“Wait. Let me get this straight.” Because I’m having a really hard time believing that Alexis, the girl who I grew up with and fell in love with, has had dormant gifts inside her all this time. “You think she may have gotten the gift of disappearing, and it’s been dormant until now because … well, because of what?”
Steel shrugs, his face paling. “I’m not sure, man. I’m just telling you some stuff I’ve heard when I’ve crossed paths with old subjects.”
“Maybe you should’ve mentioned this before.” My low voice portrays the anger I feel simmering inside me.
While this isn’t completely his fault, he should’ve warned me about this the moment he started to speculate that Alexis might be from the experimental drug program.
“You know I don’t like to talk about that shit,” he says, staring at the door. “But if I’d known this was going to happen …” His gaze drifts to the tub, and he audibly gulps.
“Nothing’s happened,” I snap, panic flaring through my veins. “She’s in there.” My gaze skims the surface of the goo.
She’s in there.
She has to be.
“Fuck this shit.” I stride forward, moving fast enough that Steel has no time to stop me, and jump into the tub.
“Goddammit, West,” Steel growls. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
“I don’t really give a shit if there’re side effects. I’m not going to just let her drown in this goddamn goo.” I stick my hands into the thick substance and begin digging through it. “Come on, baby,” I mutter under my breath as I inch my way farther into the tub. “Where are you?”
The blue goo starts to bow up on one side. At first, I think Alexis is about to surface, but then Steel wades up beside me.
I gape at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I have nothing to lose.” He shrugs.
“I can’t see any sign of her,” I mutter as I shovel goo aside until I can see the bottom of the bathtub. After searching for a couple of minutes, shock seeps through me, numbing my body on the inside. “Where would she go?”
He removes his hands from the goo, his fingers coated with it. “I’m not sure, but I might know someone who can help us.”
“Someone you can call on the phone?” Quite often, Steel’s connections are a pain in the ass to track down.
“Possibly.” He shakes his hands, splattering goo against the side of the tub. “Let me clean up, and then I’ll try to track him down.”
Usually, I’m a calm person, but I’m starting to freak out. I mean, I’ve seen some messed-up shit during the last couple of years while working as an undercover guardian detective, particularly whenever we had to take down an experimental drug facility that had live test subjects. I’ve heard stories that sound straight out of a sci-fi novel about what happens to some of the subjects while they’re there. I’ve seen otherworldly creatures. I’ve seen otherworldly humans. But Alexis being gone like this—Alexis who I care about—has pushed me over the edge.
“Hurry,” I say as we wade back over to the steps. “I can’t … I don’t even know …” While I’ve never full-on said my feelings about Alexis aloud, Steel and Ellis have heard me talk about her enough that I’m sure they know she means a lot to me.
“I know.” He gives an understanding nod, but then a crease forms between his brows.
“Why did you jump in there?” I wonder. “When you said you thought you recognized Alexis from the program … is it because you know of her or knew her knew her?”
“I’m not even positive I know of her.” He grips the side of the tub and hoists himself out. Then he strides straight for the shower, climbs in fully clothed, and turns the water on.
As he begins scrubbing the goo off, I climb out of the tub and grab a towel to clean up. We’re definitely going to have to call in a cleanup crew … after we find Alexis. Because if it turns out she does have the rare gift of being able to disappear, the last thing I want is for anyone else to find out. Sure, my boss is a decent guy, along with some of my other superiors; however, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to only trust those who have proven themselves trustworthy. Steel and Ellis are in that category, but they’re the only two people in my life I fully trust. And yes, this includes my parents. They’re probably some of the least trustworthy people I’ve met.
The scars on my back prove that.
Alexis
My eyes are shut, my head is throbbing, and my bones ache underneath my flesh, like tiny bugs are gnawing at my veins …
I mentally shake my head at myself. I sound as disgusting as Steel.
Shoving that thought aside, I focus on getting my eyelids to open. I’m not certain how long I’ve been stuck like this—lying motionless against a hard surface with my eyes refusing to open. It feels like an eternity, though, and the more time that ticks by, the harder it is not to enter full-on panic mode.
Keep your shit together, Alexis. You’ve got to be in West’s bathtub. The drugs probably just have some sort of odd side effect that paralyzed me or something.
God, if that’s the case, I hope it’s not permanent. But fuck, what if it is? What if I can never move again?
The little grasp I had on my panic starts to slip away from me when another thought occurs to me. If I am just paralyzed from the drugs, then why can’t I hear anything? Does paralysis affect hearing?
Fuck if I know.
And what about that strange and very brief image I had of me sinking into heavy water and not being able to breathe? I thought I was dying …
Wait. Did I die? Is this what death is like? All darkness and no movement?
Am I in Hell?
Stop panicking! Panicking gets you nowhere.
I attempt to take a deep breath, but whether or not I succeed is beyond me. So instead, I command my eyelids to open.
Nothing.
Getting frustration, I mentally tune in with my body, listening for a sign that my heart is still beating.
Again, nothing.
So much for panicking, because I’m about to freak the fuck out—
My eyelids suddenly lift, like a light switch inside me has been flipped on. I start to sit up, gasping for air, but it’s as if my lungs have forgotten their purpose.
