by W. J. May
“I’m here, Mom. What’s up?” Storey hated the coolness in her own tone. Her day hadn’t been the best to begin with. She warmed her smile.
“Oh, Eric didn’t come back with you, did he?” Her mother peered around the corner of her room as if looking for signs of him hidden in the closet.
“No, Mom. He had to go home.”
“Oh.” She smiled brightly. “He seems like such a nice boy.”
“Yes, he seems nice.” Then, looks could be deceiving, as she’d found out.
“Is he...special?” Her mother’s hopeful expression fell as Storey shook her head. “You two looked so great together.”
“Maybe. Unlikely. I don’t know. I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if I were you.” Storey knew her Mom had watched her social life with a wary eye during her relationship with Jeff and immediately afterwards.
“Well, if it’s meant to be and all that.” She smiled. “Why don’t you come down and have a cup of tea with me?”
“Who’s here?”
The smile dropped from her mom’s face fast. She hesitated. “Do you resent all the company? I never thought.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “We do have a lot of company though, don’t we? I’m sorry. It’s your home, too.”
Oh, brother. “Mom. Stop. I’m fine with the company. I’m glad you have so many friends. That you’re happy with your life and your beliefs.” Mostly, anyways, but she wasn’t going to open up that discussion. Not now.
A smile peeped out. “I wish you’d consider joining...”
“I know. At the moment, I’m not feeling it.” Although after what she’d seen today, Wiccan didn’t seem as odd or farfetched as it had yesterday. “I’ll make my own decision. I just need some time.”
“Then time you shall have.” She smiled. “And there’s no one downstairs right now. Let’s go have a cup of tea and some fresh poppy seed cake.”
“Best offer I’ve had all day.” In a rare moment of concord, the two linked arms and headed for the kitchen.
Storey could only hope her bedroom would still be empty when she returned. She’d forgotten to consider one tiny problem – how to close the portal she’d created from her side.
* * *
Chapter 9
Getting along with your mother beat trying to avoid her. Two hours later, Storey headed to her bedroom door, yawning. She had homework to finish but no energy to care about such minor details. Pushing her door open, she came to a sudden halt.
She gasped, checked behind her to make sure she was alone before stepping in a shutting the door behind her. “Oh my God,” she hissed. “What are you doing here?” Leaning against the door, she stared at Eric, who lay half asleep on her bed. Damn, he looked good there. As if he belonged.
Not.
“About time you got here. I’ve been waiting forever.”
“Why? What do you want from me?” Pulling out her computer chair, she sat down facing him, before her knees gave out on her. “And how did you get in?”
“Same way you did, only I removed the paper as I went through so we couldn’t be followed.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Cool. Too bad I didn’t think of that. Then again, I wasn’t sure if it would work in the first place.”
“Well, it’s not there anymore.”
“Thank God. It’s a little creepy to have people entering my bedroom from another dimension. Maybe the kitchen or living room, but not my bedroom, thanks.”
He just stared at her.
“Okay, I’m babbling. Sorry. It’s just a little unnerving to have you here out of the blue like that.” She stared out the window.
“They want me to bring you back.”
She tilted her head and studied the look on his face. Odd wording. Hmmm. “And what do you want to do?”
“I don’t want you to go over there again.”
She raised an eyebrow. So much for seeing where the relationship with Eric might go. Long distance didn’t quite cut it, as she already knew. Look what had happened to her and Jeff.
“Good, then I won’t. The last visit was enough for me, anyway.”
“They’ll send someone else if I don’t bring you back.”
The shadows lengthened in the early evening light. “They again.” She watched him carefully, sensing more to the story. “How much force will ‘they’ use to make me go back?”
His face paled.
Her stomach twisted. “That much, huh?” She didn’t want to dwell on it. They didn’t look like the kind of group that lived and let live. “Did they come to an agreement about the Louers yet?”
Eric shook his head. “I think they’re more concerned about you being a loose end.”
Her eyes widened. “They’re afraid of me? Of what I might say? Do?” At each successive nod, the knots in her stomach tightened. She closed her eyes. Think, damn it. There had to be a way out of this mess. “What are my options?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been lying here and going over them. None are great.”
“List those you’ve considered.”
He appeared to choose his words carefully as he listed off choices that included him never going back, going back and helping his people after negotiating her return, hiding by moving to another part of the planet so the people coming behind him wouldn’t be able to find her.
As he rambled on, she had a distinct sense that something was wrong. “Okay, out with it. Something else happened. What?”
He sat up and swung his feet over the bed. “They’ll kill you if you go back.”
She swallowed. Hard. “As a conversationalist, you suck.”
His lopsided grin slipped out. “Sorry. Not used to this kind of conversation.”
The grin did it, easing the weight on her chest threatening to suffocate her. She grinned back. “Yeah, it shows. So they don’t want to leave any witnesses behind, huh?”
“Something like that.”
