Inalienable: Book 7 of the Starstruck saga

by S E Anderson

  “Jeffrey!” Daisy-May sat upright. “You’re back!”

  “What’s wrong, honey?” he asked, putting down the briefcase on the floor next to him, leaning it against his leg. “You look pale.”

  She nodded slightly. “I was worried you wouldn’t come.”

  “Oh, what made you think that?” He sat on the bed next to her. The bed creaked with the added weight. The briefcase was nowhere to be seen. “I always come home.”

  “I haven’t seen you for a month.”

  “I’m sorry. I would have come sooner if I could.”

  “I missed you.”

  “I missed you too.” He pulled away, getting to his feet and moving to the center of the room, to the pool of light. “Do you mind if I ask a question?”

  “What kind of question?” Daisy-May sat erect, her feet dropping inches in front of my face. Neither she nor Jeffrey seemed to see us, thankfully.

  “The truthful kind,” Jeffrey responded. “Why did you do this to me?”

  She froze, paralyzed. Jeffrey extended his hands, both suddenly covered in blood. His head turned to the sky, exposing the fair skin of his neck, the perfection now ruined by a long cut, red liquid pouring out in a torrent. Yet Jeffrey was still standing.

  “I didn’t!” she shouted. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me …”

  “It was you. You did this to me.” He pointed an accusatory, bloodied finger at the frightened girl. “You killer. You killed me.”

  “No, no. No, I never.” She rocked back and forth on the bed, obviously terrified. “Please, don’t … no, please.”

  The man took a threatening step forward, long spikes sliding out of the palms of his hands. But Daisy-May had her eyes sewn shut in horror, now that she could see the approaching danger.

  Suddenly, Jeffrey flew backward, hit in the chest by a force like that of an oncoming train. Zander. Daisy-May’s eyes flew open and so did her mouth.

  “Time to move.” Blayde disappeared, suddenly behind the terrified girl, her hand tight around Daisy-May’s mouth to muffle the long, siren-like shriek that had started to build.

  Zander now had Jeffrey pinned down, but the captive was not completely man anymore. He had started to melt, to morph, his jacket seeming fleshy instead of fabric, though his teeth seemed twice as sharp and just as real as they’d ever been.

  Jeffrey’s face resembled more monster than man now, with his needle-like teeth poking from what would have once been called a mouth. He writhed on the floor, his hands now weak and spikes entirely missing, as he desperately tried to fight off Zander.

  “Where’d the briefcase go?” I asked suddenly, noticing its absence from the room.

  And the fact that Jeffery’s jacket was still attached to his flailing arms as if by super glue. Every time he waved his arms, the jacket followed without slipping or sliding a centimeter.

  That sure wasn’t fabric.

  “It’s a multiform!” Zander exclaimed, keeping his hand over the creature’s mouth so it could not interrupt. “A shapeshifter! The briefcase—or any other accessory for that matter—is a part of the design. Look.” He grabbed the jacket, giving it a jerk. Jeffrey seemed quite pissed, like Zander had tried to rip his arm off. “You see? One big creature.”

  “Well, what’s it doing in Daisy-May’s room?” I asked. “She knew Jeffrey before the institute. This doesn’t make any sense!”

  “No more sense than future dead brother or evil, stabby clowns,” Blayde muttered, still clutching Daisy-May, who had fainted or maybe fallen asleep.

  “Who are you working for?” Zander asked, grabbing the monster formerly known as Jeffrey and shaking him by the collar. “Tell me!”

  The creature dissolved into sand, the floor writhing with little grains, each attached to the main conglomeration like some great ball of fire ants. Like the clown in Zander’s room, it started to climb the wall, slowly inching up to the vent in the top of the corner.

  “Stop it!” Blayde ordered.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” her brother yelled. “It’s like trying to catch water!”

  “Well, go after it!” she snapped, still gripping her hand over Daisy-May’s mouth. Her eyes were fluttering open, taking in a scene that no one should ever have to see.

  “The vent’s too small for him,” I pointed out while slipping off my sweater. “I’ll go.”

