Chapter Thirty-Five

The bed is cold and empty when I wake up.

He's gone again, I sigh to myself, not bothering to check around the room or even downstairs.

There's always that dead, stifled silence that hangs in the air when alone, and it's here now.

Still, I force myself out of the bed after a few minutes of staring at the ceiling and the back of my eyelids, can't get things done in bed after all.

Not that I have things to get done in the first place.

As I get in the shower, I wonder if that is my problem. I have nothing to do.

Vern has always been the one doing things, even now, he's always doing something.

Contemplating this thought I catch myself brushing furiously at my teeth. It hurt.

Why, though?

I'm not sure.

I step out of the bathroom, still wet and dripping all over the place from my quick lukewarm water bath and I find the dispenser.

The cup has been picked and set back with the set atop the bottle. And I remember.

Right. I've got six more days… or less.

I'm not sure what the cause is this time and I'm frankly anxious about how far I'm going to jump, but I always am.

Unfortunately, the time I'll be missing isn't the only thing I'm worried about.

That vision… Vern's going to be hurt.

As if to mock me endlessly, my time jumps come along with some extra time related powers.

Aside from random, small time frame jumps into the future, I get to see clips and snips of important events that will happen in the future.

But of course, I can't control or utilize this power in any way. I always see something important happening but I never know when or why or how. I just see it and I'm left confused and without any further information.

And now I've seen Vern get hurt.

This isn't the first time I've seen him get hurt. Back with Steve he got hurt all the time standing up for me to people he could fight, or just Neil.

And I've patched him up to the best of my ability, only becoming as good as I am because he got injured so many times.

With how frequently he got beat and got up, I quickly became numb to the thought of his life being in danger. A few scrapes and bruises never killed anyone right?

Picking up the cup again I feel surreal, like I'm about to be hit with another vision but nothing. They never repeat themselves, it's just pure randomness.

A randomness I now have to fight because a gunshot is vastly different from scrapes and bruises. Vern is in danger.

I fill the cup with water and empty it into my stomach. I realize I'm devastatingly parched and have some more until I'm a bit bloated.

Vern's always the one doing something, always the one on the move, always the one bringing some change.

Always the one living.

But today, I think today is my day. First step to ceasing the moment? Save Vern.

I'm not exactly sure how he gets shot but I'm a hundred percent positive on why.

Rex.

***

While it is most certainly barely noon, the dirty streets of Xoxia are full of people headed straight for comfort establishments.

And I'm one of them.

Being one of the many mini redlight districts in Xoxia, it's no surprise to see men, married or single, stumbling out of bars and clubs with their tie crookedly hanging around their necks or their hair strewn over their faces as they make their way out to wherever it is they're meant to be.

I walk in through the front, in the mornings places like these never have any customers important enough to shelter with a bouncer. In the morning, sin loses its exclusivity.

The large club is covered with an arrangement of chairs and cushions, and the floor is littered with filth just being cleaned up by the staff. The air is stuffy, soaked with fumes of all sorts of things.

I turn about, looking for who seems important enough to answer my question. It doesn't take long to spot a person like that.

A woman, leaning over the rails of the upper floor with her head deep in her tab.

Finding the stairs I make my way up to her, crossing over a velvet stanchion as I do.

As I make my approach she hears me coming and raises her eyes from her device, "I'm sorry, who are you?"

Her hair is frizzy and there's still some lipstick on her lips.

"I need to find Rex." I announce, not bothering to answer her questions, "The man from Invincibill's gang, I came in with him two days ago."

"Girl if he's your man shouldn't you know where he is?" The voice is shrill and sassy, another woman. She comes out of the room beside us, her hands busy wet wiping the makeup off her face.

"He's not my...man." I awkwardly clarify, looking between the two stylishly dressed women. It's then I realize.

They aren't anyone important, they're the comfort.

I begin to leave and the sassy woman speaks again, "If it's a gangster, I think a kid like you should stay away. But I know you're too stubborn to do so, I can see it written all over your face."

I resist the urge to roll my eyes, "I'll be on my way."

"Go looking for Juan's place. It's a bar not far from here, a bit to the south, near the clinic."

I stop and turn, "Thank you."

She shrugs, still wiping her face, "Don't say I didn't warn you. I expect if you head there without protection you'll either be on the news soon or in this parlour asking Simon for a job."

The frizzy haired woman laughs and playfully punches the sassy one, "She's just looking out for you kid, are you sure you want to go there?"

"Yes. I need to save someone."

They share a difficult look with each other at this and then look back at me.

"But can you?" the sassy one asks.

Yeah, that's just the part I haven't figured out yet.