“Take care of yourself.”
“You too.”
He hung up.
The motel room was quiet. His phone still held footage that proved the impossible.
Dustin lay back on the bed and stared at the cracks in the ceiling.
He didn't feel better.
But then, he hadn't really expected to.
CHAPTER 10
Greg was supposed to be in Morrith's office.
He was not in Morrith's office.
He was standing outside Dustin's motel at 7 AM. He needed to talk to Dustin, because he still had nothing he could tell Morrith, and if he showed up to Morrith empty-handed…
His case might be reassigned.
He could feel another message arriving on his clipboard. He didn’t look.
Instead he approached the door to Dustin’s room and raised his hand to knock.
Then he hesitated.
What if Dustin was still sleeping? Humans needed sleep. A lot of it, apparently—six to eight hours per night, according to his research. It was barely past dawn. Dustin had been through a traumatic experience recently. He probably needed rest.
It would be rude to wake him.
Greg lowered his hand.
He could just... check. Make sure Dustin was okay. Aquick look, nothing more. If Dustin was asleep, Greg would leave and come back later. If he was awake, Greg would knock. Like a normal person.
Did normal people phase through walls to check if someone's sleeping?
Probably not.
Greg did it anyway.
The wall offered no resistance. One moment he was outside, the next he was standing in a dim motel room that smelled like stale coffee and something vaguely floral.
Dustin was asleep.
He was sprawled across the bed on his stomach, face half-buried in the pillow, one arm hanging off the edge of the mattress. The sheets were tangled around his waist. He wasn't wearing a shirt.
Greg’s thoughts ground to a halt.
Dustin wasn’t wearing a shirt. And his back… His back was…
There was ink sprawling across his skin, trailing down his arms.
Tattoos.
Greg’s eyes were drawn to the image of a bird that graced his shoulder, wings spread as if about to take flight, shaded in blue.