Silence fell.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” How had everything gone so wrong? A few days ago life had been normal. She’d been wishing for something new and different to come into her life. A death squad from another dimension wasn’t what she’d had in mind. “So, if I go with you they will kill me. If I don’t go with you they’ll send a team over to retrieve me then kill me anyway? Where’s the option that lets me live?”
“I think that’s the run part, so they can’t find you.”
“Except you have technology that allows your people to track me, while I don’t have anything to help me evade your people. So that’s hardly an option.” She studied the fatigue in his eyes. He looked like he’d been to hell and back. “What happens to you if I don’t go back with you? Anything? Or just a slap on the wrist because you didn’t follow orders?”
He stood up straight, his face lean and ravaged. “Death. The Council says I will face a death sentence if you don’t go back with me.”
Storey couldn’t believe it. Studying his face in disbelief, she found the truth in his pain. Eric’s father was head of the Council. If he’d ordered his son’s death over this...he was a monster. “Why would your father do that?”
“According to him, you’re a threat to national security and that outweighs his parental concern.”
“Bullshit.”
He winced.
She laughed bitterly. “Sorry, but that’s a load of crap. There’s no way I’m a security issue. He’s power tripping.”
“Maybe, but it’s effective. He issued the order in front of witnesses. It has to be carried out. There is no rescinding that kind of order.”
She stood and stared up at his face. Nothing like parents to remind you of your humanity. “I’m sorry. It has to hurt to hear your life has so little value.”
He snorted. “You think?”
“I’m not going back there. Not so they can use me as a lab rat and then kill me out of their own fear.”
His eyes stared down at her, closed briefly then opened, bright blue lights shining deep. “I know and I would
n’t want you to.”
“Except that means your death.”
“I know,” he said, his face seriously grim, his decision clearly made.
She respected him in that moment.
“Okay, this is ridiculous. Now that we’ve settled that, let’s come up with a way to make this right for both of us.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
It was that faint hope peering from deep inside his eyes that settled her determination to find a solution. One where they both got to live.
***
Eric stomped on the hope trickling through him. It wouldn’t do to put too much credence in Storey’s skills. What she’d achieved so far was phenomenal. But he had to face reality. Paxton hadn’t helped after his father had stormed off. “You shouldn’t have pushed him like that.”
“I pushed him?” Astonished, Eric could only stare at his beloved mentor.
“Yes, you forced him to declare his intentions with the girl. He can’t back down now. We might have found a way around this mess but for that.”
“Like what?” he scoffed. “She’s right, you know. We’re all about us. Not about them. Everything is our way. The mistake was ours in the first place.”
“She didn’t have to pick up the stylus,” Paxton said fretfully.
“She hardly had a choice – it called to her. You said yourself that it wanted to go home. No one is looking at that. People need to realize she’s a victim here. The stylus targeted her. She didn’t mean to do this. She had no idea that she could do any of this.”
“Regardless of how this started, she’s in the middle of it now. We have no solution to the Louers either.”
“She’d have been happy to help.”
Paxton snuck a glance around the room, then leaned forward to whisper, “Do you think so?” At Eric’s nod, he said, “Then go bring her back. Please. Our very existence is at stake here.”
Eric studied the older man. Did he believe that? Or was it just another attempt to get Eric to do his bidding? “I can’t deliver her to her death.”
“Don’t think of it that way. It would be a state sentence being carried out.”
“It’s murder.” Eric said. “I’d be bringing her back under false pretences.”
“No. Not at all. Tell her we need her help.”
“And what?” Eric threw up his hands. “And don’t tell her that as thanks, we’re going to brand her as a traitor to the state and have her killed? Are you insane?”
Paxton reared back. “No. But if you don’t bring her back, then a retrieval team will go after her anyway and you’ll both be killed.”
Eric had contemplated the two horrible options. He didn’t want to die. Neither could he let Storey be killed. “Even when the orders are wrong?” Fatigue slid through his voice. He was more tired than he could believe, and none of it was related to how he felt physically. The emotional stress of the last few hours had leeched everything from his system.
He glanced around the lab where he’d enjoyed so many comfortable hours with Paxton. Paxton had been more of a father to him than his own flesh and blood version. “Tell me, would you bring her back, knowing you were bringing her to her death?”
“If I had to, as much as I don’t like the idea, yes.”
“Why is it a ‘had to?’ Why is death the only option? She’s not going to hurt us – particularly once she understands the problem.”
“You don’t know that. We have to get the stylus back. That she should be bound to it is intolerable.”
“Why? Maybe they have soulbound objects over there.”
“We’ve seen no sign of such a thing.”
“Again that arrogance. We haven’t seen them, therefore, they don’t exist? Why do you insist we’re better than they are?”
“That’s not what I said. Don’t go putting words in my mouth.” Paxton’s voice turned testy. “Get ready. It shouldn’t take you long to find her.”
“It won’t be easy to persuade her to return,” warned Eric. Already he was calculating how long they had to make their getaway.
