“Oh, Beck and the kids will love that.”
“Me, too. Say…Mera, I gave it some thought.”
“What?”
“You know, about how to approach Alex.”
My eyes widened. “Oh. And?”
“Are you sure the person, this other person feels the same about you? Are you sure?”
That made me laugh. “Sonny.” I playfully smacked him in the chest. “Of course.”
“I mean, listen, Mera, I know you think….” Sonny’s eyes looked beyond me.
“All done,” Michael said coming out of the bedroom. “The bedroom is finished.”
“Oh.” Sonny said.
“Oh what?” I asked.
“Oh,” he repeated the word drawn out.
“What is wrong?” Michael asked.
“Mike,” Sonny said.
“Yes.” Michael nodded.
“Does Beck know?” Sonny asked.
“About?” I questioned.
“Mike…and you know…the bedroom being done,” Sonny said.
“No,” I replied, rushed. “Not yet. It’s gonna be a surprise.”
“Oh, it’ll be a surprise all right,” Sonny said.
“I figured he would see it when he got home,” I told him.
“It’s the best way,” Michael added.
“The best way?” Sonny asked. “You think? Beck coming back after dealing with the Sleeper storm, coming here and bam…you throw this on him in front of the kids?”
“Sonny, it’s not really anything new. The kids saw us sleep in bed together before, all the time back at Haven.”
“When?” Sonny asked. “Where was I?”
“In your own world I guess,” I said.
“I would say so.”
The fire door opened and Beck walked in.
“Shit,” I said.
“Shit is right,” Sonny repeated.
“Calm,” Michael whispered. “It’s finished. So it’s okay.”
“Oh, man,” Sonny said with an exhale.
With a partial smile I shook my head. Beck kissed me on the cheek.
“What’s going on?” Beck asked. “Sonny, why do you look pale?”
“Nothing.”
“Sonny is being weird,” I said. “But I’m glad you’re here now. I can show you something. I think this is the best way to show you I’m serious.”
“What?” Beck asked.
I pointed to the bedroom. “That.”
“Oh Mera,” Sonny snapped. “Have some tact. Maybe even compassion. Beck, I’m sorry.”
Beck gave a confused look then peeked into the bedroom. “Mera, are you serious?”
“Yep.” I replied.
“And you’re sure?” Beck asked.
“Positive.”
“Wow,” Sonny said. “You’re okay with this?”
“And you’re not?” Beck asked.
“Well, I didn’t see it coming. I don’t know if I can adjust. I guess I’ll have to. I mean, Mike is…”
“Stop.” Michael held up his hand. “I know why Sonny is being weird. Sonny”—he stepped towards him—“do you think it’s me moving in the bedroom with Mera?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“What? Who then?” Sonny asked, then his eyes widened. “Oh my God. Beck. Okay. Ha. Alright.”
We all stared at him.
“Sonny,” Beck said. “You alright? Did something happen across the bay?”
“Actually, yeah, I was coming to see you,” Sonny replied. “Met him. We talked. He does want to destroy the Sandman before he transforms.”
“Swell,” said Michael.
“Yeah but”—Sonny lifted a finger—“I’m not worried. I got it. I know how to beat this. We all live happily ever after, I think. I have an idea,” he said, “and I think it will work.”
SIXTEEN
SONNY
“No, no, no, no.” Levi shook his head. “Double no. Noah?”
“No,” Noah said.
“Okay, guys,” I held up my hand. “One ‘no’ would have sufficed.”
There I was in a room with Beck and Randy, along with our three doctor and science guys, Javier, Levi and Noah.
I had to keep reminding myself that Noah and Levi were from the future. Far, far in the future, so far they spoke differently. They were the last hope, a group of people sent through a time wave to come back, because they weren’t going to survive in our world.
The last of the human race.
It was such a massive time jump it caused disasters all over the world.
Yeah, they did that.
I just didn’t know when Levi and Noah got so arrogant. And Levi so mean to me.
“No,” Levi repeated.
“Enough,” Beck said. “Javier, your thoughts?”
“Why are you asking him?” Levi asked. “He’s not abreast of time travel.”
“But he is our foremost authority on DNA,” Beck said.
“Meaning no disrespect,” Levi said.
“Why do you do that?” I asked. “Say no disrespect, when clearly you’re going to be disrespectful.”
“As clearly as it is you’re an idiot,” Levi said.
“Oh, nice very nice,” I replied. “Name calling. I was making an observation.”
“Without hearing what I was going to say.”
“Gentlemen,” Beck said calmly. “Levi, go on.”
“Meaning no…disrespect.” His eyes shifted to me before looking at Beck again. “This is a meeting. An important meeting to determine a course of action even though not a viable course. You are not leader, Beck, it’s like a stomp on the toe and slap in the face to Alex to have this meeting without him.”
“Oh, stop,” I said. “Technically I was elected leader.”
“You gave it up…thank God,” Levi said. “What a sorry state we would be in if we kept allowing a grown up juvenile delinquent to rule our path.”
