“Why? You’ve recorded it four times.”
“Tell me about the apartment again,” Victor directed. “Every detail that you can remember.”
“But I told you I’d been in there before.” How embarrassing to have to come out to the entire team as having had a relationship with a guy suspected of summoning some evil overlord. Not that what we really had was a relationship.
“Humor me,” Victor said. His tone even, expression bland.
I recalled everything I could about the apartment, from the wall color to the cabinet placement to the material on the couch.Was it all the same the two times I’d been there in the past? Had I been dreaming it all from a memory? I didn’t think so. My gut screamed that I was missing something. Though the electrolytes began to ease the roiling.
“We need to go in there,” I said to Angel for the tenth time.
“The teams from this side cleared the building,” Ezra growled.
Angel held an ice pack to my neck, expression dark over the damage. Fingerprint-shaped bruises ringed my neck where Brandon had squeezed. Had it been him? Something pretending to be him? And why was I the only one attacked?
“What are you seeing?” Angel asked Victor.
“The closet isn’t on the wall Jude described,” Victor said after a long minute.
“What?” Bobby asked, leaning over to look at the screen.
“Blueprints don’t show any major changes,” Kerry added, sitting on Victor’s other side. There were way too many of us inside this tiny van. But everyone was trying to refuel and take a breather. The rest of the NHV team, who were mostly half-demons like Kerry, took turns standing guard outside the truck and watching the tear for anything headed our way.
“Can you put it on the big screen?” Angel asked. He swiped the empty bottle from my hand and passed over another. Maybe I was thirstier than I’d thought. Tiana wrapped my wrist with a brace and helped me put the glove back on. A few seconds later we all watched as Victor walked us through a visual 360 tour of Brandon’s apartment.
“Is this what you remember?” Bobby asked me. “This scan is from before he purchased it, from the original real estate listing.”
I studied the apartment, finding it mostly the same, though the pictures absent furniture. He hadn’t even painted the walls. Lack of decorating skill, or did he just not care? The visualproceeded through to the main bedroom, and I had to do a double take.
“That looks different. Smaller. I thought his place was a one-bedroom. Is there another?”
“It is a one-bedroom,” Victor said. “Dimensions of this room are twenty by twenty-five.”
“His room wasn’t that big.” Not the two times I’d been there, or in this last nightmare. “It barely fit the king-size bed.”
“Did the team who cleared the building have visuals in each apartment?” Bobby asked.
“If they did, I don’t have them,” Victor grumbled.
“Let me call them,” Tiana offered, picking up her comm unit. “See if they have anything.”
“Is there a protocol for this?” I wondered.
“Technically,” Wade said. “But not everyone on this side cares about following the rules.”
“Our rules; why would they need to follow them?” Bobby said. “It’s more courtesy than anything else.”
“Teams from this side are more muscle,” Angel told me. He dug a mini candy bar out of a bin below the storage cabinet. “Can you eat this? Your blood sugar smells low.”
I raised a brow at him but took the bar.
“I might have some more sweets in our van, if he needs the sugar,” Kerry offered.
“I’m okay,” I said, not wanting to be a bother.
“If you don’t mind,” Angel told her. “As long as the guys watch your back while you go in.”
She gave him a wink and a toothy smile. “Look at you, being all considerate. Married life agrees with you, eh?”
