After Image
Chapter 23

When Viola Imaged back to her own world, Will and Eli were waiting anxiously for her, pacing back and forth around the room. Viola deflated when she was fully back in her world and leaned against the wall she was near. Both Eli and Will turned to her solidified form, relieved.

“You sent her home, didn’t you,” Eli stated. Viola just nodded. “Do you want to talk about anything?”

Viola looked in his direction with a withering stare. “Do I look like I want to talk about it?” She shoved off from the wall and slipped past Will and out the front door before either of them could speak another world. When she walked outside she could feel spring in the air. A light wind tousled the short strands of her hair and she shivered slightly. She headed around the house and deeper into the forest that the house stood by. Meandering down foot paths and animal trails she lost herself deeper and deeper in the trees, hoping to sort out any of the events that had led her to this moment. She felt Quinn probing at the back of her mind and shut her out. She needed time. The words she had spoken to Will when they were escaping echoed in her mind, I leave my crying for when I am alone and the situation is handled, and then I sob like a baby. The brick wall she had built around herself broke down and she clutched herself from the sheer pain of all of her emotions and sob she did, right there alone in the middle of the forest.

She thought of Violet. Violet, who had changed her life more than her power to Image had. Violet, who murdered and stole and lied and calloused herself to the worlds around her. Violet, the mother of a child she thought she had killed when her power had manifested. Violet, who was so loving and so heartless. Violet, a person she herself could have been. We are the same person, could I truly say that I would be any different had I had to live her life? But she wouldn’t have been her. They were different people long before Violet had learned to Image. Violet had found love in one person. Viola had found love in the words she had written. Their paths diverged the moment Violet had seen Brandon. How would I have lived through that? Desperate to return to the only thing in the world I had loved I would have never stopped running from world to world, replaceing every story I ever wanted to be true. I would have helped where I could and left to replace the next problem to fix. She wasn’t sure if the knowledge that Violet was right, they were two different people, was a comfort or a burden. She just let out her confusion in her tears and cries, letting the silence of the woods grasp her cries and envelop them so no one could hear.

She woke up to a cold chill creeping into her bones. The light was fading from the sky and she numbly walked back to Violet’s house and stumbled through the back door. Will came racing into the kitchen when he heard the sound of the door opening and was relieved to see Viola.

“I was just about to round up Eli and go looking for you. You feel any better?” Will asked. He tried to reach out to hold Viola, but she brushed him aside, tensing at his sign of affection. She looked at him and quickly looked away. She thought of Violet and what the loss of Brandon had done to her. If she opened up to Will and something happened to him, would she end up the same as Violet after all? She didn’t want to chance it.

“I just want to be alone right now,” Viola finally whispered and shuffled up the stairs to the room that she had been given. Tossing her damp and dirt stained clothes aside, she ran another shower, trying to scrub off the memories of the day. It was a long shower that only ended when the house protested that there was no more hot water to give. Turning off the taps, she dressed in the night clothes she found in the dresser drawer and crawled into bed where she slept the sleep of the dead.

The next morning, Viola woke up to a tray of food beside her bed. She mechanically ate what was there, dressed and went out onto the balcony off her room. She stayed there until sunset that evening. Throughout the day Will or Eli would walk by her room hoping for any sign that she was all right. Viola had even spotted them on the front lawn staring up at her, glad to see her still alive sitting silently on the balcony overhead. She gave them a listless stare lost in her own thoughts. As the sun set, she sighed and headed back to the land of the living.

Downstairs, Will and Eli were having dinner. She pulled up a seat next to Eli and let the servants set a plate out for her. She ate in silence, causing Eli and Will to remain silent as well.

“I’ve decided what to do next,” Viola finally said once they were drinking after dinner tea.

Will and Eli both perked up to her sudden voice in the silence and waited.

Viola looked at Will. “I don’t want the CIA, CSIS, or MI:6 to be looking for us for the rest of our lives and so, I want to go back to the CIA.”

Eli dropped his cup onto the saucer sending tea sloshing all over the table cloth. “Viola, that is absurd. If anything we should all just go to a different universe.”

Viola gave a weak smile to Eli. “I don’t want to run from my problems. Besides, I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving my family behind. I love them too much.”

“Going back to the CIA would be like leaving your family behind. You would never see them again,” Will replied.

“I don’t mean hand myself over, Will. I mean to go there and show them that there is nothing within their power to hold me in their grasp. I mean to convince them to leave me and you alone.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” Eli asked.

“By going in there alone, unarmed, and untouchable,” Viola replied. “You two can travel with me to the gates of the building if you desire, but ultimately I am going in alone.”

Will must have explained what had gone down at the CIA headquarters, because Eli did not question her ability to be untouchable.

“When do you want to go?” Will asked. Eli balked at his encouragement of Viola’s insane plan.

“I think we should discuss this a bit more,” Eli replied.

Viola put her hand up towards Eli, asking for silence and stared at Will. “Tomorrow morning we will leave.” She turned to Eli. “This is my decision, my life in the balance, and you do not get to vote.”

Eli sat back in his chair and huffed, crossing his arms. “I am only concerned about your wellbeing, Viola.”

“So am I, Eli, that is why I have to do this.”

“Fine. You better believe that I will be coming with you as far as you will let me.”

She put her hand on Eli’s shoulder. “I know and I thank you so much for that.”

“You saved my life, Viola. I will spend the rest of it repaying you however I can.” Viola blushed and shook her head in protest. She said nothing, not wanting to start an argument. She knew, after all, how stubborn she could be, and Eli was her after all.

“Early to bed, early to rise,” Will said. Viola nodded and the three of them headed to bed.

They stopped the car quite a distance away from the CIA headquarters fifteen hours later. Getting out of the car, they stood in a huddle.

