Page 28 of All Out of Flux
I sat up, still covering my eyes, almost yelling out loud for someone to turn off the sun. The light wasn’t hurting my eyeballs as much anymore, but the intensity hadn’t changed at all.
“Must be in heaven,” I muttered, realizing my throat was very, very dry. “Funny. Didn’t thinkbruhoscould go to heaven.”
“Or finders, for that matter.”
I shifted away from the sound of the voice, stopping suddenly when I remembered that I didn’t even know where I was. On the edge of a bed? Kneeling on a precipice? I forced my eyes open, gritting my teeth against the harsh light, marveling at how quickly my vision adjusted.
The Quartz Spider was sitting on the floor several feet away from me, still dressed in his oily, iridescent black, face fully exposed. We weren’t, in fact, surrounded by a ring of SUVs.
The light was pouring from all around us, from all angles, even from the tippy-top of this bizarre structure we were locked in. Trapped in, perhaps? I certainly couldn’t see a way out of — oh, God.
Were we inside a crystal?
“Where are we?” I breathed. “Whenare we, for that matter?”
Brendan Shum waved his hand like he was trying to drum up a response, draw out a memory. “Oh, you know. Somewhere between here and there. Sometime between then and now.”
When I was sure he wasn’t trying to kill me, I folded my legs underneath myself, mirroring his posture. “Why are you so sure that finders don’t go to heaven?”
He shrugged. “No offense meant, but you’re not exactly in the business of performing acts of kindness. Remember, I used to be a spider myself. Spiders don’t go to heaven, either.”
“Then where do they go?” I threw my hands up in frustration. “And seriously, where the hell are we? Where’s Max?”
Something in my gut told me he hadn’t really hurt Max — not in a way that mattered. The Quartz Spider would look more pleased with himself, otherwise. Somehow I believed him when he said he wasn’t out to kill us. There was too much gloom in him. A man like him, someone who’d fallen so deep into darkness — he’d only kill out of necessity. Or provocation.
Brendan sighed. “Had to leave him behind. Being too loud, asking too many annoying questions, if I’m honest. He’ll tire himself out soon enough.”
I licked my lips, still thirsty, but even warier of asking the enemy if he had any bottled water sitting around his crystal abduction dimension. I gestured around the massive crystal around us.
“So is this like your interdimensional interrogation room? Is this where you take your victims to gloat before you gut them like a fish?”
He squeezed the bridge of his nose, eyes flickering with annoyance. “I wish you’d stop insinuating that I’m more than what I really am. I’m far too boring to make big, sweeping speeches.” He ruffled his hair and sighed. “Far too tired to skin anyone alive.”
I shrugged. “Just testing you. I guess there’s no way out until I give you what you want. So, Brendan. What the hell do you want, exactly?”
“Understanding,” he breathed. “I need someone to listen.”
Too much sadness in those words. “Why me?” I asked.
“Because you’re someone who might understand. I know the things I’ve done haven’t been righteous, but surely you’ve been in my position before. As someone who’s lost a loved one, I mean.”
He knew too much, but of course he had to know. He used to be a spider, just like Vera, just like Faizan. Building dossiers and harvesting information came as easily as breathing air.
My brow furrowed. “I’m not sure what that means. My mom died years ago. What does that have to do with anything?”
Another deep sigh, another heave of his chest. “I lost someone, too.”
My gaze fell to the ground, crossed the floor, examined the pinpoints along the walls where the facets of crystal met. Anywhere but his face.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, picking at my fingers.
The dark circles underneath his eyes that seemed to grow deeper with every encounter. That coarse stubble of his that grew ever more unruly, the hair that had started going gray too soon — I could have guessed myself. I should have.
Brendan sniffed, more a biological response than a deliberate attempt to tug at my heartstrings.
“We pick these dangerous professions — you, a finder, me, a spider — we should know better than to expect happy endings, you know? But you’ve got nothing to lose now, do you, Leon Alcantara?”
I shook my head. “That’s not true, and you know that.”