“Don’t take too long. Your father will give you a few hours, overnight probably. If you’re not back by noon tomorrow, a retrieval team will be sent over.”
“Is anyone else over there now?”
“No. There aren’t any planned missions in the next year.”
“Hmmm. Just wondered if we had spies living on the other side of the veil.”
Paxton stared at him in shock. “Of course not. We’ve never done that. What for? They’ve never been a threat to us before.”
“And they still aren’t.”
“It’s time for you to do what you need to do.” Paxton gave him a hard look.
Eric frowned, studying Paxton’s face. Had there been a weird inflection in Paxton’s voice? The wording had been interesting. Do what you need to do.
Now, lying here in Storey’s room, that’s the phrase he focused on.
“Hey, are you there? Felt like I lost you somewhere, just now.”
“I’m here.”
He stared at her, his gaze flat and concerned, for a long moment. Long enough for her sunny smile to fall away and be replaced by a worried frown.
“Run away with me.”
***
“What did you say?” she squeaked. Was that horrible, high-pitched girlie voice really hers? Oh God.
“It’s the only option. I can teach you how to evade my people, and you can teach me to live over here.”
“Why run, then?” she asked cautiously.
He stared at her again in that deep, intense way, as if he could see to the center of her soul. Maybe he could. His people seemed to have untold skills and technology, she thought resentfully.
“The retrieval team won’t be polite. I’m afraid of the lengths they might go to get the information they want from your family.”
“Oh my God. Are you saying they might hurt my mother?” At his slow nod, she collapsed beside him on the bed. “This is so not happening. I didn’t care until you mentioned my mom getting hurt.” She buried her face in her hands. “I’ve been so stupid.”
A warm hand squeezed her shoulder. She dropped her hands to find him leaning over her.
“You haven’t been stupid. That you managed to do what you did, took a remarkable amount of resourcefulness and ingenuity.”
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow at him, inordinately pleased when he nodded. So he thought she was smart. Well good. She was no dummy. She knew that. “Running away isn’t the answer.”
“Why not?” He sat down beside her and held her hand. “We can’t fight. There are too many of them.”
“Maybe. Once we start there’ll be no end to our running. No, we have to find a way to remove the ‘kill order’ from my head.”
“My father won’t back down. He believes you’re a threat and that’s that.”
She studied his face. “For a society that talks and doesn’t act, it seems odd that he’d make one statement and then stand by it.”
“That’s why they talk so much first. Once they embark on a course of action, they stand by it.”
“What if we kidnap him – until he changes his mind?” Eric looked so horrified, she had to laugh. “Kidding! But we need to do something offensive instead of defensive. Once you’re on the defensive, it’s hard to get off of it.”
“What, did you take Spy 101?”
Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she grinned. “Football.”
His shock had her laughing out loud.
“Then we kidnap someone other than my father. The security surrounding him is impressive.”
“What about your security?” she asked curiously. Did no one care about Eric?
“Don’t have any.”
Nice father, worried more about protecting himself than his son, but she refrained from pointing that out. “Could we negotiate?”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“What if I offer to help, providing the
death sentence is rescinded?” she chewed her bottom lip, worried by one big issue. “And can we trust them to keep their part of the agreement afterward?” She wasn’t sure they could. “Hmmm. Why are the Louers so feared?”
“It has to do with the kind of people they are. They’re more like a pestilence that feeds on others. Literally.”
“Gross. Are you saying they’re cannibals?”
“Supposedly. At least according to the archives they’re human-like, but more animal in behavior.”
“Like a dog? Horse? A monkey kind of thing?” She couldn’t quite reconcile the long boney fingers pushing the door open in her drawing with any kind of animal.
“I don’t know.”
“Or are they just ‘lesser people’ like your kind consider me to be?”
“I’m not sure.” He frowned. “I hope not. Everything I’ve learned has come from the archives.”
“Written by your unbiased ancestors, no doubt.” Storey snickered. “Why were they locked away in this third dimension anyway? And don’t forget that outside of that hand in my drawing, there’s been no sign of Louers in either dimension.”
“As far as the archives report,” he admitted at her knowing look, “they hunted my people. They had stealth and skills that gave them the upper hand in wars. We were a peaceful people. They made us slaves. It’s said that they ate our kind, as well.”
“Well, the slave thing certainly isn’t new and neither is the war. Your people were the weaker of the two and lost the fight. Maybe your people did something to bring the battle on their heads, and they rose up against you.”
His gaze widened. “No.”
Storey wasn’t so sure. It might have happened that way. If Eric’s people were in any way like her own, war was almost second nature. And Eric might not know all the facts. After seeing his people in action, she doubted they were as innocent as he’d like to believe. His wouldn’t be the first society to wipe their history, and therefore their record, clean. She’d learned that much in history class. “How long do we have?”
“Until early tomorrow, I’d say.”
“Does Paxton monitor all the screens all the time?”