It took Malcolm much longer to die than Dan. Two men rushed out of the gas station. Their mouths opened as they shouted, but she heard nothing. The only sound in the world was Malcolm whimpering, the bloody catch in his breathing, growing quieter and quieter. The older of the two men rushed over to Malcolm’s side, checked his pulse, and did CPR.

“Let him die.” Freya ordered, but there was no response, and she was not certain if she’d only thought it or if the man had ignored her. In the end, it didn’t matter, there were too many holes in Malcolm. She’d hit him with all eight shots. CPR only squeezed the life out of him faster. Freya felt the moment Malcom died, like a flubbed note hanging in the air.

Dan’s eyes were open, staring at the stars. Freya bent over and shut them. That was a thing people did. The blood on her hands left a red smear. He already felt cold.

The other dies, too.

She wanted to shoot herself, but there were no bullets left. The other man came over to her and bent down to say something. Freya couldn’t understand him. Under the smell of gunpowder, there was whiskey on his breath. He shook her shoulder. She ignored him, but he wouldn’t go away.

“Stop it,” Freya said. The man didn’t listen to her. The dead had no voice. “Just leave me.”

They pulled her away from Dan and brought her inside and sat her on a bench, wrapping her in a blanket. She had no strength to resist. It was only when the police arrived with their flashing lights that Freya realized she could have used Malcolm’s gun.

Now, everything would be harder.

* * *

Freya was surprised when the police didn’t put her in handcuffs right away. Everything people said seemed to be shouted at her from a distant hallway, and she wondered if her ears were hurt, but she remembered hearing Malcolm so clearly. Her hands and feet were freezing, but she was sweating under the blanket. It was very difficult to focus on anything.

“Are you okay?”

The question broke through the confusion. Somehow, two deputies had managed to stand right in front of Freya without her noticing them.

“No,” Freya replied.

“Go get an EMT,” Deputy Ericson said, urgent.

“You don’t have to. They already checked me out,” Freya explained.

“Are you sure? You’re very pale.”

“I’m sure.”

“Well, I need to pat you down, okay? Deputy Banks will observe. I’m sorry we don’t have a female deputy on duty tonight.”

“That’s fine,” Freya said. She shrugged off the blanket, stood, and complied with their directions. She was so numb she could barely feel the hands on her. She suffered a droning insistence that half of her was gone, phantom pain from missing an entire body.

Ericson took her wallet, keys, and phone, and then he found the Starball in the pocket of her jeans. The urge to warn him died on her tongue.

“What’s this?” Ericson asked, holding the orb up to the fluorescent light and squinting at it.

“Lucky marble. It doesn’t work,” Freya said. It was a lie of habit, not design. She was incapable of forming new thoughts, could only repeat what had been said before. His mustache twitched as he frowned, but he gave the Starball back, along with her wallet and keys. He kept her phone.

“Okay, well, sit tight. Someone will chat with you in a sec. We’re trying to rouse a crisis counselor.”

Deputy Banks stood a few paces from her bench as a sentinel but, otherwise, Freya seemed forgotten. She stared out the window as they scurried around the crime scene with their tape and their little flags, taking pictures of everything. Freya drifted in the commotion, waiting for the real suffering to begin. She’d been here before. She knew this was all just a prelude.

“Miss Jokela?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

A state trooper removed his hat as he came through the door. A gust of cold air followed him.

“Hi, Sergeant,” Freya said, noticing the bars on his shoulder. He nodded, surprised she had recognized his rank.

“I’m Sergeant Emmanuel. Can you help us understand what happened here?”

“I need my lawyer. Everything is complicated,” Freya said. She had nothing left to fight with.

“Fine. Would you be willing to identify the deceased individuals? We need to begin the notification process.”

Freya wondered if they could use it against her, but it didn’t matter anyway.

“His name is Malcolm Lewis. I have an order of protection against him. His parents are Charles and Darlene Lewis. He lives in West Sillas.”

“Do you know their address?”

