Chapter 6: The Silence
The whiskey decanter was half-empty again. Edward hadn't touched it, but the sight of it seemed to summon the ghost of its contents into his mouth—a flat, oak-tainted bitterness that matched the taste of the last forty-eight hours.
In the living room’s perpetual dusk, time had curdled into a thick, anxious jelly. Jimmy sat at the scarred oak table, meticulously field-stripping a series of pulse pistols. The rhythmic snick-clack of components being detached, cleaned, and reassembled was the only reliable heartbeat in the room. The smell of gun oil and ozone was a thin veneer over the older scents of dust and defeat.
Aris was a silhouette against the light of a large viewscreen, scrolling through the recovered files from the testing facility. His finger traced lines of text, his jaw tight. Every so often, he’d grunt, a low, satisfied sound that did nothing to ease the tension. "Payroll records," he muttered, not really to anyone. "Even their accountants were dirty. This is a goldmine."
Edward didn’t respond. He was sprawled in the cracked leather armchair, its old springs groaning under his weight. The television played a muted 24-hour news channel. Footage of Charles, from a gala a month ago, smiling his polished smile. Then a shaky cellphone video of a "rogue meta" incident—a blurred figure, too much smoke, a reporter’s breathless speculation. Edward’s green eyes were fixed on the screen, but they were unfocused, seeing the empty window frame, the glittering fall of glass, the dark aperture of her wings against the city’s glow.
Two days. Not a word. No trace on any network Jimmy could hack. She was a ghost again, but this time, she had chosen it.
Jimmy broke the silence, his voice tentative. "Think she… I mean, would she go back? To them?"
"No," Edward said, the word arriving too fast, carved from stone.
Aris swiveled his chair. "She’s a wild card, Prescott. We knew that. Useful, but unstable. She saw something in those files that spooked her."
She saw me, Edward thought. The real product. He didn’t say it. He just let the accusation hang in the air, a specter only he could see.
The thud against the front door was not a knock. It was a solid, meaty impact, like a heavy sack of grain being dropped.
Then the sound of the cheap lock snapping, and the door groaned inward.
Consuelo stood in the threshold.
The flickering bulb swung slightly, casting moving shadows over her. Her hair, usually a wild, beautiful cascade, was a matted nest of tangles, streaked with soot and what looked like dried green slime. The crimson corset was torn along one side, the laces frayed and blackened. Her leggings were shredded at the knees, and one boot was split open at the toe. She smelled of smoke, of chemical fire, and underneath it, the coppery scent of blood that was not her own.
Her golden skin was flawless. No cuts, no bruises, not a single mark. It was the pristine, inviolable canvas of her power, which made the state of everything else seem more violently wrong.
She didn’t look at any of them. Her black eyes were fixed on a point somewhere beyond the far wall, glazed with a profound, soul-deep exhaustion that no physical injury could ever produce.
"Where the hell were you?" Aris was on his feet, his voice sharp, cutting through the stunned silence. "We had no signal, no backup—you could have blown the entire–"
Jimmy dropped a pistol component. It clattered on the table. "Consuelo? Are you okay? What happened?"
She moved. Her walk was not the confident stride from the testing chamber, nor the furious stalk from the bedroom. It was a slow, deliberate plod, each step heavy with a gravity all its own. She navigated the cluttered room like a sleepwalker, passing the table, passing Aris, her torn clothes whispering against the floor.
Edward was out of the chair, the leather creaking in relief. "Consuelo."
Her name in his mouth was a plea, a question, a stake in the ground. He took two steps, blocking her path to the hallway. He didn’t reach for her, not yet, but his hands were half-raised, his posture an echo of that possessiveness from before, now tempered by raw, bewildered need. He searched her face for some sign, some crack in the empty facade.
She didn’t pause. She didn’t look at him. She simply adjusted her course by a fraction, his presence nothing more than a piece of furniture to be circumnavigated. The scent of alien smoke and battle passed by him.
She reached the bedroom door, opened it, and stepped inside.
The soft, definitive click of the lock engaging was the loudest sound the safe house had ever heard.
