by Bella Street
Fenn's photograph blinked. “Are you okay?”
It took Seffy a moment to realize Fenn was bending over her prostrate form.
The preceding events filtered into her stunned consciousness.
“Did I faint?”
“I think so.”
She stared up at his gaunt face and red-rimmed eyes—the blue irises faded of their usual intensity. “What's wrong with you?”
“I'm sick, remember?”
Seffy's head throbbed. She peered up at him, fighting disorientation. Then she noticed the photo on the wall just over his shoulder. “Is that her? Your daughter?”
He turned slightly, following her line of sight. When he turned back, his gaze became shadowed. “Yes.”
Closing her eyes briefly, she focused back on Fenn. “Did you kill her?”
After a long moment, he said, “In a manner of speaking.”
“How?” When he didn't answer, she prompted him. “Was it poisoning?”
He sighed then held out his hand.
Seffy avoided it. She didn't want to touch a killer. Instead she struggled to a sitting position and rubbed her face as she got her bearings. Why am I always falling down? Maybe Olga injected me with clumsy juice.
When she got to her feet, Fenn straightened with obvious pain.
She took a deep breath and looked around again. “So, what is this place? A contrast in centuries? Techno meets medieval? ”
“It's my private...study.”
She sent him a flat look. “What the hell do you study?”
His mouth lifted in a tired smile. “My failures, mostly.”
Seffy regarded the faded photograph of the little girl over his shoulder before returning his gaze. “She walks these halls you know.”
For a moment, his eyes flared. “I know,” he whispered.
“She told me she was lost.”
A look of pain twisted his face. “Seffy—”
“She tried to get me killed. Several times.”
Fenn looked away as if he was caught in some torment.
She noticed faint bruising on the skin stretched over his bones. When he didn't say anything, she tipped her head upward. “Looks like your ceiling sustained some serious water damage.” Her fingers went to the objects on the chain around her neck. “Any idea how that happened?”
He reached out to the table for support, his breathing elevated. “There was a leak in the roof.”
Seffy digested his answer for some time as cold apprehension uncoiled within her. “What's directly above this room?”
Now both hands held onto the table. “The maintenance staff said there must've been a skylight that leaked into the attics.”
Her heart pounded out an unnaturally loud beat. Did he hear it?
She wanted to ask if he knew about the Light Room but was afraid. “Why would there be skylights to the attic? Why not to the rooms where people could enjoy the light? Doesn't that strike you as odd?”
“Seffy,” he said, sounding breathless, “I need to explain to you about the girl.”
“Angelique?”
He looked at her in confusion. “Who?”
“Your daughter. That's her name. At least that's what she told me.”
He closed his eyes again, his respiration harsh.
Seffy wondered if she should call Olga. Aside from his labored breathing, the only sound in the room was the hum of the machinery. “No one else could see her. Just me.”
He began to cough. “Little angel,” he finally said. “Angelique means...little angel.”
Seffy snorted. “Yeah, there's a real theme around here. Kinda ironic, wouldn't you say?”
“But that wasn't her name.”
“It wasn't? So she's a liar?” The idea struck her as funny. A laugh escaped her. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
“It...was Seraphina.” He took a breath. “Which also means angel.”
Seffy ran her hand roughly through her hair, feeling restless and ready to leave. The room creeped her out—what with its old/new vibe. She had no interest in digging around in the compound leader's creepy private stuff anyway. She tried to remember where the door was—which way she'd come.
“Seraphina,” she said scanning the wall nearest the computers. “Sounds like a hippie name. What'd you call her for short? Sera?”
She froze and turned back to Fenn.
His eyes burned like coals in his thin face. “Yes.”
The name seemed to echo in her mind for a moment as she stared at him.
Sera.
Sarah.
She swallowed as a buzzing sounded in her ears.
“I thought you'd know. I thought you'd sense the connection.” Fenn's pleading expression confused her.
Sarah.
How many times had he got her name wrong?
How many times had he called her that?
Sarah.
She moved past him in a daze to stare at the photo on the wall. The girl had dark eyes and blonde hair. She could be anyone. Just some random kid on some creep's wall.
Then she noticed the clippings and documents to the right of the photo—all yellowed with age. A birth certificate. A first grade report card. A photo of a front porch that struck some latent memory.
There were maps, notes, and newspaper articles, some with headlines about the lost children of the local foster care system. One said: 'Entertaining angels unawares? Abandoned Botticelli taken in by town mayor.'
Her breathing began to match Fenn's.
The next document showed her eighth grade school photo. Followed by each successive yearbook picture. A whirlwind roared in her mind, making it difficult to match logic with what she saw.
More report cards, snapshots, maps lined the wall, ending with a brochure of the clinic at Cedars-Sinai where she worked.
She turned to Fenn as the roar died down to a sudden silence. “How did you get all these photos of me?”
“I went back so many times looking for you,” he said, his eyes filmed with tears. “The radiation finally got to my bones.”
