The conversation Ketch had with George at the bar had been on his mind. He wondered if, somewhere in the haze, George thought of it too, considering how things had gone afterward.

Ketch laid a shoulder to the kitchen door; old glue crackled under the linoleum as he crossed the room and pulled out a chair to sit across from the man.

?I?ve been thinking over what we were talking about?that probably I should apologize for snapping at you.? He looked over at the sink?s drain board where a fly crawled across the rim of a bowl. ?That wasn?t a good day.?

George?s face remained slack and unaware. A captive audience wasn?t much for prompting, after all. Ketch fell silent, the edge of his thumbnail running a thoughtful track back and forth beneath his lower lip. He thought about loss: about the things he?d lost and some he had yet to lose. He thought that some things he?d considered losses, he?d really just given away. And he thought about how he?d known he was doing it, too.

?How?s that for some fucking psychology?? he said aloud, watching as the fly departed the bowl and settled on a spoon. Then, he picked up the coffee mug he?d left on the table earlier and drained the last drops of bitter brew from it.

George?s head jerked upright with a start. For a split second, their eyes met: the liquid-brown, pupil-heavy glaze of the drugged to stark, conscious blue. Ketch pulled a small, glass bottle from his pocket, squeezing the bulb on the dropper until dark liquid filled the stem. He touched it to the inside of George?s lower lip. ?This is a new routine for me, this drug thing. Usually, it?s more cut and dried. But I?m experimenting with something this time. And I guess I should apologize for that, too?that you?re the guinea pig. But the end was always going to be the same.? Ketch stuck the dropper back in the bottle and sealed it up tight before tucking it away. He had no idea what the hell was in the vial except that Kate had said it was more potent than anything he?d find on earth. There?d been a few brief seconds as he exited the car, the two vials rolling in his palm and still warm from Kate?s hand, that he?d been curious enough to consider trying it out himself. But it wasn?t full blown oblivion he?d ever been after, just a small share of it.

?If I was more of a dick, I?d ask you now if you think it makes a difference.?

George?s shoulders and biceps tensed and relaxed as the liquid spooled a sublingual path into circulation and hit his nervous system, sending him gently back into his narcotic retreat. When Ketch had shown up on his doorstep the night before, George had answered in striped pajama pants, a half-skinned apple in his hand and confusion written in his features. It took fifteen seconds for the lightbulb to go off, and just as quickly the shifter dimmed it again.

Ketch sat back in the chair watching George slide away. ?You ever been asked what your story is? Fuck, I hate that question. The pieces are interchangeable, the result is the just a different configuration of the same scabs. So what?s the point? Most everyone here?s got stories like that. Some get better, some get worse, and some are just stubborn bastards that apparently like how it feels to run in place.? He thought about the helplessness and hopelessness he?d seen and how he hadn?t felt that way in a long time; he?d made every choice with his eyes wide open?or so he thought?and for the most part he knew what was coming on the other side. Maybe that wasn?t necessarily a good thing. After all, helplessness was also motivation of a kind.

?So this isn?t some come-to-Jesus confession where I?m about to commit to fixing shit about myself. Because I?m not. Which is probably pretty obvious given that you?re still sitting there, yeah?? He didn?t mean to be long-winded but found once he?d opened his mouth, the words kept pouring out. ?What bothers me, sometimes, is the fact that I don?t want to; I don?t know that I ever have. You?d think a person would want that after awhile, right? Some sense of personal redemption. That?s how it?s supposed to go. It?s in Maslow?s hierarchy for Christ?s sake.? Ketch wouldn?t have even known about that damn pyramid but for a psychiatrist Mimi had visited in New Mexico years back. It stuck with him because Mimi had been fixated for weeks afterward on the bright gold pinnacle of self-actualization that capped the top.

He thought now of redemption as he learned it: with his father?s eyes blazing furious accusations down at him from the pulpit in that small church built on the edge of the reservation. ?You have his eyes.? It was always meant as a compliment, but Ketch had never found a way to take it as such. He sat on that pew Sunday after Sunday and he learned to be still beneath his father?s eyes as they lashed out at the congregation while his mother?s hand tightened across his knee as if to keep him anchored.

Ketch leaned forward, hands dangling between his knees as he watched the slow rise and fall of George?s chest, the occasional twitch of his fingers tangling with the invisible in midair. He wondered whether there was some linear pattern to the man?s thoughts or if they were just amorphous, free-floating things. Maybe there was nothing at all. Maybe it was just a different kind of stillness. ?There?s comfort in the familiar,? he said, picking up the empty mug and looking at George?s counters, then the cabinets which contained exactly four of everything. He thought George was a man that would understand the sentiment. ?I guess that?s one of the few things I?m not ready to give away.?

Rising, Ketch returned his chair to the opposite side of the small oak table, rinsed the dishes by the sink and left, closing the kitchen door quietly behind him.

?This is the part where we go off course.? Ketch faced the kitchen chair toward George and sat himself a foot and a half back, old green linoleum crackling and peeling up beneath as the wooden legs of the chair scraped over it.