“Oh my God, you’re horrible,” I said.
“Gentlemen,” Beck stated again. “Levi, thank you. I get what you’re saying. But as we all know, and Alex would say…”
After his brief pause, Beck, Randy, Javier and myself all said at the same time, “I hate this time travel shit.”
“True.” Levi nodded. “In this time travel instance. It will not work.”
“Why?” I asked.
Randy explained. “Because you or I can’t go beyond the time in which we existed.”
“You existed in Peter’s time, why can’t I go with you?”
“I don’t know,” Randy said. “But we don’t know exactly when Peter’s from. He could be a hundred years after me. He just said around the same time.”
Beck asked. “What about Sonny going with Peter?”
Levi shook his head. “He already interacted with us earlier than he expected, therefore time has already changed.”
“Who cares?” I said. “I mean, the DNA extraction thingy is there. That’s all we need.”
“And I am sure the scientific community is just going to hand over the…thingy…to clone boy. He’s a grunt, Sonny. Created specifically for this. An expendable soldier, they’ll give him nothing.”
“Wouldn’t they want to?” I asked. “I mean, the whole purpose is to stop the Sleeper wars, kill Sandman. If we could stop it without killing him, why would it matter?”
“There’s a reason, Sonny,” Levi said. “That they didn’t send it back in the first place.”
“Yeah.” I said with a nod. “Because it is well documented in the logs that you don’t know what you’re doing and Javier is dead.”
“Hmm,” Levi hummed. “I don’t know what I am doing. Comes as no surprise that the future thinks that and you are the one who wrote the logs.
Javier will attest I know my DNA.”
Javier cleared his throat, a sure sign to me that he was uncomfortable in the answer he was about to give. “Yes. Speaking of which, I really need to get to my lab, Sonny. Soon?”
I nodded. “I’ll take you. As soon as we’re done with this discussion.”
“There is no discussion,” Noah said. “Nor should there be. We all agreed. All of us, after Ed, no more time travel. None. We agreed.”
Beck sunk back in the chair. “We did.”
Randy looked at me empathically. “I’m sorry, Sonny.”
Tightening my lips, I shook my head. “Not a problem. Not at all. We don’t need to time travel. As my good friend Levi once said…all I need is a pen.”
It was hysterical, Levi’s reaction was like something out of an old drama movie the way he instantly released this long, drawn out, fearful, “No!”
He genuinely freaked.
Me, I just smiled.
I’d gather my clues, the information I needed, and I would give it a try. If it worked, it worked, if it didn’t, like the old saying went, no harm, no foul.
SEVENTEEN
ALEX
That stupid gate never looked so good as it did when we pulled up just before sunset.
Home.
It was a one-day trip, but a long one, and I was starving.
I didn’t think to pack a lunch, there was no “Let’s pull over for a burger or some bad gas station sushi.” Then again, I wasn’t as fortunate as Danny and Miles, who had Renee pack them some food.
They shared with me. Which was a good thing because I probably would have withered and died from hunger.
Beck was waiting by the gate with Sonny and I saw them as soon as we pulled in.
“Glad to see you guys back,” Beck said. “Everyone alright?”
“We’re great,” I replied. “They’re better than me because they’re nourished.”
“Can we all meet in my office?”
“Sure,” I replied. “You have anything to eat in there?”
“No, but how about I run to the café and get you some while you stow the truck?”
“Deal. Thanks, Beck, I appreciate it.”
Beck nodded and walked off.
“At least someone is being nice to me today.”
I was just about to pull away when I saw the look on Sonny’s face when I said that. He did that sort of, “I want to whistle but I can’t” face, not making eye contacting and looking away.
“What Sonny?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“I said Beck is being nice and you did this guilt face. So what’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing huh? It ain’t nothing when you’re wearing the dumb Sonny look.”
“Dumb Sonny?”
“You know something. Beck did something. He’s not usually this nice. Hmm. What does he have to feel guilty for?”
“Go park the truck,” Sonny said.
“Yeah,” Danny added. “I want to get this done and go home.” He reached over me and handed Sonny the phone. “Maybe you can set up the pictures when we park.”
“I know,” Alex said. “He probably got butter and feels guilty about it. Or he took something of mine.”
Sonny turned.
“Damn it, did he take my good bourbon again?”
“Alex…” Danny snapped. “Can you just park? I promise, whatever he took, I’ll go out and get you another.”
“So you think he took something?”
“Dude.”
“Fine. Deal.” I put the truck in gear and started to drive. “But I’ll have you know that bourbon is not easy to find.”
It was tasty. The texture was a bit hard to place. Beck told me Renee called it a donut, but I would have said it was closer to a bagel. I wasn’t going to complain. Not when the ladies in the kitchen hated me already. Plus, Beck did go get it for me. Probably out of that guilt he was carrying around so heavily.
Admittedly, during the first half of our quick meeting my mind was on what Beck had to tell me. Then when my attention finally did go to the meeting, I missed the boring stuff.
