Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
A few seconds of utter silence passed while Dani looked at Wyatt, then at Dr. Rodriguez, then back at Wyatt.
“What?” he said. “You thought I was a one-trick mage? I can do more than open portals, you know.”
“Holy fucking shit,” Dani finally said. “What did you just do?” Rage and fear were coursing through her veins, fire and ice, and she wondered if she was about to pass out, too. She almost wished she would pass out. Maybe it would be easier that way. “This is bad. This is really, really bad.”
Silva’s voice blazed into their minds. Did I really just see what I thought I saw? Mr. Shalhope, tell me you didn’t just assault the Head of Research. Hai perso la testa? Hai compromesso tutto—
The professor kept going in Italian, her rant tearing across Dani’s neurons, before Katya interrupted, her telepathic voice steely but impressively even-keeled under the circumstances.
I’ve cut the video feeds from this floor, she said, but you guys need to figure out how you’re going to fix this. Right. This. Second. You’ve really done it this time, genius.
She cut off abruptly, and Dani had the sickening feeling that she was done helping them.
“Come on,” Wyatt said after a minute. “Let’s get her in the bathroom.” He heaved Dr. Rodriguez into his arms, bridal style, and resumed their journey down the hallway.
Numbly, begrudgingly, Dani scooped up the scientist’s quartzpad and followed him, glancing over her shoulder every other step.
Inside the empty restroom, Wyatt laid Dr. Rodriguez across the counter, her arm pooling into one of the sinks, her glasses askew on her face.
Dani set the quartzpad down next to her, taking it all in.
“Fuck,” she said. “Why did you do that? Wyatt, why the fuck would you do that?”
Heat and nausea and terror assaulted her all at once, a heady swirl, and before Dani realized what she was doing she was bearing down on him, forcing him to back up against the bathroom wall, penning him in between the hand dryers.
“Do you know what you just did?” she cried.
“We had a chance to get out of here with no one the wiser, and you just screwed us out of that! For what? So you could show off? Prove you’re cleverer than everyone else?
Well, guess what? All you’ve proven is that Katya was right about you. You’re just a selfish fucking jerk.”
She couldn’t believe how angry she was, angrier than she’d ever been at anyone before, even her parents. That had been the quiet kind of anger, the slow-burning resentment that simmered over years of cultivation. This was explosive, white-hot, and it wanted out.
Wyatt opened his mouth to speak, but Dani wouldn’t give him an inch.
She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Maybe this is all just a game to you,” she said, “but for me, this is my life. I’ve put everything on the line for this.
” To help my friend and to have a chance to stay at Fox’s Leap.
“And you’re willing to throw all that away without even fucking asking me if I’m okay with it. ”
Her anger broke as she spoke the word okay, cracking open to reveal the well of fresh hurt underneath. She felt tears coming, and she turned away from Wyatt, not wanting him to see her cry. But that meant looking at Dr. Rodriguez, which only made everything worse. “Fuck!” she said again.
Babe, McKenna said. She must have been watching on Katya’s monitors. Try to breathe, babe. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.
Dani didn’t answer, but she did try to take McKenna’s advice, pulling in a big, trembling breath.
“I didn’t mean,” Wyatt started to say, without a trace of his patent snarkiness.
Neptune blue drifted across Dani’s mind, the color of regret.
“I just thought—” He stepped toward her, swallowing.
“I saw her, and I thought, well, she has the badge. Why not nab it and do it all in one fell swoop, you know?”
“And you didn’t think,” Dani said wearily, turning to face him again, “for one second, that might not work out the way you planned? Even when everyone around you was telling you no? Dr. Rodriguez is, like, a really big deal. She’s going to remember this, and it’s not going to be good for any of us. ”
“I’m sorry,” Wyatt said, and she believed him, and not just because of the blue still swimming in her brain. His arms hung at his sides; he was well and truly chastised. “I’m sorry. I screwed up. I see that now.”
“Yeah,” Dani said. “Okay. Perfect timing.”
Mr. Shalhope. Miss Lionet. Silva was back in their heads, her fury barely held in check. We have to get you out of there now.
And she means now, Katya added. We think someone may have realized you’re not where you needed to go.