  “No.”

  “Blayde, shut up for one minute and let me help!” Amazingly, it worked. “Laser.”

  Blayde reached into her pocket, handing me the pointer, which I grabbed before she could change her mind.

  “Daisy-May, you’re having the wildest dream of your life,” I said before I jumped up, extending my legs to balance on the wall, my feet pressed against the sides. The laser sliced through the vent as if it were butter, the metal grate falling into one of the sibling’s waiting hands, though I couldn’t see whose. I put the laser between my teeth, pulling myself up into Jeffrey’s tube, sliding down on my belly.

  The blob of quivering sand was right ahead of me, moving much faster than sand should have a right to move. Much faster than I could keep up. The vents were not very big, leaving almost no space for maneuverability. I threw my hands forward, putting my weight on my forearms and pulling myself a meager inch along. My feet still dangled out the vent.

  Someone strong grabbed my feet and gave them a shove into the vent, pushing me along a foot or two.

  “Just jump, okay?” Blayde hissed. “Someone’s coming, so we’re off. Meet you at Zander’s.”

  The vent slammed shut behind me. I took a deep breath, gathering my wits about me. The proximity of the walls bordered on claustrophobic. I dragged myself forward a few more inches. Too slow. I focused slightly, and in half a blink of the eye, I was meters down the silver duct.

  I kept myself at a safe distance from the sand creature, silently pausing and jumping, pausing and jumping so as not to make a sound, to not alert it to my presence. The blob seemed to have no idea I was following it, going steadily down the ventilation shaft in front of me, keeping up a brisk pace that would have had me huffing and puffing if I had a need for breathing. It kept going on straight until the main duct split off, then it suddenly went up to the next level.

  It was impossible to see over the curve at the top of the junction. I jumped anyway, placing my hands low so as to grab the narrow path and heave myself up manually. Unfortunately, at this point, the blob was gone, and an empty duct lined with vents awaited me. I had somehow traveled upstairs to the off-limits staff floor, and the shapeshifter could be in any of the rooms.

  Oh shit, they were just as vulnerable as the patients. What was it going to do to them? Were they next on the night’s menu?

  I slid up close to the nearest vent. Inside the dark room below me, lit only by moonlight, Dr. Smith slept peacefully, her comforter bunched by her side, her hair sprawled in a mess across her pillow. The light lit up the side of her face, her mouth open and drooling on the soft Italian silks that covered the pillows on the cotton sheets that sandwiched her in warmth. She stirred in her sleep, and I cringed. I froze in place, keeping my eyes on her as she threw her arm in the air and flipped onto her other side.

  I had no idea she slept at the hospital. I had assumed she had a family waiting for her at home, that she left our world at night.

  I waited a few minutes, but she didn’t move again. I crawled down the shaft a little way longer, checking the next vent. The room beyond held almost the exact same scene: one of the psychologists, though I couldn’t tell which one, sleeping soundly in the comfort of his own bed. No sign of any shape-shifting sand blob, scary clowns, or even Jeffrey, for that matter.

  It was a shapeshifter after all. He could be anything, anything at all, any object in that room. Was it a chair now? A desk? An extra pillow? The thing could be anything, anywhere; no way to know where it was or even what it was.

  I cursed under my breath. I had lost it. Blayde and Zander had trusted me, and I had let them dow
n.

  And worse yet, there was no way for me to turn my head. I was stuck in the shaft.

  I closed my eyes focusing on the only beacon I could follow through the void of the universe, a skill even they didn’t have, but damn was I thankful I somehow did. Zander was a magnet, and I was drawn to him instantly.

  Blink, and I was lying flat on my stomach in the middle of the floor of his room, the tight walls of the duct gone. I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  Seriously, how come I could do this, but the siblings couldn’t? It was hella confusing, but at the moment, the real problem at hand was finding the shapeshifter. I turned to the siblings, who were waiting silently by Zander’s bed.

  “You’re all right,” he said, relief washing over his words. “Did you see where it went?”

  “Upstairs, but I didn’t manage to catch it. I lost it after it reached the staff quarters. Must have changed shape once again. I don’t know if it had any idea I was after it.”

