Chapter 37: Riptide
"This is pointless!" Yori shouted.
She was back in Egypt or fake-Egypt or dead-Egypt or whatever it was, stranded on a roof that should have been more sun-baked except everything was mild and vacation-perfect and the only thing actually dead in dead-land was her patience.
Shada raised an eyebrow, as unimpressed with her outburst as he was apparently unimpressed with the world at large.
"I've done this at least a hundred times now, and I can't—"
"Can't what?" he said. "Can't muster a will to survive greater than a past trauma?"
That wasn't it. Yori had plenty of will to survive. She was a great big bucket of let's-not-die-today, especially as she felt the monster in her mind creeping closer with every moment. Her fingertips had gone numb already, and she felt the tingling creeping through the rest of her hands, felt it slowing her feet. Something was eating her; she felt every bite. And it was damn motivating.
Just . . .
"There isn't—there isn't anything! There isn't anything there!"
She slammed her hand into the retaining wall of the roof, and she didn't feel a thing; she was a mess, falling apart more with every tingling moment. How many moments did she have left?
"Try speaking with words that make sense," Shada said.
She could have strangled him.
But she sucked in a deep breath through her teeth, pressed her hands to the wall, and sagged.
She'd stepped into Haku's apartment at least a hundred times. She'd walked the streets with him, replayed every game he'd ever set, relived every opponent he'd ever chosen. She'd felt his golden gaze a hundred times and remembered how much her heart used to pound in response. She'd felt his kiss. The cold nights alone. The sting of his cobra. The burn of his blade.
And still the fear chilled her to the core. It was no tide at her ankles; it was a riptide dragging her out to sea. And she'd tried to swim against it a hundred times, and a hundred times, it had dragged her back in.
"This is torture," she muttered. "Not therapy."
But she couldn't understand the difference. With the orphanage, the foster homes, she'd stepped into the past and breathed the relief of the future. Why couldn't she do the same with Haku?
"Your mind is directing these experiences," Shada said. "It's leading you here for a reason. There is a fear to be faced."
Oh, there was plenty of fear. A whole ocean of it.
"I'm facing him," she whispered, and without her permission, her voice cracked. "I'm facing him over and over and over, but it doesn't get any better. It's not any better than it was back then."
Somehow, it felt even worse.
"Hmm," Shada murmured, rubbing his chin as he turned away.
"Meditate on it all you want. It's pointless."
Yori raised her hand, stared at her fingers. They looked solid enough, but when she curled them in, it was like watching someone else's hand move.
"Maybe I should just fight the monster head on," she said.
"No," Shada said sharply. "The consequences of a shadow game have only one path through. Try to diverge, and you will be consumed."
Don't fight, Yori. He may as well have said, Don't do anything, Yori. Sit there and wait for death, Yori. Apparently it's coming either way because you can't get over the guy who stabbed you in the back.
Shada rested a hand gently on her shoulder. She stiffened, but his gaze was tender.
"We will work this through," he said. "Perhaps a different approach."
"I'll try anything," Yori whispered, because the bucket of let's-not-die was at least as big as the ocean.
He gestured for her to sit, which was not what she expected. But she lowered herself to a stool, and he sat across from her, and his gaze was much too piercing.
"When I said this wasn't therapy"—her smile was strained—"I didn't think you'd jump to trying actual therapy."
"Fear is not abstract," he said at last. "We must put a word to it. Why does he scare you?"
Yori gave a short laugh. "Well, he almost killed me, for one."
"So you are afraid of death?"
"No. Well, I mean, yes, as much as anyone is afraid of death." She certainly didn't want to die today. But she'd faced death many times on the street, and it didn't haunt her nightmares. Only the moment it reared its head. "But I'm not . . . specifically afraid of death. I feel . . . capable. In general."
Boy, the more time she spent in Shada's presence the more she realized feelings sucked and talking about them sucked more.
"Then this is not it. Why else does he scare you?"
"Probably because he's psychotic."
"Try again."
Try again. Sure. Like this was all easy to put into words.
"Haku doesn't . . . he doesn't love . . . things." That wasn't right. He'd take a bullet for that stupid snake. "I mean, he didn't love me."
"So you are afraid of being unloved."
"I have friends. I have . . ." She thought of Yami, and heat flooded her face. "I don't think I'm unloved."
