Nocturnal

Loneliness

Robin sat on her couch, Emma’s blocky head in her lap, a half-empty glass of wine in her hand. No lights. Sometimes you just have to sit in the dark. Outside her apartment window, the breeze rippled a tree, making shadows of the branches and leaves weave curving patterns against her linen curtains.

A day’s worth of searching for Bryan had taught her that she didn’t know the first thing about finding someone who didn’t want to be found. She’d checked his apartment, the Hall of Justice, the Bigfoot Lodge — no Bryan. She’d even walked around Rex Deprovdechuk’s house and visited the spot where Jay Parlar had died. Nothing in those places, either.

She’d left at least ten messages. He hadn’t called back, not even when she called to let him know that Erickson had just been downgraded from critical to stable condition.

How much more messed up could things be? Her poor Bryan — what must he be feeling right now? How would she feel if she were the one with that mutation? And as if that weren’t enough, Bryan knew the family he loved so much wasn’t his real family at all.

She took another sip of wine.

The little bit of light filtering through the curtains reflected off Emma’s inner eyes, making them flash a luminescent green. When Robin was upset, Emma always knew and tried to get close. The dog let out a little whimper.

“I’m fine, Sweetie,” Robin said. “It is what it is.”

And what was it? It was going through the rest of her days without the only man she wanted. All the wine in the world couldn’t chase that away. It was living half of a life.

A knock on the apartment door made Emma’s head snap in that direction. The dog scrambled up, inadvertently digging her claws into Robin’s thigh as she pushed off hard and ran for the entryway.

Robin winced, stood up and set the wineglass down on the end table. She followed Emma to the door. The dog had her nose down at the base of the door. Her oversized tail swished so madly her rear end almost toppled her over.

But she only acted like that when …

Robin held her breath as she opened the door.

Emma shot into the hall and started circling Bryan’s legs, throwing her body against him. He reached down and picked her up in his familiar way. Her rear legs dangled limply, her tail pounded against his leg and her pink tongue flicked madly at his face.

“Easy, Boo,” he said. He set Emma down, then turned his green eyes on Robin.

“Hey,” he said.

He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He looked … hopeless. “Hey,” she said.

He started to talk, then stopped. He looked away. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

She stood aside and held the door open. Bryan walked in, Emma at his heels. He seemed to be in a daze. He walked into the dark living room and sat on her couch. She sat near him, but not right next to him. Emma wasn’t as cautious; the black-and-white dog flopped down on his feet and looked up at him lovingly, her tail thumping a regular pattern on the throw rug.

Robin watched him for a moment, then spoke. “I looked for you today,” she said. “I couldn’t find you.”

“Oh. I was sleeping.”

“Where?”

“Pookie’s car,” he said. “I think. I just kind of … wandered.”

His beard had grown so frizzy. It reminded her she still had his beard trimmer in the bathroom. She had always meant to get rid of it, but found reasons not to. She wanted to touch that beard, gently stroke it and take his pain away.

“I was having some wine. Would you like a glass?”

He stared out into the room, into nothing. “Got anything stronger?”

“Your scotch supply is still here. Talisker on the rocks?”

He nodded in a way that said he’d have taken anything she had. She made him his drink, flashing back to the time they’d lived together when she had loved making him drinks. They’d been equals in most areas of life, but she couldn’t help the fact that she liked to wait on him a little.

Moments later she handed him the glass. Ice cubes rattled as he took it. He liked as much ice as the glass would hold. He drained it in one pull and handed it back to her.

“Want another?”

He nodded.

Emma’s tail kept up its steady rhythm.

Robin refilled his glass, then sat down next to him. She picked up his hand, gently, pressed the glass into it.

“Robin, what am I going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s a bit of an unusual situation, to say the least.”

He nodded, took a small sip. She picked up her wineglass. They sat in the dark, in silence, together. This time, she waited until he spoke first.

“What am I?”

“You’re Bryan Clauser.”

“No, I’m not. That part of my life is a lie.”

She wasn’t going to argue with him about that one. Maybe she could talk to his father later, see if there was anything she could do. But for now, she wasn’t about to feed Bryan platitudes.

“You’re a cop,” she said. “Yes, I know you’re fired, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a man who’s dedicated his life to serving the greater good.”

