REND

Offscreen wardrobe changes in movies were very convenient. They didn’t need to show how the actor cleaned himself in the aftermath of a huge action scene—the blood, wounds, soot, and dust were simply gone. And, cut. The next thing, the actor was in new clothes, looking fresh as a banana that was fresh or something. Didn’t know what to use for comparison. Wish I had that as my superpower instead of becoming a giant werewolf. On second thought, becoming a giant werewolf might be cooler, by a very small margin, than magical offscreen wardrobe changes.

I jogged to my meeting place with Deen, forty minutes late.

There was no ‘cut’ and jumping to the next scene in real life. After Jubjub left with my rented golf cart to buy me new clothes, I stuffed Theo inside the holes he made, collapsing them with strong stomps to cover up any inhuman evidence. I didn’t really want to bother with burying him, but it’d cause quite a hassle if someone found Adumbrae remains.

The BID would be called, Spencer Hugh would recognize his dead son and kick up a fuss, Mark might cancel the trip to Red Island, and so on.

After resting Theo the Trash Monkey in pieces, I scaled the hill. I did a small cheer when I reached the top—there was a beach on the other side, down the slope.

I washed myself the best I could but didn’t take off my clothes just yet. Jubjub might abandon me. I waited in the shade of a giant cactus, smelling and feeling awful, wondering if I should’ve asked Jubjub to buy soap too. And I also wondered if I should go through with my plans to wreck Red Island.

Plenty of justification was available, but I settled on that it was going to be lots of fun playing over there.

I was going to have so much fun I’d reach a level of happiness I’d never experienced before. That was reason enough. Actually, that was more than enough reason. It was like chasing a new high. No. I was exactly chasing a new high. I wondered what becoming that happy felt like. Recklessness at play?

Jubjub did come back, bringing with her a pretty outfit that was my exact size, a blue sundress, and woven tropicalish-looking slippers. I somehow expected she’d give me something black. Disappointing that she didn’t want us to be goth sisters.

Anyway, here I was, heading to the Catalina Casino, wishing I had the superpower to fast-forward time and skip the lecture Deen would dish out. There were so many better superpowers than what I’d got.

The Catalina Casino was hard to miss. It was the biggest structure on the island, a cylindrical building at the tip of the crescent that was the bay, opposite the port we landed on. This was the island’s landmark, the first thing I spotted when the cruise ship approached the shore. And it wasn’t an actual casino like those in Las Vegas. It was supposedly a theater and a museum or art gallery or something fancy. I read in a tourist guide pamphlet thingy that the term casino in Spanish meant a gathering place instead of a building for gambling. Super proud of myself for becoming more cultured than a yoghurt.

“Please let Deen be late, please let Deen be late,” I muttered, flying over the steps of the stairs. Some elderly tourists gasped as I zoomed past. Deen was nowhere in sight. Hopefully, she got distracted shopping with Yara.

I didn’t enter the building—there was an entrance fee. Deen wanted to tour the place, but I didn’t have any artistic fiber in my body so I shot that down. I rounded the building, following its circumference to its side facing the ocean. If I got here before Deen, that was one less thing she’d be angry—fucking hell.

There she was, turning around to face me as if she had eyes on the back of her head.

Hands on her hips, the beautiful Pacific Ocean as her background, Deen smoldered in a good way and a not-good way. “I’ve been waiting here for over an hour!” she yelled, drawing a few stares. “Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

“Lower your voice, Mom,” I said, pulling her away from earshot of the crowd. “I’m only late by about forty… forty-five minutes maybe? Anything beyond that isn’t my fault. Your statement that you’ve waited for over an hour is misleading.”

Deen glowered at me so fiercely that I expected laser beams to come out of her eyes.

“Oh, and the phone thing?” I sheepishly grinned. “I left it on the ship.”

“Why didn’t you bring your—? Wait a minute.” She examined me head to foot. “Those aren’t the clothes you wore earlier.”

I shrugged. “I passed by some stuff that I thought looked cute. Just a little shopping.”

