Pacing back and forth, Nicole tried to build up her courage; it wasn’t working, which was a bit funny. She could face down Maraline—one of the Sylan invaders—without flinching. Why was her best friend so much harder? She should just rip the band-aid off, get it over with. Yeah, that’s what she would do. She stopped, taking a deep breath as she did and turned to face Rebecca.
“I’m a Ranger,” Nicole said, all of her anxiety pouring into the words.
“Bullshit,” Rebecca said, face completely blank. Nicole pulled back, glancing from Grace, who was holding up her hands while struggling to keep her mouth shut, back to her friend who had a single eyebrow raised. “No really, pull the other one.”
“I’m not bullshitting you, Becca. I’m the Black Ranger,” Nicole said.
Off to the side, Grace raised a finger from her crossed arms. “I fancy Red myself.”
“I don’t even know you, so stay out of this,” Rebecca snapped.
Nicole pinched the bridge of her nose, she had a feeling that Becca wouldn’t accept it outright, but it was still an annoyance. She really should have put more thought into it, but she figured there would be a few more days at least. Nicole was tired and sore from the battle and was trying oh so hard to not get snippy with Becca, because she really didn’t deserve any ire.
“Becca, you know me. Why would I lie about something like this?”
“Because you would get a laugh out of it?” She looked around the room, pointedly ignoring Grace who was keeping to herself. “Like, where’s the camera? Did Colin put you up to this? You know Avant Garden was attacked right? Colin nearly died!”
“Yeah, I was kinda there,” Nicole said, her anxiety bleeding into irritation. “Why do you think that I peeled off from the fight? My friend was in danger.”
Nicole stood there, silently pleading for her friend to believe her. The fear she had felt when she saw the store being attacked, the cold pit in her stomach that settled as she charged the machines attacking her friend. Heartburn bubbled up, her throat burning as she stood there, fingers tracing her watch.
“I can’t do this right now,” Rebecca said, hopping off the chair and stomping over towards the door where she paused with fists clenched and shaking shoulders. “I was worried, you know? A strange order comes over my app just after Colin calls me about the attack. He insisted I do it so I could check on you.” She took a deep breath, and Nicole paused in her approach, hand outstretched. Rebecca looked back, tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. “I can’t believe you wasted my time like this. I’m going to go check on my boyfriend.”
Nicole held her arm out, reaching for her friend as she threw the door open. What else could she do, Becca was leaving, she hadn’t believed her.
“Roll the Dice,” Grace said, casting the entire room in blinding red for a brief moment.
Rebecca turned, her jaw falling slack at the sight of Grace, of the Red Ranger. Nicole wanted to smack her face for not thinking of the obvious answer. She then repeated the words, the flash of black from her own transformation somehow defying the way light should work. Power surged through her, burning in a way her transformations hadn’t before.
“See, wasn’t lying,” Nicole said sheepishly, hiding how raw her nerves felt.
“You just weren’t thinking,” Grace said teasingly. “I trust this clears up the misunderstanding?”
“Uh… Yeah,” Rebecca said. “How…”
“At the Renfaire,” Nicole said, reaching up and pulling her helmet off. “When it was attacked. We were chosen because we fought back to save others.”
“At least, that’s our theory,” Grace added with a shrug. “None of us are completely sure.”
“You saved Colin,” Rebecca said suddenly, stepping forward. Then, Nicole was engulfed in a hug in a blink. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Nicole wrapped her arms around her friend, being careful as she patted her back. It was hard to judge her strength when morphed, which was just another thing she needed to practice with when they met up for more training. Actually, she could probably practice with Grace regularly, given their proximity.
“Hey, Becca,” Nicole said softly. “If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call. I’ll come running, now and always.”
“Your phone was dead,” Rebecca answered flatly.
Nicole coughed, looking away. “Oh right, apparently morphing with our phones on our person tends to drain their battery.”
“Something to keep in mind,” Grace said, picking her phone up from where she had set it aside and crossed her arms. “Power down.”
The effect was like shattering glass, the power falling into motes of light before fading into nothingness. Grace took a shaking breath, leaning against the counter as she did. Nicole moved to help, pulling her up and giving her support.
“You alright?” Nicole asked.
