Content warning: In this chapter, there is a closer engagement with Tacoma's history of suicidal ideation than we've had before.
FIFTEEN: LOVE AND WAR
JODI
The first thing Jodi thinks about is the machine.
Can she get it into the pit? Maybe. She might be able to throw it, or get Lothian to drop it in, but now there are footsteps behind her – and didn't Nick say something about having to run after she set the machine off? She's pretty sure he did. If her escape route is cut off, then it might be too dangerous to try and close the wormhole. Jodi wants this over with, of course, but not at the expense of anyone's life.
The second thing Jodi thinks about is that they might be about to kill her anyway.
She takes a long, deep breath. Lothian and Nikki have already turned around; at some point, she's going to have to join them.
"Okay," she whispers, and turns.
She must have missed them in the dark, but there are construction lights set up along the sides of the hall, their glare impossibly bright after all time skulking in the shadows; in between them, the approaching figures are grey and shadowy, looming like a pack of machoke closing in on a sick deer.
"Oh my God," she murmurs, as her brain starts to adjust to the light and the panic. "That's …"
Is that Deb Franklin? And Sarah, Roy's tail curled around her shoulder. Harry – and God, that's Jacob, fur so silvery now with age that his stripes have all but disappeared. Max Lockwood, whose brother fished Tacoma's corpse out of the Rageriver. Pete Fisher from the mill. Sally Fawkes, who with her husband is renovating that house that's never finished. Dick Jeffries from the post office.
Real people. Just like she was afraid of. Not faceless murderers, not imaginary cult agents, but actual people, people who have populated the stage of Jodi's life since she was a child. She stares, and stares, and as Lothian leaps between them and her with a warning hiss she feels like she might throw up.
Nikki is moving forward too, holding Tacoma's rock back and her other paw forward, claws curled into a vicious fist. Next to her, Lothian spreads his wings with a sharp snap, ears swivelling forward in the very last warning you get before he blasts you.
Tacoma herself is nowhere to be seen.
"All of you," murmurs Jodi, watching them approach. There's young blood here too; that's Victor Orbeck and his donphan, who she remembers from school, and Rusty Bates who was two years above her. Keeping the flame alive for the next generation. "How many of you even are there?"
Ten, as it turns out. There's just one more to come, stepping out from between Victor and Pete with his partner scurrying along at his heels.
He looks at her, and through the dull note of the beast's pain and the uneven roar of the cultists' anger and the uncomplicated animal fury of the pokémon Jodi feels his sorrow cut her to the bone.
"I did everything I could," says Con Wicke. "I got Gabriella to warn you off, I tried to scare you, I showed you how guilty Nick felt, but you just couldn't let it go, could you?"
Jesus fucking Christ, says Tacoma. Him?
Hard to breathe. Hard even to stand. She hears that noise again, the one she heard when her mother told her about Tacoma, and when Charlie said that Nick had been arrested. The one that isn't there but which roars in her ears like a hurricane of flames.
They stare at her, the ten of them and their partners, who love them the way Lothian loves her, and their eyes slice through her nice coat and her eyeshadow and her skirt and her new boots right through to the mess of tortured flesh beneath.
And Jodi cannot say if the sickness scraping the inside of her gut is theirs or hers.
"I'm sorry about your cane," Con tells her. He has a gun, Jodi sees: his police pistol, held casually at his side. Like he thinks maybe she won't notice. "I know that was a low blow, and I don't want you to think that I'm the kind of man who does that. But I was desperate. I just thought, if you were a little more afraid …" He sighs. "None of us wanted this, you know."
Jodi says nothing. There is no breath left in the world to speak with.
"Nothing to say for yourself?" Pity, not anger. His friends are angry, some of them – Victor, Deb, Dick – but not him. "I've tried to be patient with you. You just wanted to do the right thing, after all. That's admirable, really. And I'll admit, I'm partly to blame here. I shouldn't have got you involved. I was looking to keep the Ecruteak detectives out of this, but it was a miscalculation, I know."
His voice is so reasonable, so calm. He believes every word. Jodi thinks that maybe she does too, except that these are his emotions, not hers, aren't they? Or are they? It's so hard to tell, because after all she is so dumb sometimes, so misguided; look at her, standing here with a cigarette tin in her hand, thinking she can throw it in the wormhole and end this.
"You liked Tacoma," says Con. "You clearly need help that you aren't getting. I understand that, Alex. But you've forced our hand."
She really has, hasn't she? It's all her fault. Her fault for persisting with this investigation, for her asinine insistence that she is a girl―
Asshole, growls Tacoma, out of nowhere. Don't let them get to you, Jodi. They know you're an empath. This is deliberate.
Jodi starts.
"Huh?" she murmurs. "But …"
I told you once already, didn't I? You're fucking gorgeous.
Tacoma's mind howls with faith, a huge angry lioness of a feeling that sets itself between Jodi and the cultists the way that Nikki and Lothian have done, claws out, fangs bared. Jodi stares at it for a moment, uncomprehending – and then all at once the world slams back down into place around her with a crash.
She looks at Con, at Deb glaring, at Victor with his face like he's smelled something bad. She looks at all of them, these people who think they can decide who lives and who dies, and she says:
"My name is Jodi, Con. I think we've established that already."
Right on cue, Lothian hisses sharply, flicking his wings several intimidating feet outwards and making Moira leap back to Con's side, cheeks sparking.
You tell him, says Tacoma. God. You had me worried there for a second.
"You're still sticking to that, huh," says Con.
Behind him, Dick scoffs, and Deb shakes her head. Their minds make a symphony of spite, ten sickly notes of mistrust and revulsion chiming out above the bassline of the beast's pain – but Tacoma is here, and Lothian and Nikki, and though they can't quite crush the ache in her bones their fierce love is more than enough to keep the cultists' emotions at bay.
"Look, there's no need to get defensive," Con says, half-raising a hand in some semi-formed gesture. "Let's be civil here, all right?"
"Civil? You're murderers, and you're asking me to be civil?"
"You don't know a damn thing about what you're talking about," snaps Deb all of a sudden, her pidgey flaring his wings on her shoulder. "We are the only reason this town hasn't gone under―"
"So killing random people is your civic duty, is that it?"
"Enough, both of you," says Con sharply. "Listen, Alex, you have two options here. You can keep mouthing off until you start a fight, at which point you get yourself and your pokémon killed. They're strong, I know, but you're not a trainer, and without proper direction they're not going to be able to take all of us at once. Or you can listen for a minute, and we can settle this like adults."