Deen snorted in disbelief. “Shopping at a physical store? On your own? I know you prefer to shop online, Ms. Introvert.”

“There are always exceptions in life. This is one of them.”

Deen tapped the ground with one foot as she regarded me. “Where are your old clothes? Don’t tell me you donated them to charity?” She nodded down at my feet. “New slippers, too, huh? And what’s that you’re hiding behind your back? What happened to the glove I gifted you?”

“You’re starting to piece together what happened, so I’m going to come clean before you complete the picture.” I showed her my right arm wrapped in a shawl. Jubjub couldn’t find gloves, so she bought me this to cover the mutations of my hand. She could’ve found something better but she probably didn’t want me to wait for too long.

Deen’s face became all frowns. “You fought Jubjub despite assuring me you were just going to talk.” She began puffing herself up to scold me. “What did you do with the body? How are we going to explain—?”

“Relax, Deen. Jubjub’s fine. I didn’t fight her.”

“But your clothes? Did you get robbed?”

“Who’s going to rob me? I did fight and my clothes got messed up; I’m not going to hide that from you. It was Theo whom I fought.”

“Theo, who?” A couple seconds passed and Deen’s face lit up. I could almost hear the ding. “Oh my gosh! Theodore Hugh? The asshole we met at the restaurant?”

I chuckled. “You said ‘asshole.’ I find it so weird when you—”

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “Don’t change the topic. That asshole followed and attacked you?” She stepped closer and sniffed. “Blood. Lots of blood that you had to get rid of your clothes. Did you kill him?”

“You can smell blood on me? That’s an awesome talent,” I sarcastically said. “I guess I should’ve bought soap. I still feel sticky.”

“Answer me,” she said with tensed jaws.

“I had no choice, okay? Going to be a huge problem if I let him go. I hid his body somewhere out there, so don’t worry about that. I chucked pieces of his body into—”

“I’d rather not know what you did to him,” Deen said, groaning. “I can’t judge you because I wanted to kill him myself.” My brows shot up in the sky at her statement. She continued, “But it wouldn’t have come to this if you didn’t keep aggravating him at the restaurant. I know what you were doing. Don’t make excuses.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I mumbled.

“What if his father looks for him?” she asked. I replied with a tilt of my head. She sighed. “I guess you’re right. He’s not going to care. Just promise me that next time you’re not going to be as… uh… violent.” She grabbed my shawl-wrapped right arm.

“I’m sorry about your gift,” I said. “It got torn and bloodied because—”

“I said I don’t want to know what you did. Don’t worry, I bought plenty of spare gloves. I packed them in my suitcase.”

“You’re not angry?” That was a surprise. I keep incorrectly predicting things. Was I losing my touch? “Why do you have lots of gloves?”

“My answer to both your questions is because I expected this to happen. I’ll give you another glove later. Just one. If I gave all of them to you, I just know they’re going to be ruined within a month tops.” She began unwrapping the shawl.

I recoiled and took back my arm.

“I-I’m sorry…” she said, a bit taken aback. “I just wanted to see—no, I understand why you don’t want to show me.”

Unveiling the advanced state of my mutation would garner tons of sympathy. I could be a drama queen and bitch all I wanted, and Deen couldn’t call me out on it. But I didn’t want to be pitied. I didn’t want her worries. And more importantly, I didn’t want to know what was going on with my hand. Maybe subconsciously, I was recently avoiding my Blanchette form because every time I ate a lot of Adumbrae, changes followed.

When I’d attack Red Island, no way I could avoid transforming into Blanchette. Just one of those times I’d do something I knew was super bad for me but also super fun. I didn’t go partying hard and doing drugs and dumb things like that, so I should get a pass on this one. Not sure what was worse, crazy drugged-up parties or slowly becoming a monster devoid of personality.  

There was an awkward air between me and Deen. I didn’t break it, still clutching my covered right hand. Deen realized the assignment.

