words a strange echo effect, inside and outside layering over each other to create something entirely new. “I learned this trick from you. Remember, during the earthquake? You closed your eyes and kept running, because you had mine to look through. It was pretty clever.”
“It’s almost like I’m smart or something,” she says bitterly. “This isn’t the way to have a private conversation. Your girlfriend can still hear us.”
“She’s not my girlfriend anymore,” he says. “I don’t know if she ever was. Dodge . . . we have to find a way to get through this without losing each other. I don’t think I can handle it.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you let her use you to put me on a leash,” she says. “It’s not safe to be around you.”
“I won’t do it again without your permission. I promise.” He pauses. That doesn’t seem like enough. “I swear,” he amends, and it’s more childish, and that makes it more sincere.
“I don’t think that’s a promise you can keep. I don’t want to be apart from you, but I don’t believe you when you say you won’t hurt me. You’re going to hurt me.”
“Of course I am. I’m your brother. I’m going to hurt you and annoy you and drive you crazy, and you’re going to do the same to me. So what if I got super-persuasion powers? You can break time. That’s pretty badass, Dodge. But it only works if we stay together. I’m tired of feeling like something’s missing. I’m tired of wondering what color my apples are. Stay with me. Sure, we’ll probably hurt each other, but no one else will ever hurt us again.” That’s what she’s always wanted, isn’t it? For no one to hurt her.
Dodger is quiet for a moment. Then, in a soft voice, she says, “I’ll kill you if you break your word. I can do it. No matter how strong you get, I can do it.”
“I know.”
She smiles to herself, nods, and says, “Get out of my head.”
Roger opens his eyes and feels her hand slipping into his. He glances to the side and there she is, walking beside him, eyes still fixed front.
“If this Leigh woman is as smart as you say, she’ll be watching for us to get on the BART,” she says. “It’s the easiest way to get around the Bay Area once you give up having a car. So we need to do something else.”
“Something else like what?” asks Erin. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”
“Because I still don’t know,” says Dodger. “But I know we need to get to the water. Do you have any more cash on you?”
“I always have cash on me.”
“Good.” Dodger’s smile takes on an almost feral edge. It’s the sort of smile that gives children nightmares, and Roger is obscurely relieved. If Dodger is giving other people nightmares, she isn’t too weighed down by her own. “I hope you have a lot, because we’re taking a taxi.”
“To where?”
“Far away.”
* * *
“Far away” turns out to be Berkeley: they’re back where they started from, in the city where the ashes of the house where Roger and Erin shared so many happy years still smolder. The air feels electric when they step out of the cab, and Roger realizes it’s partially because it’s been so long since he was here with Dodger, who takes his hand as soon as she’s out of the vehicle. The last time they were together in this city, they killed more than a thousand people, and destroyed landmarks that should have stood for another hundred years. Now, they’re just two cuckoos on the run, two more supplicants on the way to the Impossible City. The moment should have more weight to it, should matter more. It doesn’t. This is just a way station. This was only ever a way station.
“The Transbay bus picks up from the Albany BART station,” says Dodger. “We’ll take that as far as the Financial District. There’s a bike rental kiosk near the bus stop. We can get where we need to go from there.”
“And where do we need to go?” asks Erin.
“I still don’t know.”
The cab dropped them three blocks from the station, at Dodger’s insistence. It’s a paper-thin ruse; it won’t cost Leigh and her people more than a few seconds. A few seconds is better than nothing. They walk to the station and stop, looking at its bright lights, its modern lines. This is what normalcy looks like.