“It started on a random day,” Taylor began.
At first the words came reluctantly, dragged out of her one careful sentence at a time. Before long, though, she found it difficult to stop. The story spilled out in a disorderly stream, doubling back whenever she remembered another detail she’d forgotten to mention. She explained the sudden pain in her hand, the feeling of something crawling beneath her skin, and how she’d tied a cord around her arm to stop it from travelling any farther. It sounded absurd even to her ears, especially when all she had to support it were her own words. So the longer she spoke, the more ridiculous that account began to sound.
Still, Victoria listened without interrupting. She leaned against the closed bedroom door, her arms crossed over her chest, watching Taylor with an expression that never quite settled on one emotion. At first Victoria simply looked confused. As the story continued, that confusion slowly gave way to concern, before hardening into open disbelief. Every now and then Victoria’s eyebrows would knit together, usually whenever Taylor reached another part of the story that sounded particularly outlandish.
Taylor noticed the expression immediately, sighing briefly. “I know how this sounds.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Victoria ran a hand through her hair before letting out a breath through her nose. “I’m trying, okay? I really am. But you’ve just walked into my house and told me that my sister secretly created a talking parasite designed to rewrite our mother’s feelings, and now it’s living in your hand.”
When she said it aloud, it sounded even worse.
Taylor looked down at the carpet. “…Yeah.”
Neither of them spoke for several seconds, then Victoria rubbed at her temple.
“I’m sorry.”
Taylor looked up.
“I don’t mean that I don’t believe you,” Victoria said, though she didn’t sound entirely convinced herself. “You don’t seem like you’re making this up.”
“But…” Victoria bit the inside of her lip before continuing. “I don’t know what else it could be.”
Taylor nodded slightly.
That was fair. If someone else had come to her with this story a week ago, she’d probably have reacted exactly the same way. Maybe even worse.
She looked down at her right hand. “Kali.”
Nothing happened.
Victoria noticed. “You’re talking to it?”
“I’m trying,” Taylor said with a frown. “It said it was recovering.”
“Recovering?”
“Apparently, it gets tired.”
Victoria looked like she wanted to ask another dozen questions but couldn’t decide which one deserved to come first.
Taylor tried again. “Kali.”
Still nothing.
Her stomach sank.
Please don’t do this now.
Victoria’s disbelief gave way to disappointment, as if a part of her had actually thought Taylor was telling the truth.
Taylor hated it. “I swear I'm not…” Taylor stopped herself before the sentence could finish. Pleading with Victoria wasn’t going to accomplish anything.
She looked back down at her hand. “Kali.” This time there was a hint of desperation in her voice, and she even shook her hand multiple times.
“Come on,” she added in a breathless whisper, but still, nothing.
Taylor felt heat rising into her face. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of.
She’d dragged herself all the way here, managed to tell Glory Girl everything, and now the one thing that could prove she wasn’t delusional had apparently decided to sleep through the conversation.
She shook her hand again, harder this time. “Kali!”
Finally, the skin on the back of her hand rippled.
Victoria froze. Taylor did too.
The movement of the skin was subtle, easy to miss if you weren’t staring directly at it. Fortunately, both of them were. Then, the skin split apart without blood or injury, unfolding more than tearing, and a familiar eye blinked into existence.
It looked around sluggishly, as though it was only half-awake.
“…Taylor.” Its voice sounded softer than usual. “You are being excessively vigorous.”
Neither girl responded.
Kali’s eye slowly drifted toward Victoria. “I do not recognize you.”
Victoria hadn’t moved. Taylor wouldn't even be shocked if she hadn't blinked either. Color had drained from the hero’s face, and as though her brain had simply stopped functioning, she stared open mouthed at Taylor’s hand.
Taylor cleared her throat awkwardly. “This is… Kali.”
Victoria continued staring.
The parasite blinked once, then looked back at Taylor. “Is this my creator?”
“No.”