“Oh God, I really am dead, aren’t I?” I groan, clutching my head as the throbbing pain shifts into a blinding ache. Blinking several times, I manage to blink past the pain and take in my surroundings. The second I do, I wish my eyes had never opened.
“Where the heck am I?” I mumble as my gaze skims the indigo sky above, the towering trees beside me, and the dirt road I’m currently sitting in the middle of. Not a single sign of life is within sight, which I’m uncertain if I’m grateful for or not. The air is also dark and heavy, the only light coming from the stars dusting the sky and the sliver of moonlight.
Am I hallucinating? I wonder as I push myself to my feet, luckily moving with great ease. Maybe even more so than when I was alive … No, I’m not convinced I am dead yet. This has to be a hallucination. A side effect of the tub of drugs. But it’s also possible that the kiss of evil killed me.
Turning in a circle, I search the trees, looking for … well, I’m not sure. But I can’t see anything other than branches and leaves.
“Hello?” I dare call out, taking a few steps up the road.
As my bare feet scuff against the dirt, I glance down and realize I’m in my underwear and bra without any shoes on, just like how I was when I climbed into that tub.
I hug my arms around myself. Great, if by chance someone does show up here, I’m going to be half-naked. But, does that even matter if I am hallucinating?
I peer up at the sky, the indigo color unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and the moon is tinted silver. Other than that, this place could resemble some spots located in the mountains near Honeyton. Perhaps the strange coloring of the sky is due to some sort of eclipse going on. That seems plausible. Then, how did I get up to the mountains in my underwear?
> A dark answer comes to me slowly and painfully, making my stomach wind in knots. What if West, Steel, and Ellis hauled me up here for reasons I don’t even want to think about?
“No, there’s no way,” I whisper as I hike farther down the road. “I know West well enough to know he wouldn’t do something like that to me.” Don’t I?
“Hey!”
I nearly trip over my feet as a girl skips out of the forest and appears in the middle of the road, waving at me.
“Over here.” She continues to wave her hand in the air. She’s quite a ways away, but if I had to guess, she’s around my age with long, blonde hair and wearing torn, black jeans and a dark purple shirt. She reminds me a lot of the girl I saw while I was blacked out and sinking in the fish bowl, but she’s too far away for me to be certain. “Can you see me?”
“Um … Yeah.” I inch away from her.
“No, don’t go,” she begs, holding out her hands. “I need to talk to you.”
I freeze, keeping my guard up. “Talk to me about what?”
She lowers her hands to her sides. “I want to find out who you are. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a drifter in the In-Between.”
My mind races with worry. Worry that this girl might be straight-up crazy.
I need to figure out where I am so I can get the heck out of here.
“Where is this place exactly?” I call out. “Is it located in the Honeyton Mountains?”
She shakes her head. “No, you’re in the In-Between.”
“I’ve never heard of it before … Is it close to Honeyton?”
She takes a cautious step toward me. “This is your first time here, isn’t it?”
I match her step, moving back. “Obviously, or else I’d know where here is.”
She sighs. “Will you please stop moving away? You don’t want to go backward; trust me.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure you’re right about—”
A sharp howl cuts me off, the startling noise echoing from the darkness behind me. A growl soon follows.
Screw this.
I run toward the girl. “What is that? A wolf?”
Her gaze darts behind me. “Sort of.” As I start to glance over my shoulder, she shouts, “No! Don’t look behind you!”
Too late.
And what I see makes my fear spike.
A set of yellow, glowing eyes is staring at me. Glowing eyes that belong to a monstrous beast the size of a bear but with the same structure as a wolf. Except, instead of fur, tendrils of smoke cover its body.
“Holy shit,” I breathe out, increasing my pace to a sprint.
“Don’t look in its eyes!” the girl shouts. “Look away!”
I want to, but I’ve already locked eyes with it, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t drag my gaze away, as if some unseen force is binding me to this creature. Shapes and shadows flicker in its pupils, taking the form of Honeyton, only all the buildings and homes are dilapidated, the streets vacant, and the air is deathly still. At first anyway. Then I hear marching and the ground begins to quake as figures wearing gas masks appear on the streets.
“What is this place?” I whisper in horror as my feet slow to a stop.
Your future, a voice warns from inside my head. Don’t you remember?
Huh?
You’re about to change, Alexis. Everything you thought you knew about yourself isn’t going to exist anymore. The protection I gave you is fading. The voice sounds like my mom’s, and tears start to burn my eyes.
But then the beast lunges at me, and I scream as everything goes black.
West
“West, I know you’re worried, but if you don’t knock that out, you’re going to wear a hole in the carpet,” Ellis says as he watches me pace the length of the living room for probably the millionth time.
I can’t calm down, though. After I took a shower and changed clothes, Steel started trying to track down his contact. But he’s called number after number for over an hour with no luck. I hate to think it, but what if Alexis doesn’t reappear?
“I can’t calm down,” I tell Ellis, continuing to pace. “You don’t even understand what this feels like.”
Ellis reclines in the chair, frowning. “Actually, I do.”
