Soundlessly, like a specter creeping through the dark, I pull the bathroom door shut, toes sinking into the carpet of the upstairs hallway. Out here it is much cooler compared to the steamed bathroom. I dried and shook out my hair as best I could before coming out, but a chill still rattles through my body, starting from the top of my damp head down to my bare feet.
The house is quiet, winding down for the night.
A while ago, Noah was put to bed, silencing him, for once. Now, behind the closed door of their bedroom, I can hear Aubrey and Malcolm getting ready for bed, bumping around in their master bathroom and murmuring to one another, perhaps discussing their crazy day and crazy guests. A thin, flashing light under Leah's door slices through the shadows of the hall. Only the muffled mutterings of a TV float from her room, and an occasional, "Yeah, I know, right?" She must be on the phone.
I'm an only child, and the daughter of a widowed father. These sounds, I'll admit, are a little strange to me.
Tiptoeing, I creak down the stairs, and when my feet kiss hardwood, a motion-sensing nightlight plugged into an outlet in the wall snaps on. It lights my way through the downstairs hallway, to the office door.
The office, too, is dark. Not how I left it. Opening the door, I find the coffee table, which had been sitting in front of the couch, now pushed against the wall. The pull-out bed is out and made. And Trip, who is fully dressed—even though he's already taken a shower—is stretched out on the couch, lying on his back, one arm slung over his face. He's asleep, I think. At least, he's not moving.
The only thing that hasn't changed, pretty much all day, is Dax, at the desk, at his laptop. He turns his head to watch me cross the room, throw my clothes in my suitcase beside the wall, and make my way over to him. The screen's light beams over his lenses, like it should. It always fits him, somehow.
"You look comfy," he whispers, smiling at my old flannel pajama bottoms and cottony tank-top, the only nightclothes I found in my suitcase. I guess Trip hadn't had the time to get to my pajama drawer, eons ago when he forcefully packed for me.
"Thanks."
"How was your bath?" Dax asks.
"Really nice. Relaxing. It made me sleepy." The whole house is making me sleepy. The dim lighting, the quiet. Stifling a yawn with my hand, I look down at the blue codes taking up the laptop screen—the program Dax has been working on all day. "How is it going?"
"It's a good start. I'm all jazzed up on Coke." He lifts a soda to his lips and slurps. "So, I'll be up a while, I think. Triple told me to work on it as much as I can."
My eyes waver towards the couch.
Dax follows my gaze with a laugh in his eyes. "Don't let him fool you. He's awake. He just complained about me typing too loud. But he liked his spaghetti." He tips his soda can towards the empty plate on the desk.
Like breakfast, Trip refused to eat dinner in the dinning room.
"I think," Dax says, poking his index finger to his chest, "Government deprived Triple of good food. Probably had him on some fancy diet to build all that muscle. That's my guess. We should feed him more often, Evette, and introduce him to cake and ice-cream. I bet he hasn't had any of that stuff." It sounds like he's talking about an adopted pet. He was Government's dog, now he's our dog, and we should take much better care of him, Evette. Let's give him cake.
I bite my tongue to keep from laughing and give Dax's hair, which is still a little damp from his shower, a gentle ruffle. "Alright, I'm going to lie down." Then as an afterthought, believing I can and should, I lean forward and peck him on the cheek. "Goodnight, Dax."
"Night night, Eve. Sweet dreams." Face tinted red in the computer light, he smiles up at me—so modest and golden. There's a soft, affectionate tug in my chest as I smile back at him. Today I tried to fight off a trained assassin to keep Dax safe, and I know for a fact I'd do it again if I had to.
"Sweet dreams," I whisper. One last ruffle, and I turn away.
Bare feet moving again, I walk over to the pull-out bed, around to the side farthest away from Trip, and shove the covers back. The fresh scent of lavender fabric softener wafts into the air when I flop down onto the sheets, and after quite a bit of rustling and readjusting, I pull the blankets to my ears, settle into the bed. The mattress is surprisingly, lusciously comfortable. I sigh deep through my nose.
And my eyes wander, slowly, to Trip.
His arm hasn't moved from his face, and the rest of him hasn't moved either. Maybe Dax is wrong; maybe Trip has fallen asleep. After all, those dark, almost black half-moons under his eyes have been growing worse and worse today.
He's exhausted, and stressed.
Has there ever been a time he wasn't?
Goodnight, Trip. The words are there, balanced on the tip of my tongue. But I don't voice them. I just lie here, watching his chest rise and fall, not able to tell if his breaths are deep or steady enough to be signs of sleep, but watching nonetheless. I'm wondering what, if anything, was said between him and Dax while I was gone.
