Chapter 3: The bookstore out in the country

 

Much of her business was done online, but it wasn’t unusual for a customer to come in person. They were between small towns, and only 30 minutes from the nearest city. Her internet business had been able to survive covid, and after it was done there had been a brief resurgence of in-person customers. People were desperate to return to normal and to support their local businesses. Things had stabilized a little later. She still did just fine. People liked coming to small businesses when they needed a break from the city. The bookstore was along the scenic route to many rural attractions.

                There was also the fact that Christian bookstores were becoming scarce. Hers was not strictly a Christian bookstore…but she had one of the only bookstores with a sizeable section of Christian books. And she may or may not have described it as being a Christian bookstore in various social media marketing schemes. She gave them what they wanted. They gave her business. It was a win/win.

                On that Wednesday she wasn’t expecting much for in-person business. Spring was an odd time. Fall had apple orchards and colorful foliage to bring people out to the country. Winter had the holidays that dragged people to their parents’ and grandparents’ homes in the country. In summertime, people went on family road trips and vacations. Spring didn’t have much to drag people out as they waited for summer. Most weekdays it was just the occasional elderly person from one of the neighboring towns or a church regular.

                She didn’t expect the stranger, and she wasn’t prepared for what he was shopping for.

                It wasn’t books.

                When he walked in, she gave an initial noncommittal “Hello” and “welcome” greeting from  behind the counter where she sat working on tracking online orders. After about five minutes she ventured out to interact with him. He was staring at the books lined up in the World War II history section. Something about him made her think that he was not actually looking at the books. It was like he was looking through them.

                The stranger was about her height, maybe 10 years older than her, Asian, with short hair that looked like it had just been cut. He was dressed like he had just come from a business meeting. But something was off about him.

                It wouldn’t be the first time she had a customer who was a little off.

                “Is there anything I can help you find?” she asked. Normally she wouldn’t use that line. She usually would comment on the topic they were looking at and try to really give them that personal touch that made people want to visit small businesses. But she felt like the stranger wasn’t actually interested in World War II, so she went with the same line someone would’ve given him at Barnes & Noble.

                He looked at her for just a moment. “Can you help me find your brothers?” he asked.

                She looked back at him, quickly assessing. She did not recognize him and was fairly certain they had never met. But he could know her brothers nonetheless. He could know them reasonably… or he could be looking for them for some other reason.

                “Are they expecting you?” she wondered out loud. Peter and Mark were not at home, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

                He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t think they’re expecting me, specifically, but I’m pretty sure they know someone is coming to look for them.”

                She felt strangely protective of her siblings, their little family, and their quiet existence for just an instant. She didn’t say anything, thinking about how to proceed. If her brothers got in trouble, it was not unlikely that they would drag her down, too.

                As she started to formulate words to respond to the stranger, he took a step toward her. “Your brothers killed someone I love,” he said bluntly.

                She knew what that felt like. More than the stranger could imagine. But she didn’t trust him.

                “You need to go,” she said evenly. She pointed to the door.

                “I know what you are,” he said, folding his arms and not making a move to leave.

                How could he?

                “I know all about mutants. And your brothers messed with the wrong guy.”

                He did know.

                She wished that she knew what he was talking about. She wished that Peter and Mark had informed her about what they’d been up to, so that she could understand what it was that the stranger had against them. They had apparently killed again. But why? And who? Could it have been legitimate or justified this time?

                Self-preservation won over curiosity. “You have to go,” she said again, backing up in large steps to get distance between herself and the stranger. “They’re not here right now. You’ll have to come back another time.”

                “This is the time,” the stranger said, advancing as she continued to back away from him.

                “If you know what I am, you’ll back off,” she warned, but he was undeterred.

                She had no choice.

                “Back… OFF,” she said again. She stretched out her hand toward him, closed her eyes, and pushed a blast of energy out, aiming at him. She wasn’t trying to hurt him, but she needed him to go away. After she hit him, though, he kept moving toward her.

                She must have missed, but that was impossible. It had never happened before. She grunted, and pushed another blast at him with the other hand. It was harder this time, and more directed. She felt bad for the possibility that she might hurt him, so she looked away and turned to run to the back of the store. She opened the door which led to the stairway that accessed her home and the basement. Well aware that in the scary movies the girl always inexplicably runs up rather than out, she opted to run up. She was more powerful than the stranger, she knew. She just needed him to go.

