I guess it wasn’t until we got back with haystack and this other Eden that I started to suspect it. Lots of little things had been adding up in the back of my mind that I hadn’t acknowledged yet. I asked Alistair, the only one besides me who wasn’t psychic, to try to read my mind. Sure enough he was able to pick up on my intense desire for a beer. I wasn’t trying to broadcast it, but I wonder if he felt my sudden sense of dread.
I wasn’t looking for another ka-tet and I didn’t want one. I had Penny and she was all I wanted, even though I knew I didn’t deserve her. I kept thinking about Lex and what I did to the Top Hat Cats. Ka is a wheel, or so say Roland and Steven King. Was I doomed to betrayal again? Was everything I’ve gone through just so I could end up gunning everyone down?
I thought about going to the Rose. I felt like it could cure me of this feeling, maybe wash away the betrayal. It was after all the voice of it’s alright, the voice of yes you may. But I knew that it would destroy me even as it did. And right then, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Penny was strong, she didn’t need me. She’d get over my death and be better off without a vampire in her life.
I put my sawed-off to my head again, pressed so hard that it made ring-shaped indents in my temple that stayed for hours. I was convinced that I was going to pull the trigger, but I didn’t. I kept seeing Penny in my head. I was still sure that she’d get over whatever childish attachment she had to me, but… I found that I wasn’t ready to let go yet. Couldn’t let go. Roland had his Tower, and I had Penny. Maybe it’d come down to this in the end, killing myself to escape from ka, but I wasn’t up against that wall yet. I’d try. God, I’d try. To make this work, to make a real ka-tet of us and protect them like I knew I should. Maybe I was being a ka-mai, I probably was, but for Penny, I’d try.
Upper management at Tet needed some time to go over what we’d brought back, including talking to Keirnin of the Manni, who I still thought of as Haystack., so we had some downtime. Ashleigh probably should have gone to a hospital, but I’m not sure what they could have done for him. Tet sent a doctor to his house, where he’d bee-lined right after we got back. I would have been pissed at him for not staying to debrief (I’d have fired someone who followed up on a project that sloppily), but he was still shaking from his fall into the todash darkness so I was just surprised he could walk and talk. I’d taken a shot at forging something with him and Alistair already. I’d wait and see how that went the next time we played poker, if there was a next time.
But I owed Carrie something now. I asked Penny to take her and buy a nice dress and one for herself. I took her back to the restaurant we’d gone to before, but this time I didn’t have any agenda apart from apologizing for smacking her. She’d been right after all. This time we didn’t get any stares, at least not the bad kind. We were just a good-looking couple having a nice dinner. I tried to talk to her a little – nothing about what we’d done at Tet, nothing about that part of our lives – but the conversation was stilted. Her visions were the only thing Carrie had. It made me sad, but I didn’t know what to do.
She invited me up to her apartment afterwards so I walked her in. I wasn’t sure what she had in mind: coffee, sex or both. When she didn’t make much of a move either way I just asked her, I’m not shy. Her answer was just as plain; an open invitation to either. Wow, she sure knows how to make a guy feel like a couple of bucks. It was a step up from Alice’s brush-off, but didn’t exactly make me feel wanted either. It was more like if she lied down with a sign on her chest that said “please wipe feet.” I figured if Ashleigh or Alistair were here the invitation would be the same. So I left.
I’d been worried about Penny, too. We’d just been through a lot. She watched Eden fall to her death, then been involved in a serious firefight. Even killed a man (well, a taheen, but it was still her first kill). She’d done it well, fought hard. She was scared and could use some work on hiding that, but she’d done what she had to anyways. When I talked to her about it, though, it was like I was afraid of. They were “bad guys” so it was okay to kill them. Oh, God, how do you explain to a kid what you never really understand as an adult? People aren’t born into little categories like bad guys and good guys. I mean, which one was I? What was Lex? Was I right to kill him? Yes. Yes, but he wasn’t a bad guy. It’s more complicated. I think she understood. She’s a smart kid. I just hope that next time lead flew that I hadn’t crippled her with indecision.
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