He's right, says Tacoma. And I think he's realised that you can't set the machine off yet either, 'cause otherwise you'd have done it already.
So? asks Jodi, trying hard to look like she's thinking over Con's ultimatum.
So keep him talking. The only thing he hasn't planned for is a vengeful spiritomb. But we're only gonna be able to surprise him once. Trying to think of how and when.
She is terrified, Jodi can tell – but there is nothing at all in her voice but anger. Under better circumstances, it might make Jodi proud to see her this driven; right now, however, that kind of positivity is a little hard to come by.
"Fine, then," she says, glaring at Con over the arch of Lothian's wings. "I'm listening, Con. What have you got that's so important to say?"
"Don't you take that tone with us, you little―"
"Dick," says Con warningly. "Come on now. He's a kid."
"'S a fucking pervert, is what he is," growls Dick. It's almost funny, really. This is the same tone of voice he uses to complain about kids loitering in the street, or the way radio is worse than it was in his day, or the scandalous length of girls' skirts these days. Except that honestly it isn't really funny at all. "Let's have an end to this, Con."
At least she's getting them riled – as well from Dick and Deb, Victor and Max are looking restless too. They're more likely to make mistakes like this, right? But Con's the important one, and he still seems so calm. Just like the cop he is.
"I have to agree," says Max. "We're not going to come to an understanding here. Better just to end this and get some sleep at least."
He steps forward as he speaks, and then hurriedly back again as Nikki snarls, eyes flashing. Moira darts forward again, apparently less afraid of her than of Lothian – but before things can go any further there is the sound of something huge shifting and the roar of the beast rolls out overhead, with a wet slapping sound that has to be the forks of that grotesque tongue pounding on the walls of the pit.
The pokémon hate it. Deb's pidgey rockets off to the other end of the hall; Victor's donphan trumpets loudly and stamps his heavy feet. Even Jacob shrinks back a little, as if he could hide his massive bulk behind Harry. Nikki just freezes up, eyes rolling in their sockets, and Lothian squeals like a stuck pig – but there's nowhere left to run now, and with their partners in trouble they don't even consider backing down.
"You'd best keep those two in line," says Con. He hasn't reacted at all; none of the cultists have. Jodi supposes they must hear this all the time. "Our mutual friend doesn't like loud noises."
"Yeah?" Keep him talking, Tacoma said: well, here's something to talk about. "What is it, anyway?"
"Now that's more like it," says Con. "Conversation, not confrontation."
So fucking condescending, mutters Tacoma. She's right, Jodi realises. It's difficult to tell sometimes, with ten minds pushing at hers, but Con is being a jerk. She does her best to cling to Tacoma's words, to absorb her feelings in place of Con's, and feels the angry little flame inside her swell in response.
"It's for the town, like I said." Deb's pidgey is fluttering back now; she holds out her hand as she speaks and he settles himself nervously on her wrist. "I don't know what you think we are, but this isn't a cult. We keep that thing fed because of what it does for us."
"You can't have missed that these are hard times," says Con, like he's talking to a child. "The mill barely made it through the war, for a start. Over in Blackthorn, they've closed the mines already. But Mahogany's clung on, just about. It's because we have something nobody else does."
"In my grandfather's day, they worshipped it," adds Harry, with the same genial smile he uses to greet people at the station. "Of course, we know better now – modern times, after all."
"But it can't be denied it has an energy to it," explains Con. "You're a sensitive kid, Alex, and you've travelled some. You must have felt it. How this town is different to others? How it feels like home?"
Jodi doesn't like the light in his eyes. It isn't even faith, really; that would be acceptable, even if horrible. But what she's getting from him is the grim satisfaction of a man undertaking a painful duty. He hates this, doesn't he? But he's the Chief of Police. Mahogany is his town. And if this is what it takes, then this is what he will do.
"It is home," she says, voice guarded. "So you know …"
"Not just for you. Doc Ishihara. Byrne Winter. Gabriella. Your own father, Alex. People come here, and something about it catches them."
"My dad stayed because of Mum―"
"And what made her special?" asks Con. "Nobody can leave this place. Nick and Sam were told never to come back, and look at them. They just couldn't stay away."
Nick came back for his family, protests Tacoma. It's not … how does he not see that? How do any of them believe this shit?
"The beast must be fed," says Deb. She says it with such conviction, such confidence, that for a moment Jodi catches herself thinking duh, of course and has to concentrate again on driving Deb's mind out of hers. "Now more than ever. We can't let what luck is left dry up now."
"We've still got the mill," says Dick, and the note of desperation in his voice makes Jodi's breath catch. "They lost the mines in Blackthorn, but we've got the mill."
It can't be real, can it?
You of all people don't need telling that people do terrible things when they're afraid, said Nick.
Yes. Yes, it absolutely could be real.
"That's your excuse," she mutters, disbelieving. "That's your … That's why you killed all those people? Mae and everyone? To feed this poor thing you have trapped here because you think it can – what, buck up the economy?"
"I don't expect you to understand." Con still refuses to react. Almost everyone else is glaring mutinously at her now, but as far as Jodi can tell his self-control hasn't even wavered once. "The mill, it― you have to be able to see the bigger picture. You're young. You don't―"
"Care," finishes Jodi. "I don't care, Con. Even if you're right, even if this thing is lucky somehow, you can't murder people. That's all you are. Murderers."
"That's enough," snaps Dick. "Con, how long are we supposed to stand there and listen to this horseshit?"
"Yeah." Deb narrows her eyes. "We do this town a service, Alex. We take care of things that don't belong here, and we keep the mill afloat. If you don't have sense enough to be grateful …"
The mill, the mill, the mill. They keep saying it like it means anything, as if the fact that it isn't out of business just yet is some kind of signal from the divine. As if they really believe that luck can be bought with blood.
Deb shakes her head.
"We all know how this is going to end," she says. "Let's get it over with."
"Fine, then," says Jodi coldly, as Lothian slaps his tail angrily against the ground and sets the beast moaning in its hole. "Let's cut to the chase, then. Was it you who killed Tacoma, Con, or was it Harry?"
A reaction at last: Con seizes up, very nearly takes a step back; at his side, Moira blinks and rubs up against his leg, but he barely seems to notice.
Jodi knows then, even before he speaks. She can feel it gushing from him like blood from an unhealed wound. But when he finally says it, she still finds herself frozen with shock.
"It … was an accident," he says softly. "I told Moira to stun, but she – she's getting old, and she …"
It's like someone screaming in her ear, wordless fury that does not admit any response but stunned silence. An accident. It was Con, and his senile raichu misinterpreted his command. Thunder wave, thunderbolt, what's the difference? Nine thousand volts, give or take. And a dead girl carrying a stone that just needed one last soul to come back to life.