Edward stood frozen, one hand still partially outstretched towards the empty space where she had been. The phantom warmth of her body, the smell of her struggle, still hung in the air around him. Aris let out a long, slow breath that was more criticism than sigh. Jimmy just stared at the closed door, his young face painted with worry.
On the television, a commercial began to play, bright and loud—a smiling hero in a sleek suit held up a brand of soda. The artificial cheer was a obscenity in the quiet room.
Edward’s outstretched hand curled, slowly, into a fist. He didn’t look at it. He kept his eyes on the locked door, on the thin line of yellowish light shining beneath it. The momentum of her return, of her silence, of her deliberate, utter dismissal, built a pressure in the room that was more terrifying than any sonic scream. It was a quiet, implacable verdict, and it was still being written.
It was a quiet, implacable verdict, and it was still being written.
For ten minutes, the only sounds were the droning news and the creak of Aris shifting in his chair. Edward remained statue-still, staring at the thin strip of light under the door. Then something in him fractured with a silent, internal snap. He crossed the room in three long strides and hammered his fist against the cheap wood. The door rattled in its frame. "Consuelo! Open this door. Now."
Silence answered him, thicker and more absolute than before. He hit it again, the impact a sharp, jarring crack that made Jimmy flinch. "I'm not asking! You don't get to walk in here covered in god-knows-what and just hide. Talk to me!"
Aris watched over the top of his viewscreen, one eyebrow arched. "She's clearly in a chatting mood, Prescott."
Edward ignored him. He pressed his forehead against the cool wood, his voice dropping to a raw, strained growl meant only for her. "Please."
The silence from within was a living thing. It felt like judgment, like the deep, frozen quiet of the cryo-chamber she’d described. His plea evaporated into it, leaving nothing.
Annoyance, hot and immediate, burned away the desperation. He slammed the flat of his hand beside the doorknob. "Open the damn door!"
Jimmy’s voice was a timid scratch in the heavy air. "Uh, Edward? Maybe… let me try?"
Edward turned his head, his green eyes glinting with open contempt. "You? She just walked past you like a coat rack." He shoved himself away from the door, throwing his arms wide in a mocking, furious gesture. "Fine. Enlighten us. Work your magic."
He took two aggressive steps back, his posture radiating simmering violence. Jimmy swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. He approached the door as if it were wired to explosives. He gave a soft, rapid knock. "Consuelo? It's Jimmy. Just me."
The lock clicked, a sound as small and definite as a falling pin.
The door opened just enough to reveal a slice of the darkened room. A hand shot out—not Jimmy’s hesitant, bony one, but Consuelo’s, streaked with soot and moving with hydraulic speed. It clamped around Jimmy’s forearm and yanked. He yelped, stumbling forward into the darkness as she pulled him inside.
Edward lunged, a wordless roar in his throat. His fingers grazed the closing door just as it shut in his face with a final, insulting thud. The lock re-engaged. He hit the solid wood with both fists this time, a booming, frustrated impact that shook dust from the ceiling. "Hey!"
From inside, there was only muffled silence. He pressed his ear to the door, hearing nothing but the wild drum of his own pulse.
A low chuckle built behind him. Aris leaned back in his chair, a wide, genuine smile splitting his face. He slowly raised his hands, palms out, when Edward turned a glare on him that could have melted steel. "Don't shoot the messenger," Aris said, the laughter still in his voice. "But the kid's got a better bedside manner. Who knew?"
Edward stared at the locked door, at the faint murmur of voices now beginning to seep through it—Jimmy’s nervous tenor, Consuelo’s low, exhausted reply. The truth of it was a cold stone in his gut. She would talk to the skinny tech, to the boy, before she would even look at him. His wife. The space between them wasn't measured in feet of cheap timber, but in decades of his own making.
The space between them wasn't measured in feet of cheap timber, but in decades of his own making.
