Chapter 19: Settling

“I’m home,” I called.

“Welcome home.” Lena’s head poked around the bedroom doorway.

Had the two of us picked that exchange up from watching too much anime? Yeah.

Did I hate the thought of hearing our front door open without knowing who – or what – had a hand on the doorknob? Also yeah. I couldn’t speak for Lena, but I wouldn’t subject her to that.

None of which I’d told Benji, so to him, we probably seemed like a couple of dorks. He wasn’t wrong. Just right for the wrong reasons.

Regardless, he shook his head at us.

A twitch of Lena’s eye suggested she noticed, but then she got distracted by a look at the suitcase and travel bag and garment bag and laptop case that we’d lugged upstairs. It startled a laugh out of her. “Whoa. How long were you gonna stay again?”

Benji glanced at his collection. “Some of us work jobs where we have to spend more dressing ourselves than our video game characters.”

Her eyes widened. Mine probably did too. Lena’s custom personification in Third Eye had indeed cost more than all her IRL clothes combined, but how the hell did Benji know that?

He kept talking and I realized he didn’t. If I wanted to be generous – I didn’t – he was talking about her new job as a YouTuber, not just taking shots at us for buying in-game cosmetics.

He looked back and forth between us and shook his head. “I’m kidding, all right? I brought what I’d take on an actual business trip.”

“Oh.” Lena gave a forced shrug. “Well, I cleared out space in our closet, but I don’t think we’d have that much room if we took out all our clothes.”

“I just need enough to hang up my sportcoat and a couple shirts for work,” Benji said. “The rest can stay in the suitcase.”

“Good thing.” She peered at the bags and frowned. “So, uh... these business trips. You don’t bring a sleeping bag or a cot or something on them, do you?”

“I was just going to crash on the...” Benji looked around. “Shit. You guys don’t even have a couch?”

Lena turned her nose up and put on her terrible British accent once again. “Oh, we had the thing put in the servants quarters. It didn’t fit the aesthetic of this wing.”

I snorted. “We’ll just drag my bed out here and push the computers closer together to make room.”

“I don’t know,” Benji said. “If you got this little space, maybe I should find someplace else to stay.”

“Our apartment didn’t get any smaller since the last time you visited,” I said. “You should have thought of it before I hauled this crap up from your car.”

He shot me a glare. “If doing shit you volunteered for is so awful, little bro, I can take it back myself.”

My shoulders tensed.

I forced myself to relax.

“Look, Benji,” I said. “We already agreed to let you stay. Let’s get your stuff put away. I’m just tired from lugging your suitcase around.”

A lie.

Tired of it? Yes. Tired from it? Not at all.

Lena flitted over and gave my largely nonexistent bicep a squeeze. “Can you believe what a beast Cam’s turned into?”

“Gotta admit,” Benji said, “I didn’t have that on my bingo card.”

“Yeah, well.” If I hadn’t had both hands occupied, I’d have scratched the back of my neck. I settled for shoving the travel bag into Lena’s arms. “Make yourself useful and lighten this beast’s burden.”

She scooped the bag up and led the way into the bedroom.

Benji and I followed.

He stopped when he saw what lay on the other side of the doorway. “You sure about giving up your bed? Doesn’t look like there’s any room for you.”

He had a point. I could barely see the Pokemon design on Lena’s blanket.

First, because her idea of emptying the closet was to pile a quarter of our clothes on the end of her bed. In fairness, I didn’t have a better solution. They’d probably have to end up on the floor.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Second, because before Benji had showed up, she’d strewn the bed with the parts for her Fire experiments. She’d set the lightbulb on the upside-down wooden top of a TV tray from which the legs had broken off years ago. A flashlight with its battery component open and the wire guts of some broken electronic device shared the tray. At least, I hoped whatever device she’d dismembered had been broken before she cut it up. A box of pop tarts sat on the blanket, with one package opened and its contents lightly toasted.

Of course, that might’ve been less an experiment than an excuse to snack.

Third, there was Bernie, who even in plushie form occupied most of the space around the pillows.

“We don’t mind sharing, do we, little guy?” Lena asked. She ditched Benji’s travel bag and picked up Bernie instead. She hugged him, then presented him to Benji with a huge grin. “This is Bernie. It’s his world, we’re just living in it. Bernie, meet Cam’s big bro, Benji. He’s kinda an asshole, but for now he’s our asshole.”

Bernie hissed. Proving once again what a good judge of character he was.