Tacoma's mind is dizzyingly empty. Jodi reaches out, tentative, and gets a one-word response:
Motherfucker.
"Yeah," she murmurs, too taken aback for telepathy. "Yeah …"
"It was never meant to happen," Con says desperately. "Don't you see? Tacoma was a good kid. She had prospects."
Jodi isn't listening. She's caught up in the working of her thoughts, this new piece of information slithering in to take its place alongside the others.
"You needed to hide the body," she says. "And you knew Nick was working against you again …"
"I found the cabin." Max this time. "It's my cousin who rented it to him. We knew all along. His rock, his schemes. When Tacoma died―"
"When Con killed her," Jodi corrects, and as Con flinches she senses a sudden vicious delight catch fire in Tacoma's mind.
"―Con got her back here, and we came up with a plan," Max continues, as if she hadn't spoken. "Feeding Tacoma to the beast seemed inappropriate."
"Her family, you know," says Harry, and his sympathy is so genuine that Jodi almost screams. "She was very well loved. It would have been barbaric to keep the body from them."
Con still hasn't spoken. He stands there, back ramrod-straight, face pale.
"None of us wanted to see her gone," says Sarah. "She was such a promising young thing. We aren't monsters. We only take those who won't be missed."
How can they say these things? How can they stand there and say this to her face like that? She tries to protest, to point out that Sam missed Mae, but her voice is so weak with shock that nobody even seems to notice that she's spoken.
"We made the best of a bad situation," says Harry, shrugging. "The Spearings got a funeral―"
"―and Nick's project was shut down," finishes Sarah. "We planted Tacoma's bag near his cabin, and Con guided the police towards it. Except that you got there first, didn't you? And stole his little toys, it seems. Naughty boy."
"Yeah," mutters Con, unfreezing at last. "Yeah, that's – that's right. We did what we could. None of us wanted this to happen. Alex, you have to believe―"
"Why do I have to believe you?" cries Jodi, finding her voice. "Can you even hear anything you're saying? You―"
"That's enough." Con swallows, squares his shoulders. "I don't know what I expected from you. Maybe I thought you'd understand – psychic and all. But you're just a bloody child."
"What …"
Con raises his gun, holding it carefully in both hands, and Jodi's voice dies in her throat.
"I don't think we can come to an agreement," he tells her. His voice sounds strange, but she can't look at his face to see why; she can't even take her eyes off the little black eye of the gun. "Toss your poké balls over here, Alex. Now."
"You think you're faster than Lothian?"
Her voice comes from somewhere outside her. It doesn't sound anything like she remembers it.
"I think that you're not stupid enough to put that to the test," says Con. "Not with so many others here to get involved." His gun never moves, like the carved revolver of the soldier on the Goldenrod war memorial. "Poké balls. Now."
Lothian recognises the words, shrills his protest. Nobody seems intimidated; they can see which way the wind is blowing.
"You're just going to kill me anyway."
God knows why she says it, but it comes out like a threat, like it's something she can hit him with. Behind the gun, Con's mouth compresses down to a short, dark line.
"Yes," he says. "I am."
His voice is quiet, but the starkness of his words rings horribly in the air. Jodi hears a weird noise, like something small drowning alone in the dark, and a second later realises that she is the one who made it.
And then, out of nowhere, Tacoma speaks.
Jodi. Calm as unbroken ice. Do you trust me?
Yes …?
Do what he says.
Jodi does not question her. She wants to – but she wasn't lying, she does trust her, and so she does not question her and just puts Nick's machine in her pocket so she can take out the balls instead.
"That's it," says Con. "Over here."
She throws them. Nikki and Lothian follow the balls with their eyes, and for one awful endless second she can feel the panic roaring off them – and then Deb and Victor scoop them up and the two of them vanish in the same flash of light.
Tacoma's rock hits the floor with a crack. Behind her, the beast growls at the sudden noise.
"In my pocket," says Con, without taking his eyes off Jodi. "Clamps."
A poké ball can't hold an unwilling pokémon for long, especially strong ones like these two – but there are ways and means. The clamps cops use on your partners when they arrest you will keep anything short of a berserk gyarados trapped for a couple of hours, at least. Jodi watches Deb and Victor attach them to the balls, and hopes that Tacoma knows what she's doing.
Con's expression never changes.
"Bring me the rock and the machine," he says.
Jodi starts.
"It's on the floor," she begins, but nobody answers, and she doesn't finish. She can't fight. She just has to trust Tacoma. Because Tacoma said to do what Con says, and Tacoma is the smart one, and …
You're doing great, she tells her. Her voice is not quite level, not any more, but she's trying. C'mon, Jodi. I need you to put me in his hand.
That black eye stares, unblinking. Con clears his throat.
Jodi swallows.
Okay, she says, forcing herself to take a step towards him. I trust you.
It's so hard, walking towards these people, that gun. What if he just shoots her now? What if Tacoma has miscalculated? What if his finger slips and the gun goes off and it ends, right here, right now, all that effort and all those sleepless nights obliterated in a single concussive instant, and they feed her to their idol because she's not like Tacoma, not an asset to the town, and her parents and her sister don't even have the comfort of a funeral – what if that? What if that right this moment?
"We don't have all night," says Deb. "Get on with it."
Forget it. She trusts Tacoma. And Tacoma said to do it, so Jodi plants her cane and bends down as far as she can, straining to reach. It is slow, and it is inelegant, but there is a gun pointed at her head and a raichu and a donphan and an electivire, and at any moment there could be an explosion and her mutant brain could turn to crumbs of meatloaf―
It's okay, Jodi. Something pushing at her mind: a feeling, some clumsy effort on Tacoma's part at mimicking Jodi's soothing vibe. It's mostly just a non-verbal I'm here, but the effort itself is touching, encouraging. Just give me to him. And be ready.
I trust you. For some reason, Jodi can't seem to say anything else. I trust you …
A few terrible seconds of straining and grasping. She does manage to pick it up, but it slips through her fingers almost immediately and she looks up apologetically into the barrel of the gun.
"I'm sorry," she says, hating herself for conceding. "It's on the floor …"
Nobody answers. She looks at them a moment longer, at all those faces staring at her weakness, and feels the snarl of Tacoma's anger swell into a roar.
Keep going, she says, struggling now to keep the soothing tone. You're nearly there.