                But he didn’t. She paused on the stairs, listening. She heard his footsteps coming closer. She ran up to the top of the stairs, waiting. She heard the door open.

                It wasn’t possible. She looked down and saw the stranger at the bottom of the stairs. “Leave me alone,” she cried, throwing all she had at him with both hands. She turned and went through the door into the second floor, closing it behind her. She ran across the kitchen and through the hall. She stood with her back against the wall, watching and listening.

                She still heard him coming up the stairs.

                It was absolutely impossible. He couldn’t still be standing, let alone advancing on her.

                She cried out as the door opened across the house from her and she saw him moving calmly toward her without injury.

                This was what she did. This was what she had to protect herself with. This was what he had meant when he had said that he knew what she was, that he knew about mutants. This was how she had killed her abusive first husband: by sending a blast of energy at him over and over until his heart stopped. Each time, he had been immobilized. That’s what she had. That’s what she did.

                It had never not worked.

                She yelled something unintelligible as she sent another blast at him, turning and running up the final set of stairs to her 3^rd-floor attic bedroom. But he kept following. She knew it. And she was trapped. All she had to protect herself with, was not going to work. She had her hunting knife, but was suddenly terrified to use it against someone who had inexplicably deflected her blasts. There was nowhere to hide. She opened her window and prepared to fly out. But then…

                The curiosity came back.

                Who was he? What did he want? And why wasn’t he hurt?

                If he wasn’t hurt by her blasts…

                The implications of what that could mean were too much to consider. Her head spun. “Who are you?” she demanded as the stranger slowly ascended the stairs.

                He arrived in her room and stopped. “My name is James Woo,” he said. “I work for an organization you’ve never heard of, if we’re doing our jobs right. So did my partner.”

                When he stopped talking, she understood the meaning. His partner was the man that, allegedly, Mark and Peter had killed.

                “How did you…” She took a step toward him and stopped. “How were you not hurt?”

                He didn’t answer. “Have you ever been able to get away from them?” he asked her.

                As much as she wanted to deny the truth behind his question, he somehow knew. Since he also somehow had survived her blasts, she had a pragmatic degree of trust in him. If she couldn’t defend herself from him, it was all just a house of cards. He could probably hurt her if he wanted to. She decided to be honest.

                “No,” she said. “Almost. But… I can’t. Because…”

                “They have the same powers as you,” he finished for her, nodding.

                She nodded, stunned.

                “Imagine if you could stop their power from hurting you,” he said.

                She stared at him. She couldn’t. She couldn’t imagine it because she had learned that to hope was futile and too painful to put herself through. “How?” she asked in spite of herself.

                He started to say something, then stopped. “If I can get you out of here, would you throw them under the bus?” he asked.

                “What do you mean?” she asked warily.

                He took a step toward her. “I can get you out of here,” he said with some urgency. “I can get you a new identity, a new life.”

                For no reason, she thought of the bartender.

                “If?” she demanded.

                “If you’re willing to sell out your own brothers.”

                She didn’t have to think about it at all. She knew her answer, and had always dreamed that someday this exact scenario would present itself. But what was in it for the person standing in front of her? What were the chances that it could go wrong, and become worse for her as a result?

                “Who was he?” she asked.  “You said they killed someone. Who was it?”

                “I said he was my partner,” the stranger said, looking out the window. “I didn’t mean business partner. He…” For a moment, it was as if the stranger had stopped breathing. She saw his eyes fill with tears as he clamped his mouth shut and put his hands in his pockets. “He was my soulmate. That’s… my life was supposed to be different. He was the light at the end of the tunnel. And now…” he looked back at her, taking a breath in and wiping his eyes. “I don’t get the life I was supposed to have, and neither does he.”

                It was like looking at herself in a mirror. She walked toward him and, in spite of everything, reached out to touch him physically. She put her hands on his shoulders. For some reason, he accepted an embrace and leaned into her. She held onto him wondering why it was that when it was her in his shoes, she didn’t have someone consoling her.

                “I want to help,” she said. “And I want to get out of here.”

                He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled it away on one side to reveal something small that looked like a marble about as wide as a quarter. It was somehow attached to his skin just below his collarbone on the right side.

                “What is it?” she asked, reaching out.

                “We have been working on this device for a while. I haven’t had a chance to test it, personally. Today was my first go. And, between us, I’m pretty relieved it worked.” He let out a small laugh. She didn’t.