“I see.” A tiny finger-like appendage emerged from the back of Taylor’s hand, rubbing lazily at the eye. “I require additional recovery.”
Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the eye folded back into Taylor’s skin.
“…Did that actually happen?” She kept on casting furtive glances at Taylor’s hands, as though she expected it to open again at any moment.
Taylor looked down at it herself, but it already looked completely normal. “…Yeah.” She didn’t know what else to say, so she stayed silent, staring up at the hero.
Victoria had stopped leaning against the door without seeming to notice she’d done it, and her arms had fallen to her sides. She looked less like Glory Girl and more like a teenage girl now, shocked and befuddled as she was.
“…Okay,” Victoria said. Her voice was much quieter than before. “…Okay.”
She moved to sit down on the edge of her bed.
For a while, neither of them spoke again, and Taylor found herself watching Victoria instead. She’d expected anger or maybe even accusations. Instead Victoria looked almost lost.
Finally Taylor broke the silence. “So…”
Victoria looked up.
“What do we do?”
Victoria didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No,” she said with a brief chuckle, though there wasn’t anything humorous in the sound. “I came into this conversation thinking I was going to tell some random girl that Amy wasn’t home.”
She looked at Taylor’s hand. “Now apparently my sister accidentally created… whatever that is.”
“Kali.”
“What?”
“It has a name.”
Victoria stared at her, and Taylor immediately regretted saying it.
“I don't know why I named it…” she muttered.
Victoria nodded distractedly.
Taylor shifted uneasily where she sat. “We should tell Panacea.”
Victoria shook her head. “Not yet.”
Taylor frowned. “Why?”
Victoria drew in a slow breath. “You don’t know my family.”
“No,” Taylor admitted.
“You don’t know Amy.” There was something in her voice now. Something tired. “Things have been… difficult.”
Taylor waited.
Victoria seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “My mom and Amy haven’t exactly been getting along.”
“I thought they were family.”
“They are,” Victoria said, smiling weakly. “It doesn’t always help.”
Taylor remained silent.
Victoria looked toward the bedroom door. “If this gets out…”
She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to; Taylor could imagine it well enough. The media would have a field day with such a revelation, and the public outrage...
Victoria rubbed both hands over her face. “If Mom finds out before Amy has a chance to explain herself…” She let the sentence trail off.
Taylor understood what Victoria was afraid of. She really did. But…
She looked down at her own hand, then back at Victoria. “I feel bad for her,” Taylor said. “I really do. I don’t think she wanted any of this to happen.”
She paused to catch her breath. “But she still made something that was supposed to change how another person felt.”
“It was only luck that stopped Kali from…” She struggled to find the right words. “…from rewriting her completely.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
Taylor still went on anyway. “And now it’s inside me.” Her voice cracked slightly. “I don’t want this.”
She held up her right hand. “I don’t want to keep wondering whether I actually feel something or whether it’s because of this thing.”
She lowered it again.
“I don’t want to wake up every morning wondering if my own thoughts belong to me.”
Victoria looked stricken.
“Amy’s the only person who can fix it.”
“I know.”
“So she has to.”
The words came more firmly this time.
“I’m sorry if this ruins things.” Taylor meant it. She genuinely did. “But I can’t keep living like this just because you don't want to upset your family.”
Victoria looked down at the floor.
Taylor took a breath. “I respect what you’ve done for this city.”
Victoria looked up again.
“I respect what Amy’s done too.”
That much was true. Panacea had saved countless lives. People who would have died otherwise. Taylor wasn’t blind to that.
“But none of that changes this.”
She looked Victoria directly in the eyes.
“I’m not going to stay quiet.”
The words hung between them.
“They deserve to know what happened.”
She wasn’t sure whether she meant the rest of New Wave or the city itself.
“One way or another,” Taylor said slowly, “Panacea is going to have to fix her mistake.”
Victoria didn’t answer. She simply sat there staring at the floor, looking, for the first time in her life, like someone who had absolutely no idea what the right thing to do was.