Emery shook her head.
“Well, these are called achioshells and they can only be found on this beach. They also have special powers.”
“Really?” Emery asked, her eyes lighting up. “What kind of powers?”
“The kind that make you feel better. The kind that make you happy.” She put her hand out so Emery could take the shell back. As she reached out to take it, she realized that her mother and sister weren’t as close to her as before. They were slowly fading off into the distance, becoming mere shadows in a distant memory.
“How does it work?” Emery called out, hoping that her mother could hear her. “Please, help me figure this out!”
But her mother just stood there, her sundress dancing in the ocean breeze, hand clasped tightly with her younger sister’s. Emery knew the flashback was coming to an end. She closed her eyes, wishing that she could stay. “Please don’t make me go back without you,” she whispered.
She kept her eyes closed, knowing that the minute she opened them, she’d be back in Arizona, in her mother’s room, alone. And sure enough, that’s exactly where she found herself the minute her eyelids fluttered open. She looked down at her hands, the omega pendant tight in her grasp. With a sigh, she unwound the necklace from her hands, then clasped it back around her neck. She didn’t even notice Torin standing in the doorway.
“Hey,” he said, startling her. “I was calling for you, but you weren’t answering. Are you okay?”
Emery could feel a wetness on her cheeks, and she quickly wiped it away, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just missing my mom and sister, that’s all.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Emery opened her mouth to respond, but the words wouldn’t come. As much as she wanted to tell Torin about the strange powers the omega pendant had, something told her not to do it. Not yet, anyway.
It was almost as if these flashbacks were something that had been designed just for her. It sounded crazy, but until she could figure out what it all meant, she’d have to cope with her delusional thoughts. There was already enough nonsense going on; no need to tell Torin and make things any more confusing than they already were.
“Your coffee’s getting cold,” Torin said with a small smile as he picked her mug up off the nightstand. “Come on, let’s brew you a fresh cup.”
Emery nodded reluctantly and pulled herself up from the bed. She followed Torin into the kitchen, the rich scent of hazelnut filling her senses. It was clear that Torin’s running in on her in her mother’s bedroom had made him uncomfortable because he began to busy himself with random chores, like folding dish towels and scrubbing the interior of the sink as he babbled on about some new attraction in Chicago.
Emery sipped on her coffee, slightly amused at his behavior, but fully aware that the level of awkwardness between them was steadily rising. She’d made things awkward and he didn’t know how to react. Poor guy. It was then that she realized they’d stayed long enough. Clue or no clue, it was time to go.
“Gather your things, Mr. Porter,” she ordered as she rose from the barstool. “I believe you have some people you’d like to introduce me to.”
+ +
Emery hopped off the T-Port behind Torin and followed him to the luminous building that was 7S Headquarters. Just as they were about to approach the gigantic double doors, Torin abruptly veered off to the left and entered a different building entirely. Emery quickly changed direction and followed suit, her eyes catching the holosign perched right above the building.
It read R3.
Her curiosity piqued, she followed Torin into the establishment, and holy smokes, was it a sight to be seen. On one side of the room were walls alive with holoimages of crashing waves and palm trees, white sandy beaches, and fragments of seashells covering the ground. The walls on the opposite side showcased holoimages of bonsai trees and peaceful zen gardens. The further she moved into the building, the more she could smell the salty air and physically feel the mist from the ocean waves on her face. Her mind and body relaxed almost immediately. She took a mental snapshot of the view before closing her eyes. If she were being honest, it was the first time in months she’d felt completely and utterly relaxed.
The clearing of a throat interrupted her peaceful state of mind. Her eyes shot open to find Torin standing directly in front of her. A dot on each one of his temples blinked from white to blue and back again. In his hands were an additional two dots, just like his. He extended his hands out to her, dots blinking, and without saying a word, she nodded. Emery kept her focus on his aquamarine eyes as he secured the circular devices onto her temples.
Almost immediately, the sound of waves crashing onto the shore and seagulls flying overhead filled her senses. She closed her eyes briefly, but when she opened them, Torin was no longer in front of her. No one was. She was completely by herself, standing on a sandy shore with the waves rolling up onto her feet.
It was so peaceful. So serene.
Emery took a seat on the ground and kicked her legs out in front of her. Her feet were adorned in gladiator sandals that she hadn’t been wearing when she’d walked into R3, and a vibrant orange and pink sundress fluttered around her legs. It was the most comfortable thing she’d worn since . . . well, since she could remember.
She leaned back on her elbows to get the perfect view of a cloudless summer sky. Oxygen filled her lungs and nose, making its way through every vein in her body. She smiled at the feeling. Not only did she feel calm and relaxed, she felt happy. The minute Torin had placed those dots on her temples, she’d traveled to her happy place, where everything felt right and nothing could go wrong.
After a few minutes of deep breathing and meditation, the beautiful scene surrounding her began to fade. Slowly, shadows of people started to appear, and so did the walls with the holoimages. Not wanting to head back to the real world just yet, she gently pressed the devices on her temples, hoping that they would let her stay and give her a little more time at her sanctuary, but they didn’t. How cruel.
