“Let’s go. I’ll drive.”
“No.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “They didn’t get very far. Nowhere near the machine. We don’t have to both go. Take it easy. You look tired.”
Why does “You look tired” always sound like an insult? The passive aggressive way of saying “You look like shit.” But I really must be tired, because I know he doesn’t mean it that way. When Mother was killed, we probably both needed some looking after, but neither of us was in a place to do it for the other. So instead, we drifted through the halls and around the grounds for a few months like living ghosts. Eventually, though, the silence turned to stilted conversations, which then became a slow exchange of ideas. We never talked about Mother, but late at night, we devised the concept for the Ziro Machine. It was a far cry from grief counselling, but it’s given us a purpose and drawn us closer than the stepfather/stepson label might make one believe.
All this to say, he doesn’t mean I look like shit. He means I look tired. Hard not to be. The conversation with Jasper—the many conversations?—rattles back to life in my head, along with visions that can’t possibly have happened, since I’m here to tell the tale.
After Ezekiel leaves, I make a plate of cheese and crackers and settle into bed with my laptop. As I take notes on final adjustments for the slides, my eyes grow heavy. My headache still hangs like an echo inside my skull, as does the memory of Jasper’s face as he asked what I remembered. Sandwiched between these is the crushing sensation of being flung through the air as the bus hit me. But when I hold up my arms, they’re straight and unmarked. I kick at the blankets, and my legs work exactly as they should and without any pain.
If Clarissa wants to set me up again, we’re going to have another conversation about who does and does not qualify as proper boyfriend material first. Men with criminal connections—even ones with broad shoulders and charming smiles—and dubious fashion sense shouldn’t make the cut in the first place. But if they manage to sneak through, wild stories about living the same day over and over are an automatic disqualification.
I don’t think this date is worth repeating.
Did I say that or did Jasper? Doesn’t matter. He also said it would only be a few hours until we saw each other again, but here I am, safe at home.
I know I fall asleep because soon enough I’m in the dream. The same dream I’ve had almost every night since my mother died. It feels like a memory, but it can’t be, because I wasn’t there. I am now, though, watching it all. My mother on the roof of the hotel, a bright ball of orange and red as she chases after Indigo’s long shadow. They’d been adversaries for years. Indigo was the assassin’s assassin. Leaving no trace, a perfect kill every time. Mother pursued him, but Indigo was always one step ahead of her. Tonight, though, they’re finally in the same place, and it’s time to settle the score.
I’m in the van, watching the whole thing unfold on the monitor. Vee is beside me. She says something like “You have to get up there. I don’t know what went wrong” and suddenly I amrunning across the roof. My mother tells me to stop, but the split second of her distraction is all it takes for Indigo to break free of the light box that Ezekiel and Vee have been building for the last ten months. I try to shout a warning, but it’s too late. Indigo engulfs her. He’s like an eclipse, swallowing her light whole. I rush for her as her face disappears into darkness, then they both fall over the edge of the building, tumbling down. Sometimes, that’s the end of the dream; tonight, I tumble after them, falling and falling into nothing.
My whole body jerks against the mattress as I wake up. I’ve been drooling on my pillow and the laptop screen has gone black. When I check my phone, it’s almost one in the morning.
I hate that dream. Hate the falling feeling and the powerlessness of it all. The therapist said there was nothing I could do. Only Ezekiel was on-site. April, Clarissa, and I watched from a bunker several hours away as my mother fell to her death. Vee was in the hospital after a lab accident. Rationally, I know none of it is my fault or anyone else’s beside Indigo’s, but my subconscious has other opinions.
Hopefully that’s it for the night, though. Between Jasper’s whacky time loop ideas and my endless guilt for not saving the world’s greatest superhero when she finally met her match, I’m tapping out.
But just as I pull the blankets back up around my ears, a noise makes me freeze. No. Not really a noise. The idea of one. Maybe the squeak of the bed frame as I roll over. Like the memory of being struck by a bus, it’s very possible I imagined it.
Except then the sound happens again, and it’s clearly a real sound. Like a cabinet door being closed. I sigh as I wrestle my way back out of bed. Probably Ezekiel. I didn’t hear him get home, but he could have come in while I was asleep. So much for well-rested, but the data breach at the lab is more important.
My feet are quiet as I go down the stairs. When I get back down to the main floor, the door to his office is open and a light is on inside. See? He’s back and finishing up a few things before he calls it a night.
“Everything okay at the lab? I thought?—”
The rest of my question dies in my throat.
The man at the desk is not Ezekiel. His size and bulk are all wrong, as is the way he basically sucks up all the light in the room. His form is entirely a deep opaque blue, like the sky at twilight, despite the glow of the desk lamp. There aren’t even any shadows in the folds of his clothes, and while he’s wearing a brimmed hat, like a fedora, the void where a face should be is too absolute to be a function of his headwear.
My breath turns short and frightened. I blink, trying to clear my head. Surely I’m still dreaming.
“Indigo.”
Who knows if I say the word out loud? Everything is screaming at me to run. I am staring into the empty face of the monster who killed my mother. The murderer who has haunted my dreams for the last two years, even though no one has seen so much as his shadow since the night he killed the Legendary Flame.
He lifts his hand toward me. I flinch, but I can’t move. There’s a rushing sensation beneath my skin, like all my blood has reversed course. The wrongness of it burns inside me. Then he snaps his fingers—though the gesture makes no sound—and he might as well have shoved a hand into my chest and stopped my heart, because the stabbing pain behind my sternum is blinding.
“Why?” I say, but it’s already getting hard to breathe. He brushes past me like I’m not even there as I drop to my knees.
My last thought as the room goes dark is that Jasper better be right.
CHAPTER 4
Any blind date that starts with a painting of your mother staring down at you can’t go well. Especially if your mother is?—
I blink as I take in the sight of Wench around me. Same patrons at the bar, same lukewarm tea on the table in front of me. Same painting of Mother dearest mocking me above the bar.
How?
Vee is approaching me, no doubt so she can make sure I don’t want anything to eat while I wait for my mystery man. Instinct tells me to run. We should all run.
