You’ll need a conceptual model for what you are able to do.
It’s useful to think about it like you are using a word processor.
You still have those wherever and whenever you are? Maybe. Maybe not.
Here in today, people use software to write things. Emails. Letters. Stories. Suicide notes.
The software always has some standard way of moving content. You select some text, you cut it out of one document and you paste it into another.
I think of people as text documents. The words are who they are. What they can do. What they feel. The hurts they’ve accumulated.
In between, the text is stored inside a buffer. That’s us.
That’s how I think of the tattoos. Cut & paste.
And this is très important.
You never copy. You never delete. You can only cut and paste.
As I see it, I have six immediate problems.
One. There are seven dead bodies in my kitchen.
Two. A Kin Slayer named Josi will certainly be hunting me soon.
Three. My heart just stopped and I’m not exactly in stable condition.
Four. My youngest sister Adia has been kidnapped to Austria.
Five. My other sister, Dahlia, will show up soon and she’ll be pissed.
Six. Anje wants me to explain things that will have…consequences.
So. Priorities.
“I need whiskey and gumbo.”
To give Anje credit, she doesn’t argue.
“Madelaine’s?”
“Madelaine’s.”
Two damp washcloths from the bathroom and clean t-shirts take care of enough of the blood and sweat that Madelaine’s won’t kick us out. Anje does my back and I hers, all professional like locker room buddies. We’re not back to the other stuff yet.
Problem two takes care of problem one. Whoever this Josi is, they’ll come here to see what happened once their team fails to check in. Leaving bodies behind isn’t how the Kin has stayed mostly secret for all of human history.
Problem two will also take care of us if we’re here when they show up, so I pack a bag. We’re out of the flat and headed down the inside stairs less than five minutes after Mathild vanished.
I don’t want Josi searching the building and running into my crew by mistake. Once we’re in the parlor, hot-press paper and a brush give me a “Closed for Renovations” sign which I slap on the door with masking tape before we step outside. The guys know that means to find another chair to use for a bit.
Outside it’s beginning to get dark. But darker doesn’t mean cooler in these parts. Madelaine’s is a fifteen-minute walk from here, but I don’t ask Anje about a car. Anything thirty minutes or less and she wants to move, usually a jog or run. Tonight she walks. She’s thinking about problem three.
Our unspoken rule: we walk in silence after bad shit goes down. Think first, talk later. So I think about four and five. Adia and Dahlia.
Anje knows all the stories about my sisters. Everything that words can say. But if I’m going to ask her to risk her life to help Adia, I have to go deeper than words. She needs to know her. She can’t choose unless she knows.
Dahlia will find us when she wants to and Anje will figure her out quickly enough. But I have to protect Anje from Dahlia first. I should have already.
Understanding Adia is different. That’s about people and places. About Montgomery. We’ll need to take another walk tomorrow. A much longer walk.
Madelaine’s is a special place. All close-whispers and lipstick-smiles and cologne-clouds. The food and liquor are better than decent, but it’s the décor that makes you feel like you’ve discovered something you’ll be coming back to.
Again.
And again.
There are no direct sight lines in the place. Everything is cubbyholes and curtains, kerosene lamps and smoky wood. There is a burning wick glow in the air, but this glow soothes me. The tables are crisp red linen, silver and glass. Every staffer in the place looks like they know a secret. One they’ll share if you just ask.
Madelaine’s is a place for love. Or for memories of love.
This is where it happened the first time.
We’re shown to a private curtained booth in the back.
“Welcome back, Mr. Beton. Ms. Ray. Your usual?”
It is a testament to management that Anje and I are able to order drinks and food with a single nod each and we won’t have to speak a word to our waitress the rest of the evening. Vaillant.
We’re quiet until the bottle of Hibiki and two glasses arrive. It’s a drink you savor. We both empty our glasses in one go and I repour.
Hibiki means echo. We take the echo straight. It’s the only way.
“Tell me,” Anje says.
“Ten years ago you were raped.”
She never denies this. Somewhere inside she knows.
“I don’t remember because you took it.”
“Because you told me to take it.”
Anje takes a drink, anticipating she’ll need it for this next part.
“Are you carrying it, like you carry Anucha?”
“It’s not like Anucha. It’s your memories and emotions, but not you. Not the person.”
“So, can you...remember it right now? Experience it?”
“Not all of it.”
