Darkest Designs (18 page)

“Storey. Are you in there?”

They froze.

Eric tapped several keys on his codex. She held her breath waiting for the musical notes to fill the air and give their presence away. Only they didn't come.

He stepped over to Tammy and struggled to pick her up. Sleeping, she was a dead weight. He managed to straighten, shifted her in his arms, and pressed the final button to go. She watched as he stood in the middle of the smoke. She hated that he was leaving. That she was being left behind. Tears welled up inside as she watched them disappear in front of her.

He mouthed at her,
I'll be back.

She managed a tiny nod.

As she watched the smoke disappeared.

Her bedroom door rattled as someone grabbed the door knob.

“Honey, what are you doing?” Her father's voice came from down the hallway.

Surprisingly close, Storey heard her mother say, “I wanted to look and see if she was there.”

“You know she's not. She's run away. I don't know what happened, but we have to let the police handle it. Like they said they would.”

Her mother's voice made her want to cry out. There was so much pain and loss threading through it. She wanted to tell her mother that it would all be okay. But she couldn't. There was no guarantee that it
would
be okay. She didn't know what would happen after this point. Would there be anything left of them? Would her mother be happy to
not
have her father again? Would she have any lingering emotions from this blip on her screen?

Storey hoped not. But she didn't know and she hated the doubts. The fear. Maybe she wasn't doing the right thing.

Was it possible that she should leave well enough alone?

***

As soon as the black smoke blotted Storey and her frantic drawing from his sight, Eric knew he'd done the wrong thing. Hell. His nerves bit at him.

He shouldn't have left her alone.

She was defenseless in this state. It didn't matter that she was at home. Her parents didn't know her. Not like he did. In fact, these parents didn't know anything about her. They were from another reality.

He shifted his feet wishing the black smoke to disappear. If anything happened to her before he could get back…

“Hurry up. Hurry up.”

He glanced down at Tammy, who slept in a deep, relaxed manner. Thankfully. She might not be so impressed with waking up without Storey. If she opened her mouth…Eric shuddered. Tammy's secret weapon was that cry of hers. And he did not want to hear it again.

At least at home, Paxton's stylus should be able to communicate with Tammy. Enough to keep her calm so he could get away. He wanted to return for Storey. Of course that wasn't likely to go so well with Paxton. Neither was it fair on Tammy. She was a sweetheart. She should be home, safe with her family.

The mist dropped low enough Eric could see the familiar white walls of Paxton's lab.
Thank you!
He strode out of the portal and over to the empty table. Barely holding back a groan, he carefully placed Tammy down. His back screamed as he straightened. Tammy might be young, but she, like the rest of her people, was stocky.

“Eric,” Paxton called from the far side of the room. “Is that you? Is it all done?” He rushed over then came to a screeching halt. “Oh no. No. No. No. That's not good.”

“No it isn't.” Eric gently stroked Tammy's hair. “But I had no options. I have to leave her with you.” Not giving Paxton a chance to argue, Eric ran back to the portal crying out, “I have to help Storey.”

“No!” Paxton ran toward him, his voice squawking loudly. “Don't leave her here.”

“I have to.” The black mist rose as the reassuring musical notes floated out. “I have to rescue Storey. I'll get back as soon as I can.”

And the black mist rose up to block out everything.

“H
oney, you have to stop haunting her room. It's not normal. You have to let it go.”

“I can't let it go. I can't let
her
go. She's my daughter. She's my life.”

Storey listened to the voices yelling outside her door, then a bang as something hit the other side of her bedroom door. Her mother started weeping. Not a gentle crying, but heart wrenching sobs. Storey would have bawled herself if she could. Instead she was frozen in her own body as her hand whistled across the page.

She hated the pain she'd caused her mother. In either world. How had things gone so wrong? In trying to make things right, she'd ended up making things so much worse.

“Now, come on. Let's go downstairs and get you a cup of tea. That will make you feel better.”

The crying jag became muffled. Storey could only hope her father was holding her mother. Comforting her as Storey couldn't. Their voices were barely audible as their footsteps receded down the hallway. Her mother's sobs slowed the further away she went. Much to Storey's relief.

It is well,
the Broken One said.

If you say so,
Storey muttered restlessly.
Are you almost done?

Yes.

She shuddered in relief.
Then what?

We exit this dimension.

Good. Then let's go to the closest or fastest point.
She thought about it for a moment.
On second thought, let's go wherever we cause the least amount of damage.

Paxton's lab.
She closed her eyes. She couldn't remember what they'd said before.
Wasn't it supposed to be the Louers' dimension?

Tammy is with Paxton.

Right. Tammy needed to go home. To avoid too many cross traffic scenarios, better to go to the Torans' dimension, then back over to the Louers' dimension. Of course Paxton wouldn't think much of that either. He wouldn't want them to go directly to the Louers' as that would make it easier for the Louers to travel to his dimension.

Arrrg. This was getting so confusing. Why couldn't it be easy?

She'd made life complicated by crossing over to the Louers' dimension. And meeting Eric. But that was a good thing. Not a complication. Keeping a relationship going – now that was a complication. How were they going to do that? She wasn't ready to leave her dimension and doubted Paxton would be willing to have her permanently anyway.

