Purity War Read online

  I texted Mick casually and mentioned I’d be busy all week but that Emily and I would like him and Todd to come over Saturday night. We had taken to hanging out a few times during the week, always frustratingly stuck at the same status of hand-holding and kissing and an abrupt stop on Mick’s part. A little break to gather my thoughts and my courage was probably a good thing—not to mention that he would hopefully miss me by that point. Maybe that was my problem, I was too available. Maybe I should play some coy game, making him work for me? Truthfully, I didn’t know how to play that game. It just always seemed to me that if I wanted to spend time with someone, I should. What was the point in pretending I didn’t? This sudden shift in Mick’s personality was leaving me questioning a lot of things, and I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel genuine to me, and I needed to find my way back to living the life I wanted.

  Even if that was without Mick.

  I stuck to my plan throughout the week, being distant and unavailable when Mick texted me. I could tell it upset him, from the tone of his messages he seemed distressed. Good, I thought, let him wonder what’s going on for a while.

  Meanwhile, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Whenever I was upset I would clean, and by Friday night our condo was spotless. And so Emily found me half-buried under my bed, stretching the vacuum hose to reach the far corner where the last surviving dust bunny in our house had hidden.

  The vacuum turned off, and I sighed then backed out to plug it back in. My stretching must have pulled the cord from the wall.

  “Lulu, this is getting out of hand. I’m pretty sure you have a problem.” Emily was standing behind me, her foot on the switch.

  “Why is it a problem to want a clean home,” I retorted. “Anyone would be grateful to have such a clean roommate.”

  “A clean roommate is great. But you’ve gone over the edge into crazy-pants territory,” she accused, smiling despite the concern in her cerulean eyes.

  “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

  “Lulu, you organized our spice rack ALPHABETICALLY.”

  “You know,” I mused, “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. It’s genius, really, it makes it so much easier to find the coriander when you know it’s right next to the cloves…”

  “You reorganized my bathroom. MY bathroom. I can’t find anything now.” The exasperation in her tone was clear.

  “I don’t know how you found anything in there before I cleaned it, to be honest,” I answered. “It was a disaster. Now it’s so much easier! All of your makeup is sorted by type, then application order, then color and mood…” I trailed off. She clearly was not impressed with my organizational skills. “Well, if you don’t like it, just throw it all back in a jumble the way it was before,” I huffed.

  Her tone softer, Emily crouched next to me. “Lulu, I appreciate that you cleaned. And I understand that you’re stressed about Mick. But this,” she gestured to my Cinderella-esque devotion to cleanliness, “Is just proof to me you’re way more upset than you’re letting on. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Em, I already told you I was upset.”

  “I know, but… do you think you might have played some things down because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings?” She raised her eyebrows at me, daring me to deny it.

  “Well…” I trailed off. It’s true, I cut out some parts that felt like I was just being jealous. I didn’t want her to think I resented her happiness. Of all the people in the world, Emily deserved it. “Maybe just a little…”

  Emily smiled. “I know. Well, why don’t we get out of here, go see a movie or something?”

  I glanced dubiously at the corner where that last dust bunny was taking refuge. “Maybe if I can just…”

  “No,” Emily’s tone was firm. “Your dusty friend can wait one more night. Let’s go.” She grabbed my arm and pulled with irresistible force, dragging me up from my knees.

  “Ouch,” I muttered, rubbing my abused wrist. “Em, have you been working out?”

  “No,” she replied, “I just mean business.”

  ***

  LUCY

  The movie was a good escape. Em picked an action flick, the kind that starts and ends with lots of fire and explosions and wastes very little time on romance. My mind was so occupied trying to absorb all the special effects that I didn’t have time to worry about Mick, which I knew was the point of the evening.

  As we waited outside for our Uber, Em wrapped her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Feel better?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “Maybe I was a little manic, but I’m just so confused. I’ve never felt so attached, and yet so distant, with someone. I thought for sure he felt the same way I did, but then he’s been so different these last couple of weeks, I don’t know what to think.”

  A rough male voice interrupted from behind me. “Excuse me, ladies, do you have a light?”

  I turned, surprised, but Emily just gave the man a tight smile and said, “Sorry, we don’t smoke,” then returned her gaze to me pointedly. “Maybe something is going on back home that he hasn’t told you about? Have you asked him?”

  “No, I just-”

  This time it was Emily that cut me off. “Sir, I already told you we don’t smoke, sorry we can’t help you,” she said the last part firmly dismissing the intruder. Pressing her hand to my shoulder, she turned me toward the street and we took a step away from the man who had encroached in our space. Emily’s instincts were usually good, so I went along with how she wanted to handle the situation. I glanced at my phone, confirming that our Uber was less than two minutes away.

  “Hey!” Emily’s surprised, angry tone alerted me that something was not going according to plan. When I looked up I saw the man, wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood up, had Emily’s arm by the wrist and held a knife in his other hand, pressed to her throat. Emily’s eyes were wide with shock and fear. My heart immediately began to pound as the quiet street was now deafeningly silent in my ears. We had dallied too long after the movie and there was no one around to help us.

