by Bella Street
“Lani, he needed to be dealt with, so I dealt—”
She kicked him hard in the shin, making him wince. “You will not lay a finger on him ever again. If the thought even crosses your mind, I will sic Malone on you. Understand?”
Gareth refused to answer, which earned him another sharp kick.
“Now, in three days, Trent and Seffy will be exchanging vows. They will be binding their lives together in love and you, as her friends, will be there to witness it and you will like it!”
Lani's wild eyes took his measure, then turned to Addison. “Am I clear?”
“They barely know each other.”
“They've been together in one way or another longer than you can imagine, Addy,” Lani said, her tone cold. “It started when you two basically abandoned her to her own devices. Remember that?”
Gareth looked away.
“Even still, it's make-believe,” Addison persisted. “It's pretend. It won't be real.”
“Not real to who? You? Because I can guaran-damn-tee it's real to them!” Lani spun away and headed for the door. “Do not attempt to see Seffy or upset her in any way before the ceremony, or I won't be responsible for my actions!”
Gareth watched as Lani slammed the door. He turned to Addison. “I don't get it. Why is she on their side all of a sudden?”
Addison sighed, the sound raspy. “Lani always did have a soft spot for the sob stories.”
He fumbled for a chair and sat down. “I think we're overlooking something here. Instead of trying to talk Seffy out of being with Trent—which will just make him more desirable—we should be figuring out what's happened to her to make her think being with him is acceptable in the first place.”
“Do you mean like it might be due to her mental state?”
He nodded. “We know she's undergone terrible things past and present, and has been under the influence of powerful medications here at the compound. Maybe Trent is behind this, maybe he's got her on some pharmaceutical leash that binds her to him.”
“It makes sense,” Addison said slowly. “I mean, she can't go from you to someone like Trent.”
Gareth smiled grimly. “Thanks, I think.” He stood. “All I know is that she had a seizure when we were at that pervert mayor's house, so we know she's more unstable than usual. Then I find her in Trent's bed. To my mind that's Exhibit A and B that something's wrong with her. Toss in the bizarre notion of a wedding, and well, I think the jury would be unanimous in its decision.”
“So do we allow the wedding to happen or try to stop it?”
“Let's talk to Fenn and see what he thinks. Maybe he'll find a way to have her tested to see if she's been brainwashed or influenced by Trent to the point that she's not thinking straight.”
“Brainwashing is a bit strong...but influence, yeah I can see that.” Addison looked down at her hands. “But what about the other option?”
“What's that?”
“What if Seffy is right in the head and is simply in love with him?”
Gareth shook his head, his jaw tight. “No. I just don't believe that's a possibility.”
***
Trent was gone again and Seffy began to chafe at her confinement. Maybe if she could at least paint the walls a different color she wouldn't feel so penned up. If Trent knew where to find stain sealer, surely he could access colors.
One of the first things she'd paint was a window, right in the middle of the cement block wall of her room. The sky would be blue with a hint of sun shining past the edge. But not the morning sun—a late afternoon sun that would glow through the sheer curtains, curtains that would lift in the breeze. But how to paint the breeze? Or would lifted curtains imply as much?
But curtains and windows made her think of a home she and Trent might never have. Just like the chance of having a normal relationship not pressured by outside influences and schemes.
Her attention went to the pile of dresses Lani had left on the bed. Seffy walked over to them and lightly ruffled through the pastel fabrics. Most had some kind of pattern, whether it was dots, stripes, tiny flowers...even gingham. She sighed, wishing they were more Vera Wang and less Little House on the Prairie. Maybe she should braid her hair for the ceremony—wear it in pigtails.
Grimacing, she wandered to the door and peeked down the empty hall. Why did Trent have to leave again?
The echoing sound of a childish giggle drew her outside the door. Were there children exploring the section? If so, where were the parents? Didn't they know she was diseased? Quarantined?
Dirty?
Seffy squeezed her eyes shut. That train is not leaving the station today.
Another giggle, this time closer, made her open her eyes. She slowly followed where she thought the sound originated from, imagining she also heard the patter of footsteps.
The direction led past Trent's room to the double doors that were kept chained and dead-bolted—unless they weren't. Like when she was a human guinea pig for anonymous compound baddies. And that other time when she'd been lost for three days. Yeah, those times.
Peering through the safety glass in the doors, she saw only the faint green light of the exit sign over the last room shining in the gloom.
An exit to where exactly?
And why did she see a flicker of a polka dot dress disappear through those doors?
Sudden anxiety rippled through her frame, spiking her heart rate and causing her to sweat. Seffy struggled to arrest her runaway thoughts. The explanation was simple—kids playing in an abandoned, locked hallway.
It made perfect sense. Like everything else around here.
“Little girl? You shouldn't be down there. You should go home.”
Her voice echoed down the hall, sounding nightmarish to her ears. Get a grip. This is no big.
Mocking, childish laughter made her skin crawl. Okay, we're done here. Seffy turned to head back to her room. Suddenly beige walls seemed welcoming and...sane.