I was able to scramble the footage of you and Dr. Rodriguez, but they’ll be able to see you went down that hall and didn’t come back.
I’m shutting things down in exactly two minutes, so be ready to port.
“Okay,” Wyatt said. “Okay, okay. Let’s, um—” He glanced around the room and gestured at a chair in the sitting area near the door. “Let’s prop her up there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll think she dozed off here and dreamed it all.”
As much distaste as it brought her, Dani agreed. She stepped back as Wyatt scooped Dr. Rodriguez into his arms and ferried her over to the chair, helping him to prop her up as best they could.
“Should we—should we take the badge?” Wyatt said.
“No!” Dani said. “Where’s Dr. Rodriguez’s quartzpad?” She spotted it on the counter and lunged for it. “We should leave this with her, too.”
“But it might have stuff on it we could use—”
“No,” she repeated. “If Dr. Rodriguez just fell asleep here, why would any of her stuff be gone? Besides, they can probably track it if we take it.”
“Fine,” he said. “You’re right.”
Hurry, urged Katya.
Dani set the quartzpad awkwardly in Dr. Rodriguez’s lap.
Then, on second thought, she picked up the woman’s right hand and placed it gently on the edge of the device, like she’d fallen asleep using it.
When Dr. Rodriguez’s fingers brushed against it, the screen came on, and Dani couldn’t help but glance at the image that appeared there.
It was a group shot of a family, with a younger Dr. Rodriguez side-hugging an older man who looked weirdly familiar. And further to the right—
“You ready?” Wyatt asked.
But Dani didn’t answer. Her throat closed and the contents of her stomach surged upward. She’d never had an allergic reaction before, but she was sure she was going into anaphylactic shock from the rising tide of horror that had just hit her.
The face on the far right of the group was rounded with youth and his hair buzzed close to his scalp, but there was no mistaking that darling, goofy smile, loosened with the kind of happiness that came on a family vacation.
Kass.
Her heart spoke his name like a wounded animal. She wanted this to be impossible, for him to be impossible, but there he was in the photograph, clear as a lightning strike in an open field. The woman to his right had to be his mother, the man beside her his father, and Dr. Rodriguez—
Kass’s voice surfaced in her memory. She works for his company now, which is, like, the last thing I’d want to do on this planet.
Hecate’s bones. For an aspiring oracular studies major, she’d sure missed the signs with this one—the mansion in Eunoia Park, the bespoke security agency, the fucking greenhouse.
Kass hadn’t made it a secret that his dad was a CEO, or that his sister worked for him; it was just that Dani had been too naive to see the obvious connections between the stars in the constellation she had full view of now.
Wyatt came up beside her, saw what she was looking at, then snorted. “There they are. The happy little Gianakos family.”
“Kass,” Dani said softly, sadly.
“Yep,” Wyatt said. “Lukas Gianakos Jr.”
“And Dr. Rodriguez…”
“Is his sister,” he finished for her. “Their dad is the CEO of OneiroLabs.”
Dani’s eyes landed on the ring on Dr. Rodriguez’s left hand. Of course—Rodriguez was her married name.
“You didn’t know?” Wyatt asked.
An ungodly shriek answered him, filling the bathroom, and they both clamped their hands over their ears as sirens whooped and wailed throughout the eighth floor. Alarms on the walls began to flash, red and green and red and green, like a trippy holiday horror movie.
“Katya!” Wyatt shouted, forgetting to use his shell. “Get us the hell out of here!”
Dani didn’t move. She stood, staring down at the photo of Kass and his family before the screen fell asleep. Everything was fading, drifting away from her—the sound of his laugh, the taste of the dark roast they’d shared, the pressure of his lips on hers. All of it gone in the space of a breath.
Katya! Wyatt cried.
The room went black. The sirens cut off, the flashing alarms died, even the whir of the air-conditioning flatlined. It was like the emptiness in Dani had been too big for her to contain, like it had spread beyond her body and blanketed the entire room.
“We’re porting,” Wyatt said. “Now!”
He grabbed her by the hand; she clutched at it like a drowning woman to a life preserver. The world flattened without warning, and together they slipped between dimensions, leaving OneiroLabs behind.