by Bella Street
***
“You asked to see me?”
Gareth stepped aside at the question, allowing Malone to enter. “Um, it was Lani who wanted to talk to you.”
He watched the man's green eyes seek out Lani where she hovered by the desk.
“Thank you for coming,” she said shyly.
The man's thunderous expression did not bode well for Lani's hopes at reconciliation.
“I only have a couple of minutes. What do you need?”
Neither did his tone.
The brunette wrung her hands, her face lit with a mixture of hope and dread. “I just wanted to know how you were—”
Malone huffed a breath and turned toward the door.
“Actually, I had a question,” Gareth said, hoping to alleviate the painful scene.
Malone's cold eyes swiveled his way. “About what?”
“All these earthquakes. There doesn't seem to be any response from security or Fenn—”
“That's because there ain't no security. They all left.”
“All of them?” Addison said faintly, rising from the couch.
“Yep.”
“So...” Gareth tried to formulate a follow-up question.
“About the earthquakes—I wouldn't worry too much at this point. This place was built to withstand an eight. The worst we've had here is a 5.7.”
“Any idea what's causing them?”
Gareth raised a brow at Lani's question. “I'm going to guess a sudden release of energy—”
“Yes, we know the scientific explanation, Gareth,” Addison groused. “I'm just wondering if there is some other reason. I mean everything that has happened here has also originated, or was caused by, Fugere.”
“Not sure how the compound could cause an earthquake,” Lani said, looking hungrily at Malone.
“If there is some other cause, I'm not aware of it,” Malone said. “So, if that's it...”
“Obviously it's not,” Addison said, approaching Malone. “You damn well know Lani is here eating her heart out over you. So instead of dodging her, why don't you man up and either tell her it's over or that you just need some time?”
He glanced at Lani, his expression relaxing for a split second. “It's not a personal decision. There are issues beyond my control.” He turned back to Addison. “Besides, it's none of your damn business.”
The redhead shrugged. “Well, I tried.”
Apparently emboldened by Addison's words, Lani walked to where Malone stood. He stiffened at her approach, but didn't move. She went up on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the lips.
Gareth noticed the man's fists clench. When Lani stepped away, no one said anything. After a tense silence, Malone turned and left.
The moment the door closed behind him, the brunette released a heavy sigh. “Well, at least he didn't break it off with me. And he knows how I feel about him. So that means there's hope.” She plucked at the skirt of her dress. “There's always hope. Right?”
***
Seffy dug through an old box of left-over non-perishables, unable to hold off her protesting stomach any longer.
Why did her body continue to function? Didn't it know she was beyond caring? Beyond eating or sleeping? And yet she continued to eat and her eyes continued to close of their own volition, drawing her down into dreams where Trent appeared but never waited.
She found an old protein shake envelope and dumped the clumped contents into a cup. The directions called for milk, but she didn't have any. Water would have to do. She made a face as she stirred the powdery glop with tap water from the bathroom. What flavor was it anyway? The envelope said apple-pomegranate. It smelled sickly sweet like a fruit bowl gone bad.
Her stomach panged anyway.
Wrinkling her nose, she gulped down a measure of the drink, nearly gagging at the taste. But she made herself finish it, if just to get some peace from hunger.
When she was done, she sagged onto the bed, wondering what to do next. Despite falling asleep at all hours, fatigue weighted her bones and eyes. Even now, she longed to curl up and pass out. What time is it?
Seffy raised a brow when she realized it was two in the morning. Well, no wonder I'm tired.
At least she didn't have to feel guilty for going back to sleep on Trent's bed. She pressed her face into the pillow, wishing she could inhale his scent. But it smelled like cheap detergent—not a beloved husband.
Seffy flung her arm over her eyes, waiting for the protein to hit her bloodstream. Maybe the tremors would go away—that is if they were caused by low blood sugar and not earthquakes. Or grief.
She removed her arm long enough to look at the photos of Trent on the night stand. Gazing at his image brought a heaviness almost too much to bear. She closed her eyes and conjured memories of him smiling and teasing, of the times he annoyed her to no end...but always being himself...no excuses, no pretending.
Seffy thought of the tangent universe when she discovered they'd been a couple there, too. What did that mean? Were they together anywhere and everywhere—in any and all time tangents?
In the L.A. tangent, they'd both been killed. Here, Trent was...gone. Was their relationship destined for tragedy? Or was there some tangent where they were married, with kids, a mortgage, a dog or two? Where they worried about bills and love handles—not zombies and rabid wolves and crazy compound dictators who wanted to play nice?
Tears leaked into her ears. There were no answers to her questions, because she was stuck in the one place he wasn't.
But what if there was a way? What if they could program the time travel equipment to send her wherever he was? Someplace before they'd met. Or was circumstance responsible for forcing their relationship? If they met at a trade party where she was the wannabe actress and he the director's assistant, would they have hit it off? Begun dating? Would she really date someone in his situation—struggling with addiction and one step away from being homeless? And yet they'd come together through even crazier conditions.