“Sarah.”
Seffy froze.
She did not hear that. Her imagination was fired up from some little runaway brat sneaking around the halls. She continued walking, one foot in front of the other, the tiles going by in mathematical regulation.
“I want to show you something.”
The piping little voice made her stumble slightly. Against her better judgment, she turned her head...and gasped.
A young girl stood in the center of the hall wearing the familiar polka dot dress—the same girl who took her to see the aliens, or whatever it was she saw. “Stay away from me,” Seffy said, breathing hard. “You're bad.”
“No, I'm not. I'm just a girl. That's all.”
Holy crap.
“It's just around this corner.” Her dark eyes beckoned.
“There won't be blood this time, will there?”
The girl shook her head, her gaze inscrutable.
Seffy swallowed back an impending dread and walked toward her. But the girl disappeared through the doors, the skirt of her dress flickering like the tail of a deer in a forest.
As Seffy neared the doorway and saw the chains piled on the floor, she heard a faint buzzing sound. Nausea crept up her throat.
Forcing herself over the threshold, she saw the girl all the way at the end of the hallway staring at the end wall.
Seffy walked slowly down the corridor, keeping her eyes straight ahead. She didn't know what might be in the doorways on either side, and wanted to keep it that way.
Just a few more steps.
Okay, there's no blood, no Seffy with her innards everywhere...just a wall.
The girl was staring at some odd letters painted sloppily on the cement block: потерянных детей.
Gibberish. Seffy glanced at the girl. “This is all you got?”
“Lezanfah pairdoo.”
“Is that what it says?”
“Sef?”
Trent. She caught her breath. “What's your name?” she asked quickly.
The girl turned dark e
yes toward her, causing Seffy to take an involuntary step back.
“Angelique.”
“Seffy, what are you doing down here?”
Seffy spun around and saw Trent standing at the threshold of the double doors. She swallowed hard and looked back at the girl, who stood perfectly still in the hallway. “Do you see her?”
Trent began walking toward her. “See who?”
“Her.” She stepped to the side, pointing. “See?”
His expression flattened out as he neared. He shook his head. “How did you get in here? It was locked. I know because I check it on a regular basis.”
“Do...do you see the letters on the wall?”
Trent stood by her side, his eyes hard to read in the dim light. “No, Sef,” he said softly. “Are you okay?”
“It says, uh, something like lezanfah pairdoo. She told me so.”
“Who told you?”
“Her,” she said pointing again. “Angelique.”
He took a deep breath. “Is that the same girl you described from the other times?”
“Yes.” Seffy released a relieved sigh. She wasn't crazy after all.
Trent wrapped his fingers around her arm. “You don't want to be down here. Let's go.”
She glanced at the little girl, who'd walked into the last room—the one where the dogs had found her trapped inside a wall.
Trent tugged at her arm and Seffy went with him toward the double doors. Before she crossed the threshold, she looked over her shoulder.
The girl stood in that last doorway regarding her with a solemn expression.
Somehow Seffy knew this wasn't over.
When they were in the main hall, Trent began touching her all over. It took her a moment to realize he was searching her pockets. When those came up empty, he pulled her necklace out and stared at the pendant.
“What are you doing?”
His brows furrowed. “Do you have a key to this padlock?”
Seffy blinked. “Of course not.”
His hands dropped to his sides. “Seffy, this door is locked at all times. How is it you keep ending up down here?”
She looked down, wishing her grip on reality wasn't so slippery. “Sometimes it's unlocked.”
“Who has the key?”
“I don't know.”
“I brought back an early dinner, but you weren't in either room. Then I heard voices down the hall.”
She frowned. “I don't like my room.”
Releasing a sigh, he slid his arm around her waist. “You can stay in mine.”
Seffy glanced up at him, conversely grateful for his presence, but frustrated that he interrupted something she couldn't yet grasp. “Your room is the same color as mine. Can you get more paint?”
He walked her back to his room. “Is that why you were looking at the wall?”
“No, I want to paint my room.”
Trent regarded her for several seconds. “I'm sure I can come up with something.”
She smiled at him, wondering what he was really thinking. “Thank you.”
He led her the rest of the way to her room and locked the door behind them. Seffy became aware of the smell of chicken noodle soup. She turned to him. “That smells heavenly.”
“Go ahead and dig in. I'm going to get cleaned up first.”
For the first time, she noticed he had smudges on his arms and face and dust on his clothes. Seffy decided to wait before eating. She sat on the couch and looked toward the door.
Could Angelique get in? What were those letters on the wall? Why had the girl gone into that last room?
Mental exhaustion pulled at her.
“Hey, Sef. Wake up.”
Her eyes fluttered open and she saw Trent crouched down in front of her.
He smiled. “I was in the shower for less than ten minutes. You must be pretty tired.”
Seffy realized she was still on the couch. Trent stood up and walked to the desk where he had a small saucepan of chicken soup.
