06-21-2014, 08:33 PM
Jensen walked out of the bar feeling like he'd been kicked in the chest. Hood's words rambled through his mind, a terrible broken record he couldn't turn off.
He fiddled with the helmet, but couldn't quite get the safety to click. What was wrong with his hands? Why were they shaking?
He shook them out and pushed the ignition. The bike revved awake. He walked it out and a moment later, shot down the street.
He cut around the bumper of a car, and ignored the blaring horn that followed. Everything Hood said played in his mind, round and round until the streets blurred away to black paths he took at random.
He ended up at the shipping yards some time later. The same yard where he worked for the last year. He couldn't get past the massive chainlink gates at the entrance, neither did he want to, but he sat outside half turned to ride back the other direction and peered blankly in.
He didn't want to go back to a life of jumping from job to job, too afraid to talk to anyone for fear they'd recognize him. The farther he went from Texas the easier it became to blend in, and Moscow was as far away from Dallas as one man could flee.
Strange that he'd found a sense of purpose here. Doulou set him on the path that transformed his curse to the Gift. Connor, another American, was the only person he might consider a friend. Jensen knew he never felt more alive, more right than when the Gift connected him to another human being. When he laid on of hands and felt their wounds dissolve. At that moment, staring through the chainlink fence of a shipping complex, he might have wept, but Hood's oration echoed like a nightmare.
'Better say in there somewhere that doing good doesn't win you a place in heaven.'
Actually, the Bible did say that doing good does not win you a place in heaven. He could have said as much before, but he couldn't bring himself to stand up to Hood. To tell him that he was right. That Jensen had no illusions of who and what he was.
'All those power-words those Evengelist spew all the time.' Yes we do, but Jensen would never again see the back side of a pulpit. He couldn't understand why Hood was so bothered by him not wanting to kill people? He couldn't wrap his mind around it. When did not murdering people become a bad thing?
'You do what you do because there's hope.' Yes! Exactly!
His chest tightened. He was angry but without a target. He felt trapped in his own skin, trapped as much as he was by the road behind and the fence ahead. He wanted to kick the ground; hit the fence. The anger beget anger, and he found hot tears in his eyes welling from the horror of his own behavior. He was utterly lost. He and Connor were both lost, unless Jensen came up with a way to defend themselves without inflicting the more harm he was trying to rid from the world.
He unzipped his coat a little and relished the flood of icy air around his neck.
There had to be a way.
He fiddled with the helmet, but couldn't quite get the safety to click. What was wrong with his hands? Why were they shaking?
He shook them out and pushed the ignition. The bike revved awake. He walked it out and a moment later, shot down the street.
He cut around the bumper of a car, and ignored the blaring horn that followed. Everything Hood said played in his mind, round and round until the streets blurred away to black paths he took at random.
He ended up at the shipping yards some time later. The same yard where he worked for the last year. He couldn't get past the massive chainlink gates at the entrance, neither did he want to, but he sat outside half turned to ride back the other direction and peered blankly in.
He didn't want to go back to a life of jumping from job to job, too afraid to talk to anyone for fear they'd recognize him. The farther he went from Texas the easier it became to blend in, and Moscow was as far away from Dallas as one man could flee.
Strange that he'd found a sense of purpose here. Doulou set him on the path that transformed his curse to the Gift. Connor, another American, was the only person he might consider a friend. Jensen knew he never felt more alive, more right than when the Gift connected him to another human being. When he laid on of hands and felt their wounds dissolve. At that moment, staring through the chainlink fence of a shipping complex, he might have wept, but Hood's oration echoed like a nightmare.
'Better say in there somewhere that doing good doesn't win you a place in heaven.'
Actually, the Bible did say that doing good does not win you a place in heaven. He could have said as much before, but he couldn't bring himself to stand up to Hood. To tell him that he was right. That Jensen had no illusions of who and what he was.
'All those power-words those Evengelist spew all the time.' Yes we do, but Jensen would never again see the back side of a pulpit. He couldn't understand why Hood was so bothered by him not wanting to kill people? He couldn't wrap his mind around it. When did not murdering people become a bad thing?
'You do what you do because there's hope.' Yes! Exactly!
His chest tightened. He was angry but without a target. He felt trapped in his own skin, trapped as much as he was by the road behind and the fence ahead. He wanted to kick the ground; hit the fence. The anger beget anger, and he found hot tears in his eyes welling from the horror of his own behavior. He was utterly lost. He and Connor were both lost, unless Jensen came up with a way to defend themselves without inflicting the more harm he was trying to rid from the world.
He unzipped his coat a little and relished the flood of icy air around his neck.
There had to be a way.