Jodi isn't. It takes her a long time to get the rock off the ground, and then longer still to unbend herself with its weight hanging from her hand. She leans heavily on her cane for a moment, gasping for breath, then at a sharp word from Con starts to limp slowly towards him.
"Here," she says, sullenly. "Have it."
She holds out the rock. Con looks at it for a moment, then takes it.
"Okay," he says. "Now the―"
Showtime, growls Tacoma, and the shadows in the room begin to move.
How she's doing this Jodi has no idea. The lights go out one by one, from the exit down to the pit: one two three four five, the darkness racing closer and closer as the cultists turn and stare and swear – and then it swallows them all and in that moment, as everything descends into a sightless shouting panic, green light blossoms in the dark and Tacoma lurches straight into Con's face.
"Hey, Con!" she yells, and his terror explodes out of him so hard it almost knocks Jodi off her feet. "Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me."
He cries out, and Jodi sees Tacoma move as he thrusts her away – but she refuses to be dropped, keeps pushing herself towards him with a caustic fury that seems to singe the world where it touches, and then something cracks like a whip and Con's panicked mind lurches several feet upwards into the air.
"You're dead," he jabbers. "I saw them burn you, you're―"
"I got better." Tacoma's voice is huge, deep. The voice of a giant. What's happening to her? Jodi stares as hard as she can through the dark and sees nothing but the vague movement of some huge shape that cannot possibly be Tacoma's disc. "I could kill you," she tells him. "But you know what? I think I'd rather testify."
The thump of someone hitting the ground, hard, and then the skittering rattle of an object – a gun? – being kicked away.
"Nah," says Tacoma. "Don't think so."
An impact. Con wheezes, breathless, and somewhere about twelve feet up Jodi sees the light of Tacoma's eyes as she turns.
"I'll have our partners back, too," she says. Someone – Deb? – shrieks; the dark shifts, like deep water disturbed by carnivorous fish, and Tacoma turns her blazing eyes on Jodi.
"Red button, blue button," she says. "You wanna do the honours?"
Jodi's face feels odd. It takes her a moment to push through the shock and realise that she's smiling.
"Yeah," she replies. "Yeah, I actually kinda would."
"Hold tight, then."
"Wait, what are you gonna― oh my God!"
Jodi has never been swept off her feet before, and she really wasn't expecting it to happen any time soon, but there it is: she's in Tacoma's arms (arms?) now, a little dizzy and a lot startled. That's a body she's being held against. When did Tacoma get a body? How, for that matter?
"Hold tight," says Tacoma, half sick, half exultant, and as Jodi clutches desperately at her neck the two of them surge towards the pit without touching the ground. Jodi shrieks – but almost before she has opened her mouth they are already there, staring down through the faint glimmering of the crystal maze into that horrifying mouth.
There is just enough light trapped in the broken spacetime to see the beast staring back, tugging fruitlessly at its trapped hands. Its tongues slap wetly against the edges of the wormhole, unable to quite reach the morsel there at the top.
Jodi watches it for a second, fumbling in her pocket for Nick's machine. It really is just an animal, isn't it? Or something like one, anyway. Not a god, not a monster – just some poor starving creature, far from home. Maybe it doesn't make sense to her, but it probably does to whoever lives in the universe it came from.
She holds the machine out over the pit, fighting the pain in her bones, and the forks of the beast's tongue strain upwards, desperate.
"You're free," she calls, thumbing the buttons. "Get home safe, you hear?"
She lets go, and the device starts to fall – fast at first, then slower, and slower still, the air growing thick and treacly around it. The beast reaches out hungrily with its tongue-pincers, but something about the uncanny aura seems to repel it; it tries to touch it, pulls back sharply, tries and fails again. Jodi watches, mesmerised, and then―
The lights come back on.
Is it that Tacoma's concentration slips? Her anger runs out? Jodi has no idea. But she looks up, startled, and as the dark disappears she sees the hulking creature holding her start to shrink. The shadows bleed from Tacoma in gouts, fleeing back to the walls; she gasps, dwindles, and a moment later is something like her old self again, a vague humanoid shape in purple fog.
Jodi's eyes are so wide it almost hurts. That's Tacoma. That's actually her. A little more purple and a little softer around the edges than Jodi remembers, but it's not a swirling disc, it's her, almost exactly as she appeared inside the tower.
It's just so sudden, and she's just so cool. Jodi stares up into her face, and Tacoma stares down into hers, and then without either of them having to say anything they both turn to look down the hall at the cultists.
They are scattered all around the room, depending on which direction they thought the exit was in when the lights went out. But now they're turning, looking at them, and Jodi has a horrible feeling that without the dark and the surprise and the being twelve feet tall, Tacoma is nowhere near as scary as she was thirty seconds ago.
Con is hunched against the wall behind Moira, white and shaking. He isn't getting up again any time soon, judging by the blank pain resonating through his mind. But Max is scratching his head, his lips forming the word ghost, and Sarah is letting go of Harry's arm, and Victor is soothing his donphan, eyes locked on Jodi's face.
"Tacoma?" she asks. "I don't think they're gonna stay shocked for long …"
"Yeah," says Tacoma. Her voice is normal again now, the booming echo gone with the dark. "I gotcha."
She shoves the two clamped poké balls into Jodi's pocket, then tightens her grip and breaks into an awkward run, weaving between the scattered cultists like a cyclist through traffic. Behind them they leave silence, and then murmuring – and then, when the floor starts to tremble and the wormhole to crackle and whine, shouting and footsteps.
Jodi loops both arms firmly around Tacoma's neck.
"I think they're coming," she whispers, all too aware that this is not a helpful thing to say. "I think …"
"I know," says Tacoma, without looking at her. She doesn't sound breathless at all. Maybe she never will again. "I don't know if it matters. They know where you live."
Jodi hadn't even thought of that. Where are they going to hide? Where can they even hide, that these people won't find them? She imagines skipping town, heading back to her flat in Goldenrod and never seeing her parents again. Or Ella. Or Charlie.
The beast's pain spikes inside her suddenly, and then disappears. The whining of the wormhole goes with it.
"I think the portal just closed," she says.
Tacoma just keeps running.
Jodi supposes that there probably isn't much else she can do.
They pick up speed further along, where the lighting is worse; there the dark answers Tacoma's call, buoys her up and lets her for a fleeting second here or there fly rather than run, before her power runs out and she is dropped back down on the stones. The first time, Jodi gasps and clings to her tighter, but after two or three more it becomes commonplace, just something Tacoma can do now, and she starts worrying about what happens next again.
