The Metropolis Series #3: Quinn and Cassandra

I DIDN’T KNOW which was harder: learning how to control my powers, or talking to Rachael—alone, if I may add. As much as I didn’t like the undo party option Julio had given me, I couldn’t imagine discussing anything beyond Deus Ex Machina’s matters with Rachael. Could I even get her to talk about the party?

It was a late Saturday afternoon. I had finished the last of my homework early, so I thought about seeing where time travel would take me. I stood and faced the mirror, extending my arms.

“Focus, Quinn,” I said to myself. “You’ve been given these powers for a reason. You have to at least try to control them.”

I decided to try beating my few-second record and go for a five-minute rewind. I looked at the clock in my dorm room. 4:57 PM.

I turned away and closed my eyes, and after a few seconds of silence, I opened them again.

I looked at the clock. 4:51 PM.

Six minutes. A new record.

I was proud of myself. I was pretty much convinced that I finally had a better grasp of my powers. But then, I looked at the clock again and closed my eyes.

I opened them. 4:52 PM.

Nothing happened. I tried again.

4:53 PM. Nothing happened.

And that was when I began questioning my initiatives. Was rewinding time the correct way out? There were just too many variables that were out of control. Could I stop Curtis from throwing the party? Could Julio divert Mackenzie away from the party? Then, there was Cassandra, who would show up and ruin everything.

I shook my head. Time travel was too risky. Besides, I couldn’t go two weeks back in time. I could barely even do ten minutes.

And so it was back to the Rachael option, which suddenly seemed way easier than rewinding time now that I thought of it. I would just have to get a drink, mix in some Lethe water, and boom! Problem solved. The solution was as bright as day. I needed to meet with Rachael myself…

Thankfully, I had saved Rachael’s number. She had called me a few times back when I was managing Deus Ex Machina, but for slightly obvious reasons, I refused to save her number. That almost proved to be a fatal mistake as I wouldn’t have been to get in touch with her, but all odds were thankfully in my favor.

She sounded reluctant, but she agreed to meet me at a nearby café. My hands couldn’t stop trembling as I waited for her, and my fingers couldn’t stop wrapping around the vial of Lethe water Julio had given me. The more I exposed my skin to the cold glass, the more I began to doubt myself. Could I do it? Would this work?

I didn’t how long it had taken for Rachael to arrive. The world might have stopped and I didn’t even notice. She wore almost the same outfit Julio and I saw at The MacGuffin, only this time, it was grayer and gloomier. Her hair was tied into a messy ponytail, a baseball hat covered her eyes, and her hands were tucked into her pockets. Once she saw me, she narrowed her eyes. I realized she hadn’t seen me in my short hair yet, so I imagined she’d have trouble finding me. I waved at her, and when she saw me, she walked straight to my table. She didn’t even bother sitting down. She just stood there, hovering over me like a ghost.

“You wanted to talk?” she asked, her voice monotonous.

“Let’s grab some drinks first,” I spluttered, standing from my seat.

“Okay,” Rachael said, nodding weakly. “I’ll—”

She took a step forward as I blocked her path.

“No, no, I’ll get the drinks,” I told her, raising my palms. “Sit here. Guard our table.”

I was pretty sure Rachael wasn’t the kind of person who took orders from anyone, but she just shrugged and said “okay” in a deadpan voice.

I motioned toward the chalkboard menu that hung above the front counter. “What are you having?”

Rachael pursed her lips. “How about a strawberry milkshake?”

Wow, Julio was right about the milkshakes.

“Okay, I’ll go get it. Just take a seat and I’ll be right back.”

When I turned around, I could finally breathe. Dealing with normal Rachael was bad enough, but that other Rachael was a whole new level. I couldn’t tell if she was angry, and that was the worst part.

I walked up to the barista and ordered a chocolate milkshake for myself and a strawberry one for Rachael. He assembled them swiftly and placed the drinks on a tray. Once I paid for the order, the barista motioned me to the side so that he could attend to the next customer.

It was now or never.

I gave the barista a big bill so I would have a lot of spare change.

That would give me an excuse to stay a little bit longer by the front counter. I slipped into the corner and faced my back to the crowd. I placed my big bag on the counter to block everyone’s view, got the vial of Lethe water out of my pocket, poured a generous amount into Rachael’s milkshake, and finally shoved all my spare change into my bag’s front pocket.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the tray of drinks and walked back to the table where Rachael was waiting for me. She took her drink and swirled it around with her straw. I sat down and joined her, bracing myself for a conversation I knew I’d never be ready for. Once I was settled, she shot me a heinous look.

