by E. J. Mellow
— 38 —
I’m so mad. I lost my favorite ring the other day.
But I’m not going to search for it.
Lost things never like to be found until they’ve been forgotten.
—Part of a letter from Molly to Dev
Her hair shined healthy and new, its color returning to its attractive strawberry blonde as it rested on the pillow she was propped against. Her complexion was no longer bleached of life, but flushed pink, restored. Yet despite all this, the shadows remained under her green eyes. Dev watched as her hands clasped one another tightly in her lap, her fingers restless, too scared to leave the protection of her white gown. The private recovery room was located in a guarded section of Terra’s hospital, only one guest visit allowed a day. Dev had filled the slot for the past two.
“And he never said anything about where he was hiding when he came to Terra? He had to have shared something about where he was staying for all those years,” Dev said, trying hard not to let his maddening frustration come through. He sat on a chair beside Aurora’s bed, waiting for her to pull her lip from between her teeth and answer him.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “He only ever mentioned that he never stayed in one place very long.”
“But was he hiding in the city? In one of the outpost towns?”
“I…I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead, looking defeated and shamefaced.
Dev took in a calming breath, which didn’t calm him at all. He didn’t think he was capable of being calm ever again. Not until he found her, and even then he might not find peace, for who knew what state she’d be in— his throat tightened. By the elders, how was he to survive another second of this?
“Dev.” Aurora’s small voice brought his attention away from his fisted hands. Her eyes seemed so tired, even after all the medicine and rejuvenate therapy. Whatever evil Aaron’s nearness seeped into her, using the connection only twins possessed, it potently took its toll. “I wanted to tell you…I’m…how I acted before, with Molly—”
“Don’t.” Dev cut her off. “We don’t need to relive it. She knows that wasn’t you.”
“But that’s the thing. It was me.” Aurora sat up straighter, her brows drawing together. “I did have those thoughts. They might have been buried, but I was so angry at everything, and I didn’t know where to put it. But Aaron…it was like he showed me the truth. I believed it was her fault. I believed…” She choked on a sob and covered her face.
Dev watched her a moment, her body shaking with her tears, before he gathered the strength to sit on her bed and console her. He worked hard to muster any empathy in this moment. It wasn’t just because a deep, dark part of him blamed Aurora for this—he knew Aaron, the puppet master, was behind the show—but more because any emotion besides rage and fear were currently lost to him. He couldn’t find it in him to care about anyone but the woman he loved, the one who was at this very moment most likely scared out of her mind in the company of a lunatic. Dev refused to think about the alternative possibilities. A shiver rippled through him.
“Aaron manipulated you,” he said softly, soothingly rubbing Aurora’s shoulder. “He used your love for his gain. Don’t give him any more power by putting this on you. It was him, Aurora.” Dev pulled back slightly so she could see the sincerity in his face. “It was him. Do you understand? All of it.”
She hesitantly nodded and then looked away. “Will we ever be able to go back?”
Dev knew what she was asking, understood it was about the two of them and their friendship. “No,” he said and felt her flinch in his arms. “None of us can go back. But maybe, after time, we can go forward.”
The room fell into a heavy silence, the small beeps of hospital machinery filling the void.
Aurora suddenly shifted and leaned away, her eyes glazing over.
“What?” Dev asked.
“The tunnels,” she whispered, her forehead clearing of wrinkles, as if something dawned on her.
Dev’s heart beat faster. “What about the tunnels?”
“He did mention something about them.” Her face puckered again, and Dev resisted yelling at her to find whatever it was faster.
“My time with him was so foggy towards the end.” She shook her head. “I can only remember certain pieces of conversation, and he spoke nonsense most of the time, but…but I recall him knowing a lot about the tunnels. Specifically the ones near the Nursery.”
Dev stood. “But we collapsed the tunnels running from Terra to the Nursery.”
“Oh.” Aurora’s shoulders slumped. “Even the ones that don’t connect?”
Dev blinked, time slowing. “What do you mean, that don’t connect?”
“Well, I thought there were some tunnels that were just little burrows, like pockets around Terra. At least Aaron mentioned something about ones near the Nursery.”
“And you didn’t remember this yesterday!”
Aurora flinched before her gaze narrowed. “I could hardly say my own name yesterday.”
“I have to go.” He threw his quiver across his chest.
“But Aaron could have been lying,” Aurora added as he turned toward the exit. “And I could be remembering our conversation wrong. If the guards that monitored our meetings didn’t mention anything and you guys didn’t find them mapped in those old schematics you found—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He pressed a button so the glass door slid open. “If you told me she might be stuck in the middle of the Sea of Dreams, I’d build a ship to search it.”
And with that, Dev left to find Aveline and Hector so they could hopefully, please, by the elders, find the other half of his soul.
—∞—
The next two days were filled with oscillating rounds of hope and utter disappointment. Using Terra’s laser scanning and ground-penetrating radar machines, Dev and his squad searched the western lands that circled the Nursery. They were astonished to find so many unaccounted for pockets of tunnels. And even though they uncovered two Metus hives among the five they located, there were no signs of Molly or Aaron in the other three. They still had a good portion of land to scan, of course, but that was far from reassuring. Terra only knew how many ancient burrows were left to find around the Nursery, not to mention the miles and miles of land to the north, east, and south.