Tacoma never takes her eyes off the passage ahead, but in her arms, Jodi has all too many opportunities to look back. Max and Victor are the fastest, the pounding of their footsteps steadily inching towards them – but the real threat is the pokémon. Victor's donphan trumpets loudly and flings itself forward, curling up into a huge rubbery wheel that rumbles towards them far faster than seems possible for a creature of its size. Jodi watches its tusks spinning, winking in the fitful light, and as it bears down upon them cries out on the left―
The shadows gather around them and Tacoma swoops to the right in the blink of an eye, leaving the donphan to shoot past and smash heavily into a column, sending clouds of dust rolling across the room and making Jodi duck behind Tacoma's shoulder to protect her eyes from flying chips of stone. When she looks up again he is back on his feet, lumbering out of the dust cloud in search of his target, and as his piggy eyes meet hers Jodi flinches. He really wants them dead. It's so rare for a partnered pokémon to actually be willing to kill a human but he really really wants them―
"Left again!" she hears herself yell, and Tacoma shadow sneaks them out of harm's way a second time, cutting it so fine that Jodi feels the wind of the donphan's passage ruffle her hair. Her hand moves of its own accord, searching her pocket for the poké balls – but of course there's no help to be had there. You need a special key to get those clamps off. Until their partners manage to smash their way out, it's all on Tacoma.
"Nearly there!" says Tacoma, and Jodi tears her eyes away from the recovering donphan to see the exit to the staircase, up ahead on the right. When did they even turn the corner? Jodi could have sworn they hadn't reached the crossroads yet, but apparently they're nearly out – except that Deb's pidgey is here now, twittering and beating his wings, and blades of air slice viciously into Tacoma's back, pulling her fog apart in misty shreds. She gasps, stumbles, but Jodi concentrates, reaches out, and a second later grits her teeth as her own back explodes in a riot of pain.
"I got you," she mutters. "Let me take the pain, you just – ngh – get us outta here."
Tacoma looks like she wants to argue, but doesn't; she nods, keeps going, and as the pidgey screams his fury again and fires another gust into her shoulder Jodi steals the pain once more, the muscles of her arm shrieking in protest. She cries out – grips Tacoma tighter – the donphan springs forward out of the settling dust―
Tacoma flings herself into the stairwell, and the donphan crashes into the door jamb hard enough to send cracks racing across the stone. He uncurls again, trumpeting irately, but he can't manage the stairs and now Victor is here, fumbling for a ball to get him out the way―
"Tacoma!" yells Jodi. "Go!"
It's dark in here: again, Tacoma can kind of fly, each stride taking her up three steps or more. But she's still struggling under Jodi's weight and trying not to crash into the walls, and Victor is much fitter and has no one to slow him down, and he is right there and the pidgey keeps striking, turning Jodi's back into a painful mess with empathetic vibration, and that's Victor's hand swiping through Tacoma's substance, reaching for Jodi – but there's the exit, there's the greyish square that marks the end, and with a sudden burst of energy Tacoma shadow sneaks the last yard and a half, right the way through the stockroom to the door. But who's―?
"Someone's here!" cries Jodi. "Tacoma, look out―!"
A sudden dazzling light, blasting the shadow-strength out of her in an instant; Tacoma staggers heavily back against a shelf, cans tumbling all around her, and someone grabs Jodi's arm.
"Let go of her," the stranger snarls. "You―!"
"No!" Jodi clings to Tacoma as tight as she can. "No, it's―"
"Tacoma?"
The light fades away, dies back down into an upraised paw. Through the watering of her eyes, Jodi sees something pink and fluffy – and at its side, a brawny woman with her hand on Jodi's arm.
"What the," begins Sam, and then as Deb's pidgey flutters out of the stairway shakes her head. "Never mind. You two – out, now. Morgan, deal with this."
Tacoma needs no encouragement. She's out of the room even before Sam's done talking; behind her, she hears Morgan jingle and then a sudden sharp whoosh that makes the pidgey scream and fall. A chime – a crash – the bellowing of the donphan―
Out into the night, ducking around the side of the building towards the front. Something pale and ghostly dives past them, and from inside the store Jodi hears the ululating scream of a wingull given free rein to indulge his violent tendencies.
"Sam," she gasps, staring over Tacoma's shoulder at the doorway. "Are those two―?"
"Other bastards need to worry, not them," she replies tersely. "Into the car. Now. Before they figure out what's goin' on. Gabs!"
"On it!" calls another familiar voice, and without quite knowing where she came from Jodi sees Gabriella diving through a car door, scrambling for keys.
"Quickly!" yells Sam, wrenching open the back door. "In!"
Tacoma thrusts Jodi along the far seat, jumps in after her. Her cane gets dropped in the process, but Tacoma snatches it up and shoves it into Jodi's lap.
"Lothian?" asks Gabriella. "Where?"
"Ball," cries Jodi. "He's right here."
Sam whistles sharply. White light explodes out of the doorway, followed by Victor's donphan and what looks like a small tsunami; the donphan hits the wall of the hardware store, bricks smashing all around him, and does not get back up. Morgan skips cheerfully out after him, Jack fluttering above her head, and the second they jump in onto Sam's lap Gabriella guns the engine and the chase fades away behind them into the silent dark of a Mahogany night.
So quiet. Four hearts racing in unison at the back of Jodi's head. It feels like the world has ended, but of course it's only the pursuit.
Tacoma looks at her. She is dark and her hair swirls around her head in spiralling curls and she is so bloody beautiful.
"Jodi," she says.
"Yeah?" says Jodi.
"Is it okay if I―?"
"Absolutely," says Jodi, eager, embarrassed, and as their lips meet she feels like she is flying, her love and Tacoma's colliding in her head and fusing with a blast that shakes her skull to its foundations. It pours out of her in nuclear torrents, flooding the car, the street, the town, the world; as the wave breaks over Sam, she laughs and slaps the dashboard, too caught up in the rush to care that Tacoma is meant to be dead.
"Told you," she says triumphantly.
Gabriella sighs.
"Yes, all right," she says, though she can't keep herself from smiling. "Honestly, Miss Spade. Sometimes you're just insufferable."
It comes out, as they drive through town. When she heard about Nick's arrest, Gabriella knew something must have gone wrong with his plan, and she went up to the station that afternoon to bat her eyelashes at Con and extract from him a few minutes alone with his prisoner on the pretext of concern for Annie. That was when she learned what Nick had said to Jodi, and so after she was done asking him what the hell he thought he was playing at sending children to the chapter house, she came back home and spoke to Sam – who, by fortunate coincidence, was just finishing up work on Janine Williams' car.
