Page 20 of Snow Blind
"You're welcome," she said, looking at them both. "Hey, we all need to be honest with each other. I'll go first. I picked up a bogey in town."
"A what?" Bryan said.
"A creeper following me. I picked him up in the bookstore, and he followed me to Target," Helen said. "I'm not sure if he was looking for me, you, or Bryan."
Passion Fruit went into high alert, "Where is this creeper now, Cranberry?"
"I left him knocked the hell out in a back alley in town," she said. "Boss said to lie low for a minute, but I will need to roll out for Thanksgiving. She will be calling later to issue the order for my neck thingy."
"I'm implanting you today?"
"Yeah, hey, you may need to put one in Bryan too, just in case," Helen said. "He's valuable enough for someone to want him gone. Until we know who and why, it may be in our best interest to keep him safe."
"You'd protect me...but why?" Bryan said, holding the thousand-piece puzzle to his chest as if he'd just gotten the latest PlayStation. "I can't walk. I can't contribute anything, and I am in so much flacking pain, I am about to cry. Again."
Helen knew how it felt to feel hopeless. "I was in a situation not too long ago but I never gave up that someone was coming to rescue me. Help arrived and I paid it forward. Surviving this is your sign from the universe that what you've been doing ain't working and you need to change."
"I'm not a bad a person," he said. "I saw things and put pieces together that at the time made no sense. When it began to become clear, I was looking for help to tell what I knew. Then I was shot."
Passion Fruit leaned forward, "What do you know, Bryan?"
"I'm still not sure, so for now, can we get me well?" he asked. "Get me on my feet so if that bogey comes looking, I can help mount a defense with you."
Passion Fruit asked, "You'd fight beside us?"
"I'd fight for us because Cranberry is right. It's time for me to make some changes," he said. "I have some money, not a lot, but I can contribute."
"Touching your accounts would be a sign you're alive," Passion Fruit said.
"Hey, I stole the credit cards of the bogey following me," Helen added to both Bryan and Passion Fruit’s’ shocked faces. "Well, I wanted it to look like a mugging, so I mugged him."
"You are scary," Bryan said. "You actually robbed the man, I mean, won't he know it's you?"
"No, I hit him in the temple from behind and dropped him like the sack of shit he is," Helen said, nodding her head with pride.
"Dear Lord, you're a terrifying little thing," Bryan said, touching the caked blood in his hair. "You look like a housewife on her way to get the kids from soccer practice and you've confessed that you robbed a man in an alley. Am I dead and no one told me?"
Passion Fruit's phone rang in the other room. She held up her hand and placed her finger to her lips. She made a beeline for the Technician phone. She answered the phone using the Spanish word for passion fruit.
"Maracuya," she said into the line.
"Requesting an implant for the Cranberry," Azreal stated. "Activation code CB2317. Synchronize to Channel 3, Line 8, Code Blue."
Passion Fruit replied, "I authenticate, Code Green, Line 6, Channel 2."
"Make it happen today," Azreal said. "There is a bogey."
"So I've been told," Passion Fruit replied.
"You stay vigilant; people are interested in her."
"As am I.Maracuyaout," she said, ending the call. She held onto the phone, thinking of what Helen said to her about implanting Bryan. For a moment, a wayward thought crossed her mind. This year, she wouldn't be spending Thanksgiving alone.
Then it happened.
Passion Fruit smiled.
She was still smiling when she walked into the room to face Cranberry and Bryan. The smile wasn't something her face was accustomed to doing, which based on the reaction from the people in the house reiterated the fact.