Dev was about ready to lose his mind, more than he already had. Looking back at his first separation from Molly, when she was stuck on Earth, was enough to make him scoff. That was a walk in the park compared to this, this where he had no way of knowing how she was doing. Was she terrified? Scared? Hurt? With Aaron’s company, he had no doubt it was all of the above. Holding in a growl, Dev scrubbed down his face, the stench of decaying flesh clinging to his clothes as he stomped into the apartment. His black protective gear was covered in the slime that caked along the tunnels, the shedding skin of nightmares, but he could give two Metus droppings as he slumped into one of the beige couches in the depressed living room. The apartment was dark and quiet save for the crackling of the blue-white fireplace. Dev stared unseeing into the flames.
“We’ll go back out in a few hours,” Aveline said, her thin frame a silhouette of shadows as she came to block his view. “But you needed to eat something.”
“Why?” Dev ground out. “She’s probably starving right now. Why should I not be too?”
“Dev.” It was Tim’s calm voice. He had insisted on helping in the search as well, his body now completely restored since the accident. “She would want you to take care of yourself.”
Dev merely pinched his lips together, his fingers digging into his thighs before he slumped forward and hung his head in his hands. “What am I going to do?” His voice was painfully raw.
Aveline placed a featherlight touch to this shoulder. “We’ll find her,” she said, sitting beside him. “We’ll find her soon.”
A shaky breath escaped him. His muscles ached—so did his head and everything else, for that matter. His whole body was a ball
of tension and agony. He felt horrible, guilty, and useless anytime he wasn’t out there searching, and even then he felt close to the same. The elders had deployed seven other Vigil squads to stealthily seek out the lost Dreamer, use whatever hi-tech equipment they had hidden away in their engineer labs. But so far, just like with Dev’s group, nothing. Considering Aaron was able to hide from their world while still making frequent visits left little confidence of finding an easy trail to him now. He obviously knew what he was doing. He’d only be found when he wanted to be.
Molly had been gone close to a week now, and the elders were determined to keep her disappearance as quiet as possible, for as long as possible. Terra forbid this interrupt Cato’s carefully laid-out Dreamer campaign.
Dev frowned as he glanced around the apartment. “Where’s Hector?”
“He got a message to meet Elena,” Aveline said, cleaning a bit of dirt that caked the side of her quiver.
“I have some leftovers from the other night.” Tim walked to the kitchen that connected to the open floor plan of their apartment. “I’ll heat something up.”
“I’m not hungry,” Dev grumbled, his gaze moving back to stare into the fire that danced in front of him. He felt nauseous actually and, maybe because they were talking about food, had the strongest desire to see Rae. He needed his friend right now. He needed to hear him say something reassuring, something that would make Dev stop feeling like his world was spinning out of control while at the same time standing still in the flames of hell.
He felt completely alone.
He stood.
“Where are you going?”
He sensed Aveline’s concerned hazel gaze following him as he walked to the door.
“Dev, you need to rest,” Tim chimed in, dropping what he was doing in the kitchen and coming closer.
“Don’t you get it,” Dev growled, spinning back around. “There is no rest! Not when she’s out there!” He threw his arm out. “By the stars, how could I possibly rest?”
Tim frowned. “I didn’t mean—”
“She could be dying.” Dev’s voice wavered at the end. “Right now. That monster, he could…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
The room hung in a tense silence. Though his flatmates were trying to be nothing but supportive and reassuring, none of it mattered. No amount of gentle words could stop this. Stop what Dev felt in his very marrow. The torture. The words of Aaron’s note forever branding his heart, wrapping it with barbed wire until it oozed and bled.
“I have to keep looking,” he said. “I’ll go out with one of the Vigil squads. I just can’t sit here and pretend like nothing’s wrong.”
“That’s not what we’re asking you to do.” Tim’s brown eyes were gentle, his gray hair winking silver in the low light. “We all need our strength if we’re going to get through this Dev. Starving and working ourselves raw will not help bring Molly back faster.”
Dev swallowed, his hands fisting at his side. “It might,” he said gruffly before he turned and yanked open the door.
Hector filled the frame just outside. The Vigil looked up from where he was staring unseeing at the ground, as if he had been standing there for a long time. His face was ashen, the scar over his left eye red and swollen, obviously from crying. Dev took a hesitant step back. NO, no, no, no. Please Terra, no.
“Hector?” Aveline walked over. “By the stars, what’s happened?”
Dev wanted to plug his ears, to run before the man would say the words he was so terrified would be spoken. Please, don’t let it be Molly. Foggily, Dev wondered how his heart was racing when it most certainly had stopped beating.
“Come here,” Aveline spoke softly to her friend, apparently still at a loss to speak. Gently wrapping her arm around his thin frame, she ushered him inside. The two were always a striking pair. Both willowy and moon pale, white hair mixed with a touch of her blonde, all set off by their black uniforms.
Tim set a tray of tea down on the coffee table as the three sat on the couches, Hector in a daze beside Aveline. Dev hadn’t moved from his spot by the door.
