared at the ground, trying to figure out where he would have gone, then focused on a smooth space in the snow, cutting across the treads of the other prints, in the shape of a foot. A sock print. I raised my eyes and followed the trail across the yard and down the footpath. Alex's trail. He wasn't even wearing shoes.
I pulled Yashie after me, following it as quickly as I could recognize it, then pulling her up into my arms to follow it more quickly. The freezing air spiked into my lungs with each breath, filling me with cold. Alex will be hating this, I thought, and it spurred my panic on. Then we got to the intersection, where the salt had cut through the snow, and the bitumen lay bare and black. Here the tracks disappeared; a few snowy footprints like an inverse reflection of the footpath trail, then nothing. I had to wait for a car to pass, then jogged over to the opposite curb, but his prints did not reemerge. I backtracked and stared at his last traces, glancing again around the empty streets, feeling the panic rising higher and higher. Had he got into a car? A taxi? A friend? I knew I had to check the other curbs for tracks, but fear gripped my heart for a moment, and I stood paralyzed. Then the scream of tyres on bitumen broke through the rigidity, and I ran flat out towards the sound. As I came round the corner I took in the scene; a car, red, I noted automatically, the same that had passed earlier, stopped in the middle of the street, on a slight angle where the body had skidded. And Alex, standing in the street likewise, both equally still, tensed, the vapour of their respective breathing the only movement.
I let Yashie slide to the ground and grabbed him, trying to pull him to the curb, off the street, but I had no chance against his unmoving strength.
"Come on Alex," I begged as the car door opened, and the driver emerged, shaking, "Move!"
"I didn't hit him," the driver gasped, holding onto the car for support and crabbing along beside it towards us, "He just walked straight out. He didn't even look."
"It's cold out here," Alex murmured, gazing at his wet socks caked in snow, and brushing lightly at the sleeves of his flannel shirt.
"It is, baby, come on, let's go home where it's warm," I replied, low and urgent, and his feet began to move. We were still only a block away when I heard the Seeker car pull up, the red car still trembling in the middle of the road, but I kept walking. I kept Alex walking, Yash trailing along on my other side, and I left all the backward glances to her.
"Flame!" Jackson came jogging up behind.
"Under control," I said tightly over my shoulder, "I'm taking Alex home. No one's hurt. Go get the driver's statement." And for once, he did as I said without argument.
I locked the front door behind us and went straight to the bath room, Alex automatically turning the heating up on the way past the thermostat. I turned on both the shower and the bath taps, letting the room fill with steam before I set about peeling Alex's freezing, soggy socks off, stripping off the layers of flannel, and easing him into the bath. Yashie knelt by his back and soaped it methodically, round and round. Alex just sat there and stared at the water rising around him.
"Mummy," Yash said, breaking my attention away from him, "the door." And then I could hear the thunderous knocking of a Seeker at the door. The type of Seeker who wouldn't go away if ignored. Jackson.
"You stay here, ok?" I said, looking from Yash, to Alex, and back, "I'll be right back."
"What," I said, as short as possible, yanking the door open exactly three inches and no more.
"You wanna tell me what's going on here?" Jackson asked after looking at me a moment.
"I don't know. Alex just walked out. He was like some kind of zombie. He just…" I gestured helplessly.
"Where was he going?"
"I don't know. How the hell should I know? He just walked out."
"You wanna let me in? Let me see him."
I wiped a stray hair across my forehead with my wrist, smearing the bathroom steam.
"He's in the bath." It felt so hopeless. Why did I feel so hopeless? Jackson watched me a moment more, then nodded, turning away.
"Alright." I heard him say as I closed and locked the door and tripped back to the bathroom, turning off the shower, sliding down the tiles and sitting on the floor. Alex hadn't moved, except to turn the bath taps off. That was something, at least. Yash was still chasing soap suds around his back.
"Enough soap, sweetheart, how about some rinsing now," I said to her softly, leaning my head back against the tiles, and she immediately obliged, scooping up the warm water and watching it run down his back. I saw his lips move slightly into the hint of a smile.
"Warm, huh?" I whispered. He lifted a hand out the water and I jumped reflexively, flashing a short, apologetic smile at the floor as he covered my hand.
"I'm scaring you."
"Yeah," I whispered, thinking, in so many ways.
"It's still on your mind, isn't it?"
"What?"
"The Kimberley."
My tongue froze, seeming to grow and fill my mouth, but I had to keep him talking. Talking was an improvement.
"I guess."
His fingers laced into mine, and I saw the wire wounds around his wrist were almost healed. It took so long, without Heal.
"Where were you going?" I whispered, feeling the steam coat my face with a layer of wet.
"Just… away," he answered, and I glanced at him, scared that the distance in his voice meant he was leaving again.
I reached out my other hand and rubbed Icefire's pedant, hanging damp between his collarbones. He smiled gently, and I felt him returning again.
"I know," he said softly. He met my eyes briefly, and I felt hope start to flicker again within me.
My phone rang, cutting my thoughts in half.
"Beebe wants to speak with you," I said after listening.
He out his hand out for the phone, and I stared at it for half a second.
"No, sorry, he's out the front. Should I…?"
"Let him in," Alex said, kissing Yashie's head as he got out of the bath and dried himself roughly, wrapping the towel around his waist. I was halfway out the door when his hand caught my arm.
"Wait." He pulled me into his arms, holding me, and it took a moment for me to realize he had really done this, and get over the surprise enough to relax a little.
"I'm sorry I scared you," he whispered into my hair, and I found my arms could move around him too and hug him back.
"Ok," was all I could manage, then I grinned to feel Yashie's little arms trying to hug our legs and not be left out. Alex lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom to get changed. I gathered myself and unlocked the front door, where Beebe waited patiently.
"You ok?" he asked, without moving anything but his eyes. I nodded.
"He's in the bedroom," I said softly, and he slipped past me into the warmth of the house, "Wait. How are you doing?" He'd just been de-implanted… I couldn't begin to think what was going on in his head.
He paused a moment and gave me a quick grimace.
"Getting there."
Behind us, Jackson was sitting on the porch steps, his back to me. Even now he didn't turn. I chewed my lip for a moment, then grabbed my parka off its hook and shut the door gently behind me. I wrapped it round me tight and sat next to him, gazing out at the Seeker cars waiting on the street, the snow covered yards sleeping beyond. He slowly put his arm around my shoulders and I rested into him, laying my head on his shoulder. Together in silence, we watched it start to snow.