“What is it?” Nadine asked.
“I didn’t have the door handle replaced,” Roman said.
“Does it look like someone replaced it?” Nadine asked.
“Definitely.”
“Maybe someone’s in there,” said Lisa, her eyes filling with apprehension. “But we’re not making the same mistake we made in the prison. As soon as I see or hear anything out of the ordinary, I am sending us back to our bodies. Got it?”
Nadine nodded. “That works for me.”
“Same. We ready?” Roman asked, shaking out his hands.
Nadine and Lisa nodded.
With Roman in the lead, the three pressed into the doorway, passing through the body of a man.
Roman stopped as soon as they were clear of a large man. He turned to see Ian Turlock standing directly before him, the man’s red skin on full display, small protrusions jutting from his shoulders, his eyes completely black.
“Holy shit,” Roman whispered.
“It’s him,” said Nadine, her natural response being to take a step back.
Another woman stood at the other side of the living room, a woman with her head shaved and a dead look in her eyes.
A groan coming from the bedroom caught their attention.
“We have to be careful,” Nadine said, reaching out for his hand. Roman let her take it, the three of them strangely tangible with one another.
“I should go in first,” said Lisa.
“No, this is my home,” Roman whispered. “Whatever is on the other side of that door is something I’ll have to deal with eventually. Besides, like you said, no one can see us.”
After another look around his place, Roman reached the closed door, hearing more groaning on the other side.
He pressed through the door and gasped at the next thing he saw.
The hooded woman was on his bed, her knees up, legs spread, pants off and panties missing as Roman’s new doll ate her out. And as shocking as this image was, it was what Roman saw next that truly drove the dagger in.
Celia was on the bed too, nude, touching her breasts as she made eye contact with the woman. She eventually bent forward and dropped one of her nipples into the woman’s mouth.
Roman started to scream.
He jumped for the bed, his body going through the doll, through the hooded woman and into the apartment below.
Once he was on his feet again, he brought his fists to his back, tugging at the cord made of energy as he floated into the air, trying to move up again as he had so easily done with Lisa near him.
Lisa and Nadine lowered down, Nadine’s hands over her mouth and Lisa blinking rapidly, trying to process what she had just seen.
“We’re going,” the young exemplar finally managed to say.
“Go!” Nadine shouted to her.
As if Lisa had struck a string on an invisible harp, Roman heard a loud note, lights beginning to flash all around him as he gasped for air, now back in his own body.
He pulled his arm away from Lisa, tearing off the cloth that attached their wrists.
“I’m ordering a teleporter,” he said, panic rising in his chest as he got to his feet.
“No, no,” Nadine told him, moving toward him as he got to his feet. She brought her hands to his cheeks and held them there for a moment. “No, not like this, not now.”
“What the hell was that?” Lisa asked.
“That’s my fucking wife in there!” Roman shouted. “Her dead fucking body! Get out of my way!” he said, trying to storm past Nadine.
Nadine brought her hand back and slapped Roman. “Stop,” she told him as the walls began to rattle, the floorboards creaking, the door opening as Oscar ran into the room.
“Get out of my way,” Roman said, darkness swelling all around him. “I’m going there now.”
“She was there with his wife,” Nadine quickly explained, again getting in front of Roman and pushing him back. “Stay back. You are not in the right mindset to go there. We don’t have enough manpower. She will kill you and turn you into a fucking corpse.”
“No…” Roman started to sob, sitting down on the edge of the nearest bed. “No…”
“I don’t always condone drinking, but considering what you’ve been through, this may take the edge off,” Oscar said once Roman had calmed down some.
Lisa had left the room, leaving Nadine with Roman, who still sat on the corner of the bed, his dolls lifeless on the bench across from him. His elbows were on his knees, his hands covering his forehead, white hair jutting out all around his fingers.
“I’ll just leave this here,” said Oscar, who went for a stone bottle on the dresser. He turned over two glasses next to the bottle, grunting as he left and indicating to Nadine that she needed to get this man under control.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Nadine said as she went to the bottle, pouring a glass for Roman. “This is very potent stuff from the East, made out of various roots and tonics, aged in oak barrels for several decades before they’re ready.”
“Why would someone do this to me?” Roman asked as he eyed the glass of liquid. Eventually, he took it from Nadine, brought it to his lips and threw it back, wincing as the licorice-tasting alcohol seared down his throat. “More.”
Nadine took his glass back to the dresser, filled it, and filled her glass as well. “Try not to drink it too quickly, though. Enjoy it, let it calm your mind.”
“What would you do?” Roman asked, suddenly looking up at her with his orange eyes.
“What would I do?”
Nadine handed him the glass, and this time Roman simply held it in his hand, his eyes still locked on her. “What would you do if your husband died, someone stole the body, and then you came home one night to see your dead husband’s corpse alive, in bed with the person that stole his body?”
“I…”
“I’m not finished. This was after you were attacked by someone you barely knew, the same person killing in cold blood someone close to you.”
“You mean the woman you were visiting?” Nadine asked, the look on her face telling Roman that she was still trying to put together the story he had told her earlier.
