The X Factor

by Bella Street

  When she came out, Trent's smile fell flat.

  “You look...modern.”

  “Yeah, that was the whole idea.”

  “What did you do with your old clothes?”

  “Stuffed them in the trash. Luckily, I wasn't wearing my JC tracksuit, because I couldn't bear to throw it away.”

  “The irony is that it actually needs to be tossed.”

  “No way. It's my only fashion link to my own time.” God, we're still talking about clothes.

  He smiled and slid his arm around her and pulled her close. “Well, at least your shopping binge today didn't set me back as much as your little tracksuit would've.”

  “True.” She found herself allowing his contact, feeling needy for some reason. Maybe it was the disorientation of being away from the compound despite the fact that she hated it there.

  “Hey, there's a theater down this hallway. I think we have time for a movie.”

  She froze. “Uh oh, I told Gareth I'd meet him and the others in Lani's room to watch a movie tonight.”

  “You won't be making that date with your boyfriend, so we better squeeze a flick in now.”

  She regarded him, not missing the edge in his voice. Gareth probably wouldn't notice her missing anyway.

  Once they arrived at the theater entrance, he scanned the list. “Let's see what's playing. Oh, yeah. Blue Lagoon.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “What do you think?”

  “What's it about?”

  “Are you joking?” He shook his head. “Does Brooke Shields ring a bell?”

  “Oh, the woman in Nip/Tuck.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly, scrutinizing her with a curious expression. “Tell me, what stuff do you usually watch?”

  Seffy shrugged. “The basics.”

  “The basics being?”

  “I don't know. The Hills mostly. I used to watch Dawson's Creek, Party Of Five, Felicity...shows like that.”

  He stared at her, incredulous. “Sex soaps and zitcoms.”

  “I mostly watched to see the clothes,” she said in a lowering tone.

  “Please.” He snorted. “Your mind must be completely rotted away.”

  She glared at him. “Are you telling me you sat around watching intellectual stuff? Like that Molder and Skull show or whatever it was?”

  “God, Seffy, you are such a dork.”

  “I think this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.”

  His raised his brows then glanced back at the list. “At any rate, I will incur your wrath if we see Blue Lagoon. So it's between Cheech and Chong, which is about halfway over at this point and Caddyshack, which looks to be starting in ten minutes.”

  “I've at least heard of Caddyshack.”

  “Then there's hope.” Trent paid for the tickets, bought popcorn and soda and led the way into the theater. They passed a couple noisily making out in the back row. He paused to peek down at her. “Now, they have the right idea.”

  She made a face. “Ew.”

  The theater was nearly full. Apparently kissing or watching a movie were the two choices of entertainment in the nameless 1980s Montana mall. They settled in their seats as the trailers started. Seffy thought the upcoming films mostly looked moronic, but refrained from voicing her opinion. She was just glad for the break from the recent relative monotony-slash-hellish nightmares of life in the compound. Plus the darkened theater was a good place to stay out of sight of the Fugere men. Unless they were golf or gopher fans.

  Seffy stifled another sigh. How could she sit here like everything was normal? How could she be so accepting of her current situation? Trent was an unknown, and yet she'd left her close friends to be with him. What was up with Gareth? How could everyone be so damn settled in their freakish circumstances? Why weren't they desperate to get home? Why ask questions with no answers?

  Exactly.

  Seffy tried to concentrate on the movie at first as a way to get her mind off her problems, but her interest quickly waned. As she fretted through most of it, Trent laughed like a seal. She felt sleepy again and longed to rest her head against his shoulder, but worried he'd get the wrong idea.

  I should be here with Gareth. Even as a friend if he doesn't want the whole romance package. He wouldn't mind if I put my head on his shoulder. A surge of grief surprised her in its intensity. She mashed her lips together to keep from crying out. When she had conquered the urge to cry, anger took its place. What was up with obsessing over a guy when she'd been hijacked through time? Had her priorities always been this skewed? The last several minutes of the movie became little more than a bright blurry image in the darkness as she wrestled with her never-ending frustrations.