He took another sip. “I used to think that was why I did it. But now, I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?”

He finally turned to look at her. The room’s shadows hid his face, took the light out of his green eyes.

“I think I drifted into the job because of what I really am. I think I became a cop because I like to hunt.”

Robin wondered if she looked afraid, because suddenly she was. Bryan had said because I like to hunt, but what he meant was because I like to hunt PEOPLE.

He took another sip. “Some cops kill a guy and it messes them up so bad they quit the force. I’ve killed five men. Five. All in the line of duty, all righteous shoots, okay, but still — I don’t feel bad about any of them.”

He turned away, again looking off into nothingness.

This new Bryan, the one with the emotions turned full on, he was a frightening man. If she didn’t already know him and met him in a dark alley, she’d run the other way. But she did know him. There was so much pain in his face. She wanted to take him into her arms, pull his head to her chest and slowly stroke his hair.

“Bryan, there’s a difference between being a murderer and being a protector. Cops carry guns for a reason.”

He turned to face her again. “But shouldn’t I feel something? Some kind of remorse? Or guilt? Or whatever the fuck the psychologists kept asking me after every time I put someone down?”

“What do you want me to say? If you hadn’t done what you’d done, Pookie would be dead, John would be dead, and you’d be dead. You saved lives. It’s not like you have an urge to go out and eat babies.”

He said nothing.

“Because if you want to eat babies, Bryan, I’m going to have to go ahead and ask you to put down the scotch.”

He kept staring, then she saw the corners of his mouth turn up just a bit — he was fighting a smile. She waited, knowing him well enough to know exactly what would happen next. His mouth trembled once, twice, then he lost his battle with the laugh.

He shook his head. “You have to be kidding me. Jokes? Now?”

She shrugged. “Maybe I’ve been hanging out with Pookie too much.”

Bryan’s smile faded. The sadness returned to his eyes, and in that moment her soul felt like it would splinter and blow away on the wind.

She turned her back to him, then slid onto his lap. He started to react, but before he could say anything she reached one hand up to the back of his head and used his rigidity to pull herself in for a kiss. Her lips hit his. She felt his beard on her upper lip, on her chin. She breathed in the scent of him, felt it spread through her chest. He started to pull away, so she held him tighter.

Her wineglass fell away. She put her other hand on the back of his head, pulling him even tighter, feeling the texture of his hair between her fingers. He resisted, but only for a moment more, then she felt his arms around the small of her back, squeezing her tight, lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all. His tongue — cooled by the icy scotch — found hers.

She didn’t know how long the moment lasted. It lasted a second. It lasted forever. Finally, his strong hands slid to her shoulders, gripped them and pushed her away so that their faces were only an inch apart.

She felt the heat of his breath, smelled the Talisker that came with it. “I missed you, Bryan. I missed you so much.”

Bryan sniffed.

She gently kissed his left eye, let it linger there. “I should have never pushed you away,” she said.

He nodded. “I shouldn’t have let you.”

Her hands slid to his face, felt his beard in her palms, felt the warmth of his skin. “I’m not playing stupid games anymore,” she said. “I love you. I think I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. The genetics don’t change the fact that you’re a good man, Bryan. They don’t change the fact that you’re my man.”

He closed his eyes. “Everything feels so much … just more. Before, all my feelings were kind of, I don’t know, kind of muted. Now they’re on full bore. It’s hard to manage.”

She kissed his nose. “All I need from you is one emotion. Nothing else matters. Nothing at all. Just look in your heart and tell me — do you love me?”

Her thumbs slowly moved back and forth on his cheekbones. He stared at her, his eyes still full of pain but now also filled with longing.

He started to talk, then stopped. He swallowed. He licked his lips, then spoke.

“I love you,” he said. “I always have, but I couldn’t say it.”

She blinked back tears. “You can say it now. We’ll figure this out together. I will never leave you, no matter what happens.”

“It’s not that easy,” he said. “I mean, the Zed chromosome, other people have it and the things that they do … I don’t know what I might do.”

She kissed him again, hard. His fingertips pressed into her back.

Robin pulled away from him only enough to speak, her lips still touching his when she did.

“Stay with me,” she said. “Stay with me tonight.”

He looked at her again, then it was his turn to pull her close.