“Hector,” Dev heard himself saying, his voice rough like sandpaper and laced with a slight plea. What he wanted from the Vigil, he wasn’t sure. Just…something besides this quiet dread of the next second.
“Is this about what Elena needed you for?” Aveline asked.
Hector nodded slowly and then finally opened his mouth to whisper, “He’s gone.”
Tim and Aveline glanced at one another. Dev merely stiffened while simultaneously deflating. “He?” he asked. “Who? Aaron? Have they found them?” Dev’s voice rose, unhinging as his body prepared to jump into action.
Hector blinked up at them. “Robert,” he said. “There were complications with his recovery. After he got home, he got sick…a fever, and he didn’t…he didn’t…” Hector couldn’t finish his sentence as he leaned forward and put his face in his hands.
Dev had a strange sensation that he was looking at a mirror image of himself not too many minutes ago. Robert, Molly’s grandfather, was dead. Dev lost feeling as he tried to compartmentalize this news with all the other horridness.
“I’m so sorry.” Aveline frowned, clearly hating to see Hector in pain, his body shaking with his silent tears. “I’m so sorry.”
Words, Dev thought, never did the job the speaker wanted them to.
“He lived a long life,” Tim chimed in gently. “A full one, with two worlds that loved him. I know I never met him, but from what Molly had mentioned, I think it was good you reconnected in the end.”
“Molly,” Hector choked out, his gaze filled with agony and loss. “What are we going to tell Molly? She’ll be devastated. She didn’t get to be there…”
“Shhh.” Aveline tried to calm him. “We’ll deal with it when we need to.”
Hector shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. The funeral, it’s on Monday.”
The room collapsed into silence.
“Four days,” Dev whispered, and Hector nodded.
They had four days to find Molly, or her family would realize she was missing. Three days to hope she wasn’t already dead or dying. Dev grasped his chest, his hand unconsciously going over his heart, as if that could stave off the sensation of it bleeding. He didn’t need an end date for him to already feel like they were running out of time, but now…now it was inevitable, urgency on top of urgency. They had a new ticking clock counting down the seconds of the already lit fuse that was racing its way to both their worlds exploding.
— 39 —
When you look up at Earth’s night sky,
don’t remember me in the stars.
I am the blackness in between.
I am the dark that hugs the light,
keeping it safe.
—Part of a letter from Dev to Molly
Time, a concept written about for millennia, weaved in song and scratched out from a poet’s pen. It’s a daunting thing, really. A formidable companion to any living creature, for it keeps going even after we don’t. It will leave us behind as it progresses forever forward. I wonder if it ever gets lonely, knowing nothing but itself will last.
This is one of the things that fills my head on repeat as I lie in my sightless purgatory, for time has never made much sense to me in Terra. With no sun or moon orbiting the night’s sky, I found myself relying on my guards or my patterned schedule to tell me the hour of the day. Rounds with Elena usually happened during the “mornings,” while my training and classes with Cato occurred during the “evenings.” Fighting the Metus just came when they did, punctuality not evil’s strong suit. And here, lying in this dark, damp cave, the only sound the occasional drip of slime hitting the floor in the inky blackness or a mewl from a creature passing through a far-off tunnel, I’m completely lost to its passing. I can only count it from Aaron’s visits. There have been five, each as nightmare filled as the last, each more creative in punishment with his rising need for me to give him answers to his questions. How
did I get back? Who helped me? Where was the DCC, and how can he access it? I’d like to say I’ve kept quiet, that my earlier heroics to remain tight lipped lasted, but…I’m pretty certain it didn’t. I have no real way of remembering. Lucidity in those moments of all-consuming pain is few and far between. There are black spots in my memory, or rather blinding explosions.
Did I tell him how I returned, or did I tell him to each shit again? Or both? From the nagging guilt that swims in my chest, I’m terrified I’ve let something slip, especially since Aaron seems to have been gone longer than normal. I try consoling myself by saying one’s convictions can only last so long after certain…experiments are done to one’s body. There’s only so much a person can take.
Right?
As if on cue, a splintering spasm goes through me, something that has been coming in waves since Aaron’s last electro-shock ministrations. Gritting my teeth, I wait for it to pass and concentrate on a patch of rocks near my feet. The blue-white halo of light from my Dreamer repellant belt slides over their gray surfaces. The belt has rubbed my stomach raw, and if I could lift my shirt, I’m certain there would be a multitude of blisters. But even though I can’t, my arms still pinned behind my back and connected to a long chain imbedded in the cave wall, it’s of little concern to me. I’ve lost the desire to assess my wounds. What do I gain from that? More reasons to cry, to feel disgusted with myself? No, I no longer have the energy to care about my current state. If the smell from the corner of the cave is anything to go by, I’ve hit a low point, and I’d rather not dwell on it for too long.
A sound in the distance causes my head to whip up, my nerves to vibrate in fear, but they are momentarily dashed away by a dizzy spell. I’ve been given very little water and even less food. If the unrelenting torture wasn’t already enough to weaken my mind and body, my hunger and thirst certainly have done the trick.