When All is Null and Void

Chapter Forty-One

No one paid them much mind, or even glanced at them really.

"Danielle?" Caleb said with a tiny nudge to her right arm.

"Yes—what?" she said, looking to Caleb.

"Are you having an allergy attack? You're crying..."

"I'm not crying," she said, although she did wipe her misty eyes. "I just... this is amazing."

"It is, isn't it?" Alexander said.

They walked onward for a while, as the sun set lower and lower in the sky and the misty evening grew denser and shadows grew longer. Danielle stayed close to Alexander and Caleb the duskier the night grew. The murky sensation in her gut from her dreams bloomed. The crowds thinned, and they were strolling through the streets. Alexander pointed out different landmarks, but as the time moved onward, the dark feeling grew.

Were they being followed? Glancing around with increasing trepidation, Alexander and Caleb seemed completely unaffected by whatever fear had settled in Danielle. She wanted to bring it up, but a secret part of her was worried Alexander and Caleb would scoff and think her paranoid. Even though she knewin her core they wouldn't dismiss it.

The night had fully come when she felt dizzy with worry. "Guys," she said. Her breath felt pinched in her chest. "I don't feel very good."

Caleb's hand settled on her arm, steadying Danielle as the dizziness threatened to take her to her knees. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know, I just..." The world flashed an odd sort of gray. It felt as if she'd suddenly been plunged into a black and white movie with flashing lightning. Her dizziness faded away, and the world righted itself again, but she was alone, heart skipping a beat. Caleb's hand had been on her arm. She'd been looking into his eyes.

They were gone.

Shock kept her numb for about three minutes before panic set in. This was only a game. They'd Hopped around the block, probably hiding out of sight, ready to jump out at her and hope for a scream. But when Danielle glanced down the nearest alley, she only saw a drunk man who smelled of a ripe mixture of urine, vomit, and strong alcohol. He whistled at her, and Danielle quickly scurried out of the shadows and into the light of a street lamp.

Her heart shuddered in her chest as twenty, thirty minutes went by without a single sign of her friends. She started to pray under her breath as fear threatened to choke her. She never left the sight of the Tower Bridge. It was an anchor, and if—when—they came back she would be right where they left her. She couldn't bear the horribly sick feeling attacking her every passing moment. This was different from the fear from being followed. This was sheer panic for being alone, over a hundred years before Danielle Baker was even supposed to be born.

Her terror hit an overload as the streets emptied completely, and she was left alone. This was not good. This wasnot good.

When the shadow of a large stranger began to follow her, the panic she'd barely kept at bay flooded into the furthest reaches of her body. She ran, slipping and nearly falling as her heels clacked against the cobblestones. The shadowy figure followed her, and Danielle soon saw it on the walls as the streets grew narrower and narrower.

A hand fell on her bicep, yanking Danielle to a crashing halt. The grip was strong and so steadied her before she landed on the ground. "Help!" Danielle screamed. "Someone help me!"

But the figure wasn't in shadows anymore, and they'd stepped away from her. "I'm not going to hurt you." The gentle lilt of a Welsh accent met Danielle's ears.