Staring at the sallow complexion of the man opposite him, Ketch waited to feel something?a twinge of guilt, anticipation, or regret. Maybe even fear. But nothing came. Like the gray sheets of metal he?d become accustomed to watching on a daily basis over the past week, the thoughts in his mind were nondescript and dull, moving by at a steady, unremarkable pace.

A long, thoughtful exhale and Ketch reached forward as he?d seen Mimi do on so many occasions before, and took George?s hand within his own. He closed his eyes and felt the tether of his own consciousness slip away from him.

The last coherent thought he had was of how much he must have thought of himself to resist this before, and what he must think of himself now to be giving in.

***

?And then?? Nat asked, reaching for the beer Ketch pushed in front of him. The old Sweeper popped the tab but instead of drinking from the can, he just held it under his nose, inhaling while the peaked angle of his thick brows implored the shifter to continue with the story. Puddled on the floor in front of the kitchen sink was the story?s subject.

While he nursed one beer and held the cold condensation of another against the swollen ridge of his cheekbone, Ketch searched for the right words to explain what it had been like to invade poor George?s soul. It had been something like a drug-induced high: a sense of ecstasy and unity, but larger, grander, more robust--a confluence of energy on a massive scale. Words dropped from the tight formation of his frown slowly, ?It was euphoric in a way, like the hand of a god braiding two souls and tying them off in a single knot. Closeness and awareness of individual parts and the whole all at once.? It had been just as much torture as ecstatic rush, like fingers tiptoeing politely up his spine and then peeling his skin off from the inside. He?d blacked out shortly after.

?That?s a little esoteric for you,? Nat said, placing the can back upon the table, gnarled hand loitering around the rim, tipping it back and forth idly as he considered the body by the sink. ?So you want me to get rid of him, then??

?Nah.? Ketch shook his head, ignoring Nat?s first comment as he tipped his can back until lukewarm beer funneled down the back of his throat. ?I still need him. I?ll take care of it when I?m done. I need more practice.?

?I can?t say whether I?m surprised you finally did it or not,? Nat said.

?Probably inevitable, yeah??

?Inevitability also makes a convenient excuse when one wants it to.? The old Sweeper searched Ketch?s face, then his gaze drifted to the collection of cups and bowls by the sink.

Ketch gave a sullen shrug and rubbed a bruise forming along his temple. Nat flicked his thumb in the direction of the bruising. ?He get you or you get that getting him??

?Both. I came to back in my own body and he was hoofing it for the back door. I don?t think he knew what was even happening, just running on blind instinct.?

Adrenaline thrust another endorphin rush upon the shifter like an earthquake?s aftershock as his consciousness reseated itself firmly in his own body. Familiarity returned slowly and he had only seconds of relief before George rose from the floor and started to half stumble, half crawl in the direction of the back door. Ketch hooked his boot around the man?s kneecap, and once he had him on the floor, slung his forearm around George?s neck and tensed the muscles until the other man went limp beneath his grip.

Dropping back to the floor with George sprawled over the top of his thighs, Ketch counted his breaths until they steadied, palm scraping from forehead to chin, tender spots lighting up and flashing white-hot against the back of his eyelids as he moved across them. ?I deserved that,? he said, touching the knot forming along his temple. He swore, head thumping back onto the ground, eyes fixed on George?s ceiling where the plaster was cracked and caved in above him and spread in thin lines like the fragile filaments of a spider?s web. Inexplicably, Ketch began to laugh. A cracked sound, like the ceiling above, his laughter filled the room and ballooned from him in uncouth gasps and ragged hitches that wracked his chest.

?Those memories you refused to return awhile back,? Ketch said, gaze swinging from afternoon shadows falling through the windowpanes to Nat.

?You found the backroads.?

?I guess.?

?Via substance or--? Nat gave a trilling fan of his fingers.

?A girl, some kind of half-fae.? Aoife deserved much more than that description, but Ketch was guarded--perhaps even selfish--with what he knew of the dreamwalker. Her face floated through his mind like a balm, momentarily creating a drag in his thoughts; the strange cast of her eyes tucked behind a dark wing of hair, her name forming a sigh that he refused to exhale. He held the notes of it in his chest until it lilted out through a ripple of his fingers atop the table.

Nat eyed Ketch, then tsked.

?You?re one to talk,? Ketch said, finally stealing away Nat?s untapped beer.

?I?m an exception,? Nat said confidently. ?Dreamwalker, huh? Most of the ones I know, you let them in once, they can come in again at any time. I wouldn?t have messed with her, were I you.?

Ketch waved a hand, fishing through the package of cigarettes on the table. ?She wouldn?t stay long if she did decide to visit.? His Zippo flared, adding an orange cast to the dimly lit room. ?Point is, could you take something and make sure you got the backroads, too? So there?s nothing left, total void??

Nat was quiet, a too-long forefinger tracing the thick knuckle skin of his other hand while he studied the shifter in silence. ?It?s possible. Something like that would take more time, more finesse than these old hands are used to.? He wiggled the knobby fingers for the euphemism. ?You?ve got me curious now. What is it you?re interested in getting rid of so completely??

Nat looked again at the body of George on the floor, the soft inhales and exhales that lifted his shoulders. Ketch shared the same view for a few moments before his attention returned to the ember of his cigarette and the shingle of ash he scraped against the side of an empty beer can.

?Me,? he said.