Grace nodded. “I’ll be alright, the soreness and fatigue just caught back up with me as soon as I dropped the transformation.”
“So, sit down before I drop the morph, got it,” Nicole said, chuckling. She helped Grace take a seat on the stool, then took her own seat and dropped her morph. The pain and fatigue slammed into her, feeling every bit as bad as it had after the fight. She let out a heavy groan. “Oh, that fucking sucks.”
“Told ya,” Grace said. “Got any liquor? I could use a shot after that.”
“Sorry,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. “We don’t keep booze in the house, Nicole’s rule.”
“I’m not a fun drunk,” she said softly, recalling the last time she had attempted to take her life. The alcohol definitely lowered her inhibitions, right to the point she took a knife to her wrist. Absently, she rubbed the semicolon tattoo she had gotten next to the faint scar. “Sorry about that.”
“Nikki, you have nothing to apologize for,” Rebecca snapped. “Red, stop making her feel like she’s the bitch here.”
“I didn’t know,” Grace said softly, her shoulders hunching in on themselves. “Won’t happen again.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Thanks,” Rebecca said, flopping back against the counter. “Fuck, my best friend is a Ranger, out there fighting the good fight and saving lives. That’s just…”
“Insane?” Nicole asked, a sardonic smirk coming to her face. “Trust me, I feel the same way. Like, I’m the last person you would think of being a Ranger. I struggle sometimes to find a reason to get through the day, and now the fate of humanity is a burden I have to carry.” Nicole’s shoulders slumped as a self deprecating laugh bubbled forth. “I can’t even carry my own shit, let alone the weight of others.”
Strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her close, the warmth proving to be a small comfort, but a welcomed one. She leaned into the contact, wrapping her arms around her friend. Dull thumps resonated through her back as tears soaked into the shirt of the woman holding her.
“It’s okay,” Grace whispered into her ear. “You’re not alone. Not now or ever.”
A second pair of arms came around her, enveloping her in warmth. “What she said. You’ve got me and Colin, and apparently an entire Ranger team backing you. I’d say that’s something, wouldn’t you?”
Wet laughter followed, and for just an instant, Nicole let herself enjoy the moment. Maraline might have tried to trick her, but her friends were there for her, and just maybe things would be alright.
***
Rebecca left not long after, heading off to check on Colin. Nicole would have joined her, but she still felt like hammered shit. Becca had insisted Nicole take it easy, and Grace had put her foot down in agreement, so they were cuddled on the couch, finishing off their Chinese before it got too cold.
They had put a movie on rather than watch how the news used their efforts at saving lives to drive up the viewer numbers for their networks. It wasn’t hard to see why so many celebrities complained about the attention, it was exhausting.
Instead, they were watching Princess Bride, what could easily be considered one of the few truly perfect movies in the world. It was something familiar and heartwarming, a movie both of them had seen a dozen times before. It was relaxing, and she found herself in a half doze while laying with her head on Grace’s lap, who was stretched out on the recliner portion of the couch.
She could honestly have fallen asleep, if not for one nagging question.
“Why did you show Becca that you were a Ranger?” Nicole asked, her voice soft. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to open them even in the dim light of the TV. “I mean, I could have passed you off as a friend, she didn’t have to know.”
“That’s true,” Grace said, her voice almost slurring in her weariness as she spoke. “I’ve seen how you talk about her, Nicole. She’s practically family to you, so I figured if anyone was safe to show, it was her.”
Nicole stayed silent, mulling that over. There was more to it, Grace had no issues trusting Nicole’s family, and yet, what about her own? Had she ever mentioned them before, even once? She couldn’t recall off-hand a single mention of parents or siblings, and that sent a cold spike through her gut.
Grace had practically clung to her from the start, which was already weird enough for Nicole. Nobody did that, especially not with her. She was a depressed and neurotic mess that was nothing but muscle and bone, no curves to speak of and a bleak outlook on the future. The only thing that Nicole could think of filled her with dread, and she didn’t want the answer.
Yet, she couldn’t help herself.
“What about you? Anyone worth mentioning?”
