“I’m not going anywhere, Zyah,” he assured quietly.
She took a sip of the liquid. She’d never tasted anything so good. It wasn’t too sweet. Or too tart. The drink actually cleared the clouds from her mind, and she was able to take a full breath for the first time since she’d felt the malevolence enter her space.
Player walked to the end of the bed to stand in front of her grandfather’s drawing, staring at it. He was motionless as he sipped the drink. She didn’t really understand what he expected to see. He was standing right where the White Rabbit, Sorbacov and, ultimately, the malevolent eyes of the intruder had been. Zyah sighed and began to write down her impressions of the night’s events and then the time before when she’d first felt the presence of the intruder.
“I’m finished.” Zyah put her empty flute on the bedside table.
Player slipped back into bed next to her and handed her his notebook, taking hers in exchange. She read his notes several times, frowning. Shocked. Not comprehending what he put down at first. His handwriting was impeccable. He didn’t scribble, and each letter was precise, flawlessly slanted. No one had such perfect handwriting. It almost looked as if a machine had written the notes rather than a man.
“Player? You think this evil entity is inside my grandfather’s drawing?” She couldn’t keep the quiver from her voice. Even trying to concentrate on his handwriting and wondering how it had gotten so perfect couldn’t prevent the absolute horror from recoiling in every single cell in her body.
She loved her grandfather’s drawing. Every stroke, every line had been drawn with love. He had spent months on that carefully drawn artwork for her grandmother. And the frame? Moving like some ancient scroll? Her father had done the same—taken months of care to create a masterpiece to frame the art for her grandfather’s gift of love for Anat. How could Player think evil could intrude on love? It was impossible. Impossible.
“You believe you saw those eyes staring at us from in front of the drawing?” Player said. As usual, his voice was low. Where her voice had been all emotion, and she was still wanting to leap out of bed and pace or roll over and weep, he was very calm.
“Yes. They had to be. The White Rabbit was there like he always was, standing just over your shoulder. Then he was Sorbacov. I saw Sorbacov much clearer this time. His features. He was blurry and transparent, but I could see what he looked like. And right where his face was, where his eyes were, there was the other one.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering, remembering the way those eyes had looked at them. Too real. As if he could really see them. Identify them. She suddenly gasped. “Player. You didn’t have a shirt on. You have a Torpedo Ink tattoo on your back. It’s too large for anyone not to see it. He saw you and saw me. When you kissed me, he saw your back and the Torpedo Ink tattoo.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
Why did he have to be so pragmatic about it, as if it didn’t matter at all? It mattered. If that man was real and he was looking for Player, he now had a way to find him.
“His eyes were in the center of the drawing, Zyah, looking right at us. From inside the drawing. Think about it. Picture it in your mind.” Again, his voice was very calm.
She shook her head, rejecting the idea. “You don’t understand about that drawing, Player. Nothing evil could ever get inside anything created with such love. I just won’t believe that. My grandfather loved Anat. It was in every single thing he did for and with her. My father loved my mother that same way. The person looking at us isn’t capable of anything close to love, at least I don’t believe he is.”
“Have you ever really examined that drawing?”
She frowned at him. “What is that supposed to mean? It’s been in my life always. It’s hung in my room since I was a little girl. I begged Mama Anat for it. I know every line almost by heart. I think I could reproduce it, as well as the frame.”
“Have you studied it from various angles?”
“I’ve looked at it from every angle.” But had she? Growing up, she had just admired the drawing on her wall. Then she’d been at school and then off to college and overseas to her job. Since coming home, she’d spent more time with the artwork, but she hadn’t really taken the time to study it from every angle. What was she expected to see?
“Do you know what anamorphosis art is?”
“I think so. The artist distorts the drawing or painting in some way, and the viewer uses a mirror or some device to see the true picture. Right?” She looked at her grandfather’s very precise drawing. “But there’s no distortion.”
“My mind sees in patterns.” For the first time he hesitated.
“We have to discuss this, even if you think it’s going to upset me, Player.” She knew she was going to be upset no matter what. That clarifying drink, so refreshing, had cleared her mind enough to give her the strength to continue. She needed to do this. It had to be done. She and Player had to figure it out once and for all in order to keep Anat safe as well as Player. Everyone, for that matter. She pressed her hand to her churning stomach. She loved her grandfather’s picture. Had the eyes been staring at them from inside the picture? Was that even possible? No matter how terrible, they had to get at the truth.
Zyah tried to do what Player said and go back and pull the details out of her head—not what she wanted to see but what she’d really seen. Player covered her hand, and she realized she was gripping her thigh so hard her fingers were digging into her skin as she tried to recall the details. She’d been afraid the moment she saw the White Rabbit, even when she was aware she hadn’t heard the ticking of the bomb. She could see the boy was no longer at the bench, but a man was bent over it, working. She would recognize him anywhere with his wild hair and distinctive tattoo.