  Blayde nodded, leaning back against the wall. Her eyes were drilling into me sharper than the shapeshifter’s hand-horns had.

  “Now do you believe it’s not a future version of me?” Zander asked, turning to her.

  “Okay, fine. I admit it wouldn’t be like you. But if it isn’t time-traveling Zander, what sent it?”

  “Can’t it be acting on its own?” I asked.

  “Could be.”

  “There are many different species with the power to change shape,” said Zander. “Some do it for camouflage, some to feed, some to earn some petty cash by working for a third party. They make for very cheap actors. Some planets don’t even need CGI at all. Anyway. Once we find their reasoning, we’ll be able to find the species.”

  “Or vice versa,” added Blayde. “Until then, we have no idea what exactly we’re dealing with. Someone needs to have a closer look upstairs.”

  Zander’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas. “I’ll go!”

  Blayde shook her head. “The doc already finds you suspicious. She catches you snooping around upstairs, you’re screwed. They’ll probably send you to prison or something.”

  “So, you’ll go?” he asked.

  “Shut up, I’m hatching a plan,” she ordered, sitting back down on his bed and lifting her hands to her head to clear her mind.

  “Shouldn’t we just go now?” I pointed out. “They’re all asleep.”

  “No,” she snapped. “They’re asleep, but they can wake up. Better do it during the day when none of them are around.” She grinned finally. “I got it.”

  “A plan?”

  “Oh yeah,” she snickered.

  “Mind sharing?” Zander asked.

  “Well, it’s rather simple, really.” Her smile spread from ear to ear. “Zander, we’re going to couple’s therapy.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Couples counseling and a heaping dose of unreliable furniture

  I don’t know about you, but I hate listening to other people describe their nonsensical dreams. I don’t care what your dog turning into a milkshake means. There’s probably no symbolism in you eating your roommate’s laptop. So, fancy me, sitting at breakfast, trying to poke and prod a girl into giving me all the unabridged details of her night terror.

  “I don’t know,” Blayde said. “I started seeing that other doctor, the older one—Winfrey?—dancing on this very table. Does that mean anything?”

  “Probably not,” I said, grinning my widest grin. “You know, when people said this place gave you weird dreams, I was ready for the worst. But so far, nothing.”

  “Didn’t I hear you scream? Not last night, but the night before?” asked Daisy-May.

  “That was different,” I said. “There was a spider on my bed.”

  Not that I remembered screaming. Even after the details of the shapeshifter’s impersonation of Zander’s death started coming back to me, the rest of the night was rather murky. Which probably was for the best.

  “You screamed last night,” said Blayde, point-blank.

  “I did?” she asked. “Huh. I don’t remember. I definitely didn’t dream. I think … I think Jeffrey was coming to visit. Like every month. You know, normal.”

  “Normal,” I repeated, taking a very long gulp of orange juice. “How does he get in?”

  “He climbs in through the window, silly.”

  “What do you guys talk about? When he visits?” asked Blayde. “You don’t see each other that often. I bet he rattles on and on.”

  “I dunno. Stuff.” She bit her cheek, looking down at her empty bowl. “I don’t–I don’t always remember the details.”

  “Sounds like me with this guy,” Blayde said, nudging her brother playfully in the rib. “Yaps for hours. Never remember a thing he says.”

  “Hey!” Zander had been silent up until now, brows furrowed in concentration. That or he was just really into his oatmeal today. “Come on. Here?”

  She raised her hands defensively. “Hey, I’m just speaking the truth.”

  “The truth?” he snarled. “The truth is you never listen to me. Do you know how annoying that is?”

  “Well, you have Sally to listen to you blab now, so I guess you don’t need me around anymore.”

  “Blayde! She’s my girlfriend!”

  “Yeah, well, you’re an idiot!” She rose to her feet. “I’m tired of you pushing me to the side!”

  He stood, face red, taller than her by a head. She climbed up on the bench in a childish effort to tower over him. “And I’m tired of you pushing me around!”