  “Tell your friend to give me her purse,” the man growled.

  Emily’s eyes swept from me to her attacker’s arm and back again, then seemed to harden. In one swift movement, she swept her upper body away from him and pulled her wrist from his grasp. Then, instead of running, she kneed the startled man between the legs. While he was doubled over in pain, she reared back and delivered him a punch to the chin that literally lifted him off of his feet, into the air, and sent him flying. He landed several feet away, unconscious.

  She stared at him angrily, chest heaving. I stared at her, wondering when my petite, girly best friend had turned into Wonder Woman.

  At that moment a black Prius pulled up to the curb and the passenger window rolled down. “Lucy?” An accented male voice called. “I’m your Uber.”

  Emily held my surprised gaze for a moment, then said, “Let’s go,” and nodded at the car.

  We rode all the way home in silence, not wanting a nosy Uber driver to overhear our conversation. When we were safely inside our condo, Emily flopped on the couch, looking dazed.

  “Emily, what the HELL just happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, confused. “I was just pissed that this guy preyed on me because I’m small and an easy target and I didn’t want to put up with his bullshit. I didn’t make any conscious decision aside from pulling away, but once I did that I just… well, I guess it was just instinct.”

  “Em, you kicked his ass. You laid him out, cold, from one punch! Have you been taking Karate or something I don’t know about?”

  “No, I swear I’m just as surprised as you are! I’ve never punched anyone in my life, you know that. I mean, we took that one self-defense class together, which is probably why I knew to knee him in the balls, but I have no idea where the rest came from.”

  “I need a drink,” I decided. “Want one?”

  “Yeah, definitely,” Emily agreed.
I grabbed two chilled bottles from the fridge and then returned to the living room to find Emily deep in thought.

  She took a swig when I handed her the beer, then said carefully, “Lucy, you don’t think… maybe… it has something to do with Todd?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, with everything that happened, and Todd changing into a human and all, because of my blood in his system… do you think his DNA could have done something to me?”

  “Whoa.” It was my turn to flop on the couch. “Emily, we never thought about that. It seems obvious now, but we were all so hung up on how Todd had changed we never stopped to consider if anything changed with you. You seemed fine… normal. I don’t know if it even occurred to anyone.” I racked my brain to remember that euphoric time when Emily had basically come back from the dead and we were all waiting for the vimpiri scientists to confirm that Todd had indeed become human. I couldn’t recall one time anyone had asked if Emily was at all different after the initial examination confirmed that her wounds had healed. I knew they had put Todd through a series of tests, but no one had tested Emily at all.

  “Em, we gotta ask Todd, or Mick, about this. They have to know.”

  “Lets… just keep it between us tonight, okay? I need some time to think about it.”

  “Sure, Em. Whatever you want.”

  “Thanks.”

  I settled into the couch and stared at the TV as Emily flipped through channels, eventually settling on a late-night repeat of a sitcom. I couldn’t be sure, but I was fairly certain she wasn’t watching the show any more than I was. We sat side-by-side gazing at the TV, mired in our own thoughts. I’d been so wrapped up in worrying about Mick I hadn’t even considered how everything Emily had gone through might have changed her. Truthfully, I had been a little jealous, assuming everything was perfect and whole for her now. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. Even as I wondered what else I’d missed, I worried that we were just at the beginning of figuring out the consequences.

  Besides her apparent new superhuman strength, what else had changed?

  THE EXPERIMENT

  LUCY

  Emily was quiet the next day. We didn’t have much cleaning to do in preparation for the guys to come over, and we ended up just quietly going through the motions of a Saturday. Morning pancakes weren’t punctuated by our typical banter—Em silently scrolled through her phone as she ate, and I gave her space. It seemed like something a person needs time to process, and I knew Emily enough to know when she wanted to be left alone.

  Given the Vimpiri aversion to meat, we had researched a vegetarian recipe for stew, similar to the one Mick made me in Hall in Tirol. Even though I was certain I could never replicate the delicate balance of spices and textures, I hoped he would appreciate the effort.

  As the morning wore on and Em remained thoughtful and quiet, I became concerned. We were both hanging out in our living room, pretending to watch a movie while we played on our phones. However, Emily’s eyes were glassy, as if she weren’t actually looking at the screen she was scrolling through.

  I cleared my throat. “Em?” I asked in a soft voice.

  “Mm?” She replied automatically, her gaze not straying from her phone.

  “Em,” I began again, “Are you okay?”

  Her eyes lifted from her phone and she stared at the far corner of the room while she considered my question.

  “I’m not sure,” she finally answered, turning to meet my gaze. “It’s hard to wrap my head around, that alien DNA may have changed who I am. I don’t know how to feel about it.” Her eyes were liquid, gleaming with unshed tears. She was really frightened.

  Reaching for her hand, I grasped it tightly in both of mine. “Whatever has happened, it hasn’t changed who you are, Em. You are still the same person,” I assured her. “Just, maybe able to leap tall buildings in a single bound now, too,” I added with a smile.

