When I was younger whenever I had a place that I felt was safe to pass out and the money for booze, I would drink until I blacked out. Pro tip, if you’re in a college town it’s easy to find a party and walk off with a bottle of shitty booze.
I haven’t done that in many years, so waking up and not knowing what had happened was very disorientating. It’s been even more years since I was last in a hospital, so that was disorientating as well. I don’t even really remember the last time I was in the hospital, I just know I was.
My first thought was I had been in a crash. As much as I drive I’m surprised I only had one minor incident so far. But then I remembered that I live and work in Phoenix now. I don’t drive that much anymore. I did feel like I had been in a crash – my chest was killing me.
Next I figured I must have gotten hurt in the match. I remembered being on that rickety metal deathtrap they bolted together with their dicks. But no, that wasn’t it either. The thing started to shake badly at the end, but we got through the match without dying. I think Kinross badly injured her back.
Third time’s the charm. I remembered what had happened. I had been backstage with Kinross and Stew for a couple hours – she couldn’t feel anything below the waist at first. When they left in an ambulance, I went home.
I had only been in the door a few minutes when I got a call from an unknown number. The woman on the other end was talking so fast and was so freaked out I couldn’t understand her. I heard people in the background yelling at her to get off her phone.
I was about to hang up when I heard her say that “he took Cassie”. Cassie is the name of the girl I helped the detective find when I first met her. Before I introduced her to Gary and got her fucking murdered. I tried to get whoever was on the phone to speak more calmly but I still missed half of what she said.
The woman calling was the detective’s sister, the one that had taken Cassie in. Someone had pushed into her house looking for Cassie. When she tried to stop him, he shot her. Those were paramedics in the background trying to get her off her phone. Because she had been shot.
She said that he had taken Cassie and I had to do something right now. I tried to get more details but between her panicking and the EMTs finally taking her phone away, I didn’t learn anything.
At first I was too freaked out and keyed up and my spell kept failing. I had to take a few minutes to calm myself and try again. My finding spell worked faster than it ever had before. I knew the exact house where Cassie was in South Carolina. I could even see it, which had never happened before.
I called 911 but they didn’t understand I was trying to tell them about something going on 2000 miles away. I hung up and spent some stupid minutes trying to figure out how to call the police in Rock Hill before I got angry and threw my phone.
The only other time I summoned my fetch so far away, I had a person helping me and I was in a place of power. But I did it anyway. It felt like I was reaching into my own body and trying to yank out organs, but I did it. It wasn’t pain. It was something else. It was like I was trying to will myself out of existence.
Suddenly I was there. It wasn’t like before. It wasn’t like controlling a puppet, it was like I was there. It wasn’t like looking through a camera, it was like I was seeing it with my own eyes. Cassie was on a couch, bruised and face streaked with tears. A man was pacing back and forth in front of her with a gun in his waistband.
“I” charged at him clumsily. It felt like I had an entire body suit made out of those lead aprons on. He pulled the gun out and shot “me” in the chest. For a second I was back in my real body – where the bullet hit my fetch I felt like I had been hit with a sledgehammer in my real chest. I’ve never felt anything so painful in all my life. And know pain.
I hung onto my connection to the fetch though. It was like hanging over the side of the cliff by one fingernail. It was excruciating. With a massive effort I hurled myself back into that room across the country. I finished my lumbering charge and slammed into the man with the gun.
I had never been able to make my fetch talk before but I tried anyway. I tried to make it tell Cassie to run, but a wordless shriek came out of its mouth. That’s the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital.
I started shouting for someone to bring me my phone and hammering the call button. A nurse with noticeable BO came in to try and calm me down, saying that I had had a heart attack. I told her that I needed my phone right then.
When she wouldn’t listen, I smacked her. I’m not proud of it, but it worked. I saw that I had dozens of missed calls and texts. I started scrolling through them. Cassie was safe.
The Shine 