by Seren Goode
“One way to find out.” I put my finger on my necklace. Breeze did the same with the ancient stone, and Skylar reached up to his cuff.
“Hi Skylar,” said Breeze.
“Hi Skylar,” I mimicked.
Skylar shouted out, “No way!” Several passengers stared back at us, and he lowered his voice. I smirked, and Skylar confirmed with an embarrassed grumble, “I heard you, Breeze, and you, too, Grace. It works.”
“Which is amazing.” I reached out my finger and tentatively touched the ancient necklace. “This is prehistory, from the Bronze Age—before the US was established, before Europe was a power, way before the Romans and the Greeks.”
“How do you know all that?” Breeze’s voice was full of wonder.
I looked up and blushed. “I, um, read a lot.” I ducked my head to study the ancient necklace again. “I just don’t understand how our parents got a stone a renowned geologist had never seen before that matches an ancient necklace.”
Shim pulled the red journal back to his lap and flipped a few pages back and forth. “Listen to this.”
June 17, 1995 – Against my better judgment, I have been coerced into taking on Sid Cambridge as my research partner. I knew his proposal of an anonymous donor to fund our work sounded too good to be true. It is through a group called Helios Funding. He says they sought him out based on inquiries he made—against my recommendation and advice—to colleagues on the chemical results from our test on the students’ rock.
True, we have unlimited funding now. However, none of our work can be published except through Helios’ permission structure and much of what we are expected to do, like spy on the students that brought us this specimen and do material testing on clothes the Helios send us—some of those articles of clothing had dried blood stains, the poor souls—is distasteful. The Helios group wished to speak with the students, and I am most relieved they seem to have disappeared with the rest of the sections from the rock. We still have the one piece Sidney cut illicitly for us. Our work will continue using this specimen, and we will find the truth. I don’t know if the world will ever know of the discoveries we have made.
“I wonder if they ever got the stones to communicate?”
“So far, it’s not mentioned in the journal, but they probably studied them for years after our parents left.”
“I wonder who this Clark Warren is and how he know our parents? Where’d he meet them? How did he know to refer them to Stringham?” I asked. More puzzles to solve.
“You know, it’s odd he never says our parents’ names,” Breeze pointed out.
“Who, Stringham? Maybe that was his way of protecting them. He hid the journals because he knew the Helios were dangerous,” Shim theorized.
“Maybe,” Breeze replied.
“Is anyone else feeling like we got a raw deal from our parents?” Jaxon interjected sourly. The thought had occurred to me, and from the other’s faces, they had been thinking it too. We were expecting to find our parents and maybe some truth about my mother’s death when this investigation started. Now it seemed the bigger mystery was surrounding her life and all our parents’ lives.
“Maybe our folks were just really scared, like Waters said, and didn’t think it was safe to tell us,” Breeze offered.
“Maybe they didn’t trust us,” Skylar whispered heatedly, mindful of keeping his voice down in the bus. “Did Dad think we couldn’t handle the truth?”
The others looked as upset as I felt.
Shim shrugged. “It makes sense to me. I’ve always felt locked out, separated by secrets from Kindle and Logan. That’s just standard operating procedure for Kindle. And Logan, he just doesn’t care. Even if he knew something, he wouldn’t tell me.” Shim looked relieved to say the truth that he had always known out loud. He glanced at his brother. “But he would talk to you. Did he ever say anything?”
Jaxon made to protest, but he dropped his head “No. I don’t think he knows anything.”
“We still don’t know anything. That’s the problem! And these journals—the more we read, the more questions I have. And they only tell us the professor’s point of view. If we really want to know what happened, we need to find my mother’s diary.”
I felt betrayed. I had been lied to about something so monumental that it resulted in my mother’s death, Shim being neglected by his father, and our parents’ kidnapping. We all needed to know the truth. We needed to know where they were and what this Helios Funding Kratos thing was. We deserved that truth.
