Freya had worried the paramedic and EMT would be weird about her requesting a drug by name. The paramedic jumped at the chance as if she’d wanted to suggest the idea herself. The pill was a white pentagon with a line dividing "2" and "MG". Officer Emanuel was surprised she didn’t take it on the spot.
“I have to talk to Lynn first,” Freya explained. “You can’t think straight on this.”
“Okay. You’ll need to take it before we arrest you, though. We don’t have to do that yet.”
“But you will.”
He grimaced.
“Yes. There are cameras,” he said, his voice dropping low as he pointed a thick finger at the cameras on the side of the building. “Everything was recorded.”
“I understand,” Freya said, and there was a laugh caught somewhere in her chest. All these police, all this work they were doing, and none of it mattered at all. She fought it down, feeling like anything she let out of her would emerge black and twisted, issuing from her mouth like a swarm of locusts.
Officer Emanuel hadn’t tried to get her to talk without her lawyer the way Vences had. She’d heard them taking the statement from the gray-haired man who’d tried to administer CPR to Malcolm, asking if he was one hundred percent sure he’d heard what she said correctly.
Maybe they were trying to get her some wiggle room. But the old man was too stubborn or too stupid. She remembered the whistling sound his teeth made when he insisted he’d heard her right.
Let him die.
They were expensive words, but she would never have to pay. She could already see the exasperation on Lynn Harris’s face, and she glanced at the neon MILLER TIME clock in the window, wondering how long she had.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” Freya asked.
“Sure,” Officer Emanuel said, but there was an OUT OF ORDER sign on the restroom door, which had a kitschy outhouse moon cut into the planks.
“Is this actually out of order?” he asked the man with the whistling teeth. The man nodded.
“Well, where do you go?”
“Woods ‘round back,” the man said. His eyes were on Freya. There was nothing kind in his stare.
“My hotel room is just right across the street,” Freya offered.
Sergeant Emanuel frowned but nodded.
“Officer Banks! Would you accompany us, please?”
Banks answered with a nod. He was a man of few words. They walked back to the hotel. They passed the spot where Freya and Dan had paused as the truck rumbled by, everything had been so clear. In her pocket, she squeezed the Starball with all her strength.
Take me back there right now, she demanded, her brow furrowing. Take me back or I will destroy you.
“Miss Jokela?”
She’d stopped walking, her jaw clenched so hard she was afraid her teeth would shatter.
“I’m sorry,” she said, inhaling sharply through her nose to stop herself from blubbering. There was a moment where she couldn’t put one foot in front of the other. She couldn’t tell if it was the Starball or if she was just malfunctioning. Her hands were numb. She fumbled with the key, wondering why she couldn’t see straight.
“Here,” Sergeant Emmanuel took the key from her. “Is anyone else inside?” When she shook her head, she felt hot lines run down her cheeks.
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“No drugs or weapons, right?”
She mouthed no.
“Stay here for just a second, please.” He handed the key back to her, and she stuck it in her pocket. He unclipped a flashlight from his belt and went inside the room, opening her guitar case, poking under everything, and sweeping through the bathroom.
She heard the squeak of the little cupboard under the sink and the rings of the shower curtain clicking. He’d missed her backpack in the little alcove behind the bathroom door, but it didn’t matter. There was nothing inside she could use to escape. He motioned her into the motel room.
When she stepped inside, it hit her like a fist. The room still smelled like Dan, like the love they’d made. Freya halted so abruptly Officer Banks collided with her from behind, and she stumbled forward, blubbering hu-hu-huh-huuu.
She made it into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, then she sobbed. She wept in the bathroom while the two policemen stood outside the door, on and on, until all she could manage was little strangled squeaks. It must have been five minutes, and she was lying slumped against the wall with her face pressed against the tile.
“Miss Jokela? Are you all right?” Sergeant Emmanuel asked through the door.
Of course not.
“I’m just crying, I’m sorry,” she croaked back, her voice in ruins.
“That’s totally all right. Would you mind coming out?”
“Can I have five minutes, please?” she begged.
“Sure thing,” he called back.
Freya peed and flushed the toilet. Using the sound of the tank filling as cover she looked under the bathroom sink, hoping for bleach, but there was nothing but dead silverfish and rolls of single-ply toilet paper. In her backpack were the two halves of the meteorite.
She picked one of the halves up and held it with the hollow against her palm. She took the Starball out of her pocket and set it on the floor resting in the junction of four tiles.
You betrayed me! Fix this or I’ll smash you, Freya willed at it. Turn back time, wipe my brain, kill me, anything. Just do it.
Nothing happened.
She drew a deep breath, holding the nickel hemisphere poised over her head. The Starball was calling her bluff.
“Miss Jokela?”
“Just washing up!” she shot back.
“Okay, just checking,” Sergeant Emmanuel said, and she knew she didn’t have long.
She peered at the Starball. Suddenly, it seemed impossible she could kill it by smashing it with a rock like a cavewoman. She tried to picture it going supernova, wiping out everything but, more likely, it would just make a huge racket.
Emmanuel would kick down the door, they’d seize everything, and the Starball would win. This was probably all part of its plan, to get rid of her, to get rid of Dan, to find some new host.
I should have left you in the river, buried forever.
It wasn’t too late. She could seal it up, dig a hole, bury it deep, and fill it in with concrete. A just few hundred years of imprisonment, and there would be no humans left for it to manipulate. But she would have to serve out her own term first. The Starball could use Lassa or Garbuglio to get what it wanted.
Outside the door, there was the squawk of the radio, an unintelligible voice asking Sergeant Emmanuel questions.
She had an idea and felt the Starball trying to stop her. The chill seeped through her skull as it tried to work its magic. But she was far beyond its control now. The sickness was nothing. Half of her was dead, and the rest would follow.
Freya clapped the orb in the two halves of the meteorite while it fought to keep her arms from working. Awareness of the Starball bled out of her with a static whine, like she’d turned off an old tube television. At once, the nausea was gone. The room seemed colder. Edges were less distinct, less important. Everything was desaturated. Inertia mounted. She needed to move.
Freya twisted the meteorite in a damp towel and tied the ends in a tight knot. Then she stood on the toilet and pushed up one of the water-spotted tiles of the drop ceiling. She was too short to see what was up there, but she shoved the bundle behind a dusty pipe, and then reset the tile. The radio conversation outside had ended, and she had to be terribly careful not to make a sound as she climbed down.
There were black smudges on her fingertips. Freya washed them off and threw water on her face, unwilling to make eye contact with her reflection. From the look on the policemen’s faces when she emerged, she must have looked just awful. She wanted to apologize for taking so long, but the tumble of sounds that came out of her mouth weren’t words. She snuffled and followed the policemen back outside.
For the second time since the night on the river, Freya was freed from the Starball. Every moment was scraping across pavement, raw and exposed, and it would never improve. This was the real world, and that was why she had to leave it. She took the Lorazepam out of her pocket.
“She should be back soon,” Sergeant Emmanuel said.
“I can’t make it,” Freya replied. She swallowed the pill.