7. Breathing the Same Air

V

oices. Multiple different ones.

And suddenly, it was quiet.

And then that crippled shape was alone in the dimly lit bathroom. Moving like he was in searing pain, he crawled across the wet tiles toward the faucet dial on the wall. Blood drops hit the standing water surrounding the drain at the center of the floor. As he crouched upward to reach the knob, the trails across his thighs became visible. Dark, almost black in the poor light.

A trembling hand gripped the knob, and the water switched on. Cold, drenching cold. The white T-shirt he wore was already wet, nearly see-through. It clung to his shivering body as he leaned over the shower drain and soundlessly vomited. His hands. Bloody, wet, lightly swishing water across the contents of his stomach, rinsing it down the drain.

There was a sound. The noise of a door opening.

The boy froze, face lifting. Blindfolded. He couldn’t possibly see the source of the sound, but he looked in its direction anyway.

“Alexei?” A child’s voice.

And suddenly, Kellen’s heart was racing. His mind wasn’t registering that he was dreaming, but it somehow recognized the impossibly sheer connection he felt with that boy. The fear that ricocheted through that boy’s body replicated itself across Kellen’s skin. And yet, it was like watching as a fly on the wall as the boy seized the shower curtain shut around himself and the blood on the floor.

“June?”

His voice.

“Alexei?” the child’s reply came a second later. A little girl’s voice, no older than seven or eight. “Do you need help? Swan said to help you shower.”

He was struggling to swallow. Like it was causing him pain just to do so. “No, that’s okay.” Hoarse, barely loud enough to be heard over the shower water.

“Should I get your clothes?” The little girl’s voice again.

“No, I’ll grab them.” Silence. Nothing but the running water. He was holding his breath, a hand cupped over his mouth. Then, lowering his fingers, “Thank you, June.”

“Okay.” And the sound of the door shutting once more.

Alexei collapsed against the shower wall. His breathing stopped, then broke with a sob. Breathless, shuddering. He reached out for something Kellen thought was a handlebar on the wall—only for the feeling of a hand on his arm to shatter through the surreal vision. And with it—awakening sensation to the flooring pain that boy was in.

“Eastland. Eastland? Kellen?”

Kellen startled awake, skin instantly crawling with the feeling of that hand still on his arm. He shook it off even before he could register where he was—the checkered table in front of him, the pleather upholstery of the booth he was sitting in, where his head must have been resting in his arms on the table.

Kellen’s eyes switched upward, immediately meeting a face that was familiar and another he did not recognize. His arm dropped to his side, fingers twitching. He touched the shape of his phone on the seat beside him. “You’re late.” The words came out murmured, confused. He glanced to the left, toward the window. The sun was setting.

“Sorry about that.” Marcus De’Angelo slowly took the seat across from Kellen, and the man with him sat down beside him. “Something came up,” Marcus added. He was looking at Kellen like he saw something disturbing.

Kellen gave the small fast food dining area a dissociated glance. He absently brushed a hand across his chin, half-consciously checking for drool. Double-took the time displayed on an analog clock hanging over the prominent “Checker’s” sign.

“Are you okay?” Marcus asked after a moment.

Irritation. Irritation that he was being asked that question in a professional setting sparked in Kellen’s chest. “I’m fine.” Muttered, quick. And as soon as it was out, he suddenly wasn’t fine.

A kind of pain Kellen had never felt before welled up in his stomach. Searing, pulsing, it came in waves one second at a time. An intense burn started in Kellen’s throat. His heart began beating erratically, breath ceasing altogether.

For almost fifteen seconds, Kellen thought he could sit it out. And then he knew he couldn’t. Like his legs were partly paralyzed, Kellen rose from the booth. Stumbling like he were intoxicated, he made a direct line for the restrooms at the back of the dining area.

Kellen shut himself in a stall seconds before debilitating dizziness stole over. His vision was funneling as he collapsed on the bathroom floor and lifted the toilet seat.