I shouldn't care. Stop thinking.
Rustling around again, I turn over onto my side and face away from him.
Last night was spent cramped in a car, and I didn't get much sleep, so exhaustion doesn't take long to set in. Gratefully, I surrender to it. A blanket of oblivion. It brushes over me—wiping away my gyration of thoughts, easing the tension straining my muscles. I sink further into the sheets, eyes growing heavy, too much of a burden to keep open, eventually closing on their own. My breaths gradually deepen.
I fall with the soft taps of Dax's keyboard. The light sound of Trip's breathing...
Bright lights.
Needles.
Blood reflecting in spectacles.
Your life is special. Your life matters. My life was saved.
I should know that, Evette, you should know that, you're a nurse, buck up and do your job.
I'm no longer looking at Doctor Hampton. It's my father's eyes above that surgical mask. His voice, throaty and powerful and authoritative. Do you know what he is? Do not pity him.
...might be upsetting her...
It's happening again. My gaze follows Donna to another gurney, follows the white sheet—agonizing slow-motion, billowing, rolling in the air—she sweeps over a body.
I made a choice. I knew the consequences. I'd just rather die with a little dignity than to die like a...
Duplicate.
My stomach sinks. And I just know. All of a sudden, I just know it's Trip.
My hands fly to my mouth. A scream bubbles up from my chest, twists, warps into a cry, gurgles up my throat. It sounds foreign and strange. It's not my crying, it's—
A child's?
My eyes snap open. Blink. It takes a few half-wakeful seconds to recognize Noah's cries from his room directly above the office. And there's another sound.
Trip is breathing wildly.
"Trip?" Alarmed—fully awake in an instant—I sit up on my forearms and search the shadows of the couch.
The dark figure turns his head away. His fist opens and closes at his side. His chest heaves, breaths tearing out of him. Before I can even think of moving—to do what? what can I do?—Noah's cry lapses to fill his lungs. Another howl blasts above us.
That noise.
And Trip jerks violently, bolts upright. His gasp—a harsh, racking intake of air, sharp and loud—rips through the room.
And it seems to linger, ring in the walls long after footsteps thump across the ceiling, long after Aubrey's soft cooing quiets Noah's cries.
Silence.
Paralyzed, Trip doesn't move. He holds his breath. I can barely make out the gleam of his eyes—lost and confused, flickering down, around at the couch he's lying on. I watch his expression in the dim light, watch those gears turn, working it out in his mind, watch it click:
Just a dream.
Shuddering, he releases one pent-up breath through his teeth. His body bows forward slightly, as if releasing the air from is lungs pains him. Then he stops, tensing, breath hitching again. And that familiar heat blooms under my skin.
Sensing him sensing me.
He snaps his head around, fixing those gleaming eyes on me.
Neither of us breathes. Neither of us speaks. The shock slapped all over my face as I gape at him makes it obvious I've seen the entire thing.
Abruptly, he gets up.
"Trip," I whisper.
His back to me, movements quick and jerky, he snatches his pillow and grabs his pistol from underneath. Whirling, he starts for the door.
"Trip," I whisper, louder. Quickly, I throw the blankets off of me and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My gaze flickers towards Dax, who is asleep, snoring, his arm extended over the desk, his cheek pressed against wood. The laptop's screen saver—two ribbons of light, bouncing and dancing and twirling—provides the only light in the whole room.
Trip is already out the door and disappearing into the hall by the time I grab my coat from my suitcase. Of course he's going outside. He's too cooped up in here, too cooped up in this house. A window wouldn't do anything for him right now. He's got to get out. I just don't know which way he's going.
Stumbling into the hall, in the middle of tugging on my coat, I whip my head around and look towards the front door. A clunk—a bolt unlocking—has me spinning the other way. Back door. Down the hall, the dark figure sweeps outside, onto the back porch. His shadow swings over the glass of the door, out of view.
I rush over the hardwood floor, breeze past an entryway table and picture frames hung on the wall, past the arch leading into the darkened dining room. I reach the door, snatch its cool handle, shove it open, lurch outside—
A freezing current of wind hits me immediately. Wind-chimes tinkle crazily. Dead leaves scrape across the boards of the porch. Bare tree limbs creak afar. He's not on the stairs. He's not cutting across the yard. I don't see him anywhere. For one baffled moment, I think he's vanished into thin air like a phantom.
Then his voice comes from behind me, making me jump.
"It's cold out here, Ashford."