She stilled. Something had changed. What? She opened her gaze and studied her bedroom.

Her hand had stopped moving.

She stretched out her arm and gave it a good shake. It throbbed like crazy. Not injured, but bruised and aching as if she'd hung onto a tree branch or something for a long time before dropping to the ground. The elbow joint was especially bad.

Moving stiffly, she struggled to her feet and caught a glimpse of the top of her bed. Food wrappers and empty boxes, cracker crumbs and napkins littered the crumpled bedding. All she did was clean up behind those two. She smiled. They felt like a family already.

A whisper of sound behind her had her spinning around. She held her hand to her head as the room twisted crazily. Why was she starting to feel faint? Weak.

Black mist filled the room. Eric.

She smiled brightly. “Yes! Perfect timing. We're done.”

Eric stared at her through the blackness. But he never said a word. It was as if he couldn't see her.

She waved her arms back and forth in front of him. “Eric? What's wrong? You're scaring me.”

The black mist slowed worked its way down his body. He opened his mouth and closed it again. His gaze spanned the room before zooming back to her. “Storey?” he asked hesitantly.

“Uh oh. Do I look different? Sound different? What is it?” She turned to look around her room. It looked as it had before he'd left. A mess. Normal. She, on the other hand, felt sick. Like really sick. Not the upchuck type of sick, but a woozy pass-out-kind-of-sick.

She took a step and wavered. She started to panic.
Stylus. What's wrong here
?

Silence.

Stylus. Talk. To meeeeee.
She collapsed to the floor.

But she did hear Eric's voice, calling, “Storeeeey?”

***

“Oh no. Storey, where are you?” Eric called out, desperation and panic filling him. He couldn't move yet for the mist, but he couldn't see her anywhere. The door was closed, but he couldn't tell if it was still locked from the inside. She should be there.

As he looked around he caught sight of something faint, like a misty outline of something, but it wasn't clear enough to identify.

“Paxton. Is Storey still in the same location?” His fingers tapped the codex frantically, fumbling to get it right as he stayed…stuck in the portal. And then he realized that's what he was. Stuck. Had he come back during the reset? Whatever that meant. Was
he
now caught between time?

Clearly something odd had happened. He hadn't even questioned the repercussions of his return jump on Storey. He'd acted out of instinct. Fear. The need to save her. He'd presumed she'd still be there.

And she was…or some part of her was.

Or was he going crazy? He was locked into his portal. Outside the black smoke, the room looked the same. And to make matters worse, he could hear someone racing up the stairs in the main house. He couldn't move. And if that wispy image was Storey, it seemed neither could she.

Paxton,
he tapped.
We need help and now!

There was no answer.

“Damn it! I heard someone in there. I heard someone calling.” A woman's voice cried out in pain.

That was Storey's mother. She sounded….devastated. Like her only child had died. Which, as he looked around the room yet again, his stomach muscles contracting, Storey might have. It was one thing to end up banished in the Louers' dimension and another to be dumped into In-between, but if that ghost-like essence was Storey – something was even more wrong than before.

And all he wanted was for things to finally go right.

Was nothing ever as it seemed to be? Even his world appeared to be fake. A deceptive face on reality. Paxton a Louer, their supposed enemy. The styluses, alive and also Louers, had proven to be staunch friends and allies.

His father, a betrayer, instead of his beloved leader.

Storey wasn't even what he'd always believed. In fact, he'd been raised to be afraid of the Humans. They were destroyers, he'd been told. War mongers. Instead, she was the most caring, loving, of all the species he'd met yet. And that didn't say much about his own people

His own father had attempted to kill her – several times in fact. So who were the war mongers?

In contrast Tammy hadn't been afraid of Storey or Eric. Yet she'd been raised in harsh conditions brought about by Eric's own people. Had she been raised to hate his people? Not according to her behavior. Maybe the adults in her world hated his people, but from what he'd seen so far, the adults were fighting between themselves to try and improve their lot in life. Having seen their home world, Eric was willing to cheer them on.

Maybe Storey was right. Could they help the Louers to have a better life? Give them the tools to build what they'd need in their own world? Would that bring peace to the three worlds? Not that Storey had mentioned bringing her world into an alliance or anything. She didn't appear to be naive about her own society. She'd even mentioned that peace wasn't likely. But that didn't mean he couldn't help fix the problems between the Louers and the Torans.

The Torans had banished the Louers after all. Maybe they could rectify that by giving them assistance right now.

Or maybe he should leave well enough alone.

And then he heard the man outside the door say, “Look, we can check. It's not that big a deal.”

The door opened.

Eric stood frozen in place.

S
torey struggled to her feet and stared at Eric, finally realizing he couldn't see her. What was going on?

She was supposed to leave and come back so that the changes could take place. Sure, she'd delayed her departure, but just long enough to clean up. It's not like her stylus had said go now. Hell, she didn't even have a portal ready. In fact, she'd half assumed she'd have a portal made for her and she wouldn't even know it. She'd been doing so much that was out of her control. Why not that? But this…this being here, but not being seen…was horrible. And frightening.