His words didn't make sense. “How did you get these pictures?”
“I thought she could help me find you. And in a way, she did.”
“Who?” Seffy said in a flat voice. She was gripped with a sudden impulse to slap Fenn hard across the face.
“Verity, of course.”
The room closed in on her, muddling her thoughts. “Verity.”
“She turned on me. Wanted to stay. Later, she wanted to have you killed so I'd stop jeopardizing her plans. That's why she brought Jared and Clay into the picture—to go after you so she didn't have to.” He paused. “I never imagined she'd be capable of murder.”
One by one, mental tumblers shifted into place. One by one, images and memories coalesced into shape.
Which meant she was looking at the key.
But no matter what he said, no matter what things he'd tacked to a wall, there was no way.
No way in hell was he her father.
His nose began to bleed. Seffy turned away from him, gazing at the wall. Soon the contents blurred together. “What is this room? What is the equipment?” she asked, her voice rough.
“It's what brought you here.”
She turned around, clamping her mind down on the revelations to focus on what she needed most. “Then it's what you'll use to send me back. I want Trent.”
***
“Lani, you are never going to believe this.” Gareth walked into her room after a quick knock.
The brunette sat at the desk with a piece of paper and pencil. She barely acknowledged his entrance, her eyes focusing on something inward.
Gareth hesitated. “I...figured out what Eugene gave me to work on. I can't believe it took me so long. It's embarrassing really.” He held out the smoothed sheet of paper. “This is a diagram of the heating, cooling, plumbing, wiring, A/V, and alarm systems here at the compound. If I didn't assume I was looking at wormhole diagrams, I might have caught on sooner
.”
Lani stared at him, through him. “What?”
Gareth tamped down a stab of impatience. He was becoming invisible around here. Unneeded and purposeless. “Which either means Eugene gave me the wrong paperwork or he's trying to keep me out of whatever they're doing in the computer lab.”
“Gareth,” Lani said faintly, “I figured it out.”
He raised a brow. “What did you figure out?”
“Verity was from the past.”
***
Fenn dabbed at his nosebleed with the back of his hand, weaving precariously next to the table. He stared at the blood as if wondering how it got there. “When it was discovered you had something that could be exploited, Verity changed tactics.”
Seffy ignored him. Each of his words was an atomic bomb, making excuses and denial impossible.
She headed to the machinery and stared at it, clenching her hands, wishing she had some understanding of electronics. But she didn't understand anything else either. What was the point? Nothing made sense.
Maybe it never would.
Even if a thousand questions were answered.
Even if she had the truth.
Verity.
“Is this equipment what you used last time?”
He nodded with obvious reluctance. “I coordinate the timing with Eugene so it appeared to really take place in the computer lab.”
“Why?”
“No one knows about this room, Seffy. Not even Fiona.”
Angelique knew. She brought me here. Seffy briefly closed her eyes. It was beyond her to wonder why. All that mattered was getting back to her husband.
Ignoring the steady drumming of her thoughts, Seffy ran her hands along the consoles, looking for something with a sign that said 'push this button to return to 2006.'
“I thought she was going to bring you home.”
“My home is Los Angeles,” Seffy said, pushing a series of colored buttons. Unhappy beeps were her only response.
“I never dreamed she would turn on you. That she would turn on me. We were partners.”
Seffy abandoned the consoles, deciding a more direct approach was needed.
She prowled through the room looking for something large and heavy. But there were only chairs and tables, and iron wall sconces. When that search failed, she started in on the shelving, looking through drawers.
A pistol lay in a bottom drawer. Seffy stared at it in dawning horror. It was a 9mm Glock. Could it possibly be the one that killed her husband? Malone mentioned he'd turned it in.
She lifted it out with shaking hands, wincing at its cold, dead weight in her palm.
Dropping the mag, she counted five bullets. If it was indeed the murder weapon, another bullet was most definitely in the chamber.
As Fenn remained silent behind her, she turned around with the gun. His stark expression reflected her intentions.
“Seffy, what are you doing?”
“And here I though my name was Sera.”
“Seraphina Catharine Fennigan.” He swallowed, pale and trembling. Blood continued the leak out of his nose and drop onto his shirt. A small spreading stain soaked the fibers. “Why did you change it?”
“Are you serious?”
He looked away for a moment, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “No, I understand.” He turned back to her. “I didn't know about what happened to you until it was too late.”
“The real question is,” Seffy said lifting the gun and aiming it at him, “which will give me more leverage? Blowing out your brains? Or mine?”
“I understand you're upset. You have every right to be.”
Seffy smiled. “Don't bother trying to psychoanalyze me. It won't work. My brain's been too souped up on chemical cocktails.”
“We found out Jared was responsible for the drugging,” he said quietly. “He was unable to finish the job Verity had tasked him with. Preferred torturing you instead. Some guards and residents already afraid of you outsiders were willing to help.”