                He continued. “When you sent energy at me, the device absorbed it. It absorbs and stores the energy. It’s like a magnet, sucking it all in so none of what you sent my way actually hit me.”

                “What happens to the energy?” she asked, thinking a step ahead.

                He looked at her. “Once it’s inside the device, it’s stable. It’s contained. But we haven’t figured out what to do with it, then.”

                “Can’t be created or destroyed,” she said.

                “Exactly. Theoretically… if we could harness the energy, we could use it for just about anything. Power your cell phone. Heat up your lunch.”

                She had a better idea, but she didn’t say it out loud. “How do I get one of these?” she demanded.

                James buttoned his shirt back up. “Next time we meet, I’ll have a plan,” he said. “We can work out the details then.”

                “When’s next time?” she asked. It wasn’t the first time something had happened that had made her think she had a way out. But it was the first time in a long time that something had happened that seemed so promising.

                “Give me a week,” he said. “Where can we meet? Somewhere neutral.”

                A week? After so many years, a week felt like an eternity. “I know a safe place,” she said. “Far away. At a bar in the city.”

                “They don’t know you go there? They won’t follow you, track your phone?”

                She shook her head. “I don’t take my phone,” she said.

                She gave him the details by entering them into his phone. He gave her a day and time.

                As much as she wanted to trust that this could fix everything, thoughts still nagged at the back of her mind. “How much do you know about us?” she asked cautiously as he put his phone back in his pocket.

                He straightened and smiled pityingly at her. “Enough to know that you and I probably have the same reason for wanting Peter and Mark to be held accountable.” His eyes teared again but only briefly, before his face turned to an expression of resolve. “But not enough to know what it is they’re holding over you.”

                That was it. That was the piece that she needed to know.

He didn’t know.

                Maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe it would all just fall apart, the whole thing, and the piece they were holding over her wouldn’t ever come to light.

                The only way that would happen, she knew, would be if they were killed. If someone like James or the police ever got onto them and they were in trouble, they would sell her out in an instant. Then she would be in trouble, too. She may be able to escape them, but then she’d be stuck in prison. It wasn’t necessarily a better alternative. At least now she had some freedom, limited though it was.

                She didn’t trust the stranger enough to tell him everything. She couldn’t. It was too much of a risk. She wavered in wanting to continue moving forward with him.

                He noticed. “Jordan?”

                She looked at him, then looked away.

                “I lost you. Are you still with me for next week?”

                She didn’t know. Now it all seemed too good to be true. Suddenly someone unexpectedly jumped into her life and told her that he could fix everything. How likely was that?

                “You can have a different life,” James said.

                She stared at him, and again thought of the bartender. It would be stupid to make any big decisions based on the hope that someday she could spend more time with him. But it was more than that. It was more than him. She wanted to believe that someday she could spend more time with anyone, not just him. She wanted to believe that someday she could have a different life – one where she didn’t have to barricade her door at night or worry about the omnipresent threat of exposure that hung over her.

                If it didn’t work out, she could go out in a blaze of glory. If she helped James and in return her brothers sold her out and she went to prison… she didn’t have to make the choice to keep living. Death seemed a sweet release preferable to continuing to live the life she had been stuck in for the past six years. It was a calculated risk. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that… but if she truly could trust James, things could be different.

                As she thought through it, she realized that Peter and Mark would feel similarly to her. They would rather die than be imprisoned. It seemed more likely that, if confronted, they would also choose to fight even if it meant losing their lives in the process. If they did that, she would never be found out. And she would be free.

                “I don’t know if that’s true,” she said. “But right now it’s better than this.” She nodded. “I’ll see you next week.”

                She walked James down both sets of stairs, back to the bookstore, expressing her sorrow for his loss as they went. He purchased two books that he said were gifts. She didn’t ask any questions.

                Although she always tended to feel the presence of her brothers around every corner, for an instant she had let her guard down.

She didn’t know that Peter had been watching. She didn’t know that he’d been seated on top of the barn watching into her window. He hadn’t seen everything, but he had been looking in when James had arrived. He couldn’t hear through walls and he couldn’t read lips. But he knew what he saw.

                What he saw was his sister showing a man into her room and putting her hands on him before having a serious conversation.

                She didn’t know any of this. She had already let her guard down too much. She would pay for it.