BLUEMANTLE by Karen Langston (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📕

the stakes. Yet this was no gamble; how could it be when he already knew the outcome? So why go through with it? he thought, his finger in the lip of the trap door.

He pictured Cole below, hunched over the typewriter, ink-stained fingers pecking at the keys. He imagined Cole’s face, the feeling in his stomach whenever their eyes met. The way Cole’s expression transformed into light when he laughed. The scar across his back, which he called his ‘reminder’. His slight frame, at odds with his strength of character and purpose.

This brief cut-and-paste montage of the man he loved provided the answer. He is the reason, he thought. Gritting his teeth, he lifted the hatch and descended into the basement.

Cole looked up from the desk, beamed at Evan, then looked back down. “Almost finished,” he said, cutting out a square of printed text and carefully gluing it onto the master.

Evan hung back, watching him work. The space was cramped and poorly lit. Cole worked with an intensity and focus that eclipsed his surroundings. Evan hovered on the periphery, excluded from Cole’s sphere of existence, yet pricked by the tension that hung heavy in the air.

Finally, Cole stood up, hands on hips, smiling down on his creation. “Done,” he declared. “I’ll just get the generator going so I can start copying.” He disappeared behind a dresser that formed a partition of sorts. There came a click and a muffled whir. Then another sound, repeated over and over. Cole returned, deftly folding a printed sheet of paper, this way and that, until it formed a ten-page pamphlet. “Here you go. Hot off the press. Bluemantle. Contest edition,” he said, grinning with pride, as he handed the fanzine to Evan.

“Cole, listen. We need to talk.”

“What’s wrong?”

Evan stalled, prolonging the moment before he struck the match and held it to the bridge.

“Hey, come on. It’s alright,” said Cole, approaching Evan and placing a hand on his shoulder. “Talk to me.”

“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch you risk your life. I’ve got a bad feeling about this time. You’re not going to make it. I just know it. And I can’t bear to lose you. I couldn’t live if something happened to you.” The words tumbled out of his mouth like lava, engulfing the pass. “I know what Bluemantle means to you. That’s why I’ve never pushed you, never put pressure on you to stop. But this time it’s different. I’m letting you down and I’m sorry for that. More than you know. And making you choose is pointless. The choice has already been made. I know I can’t stop you. But neither can I stand by. I can’t wait at home, wondering if they’ve caught you, knowing what they’d do to you if they do. When they do. Because they will catch you. One day. And after last time, it feels like you’ve used up all your lives. No one’s that lucky. Not even you.”

Cole stood motionless, staring at Evan, his eyes red and welling. A tear breached the lower lid and ran down his face, coursing a route for others to follow. “What… What are you saying?”

“Do what you feel you have to do, but if it’s making the drops and attending the Contest, I can’t be part of your life anymore. Because while I wait for it to kill you, the fear of losing you is killing me. This isn’t an ultimatum. I’d never do that to you. I already know you’ll choose Bluemantle. And despite everything, I understand why.” Crying now, he stepped forward and embraced Cole.

“I won’t go,” said Cole, holding on to him as if he might drown otherwise. “I’ll make the drops, but I’ll not attend.”

Evan broke away, stepping back. “I think you will.”

“I won’t. I promise. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Don’t make that promise because then you’ll feel worse when the time comes.”

“Please—”

“If you decide not to go, I’ll be waiting for you. But before now, you’ve not had to choose. You’ve always believed you’ve had to do the things you’ve done, despite the consequences. And I get that. Which is why I won’t stand in your way. But I can’t stand behind you anymore, waiting for what I know will come.”

“Evan—”

“I love you, Cole. Don’t promise you won’t go. Just promise you’ll survive.” Evan dragged his arm across his face, smearing tears. Trembling, he turned and climbed the ladder. He didn’t look back.

Cole’s legs gave way. He knelt on the floor, head down, his back heaving. The freshly printed copy of Bluemantle lay in the dust before him – contraband of the unexpected trade.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t think. He felt as if half his life had been obliterated before his eyes, leaving the other half in a giddying tail-spin. He remained on the floor, head in his hands, waiting for the whirlwind to stop.

Then he heard a familiar noise above him: the creak of hinges as the trap door was lifted. “Evan…?” he said, hope reigniting his spirit. He dropped his hands and opened his eyes, squinting.

“Is everything okay? I just passed Evan in the street. He looked a wreck.” Ursel climbed down the ladder to find Cole crumpled on the floor, his face chalk-white in the half-light. “Cole… Are you alright? What’s happened?” She knelt down in front of him, her hand on his shoulder, peering into his tear-streaked face.

Struggling to recount what he could barely comprehend himself, Cole told Ursel what Evan had said.

“Maybe he’ll change his mind,” offered Ursel, unsure if hope, false or otherwise, would help.

“No. He won’t. I could see what it meant for him to tell me.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know.” Cole stared at his ink-stained fingers – the undeniable blood on his hands. “In the twenty-five years I’ve been making Bluemantle, we’ve never needed it as much as we do now. It’s never felt so vital.”

“Because of the Contest?”

“No. I mean, the Contest is important. Of course it is. Followers must be told. But