“It's just from a can, but it's hot.” He ladled some into two mugs and walked back to the couch, handing her a cup.
Seffy sipped at the liquid as he settled next to her. After a moment, she frowned and lowered the cup.
“You need to eat all of it.”
She glanced at him. “Is it because I'm crazy?”
“What?”
“Why are you insisting I eat? Don't you think I can figure that out for myself?”
Trent set his mug down. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Seffy studied his face, looking for signs of mockery. “Was it a dream? The girl?”
He compressed his lips. “I don't know if you dreamed about her just now, but when I came back to the room earlier, I found you down in the not-so-locked hallway talking to...her.”
“But you didn't see her?”
Trent shook his head.
“She told me her name.”
“You said it was Angelique?”
“Does that sound French to you?” Seffy repeated the name a few times. “I think it sounds French, but the writing on the wall wasn't French, it looked...Russian or eastern bloc country-ish. Aren't those countries always changing their borders? Maybe if they just mellowed out a bit, their letters wouldn't look so wonky.”
He released a slow breath. “So you have no idea what it said?”
“I took Spanish in high school and got a D. But that D means I know what I saw was not Spanish.”
“My only foreign language is seedy underbelly of L.A. lingo.” He glanced at her mug. “Drink it all up, there's a good girl.”
Seffy shot him a dirty look and proceeded to finish her soup.
When she was done, she daintily blotted her mouth with the back of her hand. “I just happened to be hungry.”
He smiled and took their empty cups to the desk. His eyes went to the dresses on the bed. “Did you find anything you liked?”
She offered him an apologetic smile. “I didn't really go through them yet.”
Trent came back to the couch and dropped onto the cushions. He leaned close. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
Seffy thought about her invisible polka dot girl encounter. “Are you?”
He took her hand and pressed a kiss on her knuckles. “Definitely.”
“Even though I see...things?”
Trent turned her hand over and kissed her palm, then leaned his head against hers. “Like I've said before, I want the whole package.”
“How is it we're here, Trent?” She touched his face, suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of sadness. “Do you ever think that we're just broken, leftover people, swept up by a cosmic janitor and dumped in some other dimension's trash can?”
Trent edged away a few inches and looked down at her with a gentle amusement in his eyes.
“Um, no, I've never thought that precisely. Besides, you're not broken. Something messed up is going on around here.”
“So do you think there's any rhyme or reason to this predicament? Do you think there's something good out there? Or Someone?”
He nodded, his smile deepening.
Seffy felt annoyed that he was taking this so lightly. “How can you be so sure?”
“Well, there's you, for instance.”
Her brow went up. “The crazy lady? Why not majestic mountains or other nature stuff?”
Trent pulled her close. “There is a Seffy, ergo there is a God. That's my personal theology.”
She released a breath, her anxiety somehow lessening and deepening at the same time. “You are a dork.”
He smiled. “Kiss me.”
So she did.
***
Trent's stepped faltered every time he came to a corner, as he half-expected Gareth to be lurking on the other side. He hoped his assertion that Gareth had said his piece was true.
But he also knew what it felt like to be eaten-alive from the inside out with envy.
Beyond the fury and disgust in Gareth's eyes, Trent had seen envy ther
e. And he suspected the fury and disgust was more for Gareth's own inability to accept Seffy as she was and not as he wanted her to be.
That was part of the reason Trent wanted to have this wedding. He knew Seffy sensed Gareth's hesitation, the way he held the fullness of his affections just out of reach.
Trent didn't want her to have a single doubt how he felt about her. Of course she would, she'd been in the habit of doubting for a long time. And on the surface, getting married in the middle of the chaos they were in, was a bit strange.
But, oh-so necessary.
At least they wouldn't have to worry about much fuss from the residents. As he'd traversed the halls, he'd seen clean up crews reclaiming residences that had been abandoned. Had Fenn warned them about the wild things outside? Maybe those things were less fearsome than what went on inside.
He couldn't blame them.
Fenn had made some sense when he explained the Pink Net of Time, as Seffy referred to it. It at least explained the presence of those following them from the tangent universe, though no one had been picked up lately. He hoped that meant no more were following.
Until they had a workaround for that, and had some explanation of what was killing the townspeople, he'd get married to Seffy.
Then at least one thing would make sense around here.
***
The next morning, Seffy sat, staring at the pile of dresses, not really seeing them. Her thoughts centered on Trent—soon to be her husband. What had caused this new wedding-themed change in him? What had triggered such an unexpected desire?
If they were together, in their own world, in their own time, would he have proposed? Would she have accepted? Would she be filled with this burgeoning confusion? Or filled with hope for the future?
Why couldn't she be shopping for dresses with her girlfriends, dishing over lunch at a swank eatery, dreaming about her future? That was the rub. What future did they really have?
A faint knock sounded on her door. Seffy's heart jumped as she turned to stare at the wooden door. What if she was hallucinating again? What if it was the girl to take her on some new psychic trip? Then again the girl hadn't been stopped by a door before.