All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 26: Laws of Physics

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Emma's POV

My eyes flitted open and there was this girl standing over me dressed in a polka-dot vintage dress and donned with charming beret on top of her jet black shoulder length hair. She was wide and curvy and had a confident brassy air about her that I immediately liked and seemed strangely familiar but couldn't place where. I often wished I had curves, feeling myself being too much on the skinny side, self-conscious since I had been teased without mercy about my flat figure as a young girl.

I realized I was gaping at her dazzling emerald green eyes so I stood up from my crumpled position against the red metal door. "I'm looking for David," I said as she led me into the lab that seemed much improved since the last time I saw it. "Do you know where he is?" I asked.

The girl whirled on me while rocking her heels back and forth and I felt unease. I could feel the heat of her hostility blast my skin and had no idea why she was directing it at me – we had never met before.

"Sure...he's back at home. In my bed," the girl said over-brimming with confidence so I doubted her words. I flashed a look of exasperation. I had no time to deal with the jilted lover. I had to make sure David was all right...both of him...and every moment I waited...

"Right," I said straightening and cracking my back. I gave her a steely flare and said, "Do me a favor and let him know I'm looking for him. It's important."

She nodded with a saccharine smile and I wasn't overly confident she would keep her promise.

"Fine," I said under my breath. There are more ways to skin a cat.

I left and went straight towards the offices I had passed on the way down. It might take some time but someone would help me out sooner or later.

I ducked in and out of a few cramped offices before stumbling into a particular cramped one with a burly white haired man squirreled away behind a desk and a mountain of paperwork. Hasn't he heard of modern technology? I wondered.

"Hi, I'm looking for David. It's an emergency," I said to the man with a hand on my hip.

He looked up from his paper work and registered surprise on the sight of me. "You are looking for David...?" he asked in doubt.

"Yes," I affirmed.

"You," he repeated again for confirmation. I nodded. "For...David," he stated slowly.

"Do you know where he is?" I asked tersely. I wasn't in the mood for being questioned or delayed.

"What are you...a distant cousin or something?" he prodded, not taking the hint.

"Family emergency. He's not at his place or in the lab. I checked. Apparently someone said he stayed at some assistant's house...a girl...with black hair and green eyes?"

"Pepper?" he asked with a scrunched face that looked pained. Maybe it was only indigestion.

"Yeah...she had a funny last name..."

"Mayday isn't that unusual around these parts but I can tell from your accent you are from Stockholm," the man replied with beady eyes. He paused, and then taking up a pen started to write on a piece of while saying without looking up at me, "Jag tror dig inte. Du är inte någon familjemedlem och det finns ingen nödsituation. Men jag är nyfiken på att se hur det här lilla dramat slutar."

He handed me the paper with the address on it so I thanked him and left.

Pepper lived only a few blocks from the campus so I walked with urgency in my stride. I don't know why I felt so panicked. It was that feeling again. That foreboding I had felt in the hall with David just after that one time after I crossed over. I felt...like...something was watching me...waiting...laying a trap.