He stood there, ear against the door, until the low murmur of voices inside stopped. The silence that followed was somehow worse. It felt like a held breath. Edward finally pushed himself away from the door, his shoulders slumped not in defeat, but in a kind of furious hibernation. He stalked back to the armchair, its leather sighing as he dropped into it, and fixed his eyes on the muted news. A weatherman gestured cheerfully at a map.
Hours unspooled, marked only by the gradual draining of light from the high, dirty windows. Aris eventually powered down his screens and retreated to a cot in the corner, his breathing evening out into sleep. Jimmy stayed in the kitchen, the soft clink of him washing dishes a timid counterpoint to the thrum of the city outside.
The bedroom door finally opened with a soft click.
Jimmy emerged, moving with the cautious gravity of someone leaving a shrine. He quietly pulled the door shut behind him, the latch engaging with a sound like a falling coin. He looked pale, his eyes avoiding the living room as he made a beeline for the kitchen.
“Jimmy.”
Edward’s voice was a flat stone dropped into the quiet. Jimmy froze, one hand on the fridge handle.
“Uh,” Jimmy said, turning slowly. He looked at Edward, then at the floor, then at the cracked plaster of the wall. “She… says she’s not in the mood to talk.” He swallowed, his words gaining a little speed as he delivered the rest. “But if you want, tomorrow she’ll let you in.”
A cold, sharp crackle started behind Edward’s eyes. He stood up, the chair screeching against the floorboards. “What did she tell you?!” The question tore out of him, too loud, shredding the pretense of peace. “Why the hell does she talk to you and not to me?!”
Jimmy flinched, throwing his shoulders up near his ears in a helpless shrug. “She didn’t— I just sat there. She didn’t really say anything. She just… stared at the wall. I cleaned the green gunk off her wing harness. That’s it.”
“Bullshit.” Edward was across the room in three strides, bypassing Jimmy entirely. His fist connected with the bedroom door, the boom echoing like a gunshot in the confined space. “Consuelo! Open this door! We’re talking now!”
“Edward, come on, man—” Jimmy tried, his voice thin.
“Consuelo!”
“Look, man, she obviously doesn’t want to talk.” Aris’s voice was a calm, gravelly intrusion from the cot. He hadn’t sat up, just spoke to the ceiling. “And if you keep making a marital scene, people will call the police. Our cover will be blown. Let it go.”
Edward turned on him, a predator focusing on new movement. “Look, you piece of shit,” he hissed, the words venomous and precise. “What happens between my wife and me is none of your business.” He jabbed a finger toward the locked door. “Besides, where the hell am I supposed to sleep?”
Aris finally propped himself up on an elbow, his face all bland amusement. He shrugged. “Like any husband who’s been kicked out of the bedroom.” He nodded toward the cracked leather couch, its cushions stained and sunken. “On the couch.”
Edward’s glare could have melted concrete. He swiveled it back to Jimmy, who was now slowly, carefully, edging backward toward the kitchen’s darker recesses, wanting to become part of the appliances. The fury had no suitable target, no enemy to vaporize, just the implacable fact of the locked door and the indifferent smirks of men he considered beneath him.
He turned back to the door, raised his fist again, but held it there, trembling. The silence from the other side was absolute. It was a silence that had absorbed screams, the hum of cryo-tubes, and now the blunt force of his anger. Exhaustion, a hundred years deep, washed over him suddenly, turning his bones to lead.
He let his hand fall.
Without another word, he walked to the couch and dropped onto it. The old springs shrieked in protest. He didn’t lie down. He just sat on the edge, elbows on his knees, and stared at the blank, dead eye of the television screen. Behind him, he heard Jimmy’s relieved, silent retreat into the kitchen, the soft click of a light switch.
Aris lay back down, rolling onto his side. “Welcome to the consequences, Patriot,” he murmured into his thin pillow, the words barely audible.
Edward didn’t answer. He listened to the old house settle, to the distant wail of a siren that was nothing to do with him. He sat in the dark, surrounded by the yellowed maps of his old campaigns and the smell of someone else’s whiskey, waiting for a tomorrow he no longer knew how to face. The couch springs dug into his thighs, a cheap, persistent reminder of his exile.