SKIPPING TIME

Chapter 27.5

                 

                 

Jess stood, frozen. Ray's voice seemed amplified; it surrounded him, looped through him and under him, bound him and choked him. Ray's words weren't registering. Jess heard something about car theft and shoplifting. Then a bunch of disjointed phrases. "Arson. Robbery. Drug possession." The only words that got through clearly were, "He spent a year in prison for attempted rape."

Those words boomed in his head with the force of a thousand drums, deafening him. And still he stood, unable to move or speak. He'd never understood the expression, "A deer caught in the headlights." Why was the deer stupid enough to just stand there?

He understood it now.

Ray continued, slinging his words at Cacee like he didn't care about anything but doing the maximum amount of damage. "On top of all of that, there is no aunt and uncle, no autistic little cousin Peter—they don't exist. Are you getting that? He made them up! Jess is nothing but a foster kid nobody's ever been able to deal with for longer than a few months before booting him out. And before you go feeling sorry for him, let's go over what his psychiatric evaluation stated, shall we?"

Ray ticked off the words on his fingers, "One: he's reckless, antagonistic and violent. Two: He has such serious abandonment issues he's literally incapable of trusting someone enough to sustain an honest relationship. Three: due to his many problems, he's most likely headed for a lifetime of addiction, incarceration or both."

Ray finally finished and stood, breathing heavily. Some part of Jess's brain registered that Ray's expression was one of dawning surprise and discomfort, as if he couldn't believe the information that had just left his own stupid mouth. 

Jess's paralysis finally broke, and his head slowly turned. Although it was the last thing he wanted to do, he couldn't resist the compulsion to look at Cacee.

At some point, she had backed away from both he and Ray. She stood clear across the room. Their eyes met, but hers held no real expression. She stared at him vacantly, as if she'd never seen him before. As if he'd been reduced to no more than a stranger she might pass on the street.

His sense of numb horror abruptly snapped, catapulting him back into reality. Jess screamed in pain, as a flash-fire of rage blazed from his neck to every bone in his body. It was like nothing he'd ever felt, like his fury might reduce him to ash. The pain vanished in an instant though, leaving nothing but hatred.

He yelled, "I'm not a fucking rapist! Chloe lied!" It was the only articulate sentence he could get out. He threw himself at Ray again, knocking him to the ground.

But before he could even take a swing, the warehouse just... blew up.

The hundred or so picture on the walls exploded, as the furniture lifted and flew backwards through the air. A rain of glass sliced into his skin. He caught a glimpse of Cacee throwing her hands over her head and diving for cover before every lightbulb detonated as well, immersing them all in razor-edged darkness. There was a deafening explosion from the kitchen, and the room lit again, scarlet now in a glittering dance of flames.

His instinct kicked in before his brain did, and then he was halfway across the room, screaming for Cacee, without remembering even getting to his feet. Cacee's answering response came weakly from the corner. "Here, I'm right here. I'm okay."

He saw Ray at his side, heard Ray calling her frantically as they both tried to make their way across the warehouse, but it was like moving through a war zone. Whatever had happened wasn't over. A wave of energy pulsed around him, lifting him off his feet with the ease of the wind blowing a puff of dandelion.

He spun through the air, flipping head over heels. Even as he flew, he was aware of some kind of force yanking his intestines against the confines of his skin. The ground went by in a dizzying flash and then he was crashing back down, automatically tucking and rolling in an effort to protect himself. He sat up slowly, groggy and off-balance.

Cacee's faint cry came from the corner. The warehouse shook like it was under siege, making it impossible to do anything but crawl towards her. He crossed his hands over his head and rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a falling chunk of ceiling. The smooth landscape of slate had become a jagged maze of hills and valleys.

Sharp hunks of granite jutted out at odd angles that were littered with shards of glass, ragged piles of books, and upended furniture. The room wavered in the growing heat, and he choked on acrid smoke and lowered his head as the flame ate ravenously, gorging on everything in its path.

He called Cacee's name again, but his voice sounded feeble. Somewhere, she kept calling for him, for Ray and Shane and even Digits, but the sound seemed to bounce off the chaos, leaving him to turn in helpless circles.

Another explosion rocked the room, as—in the same moment--one of the strange waves surged through him, lifting him and tossing him carelessly into a wall. Jess collapsed to the ground as an avalanche of plaster tumbled down on his head and knocked him to his stomach. He choked on dust and smoke and began low crawling, blinking away the sticky wetness in his eyes and wondering bemusedly why the world was suddenly coated red.

His head had gained the weight of the earth and turned him into Atlas, but he lifted it and stared blindly into a crimson veil of flickering shadows, desperate for some sign of Cacee. She was nowhere, and he was completely disoriented and in the grip of the same incapacitating weakness and pain he'd been in the day they'd arrived here. His legs shook, almost too weak to move. He crawled on, hacking her name out of smoke-shredded lungs.

Above him, the sprinkler system came on, dousing him in cold water that shocked him awake, even as another wave of energy hurled him through the air. His hands came down to block his fall, and glass carved into them as his skull slammed into the overturned table.

He lay in the false rain, dizzy and stunned. Around him, the world yawned in and out... in and out. A cavernous mouth, trying to swallow him whole. Teeth of gold flames and glass. Spinning into wet darkness. Held on by the thinnest thread.

He felt his lips parting, heard the hoarse whisper that dropped from them. Cacee. Her name, like a rope that tethered him above the gaping maw that waited to devour him.