”I mean, could you do it? Night after night, he can’t leave her, he doesn’t dare leave her, well, yeah, his brother’s there, his brother’s husband is there, the dog’s there, but she doesn’t care about any of them, she just cares about him.”
“He feels responsible for her,” I tell Alex. “More than the others. She knows it. That’s why he’s the one she... she does this to. It’s not... not his fault. Not hers really.”
“But it’s not mine either. And I can’t do this any longer.”
“You love him?”
She looks at her coffee. “I don’t know. I don’t know if it even matters any more.”
I stay in the bedroom while they argue. Easier.
"We need you," Raph says. "We need more medical help... and you're a leader. And... dammit, Leo, we could have the four of us together again--"
"I have responsibilities here. I know you were hoping I'd come, but I just can't."
"I know you love the clinic, but there are more important things--"
"It's important to keep people alive, Raph."
"You won't be able to keep anyone alive if he takes over. Including yourself, and us, and Sal--"
"Look, those stories about mutant hunts are just that. Stories."
"So whatcha think, Leo? Think the Emperor's really got a secret dream of humankind and mutantkind living together in happiness and peace?"
"I didn't say--"
"Maybe April just dreamt them taking her daughter away?"
"Raph--"
"Fine, Leo. Let the rest of the world go to shit, right?"
"Our clinic needs--" The door slams.
Maybe we should think about it, I want to say, but I know he won't hear it now.
I wrapped the egg in the blue scarf; what we always do. The way we always say goodbye.
“Alex won’t come with us, either,” Raph says, refilling his mug with coffee. “Says it’ll be too hard on both of us. I don’t know, maybe she’s right, but she was the only medical support we had.”
“Why the hell won’t Leo come?” Mike asks.
“Says he’s gotta stay with the clinic,” Raph tells him.
“He doesn’t want to leave his wife,” Octavian says quietly.
“She could come with us,” Raph snaps.
“She’s a salamander,” Don says thoughtfully. “Here on the coast, she’s fine, but how do we know going inland won’t hurt her?”
“Wasn’t she from inland?”
“She was in a tank, then--”
“No, after that, I thought she came in from--”
“I don’t think he wants to take any chances,” Tave continues. “I don’t think he wants to lose her.”
“Can’t blame him.” Don curls his fingers around Tave’s paw, and Raph rolls his eyes.
Helen asks, “So when do we leave?”
“Two weeks,” Raph says. “With who we have. We’ve lost so much time already, we don’t have much of any other choice.”
We go to the sea.
Waves; calm, beautiful. The water is warm here; a good place.
I unwrap the scarf, and we both kneel beside it for a while. He cries. I don't. I never have; don't think I can. Hold him next to me; feel his skin, the texture of it.
What would our children feel like, if they lived?
Better not to think of it, he'd say. I do anyway.
We wade out into the water; careful, the ground is rough, mountainside, and still some wreckage to cut and bruise.
When we are up to our waists, we let the egg down into the water, let the tide take it away. He puts his hands to his face, and I touch his shoulder.
Something touches my hand--
pulled under the water, a shock, Doc trying to hold me but something stops him, something holds him--
what are you?
Amber eyes meeting mine, for half a second nothing, then...
the images come rushing into my brain. They took-- no-- no-- not that...
they took my baby...
Hunters.
Fun, for them. Sport.
Babies, males, females, it didn't matter, blood, blood everywhere, staining the water, changing its taste...
the scent of the blood brought more, more slaughter, more death...
stop them
everything gone nothing left no one... she grabs something from my mind--
I alone escaped to tell thee
a cross and an eagle
Christian
bodies floating, bloating, even the scavengers scared away
remember me
butchers back to land the blood stinking on the boats
remember us
I come to the surface screaming.
He pulls at my arms, gets me up on dry ground. "Sal, Sal... are you--"
"We go."
"What?"
"We go with them. Your brothers. We go..."
"Sal?"
we will take care of the egg. not eaten, not destroyed... where we take our own dead... so many now...
I'm sorry... thank you.
"Sal?"
"Leo. We have to go with them. The stories..."
"What happened?"
"She showed me, I saw them... she was a mother..."
"What, something mental?" He frowns. "Sal..."
"They-- they-- they had guns and those things... what are they, they were in that book about the whale--"
"Moby Dick?"
"What were they?"
"Harpoons? Sal, honey, ya gotta calm down..." Pulls me next to him again, his shell against my chest...
"Yes. Harpoons. They took harpoons... Doc, Leo..."
"Yes?"
"Raphael's right. They have to be stopped."
--end chapter five--
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