“You were in there for a long time,” a voice from behind her said. Startled, she whirled around to find Torin sitting in a holochair. “You must have had a lot of anxiety built up. Feel better?”
Emery sighed as she took a seat in the chair across from him. “Of course I have a lot of anxiety built up. Don’t you?”
Torin’s lips slid into a smile. “Apparently not as much as you.”
“That was amazing. I wish I could go back . . .” She hesitated, realizing she didn’t quite understand what she’d just experienced. “So, what was that exactly? And what is this place?”
Torin cocked his head toward the entrance. “R3. Any guesses for what it stands for?”
Emery shrugged. “No. All I know is that I could do that every single day. I felt so . . . happy.”
“That’s sort of the point. Relax, refresh, rejuvenate—that’s what R3 stands for.” He leaned forward in his chair and propped his elbows onto the table. “It’s a place people can go to feel happy. To rid them of their anxiety. To make them feel at peace again.” He made an exploding motion with his hands as if he’d just performed the greatest magic trick in the history of the world. “Pretty neat, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s amazing,” Emery said with a laugh. “I have to ask though, are doctors okay with this? It seems like this would take away a lot of their business.”
“What a random concern.” He raised an eyebrow. “The answer is yes and no. It’s actually a treatment a lot of doctors recommend to their patients.”
“In Dormance, doctors would just prescribe us a pill and require that we come back once a week,” she said half-jokingly, even though it was wholly the truth.
“This is better than loading people up with drugs and chemicals, don’t you think?” He blushed as if he’d said too much.
“Well, of course it is.” Emery shifted in her seat, wondering why he suddenly seemed so defensive. “I just wish
I could have stayed there longer, that’s all.”
“That’s why there’s a time limit,” Torin explained, his expression darkening. “Just like any drug that makes you feel good, too much can be a bad thing and create its own set of complications. Which is why one hour a day is the maximum. Just think, if people stayed in there all the time, they’d never come out. They’d never face reality.”
“Too much of anything is never a good thing,” Emery agreed with a nod. “How long was I in there for?”
Torin grinned. “The full hour.”
“Are you serious?” Emery asked with wide eyes. “I felt like I was in there for maybe ten minutes.”
“Ever heard the expression, ‘Time flies when you’re having fun’?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I have.”
“Same principle,” he said with a shrug. “Time also flies when you’re happy.”
Emery considered this before asking her next question. “So why did we come here instead of going straight to headquarters?”
Torin hesitated, his eyes flitting from her to his hands and back again. “You have to understand, I just got my job back at 7S. I haven’t seen my colleagues in a while and I was feeling a little . . . anxious.”
When he didn’t continue, Emery asked something she immediately wished she could take back. “Is everything okay, Torin? I mean, are you happy?”
She didn’t mean to catch him off-guard, but there he was, breaking eye contact and adjusting his posture. He cleared his throat before answering. “I’m not unhappy, just . . . complacent, I suppose.”
Emery knew she shouldn’t pry, but she felt concerned. “What does that mean?”
Torin shook his head as he rose to his feet. “Nothing for you to worry about. I’m fine,” he said unconvincingly. “Come on, let’s get these introductions over with.”
As he headed for the door, Emery felt a pang of despair for her friend. Normally, their conversations were light-hearted and rarely serious. But the one that had just taken place was probably one of the deepest moments she’d ever shared with Torin. As soon as they’d started to venture into unchartered waters, he’d suddenly tied up the sails and steered the ship into a different direction. Emery made a mental note to keep chipping away at his exterior to discover what was really underneath all those layers.
She made sure to stay back a few paces as she followed Torin into headquarters, her combat boots gliding along the slick floor. As tempted as she was to ask questions regarding who she was about to meet, she didn’t want to pry more than she already had.
Her thoughts were interrupted as her phone buzzed. A deep pit formed in her stomach when she realized who was calling. It was Mason.
She’d been so wrapped up in looking for answers at her house that she’d completely forgotten about him. He was probably worried or angry or a combination of the two. I’ll call him back in a little, she thought as she declined the call and stuffed the phone back into her pocket.
She’d see Mason soon enough. There were other things that needed tending to first, like meeting 7S leadership and not making a complete fool of herself.
Emery watched as Torin pressed the button for the service elevator. “It baffles me that elevators still exist when you have T-Ports stationed all over the country.”
Torin smirked. “Trust me, it’s not what you think.”
“Really?” She followed him into the metal box. “Because it sure looks like an elevator to me.”
“It’s a cover.” He winked. “You’ll see.” He pressed the button for floor seven, slid his phone into his back pocket, then turned to face her. “Have you talked to Naia yet?”
Since they’d been together every second of every day for the past week, she wasn’t sure what had prompted this question. He very well knew that the answer was no. She shook her head silently, her eyes dropping to the floor.
“You don’t want to wait too long—”
“First things first,” Emery interrupted, hoping to avoid a lecture. The last thing she needed right now was anyone interfering with the jumbled mess that had recently become her life.
