The Metropolis Series #2: Quinn Beyond Bounds
49. A Truth and A Lie

THERE WAS AN UNUSUAL FAMILIARITY to waking up in a different room. My eyes would flutter open, and the sun would glisten in them, hurting them, and once the glare was gone, a white ceiling would take its place. Birds sang outside, and a gentle breeze blew against the curtains. The world around me was set in a temporary state of peace, a time to believe that I had simply woken up from a nightmare, that everything horrid that had happened recently was all just a dream.

But reality saw things differently. The process of getting up was slow and torturous. Every muscle in my body screamed as I sat up on the bed, the smell of ointments wafting toward my nostrils. I didn’t need my glasses to see both my arms in bandages. Slowly, my eyes focused on the strips of white fabric wrapped around my forearms. I felt under my shirt, and my fingers met the spandex material of the bathing suit I wore to Curtis’ party.

It had happened, I thought to myself.

My gut wrenched inside me. Curtis had turned into a monster again. Mackenzie wanted to kill me. Cassandra materialized before my very eyes. I didn’t know where everyone else was: Julio, Bree, Philip, Rachael, all those party-goers… I guess what hit me the most was that I didn’t get to do what Julio had told me:

If things go wrong, rewind time.

I felt like I had failed him. It was the one thing I could do, and I wasn’t able to do it.

I thought I had figured it out back at the Spanish House. I had noticed a pattern: If I became unconscious, then I would wake up in another timeline, triggering my ability to travel to the past. Why didn’t it work this time? What went wrong?

“So Mackenzie knew about Cassandra all along?” a female voice then said. It was muffled; it probably came from outside the room.

I squinted my eyes, looking to the direction of where the voice came from. I felt around for my glasses and found it next to me on a chair beside my bed. I slipped them on and found a door with two shadows underneath.

“About her being the Girl?” A second voice replied. It was male this time. “Yeah…”

“And Quinn and Rachael heard it?” The woman asked, more sternly this time.

“I’m not sure if Rachael heard—”

“If Quinn asks questions, will you be ready to answer them?”

There was a long pause. “I don’t know if I can.”

There was no denying that the voices belonged to Julio and Ms. Louise. If I were right, they seemed to be talking about Cassandra being the vicious Girl Beyond Bounds who was known to attack her victims in the forest. Her identity was confirmed by Julio at the party when a weak, injured Mackenzie looked at him with imploring eyes:

Cassandra’s the Girl Beyond Bounds… isn’t she?

Why wasn’t Julio ready to answer my questions? Why did it seem wrong that I knew who Cassandra really was?

In the middle of my thoughts, the door opened, and Ms. Louise appeared before me.

“Oh Quinn,” she said. “You’re awake.”

Behind her was Julio, who stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. He averted his eyes the second we made contact, busying himself with slowly closing the door.

“How are you feeling?” Ms. Louise then asked.

Everything hurts, I wanted to say, but I held myself back.

“A bit better, I guess,” I replied. “Where am I?”

“The MacGuffin,” Ms. Louise said. “The second floor, to be precise. This is where I live.”

“Ah,” I hummed, taking a look around. It was a small place with very little furniture. The walls were spotlessly clean, and books and trinkets lined up neatly on the shelves. What threw me off, however, was the display of dying succulents on the window sill.

“It’s nice,” I said, nodding.

“I patched you up last night,” Ms. Louise added. “Julio told me everything. I never thought Mackenzie would—”

“Mackenzie? Is she—”

“She’s gone,” Julio murmured.

And so it was true. First, Cassandra had pushed Harumi into the River Lethe, obliterating her existence, and now, she had killed someone before my very eyes.

“The wound was too fatal,” Julio continued. “There are some injuries that don’t heal. I called some people over to bring her body back to the House. They’re burying her tonight…”

As I listened to Julio’s words, the horror never felt so real, and the hopelessness crept in like a bomb ready to explode. With all that has happened, could we really get out of this mess?

