Friday

From sharing the last half of his life with her every day, Terence knew that Eugenie was near her breaking point. She was not able to just spend her anger into a vacuum with no results and endlessly, especially with Barry in front of her meaning no antagonism to her at the moment, and she had been screaming and kicking for too long now. So presently, as the destruction of the inside of her home progressed, she would surely move on to begging. And begging. Probably denying. She would cry, there wasn’t a doubt about that.

A car alarm rang in the distance, from the street, and they all looked at the window as a reflex even in the middle of their current preoccupations. Eugenie, still facing the armchair where she had left Barry rumpled on the floor while attempting to dial emergency services. Terence, from the couch and glancing beyond the plate of chicken nuggets. And Barry, too, sitting on his butt in the middle of the wreck of the former bookshelves, his legs covered with books and various other debris from decorations that Eugenie had placed between the books. A volume of the Castles of the Loire rested half opened on his knees, as if he was ready to read it. They all turned their heads slightly and followed the blaring sound through the window which remained opened on to the balcony, realizing that the storm was slowly passing. A cozy plicploc was dropping from the potted plants to the frame and the wooden planks, and the wind was now gentle.

Terence and Barry waited for Eugenie to follow the new developments of her life, both of them with a reasonable amount of patience at the ready simply because they both were quite familiar with her from their different angles. Predictably, she spent an extensive amount of time staring at the hand which had been holding her cell phone a second earlier and which was now empty and, after that was done, she feebly spun around on her trembling legs and gasped at the sight of the mountain of damages into which Barry was partially buried. She looked at her empty hand again and at his face, going back and forth. He granted her a minute, nodding tolerantly, his head resting against the wall behind him. There had been a voluminous shelf furniture instead of a bare wall before, but now, there was no more.

Eugenie’s cheeks were becoming very red and her eyes humid. She was frowning and sniffling.

“I’m sorry” Barry said finally, and his words, although spoken low, startled her.

“JEsus”

He got spooked too, “it’s okay, it’s okay” and wearily, he retrieved both his hands from under the rubble and the morsels of broken wood, pushing one resolutely against his abdomen and revealing, in the other hand, the cell phone with the screen still open and ready to dial the last digit. He let it slide dramatically from between his fingers and sink into the mess, “I’m sorry” he repeated, this time more firmly.

Terence prepared himself for that new act. He knew that the boy didn’t have a choice now, and must regain some control. His face was dead white, caves dug under his eyes, some water dripping from his chin and on the sides of his eyebrows, his chest shakily rising up and down. The fingers of his hand clutching his stomach, sticky with blood, stirred with some newer, fresher redder blood. He was soaked from the storm and smelled like a wet dog.

“My phone” Eugenie said blankly. One tear fell from her eye, in such an ejected manner that it missed her cheek entirely.

Barry closed his eyes, reopened them, then started speaking with urgency, “Ms White, I’m sorry—”

“My phone” Eugenie insisted

“I took it from your hand before you could dial the police”

“I wasn’t going to dial the police”

“An ambulance or w wwhatever you were doing. Listen I I I don’t have much time, I’m going to pass out soon, listen” he said in front of her mortified expression, “I don’t have time, Ms White, I cannot let you ask for out out outside help” He tensed under a punch of pain from the middle of his body. “I took your phone from y y yyyour hand and crashed into your furniture, I’m sorry, it’s difficult to bolt inside such a small space”

“B… Bolt” Eugenie took one step forward in his direction.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“I’m a mutant”

“Noo, no no no” Here we were. The begging, the refusing. Terence had been right.

“Listen, please” Barry sighed, “I am a mutant from the Team of vigilantes out there, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen th—”

“Hoobes Team”

“It’s Hobbes”

Terence watched Eugenie glance around at her walls, “my… picture frames”

“They all pretty much exploded from the walls because of the speed bubble I created, now if—”

“Bolt?”

“Yes, I’m the Bolt, my power is that I can run at supersonic speed. If you’re coming closer to get your phone back, Ms White” he continued talking, even-tempered, “I’m warning you that it’s n nnot going to work, I will bolt again” Terence saw some shiny new tears accumulate into some fat beads at the corners of Eugenie’s eyes. She blinked and let them fall heavily. “Listen I can’t—” Barry seemed to think about his anecdote for a small instant, swallowed hard, “I went to a pl place of contact earlier, and there, I found myself alone, and all those… robots, they started firing at me like, twenty of them, something like that”

“Your team” Eugenie wiped her tears with the back of her sleeve, which had the result to smear more blood on her face, “where is your Team?”