The White Rabbit peered over his left shoulder, tapping his foot impatiently and staring down at his gold pocket watch. She tore her gaze from the watch to look above him. The rabbit’s head was centered exactly in her grandfather’s drawing, but in front of it. Relief flooded her. The White Rabbit began to fade, and there was the rather handsome older man looking a bit like the devil with his silver-streaked hair and beard, standing where the rabbit had been. Sorbacov wasn’t as distinct as the white-furred creature. Much more blurred, even fully transparent in spots, his head in the exact spot the White Rabbit’s had been, in the center of the drawing, but in front of it.
Zyah took a deep breath, filling her lungs with Player, before turning her gaze inward again. Instinctively, she tightened her fingers around Player’s. He immediately brought her fingertips to his mouth and kissed them before pressing her palm to his thigh and just holding her hand there tightly. Those eyes staring so malevolently had really scared her, and conjuring them up again was terrifying, but they had to know. She had to know she was right.
She forced herself to look at Sorbacov, his face. His eyes. He was staring down at Player so gleefully. Twice he switched his gaze to his watch. He was a man who loved power over all things. He rode on the waves of fear pouring off the children when he visited the “school” he’d created for his chosen victims. His eyes showed how depraved he was. Still, Zyah refused to turn away. She wanted to see that moment when he began to fade and the other took his place. The transformation was entirely unexpected.
Zyah swallowed and even leaned toward the apparition, even though it was all taking place in her mind, not in the bedroom. She saw Sorbacov fade even more, his facial features so thin she could see her grandfather’s drawing distinctly behind him. The lines were etched into her memory, so she knew them and filled them in around his head, like a child’s Etch A Sketch.
Weirdly, her eyes began to play tricks on her. The frame around the picture appeared to be rolling slowly and then picked up speed. She glanced back to look at Player. He was staring at the picture, his eyes very focused. They were holding hands, sitting close together, backs to the headboard, staring at her grandfather’s drawing.
Her heart began to pound as she for
ced herself to look at Sorbacov. His head had completely faded away. Those malevolent eyes were staring at them, and they were all too real. Around the eyes was absolutely nothing but black. There were no lines. No charcoal drawings. The eyes did seem to be set back into the drawing, not out in front of it, as if the drawing itself were some kind of a tube.
“Player.” She whispered his name, knowing the entity was gone, but still terrified. She needed the connection of her hand on his thigh, but raised the other one defensively to her throat. “What is that thing? Why is it here in my bedroom with us? It really does look like it’s inside my grandfather’s picture.”
He suddenly gathered her into his arms and pulled her onto his lap. “Stop shaking. We’ll figure this out. I can take you and your grandmother out of here and put you somewhere safe until we know what is going on.”
Zyah buried her face in his throat. He was always so warm, his body comforting. “My instincts are very strong about this, Player, telling me we can’t be separated. From the very beginning I felt we had to be together.” At no time had that changed. If anything, her feeling had grown even stronger that they needed to stay together for safety.
“I believe this man has something to do with the bomb,” Player said. “I just don’t know what. I don’t understand how he managed to get into this room. I had to have brought him here, but I don’t recognize him. Can you sketch those eyes? It’s possible Czar might recognize him from his eyes, but I sure as hell don’t.”
The eyes had been very dark brown. Zyah slid off his lap and reached for the notebook and pen so she could hastily sketch the eyes while she had them in her head so starkly. Very heavily lashed. There were lines around the outside corners of his eyes as if he’d seen a great deal of sun, but because the eyes sat right in the middle of an empty black hole, it was difficult to even see those. That was more of an impression.
“I think you’re right, Player, but how would he know about the bomb? How could anyone know unless he saw you building them as a child?” She put the notebook down and rubbed her chin on her knee. “He would have had to know about not only your illusions but the fact that your illusions can morph into reality if you suffer a brain injury.”
He shook his head. “It can happen if I hold an illusion too long.”
“Not even your brothers and sisters knew that, right? Czar didn’t know. You went there the other night to tell him. You were so upset that you’d held that information back from him. If none of them knew, who could have known? An instructor at the school? Did Sorbacov know? Could he have told someone?”
Player tilted his neck until he rested the back of his head against the headboard. “That’s a lot of questions, babe. I have no idea who could have known. Not one of the instructors. Certainly, none of the other students. My people had eyes on me, and they didn’t catch on. The other kids didn’t know me that well. They wouldn’t have had a clue even if a life-sized bunny hopped through the room. Sorbacov is a different story. It’s difficult to say what he knew. He had cameras planted everywhere. Once we began to kill . . .” He broke off and glanced at her.
Zyah pressed her lips together and then looked down at her hands. Player had lived a horrific life. They couldn’t pretend he hadn’t, and they couldn’t tiptoe around it, not if they were going to be together in the way she needed to be with him. She wanted a total connection. A total sharing between them. She wasn’t the kind of woman to be in a partial relationship. It was all or nothing for her. If he didn’t feel the same way, she needed to know that now.
“I realize you and the others had no choice, Player. Not only do I believe you had no choice to do what you did, I think there was justice in it. I don’t like the fact that you were children—babies, really—but there was no one else. If you were going to survive, how else were you going to do it? Ask nicely? I doubt if that would have gotten you anywhere.”