"So we had a way in and a getaway vehicle that they wouldn't know was ours," says Gabriella, glancing back at them in the rear-view mirror. "And a pretty strong suspicion you wouldn't wait for a better night. You wanted to save Nick, right? You and … and Tacoma."
Neither of them have asked about her yet. Jodi is grateful – as is Tacoma, by the feel of it. Tacoma would probably also feel bad about it, but given that they kissed just five minutes ago and are now holding hands, Jodi is pretty confident that Tacoma's mood will hold for a while.
"Yeah," she says, a little awkwardly. "We, um, we did. But we did do it, though. His plan? I don't know if he told you about the wormhole …"
"Yes, he did." Gabriella sighs. "I can't believe he asked you to do that."
"It worked. I think. The monster is gone. And …" Jodi sighs. "And I think Con will confess. If me and Tacoma go down to the station―"
"Wait, Con?" asks Sam, incredulous. "Are you kiddin' me?"
"No. It's – it's a long story."
"Which we will leave for now," says Gabriella firmly. "Tonight, we're just going home."
"Thank you," says Jodi. "I think seeing Tacoma destroyed him, honestly. If we tell the other cops … well, I just hope it's enough to take the others down with him."
"I hope so." Gabriella's eyes meet hers in the rear-view mirror, checking again that she's okay, that nobody hurt her. Which in the end nobody did, apart from herself. Taking Tacoma's pain will have triggered a psychosomatic response and by morning Jodi's back will be covered in bruises, but it's okay. Everything is, right now. She is holding Tacoma's hand and everything is so okay it almost hurts.
"Hang on," she says, glancing out of the window. "My house was that way?"
"You just pissed off a bunch of murderers," says Sam, trying unconvincingly to give the impression that she isn't curious to know more about Con. "And they all know where you live. Better not, eh?"
"Where …?"
"Petrol station," says Gabriella. "Stay with us tonight, and in the morning we'll call your parents and do some investigating of our own."
"See what the mood is like," agrees Sam. "I ain't sending you home if you're just gonna get killed."
"Oh." Of course. No story ever just ends, does it? There's no such thing as a final confrontation. Turn the page, and all you find is the start of another chapter. "Um … thanks."
"We should be the ones thanking you." Gabriella shakes her head. "I can't believe you did it."
"It was Nick really," says Jodi. "He made the machine. And then Tacoma got us out of there―"
"Wouldn't have been able to do it without you," says Tacoma, and something in Jodi's chest flutters to hear it. "Kind of embarrassing. Big scary ghost pokémon and I almost get killed by a dumb pidgey."
Pause. Sam and Gabriella exchange a brief look, over the heads of their partners. There are questions here, but they are too kind to ask them right now.
"I'm sorry, I never said," Gabriella tells her. "But it's good to see you again, Tacoma."
Much to everyone's surprise, Tacoma smiles.
"It's good to be back," she says. "It's so goddamn good to be back."
"Here you go," says Gabriella, setting two cups of coffee down on the kitchen table. "Obviously hot chocolate would be better, but we don't have any, I'm afraid. We do have brandy, though. So if you'd like …"
"Oh God, yes," says Jodi. "Um, sorry, but d'you have a cigarette, too?"
Gabriella laughs.
"Sam lives here," she says, pouring a generous slug of brandy into each cup. "So yes, I think we might just about be able to find one somewhere. Hang on a moment."
She goes off in search of Sam, leaving Jodi and Tacoma at the table. Lothian glances after her, then up at Jodi, in case Gabriella's absence means he's allowed to climb on the table and get closer to his partner; Jodi tells him no, and he returns his head to her lap instead. He and Nikki are back now, after Sam applied a little ingenuity and several power tools to the clamps on their balls, and both seem much more concerned about making sure their partners are safe and unhurt than they are about the way Tacoma has suddenly acquired a body. Lothian almost screamed Sam unconscious after she released him, not realising the fight was over, and Nikki hasn't let go of Tacoma's arm since she figured out she had an arm to hold.
"Do you think you can drink this?" Jodi asks, looking across at the two of them.
"Dunno," says Tacoma, picking up her mug. The fog of her hand is splattered with green light, dripping from her smashed knuckles. Jodi hopes they heal. How do physical injuries even work for ghosts? "Let's find out."
She takes a sip. Jodi watches the dark stain of the coffee spread inside her face, dissolve into her fog, and as Tacoma lowers her cup the two of them smile in unison.
"Nice," says Jodi. "That's so good."
It's meaningless, happy little words that come out without anything behind them except the effervescent delight of being here, safe, with Tacoma and their partners and the future that they glimpsed there in the back of that semi-stolen car.
"Yeah," says Tacoma. "It really is."
"Here you are." Gabriella is back, holding a pack of cigarettes; she offers them to Jodi and Tacoma and then takes one herself. Lothian withdraws reluctantly from Jodi's lap, aware that this is a signal his human is about to make the smoke he hates again, and a moment later Nikki follows suit, flaring her nostrils in distaste. "Let me get a match – Sam normally has Morgan light hers, so―"
"It's fine." Tacoma snaps her fingers, and watches Gabriella jump as purple flames erupt at the tip of each cigarette. "'M a spooky-ass ghost, so you know."
"Huh." Gabriella inspects the cigarette, smouldering violet between her fingers, then takes a tentative drag on it. "Okay," she says, emboldened. "I bet that comes in handy."
"Yeah," says Tacoma. "It does."
Three plumes of smoke. Sips of brandy-laced coffee. Jack on the counter, feathers fluffed up and single eye closed.
Jodi could cry at how lovely it is, she really could. But instead she just blows a smoke ring, and watches Jack start up into wakefulness to snap at it and see if it can be murdered.
"Heya, cats and kittens," says Sam, coming back in with Morgan. "Did the sheets, so Gabs' room is ready for you. She's graciously lettin' you have it for tonigh―"
"Oh, save it, handsome," says Gabriella, sounding tired. "I really don't think we need to fake it right now."
Sam shrugs.
"Fair enough," she says. "In which case, you two have the room where we keep Gabs' shit. Watch out for the bucket. There's a leak."
"Charming as ever," says Gabriella drily, putting her arm around Sam's waist. "Come here, you."
It's hard not to stare. Jodi has only in the last couple of weeks become aware that she likes girls as well as boys, but she's known about Sam and Gabriella for years and years, and of course she's dipped her toes in Goldenrod's gay scene. Still, here's something strange and arresting about seeing these affections on display in Mahogany, in the yellow light of a small-town kitchen after midnight, something that makes her heart swell even larger than it was before.
