The Peacock Key

the broken code

Love and Jack finished their turkey sandwiches and sat down in the small but quaint living room on the couch.

As soon as Love's feet touched the far side of the white leather couch, **Dee** came stomping and clanking throughout the house, singing loudly as if demanding they hear the lyrics.

"You can't outrun the monsters, they're in your mind," she sang.

"Good grief," Love rolled her eyes, looking straight at Dee. "**Dee. Is this necessary?**"

"I can't hear you, Love. Can you say that again?"

"IS THAT RACKET NEEDED RIGHT NOW?" Love tried yelling, which she hated.

"STILL HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU SAID."

"I think she's still a little upset," Jack slightly rolled his eyes as he tried to gain Love's attention, keeping her mind in a place he could reach.

*'What is her problem? I mean, why is she acting like she is mad at ME? I don't get it. I do everything I can think of to help her, but she never listens! Oh... cookies... god those cookies are so good, but I just ate. Jack is watching me... I shouldn't eat a cookie too... he will seriously think I'm a glutton... he is really cute... I love how he smells... it's been so long...'*

**Jack smiled as he listened to her thoughts.** This was something he had been able to do since he was a small child. Though this gift was a relic of a past demonized by the new age leaders, he cherished this piece of his mother's heritage so much that he decided early on to hide it. The rest of his people who shared their gift with others had fallen victim to the Mistress long ago—each one seduced, systematically eaten, and forced into servitude. But Jack had outsmarted the Mistress and her cronies by simply pretending to be normal. So normal that he was forced to forfeit all his riches, give up his lavish lifestyle, and walk amongst the low lives as a homeless beggar.

Jack stood, reminiscing about his mother's softness. Her smell, something like stale cigarettes and two-day-old clothing, yet intoxicatingly sweet like lavender and coconuts and the salty breeze from the ocean. His mother had been his only force of truth in a world gone crazy. His mother was mad, but she was real. He knew this deep inside his bones, yet the skin on the outside refused to let this knowledge come anywhere near the world outside of himself.

"Jack... hello? Are you okay?"

Love was standing two inches from Jack's face and snapping her fingers loudly in his ear when he finally snapped out of it.

"Oh, God. Yes. I am fine, Love. Sorry, I was a little lost in my own world. What's going on?"

Love looked at him with a look he could not quite read. He wanted to intrude into her mind and know exactly what she was thinking, but out of respect and his own moral code, he chose not to. Jack had a set of rules he lived by that no one else knew, but he refused to violate his own terms of being established long ago. These were truths his mother unknowingly implemented into him during the few short years he spent at her side.

"Well, Dee left in a storm after I removed one of her earbuds from her left ear. I had to—she refused to listen to anything I was saying, and I needed her help to try and pry the door open so we could leave this house. We have no supplies here, and we will need some things, I am sure, if the Giants are planning on taking a while to return to give us more instruction."

"What? Why would you even try to go out of here, Love? Clearly, this is safety." Jack ran to the c***k in the door that Love had painstakingly carved by hand with a small kitchen knife. The plastic mesh had finally allowed her enough room to push open a slot that broke open just barely enough to let a very small-framed person through, but not without ripping some skin and leaving behind pieces of flesh and the remnants of Dee's long, golden locks.

Jack heard the sound of an engine starting and the thump of loud, obnoxious rock music playing before the tires squealed, signaling that Dee had made her way to go out for supplies.

"I can't get through that—Love—why would you send Dee? Don't you think she could be in danger?! Seriously. This is why you were locked in the cage you were in in the first place, girl! Call her right now and tell her to come back. We need to stay here!"

Jack was angry. Love was confused.

"How would you know, Jack? You didn't even know what this stuff was or anything about my past, and you damn sure didn't seem to be concerned about any of this when I was trying to save your a*s earlier in the basement. **Why are you acting like you already know what is happening here?**"

Love demanded answers. She suddenly felt that even her win today had been a set-up. It was as if Dee and Jack somehow knew one another and this whole day had been meticulously planned out to thwart her truth from being seen.

*'That's it. I have had it with these creatures of darkness. Nothing I do is ever right, and I can't even be sure I know what to do or what is and isn't correct anymore. I give up. F**k it.'*

**Jack intruded.** *Damn it.* Why did he do that? He had just violated the very code that kept him from telling anyone his own truth.

Now faced with his own challenge, a cosmic judgment that he was bound to by his own inner judge, Jack sat down and put his hands on his head.

"What the f**k are you doing now?" Love was angry.

"Look, Love, I have to tell you something about me that you may not be happy with me about."

Jack's voice sounded defeated. Nothing like the strong, sarcastic, and somehow confident character she had met back at the courthouse.

"Oh. Yeah? What is it, Mr. Homeless liar?" Love was still angry.

"What? I am not a f**king liar. Why would you call me that? I'm the only one trying to help you, and now you call me a liar? Of course. That's who you are, isn't it? The brat who thinks she doesn't do wrong and is here to somehow bring all of us idiots to some truth that only you know? You know what. I don't need to explain sh*t to you. You deserve whatever you get. That's obvious to me now."

Jack was angry.

Love and Jack were angry.