Player touched her face with gentle fingers, brushed across her lips and then down her chin. “I don’t know how I got so lucky to meet someone like you. I don’t like that you have to share what happened to me when I have nightmares—and I have them all the time. I don’t normally build real bombs. I build bombs that don’t work just to clear my mind. But you shouldn’t have to see that world I grew up in, and if you stick with me, Zyah, it will continue to happen.”
Zyah shrugged. “I like the intimacy of telepathic communication, which means being in your mind. I like knowing things about you that you don’t share with others.” Not even his Torpedo Ink brothers and sisters, but she didn’t say that aloud. “If you’re going to have a real relationship with me, and I’m not saying you are because I just don’t know if I can trust this yet, I won’t settle for second best. I won’t settle for halfway. That means occasionally neither one of us is going to be comfortable.”
“I said you shouldn’t have to see the world I grew up in, baby, I didn’t say I wasn’t willing for you to see it. I think it’s a little late to pretend I’m Prince Charming.” He gave her a little half smile that tugged at the corners of her heart. “I’m willing to take you any way I can get you. One tiny piece of you at a time. And I’m not so proud I won’t tell you so.”
She lowered her lashes, veiling the expression in her eyes. He could read her so easily. That gift he’d given her. The basket was right there. So close. The contents exactly right for her and thoughtful. “You have to stop saying things like that.”
Deliberately, she turned her attention back to her grandfather’s drawing. “Do you really believe that you can see something in his drawing that I haven’t, when I’ve looked at it for all these years? And my grandmother. If she knew, surely she would have said something to me.”
“I’ve considered that,” Player said. He slid from the bed again and walked over to where the picture was hung on the wall.
Zyah’s heart accelerated, pounding hard. She hadn’t wanted to believe her grandfather’s art had anything to do with the entity that had been in her bedroom, but now that she wasn’t certain, she didn’t want Player anywhere near it. She jumped up and quickly turned on the light, dispelling the shadows, hopefully making it impossible for the thing— or person— to sneak back.
Player glanced at her over his shoulder. “He can’t get back right now.”
“How do you know?”
She came up to him, quite close, one arm sliding around his waist, not-so-subtly hinting. He reacted exactly the way she knew he would—he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, her front to his ribs, tucking her close the way he so often did. She took a deep breath, inhaling him into her lungs, and then turned her head to look at the picture.
Every line, thin or thick, was so familiar to her. She knew them by heart. The frame, that beautifully rolled frame, carved with such loving detail into an intricate scroll of ancient time, complete with symbols. She’d traced every one of them a thousand times and pressed kisses onto her fingertips and then onto those etchings just to connect with her father. She moved her head from side to side, fast and then slow, to try to see if the lines in the drawing changed at all. Once or twice she thought they did, but nothing very significant, and it could have been an illusion, simply because Player had suggested it.
“What do you see when you look at the print?”
“I see the schematics for a bomb.” He delivered the news softly. Gently. That same low voice he spoke with every day. Not like he was crushing her. Or would be crushing her grandmother if what he said was the truth.
She tried to pull away from him, but his arm tightened around her.
“Don’t, Zyah. We want honesty between us. I don’t have to be right. You asked me a question, and I answered you truthfully. I didn’t want to. I could have lied to you. I know if I’m right this is really fucked up. But my brain works out puzzles. I don’t even consciously do it half the time. I stared at this drawing from the bed for hours when I first came here. It intrigued me. I couldn’t look away. Sometimes I thought it was pulling me into it.�
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“Your mind automatically goes to putting together bombs when you’re upset, Player,” she pointed out, looking for a reasonable explanation. There were many. There had to be many. “You had a massive brain injury. It was natural for your brain to go to the one thing that’s your fallback when you are severely injured and traumatized.”
He didn’t just dismiss her explanation out of hand. He considered it carefully. “That’s reasonable, Zyah. I thought of that too. But it doesn’t explain the fact that this bomb is one I’d never seen before. And it’s very real. It works. Or that I studied the picture for hours from every angle while I was in this room and I could see it very differently. I’ve been here for weeks now. I know there has to be a device to read it somewhere. An object that the drawing is viewed through. Your grandfather was a genius to create this picture and have it be right out in the open and no one suspect.”
Zyah did her best to have an open mind and process what he was telling her. Was it possible? “If my grandfather actually did what you’re saying he did, that means he came up with the plans for building a new bomb, right?”
“He was a physicist, right?”
She was silent for a while, staring at the drawing that had suddenly taken on a sinister implication. She sighed. “I don’t want to sleep in this room, Player. We should put a cover over this until we figure out what really is going on. Or better yet, get it out of the house.”
“I agree. I think it’s gotten to a very dangerous stage. I need to know who that man is. He isn’t an entity from another world or another time period. That’s a flesh-and-blood man from the here and now. He knows us. He looked right at us.”
“Do you think he has anything to do with the robberies? Or the attempted kidnapping?” An icy shiver crept down her spine.
Reckless Road Page 33