“23 Blake Street. Could you go get my lawyer, please? She has power of attorney over me. She may be asleep.”

“What about the other boy?”

“That’s—” Freya tried to say his name, but she couldn’t. She shut her eyes and hung her head, plunging.

Sergeant Emanuel didn’t touch her or say anything. He waited.

“Dan Gregulus,” she said at last. Every syllable hurt. Her voice was barely there. “His mother Samantha works at Flying Horse Regional Hospital.”

“Can we phone your parents?”

Freya shook her head, unable to explain.

Outside, they put Dan’s body on a gurney.

“They won’t put them in the same ambulance, will they?” Freya asked. She didn’t know why it mattered to her. They were just bodies now. But it was important.

“No, ma’am. I think they’ll bring another one.”

“Okay, thank you,” she said quietly. “How will they tell his mother?”

“We’re transporting the decedents to Flying Horse. A uniformed trooper and a medical examiner will let the mother know in person.”

Something in her face made Sergeant Emmanuel look at her curiously.

“His mother is on shift. She’ll know right away. Oh, God,” Freya explained. It seemed impossibly cruel.

His lips were tight as he nodded.

“Yes, she’ll likely recognize what’s happening. The positive is that, as a nurse, she’ll be better equipped to deal with this than most. Was Dan her only child?”

Freya shook her head. The word was dug in like a knife.

“He had a twin. They lost his sister five years ago.”

Sergeant Emmanuel inhaled deeply and clicked his tongue.

“God damn,” he muttered.

They didn’t speak for a long time after that.

In Freya’s head, there was a sucking void, drawing in light and sound and giving back nothing. It took physical effort to form any kind of thought. She couldn’t rise to it. She remained in the vacant limbo, buffeted by every sound, burnt by every light.

The ambulance with Dan’s body was leaving, and she felt her mind clawing out, seeking the missing Unity. When the taillights vanished, she sank back into the maelstrom. There was something important, a question she needed answered, but the idea came apart, the chain broken into links of nonsense.

A vision of Samantha Gregulus’s face rose in its place, her dark eyebrows quivering, the cold fire in her eyes sputtering out as they told her. What was left for Freya after this?

The river.

Freya stared at Malcolm’s body. There was a little yellow flag where someone had collected his gun. Freya tried to find the hate she’d felt, but that, too, had been ripped from her. If she had just gone under, none of this would have happened. Everyone would be alive. Lassa would be free. The Starball would be buried in a riverbank for a thousand years.

The Starball!

The idea led her back to the thought that had fallen apart. The Starball had been hiding behind her grief, shunting away her questions. The rage she couldn’t find before was suddenly white hot.

You made this happen! Freya accused, squeezing the orb with all her strength. She tried to crush it between her thumb and forefinger, but it was suddenly as rigid as steel. She felt its heat, and she shot her eyes around, eyes alighting on the wood burning stove.

She visualized flinging open the cast iron door and throwing the Starball inside. Starsickness rose at the thought, but the worst the Starball could summon was as nothing before her suffering. She felt a hot pulse of activity between her fingertips.

Are you afraid? Freya wondered, and she flooded her mind with malevolent urges. Smashing the Starball with a hammer, crushing it in a hydraulic press, cooking it in a microwave, she probed at each, trying to find what it was most afraid of. Her eyes landed on the trooper’s pistol, wondering if she could get it away from him, shoot the Starball, then herself.

Officer Emmanuel followed her eyes. She looked away, caught. But he didn’t press the point. Maybe everyone got caught staring like that.

“Can I get you anything? Water, coffee, tea? Something to eat?”

She looked at the ambulance.

“Can we ask if they have Lorazepam?”

“Do you take that regularly?” he asked. She could tell he knew exactly what it was. Freya shook her head.

“Not regularly, but I had to take it after my father was killed. It helped.”

Emmanuel nodded, inhaling through his nose. Freya knew he was wondering just how deep this all went.

“Come with me and let’s ask them. How long ago was that?”

“May.”

“Jesus Christ.”