  When it was finally over, Trent turned to her, his eyes gleaming in the leftover glow as the credits rolled.

  “What did you think?”

  Determined to keep her tone light, Seffy cleared her throat and tried to remember something from the movie. “Well, um, technically it was trashier than The Hills. And I don't care what decade it is, or what body parts have been liberated, but bras are a must-have foundation in a woman's wardrobe.”

  He laughed. “Is that it?”

  Good, he doesn't know I've been going to pieces. “And we shouldn't ignore the disturbing parallel of innocent creatures in dark tunnels being chased by violent and unhinged men.”

  “Wow, you're deep. But tell me you at least thought the gopher was cute.”

  She smiled, suddenly ridiculously thankful for his company. “It was cute.”

  “Then my work here is done.”

  “How are we doing for time?” Now there's irony.

  Trent looked at his watch. “We have enough to hit the Orange Julius.”

  “Okay, you can't talk about me always being hungry. You ate almost all the popcorn and drank an entire soda after a huge meal. How can you even think about eating again?”

  “Trying to make the most of the day, I guess.”

  Is that what they'd been reduced to? Resignation of their entrapment? Just trying to make the best of a crappy situation? “You know, if we can come here like this, why won't...the boss let us take a vehicle and go all the way to L.A.?”

  The light faded in his eyes. “I think it has something to do with sci-fi stuff.”

  Seffy knew Trent was trying to be as careful speech-wise as she while they were in public. “Yeah, he mentioned that. But at what point do we realize there's no going back? If I have to be stuck in this time, I still want to be in L.A.”

  Trent regarded her for a long moment. “Do you really like L.A. or do you just really hate Montana?”

  She faked a careless shrug. “Mostly the second option, I guess, but also I can't break into acting if I'm not in L.A.”

  “There's always New York.”

  “Too cold.”

  Trent stood up and tossed the cup and popcorn container into the trash can the usher brought by. “I don't like being cold.”

  She shivered involuntarily, thinking of the metal exam table deep in the psychiatric ward. Me either.

  They headed back into the mall hand in hand. As they stood in line at the Orange Julius shop, Trent drew her closer to his side. She sensed him staring at her for quite some time while she looked straight ahead, trying to ignore the trepidation pounding in time with her heart.

  “Sef?”

  Seffy glanced up at him with wary eyes. “What?”

  His usual cynical expression had given way to an intense look as his fingers tightened around hers. “Do you think...if we ever met in WeHo, our time, that we would get together? As a couple?”

  Seffy swallowed, wondering why she couldn't think of a snappy comeback to his outrageous question. Instead his words caused her stomach to churn. “We're not together now.”

  He quirked his mouth. “For the sake of argument then.”

  Seffy gazed at him for several moments, then spoke quietly. “Not in a million years.”

  He sighed. “Yeah.”

  She looked away, regrettin
g the awkward moment, but unable to deny its inherent truth. They were from different worlds in more ways than one.

  Seffy scanned the sparse crowd absently looking out for anyone from the compound while trying to figure out a politic way to pull her hand from Trent's. Apparently he was getting the wrong idea. A man in the crowd arrested her attention. She stared at him, her vision tunneling to the exclusion of everyone else within sight. Although his back was to her, the tilt of his head nudged something in her mind.

  Something she had no intention of remembering.

  She stiffened and pressed her face into Trent's shoulder. Her pulse roared in her ears as memory struggled up from the deep.

  “Hey, what's up?” Trent's voice sounded far away.

  Unable to answer, she peered past his shoulder, wondering if she was losing it. The man suddenly turned in her direction—and he was someone she didn't recognize. At all.

  But it didn't matter. Seeing someone so similar had turned over a rock in her mind, revealing the slimy thing underneath. A sharp pain pierced her stomach, making her double over.

