“I felt something,” I said through my tears. I sniffed them back. My heart slowed, and my mind expanded past the fear.
Good. That’s me. With you.
I felt the pulse deeper. Stronger. Somehow, in the dark and completely alone, I could feel her.
Lucy, where are you? What do you see?
“Nothing. It’s too dark.” I sniffed the last of my sorrow away and wiped the back of my hand across my nose. “I’m in a stone room. They locked me in for failing something.”
Seeley says they called it the pit.
My mind riffled through a flash of memories. We all feared the pit. A place where we went if we didn’t perform as expected. I was taken there after I couldn’t stop myself from being afraid of the water prison. The day the man in the red tie had come to watch. The leader of the free world. I was remembering more of that day.
Suddenly I felt too tired to keep my eyes open. I dropped my hand and lay down against the cold floor.
Lucy.
“I think I’ll just sleep for a while.”
Okay. You sleep.
And I did, curled on the icy ground, Zoe’s voice warming my mind. I fell into a deep sleep.
SEELEY WALKED INTO the living room of the main house. The fire was roaring, the stars outside peeking through the windows. His right hand held a cold beer, his other rested comfortably in his pocket. They’d made progress today.
Another memory recovered. Lucy had tried to go back and discover more, but she kept coming to the same end. Whether she wanted to kill the wasp or not, she always did, and then the events that followed played out almost exactly as they had when they were fresh. She’d tried rushing after the little girl again, only to find the glass box was the same. Even with Zoe’s voice in her head, Lucy couldn’t overcome the fear.
They’d progressed, but at a snail’s pace. Seeley knew they were running out of time. But he wouldn’t think about that right now. Instead he’d give himself the moment to focus on the wins. Using the connection between Zoe and Lucy had been a smart move. A win.
Zoe and Gina sat in the living room. Gina stood, near-empty whiskey glass in hand, to take her leave. She paused by Zoe on the couch. “I’m surprised you helping was so successful. What gave you the idea?”
“Like I said, I have some experience,” Zoe replied.
“I’d like to hear about it someday,” Gina said.
“I’m sure you would.”
Even in the dim lighting of the room, Seeley could see the wedge of distrust that cut deeper between the women. Gina ignored it, leaned forward, clinked her glass against Zoe’s, and downed the rest of her drink. “Well, good work. Good night,” she said.
Zoe watched the doctor leave as Seeley sat across from her in one of the plush green chairs and crossed his ankle over his opposite knee. He brought the bottle to his lips and took a deep chug of its contents, all while waiting for Gina to climb the stairs and shut her bedroom door.
He let another beat pass. Then he nodded toward the stairs. “What’s going on with you two?”
Zoe kept her eyes on the fire. “I just don’t trust people like her.”
“Do you ever trust anyone?” he asked.
She glanced at him, and her facial expression was answer enough.
He huffed in amusement and took another swallow of beer. “You did good today.”
“I didn’t really do anything.”
“Yes you did. You held her hand. Kept her grounded. That’s more than any of us could have done.”
“No, just more than Gina could have done. I mean, with a last name like Loveless, what would you expect?” Zoe continued.
Seeley chuckled and couldn’t deny her obvious point. “So how did you know that was going to work?”
“I didn’t, I just hoped it would.”
“Because of your own experience with RMT.”
Zoe just stared into the fire.
“If you want to talk about it—”
“I don’t, and it’s no big deal.”
Seeley dropped his leg and leaned forward. “Come on, Zoe—”
“Back off, okay?” she snapped. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Seeley was taken aback and pressed his lips firmly together. “Okay,” he said, leaning back into the chair once more.
She was scratching her forearm hard and noticed him watching. She stopped and tucked her fingers into her lap. “Sorry, something about Gina just really gets under my skin. Besides, we don’t have to do this. It’s not like we’re ‘friends.’” She made air quotes with her fingers.
Seeley playfully grabbed for his heart and scrunched his face in offense. “That one cuts me deep.”
She rolled her eyes, and a slight grin pulled at her lips. Lips he found himself staring at far too much.
“Please, I don’t know anything about you,” she said.
“Well, what do you want to know?” he asked.
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, ask me anything you want.”
She stared at him, half of her face lit by the firelight, the other side covered in shadows. She was thinking, her eyes daring her lips to say what her mind was wondering. It made his heart skip.
A smile played across her mouth as she asked, “What’s your favorite color?”
He laughed out loud. The first real laugh he could remember in a long time.
She chuckled at her own cleverness. “You can tell a lot about a person from their favorite color,” she teased. She was flirting openly now.
“Black,” he said.
“Like your soul. How fitting.”
“Takes one to know one,” he tossed back.
Zoe gave an authentic laugh, and it made his cheeks warm. She threw him, and that was dangerous, but he didn’t want it to stop.
“Ask me a real question,” he tempted.
“How did you get mixed up in all this?” she asked.
“It’s complicated. And it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. I was told we were changing the world, making it a safer place for our kids.”
“Do you have kids?”
This was where he should lie, run, pull a reverse move, but he didn’t. Maybe against his better judgment he didn’t. “Yes, I have a daughter.”
She looked stunned, surprise flashing across her eyes. She hadn’t expected that answer.
His sweet girl danced through his brain, and he dropped Zoe’s intense stare. “Her name is Cami and she’ll be eleven next month.” He let a beat of silence linger as his blonde beauty lingered in his memory. “She wants a pink camo bike for her birthday. I have no idea where to get something like that.” He returned Zoe’s gaze. “Speechless? Is this a first?”
“Sorry, I’m just—”
“Surprised,” he finished. “Black being my favorite color and all.” He drank from his beer bottle.
“And her mother?” Zoe asked.
He’d worked up a backstory that he knew would hit close to home. Use a little truth and twist the facts enough to make Zoe’s heart race. All good lies were sprinkled with truth.
“Dead,” he replied. Partly true. She was dead to him.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. She chose it.” Seeley could tell from her curious expression that more would be required. “She fell for a religious extremist’s fairy tales, locked herself in a church, and set it on fire from the inside. Thirty-seven total fried alive.”