There, at least she phrased it in a way that gave Grace an easy out. There was of course the ever present worry that she had overstepped, that Grace would get up and go back to her own dorm. Whatever it was about their own Ranger abilities, they recovered from scratches and bruises rather quickly. That did nothing for the bone deep exhaustion, however.
“That depends,” Grace said eventually, “you want the easy answer, or the truth?”
Nicole struggled to control her breathing, forcing herself to take measured breaths. It had been years since she had a conversation like this one, she’d known Rebecca since Freshman year, and Colin since Sophomore. She wasn’t good at the feelings thing, or at deep and meaningful conversation. She needed to deflect, find some way to put the ball back in Grace’s court.
“Whatever you’re more comfortable with,” Nicole said.
She gave herself a mental pat on the back, that was a quality deflection if she had ever seen one! Grace stayed silent for several minutes, the sounds of the movie the only noise aside from their own breathing. She could always focus, draw on her new senses to hear the world around her in greater detail, but that risked over stimulating her to the point she shut down.
Instead, she was using it to focus on the drumbeat of Grace’s heart. It had picked up since she asked her question, and there had even been a palpitation at one point that made her nervous. She had a sneaking suspicion that she had stepped on a very sensitive topic, and Grace was now fighting with her own anxiety on how much she wanted to share.
“There’s no comfortable way to talk about it,” Grace said. “My father was a preacher, down south. You know the type, fire and brimstone, kill the gays… My mother was a good Christian doormat for the man. Needless to say, I stayed in the closet and pretended to be daddy’s good girl, if only to protect my little sister Sarah.”
Wait, Grace was gay?
“I planned to get out as soon as I turned eighteen, figured I’d get on with a decent college and use that to build a better life for myself in a way that wouldn’t piss them off immediately.” Grace took a shaky breath. “Funny how daddy dearest had other plans. He had some friends, a fellow preacher who had a son a few years older than me, and they thought they would play matchmaker.”
Nicole knew she was supposed to be paying attention to her tragic backstory, but she was still too hung up on the fact that Grace was interested in women. She had to temper that sudden elation at the discovery with the sobering knowledge that Grace would never be interested in her as anything more than a friend.
“So, I had to deal with this asshole twenty something when I was barely seventeen putting some of the creepiest moves on me that you’ve ever seen. Like, I swear his only dating experience was watching some shitty eighties movie at a friend’s house a decade prior.”
“That certainly sounds cringe,” Nicole said, doing her damndest to pay attention. “I’m guessing he went from creep to kill it with fire?”
“Got it in one,” Grace said, her hands trembling. “My mother was our chaperone that night, and drove us back from some of the finest dining in town, you know, the kind of place that microwaves their pasta.”
“I know the place,” Nicole said, remembering the times she went there with her parents when they were still alive. Before they died in the incursion.
“Right, so we’re in the back seat together while she drives, and he decides to let his hands wander. I tried swatting him away, but he just got more forceful, and my fucking mother ignored it all. When he grabbed me… I lost it and just fucking decked him in the dick.”
“I’d high five you if I wasn’t super comfy right now,” Nicole said. She still hadn’t opened her eyes, fearful of what she might see if she did.
“Thanks,” Grace said with a light chuckle. “Anyway, that almost caused a wreck. I made my mother pull over and got into the front seat and left him in the back until we got home. My father didn’t take the news well, took the little bastard’s side, and got his father involved on top of it!”
“Then what?” Nicole asked, dreading the answer.
“Got my ass beat by two older men, the third was still holding the frozen peas to his piece,” she said with a huff. “I took what little money I had, tossed everything I needed into a backpack and took off. Thankfully the homeschooling didn’t care if I was separated or not from my parents, and sent my diploma to the new address I gave them, even if it was just a P.O. Box.”
“How did you wind up in Minnesota then?” Nicole asked. “Not exactly a hop skip and jump to get up here.”
“My grandfather knew how to work a forge, it’s how I got the apprenticeship with a smith up north,” she said. “That honestly saved my life, as did some of the assistance programs Minnesota offers. I’d be dead without them.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Nicole said softly.
Silence fell once more, the sounds of the movie washing over her as Nicole began to doze again, utterly content to be near her friend. She almost missed it when Grace whispered, as though she were afraid of waking her up.
“Yeah, I’m glad too.”