  “What's going on?”

  Trent's voice faded further into the distance.

  “Seffy look at me.” Arms went around her waist to hold her up.

  “We have to get out of here,” she said through trembling lips as her world tilted out of focus.

  “Did you see the jeep guys?”

  But he didn't wait for an answer. Leaving the line, he hustled her from the mall. Shoppers passed by in a blur. The anonymous reflections on the glass doors heightened her sense of unreality.

  “Are you gonna throw up? You look like you're gonna throw up.”

  It took Seffy a moment to realize they were outside and across the street. She staggered to a tree and braced herself against it, trying desperately not to vomit. Sucking in oxygen helped a little, but soon a portion of her dinner forced its way up. She turned and spit onto the grass, hoping Trent wouldn't see. Seffy wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then noticed blood on her skin.

  Well, that couldn't be good.

  Trent's shadow loomed over her. “Talk to me, Sef. I can't help you unless I know what's going on.”

  She concentrated on breathing, on keeping the rest down. Why did that stranger freak me out? Why is there blood? She looked up at him finally. “I want to go home.”

  He stared at her, his eyes wide. “You mean the compound?”

  She nodded, the exertion costing her. Her eyes felt heavy. She wiped her hand on her new jeans, not wanting Trent to know about the blood.

  “Are you going to be able to make it all the way?”

  “I think so.” She looked across the street to the mall doors. “I want to get in the jeep now. Please,” she said when she saw him hesitate.

  “Okay. You need help?”

  She attempted a weak smile. “I don't know. Probably.”

  Trent supported her with his arm and helped her into the back of the jeep as he watched for the compound men. Then he crawled in next to her and adjusted the tarp.

  Seffy sensed him looking at her. She wanted to close her eyes, but didn't dare. What if she remembered the thing dangling just out of reach in her memory?

  “Sef.”

  She heard him sigh.

  “What's going on?”

  Seffy looked at him, searching for comfort in his steady gaze. “I...I don't know.”

  Then she burst into tears.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Seffy lay curled up in the back of jeep, facing away from Trent. A part of her wanted the comfort he offered—he'd been pestering her to at least rest her head on his arm for the last half hour, but she'd already depended on him too much—to the point of leaving the known horrors of the compound for the unknown horrors away from it.

  Right now, she craved the bland bed in her beige windowless room, away from fear of discovery by the men driving the jeep across the bumpy Montana road, away from sinister faces in the crowd, and away from Trent's disturbing and insidious presence.

  She sniffed discreetly to clear her runny nose and wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand. She must be getting punchy to break down so easily—and in front of Trent. Seffy was pretty sure he'd now seen her in every possible bad light. She desperately missed Gareth.

  A fresh wave of tears threatened, but Seffy gulped them back, sucking in a lungful of musty air. If only she could return to the special camaraderie she and Gareth had shared, instead of the awkward stiltedness. As soon as she returned to the compound, she would really apologize to him and somehow make things right. If she survived this ride.

  “Seffy, seriously, it's painful to see you bouncing around like that. Take advantage of nice Trent's arm.”

  Trent. He was all she needed to muddy the already murky waters of her life. “No.”

  He snorted. “One of these days I'm going to find out what bee is in that bonnet of yours.”

  She ignored him, closed her eyes, and tried to sleep the rest of the way.

  It didn't work.

  ***

  After a close call back in the garage and an undignified scuffle through a series of secret passages, Seffy was disgorged into her room by a grumpy Trent. She ignored him as he slammed his way back to his room, and headed for the bathroom.

  She fretted over her reflection. Her roots were bad. Scary bad. How could they grow out that fast? How long had it been since the blast? She might revisit the idea of seeing if the compound had a salon. A little grow-out was practically fashionable these days. Having it nearly down to one's eyebrows was not. Was her rundown look affecting Gareth's opinion of her?