She relaxed her shoulders the way Malone had taught her. “I want to see Trent. Go fire up your equipment and send me back.”
“It's not that simple.”
“Sure it is. You said yourself you've done it several times.”
“Seffy, please. You're not this person.”
She smiled, her face rigid with derision. “Obviously you don't know me at all. Guess that happens when you dump your kid.”
He cringed at her words.
“Shooting you would make me feel mildly guilty, what with it being patricide and all. Then again it would have the secondary effect of denying you any kind of culmination to whatever new soul-destroying plan you have.”
“Seffy.”
“Killing myself would make you feel bad—though that may be presumptuous on my part—but would otherwise probably effect little change. I guess my friends would be sad for awhile.”
He took a step toward her.
“But as I know I'm going to die anyway, I suppose doing the job with the weapon that killed my husband has a certain poetic flair.”
Fenn's pasty face paled even more.
She raised a brow. “Is it Malone's gun?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Please put it down.”
Fury rolled over her. “Haven't you been listening to a word I've said?”
His mouth tightened. “Have you heard a word I've said?”
“Nothing you've ever said has had any meaning. And since my outcome is set, I might just get on with it...unless you send me back to my husband.”
“The outcome is not set—”
“In the tangent universe, I'd been gunned down on the street. Trent overdosed. I've died once. Trent has died twice.” Her voice broke on the last word.
The gun bounced slightly in her hand.
“It's not a foregone conclusion. The fact that you were killed in the tangent was because Verity set something in motion there.”
“The same thing she set in motion here.”
His gaze beseeched hers. “Yes.”
“So why not stop Verity when you had the chance?”
“I...I tried, but I got sick.” He grimaced. “Seffy, think about it—if I send you back to 2006, Trent won't be there. He's gone.”
His words made something snap within her. She lunged at him, pushing him against the wall.
He slid to the floor in a unresisting heap.
She stood over him with the gun aimed at his chest as he sat stunned and disoriented.
“For once in your life, Fenn, stop screwing things up. Just fix them!”
His eyelids grew heavy. “I'm dying, Seffy. I need a transfusion of your blood. It's the only thing I have left to try.”
“You've had plenty of chances to bleed me dry while I was strapped down and yet you only think of this now? Send me back to Trent—I don't care what tangent it's in.”
His head lolled against the wall. “It takes time to make the calculations, set up the coordinates.”
Seffy spied a phone on the wall. “Call Eugene. Tell him to get started.”
He sighed, his eyes heavy. “It's something only I can do. But I'm out of time.”
“Oh, don't you dare use that excuse. You've had all the time in the world.”
He tipped his sweating face up to her. “How could I ask when you were grieving? How could I take when everything had already been taken away from you?”
His excuses made no sense. She glared at him, wondering why he was denying her the one thing she craved.
After a moment she noticed moisture on his face. She realized it was from her own tears.
Her finger twitched against the trigger.
“I won't take your blood, Seffy. I'm asking.”
She gritted her teeth. There was only one way this ended. He was going to die anyway. Olga had said so. And everyone already thought she was a murderer. Might as well live up to their assumptions—might as well put the man who had failed her in every way out of his misery.
Ou
t of her misery.
Seffy lowered the gun only to press it against his forehead. Maybe she should try for a frontal lobotomy shot.
“Wait.” He licked his lips, his eyes stark in his emaciated face. “There is a way.”
Chapter Eighteen
“I don't get it.” Addison stared blankly at Gareth.
Gareth shrugged. “I don't much either.” Addison had arrived after Lani's strange pronouncement.
“Think about it,” Lani said, jumping up from the chair. “Everything started going crazy when Verity came along.”
“I thought that was because Seffy was jealous of her.”
“Well, there was that component, but I think that was just something organic that Verity used in her favor. And even though Seffy pooh-poohed the idea that the Zannytu DVD purchase had anything to do with it, I believe it did.”
“What did you see in her anyway?”
Gareth was startled to realize Addison was speaking to him. “You guys, it never got serious with Verity.”
“Would it have if we hadn't been brought here?” Lani asked.
Regretting he thought to ever share his lack of a time-travel discovery, he shrugged. “It's a hypothetical.”
“I always thought there was something off about her.”
He rolled his eyes at Addison. “You did not.”
“She always pumped me for information about Seffy,” Lani said slowly. “I thought it was because she wanted an in with Gareth.”
“And you gave the info.”
“No, I didn't!” Lani swished her hair over her shoulder. “I discouraged Verity as much as possible. I felt she didn't have Gareth's best interests at heart.”
“I'm glad to hear you guys have my, er, best interests at heart, but trust me, my eyes were wide open, too.”
“Yeah, you probably couldn't take them off her boobs.”
“Nice, Addison.”
“It's true there was something fake about her,” Lani said. “Like she was into fashion without understanding style. Based on her taste in clothing, sometimes I wondered if she was into the retro thing.”
“Huh?” Gareth wished he could keep up, but on the flip side, the conversation was pointless.