We spent the rest of the trip researching the Helios Funding group and reading through the journals. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot more about our parents. The remaining entries were about the research Stringham and Cambridge did on the piece of the stone they had kept, and there were several entries discussing the dissatisfaction with the almost Mafia-like exclusivity of the Helios arrangement, along with a few descriptions of some of the more terrifying ways the Helios would discipline you if you disappointed them.
There was an entry dated a couple months after our parents would have left listing a male’s personal effects that had been sent for study from the Las Vegas area. Those items had included clothing items, a plaid shirt and jeans, and a ring with markings similar to the gold disk from the Wadi Halfa site. Stringham had been very excited when he noted it, but he said they were unable to find a reason for the similarity.
As Shim studied the detailed drawing of the ring in the journal, he had a eureka moment. He got so excited he could hardly speak. Sitting up, he had pointed a hand at Breeze while he caught his breath.
“Holy Sources, Breeze, give me your dad’s watch.” Breeze dug through her bag and handed it over the seat to Shim. We all stared as he lay the journal in his lap, then flipped the watch over and compared the engraving to the drawing in the journal. There was no denying the marks on both pieces were a similar style. Jaxon laid the ancient necklace next to the watch, and Shim rummaged in his bag, pulling out the picture frame, flipping it face down next to the other three items on his lap. The marks on the ancient disk were faint. We hadn’t even noticed them before, however, when laid beside the others, the similarities had been too close to dismiss.
“You know, this kinda looks like something I’ve seen before.” Breeze said, scrunching up her face in thought. “Maybe on a rock or in a book.”
“Like a petroglyph?” I asked her. Breeze shrugged.
“Like a language—” Shim said, his voice thoughtful.
But what did this mean? Was it even connected to our parents?
Chapter 26
National Atomic Testing Museum
Another transfer and twelve hours later, we finally arrived in Vegas. I peeled myself off the seats, convinced I would find the pattern of the fabric engraved on the backs of my thighs. The smothering heat enveloped us when we left the terminal to catch a local bus. We got off the bus on the strip. The traffic noise was jarring, and the bubble of introspection I’d been in since we started reading the journals broke. I felt like one of the bugs on our bus’ windshield. I was trying to adjust to the shocking differences between this city and Portland, and I desperately needed a bath and several hours without the hypnotic vibration of movement.
Shim said his father, Logan, was a developer who played with real estate like monopoly pieces. They were always moving into his newest project. When Logan had completed a place called The Vine Towers, he moved the family into a posh five-bedroom condo that took up half of the top floor. Later, they moved to a complex he was developing in Summerlin. After their parents divorced, Logan had moved back into the condo, which he had been unable to sell once the market had crashed. Shim and Jaxon split time between their parents. They sounded rich, but Shim assured me it was all other people’s money. Whatever, it still sounded nicer than sleeping in a broken-down old VeeDub called Van Ekman, but I didn’t tell him that.
I tried n
ot to gawk as we entered the modern building right off the strip and rode an exclusive elevator to the top floor. But I had to scrape my jaw off the floor when I saw the apartment. Just from the door I could see a balcony large enough to host a football game, a patio spa pool, and floor to ceiling glass windows that, frankly, freaked me out. I was going to stay away from those and their view down.
“Won’t your dad be upset we’re barging in on him?” I had to ask. I was still standing in the expansive entryway. Jaxon described Logan O’Connell as a foul-mouth force of nature, and that was when he was saying nice things about him.
“Nah, he’s spending the summer in L.A. working on some deal,” Shim assured me.
“Probably shaking down an old folks home,” Jaxon muttered.
For everyone else, as soon as we had entered the apartment, their behavior had changed. Weeks of tension from being chased eased away, and they quickly relaxed. Except me. I was still trying to figure out if I should take off my shoes. I finally decided to kick them off and try to get past the entry way.
“Dude, stop messing with the channels.” Jaxon said. I had finally talked myself into entering the sunken living room, and Jaxon had the massive wall-mounted TV on. Skylar was trying to wrestle control of the remote from him. “We need to see the weather.”