Benji drew back when he heard the hiss. I guess he decided Bernie was the kind of plushie with a speaker inside, because instead of freaking out, he just rolled his eyes. “You have definitely not become less weird since the last time we met.”

“And you have definitely not become less of an asshole,” Lena said. She tilted Bernie so she could look at his button eyes. “Good thing we’re so magnanimous, huh?”

“Fair enough,” Benji said. “I can tell I’m putting you out more than I expected.”

“You are,” I said, “but we’ll deal. C’mon. Closet’s over here.”

He hung up his garment bag, unopened. Together, we started arranging his shirts. He glanced over his shoulder. “What’s the science project for?”

Lena flashed a saccharine smile. “Science.”

“None of my business, huh? I guess it doesn’t matter as long as you don’t start a fire.”

She laughed. “But Fire is what I’m doing science on!”

“We’re working on some props for our next video,” I said quickly. “I can either promise you we aren’t going to burn the apartment down, or I can spend about an hour explaining what we’re doing. Your choice.”

“I think I’ll wait for the video,” Benji said.

I didn’t know what I would’ve done if he’d opted for the full explanation.

Explained it, I guess.

“Hey, can you take it from here?” I asked. “I need to talk to Lena for a minute.”

“Knock yourself out,” he said.

I waved Lena over. She set Bernie back on the bed and followed me to the front door.

I pushed my way outside.

She cocked her head, but stepped out onto the balcony after me. “Sup?”

I folded my arms over the railing. It was cold, but with her next to me, the cold felt bearable. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? I know you joked about letting Benji and his family camp out with us, but I should’ve checked before I offered for real.”

“I’ll deal,” Lena said. “I mean, I’ll get used to it.”

I frowned. “You shouldn’t have to.”

“He’s your brother, Cam,” Lena said. “We can’t just turn him away when he needs us.”

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. “Spoken like an only child.”

She laughed.

I started to join her, but my gaze passed over the street below. “We’re probably going to have to explain Third Eye to Benji.”

“Because of his overflowing natural curiosity?” she asked.

This time, I did laugh.

Lena sidled up to me and rested her head against my shoulder. I slid my arm around hers.

She said, “I noticed you managed to get us crammed into a twin bed together. Couldn’t even wait for the dive motel.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I figured I’d end up sleeping on the floor.”

She grinned. “Oh man, when did you add clairvoyance to your powerset?”

My smile faded when she brought the conversation back around to Third Eye and the things we saw through it.

Or without it.

My eyes roamed up and down Hampden. Nothing stood out. But then, it wouldn’t, would it? I’d already scanned it from street level, with and without the Third Eye filter.

I said, “We need to tell Benji because I’m not sure it’s safe for him to stay with us.”

Lena stiffened against me. “What are you talking about?”

“Lena, be honest.” I turned to her, clasped her arms, met her eyes. “Have you seen the creature?”

“Only every time I close my eyes,” she whispered. “And every time I see an odd tree, or somebody in a tall hat, or a weird shadow.”

I nodded along with her words. “I saw somebody in a tall hat when we were getting Benji’s shit. At least, I thought so.”

She swallowed. “But it turned out to just be somebody in a tall hat. Right?”

“Right. I guess. It must’ve been. If that creature, or something like it, was really here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

She gave a slow nod.

We both knew that, at our current level within Third Eye, neither of us would be alive.

“I didn’t even want to tell you,” I said. “I didn’t want to scare you over nothing. But I tried not telling you when I got weird feelings that Third Eye was real, and look where that got us.”

“Nowhere. Fast.” She tried to smile. “I mean, if you’d said something back then, I would’ve thought you were crazy.”

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” I said.

She patted my back. “You and me both. Trouble is, we know we’re not. We might be jumping at shadows, but we saw at least one shadow jump at us.”

We held each other for a moment.

Comfort. Warmth. Everything I wanted.

For the first time I could remember, it didn’t feel like enough.

I pressed my lips to her hair. “How do you do it, Lena?”

“With style and panache, typically.” Her attempt at a laugh sounded forced, shrill. “What do you mean?”

“How do you keep playing?” I asked. “Keep pushing yourself? Keep trying to fight, even? Every time I try to practice with Third Eye, I start imagining that thing, and –”

“That’s how,” she said.

I frowned down at her.

“I imagine that thing.” She set her jaw. “And then? I imagine how strong I need to get to blow its ass up.”