He barely remembered throwing up. Only the light-headed feeling of everything clearing in the aftermath. Sitting on the floor in the men’s restroom, back to a stall divider, face tipped to the ceiling, eyes shut.

What the hell was that? The question circled through Kellen’s mind with paralyzing weight. What the hell. The dreams weren’t like that. There was no talking in them, no movement. They were always still, stationary, silent. Feelings and images only.

This had been like standing in the room.

Like breathing the same air.

Like feeling the same physical pain.

Stomach flu. The conclusion came quickly, and Kellen consciously grasped onto it. An explanation for the pain, the vomiting, falling asleep in a meet-up spot.

I’ve never fallen asleep like that before, the realization quietly sank in. I don’t even know how that’s possible. And with it, the stomach flu explanation seemed to sink through the floor.

Mechanically, Kellen got to his feet. He washed his face in the sink, took a moment to re-fasten his hair, then walked back out to meet Marcus and his companion.

The detective was tapping the edge of a coin against the tabletop when Kellen returned. His dark eyes lifted without the slightest turn of his head, and he checked Kellen up and down. “Feeling okay?”

“Food poisoning,” Kellen muttered.

Marcus nodded silently.

Five seconds went by.

“So?” Marcus finally spoke again. “Tell me everything. Redder said you think the informant is bluffing.”

“He’s a prostitute.” The three words came out of Kellen’s mouth in a stale voice. Then, tone unintentionally softening, “He had…um…” Kellen’s fingers twitched. His hands met under the table, thumb and forefinger encircling his wrist. “Restraint scars. He may be...working…against his will.”

“Hm.” And for a long moment, that grunt was all that came out of Marcus. The detective passed a hand slowly across his chin. “That would make the deal he asked for make more sense.”

“But I don’t think he knows everything he claims to know,” Kellen added. “It isn’t logical that he would. And he said the ringleader is one person.”

“As in, he knows who the person at the very top is?” Marcus’s brow lifted.

“No, he said the ringleader is one person. He didn’t mention any kind of pyramid. He didn’t give any details. He made it sound like the only person of interest is this singular kingpin.”

The coin in Marcus’s fingers tapped the table lightly. “Is he right about that?”

Kellen stared blankly at the detective for a moment. He licked his lips and lowered his eyes to the black and white pattern on the table.

“Did he seem a little slow to you?” Marcus asked.

“Slow?” Kellen’s eyes flickered up again.

“Stupid.” Marcus shrugged. “Stupid enough to think he can bluff to the police and still get his end of the deal. Or…stupid enough to bluff using an unlikely story and think it will still work?”

“June?” His voice. The blood on the shower floor. The broken, hushed sobs when he was alone. The dreams aren’t real. How had that voice been so familiar—felt so certainly from a dream—while Kellen was sure he had never dreamed any spoken words before?

Kellen’s hands shifted under the table. He touched his phone and glanced at the time, then planted both hands on the seat at either side of him. “No, he didn’t seem stupid.”

Marcus’s eyebrows lifted faintly. “Alright, then.”

Kellen watched the detective in silence for another several seconds. “If I find out he doesn’t know anything, but I also find out he’s being forced to do what he’s doing, would the Winchester PD do anything about it?”

“Absolutely. Via the proper process, of course.”

No, in so many words.

Kellen cast a glance at the floor.

“Redder said your phone was bugged?”

Kellen’s eyes lifted briefly. “I took care of it.”

“You took care of it?”

“Yes.”

Marcus’s arms folded slowly across his chest, and he sat back in his seat. “Do tell…how did you take care of a bug on your phone?” Four-second pause. “Is your phone working again?”

“I’ll be using a burner phone for interactions with you from now on. 731-114-8083 .”

Marcus passed Kellen a long look before dramatically reaching around and removing a notepad from his back pocket. He scribbled out the number with a stubby pencil. “Was anything compromised?” He looked up through his eyebrows.