A loud ding echoed in the empty space as the elevator doors opened. Emery scanned her surroundings as she stepped out of the elevator behind Torin. The soft padding of their footsteps was the only audible sound in the vast chamber. Technology-ridden desks sat at the far end of the room, but there were no chairs, no people, to accompany them. She narrowed her eyes as she tried to make out the other shapes in the lackluster lighting. If they hadn’t just come from outside, she wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was still daylight.
Darkness surrounded them as they moved forward, although she couldn’t figure out what, if anything, they were walking toward. Except for the abandoned desks, the room was empty and had only one exit—the elevator that had just slammed shut behind them.
They reached a slate-colored wall that appeared to be made of stone, but when Torin laid his hand on it, the stone morphed into a sort of transparent layer. Lining the other side were rows and rows of bright white walls, all parallel to one another.
“Whoa,” Emery breathed as she stepped forward to place her hand against the wall.
Torin smacked her hand down. Immediately after, he murmured, “Sorry,” his eyes apologetic for the unnecessary force. “You haven’t been coded into the system yet, so it won’t recognize you. The system would think we were intruders, or that you were holding me against my will, and we wouldn’t be able to gain access.”
“Gain access to what?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt the ground tremble beneath her.
A green ray of light scanned Torin’s fingerprints and retinas, then scanned his entire body. Once he was confirmed for entry, the ground split out at all sides, leaving them standing atop what remained—a disc-shaped piece of stone. A clear bubble made out of flexible glass emerged from all sides of the disc, encapsulating them with no way out.
Emery grabbed onto the sleeve of Torin’s shirt, her balance wavering as the disc lowered six feet into the ground. It positioned itself onto a track and locked into place, then began to move forward at a terrifying speed.
Blindingly white walls whizzed by her as the disc moved forward along the track. Small blue lights blinked at random intervals along each wall in horizontal lines. Emery narrowed her eyes, realizing that the wall wasn’t actually a wall at all—it was completely made up of white wires. The blue lights indicated where one wire ended and where another began. She gazed in awe at the wire-filled walls as the disc slinked along the track.
The ride was smoother than expected and, after three short minutes, came to a stop in front of a platform and yet another wall. With the touch of a button, Torin disconnected the dome overhead and jumped off the disc. He held his hand out to Emery for support. She graciously took it as she leapt over the gap to where he was standing. Torin positioned himself in front of the wall, just like he had moments before, and waited for the scanner to identify him.
Emery almost expected the ground beneath her to tremble again, but was relieved when a door within the wall popped open instead. “If that isn’t maximum security, I don’t know what is,” she joked as Torin ushered her inside. She was about to crack another joke, but the sight before her stopped her in her tracks.
The room they’d just entered was no more than twenty feet in length, but the height seemed to go on for miles. She gazed up at the seemingly endless ceiling, her mouth agape. It was a building within a building, and it reminded her of a shopping mall, except it was taller than it was wide.
Much taller.
Numerous floors with countless offices lined the halls, people bustling to and fro. Emery focused her attention on one of the workers, a disheveled young man clad in all white, as he made his way through a crowd on the fourth floor. Her eyes followed him until, suddenly, he disappeared from sight.
“Where did he go?” she asked in a panicked tone, straining her eyes as
she searched for the man. Her gaze followed Torin’s arm, his finger pointing to the seventh floor.
“Oh, right. Teleportation,” she laughed, her heartbeat slowing. “You probably think I’m an idiot.”
Torin smiled. “On the contrary. You’ve been introduced to a lot of new things in a short period of time. At least you figured it out on your own without me having to tell you.” He nudged her in the side, his face lit with childish joy, then grabbed her by the hand and pulled her over to another platform. “As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, there are multiple T-Ports on every floor. That’s how everyone gets from point A to point B.”
This platform was smaller than the others, and Emery quickly calculated that it was probably meant for just one person. Her legs brushed against Torin’s in the small space, their chests almost touching. His breath warmed her face and she could have sworn she felt his heartbeat speed up.
Emery lowered her eyes, her cheeks blushing a rosy shade of pink. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t help feeling drawn to him. He’s just a friend, she reminded herself, casting her attraction aside.
“The Commander’s Office,” Torin instructed. He grabbed her hand, squeezing it tight as the familiar tingling sensation took hold. First her feet, then her legs, chest, and arms. She closed her eyes as the cool gust of wind whirred them up to the seventh floor.
When she opened her eyes, they were standing in front of a massive oak door. The sight jarred her for a moment—she was so used to seeing metal everywhere that wood seemed like an outdated resource.
Torin knocked on the door three times, his hand heavy against the small silver knocker. A young man, no older than twenty-five, opened it with a stern expression on his face. “May I help you?”
Torin pulled out his identification badge. “We’re here to see the Commander.”
“Do you have an appointment?” the man drawled, his words dripping with apathy.
He reminds me of Theo.
Instantly, Emery flashed back to Theo’s fallen body in the middle of downtown Chicago, gun in hand, barrel smoking. She quickly broke eye contact with the man and gazed down at her boots instead. A tear threatened to fall from her eye, but she shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the image to dissipate. As much as she despised Theo for leading her under false pretenses, she despised herself even more for what she’d succumbed to.
The Order of Omega (The Alpha Drive Book 2) Page 4