“There’s no food.” Breeze came in through an arch on the opposite side of the room. Behind her was a sea of granite and stainless steel. “All he’s got is protein powder, eggs, and beer.”
“My dad still lifts weights, and he tends to stick to the basic food groups,” Shim responded loudly from somewhere else in the condo.
“Come on, this show is boring,” Skylar whined, trying to pull the remote from Jaxon’s hands, who then stood on the coffee table and held it over his head. Skylar tackled him, driving him into the sofa.
“Skylar,” Breeze shouted at her twin to stop and, when that didn’t work, grabbed a sofa pillow and started beating him over the head. I was surprised at her defense of Jaxon, and so was Skylar, who launched himself at her next with a bout of laughter. Jaxon didn’t realize Skylar had pulled back his tackle of Breeze and retaliated. Limbs flying, he hit the back of my leg and brought me down into the mix.
“Stop.” Shim waded into the limbs. “Watch out for Grace’s arm.” Jaxon gave him a half-hearted sucker punch in the gut, and Skylar grabbed his arm and pulled him down into a headlock, trying to give him a noogie. Okay, maybe twenty-five hours on a bus was too long for anyone to not lose their minds a little.
“Quiet. This is what I was waiting for.” Jaxon shushed everyone as the weatherman came on and confirmed a weather front was moving into the county. High winds and dust storms were expected for the next twenty-four hours. “Well, that’s it then. We can’t go to Gypsum tomorrow. Too dangerous in a dust storm.”
“Woo hoo! sleeping in.” Skylar had pulled himself out from under Jaxon, who was trying to detangle his limbs from Breeze’s.
He snatched the remote out of Jaxon’s hand. “Victory!” Skylar crowed.
∞
“You want to go where?” I walked into the room. The twins were looking at Shim like an alien had invaded his body and started speaking in pig Latin.
“Oh, not that old museum again.” Jaxon groaned. “I’m not going. Besides, the X Games are on.”
We had slept in, ate leftover pizza from the night before for breakfast, and now we were lounging around the living room. Jaxon had Duchess out and was letting her wander around the apartment and explore.
After being trapped on the bus for so long, I thought I just needed to clean up and sleep, then I would feel more comfortable here. I had investigated the spectacular bathroom and slept on the softest sheets I had ever felt. But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get as comfortable in this apartment as Duchess was. I kept expecting the owner to come barging in, and I was worried about touching anything since it all seemed so expensive—which was ridiculous. I could sail a $100,000 boat, but I was nervous about sitting on a ten-thousand-dollar couch? But no matter what I did, my muscles just got tighter and tighter.
“Need some company?” I blurted out “I mean, I like museums.”
Shim looked surprised but recovered quickly. “Sure. Anyone else want to go?”
Skylar shook his head and rooted himself deeper into the couch.
“Um, I was hoping I could try out the patio pool?” Breeze asked Jaxon. Jaxon nodded enthusiastically, and Skylar tried to sneak the remote away while he was distracted.
“Well, I guess it’s you and me.” Shim gave a weak smile. I immediately regretted begging to join his trip. He had been weird since we arrived. “Jax, maybe you can check on the bikes and make sure they are ready for whenever the weather lets up.”
Jaxon grunted an affirmative.
“Okay, we will leave in about thirty minutes,” Shim said.
I nodded. Shim nodded back then spun around and disappeared.
∞
“You’re kidding, right?” We stopped walking in front of a huge concrete block of a building, an anomaly in Las Vegas. The sign out front said, “National Atomic Testing Museum.” This was Shim’s favorite place in Vegas?
“What?” he defended sheepishly. “It’s fascinating, and they have a new exhibit I wanted to check out.” He didn’t say it, but his eyes begged, Please. “They close in two hours, so we won’t be long.”
“Okay, okay,” I conceded.
Even though I had protested and declared I didn’t want to define it, I had thought Shim and I were getting closer in Portland and then on the bus. That had all changed the minute we arrived in Vegas. With his strange mood, I had been worried about spending time alone with him today. But he was begging.
