All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 27: The Bad Idea

Emma only looked at me for a moment and then finally placed her hand on mine, and I felt warmed by the gesture.

"So, you can't send me back...can you?" she asked with a hint of a tremble in her voice.

"No," I replied, "Not that way...I can't. Not to the same world."

She looked up at me with her wide luminous eyes and simply waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Each time you have crossed over...it's been to the same world, right?" I said.

Emma nodded but her eyes looked a teeny bit unsure.

"And what are you doing when it happens?" I asked.

Emma shrugged. "I don't know," she thought aloud, "I don't remember doing anything at all. I was...blank. I'm sorry, I'm just drawing up blanks."

I simply smiled at her knowingly and said, "Exactly."

Emma scrunched up her nose at me, "Huh?"

"Emma, there is some reason you are able to crossover on your own...I don't know why...but some people have the ability. Shamans, witches, seers. Which means you can learn to control it."

Emma stared at me and shook her head. In disbelief or dawning understanding, I couldn't tell.

"How," she asked me with a steady gaze and I realized she had stopped drawing in breath. "Can you teach me?"

"Yes," I said and it wasn't quite a lie. I had my theories on how to do so based on the copious amounts of research I had done but nothing tested out. I took a small comfort in the fact that I had had no way of ever testing and therefore wasn't being quite deceitful. "I can show you the research...back at the lab." I drawled wondering if she understood how self-conscious of my need to help her save him, my own self in another world, had more to do with positioning myself to spend more time with her than saving literally my own skin. I'm suck a sick fuck! I cursed silently to myself.

When my eyes finally fell upon Emma, I was taken aback by her expression. The tears and tremors were gone and her eyes lit upon me like flint on steal.

"Take me there now," Emma said. And I began to realize this was a very bad idea.

***

Emma's POV

David and I made our way out of the Pepper's building with stealth caution, with me in lead and him content to follow. I could tell he was not used to sneaking around much and I realized now how many of the LARPS and immersive experiences I had taken part of back in Sweden had prepared me for this moment of getting from A to B without being seen. Sometimes it's less about getting to your goal, and more about how you get there.

We wove our way onto campus in a brisk walk but not too fast to call attention to ourselves, blending in with crowds whenever we could. We'd slow and meander amidst collections of conversations that sounded like to-do lists rather than communication, and as our feet fell into a pattern I began to feel that panic again...that moment of unease quivering up my legs...my ankles feeling like a tuner iron that had just been struck and now vibrating violently.

I gave David little furtive glances and sensed he could feel it to. That feeling of being watched, of something lying in wait...that feeling that we were being led into a trap. I wondered if it was Gabriel but decided this was something...uncontained...unrelated, if that makes any sense at all.

The closer we got to the building the closer that feeling of panic crept up on me. The closer it got, the clearer it became. I'd felt it before...the way I had felt when I had been lying on the table in the hallucinatory feast of my body. We stopped at the entrance doorway before letting ourselves in. David pushed the door open as I surveyed the plane from whence we came. Still I couldn't describe it. I shivered and we hustled inside and down the stairs. By the time we descended into the department's underground labyrinth, we were running at near full speed. My shoulders felt lighter as I ran. I felt safer. There were no judging eyes to watch us down here. No human eyes at least.