“Explain.”
“I have some of it. Part has been passed on to someone who wanted it.”
“Who?”
“Dukaine.”
“Your friend, the actor? What did he want?”
“The suffering.”
“Was that my...I mean, her choice?”
“No. Once something is mine, it’s my choice. That’s the deal.”
“The deal she made. Cass, I’m not really certain that she and I are still the same person.”
“I won’t break a deal with her, even for you.”
Anje slowly runs her hand through her hair, the short red stubble rippling under her fingers. This is what she does when she’s deciding whether or not to test something. “What did you keep?”
I turn over my forearm and surface the Caged Tiger tattoo. “I kept the rage.”
I can’t tell her I kept more than that. The guilt and the shame. That ends with her wanting to take the Tiger back, me saying no and us fighting.
“Do I want to know the details?”
“You thought you should know them.”
Anje takes a long pause.
“Cass. I trust you. But...convince me.”
“In the orphanage you broke a boy’s nose.”
“I never told you that. I never told anyone that.”
“She told me.”
“You took my memory of her telling too, so you could use it as proof.”
Echo. In answer, I take another sip of Hibiki.
“Okay, tell me about the rape.”
“You know when it was.”
“The first hole in my memory. Before the months in the hospital. While I was at Pulaski Home back in Little Rock.”
“You used to sneak out of the orphanage with the other girls to go to a bridge underpass. There was a Department of Transportation construction depot there that shielded the area from the cops.”
“I remember. Friday nights, after midnight. The security guard at the home, Amos, let us go because he wanted to get with Jemma.”
“The bridge was a hangout for local teens. Drug dealers and gangs too.”
“It wasn’t any of them though, was it?”
“No.”
“It was the boys from the orphanage. The cops said they put me in the hospital.”
“They followed you and the other girls.”
“Jemma. Darla. Keysa. Charlene.”
“Younger girls you’d been protecting from the orphanage boys. And that you protected from them that night.”
“Because I was bigger than any of the boys. They were all punks.”
“Yes. But punks are dangerous in a pack.”
“So the hole in my life that I think was a concussion, it’s more.”
“You did have a concussion. Also two broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and internal bleeding. You were in a coma in ICU for six weeks.”
“Memory loss?”
“No. Afterward, you remembered it all.”
“And now I don’t, but you do.”
“Anje, once they thought they’d broken you, just as one of them was...”
“Raping me.”
“Yes. You went berserk. You got out of the grip of the boys holding you and you started breaking things. Breaking those boys. You crippled three of them from what you told me, probably for life. The rest started beating you with boards and pipes until you stopped moving. Then they ran. They thought they’d killed you. Your friends brought the police. Nearly too late.”
“When did you take this from me? It was one of the other holes in my past.”
“Yes. It was that first summer after Phillipe introduced me to you at Noi’s Gym.”
“Right after I got to Montgomery and Phillipe’s church took me in to the women’s shelter. The summer of lub,” she says using the joke her teacher used to make. Her smile as she says this is grim, but at least it’s a smile.
“Yeah. Anucha said he’d never had a student sleep so much.”
“I needed all the lub I could get. My body was still healing and Kru’s training was brutal. And my mind needed a break from him teaching me Thai.”
“We spent a lot of time together that summer.”
“You were my first friend in Montgomery.”
“Phillipe asked me to meet you because you started having episodes. Hyperviolent ones. Mostly when you slept, but sometimes when you were awake. Sometimes in the ring while sparring with other fighters. Anucha tried to teach you to control it, but it wasn’t working.”
“So Phillipe thought you could fix me with a tattoo.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve always liked your brother.”
“And he’s always...liked you.” Different conversation for a different time. “During the summer, I told you about my tattoos. About everything I can do.”
“I remember that. You didn’t take everything.”
“Only what was necessary. Near the end of the summer, there should be another hole. That’s when you asked me to take the rape away.”
“What exactly did you take?”
“I thought I got all of it. The memory, the physical and emotional trauma, the rage. And I had to take away your memory of asking me to do it. It was the most difficult tattoo I’ve created.”
“Thought? You left something behind?”
“Not intentionally. But I’ll get to that in a minute. The important thing is you immediately stopped having violent episodes. It changed everything for you.”
“What if I asked for the rape back? You shouldn’t have to carry that.”
