And she felt sick.
She closed her eyes and counted to ten. Took deep breaths. Waited for the wave of nausea to pass.
When it did, she opened her eyes and looked at the screen. She stared blankly at the list of folders, not really seeing them. She knew what she needed to do. She needed to shut down the computer and leave the room and never ever say a word to anybody about what she’d just seen.
But what had she seen? Who were those kids, and why did her dad have those pictures?
And why where there so many?
It didn’t matter. That’s what she decided. Right now the pictures didn’t matter at all. All that mattered was her getting out of there right this second.
And then, as she was moving the mouse to click the button to shut the computer down, she noticed the name of one of the folders.
At first, it was just random numbers.
To anyone else, they would have remained random numbers.
But to Alexa, when she looked more closely and separated them out in her head, they became a number she was very familiar with.
Her birthday.
No, she thought. Impossible.
She hesitated. Tried to convince herself that it was nothing except a coincidence and whatever was inside that folder had absolutely nothing to do with her. But she failed. She knew that if she didn’t look, she’d spend the rest of the day, the week, her life, wondering if she was wrong.
She moved the mouse and opened the folder and saw it was full of image files.
She clicked and opened one.
It loaded.
And Alexa stared at a picture of herself in the bathroom that was right down the hall from where she was sitting, just stepping out of the shower.
Her entire world collapsed.
“Alexa?”
She spun around in the chair and found her father standing in the doorway.
19
Lance waited only a few seconds before he started to move across room five’s carpet, wanting to see if the Universe would allow him to walk through the door and follow Quinten and the young girl, Alexa. Lance knew there was going to be more to that story, more about the girl, but he wasn’t sure he was supposed to know the details.
And honestly, despite his normal sense of moral obligation to follow up on such things, all Lance really wanted to do was learn more about Quinten. He wanted to talk to him for hours, preferably over many cups of coffee, and discuss the boy’s entire life. Birth to the present. What were Quinten’s abilities? How were he and Lance similar, and maybe more importantly, how were they different?
Lance did not feel too guilty about disregarding his further interest in the girl. After all, Quinten had seemed to have had things under control. Plus, the man on the bed was still dead, and Lance figured that whatever the girl’s problem had been to begin with, it had died with him.
Lance was a step away from the motel room’s door when somebody dimmed the lights inside the room.
No, that wasn’t right. Lance stopped and looked to the window, to where the curtains had been pulled shut. There was no longer any trace of the morning light slipping in along the edges.
Lance turned around and found the room to be completely different.
Murry was gone. The girl, Alexa, was lying on the far bed, dressed in the same baggy sweatshirt and pajama pants she’d been wearing before. Her eyes were focused on the television set, which had been turned on and tuned to a rerun of I Love Lucy.
The man who had been dead when Lance had first entered the room was now alive. Sitting up in bed and reading a paperback novel in the light from the bedside lamp. There was an amber pill bottle on the nightstand next to the phone, and Lance could swear it hadn’t been there in the scene before, the scene where the man had been dead. He remembered the dried vomit and wondered where the pill bottle had ended up.
What wasn’t seen, but to Lance was as palpable as if somebody had been announcing it from a megaphone, was the tension lingering in the air between the girl and her father. Lance watched for several minutes, and every so often the man’s eyes would glance sideways, abandoning the words on the paperback’s pages and staring at his daughter for several seconds at a time. Once, he actually looked up, as if he’d suddenly gotten an idea and was about to speak, but then he quickly looked like he’d decided better of it and went back to reading.
The girl’s eyes never left the television screen. In fact, she hardy moved at all.
The show went to a commercial break and the man set the paperback on the bed and swung his legs off the side. The girl instantly reacted, flinching and sitting upright and beginning to shift toward the far side of the bed.
The man stopped moving, looked at his daughter with something like disbelief, and then hung his head in sadness. “You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said. “I’m your father.”
The girl didn’t respond, and the man stood and went to the bathroom. Once the door was closed, Alexa visibly relaxed, sinking back into the pillows of the bed and watching the television.
And then there was a flicker of the power.
At least, that was the best way Lance could process it. It was as if the power had surged and then flickered off and on, just a microsecond of the room being swallowed in darkness, barely perceptible. And then everything came back into focus and the room was much darker, the bedside lamp was turned off and there was only the glow of the television casting shadows about the walls.
Both Alexa and the man were asleep. The girl was buried deep beneath the comforter, the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up and the drawstrings tight, as if she were trying to protect every square inch of her skin. She was curled up on the far end of the bed, facing the wall.
The man was on his back, his own comforter pulled up to his chest, his mouth slightly open, a steady purr that might have eventually graduated into a snore wheezing from his throat. But it never got the chance. Because then she was there.