Yami.
Even thinking his name made her heart ache. Just when things started going right, she went and lost a shadow game. Hadn't she told him she'd stand with him in the finals? And now he was alone.
Shada leaned forward, peering into her face. "Right now. What are you thinking?"
She resisted the urge to lean back.
"It's not important," she said. "Haku was—"
"If you desire to avoid it, it is even more important. It is probably your fear."
"What?" She laughed. "No, it's not a fear. I was thinking . . . about the pharaoh." It felt strange to call him that, but Shada wouldn't know otherwise.
Shada's gaze grew heavy; his brow furrowed. "Fear of the pharaoh."
"No! What on Earth? He has nothing to do with this. I was just thinking that I promised to stay with him and now here I am and the psycho who put me here is out there and Yami has to deal with it. Alone. And that isn't—it isn't at all how I wanted things to go." She cleared her throat. "So we should get things moving. You know, so I can get back to him."
She thought of the kiss, and her cheeks flamed enough she truly felt it.
But Shada didn't seem to notice or even to hear her. He stood and began pacing, brow still furrowed in thought.
"Try again." He turned back to her, blue eyes sharp. "Try again now. But think of the pharaoh."
Yori ground her teeth. "I told you I'm not afraid of—"
"Yes, of course, because it's so easy to have a terrible ending to love and not fear the second attempt."
She snapped her jaw shut.
That wasn't it. That couldn't possibly be it. Yami was charming, and he was genuine, and the last thing in the whole world she wanted was to be afraid of him.
But she felt the cold wash in.
And the darkness washed in with it, sweeping her out of Egypt and into memories that all seemed much too sharp, much too close, breathing down her neck and snickering in her ear.
She was on her knees outside the burning warehouse, throat raw from smoke, panting from exertion, and she looked at him for the first time and saw his vibrant, striking eyes.
And she remembered that first meeting with Haku, looking up into his vibrant, striking eyes.
She was on a dark street, shoulder burning from the slice of a knife, and Yami faced the knife-thrower with cold calculation as the world around them melted into shadows. He said, "We're here to play a shadow game."
And she remembered Haku curling Mehen on a crate, his gold eyes dancing as he said, "Come now, it's just a little game."
She was chained in the path of a saw, and Pandora stood before her, face white as a sheet, mouth gaping soundlessly. Yami looked at him with eyes of blood and said, "The shadows will cut the payment from your very soul—if you even have one." And then Pandora was screaming, clawing at his own chest, screaming and screaming and screaming.
And Yori remembered staring into the face of a cobra as Haku signaled for it to strike.
She remembered the searing heat, the feeling of venom creeping in her blood.
She remembered her own scream.
And Haku at her back, his hand on her shoulder as he sank a knife into her lung.
And her scream.
Her scream.
/Yaara!/ someone was shouting. /Yaara, it's alright. You can face this fear. You can—/
It wasn't her name, and he was wrong. He was so wrong. The riptide had its claws in every joint, and it was moving her like a puppet, dragging her down and freezing her bones. She couldn't feel her arms, couldn't kick her legs. She was drowning in a scream.
Then the sunlight washed in, and someone had her by the shoulders.
She gasped for air, looking up into Shada's blue eyes.
"You're safe," he said gently. "Breathe."
"They're so similar. How did I never—" Her voice cracked, and her eyes burned. She pressed a fist to her cheek, but the tears ran all the same. "How did I never see it?"
He frowned in silence. She slowly calmed enough to stop her tears and her trembling. At least on the outside.
"These fears run deep," he murmured.
"Thanks, Freud," she shot back.
He raised another unimpressed eyebrow. But Yori was focused on her arms.
Because they were numb up to the elbows.
And she felt the tingle up to her shoulders.
"I guess I have a type." She laughed, and it sounded shrill to her ears. "Hot recluse, majorly unhinged, obsessed with games." She laughed again. "Maybe I should date Marik next."
"Sit," Shada ordered, but Yori didn't listen. She couldn't sit because her legs were going numb and maybe when she tried to stand again, they would no longer lift her.
What was wrong with her? Hadn't the first dating disaster been plenty without running headfirst into a second?