“Why did you lie, Quinn?” she asked, the tone of her voice indistinguishable. “Why did you tell Bree and Philip you left early?”

I froze. I wasn’t expecting a question like that. “How did you—”

“Philip told me what you’ve been telling him,” Rachael blurted out. “You’re lucky. If I weren’t so confused, I would have snitched. Don’t you realize how much you could have helped Curtis out? The party was two weeks ago. and you had the nerve to stay silent? How could you after all we’ve seen back there? Why are you—”

“That’s what I came here to talk about,” I hissed, cutting her off.

The other customers were beginning to stare at us. It would be a nightmare if even just one Metropolitan were to get involved in our conversation.

“Look,” I continued. “There’s just something I’d like to know. Do you remember what those people who crashed Curtis’ party looked like? ’Cause everyone at St. John’s seems to have forgotten…”

Rachael took a small sip of her milkshake. I felt the world around me stop. I knew it wouldn’t take long for the Lethe water I mixed into her drink to take effect. I had to hurry up. I needed Rachael to describe what Julio and Mackenzie looked like for this pretty messed-up plan to be successful.

“If I remembered, don’t you think I would have immediately told Curtis?” Rachael said. “That night… feels like a blur now. I know there were two people: a boy and a girl. I… I think the girl was after you? But I’m not entirely sure anymore. And… the boy…”

She clutched her forehead, digging her fingers into her hair. “I dunno, I think we talked for a while? He told us to run? And… Curtis turned into this monster that wanted to attack us?”

She took another sip of her drink.

“Then…” she continued. “There was this other girl. Scary one. Came out of nowhere, I think. I remember not being able to see straight, but I’m not sure. I don’t know anymore…”

It was like she was a different person back at The MacGuffin. She was ferocious toward Julio and was assertive of him being one of the crashers of Curtis’ party. But now, her voice shook as she tried to explain things. Honestly, it was painful to watch. She was trying to piece fragments of her story together while Lethe water fogged up her memory.

“That’s why I lied, Rachael,” I decided to say. “It’s strange, but I couldn’t remember much of the party either…”

Yikes, another lie. I hoped that this one wouldn’t come back to bite me.

“As I’ve said, no one at school could. The principal had been interviewing us one by one, and no one could give any details on what the people who crashed Curtis’ house looked like. Perhaps it was understandable since everyone rushed out before they could clearly see anything, but as for me, what kind of reason could I give?

“I was scared that I couldn’t remember a thing, and I was even more scared that people would think I was lying. So when Bree and Philip asked me where I was when everyone fled the party, I decided to make things easier by saying I left early. Hope it all makes sense…”

Rachael played with the straw of her drink. “I… I guess. Philip couldn’t believe that I had forgotten what those party crashers looked like even though I was there almost the entire time.” She took yet another sip. She groaned and clutched her head. “It’s so… weird…”

I narrowed my eyes. “So… you didn’t tell anyone that I was with you at the party?”

She shook her head, her hair getting into her face. She brushed it aside. “No. I didn’t.”

“Why?” I then asked.

“I’m sorry, what?” Rachael replied.

“Why did you—”

Rachael waved a hand as if she were shooing a fly. “I’m sorry, what were we talking about again?”

I blinked. My milkshake began to melt.

“You called me over here so we could talk, right?” Rachael added, brushing some hair away from her face. “Ah right, the party. The party, the party, the party…”

She proceeded to hum to herself as she twirled her fingers around some of her loose strands of hair, staring at the table as she did so. Her eyes were wide and dark, like two gaping holes in her face. I’d seen that expression before. It told me that the Lethe water was working.

Its effect began to show in Rachael’s responses. Well, I suppose that was a good thing; that was part of the plan all along, but I couldn’t help but feel bad. Getting your memory wiped sucked. But then, I had already met up with her. I was already in the middle of that painful conversation.

It was time to get things over and done with.

“Yes, the party,” I decided to say. “I need—I want to know what happened back there. Bree and Philip said you were left in that house when two people crashed into Curtis’ party.”

Rachael nodded solemnly. She was now halfway done with her drink. “I… I was. Were you with them when they escaped the house?”

At first, I was taken aback by her question. I couldn’t believe she had already forgotten that I was with her in Curtis’ house the whole time. That Lethe water was definitely something else, wasn’t it?

