The Metropolis Series #2: Quinn Beyond Bounds
32. Do-Over

IN HINDSIGHT, I should have just written, And Quinn Vasquez travels through time, or Quinn Vasquez fixes everything. Something like that.

Nevertheless, after moments of total darkness, I woke up, and my line of vision was obscured by a piece of cloth placed in between my eyes. It was so cold that it made my face numb.

An ice pack, I thought.

I gingerly took it off, and my face was left with a tingling sensation that made it a little hard to blink. I got up slowly, and my head began to spin. Pain built up from the bridge of my nose, and as my vision slowly cleared, I finally noticed the medicine cabinets surrounding me.

I was in the nurse’s office.

I guess I should have expected that. The last thing I remembered was making myself pass out, but besides that obvious fact, my mind began to yearn for details: What day was it? What happened? Was I able to rewind time?

And was everyone okay?

I looked down and saw that I was wearing my PE uniform, indicating that I had gym class that day. The orange glow from the window told me that it was late in the afternoon: classes had just been dismissed.

Before I could think about anything else, I found Curtis on a chair right next to me. He was asleep, his head propped on the edge of my infirmary bed. I was startled to see him at first. Given what I had just gone through with his evil clones, why wouldn’t I be? But then, I noticed how peaceful he looked in his sleep. He snored a little, and it wasn’t the loud kind of snore that would keep anyone awake at night. It was hard to explain, but I found it… adorable.

God, Quinn, what were you saying? For all I knew, he could have been one of those evil Curtis monsters I had encountered in Cassandra’s world, and the thought of that place made me wonder if I had truly escaped from it. What if I was still stuck there? Was my mind playing tricks on me again?

Gingerly—because he was a ginger, HAHAHA… I’m terrible—I patted him on the head, stroking his neatly cropped hair. Afterward, I retracted my hand in fear that he would wake up and bite me or claw on my arm again, but fortunately, nothing of that sort happened. He simply flinched and peacefully went back to sleep.

I watched him for a while as I convinced myself that Cassandra was just messing with my head again. This was the real Curtis… right?

I tried my luck once more and patted him gently on the head. I might have looked silly gawking at him like an idiot as he slowly opened his eyes and groggily lifted his head.

And then, I gawked at him. “You’re real, right?”

“What?” he asked.

This was when I began to realize that what I’d just said was random and out of context—now I bore the burden of having to explain myself. It was funny, though. From the very beginning, I had wanted to tell Curtis about Cassandra and all the nightmares I’d been having, but now, I felt reluctant about it. The Metropolis was a fictional world, but not everyone living in it was supposed to know that—or they’d turn into monsters. It had already happened to Curtis once, and never did I want that to happen again.

“S—sorry,” I stammered. “I just had a really bad dream. A—and you were in it.”

I was pretty sure this statement wouldn’t hurt anyone. Besides, people get bad dreams all the time.

Curtis looked intrigued; he nodded his head as he furrowed his brows. “Hmm… interesting,” he mused.

“It was just about some twisted version of St. John’s,” I said hastily, brushing off the topic as soon as I could. “Doors lead to other rooms—”

“Don’t all doors do that?”

“Yeah, but—”

I sighed. I wasn’t doing a good job of changing the subject.

“Look,” I began. “I dreamt that I was in trouble. People tried to help me, but in the end, they just betrayed me.”

He lowered his head. “And… I was one of them?”

Actually, they were your evil little clones, I thought, but I bit my tongue. I had to be careful about what to say to a Metropolitan like Curtis. One slip of the tongue might get him corrupted again.

Wow, these characters were sensitive, weren’t they?

Instead, I just nodded. “Yeah…” I admitted. “It was scary… Harumi was there, too…”

Curtis tilted his head. “Who’s Harumi?”

And that was when my heart sank. I knew that the rejected characters that fell into the Lethe would be completely erased from this world, but it never dawned on me how real that concept was. It made sense that Curtis didn’t know who Harumi was.

Because she didn’t exist anymore.

But how was that possible? I thought that the timeline was reset. If Curtis regained his memories after falling into the Lethe, wouldn’t Harumi be spared from getting obliterated, too?

I shook my head, blinking away the tears. I didn’t know what to do anymore. “Ah, never mind,” I said. “She’s just a friend from out of town.”