“My location. The motel,” Kellen answered.

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“I can never be sure. Some malware is programed to cover its tracks.”

Marcus set his pencil down with a soft tap. “You’re willing to take that risk?”

“The risk is low at this point.”

Marcus stroked his beard. “Alright.” He nodded. “Alright, you seem to have your head up, at least. I’ll arrange a different motel.”

“No.”

“No?”

Kellen shook his head. “No, if someone is watching me, it would be suspicious if I moved locations. I don’t care if they know where I am so long as I know they know.”

Marcus nodded wordlessly. He picked up his pencil again and lightly underlined the phone number Kellen had given him. “Anything else?”

“No.”

“Stay in touch, Eastland.” The notebook replaced itself in Marcus’s back pocket, and the detective carefully tucked the pencil away. “Feel better soon. And stay safe.” He seemed about to stand. But then: “Redder mentioned you…” His voice changed. “She said you’re a Lights survivor. The Everglades Cult?”

One second, two. Bit by bit, Kellen’s entire body locked up. Cold sweat sprang up across his back. All he could hear in the seconds that followed was the slow thudding of his own heartbeat. And the anger gradually rising. Growing until it began choking out the surprise. Lila. Lila Redder. Fuck her. “She had no right to share that with you,” Kellen said finally, the words hushed in his throat.

Marcus’s face lifted with surprise. A small, awkward silence passed. “I apologize for mentioning it, then. There was no ill will in the conversation I had with Redder. She seems concerned about you, and I promised her I would let you know that as a contractor with the WPD, there are resources available to you—before or after the job is complete, should the need arise.”

Professional help. Kellen hung back several paces and let himself fall out of direct line of sight with the two police officers exiting ahead of him. They still looked like cops, even out of uniform, Kellen surmised. He watched from around the corner of the building as they approached an unmarked pickup.

“I sho’ hope that weren’ one a’ your attempts to ‘connect wit’ people,’” the officer beside Marcus started suddenly.

“Shut up, Arlo.”

The chubbier cop broke out laughing. “Dammnnn, you barkin’ up the wrong tree, De’Angelo—that motherfucker cold as ice . What the hell the ‘Everglades Cult,’ anyhow? Some kinda teach-ya-howda-be-a-damn-asshole religion?”

Marcus was fingering through a keyset for the right fob. He glanced over his shoulder like he was checking for listeners, and Kellen instinctively stepped back behind the corner of the building. “Fucked up supposedly-Christian organization the FBI raided down in Florida a decade or two ago,” came the answer. “Preached family and world peace, but tortured kids in the background.”

“Oh, damn.”

“Graveyard full of young people,” Marcus added. “The raid also turned up half a dozen unidentified kids. Kids that weren’t related to the people they’d been raised by. Brown-skinned babies calling white adults their mom and dad, some of them with supposed siblings that looked nothing like ’em. No IDs, no birth certificates, definitely no adoption paperwork, and no one ever ’fessed up to explain where they came from.”

“Damn. An’ you heard he’s Redder’s ex, right? Redder’s kid that went missing—think he was the daddy.”

The doors of the pickup slammed shut on the conversation.

The motel felt cold and empty that evening, even as Kellen poured a bowl of kibble for his enthusiastic dog. Listening to her crunch on the dry bits, Kellen found his footsteps leading him to the bathroom. For almost an entire minute, his eyes met with the shadowy reflection in the dark mirror over the sink.

Wordlessly, Kellen raised his arms and gripped the fabric covering his back. In one fluid motion, he stripped off his shirt. The air suddenly feeling heavy, he turned in front of the mirror.

His fingers found it first, before his eyes fell on the gaunt shape of it in the dark mirror.

A triangle, a circle, an infinity sign, and a sun. The mountain, the world, eternity, and light.

The symbol the Lights of the World religious organization had chosen for themselves—branded into the skin over Kellen’s shoulder blade.