“N… no,” I mustered the courage to say. “My parents wanted me to come home that Saturday, so they picked me up early at Curtis’ address.”

“I see…” Rachael replied.

All right, so at that point, I needed Rachael to forget about what Julio looked like. I knew that Metropolitans didn’t retain memories of the Author’s discarded characters, but when they’d crossed paths with each other once again, their memories would return.

But as Julio had said, it was just his little theory. If I got Rachael to talk about what he looked like and what she felt about him as she drank the Lethe water, that should erase her memories of him.

“What did those people look like?” I asked again. “The ones who crashed Curtis’ party?”

Rachael teetered her milkshake cup. She was silent, pursing her lips and scrunching her brows.

“That’s odd,” she finally said. “Why couldn’t I remember? Oh God, I must have blacked out in there…”

“What if I tried to help you out,” I replied.

She shot me a dirty look. “How?”

“From what I heard, two people crashed into Curtis’ party, right?”

She didn’t respond immediately. “Yes? Wait— yes.”

“Male? Female? One male and one female?”

“God, Quinn. I don’t know—”

“What about their skin tones? Light? Dark?”

“Actually,” Rachael said, straightening up. The contents of her milkshake were nearing the bottom of her glass. “One of them looked particularly foreign.”

Okay, now we were getting somewhere. She was beginning to describe Mackenzie, the girl who had attacked me at the party because she had mistaken me for Cassandra.

“How?” I pressed. I thought that if I gave her more hints, I could unlock her more of her memory. I’d then be able to wipe it away with Lethe water. “Were they Caucasian?”

“They were, actually,” Rachael affirmed.

“Blonde hair?”

“So blonde that it was almost white. She could have passed for a ghost. The other one, however…”

We were getting to Julio now. I tried to stay calm, to hold back the tension. I kept staring at her almost empty milkshake glass knowing that I didn’t have much time left.

Under the table, I gripped the fabric of my jeans. “What about the other one?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but there was something about him that was…familiar,” Rachael mused, staring at the ceiling. She shrugged. “I couldn’t even remember what he looked like. Isn’t that strange?”

Did Rachael just confirm that she was getting faint memories of Julio? Anyway, I didn’t have the time to think of the possibilities.

Besides, I needed to wipe away her memories of him for good.

“Let me guess,” I began. “He was tall, dark, and handsome?”

(Not that I thought of Julio that way. Pfft.)

“Now that you mention it,” Rachael said. “He wasn’t that tall. Handsome, maybe. Dark? He had a dark complexion, sure, but there was also this mysterious aura to him that I couldn’t ignore. Is it weird to say that I think I’d met him before?”

And that was it. Rachael had finished her milkshake.

I suppose that was the time to see if the Lethe water had worked. I was afraid of how Rachael stayed silent for a long time, so long that it got extremely uncomfortable sharing the same table with her.

Then, Rachael finally spoke: “So, you wanted to talk?”

For sure, the Lethe did a good job erasing our recent conversation, but did it fulfill my intentions? That was the real question.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I wanted to talk about Curtis’ party.”

“I see. Two people had crashed into it, right? You wouldn’t know since you weren’t there, but I guess Bree and Philip told you everything. Yes, I was the last one in that house. And no, I couldn’t remember what those crashers looked like and what happened. I know one of the crashers was killed—”

I pretended to act surprised. “Really?”

Rachael nodded slowly. “Yeah, and it was scary. That must have been why my memory has been blacking out. I don’t know. Because that was all I could remember: being scared. That’s why I’ve been taking a break from school.”

“Understandable,” I tried my best to assure her. “You’ve seen scary things in that house. Have you told Curtis about all this? About what you’ve been feeling?”

Rachael shook her head. “No. I’ve been avoiding him because I know I can’t solve his little family mystery.” She scratched her head. “I just really can’t remember what those crashers looked like.”

“You really can’t?”

“No…”

“Well, no one at school could either. It’s been a big head-scratcher, You don’t have to feel bad.”

“I see… Well, Quinn, thanks.”

I felt kind of flustered. The sincerity in her voice threw me off.

“No problem, really,” I managed to say.

I guess the Lethe water did work, but how was I to guarantee that her memories wouldn’t come flooding back the next time she’d bump into Julio? That was something I needed to ask him later.

Rachael then emerged from the table. “I’m gonna go get a drink.”

“Okay.”

“Nice hair, by the way.”

She then walked off, asking a busboy to clear out her empty milkshake cup. She must have thought that the person who came before us had left it.