I’d mention that Rachael was in the dream, too, but she was the last person I wanted to talk about in front of Curtis. My immature, jealous self remained; I never said she disappeared, anyway. Besides, I needed to focus on what was more important—but I was then interrupted by a searing pain in my nose bridge. I groaned.

Curtis scrambled for the ice pack that I had taken off my face. It was melting on the infirmary bed’s sheets, but once the pack met my fingers as Curtis handed it over, it was still as cold as ever.

“You should put this back on,” he said.

I pressed the pack on my nose, and the pain slowly dissipated. “What happened to me?” I asked groggily.

Curtis sunk into his seat and sighed. “Yeah… that’s my fault, actually. Sorry. You got hit by a volleyball I served at gym.”

Oh, that fateful volleyball. It had given me false hope for making me believe that I could control my stupid powers, but because of what happened at the Spanish House with Cassandra, I wasn’t so sure anymore. Besides, I was only able to go back in time because of Mackenzie’s computer.

Curtis laughed nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I felt awful, so I thought I’d look after you. I ended up falling asleep, though.”

He sounded so sweet that the entire room would have filled up with ants, but as that imagery entered my mind, I pictured Rachael slamming through the door with a whole can of bug spray. I was still at a point where I had to keep reminding myself that Curtis had Rachael, his girlfriend, and because of it, his kindness proved to be a source of ambivalence. This analogy might sound weird, but I was like the mistress of some cheesy afternoon telenovela, a role that made me feel queasy.

Nevertheless, I smiled. “Thanks, Curtis,” I said. “But wouldn’t Rachael be looking for you by now?”

“Ah, so this is what you two are like up close,” a voice then said.

I jumped as the curtains of my infirmary bed drew open. Bree had peeked in with a grin on her face. I knew why her expression was like that. She had told me about certain rumors going around saying that Curtis was in love with me—HAHAHA, yeah right—because he always visited me at the nurse’s office.

“Bree,” Curtis said, his eyes widening at the sight of the student council president. “What are you doing here?”

“This is the nurse’s office, isn’t it?” Bree mused, closing the curtains behind her. She beheld her index finger that was wrapped in a small, plastic bandage. “I thought I would come here to cure a paper cut, but on my way here, I overheard students from Class 3 chattering about how Stevenson hit Vasquez with a volleyball. That’s how I knew I’d replace you guys here.”

She smiled as she placed a paper tote bag on the bed between Curtis and me.

“Whatcha got there?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from Curtis and me being alone in the infirmary.

“What do you think?” Bree put her hands proudly on her hips. “They’re flyers. I got Deus Ex Machina a gig for tonight.

“Tonight?” Curtis and I said. Baffled, we both reached into the bag and each pulled out a flyer.

***

JAMMING SESSIONS with DEUS EX MACHINA

Tuesday, 7:00 PM at The Red Herring Bar and Grill

SEE YOU THERE!

***

“Whoa,” Curtis exclaimed. “Don’t you think this is too much of a short notice?”

“Relax, Stevenson,” Bree said. “Phil and Rachael are cool with it. Besides, the owner is a close family friend of mine; the band they booked quit at the last minute, so he asked if I knew a replacement.”

Curtis raised a brow. “You sure Rachael’s cool with it? If anything’s this urgent, she’d be calling me relentlessly right now for band practice.”

He pulled out his phone to check if there were any missed calls. There were eight of them—and they were all from Rachael.

Bree glanced at the screen as Curtis went pale. “Yup, she’s cool with it.”

As if on cue, Rachael’s name with a big red heart emoji appeared on the caller ID, and Curtis had no choice but to answer.

“Hello?” Curtis said apprehensively.

Rachael’s voice blared on the other line, making Curtis flinch. I had instinctively turned away from his worried expression, landing my sight on the view outside the infirmary’s window. Students slowly piled up on the school grounds, flooding the scene with cheerful banter and boisterous laughter.

Then, among the sea of conversations, I spotted a familiar group of boys gathered at a nearby corner.

“So, Vasquez,” Bree began, “you’re coming along as our manager, right?”

But I ignored her; I continued to stare out the window as Derek and his friends had agreed to go to the arcade.

And there it was, an opportunity to fix everything, a chance to not screw things up, and it shimmered before my very eyes under the glistening afternoon sun. It was calling me, saying, Hey, Quinn! Here’s your chance. Take it.