“They have vanished” Barry explained, “disappeared, I don’t… I don’t I don’t know where they are”

“No no no” Eugenie shook her head then leaned in the position of a frog in front of him, hands joined in a prayer.

“There’s nothing I can do about it” Barry went on and, with great difficulty, launched his free hand towards her in a request of appeasement, but she didn’t reception it. She just stared at it, at his sticky fingers, and then back at his face, dismayed.

“Robots” she asked.

“I don’t know those… I don’t know much about those robots. They are n n not Russian, they are from s sspace. They are all ass ass assholes they, shot me in the arm but” he smiled bravely “but it’s okay I don’t th th think it’s I don’t know I’m fine”

“For fuck’s sake” Eugenie pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes, sniffled loudly, “in the… no no no please no why w—”

Barry’s own eyelids were batting very fast like the wings of a little fruit bat, “they shot me in the stomach, I… it’s… I’m really scared, Ms White” his voice crackled and he cleared his throat, winced in pain, “I c c ccan’t go to a doctor or a pharmacist or even a vet. I can’t go to a dentist or an optician. They will k k kkill everyone in that place to get to me, I cannot do that, you must understand”

“No no noooo” Eugenie was openly crying now, and she hunched forward and crouched against Barry while still shaking her head, grabbed him by the shoulders, “nooo, this isn’t real, this is a nightmare, this can’t be real” She threw her desperation directly at his face, directly at the source, hoping, against all odds, that the boy would suddenly announce that it was indeed all a joke.

“I know it’s a lot to t t take in but you’re going to have to, I’m so sorry, I don’t have a choice, I will… lose consciousness soon, listen” he took a deep breath in and continued, “listen I don’t feel good, I’m feeling weird, I… jumped from a building and landed in the back of a truck and then I I went into a restaurant, hid there in the bathroom, tried to find a… solution, but i i if you could just—” he shrunk on his butt but then had an amused little smile, “could just stop squeezing me and scratching me with your fingernails like this please it really hurts it really h h hurts my arm”

“No no noooo” Eugenie squealed and flew her hands in the air as if she had touched a burning candle, finding them empty and, uncertain of what to do with them, she started juggling some invisible bowling pins, “Barry this is not okay, this is not okay, I can’t, I can’t, I don’t even underst—”

“Listen please. You do understand. I know you have medical training”

The words made her melt away “what did you say” She shivered.

“I know you are a nurse, I know this, listen—”

“Noo, no, NO” She almost landed her hands on the sides of his arms again but refrained herself.

“I don’t have time to explain how much I know and why but I know this— Stop shaking your head” he encouraged her by nodding his own. Terence thought, What I know that I know is small. What I know that I don’t know is big. What I don’t know that I don’t know is infinite. “I know” Barry swallowed what seemed to be some dry pieces of paper, “that you are a nurse”

“You listen” she almost chuckled “I am a high… school… teacher”

“You are also a nurse, Ms White, there is no point d d dddenying it. I figured a nurse can fix me”

She choked this time, opening her eyes as big as a gymnast’s hoops in utter shock, “fix you” she panted “I am a teacher, you know that since you were my st—”

“You are also a nurse”

“I was a nurse a million years ago Barry and they kicked me out because I wasn’t good enough” Terence watched closely. Barry and Eugenie’s faces were now very near, as if the recovered calm from the street outside had led the overall cacophony and the volume of their interaction to decrease into whispers and secrets. “Do you hear the words coming out of my mouth you stupid empty coconut, you fucking loo—”

“I don’t… cc c care” he said in a grimace, “I I don’t care. I’m going to pass out now, okay? No ph ph phh—” he closed his eyes to catch his breath and focus, then reopened them and planted them into hers, “no phone okay? please, I trust you Ms White, I— Stop sh sh shaking your head”

“No no nooo” she implored hopelessly, seized his shoulders again, “don’t sleep please Barry don’t sleep”

“I trust you”

“I can’t Barry I can’t I can’t”

He kept nodding, the breath at his lips whistling like a basket of snakes, “I trust you, okay?” Then he closed his eyes and he was out.