"And now you can't stop thinking about him," said the voice on the phone.
"It's not that I can't," Rita said as she lay on the floor of her living room and stared at the ceiling fan as it rotated quickly, her phone held up to her ear, "It's that I don't want to stop thinking about him."
She didn't want to and, in fact, hadn't stopped thinking about him since her dinner of pizza and beer with Abby and Sax when she had recounted the first time she had met him.
"So call him," Connie said. Rita knew what Connie meant when she used the word call when referring to Aric.
"You know where that'll lead. It's like telling Andy it's OK to start drinking again."
"He's not an addiction."
Yes he is, Rita thought, and he has been since that night on the roof.
Rita had walled that part of her mind off behind many layers of insecurity, and it only required the thought of peeling one of those layers back for the lines on Rita's hands and arms, lines that ran farther, and covered more, than anyone but her doctors knew, to begin to glow faintly.
Even that small thought brought some of the warmth back to her body and mind, as a very tiny piece of her connection with Aric came to life. She could sense him out there, somewhere. Doing his thing. Living his life. He could be at a fucking bowling alley for all Rita knew. Who would have ever guess that someone who could do the things he could do would actually enjoy bowling. But she refused to open up enough to her desire to see him again, or hear his voice in her head again, to see that level of detail.
It's like reliving a recent memory, she had said to him once, the two of them a continent apart, but still connected, or like you're painting a picture in my mind.
He had sent back his memory of the first time they had slept together, and she didn't need super powers to know that he was smiling when he did it.
Jesus, she answered, her arousal building quickly, her hands traveling to the parts of her body that were crying out for attention, you're lucky I'm alone.
What are you doing later tonight? he had asked her after she had climaxed.
"Rita!" Connie shouted into her ear.
fuck
"Sorry, what?"
"We're doing this again, are we? It's that bad?"
There had been a time when Detective Second Grade Rita Ortiz had sat in their car for fifteen minutes staring unresponsively into space as the warmth wrapped around her, his voice in her head, as hers was in his. It had scared the shit out of Connie, and had led to a frank conversation once Rita had snapped out of it.
Jesus, at least he hadn't made me come, she had thought at the time.
"No, not like it was."
"Good."
"What was it you asked me?" Rita asked to force her mind onto another topic.
"What did Language Services say?"
It took a moment for Rita's mind to change gears.
"That at least some of those letters are bogus."
"Bogus?"
"The language was bogus, or the guy writing the letters wasn't fluent in it, or he got a shitty translation."
"Huh. That strike you as odd?"
"I don't know. You want to threaten her, but you don't want to make it easy for her to zero in on you. The letters that she got in Germany were in German, but not very good German. The rest looked legit, or they did a better job of translating, but who knows."
"So how did they know where to leave them? Any leads on that?"
"No, and it doesn't sound like there's going to be, not unless they come from the FBI. They're taking over the international part of this case. We have a total of six assholes in custody now, and some drone footage of the latest two following Annelie Bodin's limo to the airport before they broke off their tail at the private gate."
"More Russians?"
"Yeah, but local Russians. Green card holders. Been here a while. Maybe just scum for hire, but possibly part of something bigger."
"Worth looking into. How about the other thing?"
The other thing being the next location on the list from the encrypted DVD, not the WMD that was discovered being built next to a Con Ed facility in Manhattan.
"We're watching it now. It's a medium size auto repair shop. There's traffic, but small stuff. We're tracking who comes and goes. Showtime is just about 48 hours from now."
Rita looked out the darkened window to her right. She held up her right hand and stared at the lines that no longer glowed, but had gotten darker, as they always did after she had called them to life. It had been many years since she had done that, since she had been brave enough, or lonely enough, or scared enough, to think of Aric in that particular way he had taught her that would bring those lines, and their connection, to life.
"You plan on being there when it goes down?" Rita's former partner asked.
It wasn't standard procedure, though a lot of squad commanders took the opportunity to be in on a big bust; for nostalgia if for no other reason.
"Better fucking believe it."
"Want some company?"
It was in Rita's precinct, not Connie's, and some commanders would have balked at sharing the bust with anyone, but Rita didn't need to be in Connie's head to feel the strength of the desire in the request.
"No one else I would rather have watching my back."
Rita knew that she should be focusing on the two major cases (or was it three? It was three.) that her detectives were working, but she also knew that wasn't going to happen tonight, any small chance that it might happen was quickly erased as she found the playlist on her phone and started it playing on her Bose wireless speakers. The play order was set to random, but Rita was not at all surprised when fate, or karma, or the universe in general chose to begin with the melodic guitar and equally melodic voice of Mazzy Star.