“You promised me that you’d never do that. That you’d never ask for it back. It was my only condition for doing this, and you agreed.”
“Why do I have more holes? There are a lot of them, Cass. One or two a year since that summer. Are all of the holes in my memory from you?”
Now it’s my turn for a drink. “Yes. We’ve done this a lot of times.”
“Why?”
“Before I took the memories, we’d known each other for four months. In that time we’d never touched. The only time you’d touch a man was in the sparring ring.”
“So?”
“A few months after I took the memories there was a night when you decided we needed to start touching. So we did. A lot.”
“Why...why don’t I remember that?”
“Because afterward, after you fell asleep, something snapped and it came rushing back. Not the memories, but something worse. It terrified you and you didn’t understand what was happening or why because your framework for understanding was gone. Pure terror without a source.”
“So. You took the memory of us?”
“You asked me to. And it worked. Until...”
“Until what?”
“Until the next time you chose to touch me.”
“How many times, Cassius? How many times have you erased...us?”
“Fourteen times.” I’ve never erased us. But I understand what she’s asking.
“Why didn’t you do something? Reject me?”
“I can’t. I’m carrying all of my feelings for you and all of your feelings for me. And every time I take your new memories of us, those feelings grow.”
“Leave me.”
“If I give you all of your feelings back, and then leave, it would destroy us both. Yearning and guilt. I’ve seen what concentrated emotion can do.”
“I could leave.”
“Yes. If you decide not to take your feelings back. But you could never be with anyone else because I won’t be there when the terror comes again.”
“Then it’s a trap. For both of us.”
I surface the Cage without the Tiger. The Cage has fourteen bars.
“It’s a beautiful trap.”
“You should have told me beforehand. Let me choose.”
“What do you think we’re doing right now? I always tell you. Usually here at Madelaine’s. And you always choose the same thing. The fourth option.”
“What is the fourth option?”
“You’ll figure it out. And it has to be your choice. After that neither of us ever chooses to stop it.”
“One night. Then the terrors come,” she says slowly.
“Yes. And the cycle repeats.”
“I tell you to take the memories and feelings from me. The terrors stop. I forget we were together.”
“For a while we’re friends again. At least you are. Four months, maybe six.”
“I get to discover it over and over again. But you...”
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Anje. I get to watch you find your way back to us. It’s...intense. I wouldn’t trade it.”
“Are you afraid I’ll choose different?”
“Ça me hante.”
Anje goes quiet. “Liquor thoughts,” she calls them.
“What’s the Cajun word for fated?”
“Destinés”
“What about the compass rose?”
“Don’t ask me to justify that, knowing what you know now.”
“We could just stay like this. Me knowing but not taking the memories back.”
“We’ve done that too. More like not choosing to choose. It’s torture.”
“For me or for you?”
“Yes.”
The waitress chooses this moment to appear. Ignoring the food to gaze into each other’s eyes isn’t an option. I nearly died, so my body’s contribution to the conversation is “calories, asshole.” We’re eating the fucking gumbo.
Anje doesn’t say a word while we eat. Neither do I.
“Is one night worth it?” she finally asks.
“It’s all we have. It has to be.”
She locks eyes with me. Then she pours the last of the Hibiki, splitting it evenly between our glasses. She drains her glass in one go. I echo her.
Anje reaches across the table and takes my right hand. The one with the curled finger. She’s figured out the fourth option.
“Okay, Cass. Give me half.”
David, the heart in this series is so unexpected. I’m so glad you decided to follow this thread in your kind and put this out. It’s some of the most emotionally compelling fiction I’ve read and it’s supposed to be a superhero story! So freaking good.
What a series!
I've been reading each piece twice through.
First time because i'm super interested in where the story is going-- but the second is because I know all writers leave a piece of themselves in the story, i find myself wondering where you'd have to be to put this story on paper... And how much of your own fingerprints you're leaving in the psychology of the characters.
I know that sounds odd, but as a person who can put myself very squarely into other people's stories and start feeling the emotions, as long as they're honest and makes sense, it's the most fascinating part of reading anyone's work. It's also why I consider myself more of a reader than a writer.
I myself do not post everything I write....because I am a person that prefers to stay forensically clean, and some of it is exceptionally dark and comes from places that i'm not sure I want people to see...yet.
At any rate, I digress. This series the bomb-- and really makes me miss boudin balls.
Thank you for sharing it!