Beryl was having a terrible dream where invisible beings chased her around throwing basketball-sized light cubes at her. Every time one hit her, she imagined a giant bruise forming. It was like playing dodgeball with medicine balls lobbed in her direction. Unfair.
From a distance, she heard a familiar voice say, “Hey, Beryl. Wake up.” Was that Jett? Why was he here?
“What?” Beryl heard her own voice croak out that single word and realized quickly that she sounded like death warmed over. What was wrong with her?
“Beryl! Wake up!” She heard what sounded like someone snapping their fingers next to her ear.How rude.
Her eyes opened halfway and she stared blearily at a face. For a second, she thought itwasJett. As the impatient features of her tormenter became clear, she realized it was Ian, Jake’s customer. The man who kept popping up when and where he was least expected. Like now.
Ian grabbed Beryl’s shoulders and pulled, forcing her to sit up. Before she could fall back down, he tightened his grip on her shoulders. Once she was steady, he guided her to her feet. Sort of. Beryl’s legs seemed solid, the rest of her…not so much. She fell forward from the waist, hand flailing out to catch hold of the nearest dining room chair as feeling came back into her tingling body.
She saw the bag of chili from the Cosmos Café on the floor near her feet.
Ian snapped his fingers in her face and demanded, “Where is—” He stopped, as if his brain had to compute something before he finished, “—Jake. Where is Jake?”
That got Beryl’s attention. She stood up straighter even as her body fought the good fight to find a good spot to lay down.
No. Wake up! This is serious!She stiffened her spine and looked toward the closed bedroom door. Jake always left his bedroom door open. He had a special Maxwell the Martian doorstop and everything.
“What is the last thing you remember?” Ian asked, sounding impatient.
“We came inside the house. I was first through the front door. I got as far as the dining room table when I saw something that was off. Wrong.”
“What was it?”
Beryl pointed to Jake’s bedroom door. “The door was closed.”
“What does that mean? The door was closed.”
“Jake always leaves his bedroom door open. Always. Every day. He bought a special doorstop to make sure it stays open. But as soon as I realized it was closed, I knew something was wrong. I think I said something to Jake about it. I’m not sure. All of a sudden, it felt like someone stabbed me in the chest with an ice pick.”
“Did you see who it was?”
Beryl started to answer and almost bit her tongue to keep quiet. Her senses were returning and she remembered she could not share this kind of information with a human.IfIan was human. Beryl was confused, but she was fairly certain that the man was hiding something and might not be who he said he was.
Either way, Beryl needed to play it safe. She was not going to be the one who let it slip to a possible human that there was an invisible being on the loose, trying to hunt Jake down for some reason.
She said, truthfully, “I didn’t see anyone inside the house.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then I blacked out. What time is it?”
Ian told her and she said a bad word. “Oh, my gosh. I’ve been out cold for over an hour! Jake is gone and we need to find him.”
“How are we going to do that?” Ian asked her.
Beryl tried to control her fear and panic. She felt wobbly, but anger and fear were waking her body up. She stared at this man and his familiar features, so much like her brother’s, and demanded, “Who are you? Really?”
He pushed out a frustrated-sounding sigh. “Really can’t say. I will tell you that Jake is my friend and we need to find him right now. He’s in trouble.”
“I know he’s in trouble!” Beryl spun around and almost fell down again. “Wait, where’s my purse? Do you see my purse anywhere? I need it. Right now!”
Ian moved away from her, looking all around the space like a person who had professionally searched more than one room in his life. He went to the entryway, walked a few steps, then bent over near the sofa. When he straightened, he had her purse, which he almost shoved into her hands.
“Thank you,” she said, rifling through it to retrieve her phone. She dialed the number from memory and put the phone to her ear.
Ian grabbed her forearm, pulling the phone away from her head. “Don’t call the police.”