“She was a nice woman; her name was Harper. I was starting to get to know her better. Nice woman. She was cooking dinner for me. Her roommate was supposed to be there, too. I didn’t even see her roommate. She’s probably dead. So that’s how my night started, and then…” Roman threw back the drink and handed the glass to Nadine again.
“I can only imagine,” Nadine said as she too finished her glass, wincing as the alcohol burned down her gullet.
“I should go there…” Roman said, starting to stand.
“No, you do not have the power to deal with that right now,” Nadine told him. “Roman, listen to me.” Nadine handed him another full glass of liquor. “You and I, we have a situation going on here between us. Not like that—I mean we seem to work together well. Don’t you agree?”
“Yeah,” he finally admitted.
“And I plan to help you, because I’m disgusted by what this person has done, by what I’ve seen.”
“That was my new doll with her,” Roman said as he took a sip of the alcohol. “She was there too. We tried to activate her, but it wasn’t worth it; there was something off. I don’t know what I was planning to do with her, but I figured I would deal with it another day.”
“You mean the woman that was…”
“Yeah, the woman that was between her legs, eating her out. That was my doll.”
“Fuck. This scenario gets more twisted every time I learn more about it,” Nadine said, taking a sip of her alcohol.
Roman guffawed, the alcohol clearly having an effect on him. “Tell me about it!”
“You really do live a pretty twisted life, especially since you got that superpower of yours.”
Roman’s eyes went wide; Nadine reached out to him, assuming he was going to be sick.
“I’m fine,” he told her, but she kept her hand the
re for a moment, moving closer to him, her arm eventually going around his shoulder. “What is it now?” she asked.
“There’s even more to my day that I didn’t tell you about.”
“What else could possibly have gone wrong with your day today?” Nadine asked, removing her arm and taking a sip of her drink. She laid her hand on his shoulder, and Roman didn’t stop her from getting closer.
He needed the comfort in that moment, and he was already suppressing the urge to bring her into his arms and just hug her, be close to her—someone alive.
Someone alive…
Roman took another drink. “Do you remember Kevin Blackbook?”
“The dead guy?” Nadine asked. “He jumped off the roof, right? And then an exemplar saved him, and he was later killed in the hospital. You know, I was meaning to look into that, because it did sound a little strange how he died…”
“Kevin is alive.”
“Come again?”
“Right before we went to the East, the attack at the office. Remember me telling you about that? I pretty much showed up right after, kind of spooked.”
“I remember.”
“It was Kevin who did it.”
“You’re serious?” Nadine finished her glass and went for another, returning to Roman side, even closer to him than before.
“I’m not kidding. Before I quit this morning, I talked to one of the guys in the office. Everyone is saying it was Kevin who attacked the office. They said he had some cat girls with him, including the one I killed. At least I think I killed her. I really don’t know.”
“Let me get this straight. Kevin Blackbook, fat nerdy Kevin, is attacking Centralian government offices?”
“That’s what they said, and this power I have was supposed to be his, so part of me wondered initially if it was Kevin who had come after Celia. But that would be impossible.”
“Do you think Kevin is trying to get you?”
“Do you remember a lanky rich kid named Phil at the office?”
“I remember,” said Nadine. “I really try not to forget people; they sort of ingrained that in me back in the East. You never know when someone’s going to come back to haunt you, or become an important part of your narrative.”
“Well, Phil said that Kevin asked where I was, which was why he sent the cat girl down to HR to get me. I think there was some confusion. Kevin asked for me, and Phil told him that the last time he saw me, I was down in HR, which was true, because that was where I went before to fill out my bereavement paperwork. Anyway, Kevin was trying to get me and Selena, who wasn’t there.”
“Did she give you any shit today?” Nadine asked as she brought the cup to her lips. She took a sip, savoring the burn this time.
“Yeah, but I really don’t care now. I’ll never see her again in my life, if I’m lucky,” Roman said with disdain.
“She really got under your skin, didn’t she?”
“Yes, for a very long time, and I got my own taste of revenge when my complaint forced her to go to a diversity and inclusion retreat or something. But if I had stuck around, she would have made my life a living hell.”
“Likely.”
Silence stretched between the two of them for a moment, Roman staring down into his glass and taking another sip. “Anyway, maybe Kevin’s trying to come after me as well. I really don’t know.”
“Well, between Kevin and the woman who can animate the dead, it’s pretty clear where your priorities lie.”
“That’s true…”
Roman relaxed some, his shoulders dropping even further.
Soon he was lying on the bed, his feet still on the ground, holding his drink with both hands as he stared up at the ceiling. It wasn’t long before Nadine was lying next to him, also staring up at the ceiling.
“I don’t know what to do about the lady, but I probably should have been nicer to Kevin,” Roman said. “I mean, we were cordial, sure. But on the rooftop, I was too busy trying to flirt with you. Stupid, I know, but you were the newest female member of the office, and I was…”
“You were just being you?”