And in truth, Yami was much worse than Haku. Because she hadn't forgotten singing in the lounge and drinking roasted tea and the warmth of his jacket on her chilled arms. Because Yami was a wonderful daydream wrapped in red flags and he might very well be worth the risk of overcoming her fears, but suppose she did overcome them and she took a chance on his fingers in hers, and suppose he loved her with all his heart and it was everything she could possibly imagine.
Then what?
Yami was a ghost haunting a relic of the past.
Yami wasn't even real.
And suppose she loved the dream with every bit of her soul.
And then the dream ended.
The end of Haku had pierced a lung. She may have never breathed again. The end of Yami would pierce her heart. And it would never beat again.
"What am I doing?" she whispered.
"Not sitting," Shada said dryly. "And on the topic of unhinged, you seem a bit more so than the last time I saw you. Yaara was always level-headed."
That focused her well enough to glare. "Did you just compare me to some unknown past version? Wow. Sorry Yori 2.0 is so disappointing, your majesty. She regularly disappoints me, too, believe me."
Such as her headfirst, thoughtless dives into love.
Shada's lips twitched. "On the contrary. I feel that I'm seeing the . . . shall we say 'the true you.' Yaara lived under strict circumstances. She was never free in anything, even to be herself. Except, she once informed me, with the pharaoh."
Yori swallowed hard. "Don't do that. Whatever happened in the past, it's in the past. I'm trying to work with things now. Whoever they were, Yami's not that guy, and I'm not that girl."
"Are you not?" He tilted his head, staring out into the golden distance. "As an infant, I was stung by a scorpion. My mother recounted the story to me frequently across the years, because it was uncertain I would survive, and I was her only son. She pleaded with the gods for me. I have no memory of the incident, and no scar to prove her testimony. Nevertheless, truth is truth. After I was appointed a priest in the pharaoh's court, my mother was certain it was the destiny I had been preserved to fulfil. Perhaps she is correct. Perhaps not."
His eyes came back to Yori's, and she stiffened under the gaze.
"Either way," he said, "I am a man who was once stung."
They stood in silence. In the courtyard below, the fountain sparkled, and someone laughed, a light, airy sound. Yori sighed.
"What if . . ." She could hardly force the words out. "What if I only love him because of the past?"
"Now we are in the true fears," Shada said. "Fear of manipulation, of powerlessness."
And it was true she'd felt both after Haku. When she had nightmares, they were almost always of her surgery, struggling to breathe and too weak to move, and then every day of recovery fearing he would one day appear at the foot of her hospital bed with a smile like nothing had happened and that, somehow, she would fall into his eyes again. She would fall for it all, all over again.
"I've never believed in destiny," she said.
"No." The priest shook his head. "Nor have I."
She gave him a half-lidded stare and earned a crooked smile in response.
"My son does," he said. "My mother. Apparently it skips generations in my family. And if they desire to believe, if they see something in it, let them. All I have ever seen in destiny is despair. I believe my choices, not predestination, determine my path. That gives me hope. Or gave, I suppose. I have no regrets about the path I took in life."
No regrets. Lucky him. Yori couldn't even imagine such a world.
The tingle crept toward her neck. She rolled a shoulder; the movement was sluggish.
"Will you face it?" he asked.
It was face it or die.
"What's it like?" she asked quietly. "Being . . ."
"Dead?" Shada's expression gave nothing away. "You will find out one day. But I believe if that day were today, you would come with regrets."
"I'll always have regrets."
"Yori 2.0 is clairvoyant, I see. Odd that you would find so many reasons to fear if the entire future is open to your gaze."
"You're a punk, you know that? I thought your son was bad."
"Like father, like son. I'm supremely proud of the boy."
And despite herself, she laughed. She could understand why this was someone she would have been friends with, would have admired. Would have trusted.
She took a deep breath.
And with purpose—
She said, "Can you tell me about the past?"
Shada's lofty expression melted into a soft smile. He gestured for her to take a seat. "I will tell you what I know."
She felt carefully, lowered herself to a stool with knees she couldn't feel bend, and she prayed whatever he could tell her would be the answer she was looking for.
And that she had time enough left to hear it.
Note: September already? How did we get here, guys? Crazy. I'm getting a root canal tomorrow, so that's exciting (and why I'm awake and posting; you know those days when you're like, "If I just don't go to bed, tomorrow will never come" haha xD). Alas, the tomorrows come anyway. We just do what we can to make them good. :) See you in two weeks.