The Metropolis Series #2: Quinn Beyond Bounds
10. Downtown Drive

I ENTERED MY DORM to replace something tapping on my window sill. It was a dove grazing the dusk-colored sky. I let it into my room and it morphed into a young man in a hoodie. It was Julio.

“Hey,” he said. “We need to talk.”

He didn’t look like he was in danger, thank God, but there were still so many questions I wanted to ask him—mainly about his relationship with Rachael, his shape-shifting ability, and where he had gone earlier that morning. However, he wouldn’t let me speak.

“Hey,” I said. “Julio—”

“There’s something you need to know about your roommate, Quinn,” he continued.

My stomach made a little flip. “Wait, Harumi? She’s been missing—”

“That message at the arcade? She’s not as innocent as she seems. She’s protecting Cassandra.”

I looked at him with disbelief. “What? No. Julio, she’s trying to save her.”

“There’s no point in saving her, Quinn. She’s too far gone. Unless we dive into the River—”

“Then what about Rachael?”

There it was, the R-word. It had just been dropped into the conversation like a bomb.

“I saw her, Julio,” I pressed. “I even got to talk to her. She’s just—”

“Fine. I know.” He took a deep breath. “But we just got lucky there, Quinn. That’s all it was.”

“But what if—”

“As of now, we have more important things to discuss: like whether or not you’re still safe here at St. John’s.”

I groaned. “Julio, the entire student body once turned into a hoard of zombies. I didn’t think that St. John’s was safe since then—anywhere in the Metropolis for that matter—”

“Point taken, but…” He lowered his voice, warily looking at his surroundings. “Look, Quinn, this Harumi girl is not who you think she is.”

An eerie silence enveloped the room. I swear that I could feel the temperature suddenly drop, and the beads of sweat that trickled down my forehead left a stinging sensation on my skin.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Meet me outside,” he whispered. “If you’re not there in ten minutes, then I’ll know whose side you’re truly on.”

Then he turned into a dove and flew out the window.

What was I supposed to do now? Harumi was my friend, but Julio seemed to have good intentions himself. For one thing, I was genuinely relieved to know that he wasn’t exactly an enemy, and I didn’t want that to change. However, with the suspicions he had toward Harumi, I used it as a leverage to not trust the guy completely.

When we first met, he had asked me questions about Cassandra because we looked so much alike. At that time, I tried not to spill so much because I didn’t want him to replace out about Harumi and my apparent involvement with my evil twin.

Once again, I had to be careful with my words.

I changed out of my uniform and slipped on a pink sweater, a pair of jeans, and some sneakers. I then took my phone, keys, and wallet into a tiny pouch, and went for the door. I glanced at my dorm, making sure that everything was in place before I left, and that was when my eyes caught a glimpse of my school bag on my bed. After a few seconds of thinking about it, I decided to grab Harumi’s list from the bag and stash the piece of paper into the pocket of my jeans.

No matter how bad the situation might have been, Julio still had some sort of news about Harumi. I had a gut feeling that the list would be important later on.

Finally, after letting every feeling of apprehension waver, I locked the door behind me.

I found Julio just outside St. John’s main exit. He was leaning against his run-down car, and when he saw me, I couldn’t help but notice that he was smirking.

“Well, it’s good to see you, Quinn,” he said.

I crossed my arms, lifting my chin up. “Let’s just get this over with, Julio. What is it about my roommate that I need to know?”

“There’s a place I need to take you to first,” he replied. “If you don’t mind.”

He directed me to the front seat of his car—and it immediately gave me claustrophobia. It reminded me of the last time I was here, and I wished I didn’t have to recall those events in my head again. I knew Julio had good intentions sending a corrupted Curtis into the river, but because of his romantic feelings for Rachael, there was a nagging thought in my head that suggested Julio might have had personal motives, too.

Julio started his car. The engine revved, and once again, I was on my way to the unknown.

“So Quinn,” Julio began. “Do you drink coffee?”

We were going to a coffee shop. That said enough.

“I’m a hot chocolate person, actually,” I said.

“Well, you’re in luck,” he replied. “We serve the best hot chocolate in town.”

“Wait—we?”

“There are a few people I want you to meet. Believe it or not, we have a division that runs a coffee shop downtown. They thought that it’d be a good outlet to make some sort of living, and they were right. It was almost like they had never left the Metropolis. They provide funds for our operations, too.”

“So, you guys can hold businesses here?”

“Apparently so. I was a little worried at first. I thought it would cause some kind of confusion in the timelines because it was run by people who didn’t exist, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Metropolitans love coffee; this city pretty much runs on the damn thing. Do people even remember the guy who serves them coffee?”

“They usually don’t.”

“Exactly. Nevertheless, our coffee shop management is smart enough to take certain safety measures. None of them wear name tags. They rotate employees more often than any other business. And so far, things have been running smoothly ever since.”

Julio’s gaze went far down the road, a signal that I should stay silent. He’d been through tough times, and he needed to be able to reminisce the good the Metropolis had left for him as much as he could.

“So, is that where you’ve been this morning?” I finally asked. “At a coffee shop?”

He turned at an intersection. “What do you mean?”

“You and Viv weren’t in my dorm anymore this morning. I thought you guys have been kidnapped.”

Julio smiled, something he rarely did. “Quinn, I don’t think Viv and I can ever thank you enough for your hospitality last night, but it’s best that I leave out all explanations until we get there.”

“Can you at least explain to me what turning into doves was all about?”

“It’s a defense mechanism,” he said. “Ever since the Author rejected us, our physical forms can only maintain themselves in the Metropolis for a limited amount of time.”

I raised a brow. “So… the doves were…”

“Our spiritual forms? Yeah, you could say that.”

“So, I was holding your souls…”

Julio didn’t respond. He kept his eyes on the road and drove on.

We didn’t say anything to each other for the rest of the trip. I wanted to ask Julio what his past with Rachael was like, but his demeanor had so much sadness in it that it forced me to keep quiet. I remembered that he would even shut Viv out at the mere mention of her.

I gazed out the window, watching the city skyline twinkling in the distance. Julio didn’t say it himself, but he still needed time to grieve.