As if the darkness had gathered its energy and been able to form itself into a tangible shape, the dead woman from room one materialized slowly, like a Polaroid picture developing in the empty space between the two beds. She was still wearing the clothes she’d died in, the same flannel pajamas she’d worn when Lance had seen her hanging from the bedsheet. She stood in the empty space between the beds, unmoving, staring down at the man, who was fast asleep. Then the woman turned around, moved to face Alexa. She took a small step forward, reached out a hand toward the girl, fingers splayed and wanting, desperately desiring a touch. Then her body heaved in what Lance thought might have been a sob of resignation, and the woman spun back around toward the man, fury in her spirit eyes.
Lance found he was confused. He knew that he himself was alive in a different time, somehow allowed by the Universe to witness these events, unclear as to in what manner he was actually existing right here and now, but he wasn’t sure in what element or time the spirit of the woman from room one was existing. Was she part of the past? Was Lance seeing her just part of his witnessing a previous time? Or was she here now, with him, able to form herself in whichever time and space she wanted, seeing things, like him, fresh and new?
Lance got his answer immediately.
The woman leaned forward and put her face close to the side of the man’s head, right by his ear.
And instantly the man’s hands flew from his side and grabbed his head, his left wrist and forearm passing right through the woman’s shoulders and neck and face. He began to thrash, the comforter flying this way and that, legs flailing. “No, no, no, no, no,” the man mumbled in gasping, broken breaths.
His head and torso shook from side to side, his hands clamped viselike to the sides of his skull. He tried to sit up twice, frantic thrusts of his upper body, but it was as if he was weighted down by something unseen, a great force knocking him back to the pillows. “No, no, no. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” More words forced through lips that were pursed in a grimace of pain. “No, no, no!”
; And with every move, every change of direction and every desperate flail of his body, the man could not escape the woman’s … what? Attack?
To Lance, it looked like she was doing nothing more than whispering in the man’s ear.
And as he moved, it was as though she were attached to him, shackled together, glued to his ear. Her image moved and mimicked his every action, as though she knew every step of his dance an instant before the man did and she was right there waiting for him.
“Okay, okay, okay! No more!”
These words the man had actually summoned the strength to yell. His left hand shot out toward the nightstand and grabbed the bottle of pills, and with a practiced motion, he spun the top off and it landed on the comforter, and the man was dumping the entire bottle of pills into his pleading mouth. He looked like a baby bird reaching up for the worm being dangled by its mother.
The man chewed and crunched and gagged and swallowed each and every pill, letting the pill bottle fall from his hand and come to rest on the bed.
And then the man lay still, flat on his back, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Eventually the breathing slowed, falling back into a steady, calm rhythm. As if everything were finally over and the man was once again at peace.
But then he got sick. A choked gagging sound escaped his mouth and at once he moved to sit up. But he couldn’t. The woman leaned in closer, as if she were pressing down, and the man began to cough and gag some more and then the vomit came, a small geyser that went airborne a couple inches and then landed splat back onto his face. More choking, though becoming more muffled. More thrashing and attempts to move, all met with unseen resistance.
And then the man was still, his chest no longer rising or falling with breath.
The woman was gone.
The room was still.
And then, as if witnessing a time-lapse video, everything sped up to what looked like 1000x speed and the sun was back, fighting through the window curtains and then crossing the floor and climbing the wall.
It was morning again.
Time returned to normal speed and Alexa sat up and moved to sit on the edge of her own bed and looked at her dead father. She sat that way for a long time, and Lance took a few steps closer, wanting to really see her face.
And what he saw in the girl’s eyes, in all her features, was relief. She didn’t even look the slightest bit shocked, or worried, or upset, or surprised, or … anything.
She looked calm. Knowing.
She stood from the bed and walked to her father, her eyes falling down to the comforter where the empty pill bottle and its lid were lying just inches from the man’s cold hand. Then she reached out and picked them both up, securing the lid, and placed the bottle in the pocket of her pajama pants. Then she said something Lance didn’t understand but recognized as a farewell. “I guess the monsters won.”
Alexa walked around the bed, switching off the television as she passed it, and opened the motel room’s door and made a right turn, heading for the office.
Lance knew where she was going. He’d already seen this part.
But he followed her anyway. He knew he was finished in room five.
A step away from the door, Lance froze, his senses picking up something. Another change in the room. Something shifting. He turned around and found the dead man still lying back on the bed, but his head was lifted just slightly, turned in Lance’s direction. His bloodshot eyes stared through Lance and when he spoke, flecks of dried vomit fell from his cracked lips.
“He’ll be waiting.”
Lance nodded. “So I’ve been told.”
He turned and walked out the door.
20
(1993)
Alexa was pretending to be asleep in the motel room.
She’d not slept well ever since that day, the day he’d found her snooping on his computer. At home that night, she’d gone to bed and locked the bedroom door and used all her strength to slide her dresser in front of it. She knew he’d heard it, the sound it made sliding against the wall, her grunts of effort as her arms and back had strained. But he’d said nothing. Let her be.