This really could work, couldn't it? It works for Sam and Gabbi, so it could work for them too. This ridiculous, impractical thing that has been growing inside her all this time could actually – and they could really―
The future is too huge and scary to think about right now, after the night she's had. She pushes it away and reaches out for Tacoma's hand instead.
"Thank you," she says, as Tacoma reaches back and grips tight. "Seriously, I don't even know how to―"
Sam holds up a hand for peace.
"Forget about it," she says. "We're just glad you're not dead."
"We haven't even explained …"
"It's fine," says Gabriella. "It can wait until morning. Really." She stubs her cigarette out on a saucer, and as if sensing Jodi's wonder reaches up to smooth the collar of Sam's shirt and prove that this really is something that can exist in the world. "Go on. You must be even more tired than I am."
She is, honestly, and so is Tacoma. It takes a while to get Lothian and Nikki to let go of them, but after a while they seem to work out that their partners want to go to bed and move out of the way long enough for them to make it over to the room. It's small, and cold, and most of it is taken up by a crumbling shelving unit full of the detritus of someone else's life, but it's clean, and the bed looks comfortable, if narrow.
"No, Lothi," says Jodi, as he immediately decides to stick his head in the bucket to see what's in there. "Leave that alone." He sneezes, pulls his head out, and sits down next to the bed, yawning widely.
"Nice to see they've calmed down a bit," says Sam from the doorway, watching Nikki lean back on her tail to look around the room. "Right. We'll leave you to it."
"Goodnight," says Gabriella. "Bathroom's just opposite."
"Okay," says Jodi. "Um … do you have a razor or anything? For tomorrow?"
"Ah." Gabriella blinks the slow blink of a woman realising something she feels like she should have known already. "I'll find one first thing in the morning," she says. "I think we have some of those little travel shaving kits in the store."
"Thank you. Sorry to be a bother."
"No bother at all, Jodi. Sleep well."
"Thanks, Gabbi. See you tomorrow."
"Night, kids," says Sam, her voice hovering deliciously between mockery and affection, and then at last the door is closed and the two of them are alone.
The bed is kind of low. Tacoma holds out her arm without being asked, and Jodi uses it to lower herself carefully onto the mattress. A moment later, Tacoma joins her, a huge comforting mass of seething fog.
It must feel strange for her, having this new body. Maybe Jodi can help with that. Without hesitation, she leans in close and rests her head on Tacoma's shoulder.
"I haven't said thank you yet," she says. "You saved my life. Again."
"Again?"
"You called the ranger."
"Oh. Right." Ouch. That might not have been the best thing to mention. "Well, uh … you're welcome. You're cool. You know?"
"Says the coolest kid in town."
"Hmph," says Tacoma, clearly unable to decide whether to be pleased or upset. "Dunno about that. Don't even know what I am, now." She nods at the mirror across the room, on one of the shelves. Her mirror-self looks back at them: a human head on an almost-human body, its edges soft and ill-defined. The face is right, though; it looks exactly like Tacoma's did in life. Her hair has a mind of its own, its curls shifting and twisting like her disc did before, but even so, it's definitely her. "Not sure how I did … this."
"About that," says Jodi. "I kinda have a theory."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Jodi is sort of surprised Tacoma hasn't worked it out herself already; the study of pokémon is her thing, after all. She fidgets with her cane, considering where to start, and says: "You remember what the Pokédex said? Spiritomb hate people, 'cause of how they're made. But – and correct me if I'm wrong here – I think that maybe you actually kind of like at least one person?"
It comes out more hesitant than she wanted, but maybe that's okay, because it makes Tacoma smile and put a nervous arm around Jodi's waist.
"Yeah," she says. "You, uh, might be onto something there."
"Right," says Jodi, pretending not to care about how much she's blushing. "And there are some pokémon that evolve when they get close to their partners, right?"
Tacoma starts.
"So you think …?"
"I think that nobody has ever made friends with a spiritomb before," says Jodi. "So nobody has ever found this out. But now …" She gestures at Tacoma's chest. Through the translucence of the fog, she can see the rock hanging where her heart would be, its surface riven with innumerable cracks. "Your rock is in there," she says. "I don't know if you can see. But it looks like it's broken, and I'm willing to bet it can't really hold you back any more."
Tacoma touches her chest, peering into the mirror to see.
"I heard something," she murmurs. "I pushed and pushed and I heard these voices … Didn't know all the languages. Someone said 'at last' in Johtoni, I think. I thought – I don't know what I thought, I wasn't really paying attention. But I know I heard it."
"You think it was the other people in the tower?"
"Yeah. Maybe." Tacoma sighs. "I think they might be gone now. I guess the only reason I didn't was 'cause of Con and the others."
There is a question that has to be asked here. Jodi is a little afraid of the kind of answer she might get, but there's no getting around it.
"Did you want to go too?" she asks.
Long silence. Tacoma withdraws her hand from Jodi's waist; Lothian stands up suddenly, sensing a change in the air, and climbs up onto the bed at Jodi's side. Standing by in case of sorrow.
"There's some money hidden in my room," says Tacoma. "Found it in a park. I should've handed it in to the police, but I didn't. I kept it 'cause I had this plan, right?"
Jodi doesn't say anything. She's fairly sure that this is not one of those questions that require an answer of the listener.
"So I take it," continues Tacoma, "and I buy a train ticket to New Bark, or to Pallet, I guess. I haven't checked the ferry listings yet, so I'm not sure which. Then when I get there, I buy some tape and I get on a boat out to Cinnabar Island."
She has so far been talking straight ahead of her, at the shelves, but now she steals a quick sidelong look at Jodi, too fast for Jodi to tell what she finds in her face.
"The trip takes a few days, right? So in the middle of the second night, when we're as far away as we can be from both the mainland and the island, I go out on the deck, check nobody's around. Then I put some tape over my mouth and round my wrists so I can't swim or call for help and I climb over the railing and go."
Jodi breathes in, once, sharply. Lothian starts to hum to her, but somehow the vibe gets lost inside her, its warmth cancelled out by the growing chill in her bones.
"Nobody knows where I went," says Tacoma, her voice as quiet and empty as a gutted library. "Nobody ever finds out. And there's no mess left for anyone to clean up. I'm just … gone."
Another long silence. Nikki lurches upright and stomps over to make what Jodi assumes are consolatory kangaskhan faces.