I grabbed his arm and led him into the museum. Maybe this could be our ground zero.
∞
“That is so gnarly,” Shim exclaimed as we left the Ground Zero Theater. Replicating a test-site detonation, the experience made me feel displaced. The detached voice counting down, then the mushroom cloud and the chairs shaking like a real bomb had gone off. Shim tugged at my good arm, pulling me deeper into the museum.
The lights were low, shadowing the concrete walls and rock and metal surfaces. Newsreels of test bombs were rolling around us; glass cases displayed Geiger counters, canned crackers, and a million other minutia of nuclear history.
Shim dragged me over to a poster sporting an image of a man in a HAZMAT suit with a camera. The text read: “How to photograph a nuclear bomb.” It was next to the exhibit he was here to see: “Area 51 – Myth or Reality.”
We stepped into a dark room with rows of bench seating. A video introduction was nearing the end of its loop, and Shim headed to the front to wait for the next cycle, but I balked, shivering from the chilled air blasting from the vent at the front of the room. I grabbed a seat in the back corner so I could lean against the wall. Shim reluctantly relocated but made sure as he took a seat next to me where he still had a good view of the screen.
He was kind of a nerd.
I liked it.
As the opening credits of the video started, Shim kept his eyes on the screen, and I kept my eyes on him. I squirmed on the hard bench. Leaning against the wall at this angle was hard, so I pulled my legs up and laid them on his lap. I was sitting perpendicular to him, leaning against the sidewall of the room, waiting to see what he would do.
“Um, excuse me, docent, but there seem to be two people behaving inappropriately in the back of the theater,” Shim whispered out of the side of his mouth. It was nice to see his mischievous smile again, even if his eyes stayed on the screen. After a minute of my legs being there, he raised his hand and put it on the bare skin of my ankle, his thumb rubbing circles on the skin. The tingly shivers that went through me had nothing to do with the AC. His hand slid up higher, to my knees, sliding under the fabric of my jeans. His hand roamed from knee
to ankle like he was drunk on my skin. The touch of his warm fingers and palms left a trail of sparks under my skin.
Suddenly, a loud blast of music punctured the room, followed by the detached voice of a narrator over black and white images of men in uniform.
In the flickering light, my eyes traced Shim’s profile. Reaching out a finger, I hesitated, then slid it down his cheek, a light brush. Shim turned his head from the screen, his cheek curving into my palm, his lips nuzzling into the heel of my hand. His lips were so soft, so full. He had a classically beautiful mouth, like it had been sculpted, and a faint blush darkened his skin, still a little chapped from the days we had spent sailing. In the dim light, his amber eyes met mine, the lids heavy. The brows pulled together in a worried frown. I smoothed my finger over the line, trying the ease the marks. He hesitated and then a look of resignation I didn’t understand crossed his face, and he leaned toward me. My fingers slid comfortably from his cheek into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, the strands curling around my fingers.
He held back, so close. I used the arm around his neck to close the gap. Our lips met, and a soft gasp escaped from one of us. The last kiss had been a surprise for both of us, I think. This one was an exploration, an expedition to see where we could go next. He pressed soft kisses first to the right, then to the left corner of my mouth, pulling back to look at my lips before diving in again with more pressure. This felt different, more serious, and I was melting into the feeling. I suspected he had far more experience at this than me. What was his experience? I snapped my mind back to the present. There was no way I was going to miss this moment by giving into a nattering mind.
Just as he tilted his head the opposite direction and started to repeat the kiss, there was a sound at the front of the theater. Glancing up, Shim noted it, dismissed it, and glanced at the screen before turning back to me.
He froze.
Every muscle I was touching turned rock hard, and his hands dropped from me. He pushed my legs off his lap and jumped up, racing for the door. He found a docent, a small man in his late seventies with a VFW hat and a brilliant yellow blazer, and, grabbing onto his lapels, demanded, “Can you rewind the video?” The docent was as shocked as I was. His response was haughty as he informed us that if we found it so interesting, we could stay in the theater, and it would loop back and restart again in twelve minutes.