When All is Null and Void

Chapter Two

"You're wet," she said, the terse smile still on her lips. "Why must you insist on embarrassing yourself?" Yourself, she'd said. For Titus couldn't possibly embarrass her.

"I don't get embarrassed," Titus said, shrugging. He knew it was what she needed to hear.

Her features softened. "Did you eat?"

Titus knew she really wanted to ask if he'd talked to Caleb, but the innateness of her motherhood couldn't allow for that straightaway. "I didn't, but I will." He took a breath to punctuate the change in subject. "He laughed in my face." His pride rankled, because he'd expected to come back victorious. Who could deny the chance to head off into the sunset with him? Vain, certainly, but not altogether untruthful. Titus knew precisely who he was.

Rhea lifted her arm, and a server brought over a silver platter. Titus took a few of the shrimp puffs and ate them all in three quick bites.

"What did you say to him after?" Rhea frowned as she plucked a turquoise fuzz ball from his shoulder.

"I tried to say he had to, but..." he trailed off. Perhaps if he hadn't been distracted by coffee, or Caleb Carlisle himself, he might have been more successful. No one had told him Caleb looked like that, with his blonde hair curling so nicely at the nape of his neck...Titus shook his head as his stomach boiled with an odd sense of jealousy.

His mom was about to speak, but someone slid up to her, whispering into her ear. Titus looked elsewhere, so as to give his mother the respect she deserved. When the man slid away, a mere moment passed before she grabbed his arm, pulling him through the crowds. Her smile never faded, and she kindly maneuvered through the people, explaining Titus needed to change and she hoped everyone was enjoying the evening.

It was only when they'd left the foyer behind that she spoke. Her steps were more hurried now that they were away from an audience. "Natalee's awake."

"Again?" Titus asked, picking up the pace. His long legs gave him an advantage, and he reached the door to the basement before her and jumped down the steps two at a time. Natalee should not have been awake, and the longer she was, the more dangerous to everyone.

"Your Hop to the Estate must have caused it," Rhea said, placing her hand to the scanner on the wall. She didn't sound angry, but somehow Titus was offended. What else would he have done? It was a moment before the door clicked open, and Titus' heart thundered against his rib cage. A Void leak was something he'd grown accustomed to closing. But Natalee?

This wasn't a Void leak.

The door swung inward, and the muscles in Titus' lower back clenched.

A deep, ear-drum popping silence enveloped them as they entered. The lights flickered on. No signs of imminent danger. The lab was sparkling clean, but a seething blanket of darkness fluttered into being in the far corner. The silence grew to a tense, quivering beast that begged to be broken. Contained behind the glass, the black hole of a substance lashed out. The glass was strong, but Natalee had broken out before.

"Get the oboe," his mother said with a terse nod to the left.

"Got it," Titus replied. He grabbed the case from the corner of the room. With deft and nimble fingers, Titus assembled the instrument and blew air into the reed. The lab techs had already evacuated, and that was the only thing that made it easy to play tonight. The first time this had happened, when his mother hadn't known the oboe would calm the darkness, he'd seen six dead bodies—skin a mottled, dull gray—scattered along the floor. Natalee was far too dangerous when the Void took hold.

The seething blackness stuttered as he played, as if hooked by a line. It lashed out with wicked strength on the glass, and the tiniest fracture spider-webbed outward. Titus played the melody louder, with a fervent sort of energy. A lullaby, stressed and anxious as it might have been.

Slowly, slowly, the darkness shrank, ebbing backward like the shores of an ocean, until a girl with silvery white hair stood stoic, frozen. Her eyes might have been mistaken for sockets, so dark were they. The shadows slowly receded to a deep, chestnut brown iris surrounding her pupils.

Titus hadn't seen his mom ready the syringe, but when she told him to keep playing, he did. She opened the heavy door and slipped inside. It was quick work, injecting the sleeping draft. Natalee was paralyzed unless the Void took control. It was moments before Natalee's eyes drooped closed. He didn't stop playing until the door was closed, too, and his mom told him to.

"It's getting more frequent," Titus said. He stared into the room where Natalee now lay peacefully, as if she hadn't been a mass of darkness ready to devour and destroy moments before. He took the oboe apart and placed it into the case. He'd never figured out how his mom had known the oboe would affect Natalee. For some time he'd had the idea of her testing out instruments in order to lull the Void into submission. It still sort of made him want to laugh, even if it wasn't funny.

"The more the Void opens, the more she'll lash out," his mom said. He could see the gray pallor in her cheeks as she ran her finger over the crack in the glass wall. If Natalee escaped—if she'd escaped on a Gala night...

There was no telling what she—what the Void—would do.

"What do we do?" Titus asked, rubbing at his stinging eyes. His shoulders dropped at the thought of the damage Natalee could have wrought upon the people above.

"We need Caleb. We have to test him, and if he's not the one..." Rhea trailed off.

"Then we just try again."

His mom nodded. "Exactly. But we need to first make it through tonight. We'll get Caleb in." She sighed, and Titus saw her armor loosen. "You need to change. Get some sleep. If you get sick, I won't be happy." She ushered Titus out of the lab, and at the top of the stairs, they parted ways. Her to the Gala, and him to the second floor where