Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 154735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
“As if I can forget,” she said roughly.
“Okay, I’m going to move my car and then dematerialize over. Gimme ten minutes.”
She was about to tell him to be careful when the call was cut.
After replacing the heavy plastic communicator in its cradle, she shifted off the bed and looked down at herself. She had put on some of those baggy blue clothes for comfort, but her jeans and sweater were folded on the chair, and she quickly changed back into them.
When she stepped out into the hallway, she heard people talking a couple of doors down, but she was disinclined to ask for directions to depart from the facility. Closing her eyes, she carried herself away, not in the method of dematerialization, but in her fashion, whereupon she stepped through time and molecular space, entering that nether region of a boundary that buffered and protected the here and now from existential manipulation, similar to how the atmosphere insulated the earth from the cold void of space.
Having transferred her energy thus, it was the work of a moment to step back out of the boundary.
Across the street from what would always be a place of horror to her.
The club Dandelion was as it had been that night Nate had been shot—but as if she should have expected it to be different? It was the same spring green entrance, the same human man in the green and brown uniform, the same wording over the door and line of people awaiting admittance.
“Hey.”
Rahvyn jumped and spun around. “Oh. Hello.”
Nate’s best friend was as different from him as could be, and as with Dandelion, that had not changed, even though, given the course of events, it felt as though everything should be altered, the bellwethers of the young male’s appearance and countenance transformed in material ways.
Alas, the tiger-print silken shirt and the fine suede pants, like the gold watch that gleamed upon the wrist, were exactly the sartorial theme of wealth and eccentricity she associated with Shuli. His face did seem to have aged, however, the jocular insouciance nowhere to be seen in the well-bred planes and angles that stared back at her. And the pants had dirt stains on the knees and tendrils of foliage clinging unto their soft nap. He rather looked as though he had been through a physical trial as well as a mental one.
“I need to know something first,” he said.
“Whatever is that?”
“What did you do to him back at the clinic,” the male demanded. “And before you tell me it was CPR, I just watched him shoot himself in the head tonight and then walk away like it never happened. That ain’t normal.”
Rahvyn put her hands over her eyes, sure as if such violence was before her and she was seeking to avoid its gruesome visuals. “Oh, Nate…”
“That night the meteor supposedly hit the ground out in the forest behind Luchas House—that wasn’t a fucking rock from space, was it. That was you, coming from fuck all knows where. He and I saw you in the crowd that night and you were the only one who wasn’t ooh’ing and ahh’ing. What the fuck are you and what did you do to my friend.”
Dropping her arms, she looked across the street at the club just as a line of automobiles came at once, released at the head of the block by a light that had gone green.
“He’s lost himself,” Shuli said gruffly. “You brought back somebody different than who he was.”
“No, his soul is as always the one you knew.” Although she feared the experience had irreparably reshaped him. “But now is not the time for inquiry. We must find him.”
As she started to cross the street, Shuli grabbed her arm and loomed over her. “You owe me an explanation.”
She nodded. “After we make sure he’s safe.”
Having arrived at an accord, together they jogged across the four lanes, and as they approached the human who guarded the entry of the club, the man winced and put his hand up to his head as if in pain: Ah, yes, erased memories, trying to surface. They were always uncomfortable.
Shuli stepped forward, and took something out of his pocket. “My guy.”
When he held his hand out, the guard put his own palm forward, even as he blinked like he was having difficulty focusing his eyes.
“G’head,” the man in the green shirt said.
Rahvyn looked the human in the face, remembering how, just prior to the shooting, she had rushed over to him when he had been lying on the concrete no more than a couple of feet away. And then the gun went off and Nate fell unto his knees and said her name—
“Let’s do this,” Shuli muttered as he pulled her through the door after him.
Inside, she had the clear sense of a beat of music and the vague impression of all the flowers. The latter were on the walls in vases of countless varieties, and along the base of the counter that ran the entire length of the club. Behind that divider, more were slotted between the bottles of libations that lined a long set of shelves, and the ceiling was likewise bouquet’d with them.