Free Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig Page B

forget.
      And talk to her new friend, Pizzaface Todd.
      "Lemme ask you something," she says, slurring a bit. She damn well better be slurring. She's had – five? – five Long Island Iced Teas. Each of them individually weak but together they form a cauldron of foaming booze in her gut. "Todd. Todd . Lemme ask you something."
      He places her next drink in front of her. "Huh?"
      "You ever think that, okay, my life is meant for one thing, and that sucks, and you hate it, and… fuck. Right? But then you find out your life is meant for this whole other thing and in many ways that sucks so much worse than the thing you thought you had to do? You follow me, Hot Toddy?"
      "Maybe. I dunno." He looks at her like she's got two noses and a vagina for a mouth. He's been this way all night. But that's okay. Todd's a perfect sounding board – and, her liquor-sodden brain tells her, a good good friend.
      She pounds back the "iced tea." Still doesn't have enough booze in it. Then again, it could be a tall frosted glass of rubbing alcohol and it might not have enough.
      From her right, she hears it: the clickity-click of claws on the bar-top.
      At the end of the bar, where no one is sitting, a fatbellied crow stands, drinking the last few drops of something from the bottom of a shot glass. Its beak clinks against the bottom of the glass.
      Smoke slowly drifts from its beak-holes.
      She blinks, and the crow is gone.
      "I don't know either," she says, voice quiet.
      A hot rocket surge of acid refluxes up into her throat. With it, a crass reminder: The girl with the red hair and the strawberry freckles is going to die.
      Poor little Lauren Martin.
       Not now , says the voice inside her head.
       But dead just the same , says another.
       Fuck it, not your problem.
       Then whose problem is it?
       SEP. Somebody. Else's. Problem. Who cares? Who appointed you Queen Fuck of Fatetown?
       She's a poor young girl, and she's not just going to die, she's going to die spectacularly at the hands of some fucked-up monster in a freaky leather bird mask who gets high on smoking burned funeral flowers and… what? We're just going to let it go?
       Who's we? We're just one person. Besides, you can't save anybody. And it's not like this is happening tomorrow. This is six years down the line.
      Before she knows it, the drink is gone and her cell phone is ringing.
      It's Louis.
      Shit.
      "Excuse me, Todd, I have to take this."
      Todd isn't even standing there right now. She answers the call.
      "Hey," she says, trying to sound nonchalant.
      "Miriam," he says. "Listen–"
      "No, you listen."
      "Wait. Can I talk?"
      "Fine. Sure. Whatever."
      "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. About earlier, about being pissy. It's just… hard sometimes. I know you don't want to be with me and sometimes we work and other times we're like fire and water and… you live at a much higher speed than me, Miriam. I'm just a lonely old bullfrog, and you're like, you're like a dragonfly flitting from reed to reed and–"
      She interrupts. "Have you been drinking?"
      "A little bit. It's been a bad day."
      "Me too," she says. "Me too."
      "My truck broke down."
      "Oh. Oh, shit. That sucks."
      "I still haven't delivered. I'm going to be a few days getting back. I thought I'd be back by tomorrow but – I'm really sorry. Do you need me? I can catch a bus if you need me there."
      "I don't," she lies. "Everything is… good here."
      "How's Katey?"
      "She's got pancreatic cancer."
      "Jesus."
      "Yeah."
      "I should call her."
      "Don't! Don't." Because she doesn't know . "She just wants to spend the night… assilim… assimilating the news."
      He sighs. "Yeah. You're probably right."
      "I am always right."
      Deep breath. Like this is tough for him. "Everything else is okay?"
      "It's all… peach fuzz and popcorn. I don't even know what that