What can be said? Jodi could tell her about the early days in Goldenrod, when the exhaustion tore at her like eagles' talons, when she looked at the girls on her course and hated them for being so pretty, when her tutor called her in because the bile in her was making empaths cry from two classrooms away. When she thought that this was it. That this was just how life was, and everyone had lied to her about it throughout her entire childhood.
But Jodi was lucky: she figured it out in the end, after Carmine took her to that bar on Honey Street because she thought that that Alex Ortega guy was gay and needed to figure it out, and accidentally made her figure out that she was a girl instead. Sure, that created a whole new mess to clean up, but at least she realised she didn't have to stick to the life she was handed at birth, and that helped a lot, for her.
Thing is, Jodi is pretty sure Tacoma's had that moment too, and that it hasn't helped her at all. And if that's the case, talking about how it gets better isn't going to make a blind bit of difference.
"You didn't go," she says, tentatively. "You stayed."
"Because you needed me. They were gonna kill you."
"But you didn't go before, either. You didn't get on a boat to Cinnabar, and you didn't jump in the ocean." Jodi puts her arms around her, and though Tacoma's mind is thick with loathing for her own desperation she immediately leans into the embrace. "You stayed then, too."
"Because I'm a fucking coward," mutters Tacoma, into Jodi's hair. "Nikki – and Everett and my parents …"
Now Jodi gets it. Why has Tacoma been so angry at herself all this time? Why has she acted like it's her fault she's dead? Because it's what she wanted. And now that it's come to pass, it's as if she did it all herself.
Jodi really didn't think they were ever going to have a conversation as painful as that one about who caused the avalanche, but apparently this is it.
"I'm sorry if I hurt you," whispers Tacoma, sniffing. "But I needed to tell you, Jodi. 'Cause I am not okay, and if you want to do this, if you want to … to stay with me, then you need to know what you're letting yourself in for."
Jodi hugs her a little tighter.
"You can't ditch me that easily," she says. "It's okay to be messed-up, Tacoma. It won't last forever."
"Won't it?" Tacoma pulls away suddenly, gesturing at the mirror. "Look at me, Jodi. Maybe I have arms now, but I'm still a monster."
"So am I," Jodi tells her, and something of her conviction must show in her voice because Tacoma freezes like a deer caught in headlights. "And I'm sorry, Tacoma, I don't have any answers, but we can be monsters together, if you like. Maybe one day we'll figure out how to be people again, maybe not. But we can try."
Tacoma shudders, her body rippling in misty rolls, and now she definitely is crying, wiping angrily at her eyes with the back of one hand.
"I'm sorry," says Jodi. "I didn't mean to upset you."
"No. 'S fine." Nikki holds out her claws, gripping Tacoma's hand clumsily between them. "Thanks," mumbles Tacoma, trying to smile for her. "Yeah, Jodi. I think I'd like that. I just … I didn't think I was gonna still be here. I don't even know what I'm gonna do now that I am."
"Want me to tell you?"
Tacoma hesitates, afraid of what she might say, then nods.
"You're gonna go home," says Jodi. "You're gonna get Nick out of jail, and you're gonna testify against Con and his asshole friends, and you're gonna come to my birthday party, you're gonna enjoy Christmas, you're gonna get drunk with me on New Year's Eve. And you're gonna go back to uni and become the best bloody pokémon doctor on the peninsula, and then … then I guess we're gonna have to figure a lot of things out, but not tonight, okay?"
Jodi can sense the thoughts churning behind her eyes. It's so hard to believe – but they just saw Sam and Gabriella, didn't they? Saw them standing in the kitchen with their arms around each other, saw them throw themselves headlong into trouble in the middle of the night to rescue a couple of idiot kids from a murder cult. And in a world in which even something as unlikely as this is possible, maybe there's room for a couple more scraps of good luck yet.
"No," agrees Tacoma. "Not tonight." She sighs. "Sorry. I guess I'm just tired."
"That's fine. I mean, it was kind of a full night, right? We sent the monster home, we broke up the cult, we solved your murder and discovered a new species of pokémon, all in about an hour."
Tacoma makes a noise halfway to a laugh.
"Yeah," she says. "Pretty good going, huh?"
"Yep. Pretty good going." Jodi nudges her gently with an elbow. "D'you wanna go to bed? I don't even know what time it is, but I don't think we're gonna get anything done now that we can't do better in the morning."
Tacoma nods.
"Yeah," she murmurs. "You're probably right."
They put out the light. The mattress is narrow, and Tacoma is slightly bulkier than she was in life, but Jodi is small, and between them they just about fit. It's good – Jodi is sure of that – but strange; she's never done this before, and she isn't sure Tacoma has either. Their partners seem to feel the weirdness too. Nikki reaches out for a moment as if to separate them, then seems to think better of it and lies down to rest; Lothian puts his foreclaws on the edge of the bed, peers carefully at each of them in turn, then squeaks some kind of cryptic approval and pulls back to curl up nearby, apparently satisfied.
Jodi chuckles quietly to herself.
"Well, that was the hardest part," she whispers, glancing at Tacoma. "If they're happy with this, then I guess it's all gonna work out fine."
Tacoma's eyes glow green in the dark, wide and serious.
"Yeah," she says, and in the movement of her mind Jodi can tell that she is trying hard to mean it. "All gonna work out fine."
Tiny night noises fill the room: the ceiling dripping slowly into the bucket, Lothian snuffling at dreams of fruit, Nikki's breathing as she waits for her parter to fall asleep. Jodi looks up, feeling the happiness brimming over within her the way it did on the drive out here, and sees behind Tacoma's eyes the slow realisation that this is actually happening.
"I know," whispers Jodi, looking up into her face. "I can't believe it either."
Tacoma smiles, hesitant, uncertain.
"I don't even know what comes next," she says.
There's a world out there, full of spite and fear. There are people who would kill you if they think they could get away with it, and know that they probably could; there are families who need to be told about Tacoma, and about what she shares with Jodi; there is a boy called Charlie who is going to need more help than Jodi even knows how to give. There is the darkness in Tacoma, waiting for a quiet moment to wrap its clammy fingers around her wrist and drag her back down into its lair. There are battles to be fought. There are hard conversations to be had. There is so much lurking out there, and all of it will crash down upon them the moment dawn comes.
Jodi sees it all, and shrugs, and tilts her head up to plant a kiss on Tacoma's lips.
"Me either," she says, as Tacoma's nervous joy sings in her veins. "But I'm real excited to find out."
And we're done! Thank you so much for sticking with my weird, not-really-a-murder-mystery-after-all story till the end. It means a lot to me that this is what you've chosen to do with your free time. See you!