“Ah,” Ms. Louise cleared her throat. “There is some good news, though. Rachael made it out of the house safely. I led her through the back entrance where a bunch of other party-goers managed to escape. The other members of Deus Ex Machina found her. I believe Bree and Philip are their names?” She shrugged. “It’s been a while since I meddled with Metropolitan affairs.”

“That’s a relief,” I said.

It was nice to know that Bree, Philip, and Rachael were safe; I could ease my wondering brain a bit. However, the mention of Deus Ex Machina got me thinking:

“What about Curtis?” I asked. “What happened to him?”

I looked at Julio. His face had earned a few cuts from the previous night.

“I eventually defeated the guy,” he said. “Turns out, all I needed was this.”

He pulled out a small, clear container the size of a cologne bottle from his pocket.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Lethe water. I didn’t think it would work, but I guess the stuff’s so potent that even a little of it would wash away some effects of corruption. He’s going to forget about the past few hours, though…”

“So… he’s okay?”

Julio shrugged, putting the bottle of Lethe water back in his pocket. “Supposed so,” he said. “I stuck around to witness Philip replace him unconscious. He called Curtis’ driver and they took him to some hospital thinking that he slipped by the poolside. It’s funny what Metropolitans choose to believe. Anyway, I’ve assigned a few people to watch by his hospital room just in case any signs of corruption show up again. They haven’t reported anything since, so that must mean good news.”

I nodded, imagining Curtis waking up discombobulated in a hospital room, not knowing how he got there. At least he wouldn’t remember the party; I didn’t want to go through the burden of explaining to him what had happened back there.

“One more thing,” I began, “about Cassandra being the Girl Beyond Bounds…”

I didn’t know if it was just me, but the atmosphere around us began to feel heavier once I opened the topic. Nevertheless, I pressed on.

“What does this mean?” I questioned. “I thought I was her replacement in this world and everything. If she happens to be the Girl Beyond Bounds, then…”

I couldn’t replace the right words to say. I guess I wanted to ask something like, “Does that mean I’m the Girl Beyond Bounds, too?” but even the thought of that scared me.

Thankfully, Ms. Louise spoke, but she didn’t exactly reassure me.

“Remember what I said about the Girl at The MacGuffin?” she asked me. “She must have been one of the Author’s early creations. Whoever she used to be, you’re her now, if you get what I mean.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I mused. I did replace her, after all. That was Harumi’s explanation on why she was so angry at me.

I looked to Julio’s direction. “But Julio, how did you replace out?”

“Find out what?” he asked.

“That she was the Girl Beyond Bounds? Isn’t she just some legend people made up?”

Julio appeared to just stand there, thinking of the words to say. Ms. Louise filled in for him.

“Quinn,” Ms. Louise pressed. “Cassandra is unusually violent. She has supernatural abilities that none of us can understand. It would make perfect sense for her to be the Girl.”

Julio cleared his throat. “Right,” he stammered. “There are also other versions of the story wherein the Girl takes different forms every now and then. She dies when a draft by the Author is scrapped, and she attains a new form when the Author starts writing again.”

I wanted to believe all that, but there are some things that Mackenzie said the previous night that didn’t seem to add up:

Y—you and Rachael… I—I’ve had my suspicions… for a while… I was afraid to… throw you off…

Why would Mackenzie’s suspicions throw Julio off? And what did the Girl Beyond Bounds have to do with Rachael?

“So where does this girl even come from?” I asked. “How does she become so powerful? I’m sure the Author—”

“Quinn,” Julio pressed. “Nobody knows for sure how the Girl comes to power. She just does. And now that she’s back, all we can do is fight.”

I still felt unsatisfied with Julio’s answer, but before I could ask any questions, Ms. Louise offered to get me breakfast from The MacGuffin. She beckoned Julio to help her, so I was left all alone with my thoughts in a tiny bedroom.

Julio wasn’t telling me something. I could feel it.