“What if something goes wrong?” Eli asked. He had continued to argue his point the entire time they had been driving until Viola had imaged a gag and held it out to him. He had promptly kept his mouth shut after that.

“If we could plan for every eventual outcome here I am sure we would all feel better,” Viola replied. “Unfortunately, there are infinite worlds out there because there are infinite possible outcomes to everything. If something goes wrong, I will do what I always do.”

“Which is?” Eli prompted.

Viola looked at him and shook her head incredulously.

“You of all people should know,” she replied.

“Wing it, right?” Eli said.

“What else would there be. Besides I have super powers on my side. Even ones that can’t be stopped by a glove put over my hands.” She winked at Will as she said this and left the two men behind as she walked towards her goal. Taking a deep breath, she ghosted between two worlds. She chose, this time, to have a parallel world that had the CIA building in it, but one that was empty. She needed as few differences as possible so that interacting with the stairs was still plausible, but where no people were currently located so there were less Images to deal with.

“Quinn, I need you to give me a clear path of access to the Director’s office,” Viola said. She was in the parking lot now headed towards the front door and she had already seen the security guard alerting the building of her appearance.

“No problem, Vye. Here is the route I think is the best possible choice for you,” Quinn said and gave Viola direct access to a schematic of the building.

When Viola stepped up to the door and opened it, she saw that the other side of the door had been covered with armed guards and agents. They stood in uniform formation. When Viola opened the door, no one shot, having been informed about the uselessness of such an action against her in this form. She walked calmly passed them heading through the main lobby with guns following her. Two of the men broke from the group and followed her with their guns trained at her translucent head. She didn’t even glance back. Twisting through a few hallways, she found the door to the stairwell and started her way up towards the Director’s office. It took her about twenty minutes to traverse the stairs, the whole time the two agents following her step for step. When she reached her destination, she was happy to see that the Director’s door in one was open and therefore a ghost image as well. She passed through it leaving the two baffled agents staring at a closed door. The Director on the other side looked calmly at Viola as she sat in a chair on the far side of the room.

“I didn’t expect you to ever come back here,” the Director said.

“I felt it was in my favor to show you what I was capable of before I left for good so as to discourage you from pursuit,” Viola replied. Her voice was steely, something she had picked up from Violet.

“We have invested quite a large amount of money in you, Viola, we aren’t just going to tacitly step aside and let you go on your merry way.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t, Director, if you had a choice. You aren’t exactly in a position to be able to capture me.”

“For now.”

Viola stood up. “Never again. If you pursue me I can disappear to any universe I choose.”

The Director blanched a little at that. “And leave your family behind?”

Viola laughed. “About my family. If you ever again threaten a hair on any of their heads you will have my full wrath upon you and as I have the ability to do anything I wish, I would hunt you to the ends of the earth to make you suffer. I don’t mean kill you, that would be too kind, I mean true torment, for as long as your pathetic life would last. Do you understand me?” The Director again looked even more pale and suddenly was desperate not to be in the same room as the ethereal apparition, her voice an echoing boom as it filtered through two worlds. He just nodded.

“Mark my words, Director, I may have nothing but kindness to offer to this world, but I have seen the darkness that resides within me. I have seen what being apart from my loved ones will cause me to do, and it will not be a pretty thing for anyone who stands in my way.” Viola took a moment to breathe deeply and looked back at the Director.

“I can be a reasonable woman. In fact, I have no qualms about offering my services to you in a limited capacity. You can petition contracts at any time you want to me that I will take into consideration. If I feel they are appropriate goals, I will Image whatever your heart desires. Keep in mind I will be offering this same service to all the governments of the world, staring with you, CSIS, and MI:6, but I will only do so under two conditions.”

Intrigued, the Director leaned in as if he could hear her more clearly by being a few inches closer. “What would those conditions be?”

“My family would be off limits. My entire family, Eli Lavallee included,” Viola started.

“That is easy enough,” the Director replied.

“Also, Will keeps his job with MI:6, albeit in a somewhat different capacity. I want him to be my liaison between the various government agencies and myself. I will only accept proposals through him, do you understand?”

The Director sat back in his seat. “I would have to discuss this with the other various people involved in this project before I can agree to that.”

“I’m sure they will come round,” Viola replied. “If not, no deal. If we cannot come to this alliance then I cannot guarantee what my actions against you and the others that used me against my will, will be. Remember that. I’ll be waiting for your call.” Viola grabbed a cell phone from her pocket and tossed it toward the director. It Imaged completely halfway through the air and the Director caught it.

“You will be able to talk to Will on that line and that line only when you have your answer,” Viola said, and she ghosted through the door leaving a bewildered CIA Director alone in his office. The agents on the other side finally opened the door to his office as they saw Viola pass through the door once again. The Director waved them away, already on the phone.

Viola made it back to Will and Eli without any pursuit and upon reaching them Imaged fully back into her reality. She saw Will hanging up the phone that she had Imaged for him earlier.

“Got an answer already?” Viola asked.

Will grinned. “What did you say in there? They offered me a liaison position between you and them with more money than I have ever been paid in my life.”

“I guess talking to a ghost is quite intimidating,” Viola replied.

Eli opened the car door and gestured for them to pile in. “Where are we going now?”

“To my parent’s house of course,” Viola replied. “I have to catch them up on a lot of things.”

“What about after that?” Will asked.

“On to Cranbrook to tell Jerome, Mesa and Alice what has happened, and to get Makoto, I miss her like crazy.”

“Your cat?” Will asked.

“Of course my cat,” Viola replied.

“And after that?” Eli asked.

Viola got into the driver’s seat of her car. Eli had brought her Mini Cooper down to Asheville, treasure chest and all. She started to drive.

“Why, we change the world, of course.”