  Seffy washed her face and brushed her teeth, watching the sink as she spit. No blood. Maybe she'd eaten something red—except that she hadn't. She put on a bit of makeup, arranged her hair in a simple style and headed toward the door, determined to work things out with Gareth—at least to get a comfortable friendship back.

  As Seffy reached for the doorknob, she checked the wind-up compound clock on the nightstand. Nearly midnight. Crap. She'd been so hellbent on seeing him that she hadn't considered the time. Midnight probably wasn't the best time to try and mend a torn relationship. It was only a step away from drunk-dialing. Her shoulders sagged.

  Then again, if she waited until tomorrow, she'd probably lose her nerve. Trent could show up and connive her into doing something she didn't want to do, then it would take all that much longer to get up her gumption to face Gareth again.

  Screw that. Seffy grabbed the doorknob and pulled it open. She strode down the hall and knocked on his door. No response. She reached out and tried the door. It was open. Seffy pushed it ajar and peeked inside. Gareth's bed was neat and unoccupied.

  Were they still watching movies in Lani's room? She headed there next and knocked.

  Malone answered the door, his grizzled face and wicked green eyes sizing her up. “You're not dead yet?”

  “Gee, Malone, it's nice to see you, too. I'm looking for Gareth.”

  He squinted his eyes and jerked his head inside the room. “By the way, I owe you one for helping me out and all. To pay you back, I'm going to give you gun lessons.”

  “Wow, that's really...thoughtful.”

  “I mean it. This week. You and me. And maybe Lani could tag along, too. You both need to rise beyond the level of Bait Class Individuals.”

  “But the zombie threat is gone.”

  “There's always dangers...things scarier than zombies even.”

  Seffy grimaced. “Okay, okay, I'll squeeze you into my packed schedule somehow.” Besides, it couldn't hurt to know that stuff, right? Malone himself was enough of a reason to be proficient in the use of weapons.

  He opened the door further to allow her in. Seffy followed him into the dim, flickering interior and found the group parked among the couch, chairs, and floor in front of the TV, watching something where a skinny woman in a prom dress was getting buckets of blood dumped on her. The Montana mall suddenly didn't seem quite so freaky
.

  “Glad you could show up, Sef.” Addison said in her usual smart ass tone.

  “Shhh,” Jared said, shooting Seffy a pointed look. “This is the best part.”

  She looked at Gareth, who also seemed engrossed in the film. As people at the prom began screaming, Seffy waited for him to acknowledge her. When he didn't, she walked over and touched his shoulder. Turning his head slightly while keeping his eyes on the screen, he said, “Yeah?”

  “Gareth,” she whispered, “is there any way we can talk tonight? I can wait until after the movie if you'd like.”

  He glanced up at her, his expression flat. “Uh, now's fine. I've already seen this a few times.”

  Since we've been here? She tried not to be further offended at the implication of his words as he stood up. She followed him out the door, aware of Addison's dark look stabbing her in the back. Instead of leading her to his room, Gareth stopped in the hallway and leaned against the wall.

  “So what's up?”

  Seffy peered up and down the hallway, then back at him with a questioning look. “Right here?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  She bit her lip, regretting the impulse to deal with this right now. “I'm sorry I didn't show earlier.” She peeked up at him to get his reaction and saw that his expression revealed nothing. Her heart thumped heavily in her chest. “Gareth,” she said softly, “I know I blew it that night.”

  “What night?”

  She stared at him, struggling to discern what he was thinking. His brown eyes, usually so warm, were dull. “In the hospital room. I'm still not sure what happened, but everything's changed since then.”

  His face tightened. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  Seffy's eyes widened as if she'd been slapped. She swallowed down an urge to get hysterical. “Okay...so I guess it's history. I'm sorry.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  Anger jolted through Seffy. “Yes, there's something else!” She bit her lip, unsure how to tell him what occurred in the mall. “I saw someone today who reminded me...of him.”