He knew he’d messed up. He knew he’d done something he could never take back. Something had been broken between them. No, not broken. Shattered to pieces, a million tiny slivers that no amount of restoration would ever repair. Alexa felt this, but she was not sad. A blanket woven of disgust and revulsion kept out all other emotion. Thick and heavy and wrapping her in such a tight embrace it was nearly suffocating. She’d lain on her bed that night, crying rivers into her pillow. Scared and alone.
Because who could she tell? Who could get her dad in trouble? He was a police officer, after all. She thought about all those people who’d gathered at the press conference, how they’d clapped for her dad and how the man in the suit had looked so proud as he’d thanked him and welcomed him to the podium. Her dad was a hero. And who was she? Who would believe her? The word of a silly twelve-year-old against a monster hunter.
Honestly, she wasn’t even sure she could fully articulate what had been so wrong about what had happened in the office after he’d caught her. All she’d known was that it had triggered something inside her, some inherent warning system that had screamed at her, that sent waves of every bad emotion through her bloodstream, stirred the pot in her stomach, threatening it to boil over with sick.
Violation. That was the word that popped into her head. An adult word that she’d heard from time to time but had never had any context in her own life to which to apply it. She didn’t know exactly what it meant, but she knew it fit.
I’ve been violated, she thought to herself. That was what she would tell someone.
But who? The man in the suit? He had seemed important. But how could she find him? She didn’t even know his name.
She stayed in her room all the next day. She’d had to move the dresser to go to the bathroom, but she’d sprinted across the hall and locked the bathroom door behind her and then sprinted back when she was finished. She left the dresser where it was this time, settling for just locking the door. Instead, she opened her window and kicked out the screen, letting it fall into the bushes a few inches below. An escape route, if her dad came in and … and what? Tried something?
He didn’t go to work. She’d not heard the garage door open and close or the alarm set. The phone rang midmorning, and she heard him answer it in the kitchen. The school calling. Her dad saying, “Yes, she’s not feeling too well this morning. Yes, I’m sure she’ll be back tomorrow if she’s feeling better.”
And then silence for hours.
Around noon her stomach growled, and she knew she’d have to eat eventually. Would have to leave the room. She looked to her window and wondered how long it would take him to realize she was gone.
She didn’t get the chance.
He knocked gently on the door. She didn’t answer. Fear seized her heart.
“Alexa, please open the door.”
She didn’t move. Was rooted to her bed.
“Alexa. Open the door. I have something to tell you.”
This time, the doorknob jiggled as he turned it, testing it.
And then there was no warning, just the door suddenly flying open, bits of the door frame splintering from the wall. The sound scared her more than anything, and she’d jumped from the bed, her only thought being to jump out the window.
But he caught her. She’d barely left the mattress before one of his hands grabbed her shoulder and stopped her. His grip was firm, too tight, but there was something gentle about the way he slowly pulled her back, turning her and sitting her on the bed to face him.
She started to cry.
He reached up and wiped a tear from her face. “Don’t cry, baby girl. Everything’s going to be fine. We’re going to take a trip, you and I, what do you say about that? It’s been a while, right? Too long since we’ve had a vacation. I’ve been working too hard and … well, I just think we both need a little relaxation and fun, rig
ht? Would you agree?”
Alexa knew it wouldn’t matter if she agreed or not.
She could still feel his grip on her shoulder from where he’d grabbed her. A phantom pain that would forever be a reminder of how things had changed. He’d never touched her with such force. Had never so much as laid a hand on her in her entire life. Not a swat on the bottom or anything more. She knew then, as he kneeled down only a foot away from her, that wherever he wanted to go, she was going to have to go with him.
But maybe that was better. Maybe out in the world, she’d find a way to get help. Maybe a plan would come to her. Maybe she’d find the right person to tell.
She had to believe these things, had to have hope. She’d made the decision right there on her bed at twelve years old that what had happened in her father’s office would not be the end of her. Would not define her.
Somebody would help her, and she’d know them when she saw them.
They’d ended up here at this motel. He’d made her pack her suitcase and they’d taken off, pulling out of the garage with Alexa staring at their house with an odd sense of mourning. Goodbye, she’d thought.
They’d driven for the remainder of the day and then straight through the night, with Alexa dozing off and on in the passenger seat and her father stopping at gas stations for fill-ups and huge to-go cups full of coffee. Dinner had been at a McDonald’s drive-thru, and at one of the fill-up stops he’d purchased an assortment of snack food and sodas and bottles of water, telling her to help herself to whatever she wanted. In the ugly yellow light shining down on them at one of the gas stations, the clock on the dash saying it was just after three in the morning, Alexa cracked open a bottle of water and took a sip, daring a glance at her dad as he munched on a bag of pretzels. For the briefest of moments, she thought he looked scared. Which provoked the thought, Are we running? Is he trying to run away from what happened? And that shard of hope that she’d demanded herself to cling onto grew larger. If he’s running, he thinks he might get in trouble.
The Lance Brody Series: Books 3 and 4 Page 33