Blood heightens everything. We kicked and punched and grabbed, but when somebody's nails scraped, or maybe it was somebody's teeth, that changed everything. The blood started flowing and the scent filled the air, at one point I tasted it. Tasted it and loved it, wanted more. We ripped him to shreds, we were animals, we were everything we were ever made to be and more.
We tore at his skin, ripping skin from muscle and gouging into flesh, his screams only made it better. My face was streaked with blood, my soft brown hands soaked with it, the metallic taste heavy and wonderful in my mouth. They praised us, lined us up, took our pictures. With the woods around us and the screams and the blood, everything was right, primal, everything I'd ever desired, we weren't individuals, our names didn't matter, even our designations were unimportant. We were one thing, we weren't separate, we moved as one being, together, with only one purpose: the kill. And it felt good. Good and right. We didn't need freedom, we needed only blood and screams and satisfaction. At lights out the shaking starts and it's not a seizure, I wash and wash my hands but the blood has seeped into my pores, into the creases of my hands, staining them death-red.
Sometimes they hit in the day and you call them flashbacks, and sometimes
they hit in the night and you call them nightmares. Whatever they are, they're
not fun, and they're hard to hide, because your memory is perfect and when you
have one it takes over everything.
"Are you alright, Penny?" Charlie asks, his hands against my shoulders. I nod, briskly, I'd frozen at the counter but now I resume fixing a sandwich for Case's lunch. I make sure to do it slowly, keep my hands moving at a normal pace. I'm constantly restrained and sometimes I just have to leave for a few days, be myself. Be Tinga. At first Charlie hated it when I disappeared, but it was never more then three days, usually less, and he got used to it. Everybody gets used to everything, eventually. Unless you're like me.
The first sister I see after the escape is Jondy. She comes into the
bakery late one night, it's almost closing, she smells like the sea. I don't
know it's her right away, not like with Zane, she's changed more, her eyes are
more troubled, less bright. But they're still blue, still wide, and of course
she's still beautiful. It doesn't take long to figure it out.
"Penny," she says, looking at my name tag. I nod. "You got chocolate-chip bagels?"
"Sure," I answer. "Cream cheese?"
"Just butter," she answers.
"It'll cost you," I tell her, the standard line. This is a game we're playing, we both know who we are. "Butter's in short supply these days."
"I've got money," she answers, so I nod.
"Toasted?"
"Of course," she answers, and I go and fix her bagel. She tips me two hundred dollars and I don't even blink.
"You live around the ocean?" I ask her, it's practically time to close the place and we're alone, so I sit with her at a table and she nods.
"Why, do I reek like seaweed?" she asks, and she grins but there's no real happiness in the smile. It doesn't touch her eyes. It makes me sad, the world turned out alright for Zane, but obviously not for her.
"Something like that," I tell her, smiling. She gazes at me and takes a bite of her bagel thoughfully, chews and swallows.
"You happy?"
"Sure," I say. "Of course."
"Yeah?"
I shrug. "I don't know, Jon, sometimes."
She nods. "That's good," she says, taking another bite. "Sometimes is good." We sit there thoughtfully for a while, until she finishes her bagel, then she stands up and I stand with her. She hugs me, a belated greeting, and I touch her hair.
"I've missed you, baby sister," I tell her, and she nods into my shoulder. She's crying but I don't say anything about it, I just hold her. When she pulls back she's stopped and she smiles at me, not a grin but a smile. It's better, but it still doesn't reach her eyes.
"So you have a kid?" she asks.
"Yeah, a son. Case."
"That's good," Jondy says. "I think that's great."
"What about you?"
"I'm still trying to sort myself out, I'm not the best choice to raise anybody else," she says, and it comes out like a joke except her voice is dead serious, sad.
"You want to stay for a while?"
"And what will you tell your husband?"
I shrug, annoyed that I always have to think about that, always have to make up an excuse, a lie. The list is so long now I don't even know where to start. "I'll tell him you're a friend from school," I say. Jondy considers it, but she shakes her head.
"I'm just passing through, I'm heading home."
"From where?"
"Up north," she says vaguely, and I don't push it. I never push anything.
"You seen Zack lately?"
"Nope," she says, and I definitely don't push that, the tone in her voice says not to even if I did want to. I nod and hug her again, and I'm sad when she finally pulls back and turns for the door.
"I love you, Jon."
"Love you too, Penny."
"Tinga," I say, a hint of surprise in my voice, and she turns back.
"Yeah?"
"Of course... it's you."
"But aren't you Penny now?" she asks. I don't say anything for a minute.
"I'm Tinga," I answer finally, hurt. She comes back and places a hand against my cheek.
"Be Penny," she says. "You'll be happier that way."
"Who are you?" I ask her then, because with that statement, who wouldn't?
She grins, and I hate it even more this time, how fake it is, how tortured. "I'll always be Jondy," she says.
I say again, "I love you."
"I love you too."
"Come back."
"One day," she answers, but I don't think either one of us believes it. She turns away from me and leaves the bakery, climbs onto a motorcycle, speeds away without even a glance back. And I'm left there alone with a table peppered with bagel crumbs and that question, But aren't you Penny now?