Chapter 13

I stood still for long minutes, staring blankly at the lifeless landscape in front of me. The students were gone, only the bodies of the shapeshifters remained lying on the concrete. I was unable to think straight, the soft buzzing filling my ears keeping me from expressing clear thoughts. The only thing that had changed radically enough for me to notice was the thing inside me, which had, for no apparent reasons, stopped existing. Just as if it had given its last breath before giving up, the humming that had constantly made my chest vibrate for days and days had finally stopped. It further aggravated the horrible feeling of emptiness crushing my shoulders, and when I realized what it could mean, guilt and terror added up on the already long lists of feelings I definitely wanted to vanish.

'She's dead...' I whispered to myself, my fingers clenching tighter on Peter's hand, those words feeling like razor blades on my tongue.

'What?' he asked, his voice quivering, suddenly letting of my hand as if my skin had burnt him.

'Olivia... She's dead,' I repeated, unable to grasp the meaning of my own word. This simple statement would have been too absurd to be taken seriously in any other circumstances, but the thing had been my only physical connection with Olivia, the invisible bound that made us feel each other's emotions and sensations, and now it was gone. It could only mean that, one way or another, the bound had broken.

'How do you know that?' Peter asked, grasping my shoulders, staring into my eyes with such an intense look that I thought he too could read my mind. I understood that it must be hard for him to believe that I could know what was happening to Olivia – I had a hard time to believe in that beast, as Olivia called it, as well – but he should have know that I wouldn't have acknowledged such a horrible truth if I didn't believe it myself.
'You wouldn't understand...' I breathed, my hands around his wrists, staring back at him. His eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher what I was thinking, but he then seemed to realize that I had nothing to hide and that I wasn't lying. It left him with his mouth quite agape, and he let go of my shoulder and quickly looked away. I would have wanted to say something comforting, but before I could find the right words, he turned back on his heels, his eyes full of tears and looking furious.

'How can you be so heartless?' he cried out, sweeping his palm over his face to wipe the heavy drops rolling on his cheeks. 'She would have done anything for you, and you... You don't even care!'

'I...' I tried to find something to retort, but after a few seconds I realized that he was right. I should have been devastated, I should have burst into tears, I should have needed to blame the whole world. But nothing. Her death left me indifferent. A few seconds before, I could have killed myself for feeling responsible for her dying. And now, nothing. I had stopped feeling the thing. And I had stopped feeling anything at all. That should have terrified me, because the last thing I wanted was to became an emotionless body wandering in a world driven by feelings. I knew I had always been some sort of outsider, but I had been proud of it. I could not be proud of this whole knew dimension the situation gave to this word, and I should be afraid of it. But it seemed that fear was one of those vanished feeling - or at least dying ones. I could still feel what probably was a phantom sensation what used to be a punch in my stomach, and a faded bitter taste in my throat, but I was quite unable to tell what feeling caused them. I would have wanted to cry, I knew that if I had felt what I should have felt, tears would be now cascading on my cheeks. But I couldn't, just because my heart didn't see any reasons to. I slowly stepped away, ashamed of being such a coward unable to face the consequences of everything that was happening. I regretted – or at least I thought that that acid taste burning my tongue was caused by this now foreign feeling of remorse, - I regretted that I had given in so easily, back in my universe, to that wonderful sensation that had drove me to create this almost paranormal link with Olivia. I knew that I should have resisted, I knew that I should have let her go when she asked to. I had tempted the Devil and now was the time to repay him in kind. I was about to get away, when Peter grabbed me by the arm.

'We need to know why they were after you', he said, apparently having dried his tears – though I could see how downcast he still was. I knew he wasn't the kind of man to let his emotions show, but sometimes even the strongest ones can't help it. He had just lost the woman he loved – so did I – and I perfectly understood that he wanted to do something to focus on anything but her.

'They were after me because I'm traitor', I said weakly, knowing there was no use to investigate a case we already knew the outcome of. 'The only thing we can do is hide, if we don't want them to find us.'

'We're not gonna hide. We're gonna go after them. We'll find them first', he said, rolling his sleeves up. He walked straight toward the corpse of one of the shapeshifter, dragging me behind him.

'What's the use?' I sighed, kneeling beside him as he tucked out the shirt of the dead body.

'They know a lot of things about your universe', he explained as he took a pocket knife out his jeans pocket. 'If we can learn their knowledge, we can find a way to dominate them.'

I shrugged my shoulders, because I really didn't see why it seemed so important to him. Shapeshifters were only agents from my universe infiltrated in theirs, whom goal was mainly to spy on them – and sometimes try to destroy this world when they discovered a major outbreak in war tech that could help them fulfill their mission, but obviously they failed at every attempt. They weren't smart, the little they know came from a database secretly kept in a Fringe Division basement somewhere under Liberty Island. They all started their lives with the same knowledge, that they could enrich with personal experience – which basically consisted in observing people, tailing them, killing them. Therefore, there was nothing exceptionally interesting to learn from a shapeshifter, but Peter was convinced of the contrary and I didn't want to contradict him. I watched him slowly slice the skin in the lower back of the machine, mercury flowing past the deep cut and staining his hand with the shiny silver substance. I frowned of disgust when he plunged is hand in the wound, looking for the memory card.

'You should at least wear gloves', I told him as he took the card out of the body with a moan of discontentment when he realized it had been damaged in the fight. 'Mercury is dangerous.'