I cease pacing, realizing what I just said. “I’m sorry, man.”
He shrugs dismissively. “It’s fine.”
But it’s far from fine.
About ten years ago, Ellis’s parents vanished. Some people believe they took off, while others wonder if it may have had to do with the agency. Even today, no one has ever solved the case, and I know it haunts Ellis daily. It doesn’t help that he spent six years living in foster homes before the agency recruited him and gave him a place to live. He doesn’t speak a lot about his time in foster care, but he’s said some stuff a couple of times that made me wonder exactly what happened to him during that time.
“No, it’s not.” I sit down on the sofa, my gaze drifting to the sliding glass door of the porch It’s late, the sky is dark, the moonlight limited so I can only make out the outline of Steel standing out there, leaning against the railing with his phone pressed to his ear. “Just because I’m freaking out doesn’t give me the right to be an unsympathetic dick.”
“Yeah, but since you’re my friend, I can let you off the hook,” he tells me, reaching for a glass of water that’s on the table.
“Thanks.” I flop back on the sofa and pinch the brim of my nose. “I just can’t believe this is happening. We’ve seen some crazy shit, but …” I lower my hand to my lap. “I just need her to be okay.”
“I know.” He takes a sip of water then sets the glass back down. “You know we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure she is.”
I nod, glancing at Steel again. “I’m surprised at how motivated he is.”
“Maybe it’s because he thinks he knows her from the facility.”
“But he said he’s not even sure if he does, yet he jumped into a bathtub full of breath of ease just to help me look for her.” I restlessly tap my foot against the floor. “I feel like he might know her better than he’s letting on.”
“You think he’s lying about something?” he questions with his brows furrowed.
“No, just omitting the whole truth.”
He rubs his jawline. “He does do that sometimes, but still … Why would it matter if he knows Alexis?”
I lift my shoulders and give a jittery and shaky shrug, feeling so damn restless. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
He examines me with wariness. “How are you feeling?”
I accelerate my foot tapping. “I already told you I’m freaking out.”
“No, I mean with the whole breath of ease thing.” He scoots to the edge of the chair. “Have you felt any side effects yet?”
“No.” When he gives a pressing glance at my bouncing leg, I force my leg to hold still. “I’m just anxious.”
Ellis lifts his brows. “You’re more than anxious. You can barely hold still.”
“I may feel a bit more jittery than normal,” I admit. “But if that’s the only side effect I’m going to get, I’ll take it.”
Ellis doesn’t appear so convinced. “I think I need to make sure to monitor you and Steel closely, which means both of you need to be honest with me about your symptoms.”
“Yes, Mom,” I sneer.
He pulls out a phone and starts typing.
“What are you doing?” I ask, reaching for my glass of water on the end table.
“Making a list of your current symptoms: restless and irritable.” He glances up at me. “Are there any more?”
“I’m not irritable,” I snap, roughly setting the glass back down.
He gives me an okay look that makes me want to snap at him, but then Steel enters the living room and all my focus goes to him as I jump to my feet.
“Did you get ahold of him?”
“Yeah.” He stuffs his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “I got a
hold of a guy who used to work for one of the experimental drug facilities, but then he switched sides and joined The HR Guardian Agency. He actually worked undercover at an experimental drug facility and helped take it down. He was the person who rescued me from the hell that was …” He briefly dazes off then quickly clears his throat. “But anyway, because he was one of the scientists, he knows a lot about the drugs that were created and the side effects. He also knows a lot about the experiments that were being performed on some of the test subjects.” He absentmindedly cups his hand around his tattooed forearm. “When I told him what happened to Alexis, he said there were a handful of test subjects who were part of a specific experiment called The Afterlife. Its main focus was to create a genetically-altered human who could enter The Afterlife and return without any long-term side effects.”
“The Afterlife?” I question. “What the hell is that?”
“I had that same question.” Steel sinks down onto the armrest of the sofa, his face masked with worry and confusion. And since Steel rarely shows emotions, it makes me extremely concerned that whatever he’s about to say is going to be bad. “He said it was the term the facility used when referring to the place someone goes to after they die.”
“You mean, like Heaven and Hell?” I ask warily, unsure if I’m believing this yet or not.
He shrugs. “According to Mel—that’s my contact—a group of scientists discovered there is a world beyond ours when we die that people temporary go to when they’re not quite fully dead yet but dead enough. At least, that’s what the scientist gathered from their subjects.”
“Subjects they killed and brought back to life?” I grind my jaw from side to side. God, I fucking hate experimental facilities. They’ve destroyed so many lives.
“He said it had something to do with a certain type of drug,” Steel explains. “But he wouldn’t give me any details.”
I scratch my head. “Why would they do that? I mean, what’s the point of an experiment like that? Just to see what happens when we die?”
“Mel said they were looking for something, but he hung up on me before he told me what. I don’t know, though. He probably wouldn’t have told me anyway.” Steel rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “This is so fucking crazy. I mean, I’ve heard and dealt with a lot of crazy shit, but this …” He lowers his hands from his eyes and shakes his head.
The Other World_A Reverse Harem Series Page 12