  “Hey, Superman was 100% alien, don’t forget,” she joked weakly. “It’s not like I can fly or stop a speeding bullet in its path.”

  “How do you know?” I challenged. “We haven’t exactly tested out your limitations here.”

  “I have been thinking about it,” Em confessed, “My assumption is that I would be limited, physically, by the limitations they have. Like, perhaps Todd and I are some kind of half-breed now, both gaining and keeping the best aspects of each, like an ideal hybrid. He doesn’t get poisoned by the sun, and I’m stronger than your typical human woman… like we’re both somewhere in-between.”

  “This feels like the sort of thing we need to test out,” I said. “We can’t know what has changed until we try to see where your limits are.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Emily’s voice was cautiously curious.

  “Let’s avoid the evil-doers for now… we shouldn’t take on any more muggers until we know what we’re working with. How about a road test, Ninja Warrior-style?”

  “Where?”

  “Hmm,” I paused as I thought. “Nowhere that you could be seen, but obviously our place is too small… what about that old warehouse down the street? It’s abandoned. No one ever goes there, and it should have plenty of space.”

  Em was thoughtful for a minute, her eyes staring off to the left. She started nodding slowly, then swung her gaze back to me. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  ***

  LUCY

  “You need to try harder!” My words carried across the abandoned building, echoing in the dilapidated shelter and sending critters scurrying across the warped wooden planks—I tried hard not to think about what kind of critters they were.

  Emily sighed audibly from fifty yards away and crossed her arms, staring me down. “I can’t do it.” Her black leggings were dirty and her pink tank top had darkened patches from the sweat of her exertion.

  “I don’t believe that and neither do you, Em. I know you can do this—if you can punch a guy so hard he goes flying, you’ve got to be able to jump high. Why would your arms be so much stronger than your legs? You’re holding yourself back.” My tone was confident, my assessment sure. I may not have felt that positive, but if I expressed doubt she would believe me. I had to convince her I was right. “Try again!”

  Emily sighed again then cracked her neck, uncrossing her arms and swinging them back and forth to get pumped up. She glanced up at the beam she was aiming for, ten feet high and approximately double her height. Even jumping high enough to touch it would be impossible for ‘normal’ Emily, so we set our sights on her slapping a hand on the beam as our first goal. So far she’d been failing spectacularly. She was sweaty and disgruntled, barely having jumped a foot high.

  Air Jordan she was not.

  “Come on, Em, you can do it!” I encouraged, “Take a running start if you have to.”

  Following my advice, Em backed up a few steps and ran forward before leaping into the air. She got a little higher, but only by inches. Then she lost sight of her landing and tripped over the uneven floor in the derelict structure, yelling as she rolled onto her back to cushion the fall.

  “Dammit Lucy, this isn’t working! Will a broken ankle get you off of my back? Christ!” Em clutched her leg, rotating her foot and demonstrating that it wasn’t actually broken.

  Even so, I rushed to her side to assist. “Does it hurt? Do you think it’s sprained? It doesn’t appear to be swelling,” I rattled off, concerned.

  “No, it’s fine, I probably just twisted it. Help me up,” she reached for me and I tugged her to her feet. After a few tentative steps, she appeared to decide that her injury wasn’t too severe and began walking slowly toward the gaping doorway through which we had entered.

  I paused to look around the old warehouse. While the floor had been fairly solid where I stood near the door, here it was definitely suspect. The boards were warped and rotted away in places, creating gaps that revealed the darker levels below. Emily was brave just for jumping on it, in my opinion.

  A brief flash of light a dozen yards further into
the building caught my eye. I wasn’t sure what caused it, but it appeared to be coming from a tipped over, rusted desk. Carefully I picked my way across the increasingly rotten floorboards toward the heap. As I got closer, I realized the flash had come from a broken hand mirror that appeared to have an ornate, tarnished silver handle.

  “Hey Em, check this out!” I yelled. A relic like that certainly didn’t belong in an abandoned warehouse. Just as I reached for the handle, I heard a loud groan, accompanied by a series of ear-splitting cracks below me. I had just enough time to look up and meet Emily’s panic-stricken eyes over twenty yards away before the floor fell out beneath my feet and my body hurtled towards the darkness.

  ***

  LUCY

  After the abrupt sensation of my stomach flying into my throat, the next thing I felt was a sudden, painful jerk on my arm and the sickening flop of my stomach landing back where it belonged. I sucked in a deep breath and looked up to discover my wrist tightly wrapped in Emily’s tiny hand, her face an echo of my own shock.

  “Emily!” I didn’t have any other words. I was still swinging precariously over a pitch-black pit with nothing stopping me but the fingers of a 100-pound woman.

  “Hold on, Lu, I’m going to pull you up,” Em grunted. Rising from her knees, Em gripped my arm with both hands and squatted down, preparing to lift with her legs like they had taught us at the Steel Times employee safety training.

  “Wait, Em, I don’t think…” I didn’t have time to finish my panicked statement. My body hurtled into the air and flopped onto the floorboards five feet from where Em stood. She had tossed me directly over her head, releasing me like a sack of flour.