'There are three bodies left' he said, royally ignoring what I had suggested, and he headed for the closest one. He repeated the same operation twice, and this time he was able to collect cards which were still in perfect condition. He put them inside his pocket, wiped his knife clean on his jeans and headed for the last shapeshifter. I crouched next to him, wondering what we were doing here, collecting information we didn't even know how to extract. All of this was pointless. He had said he wanted to learn things so that he could find a way to fight them back, but I knew that all he wanted was revenge. I understood his motivations, they had killed the woman he would have died for, they had taken almost everything away from him, but honestly, I didn't think that it would him good to seek something motivated by pain and anger. I had already experienced what it was like to avenge someone's death, forcing the ones responsible to pay their dues, and I had to admit that it feels really good when finally, you put that knife under their throats and slice it open. But what follows – the emptiness, the sadness that overwhelms you, the remaining sensation of guilt - , what follows is even worse than anything. I had had a hard time coming back from this quest, and it had taken even longer to forget about it. I didn't like Peter that much, but I didn't want him to go through what I had been through. I was about to reason him when suddenly, what felt like an electric shock ran through me, my whole body jolting.

'What's that?' Peter asked, turning to face me, looking a bit worried.
'I don't kn...' I gasped in ache when the same weird, painful sensation struck me. I wrapped my arms around me, unable to breathe, and I slowly laid down on the floor. My heart missed a few beats, and my chest swelled heavily when I finally was able to take a deep breath. My limbs were shaking helplessly, and the sunlight was blinding so much that I had to close my eyes tightly to keep them from burning. I curled up on my side, my fingers digging in Peter's forearm, tears rolling on my cheeks.

'What's wrong with you?', he muttered, putting his hand on my forehead.

'No idea', I replied between sharp breaths, trying to regain control of my body. It only lasted a few seconds, which felt like an eternity to me, when all of the sudden, something burst inside me, and a hundred of feelings all melted in the same wave flowed in my veins. It left me wide-eyed, and for an instant I wondered what was happening to me. Then I understood. It all made sense. My hand released Peter's arm, and I smiled, resting my head back on the floor, forgetting everything about the pain, about the guilt, about the shame. And then I laughed. I laughed like I had never laughed in my damned life. My stomach was contracting with cramps, my breath was so short that I thought I might suffocate, but I didn't care. The thing was back.

'What is it, now?' Peter asked, pinning my arms to the floor. 'Have you gone crazy?' Of course, the poor man had no idea what was going on and I couldn't blame him. He couldn't know how I felt, after all.

'No', I answered, finally succeeding in calming that burst of laugh after a long moment. I looked at him with the kind of smile I usually didn't use – the happy Olivia kind, which was so bright that it could make everyone else smile –, and I couldn't help but wrap my hands around his neck, drawing him in a tight hug. He didn't react when he heard me sniff, nor when I sighed deeply of satisfaction. He only did when I finally told him.

'It's Olivia...' I whispered in his ear. 'It seems she's back from the dead.'

I had expected every reaction but the one he had. He pushed me back roughly, looking rather angry, and I for a moment I thought he had misunderstood me. Olivia was alive, and the cheerful thing jumping of joy in my chest was the most significant proof that ever existed, and yet...

'You gotta be kidding me!' he shouted, putting his hand through his hair, laving a shiny trace on its way. 'How can you just do that!'

'Do what?' I asked, the bubble of genuine joy I had been feeling popping like a balloon.

'You told me she was dead, and now, oh well, she's alive again! This is nonsense! How can you know that anyway? This is stupid, you're not even sure of what you're saying!'

'I am sure', I replied patiently, knowing that it might be hard to believe when he didn't feel what I was feeling. 'Hasn't Olivia told you about... Something that we share? Like feelings, or something?'

'Yes, she told me about that' he said, apparently desperate to evoke that subject again. 'And what the hell does it have to do with you killing her and resuscitating her whenever you like?'

'This is ridiculous, I can't control her life!' I told him, shaking my head. 'It's just... Those feelings I share with Olivia... They can't exist if one of us dies. I knew she died the moment they disappeared.'

'This is crazy', he sighed, his fists on his hips, beginning to pace. 'And how do you know she's alive, then? You felt it too?'

'Exactly,' I answered calmly. 'And I swear to you this is true, I wouldn't have given you false hopes.'

'Right', he nodded, stopping his never-ending round trips, but still a little agitated. 'Okay, then. Good. She's in good hands.'

He cleaned his shaking hands on his front jeans and knelt next to the last shapeshifter to collect the remaining memory card.

'We still need to know what they know,' he tried to justify himself before sticking the card in his pocket. 'And they wanted you alive, that means you possess something they want. We need to find out about that too.'

I shrugged, not really knowing what shapeshifters could want from me – I didn't know anything they didn't, or at least not that I was aware of – but said nothing. He wanted answers, he would get them.

'I know someone who might be able to help us with these,' I told him, hoping he would trust me on this. He looked at me for a moment, probably weighing the pros and cons, and he finally nodded.

'Okay, let's go then.'

I flashed a smile, which he didn't return, and followed him to his car, hoping that the acquaintance I was hoping to find was still where she was supposed to be, and most of all, that she was still alive...

Okay, I agree, there isn't much action in this chapter, but I didn't expected it to go that way.

I hope you like it anyway ! :)