“No, not exactly. Celia’s coma kind of sparked something in me, and I just wanted to be next to someone, and for some reason, that ‘someone’ turned into far too many one-night someones. It was a way for me to gloss over it, a way for me to cope, and it was wrong.”
“You carry a lot of guilt, you know that?” Nadine lifted her hand to his cheek, turning his face toward her. Careful of her drink, she turned to her side, her thumb stroking the side of Roman’s face, rubbing against the bits of white beard stubble beneath his sideburns.
“What are we doing?” Roman asked.
“I think we’re drunk. And I think you’ve had one hell of a terrible day.”
“Can I sleep with you?” Roman asked.
“Come again?”
“No, I mean in your bed. Can I sleep in your bed?”
A soft smile spread across Nadine’s face. “Sure, I would like that.”
Chapter Ten: Stopping By
Kevin, Turquoise and Obsidian appeared in front of Roman’s building, the three joined by Scarlett and James Tew the telepath, who had reluctantly decided to tag along.
Sometimes James could be standoffish, but Kevin didn’t mind his company, especially because the telepath never tried to skim through Kevin’s thoughts.
Kevin had been the type of employee who went to any extra training provided to him by the Centralian government, even if it meant he had to stay after hours. He was reliable in that way, and anyone with training requirements or anyone new always met Kevin at the various sessions.
This meant that he attended every single telepathy prevention session, even the ones they’d stupidly held during days off, Kevin happy as a clam to learn more about preventing telepaths from reading one’s mind or controlling a person.
“Let’s just see if he’s there first, and then play it by ear,” Kevin reminded the group.
“And we’ll actually be paying him a visit?” Turquoise asked. “Because I’m ready.”
Her claws pressed out of her fingers, a solemn expression taking shape on her face and her ears flitting back.
“I don’t know if we should try to attack him or not,” Kevin finally said.
“You are the one that wanted to come here,” James reminded him. The telepath was wearing a gray beanie, his blue eyes shining. “I assumed you had a plan.”
“Yes, I do have a plan, only I haven’t quite solidified it yet. Turquoise says that Roman attacked her back at my previous place of work. Scarlett saw him too.”
“Me too,” said Obsidian. “Well, we saw a man with white hair; his face was covered by a mask of concrete. If that’s Roman, then I saw him.”
“And if he attacked Turquoise, and he’s as powerful as you say he is, why are we visiting him?”
“Good question,” said Kevin as he turned to the entrance, James falling behind him. “The thing is, I worked with Roman for a long time, and I need to know if it’s true; I need to know if he’s secretly had a power this entire time. Now, whether he lives or not, we’ll just have to see how that plays out.”
“He dies,” Turquoise reminded Kevin.
“Let’s just see how it plays out,” Kevin told her for the third or fourth time in the last hour.
It was well past midnight and a fog was settling over the city. The streetlamp on the corner barely provided any light, but the glow from the bodega was bright as Kevin took the steps to the entrance to Roman’s building.
Using a listing on the side wall near the entrance, he located Roman’s home and turned to the stairs.
“How did you know he lived here?” Scarlett asked.
“We went on a retreat together a year or so ago,” Kevin explained. “We had to bunk together, and he told me about the apartment he was trying to move out of. It was after his wife went into a coma and he later ended up staying here, no sense in trying to leave any longer.”
“What happen
ed to his wife?” James asked.
Kevin shrugged. “Beats me. He never did say much about it. Last I heard, she was still in a coma.”
Kevin stopped at the top of the stairs, straightened his uniform, and nodded for Turquoise and Obsidian to go forward, the two cat girls dropping low as they slipped into the hallway. Both of them stopped in front of his door.
Obsidian looked at the door handle for a moment and bent forward, sniffing it, her ears standing to attention.
“What is it?” Kevin asked as he approached. He had never seen the dark-haired cat girl so scared, the color draining from her face as her eyes widened.
“What is it?” Turquoise repeated Kevin’s question, getting ready to break through the door need be.
“It smells like…”
“Who?” Sam whispered as James approached.
“Like the woman back at the prison, the one who attacked us,” she said, shock coming across her face as she exchanged glances with Turquoise and James Tew.
“Her?” Kevin looked at Scarlett, the teleporter placing her hand on both of them just in case they needed to move quickly.
“Kevin,” Obsidian said, her tail starting to hang limp. “We shouldn’t go in there. I’m sensing something. It’s a bad idea,” she whispered.
“I’m not getting any reading whatsoever,” James said, “which is curious.”
“Then…” An idea came to Kevin, one he had called upon time and time again that often had a roundabout way of working out for him. “Then we’ll go to my brother.”
“Right now?” Scarlett asked.
“Better now than never.”
Chapter Eleven: Fair Warning
Nothing much happened between Roman and Nadine, Roman not really looking for anything more at the moment, especially with his lifeless dolls sitting not too far from him, watching him in a way.
It did feel nice to hold someone in his arms, his chin on her head, Roman taking in the morning light yet not quite knowing what the day would bring.
He had lived through many days, some long and some short, many forgettable as soon as they passed. It was strange to think that a day like yesterday contained within it so many different situations, from discovery to turmoil, freedom to despair.
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