Still falling,
Breathless and on again,
It was Into Dust, a song about a woman who feels like she is fading away, and there had been a time when Rita related much too closely with that feeling, and that song.
Leave it to the fucking universe to start off with this song, she thought as the tears began to flow down her cheeks into the fake Persian rug that covered her living room floor.
I could possibly be fading,
Or have something more to gain,
I could feel myself growing colder,
I could feel myself under your fate,
Twenty years since that night on the roof when she first saw him. Almost eleven years since she last saw him in the flesh. They had stayed connected for almost a year longer.
I miss you, she said one evening, as she sat at her desk. Aric was someplace with a sandy beach, and a setting sun that seemed to take up the entire horizon, but I don't know how to live with a demigod.
I'm not a demigod, Aric had replied, I'm just a man who taps into something that he probably shouldn't.
I have no idea what you are, she had said, but you're not just a man.
I have no idea what I am either, but I know what you are. You're the woman I love.
Rita had never done drugs, but she had seen way too many addicts, walking corpses that used to be people but had turned into dead men walking who would do anything for their next high. So it hadn't been hard to recognize her own behavior when she had gotten to that point, when she would do anything to feel that connection, that merging of minds and souls, a bond that she never knew was possible to feel so intimately, so deeply, so intensely. But like most addicts, she thought she was different, that she had a handle on it, that it wouldn't consume her completely.
"You give too much of yourself. Work on your control," he reminded her one evening as they lay in his bed, the web-like glowing lines entwined around the two of them, pulsating and moving, almost like living things, a physical manifestation of their preternatural connection.
"I don't want to control myself with you, I want to be with you totally."
"It's like trying to pour the sea into a paper cup, it'll overwhelm you, and I'm not entirely sure what would reside in that beautiful head of yours afterwards. Possibly nothing at all."
"You would never allow that to happen. You'd protect me. You've done it before."
They had been connected when Rita and Connie had gotten into a foot chase. Rita had run track in high school, and had tried to stay in shape, but in her late thirties she wasn't going to break any speed records. So when Aric fed her some energy she felt almost superhuman as her pumping legs and arms accelerated, leaving Connie in her wake in a matter of seconds. It was only afterwards that Rita realized she had completely blown out the soles of her ankle high boots and the seams under the arms of her jacket. It was as if someone had distilled pure joy and she had drank an entire bottle of it.
"What the fuck was that?" Connie had asked once she had caught up as she gasped for air.
"Adrenalin."
"Bull. fucking. shit. it. was," she said between gasps, "You're not even breathing hard."
"Sorry."
"You know you let out a laugh when you sped away from me?"
"I did?"
"Stop fucking smiling!"
"Sorry."
"Fuck!" Connie had yelled as she turned and walked away from Rita and the young thief, who was also gasping as he looked at Rita like she had sprouted wings.
"Remember, it's not just me we're discussing, it's also a well of dark energy that nobody understands, especially not me," Aric reminded her, "I just use it. I can't even begin to explain it. You know how careful I am with you, how careful I have to be with you. The buffer I keep between us is for your safety. But you like to walk right up to that line that should never be crossed."
Rita's father had left his family when she was still a little girl, and ever since then she had struggled with her fear of being rejected. That fear had followed her through her only marriage and several relationships. Her connection with Aric, once it had bloomed, or matured, had killed that fear, or at least sent it running for it's life. She knew how he felt about her, knew it from the inside, as well as she knew her own feelings. She didn't need him to say I love you, though she still liked hearing the sound of his physical voice when he said it. She knew it beyond any doubting, just like he knew how she felt.
They had spent large chunks of time apart, but still connected; so it was natural that, in Rita's mind, they had gone years without ever being apart.
"Oh for fuck sake!" Connie yelled at her once when they were at lunch and she saw the blank smile on Rita's face, "tell him you'll fucking call him back!"
Always on my mind,
Always alone,
You could be miles and miles away,
But somehow you're close,
Joy Williams' voice brought Rita out of her mental wandering, but it appeared that the universe was not finished with Rita yet.
The trouble with wanting is I want you,
The trouble with wanting is I want you,
The trouble with wanting is I want you,
And I want you all the time,
"The fucking universe sucks," Rita said out loud as she stared at the ceiling fan and wiped the tears from her face.