Which was good.
“We have this tight mass,” Beck pointed to the picture. “By the way, Dann, this is a good picture.”
“Thanks, Allie’s phone was pretty good.”
Beck puckered a tight lip look, nodding with almost a sadness.
“Allie?” I asked. “We’re calling her Allie now?”
“Some of her texts said that,” Danny replied. “She seemed like a sweet girl. You know in one text to her mother, she called her Mommy.”
“Like Jessie,” said Beck.
Danny nodded.
“She wasn’t that young, was she?” Sonny asked. “Twenty-five maybe.”
“Almost thirty,” Danny corrected. “She had a picture of her license.”
Miles cringed. “That wasn’t smart. Identity theft.”
“Okay, alright,” I called out. “Can we continue? Beck you were saying about the mass.”
“Yes,” Beck nodded. “Removing them should be easy. We encountered bigger than that on the west.”
“How did you do it?” Danny asked.
“Well, the good thing is they aren’t…walking dead, so you don’t need a specific kill method. The bad news is they don’t feel pain so they keep coming. We used fire and explosives, but when they amass like this, gas is easiest to distribute and also the fastest efficient way to kill.”
“Gas?” Sonny asked. “Like a biological weapon?”
“Chemical weapon, and yes.” Beck responded.
“Like Sarin,” Sonny said. “Seems a little inhumane.”
For a second there I thought, and I swore I saw it on Beck’s face, that Sonny was having a subconscious Sandman moment.
“I think so, too,” Miles said.
As stupid as I thought the “inhumane” comment was, I was happy to know it wasn’t just Sonny.
“Inhumane?” I asked. “These things will tear you to shreds, eat you to pieces and spit out the bone. They eat their own, Sonny, we saw that. You wanna talk inhumane?”
“They’re still human,” Sonny said.
“So are we.”
“The best way,” Beck said, “is to do it fast. This is the fastest way. If you can come up with another way, I’m all ears. In fact, let’s take tonight to think about it and we’ll meet back here in the morning. Fair?”
Sonny and Miles nodded.
“I don’t know why we need to sleep on it,” I said. “The plan was to kill them. What difference does it make how we do it? Sonny, you kill them all the time.”
“And it’s one on one,” Sonny replied. “They fight me, or used to. This is no fight.”
“This also isn’t a hunting expedition,” I said, “where the sport of the game matters.”
“You’re right,” Sonny said. “You are. I’ll go along with whatever.”
“Let’s just take the night anyhow,” Beck said. “And all get some rest.”
As the three of them and myself stood, Beck spoke up. “Alex, can you…can you stay?”
Here we go, I thought, the big confession.
“Sure,” I told him, taking my seat again.
There was an uncomfortable feel to the room as the others left. Beck stared at the door, his hands folded on the desk.
The big man looked a tad nervous, a look I never saw him get.
“Alex, thanks for staying,” Beck said once we were alone. “Listen…”
“Say no more.” I held up my hand, figuring I’d spare him. “I think I know what it is.”
“You do?” Beck questioned, sounding doubtful.
“Yep. I know I’m not in trouble and I didn’t do anything
wrong.”
“You didn’t.”
“So it’s one of two things.”
“Go on,” he said.
“You have this guilty look.”
“I wouldn’t say guilty,” Beck said. “A feel bad look.”
“Almost the same thing,” I replied. “You either broke something of mine or took something of mine.”
“I didn’t break anything of yours.”
“So you took something.”
Beck shook his head. “I wouldn’t say I took it. Saying that would imply that something belonged to you.”
“Ah, so you’re arguing semantics.”
“Alex…”
“You took the bourbon,” I said.
“No, I—”
“I saw you eying it.”
“Alex, no, listen—”
“That new fishing rod?”
“Alex, I didn’t take anything. I—you can say I am being courteous. I want to consider your feelings about something that has changed.”
“You’re leader now?” I guessed.
“If you just let me—”
“Son of a bitch, you switched rooms with Sonny and now I’m stuck with him.”
“No, Alex.”
“You took my share of cream and butter.”
“No. Alex, will you please just stop and let me talk.”
“What? It is the bourbon isn’t it?”
“No, Alex, it’s Mera.”
I sat back some. “You took Mera? What does that mean?”
“I didn’t…take…Mera.”
“Then what is it that you’d need to consider my feelings?”
Maybe I was dense, I really wasn’t catching on until Beck looked at me through the tops of those big brown eyes, all puppy dog and I got this lump that went sickening in my stomach.
“Alex, listen…”
“Nope.” I lifted my hand. “Say no more. I get it. I just don’t get what all this song and dance was about.”
“You created the song and dance, I wanted to be…”
“Considerate. Yeah. I heard you. Why?”
“Because I know how you feel,” Beck said.
“I don’t feel any way, Beck. I came to a big resolution of things when you waltzed your body back in camp whistling a different tune about how you wanted it to be with Mera.”
Sleepers | Book 8 Page 7