  “Like this?” she asked, placing both hands on his chest and shoving him away hard.

  He stumbled lightly, gasped, and pushed her back. She tumbled off the bench, arms pinwheeling, and fell backward over a table. Trays crashed to the ground as other patients stumbled out of her way.

  “Yeah, like that!”

  “Bite me!” she snarled, her teeth bared like a wild animal.

  “Bring it!”

  I was all ready for one of the siblings’ famous show of force: lunging and jumping and punching, a scene that would cross the cafeteria, possibly bringing down the entire building around us, so when Zander raised his fists and batted at her, it was more of a letdown than the last season of Game of Thrones. Blayde raised her own fists to punch back, and suddenly, they were a poorly animated cartoon, huffing as they spun their fists without ever reaching their target.

  “Knock it off, you two!” said a security guard—oh hey, it’s not-Barker—as he reached forward to spring them apart.

  Blayde scrambled backward with a lack of agility only equated to the increased gravitational well of Mondays. She grabbed plastic knives as Zander rushed out of not-Barker’s reach, and she threw them at him as he ran through the cafeteria, the plastic bouncing off his thick skull.

  “Is that all you got, sister of mine?” he taunted, grabbing a tray off the pile of cutlery to be cleaned.

  She lunged again, but he sidestepped out of her way a split second before impact, slamming the tray in her face like a baseball bat. Blood gushed down her face.

  “You broke my nose?” she stammered. “Holy Santa Claus, I’ve never seen blood before!”

  She threw her hand up to her forehead and collapsed in a heap on the ground, swooning like a dramatic Victorian teen. She wasn’t going to be winning any acting awards this century.

  The cafeteria erupted into chaos, our fellow patients reacting as any rational people would when two of their own went more bananas than the whole bunch. Dr. Smith was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. Whatever it was either couldn’t or wouldn’t help the other patients, who ranged from confused to completely terrified.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Daisy-May held her face in her hands, peeking through her fingers at the mayhem.

  “No, no, they just have a lot of unresolved issues,” I said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. I, however, wanted to win my acting award. Not that there’s some kind of governing body giving them
out to weird alien schemes. If there’s a higher dimensional being watching right now, please make this my ‘for your consideration’ reel. “I can’t believe them. Oh god, is that real blood?”

  “I think she broke her nose,” said Peter quietly, the only words I had heard from him all morning.

  Zander and Blayde were being ushered away. My distraction was running out. “It’s—I need to go.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked. I nodded. He turned his attention back to Daisy-May, who had covered her face again, taking deep breaths I recognized from my own panic attacks. I desperately wanted to keep my arm around her and help her through this. I remembered my own attacks, clear islands in the sea of murky memories of depressive episodes. But it was either stay and help her for five minutes, or run and save everyone here, forever.

  Peter had her. He placed a gentle hand between her shoulder blades, eyes riveted on the face behind her hands.

  No one to see me rush off to the bathroom and beyond.

  Jumping through the entrance grate was easy. The woman on door duty was watching a YouTube video—a cardio workout she was nodding along to without getting up from her chair—and it wasn’t like I needed her to buzz me through when I could just appear in the hall beyond. Thank goodness butterfly kicks were more interesting to watch than security feeds.

  It was an odd feeling, being out in the open like this; the ceilings were so high, the windows wider, the massive staircase so dominating. The architecture itself was beautiful and old-fashioned, unlike the sterile feel of the patients’ wing. I’d gotten too used to the confines of the hospital too quickly.

  I climbed the stairs, bewildered by the ornate carvings in the stone. The only time I had ever seen a staircase so strikingly stunning was when I was on Da-Duhui in the presidential palace, though this one was nowhere near that grand. Even then, I snooped around. Would I never have time to admire staircases?

  I reached the landing and found myself in the last place I had expected to be. I went from sepia Kansas to the mystical, technicolor land of Oz. The floor was carpeted, and expensively so. The walls were now a white marble, the doors of hard oak, the light fixtures of gold and brass in intricate designs. I half expected to see a yellow brick road winding down the corridor.