Oh, most certainly!

I sprang out of the infirmary bed and onto my feet, ignoring the pain that throbbed on the bridge of my nose. “I’ll be right back,” I declared.

“Where are you going?” Bree asked. At that, I silently cursed as I glanced out the window. Derek and his friends looked like they were just about to leave.

I was afraid that Cassandra would once again replace a way to Derek and use him as instruments to bring the Spanish House to its knees. But what if, at that very moment, I could actually do something? I couldn’t fight, as Julio had said, which was true, but I knew that I wasn’t entirely useless.

“Just gimme a second,” I replied. Not only did I have to keep the whole thing with Cassandra and the Spanish House a secret, but I also didn’t have the luxury of time to explain as much as I could. I didn’t even wait for Bree’s response as I hastily left the nurse’s office.

I met a cool breeze as I sped through the school grounds. However, the sensation didn’t last so long, and the farther I ran, the more lightheaded I felt. Thankfully, I was spared from passing out, but by the time I was near Derek, I was so out of breath that it took a lot of effort to call him.

“Hey, Derek!” I gasped. “Wait up…”

Of course, I hadn’t really spoken to him, except for a few instances in class where we had to work together, so starting a conversation with him was pretty awkward. However, it wasn’t the best time to think about that. Cassandra shouldn’t be allowed to get to him, or anyone for that matter, again.

Derek and a group of other boys turned to look at me, and I swear, each one of them had a scowl on their face that I tried to ignore. I flashed a smile despite my shortness of breath, and I clasped my two hands together like I was a fitness instructor about to start a workout routine.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

Yeah, that seemed like a pretty good start.

Then, Derek stepped forward, crushing the faith I had in myself under the soles of his feet. He was tall and definitely foreboding, and his rosy cheeks only made him look perpetually hot-headed.

“What do you want, Vasquez?” he snarled.

To save you from Cassandra, the demon child, I thought, but of course, I couldn’t say that.

“Uh… I asked where you were going,” I pressed. “I thought I made myself clear there…”

“Leave her, Derek,” one of his friends scoffed. “Let’s go.”

They turned around to leave. I wasn’t going anywhere with this conversation; I needed to step things up.

“Wait!” I cried, sprinting toward them. To my luck, Derek turned back to my direction, but he looked more pissed off than ever. I laughed nervously. “You don’t need to go… where you’re going. There’s this much better place I know!”

Derek narrowed his eyes. “Where?” he asked.

Okay, so I thought about potential places where teenage boys liked to go, but alas, my mind instantly went black. My parents did not let me go out often, and in the rare cases that they did, it wasn’t with guys. So, if you asked me what guys did, I could only think of the arcades, ice cream, and dumping their rivals into the Lethe.

I sighed. None of those things were applicable. My mind was overloaded as it struggled to surface a solution; it scoured stock knowledge from TV shows as beads of sweat trickled down my forehead. The volleyball that hit my face didn’t really help in making me feel better, either. The dizziness I got from the impact was coming up, building back up from the bridge of my nose.

Then it hit me.

I had brought one of the flyers to Deus Ex Machina’s gig with me. As far as I knew, the band was popular among students, giving my newly appointed status as its manager more purpose. I could promote the gig to Derek to lure him away from Cassandra, and I could invite even more students just in case my evil twin chose to target any of them instead.

It was a win-win situation.

I handed Derek the flyer. “Deus Ex Machina is having a gig tonight at The Red Herring, seven o’clock.”

I hoped that he never felt the nervousness in my voice. With a frown on his face, he took the flyer and examined it.

“Deus Ex Machina?” he mused. “At The Red Herring?”

The other boys gathered around Derek to take a peek at the flyer. Slowly, they glanced at each other, nodding. Derek seemed to do the same, but he still looked ambivalent.

“Fine, Vasquez,” he snarled. “It better be fun.”

“It will,” I said, surprised by how confident I sounded.

He turned around, taking the flyer with him as the other boys followed. I let out a sigh of relief.

Just then, Bree and Curtis followed me into the school grounds. Either they wanted to ask me what I had just told Derek, or they were astonished at the initiative I had taken to promote their new gig.

Before they could speak, I smiled at them.

“Bree, may I have more of those flyers?”