Seffy pulled Trent's pillow against her chest, wanting to forget her endless grapplings. Instead she thought of the way he looked at her when she came to him that first night.
She had to imagine the look in his eyes because he avoided her gaze in her dreams.
***
He was in the driver's seat, headed for the bluffs. Seffy tried to get his attention, but he couldn't hear her over the roar of the engine. She caught glimpses of his eyes in the rear view mirror, but his attention never wavered from the road before him.
Seffy looked at their surroundings, wondering where they were heading. I thought we couldn't go this far. Fenn said there were limits.
The pink sun shimmered just above the horizon, sending a corona of smaller orbs shooting past. Where was the so-called limit? What if wolves were still lurking among all the non-timber scrub? She directed her attention back to Trent. “Where are we going?”
But he drove on as if she didn't exist.
Seffy felt her blood begin to simmer. Why was he ignoring her? A cloud moved across the sun, darkening the landscape. A chill wind blew, making her shiver. Why was she in the backseat anyway? She should be in the front with her husband. But her limbs didn't obey when she made a move to clamber over the seats. Grinding her teeth in frustration, she called out to Trent again.
No response.
It grew darker and colder. Seffy began to feel sick to her stomach. She clutched her middle. Was the bumpy ride making her nauseated? When she looked to the front seat again, she realized someone was in the passenger seat. The nausea deepened. Worse were the goose-bumps erupting over her skin.
“Hey!” she said loudly. “Who the hell are you?”
The person turned and Seffy gasped out loud. It was the little girl. Angelique.
Trent suddenly twisted around and faced her, his expression tense. “What are you afraid of?”
Seffy stared at him, unsure whether he actually saw her or not. She bit her lip. What am I afraid of?
Everyth
ing.
Her eyes opened and the moment Seffy realized it was a dream, she cried out. For the first time, Trent had looked into her eyes. What the hell had roused her from the dream? She sat up and let out a small scream when she saw Angelique standing at the foot of the bed.
Seffy lurched forward, intending to throttle the thing that ruined her dreams. But when she reached where Angelique stood, she had disappeared. Grasping at empty air did not improve Seffy's mood.
“Where are you?” She scanned the room, looking in the dark corners.
That's when she noticed the door swaying slightly.
Seffy marched across the room and out into the hall. She had a brief glimpse of that damn polka dot dress.
Oh, this is over. Ire hastened her stride—until she realized she'd been led to the double doors. Anger bled away to anxiety.
Where was Angelique? The padlock appeared to be engaged.
Seffy approached the doors and confirmed it was locked tight. A flicker of movement through the windows caught her attention.
Holy hell. The girl stood inside the hall regarding her through the glass. Trent's words from the dream echoed in her mind.
Seffy reached for the key on the chain around her neck. Her fingers stilled as she considered whether she wanted to go through these doors.
How long would the girl plague her if she didn't follow? How many more dreams would she interrupt? Seffy unlocked the padlock and shoved open one of the doors enough to get through.
Naturally the girl was gone. No guessing which room she'd be in. Seffy swallowed.
The greenish glow over the last room made her realize this time she didn't have a light.
I don't care. The hall's empty. Nothing here but conjured fears and half-baked memories.
Seffy walked down the hall, ignoring the rooms on either side, until she reached the last one. Angelique stood at the open closet door, surrounded by some faint orange glow...no doubt having something to do with the fires of hell.
That light also highlighted the fact that the girl was once again transparent. She had to be a ghost. It made sense—the way she appeared and disappeared at will. The way she went through solid concrete and seriously strong doors. Made as much sense as anything else around here.
Seffy pulled in a breath, her bravado wearing thin. “So what do you want from me now?”
The girl didn't answer.
“You ruined a perfectly good dream, you know.” Tears thickened her throat. “It's all I have left. And you managed to take even that away.”
A broken sob ripped free from her throat.
Seffy held onto the metal table for support as the tears came. But if she was honest, Dream Trent's expression had been worried, tense...not lover-like. For that look she'd need to rely on photographs. That's all she had—images that would fade over time until she had nothing left at all.
Slowly raising her gaze to the see-through girl, Seffy wondered if that's what would happen—her memories fading from solid to transparent until the background eclipsed what was most important.
That's when she realized the girl was gone. Only an open closet door remained.
Seffy wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. She felt a draft of cool air over her.
She closed her eyes for a moment, knowing she would go through that door, but unwilling to imagine the awfulness that lay within.
It was dark—pitch black, naturally. In case of a low ceiling, she walked, hunched over, running her hands along the wooden walls for a door of any kind. A few feet inside the passage, she felt a seam in the wall and froze. Following the seam downward, she felt a small metal latch. When she pushed on it, a low door opened.
Despite the lack of vision, Seffy knew it was where Trent had once found her.
She slammed it closed, hand over her heart. Just because her brain told her there was nothing to be afraid of, her adrenal glands apparently didn't get the message.