“Ho-how did you get new clothes?” she stammered. “Don’t tell me you robbed—”

“What is it with you and robbery?” I said, smiling to show I moved on from the hand issue. “Jubjub bought these for me. Turned out I was right that she’d tail me. Just didn’t expect there’d be two people following me.”

Deen’s eyes widened. “How can you be so sure Jubilee isn’t listening to us right now?” We were in the shade of the building, the sun on its other side.

“Jubjub rode one of the ferries returning to the cruise ship,” I said. “Something about needing to talk to Dario. I sent her off before coming here. Unless Jubjub’s shadow form could swim the ocean, I very much doubt she’s around. Better we talk here than on the ship where we’re not sure if she’s around.”

“You better do some talking then. What was that about Jubilee and Dario? Is she going to betray us?”

“Chill on the questions. Let me tell my story first, then you ask questions. At the end of my fight with Theo, or rather Jubjub ended that fight…” I narrated more or less what happened with no embellishments. “You see, there’s nothing to worry about betraying and stuff like that,” I finished the story. “I fed her lies. All she did was confirm that we know that they know that we know—”

“Jubilee thinks you’re an artificial Adumbrae?”

I nodded. “So will Dario and the Professor. I don’t know what benefit that’ll ultimately give us, but I want to mess up their heads as much as possible. We’re going to feed them a lot of nonsense through Jubjub.”

“And you trust her?”

“Trust her? No, duh. But I trust her to trust my words. If I’m wrong about her, it’s no huge loss to us—we’re already enemies. Bottom line, we have the initiative here. I told you to trust me. See? It all worked out.”

Deen stuck out her tongue. “It’s too early for you to I-told-you-so me,” she said, though it was obvious she was impressed with what I’d accomplished. “I’m conceding this has improved our situation. It’s fine that we have Myra, but it’s a safeguard having Jubilee sort of partially on our side. Another good news is that we’re really not going to Red Island. I was so worried that—”

“I’m still going there.” I wore a resolute expression. My justifications were ready to appeal to Deen’s heroics side. The bad guys were right there! We were going maximum justice up their asses. “Don’t try to stop me. I know it’s dangerous, but I’m set on—”

“I’m not going to try to change your mind,” Deen interrupted.

“You’re not?”

Deen smiled as she patted my head. I wasn’t sure what she was going for, but I found the gesture annoyingly patronizing. “Just like I knew you were going to ruin the glove,” she said, “I knew you were dead set on going to Red Island even if alone. I’m your best friend; I’m not going to let you go alone.”

“But it’s dangerous there?” For the umpteenth time today, my expectations were incorrect. The world might be pranking me.

“We have to check if the 2Ms have a cure for you. Anything that can help, even if temporary. We know from Vanessa that they have treatments and pills and all sorts of stuff to prevent the 2Ms’ clients from losing their minds. Even a small lead will be helpful.”

“The cure… Right.” I forgot about that. Maybe because I was no longer interested in it.

“How to get to Red Island though? Stowing away on the small boats is the answer, but not an easy one. Apparently, Dario and Jubilee have no clue how to do that. We don’t have invisibility powers like Reo’s scout fairy. I have my Guardian Angel, but he can’t do anything about an impossible situation. There are scanners and security cameras all along the way. Any ideas?”

I sensed Deen was trying to needle something out of me. “I’m thinking we wait for the transport boats to come out the bowels of the cruise ship and then hitch a ride. After that, we can… swim after them? I mean not swim all the way to Red Island. I bet we can catch up and then just stick to the side like a barnacle. We should buy those skintight suits that divers use.”

Deen pursed her lips while making severe eye contact.

“You think my idea’s stupid?”

“It’s quite good. We’d throw ourselves into the ocean, but it’s a much safer alternative to sneaking down the cruise ship’s lower floors.”

“I can’t believe you’re agreeing with me on that one.”

Then Deen sprung her trap question. “But how will we know when the transport boats will leave?”

For a moment, I thought of telling her about Dario’s reasoning for why he thought the boats would depart tomorrow night. However, I decided to go with my original plan. “I’m going to come clean about something else.” I took a deep breath and went on, “Big Marcy told me.”