As she forced herself to calm, she sagged against the opposite wall to steel her nerve for the next step.
Except the wall gave way beneath her weight and she was in free fall.
Chapter Seventeen
Seffy came to a stop, crumpled against a wall at the bottom of a short flight of stairs. It must've been short because she was still conscious, and her ankle only felt strained, not broken.
Still, her muscles creaked in protest as she righted herself.
Who puts a mother-flippin' stairway at the bottom of a secret door down a secret passage in a dark closet at the end of a psychonautics ward?
Oh wait. Fugere.
Seffy straightened and got to her feet, gingerly touching the wall in case this was really a panel that led to a bottomless abyss.
Wonder where polka dot girl is? Maybe it was even too dark down here for the likes of the little Casper.
Once she had her bearings, Seffy ran her fingers along the wall. Soon she located a door handle—and a padlock.
Wouldn't it be funny...
Yeah, the key worked.
But she had to release a few cleansing breaths before pushing open the door.
As she did—by increments—a bit of orange light shone through the crack
Seffy peeked past the door, aware of a quiet hum of machines. She didn't see anyone.
She slowly entered the room and her gaze swept across a space full of computer equipment—much more advanced than what was in the computer lab. Tiny green and red LED lights blinked intermittently on large black consoles without screens. And without a nerd herd.
Maybe it was break time and they were all guzzling Tab somewhere. Either way, what the hell was this place?
Did the creepy little girl want her to see this or had she'd just fallen down a random compound rabbit hole?
A light at the end of the room beckoned. It was a warm orange—similar to what she'd seen above. But how could it have come that far? It had been completely dark in the passage. The light was from an iron sconce which illuminated papers and notes pinned to the wood-paneled wall—papers that spread outward to the rest of the room.
A large table covered with more papers, many of which appeared to be crumpled, took up one side of the room.
Another wall was covered with calendars—the kind one drew dramatic X's through to show the passage of time.
A second table was shoved up against one wall and held all sorts of strange brass instruments and charts with bizarre graphed objects.
The cluttered, orange-lit space was a strange segue from the cool modernity of the computers behind her—wood, iron, and paper contrasted with the electronic hum of advanced technology.
It was as if two disparate worlds had collided, and nothing made sense.
Sounds a lot like my life.
Moving closer to the a table, Seffy glanced down at the papers. Amidst the calendars were crinkled balls of paper and charts scrawled with slanted handwriting. She reached out to touch one piece of paper and saw it covered a cup of some kind.
Gently pushing the page aside revealed a half-empty ceramic cup of coffee. Her heart thudded dully in her chest as she touched the side of the cup.
It was still warm. She jerked her hand back from the coffee.
In fact, despite the archaic look of this half of the room, nothing was covered with dust. Whoever left the coffee was in the middle of a work in progress.
Calm down. It's just a work room. Granted, it didn't match anything else she'd seen at the compound, but that was just the nature of Fugere. She wouldn't be surprised if one of the basements held a petting zoo.
Lifting her attention from the table, she noticed Angelique suddenly staring at her from the wall.
Except she was small. What the hell?
It took a moment to realize Angelique was small because she was really just a photograph on the wall.
Why was there a picture of the girl on the wall? In a polka dot dress no less?
Her eyes tracked left and she saw other old photos interspersed with strange documents.
Each photo was presumably a regression in the life of the girl, ending with a photo of a vibrant Fenn holding a baby in a pink blanket.
Angelique was Fenn's child.
The child was a ghost.
Fenn was a murderer.
And here they think I'm one. Her breaths came in short bursts. What silly people.
A wave of dizziness washed over her. The room tilted out of focus.
Seffy scrabbled for something to hold onto but her body was suddenly jarred against a concrete floor. Something shattered next to her head.
As the world flickered in and out of focus, she noticed a pervasive brown water stain on the ceiling, spreading outward in concentric circles.
***
Gareth stared at the result on the pocket calculator he'd managed to smuggle out of the computer lab. Either his calculations were wildly incorrect—which wasn't likely since he'd come up with the same result three times running—or his brain was muddled with Lani's talk of Verity, Addison's defection, and Seffy's mental health.
The paperwork from Eugene supposedly showed what calculations they'd used to send Seffy back to the future. But that was impossible. The numbers, charts, and diagrams were just gibberish.
He concentrated once more on his charts and numbering. There was only one way to look at the paper in his hand.
It was a fake. The information Eugene had asked him to work on was nothing but a caricature of a scientific process.
And if it was fake, he'd been duped. Duped into wasting time so more crap could go on under the radar while he was distracted.
Lani's crazy ideas came to mind. While he wasn't a conspiracy theorist, this was just one more piece of the puzzle that couldn't be jammed into place.
Because nothing fit.
Maybe there was a reason.
He crumpled up the paper into a tight ball and threw it onto the floor.
***
When Seffy opened her eyes, she saw a large, upside down photo of Fenn. No, that wasn't right. It was Angelique who'd been on the wall. It was Angelique who'd been dead all these years.
