Chapter Five
Pete
Providence, Rhode Island
2024
She was here, but she’s gone again.
Was I supposed to go with her?
If so, how?
The last thing I remember is being at an Inkwell award dinner. They were giving us medals and telling us how grateful they were for all we’d done. Then nothing—until her.
Where am I?
And why is she so sad? I feel the weight of her loneliness as if it’s my own. Someone hurt her deeply and she closed herself off. Like a princess in a tower. Trapped like I am, waiting for someone to save her but not believing anyone can.
I want to hold her, comfort her, tell her that love isn’t a lie. My parents are two of the happiest people I’ve ever met, and their love for each other is what made my childhood as wonderful as it was. My brothers would all say the same.
My brothers.
Will I ever see them again?
I don’t feel dead.
Am I critically injured? I didn’t think that was possible anymore. Healing happens in moments as long as we’re alive. So, what is this place?
Where has she gone? I ache for her to return.
How is that possible? I don’t know her, but I crave her.
Come back to me.
I’m here. Waiting for you.
Come back.
Nothing.
It’s disheartening, but I’m not the type to give up. She needs me. I’m meant to help her. I can’t stay here. I have to be with her—wherever she is.
She needs to know that love is real.
I need to show her.
Now.
Something changes. The nothingness is gone and I’m lying on a soft material. I sit up and look down. I’m still in the uniform I wore at the award dinner. The medals I received shine in the light of a lamp. I look around. I appear to be in a bedroom. Beside me there are two sleeping bags, each with a utensil and an envelope next to them .
Odd.
I look beside me and discover that I also have an envelope. I know it’s from her. Her essence lingers on it. I open it carefully and begin to read.
Her name is Lauren.
She’s a doctor.
I’m safe and she’s here to not only help me but also answer all the questions she’s certain I’ll have. I have more than a few.
She wrote directions for what to do with an item she left on the desk if I wake and she’s not here. I close my eyes briefly then rise to my feet. She is here.
I open the door and let the pull of her lead me. I don’t know where I am but everything here is a little different. I don’t spend too much time on that. All I care about is her.
I make my way down a hallway and pause at a closed door. I don’t know how I know, but she’s not in there so I continue down the hall and through a dimly lit living room. I’m closer to her now than I was before. I can feel her.
I come to another closed door and open it before asking myself if I should. She’s lying against a pile of pillows, half beneath a blanket, reading a book. It falls to her lap when she realizes I’m there.
“Oh. Oh.” She shakes her head wildly enough that her glasses slide down her nose. She removes them, tossing them onto the bed beside her. “I wasn’t expecting you yet.”
I step farther into the room. She’s gorgeous just as I knew she would be. Her hair is piled into a wild bun on the top of her head. Her nightgown is somewhere between modest and sinfully thin, failing to conceal how her body is responding to my appearance. I tear my gaze from her chest and lose myself in the beauty of her eyes. Wide. Intelligent. Stunning. “I can go out and come back in if you need to put some clothes on.”
She glances down, brings a hand up to cover her face for a moment, then squares her shoulders and says, “No. No, I’m fine. Did you watch the video?”
“The video?”
“The one on the tablet. I left directions for how to use it in the letter.”
I step closer because being far away from her seems wrong. “I read the letter, but I came to find you instead.” I look her up and down, enjoying the way her cheeks flush beneath my attention. “You’re beautiful.”
She raises a hand. “Thank you, but everything you’re feeling right now isn’t real. It’s a condition brought on by what happened to you at the award dinner.” She swings her legs out from beneath the blankets and stands. “You need to watch the video. It’ll answer all of your questions.”
I close the distance between us. “I doubt it will answer this one.” I cup the back of her head and haul her to me for a kiss, careful to be gentle. I need to know how she tastes. Her lips remain immobile beneath mine at first, but then she sighs and kisses me back, her hands going to my shoulders .
If this is heaven, I’m willing to spend eternity here.
She softens and molds against me, then stiffens and pushes against my chest with both hands. I release her.
We stand there, breathing raggedly.
She backs away and raises a hand again, one finger in the air, like a teacher about to make a point her students should attend to. “Okay. No more of that.” She clears her throat. “I’m nearly twice your age. I understand that you’re feeling an attraction for me. And I can’t deny that I feel something as well. But, and this is the important part, it’s not real. We’re both suffering from a condition I caused by touching you while you were dormant.”
“I don’t understand.”
She walks over to a closet and pulls a large shirt over her head then steps into a thick, baggy pair of pants. It’s adorable that she thinks covering herself up will lessen how much I want her. I don’t understand what’s going on or why I’m already attached to her, but I do want her to feel comfortable. I probably shouldn’t have given in to the impulse to kiss her. Hoping to ease the tension between us, I say, “You forgot your feet.”
She looks down then back at me. It takes her a moment to realize it’s a joke. Her lips twist in an embarrassed smile. “I’m normally much better at handling the unexpected.”
“I’m sure the unexpected doesn’t often show up in your bedroom.”
“That is certainly true.” She takes a deep breath. “Hi. I’m Lauren.”
“Hi, Lauren. I’m Pete.”
Her expression turns sympathetic. “A lot has happened since the award dinner. Too much for me to easily explain, which is why I prepared a presentation for you.”
“The video.”
“Yes. It’s like a movie, but on a small screen.”
“Will you watch it with me?”
“Of course.” She walks to the door, taking a path that leaves a good distance between us.
Okay, she’s nervous. I probably should be. Nearly dying so many times over the last few years has made it difficult for me to fear much.
I follow her back to the room I woke in. She retrieves the thing she calls a tablet and looks around the room. There’s a desk and a bed. She considers choosing the bed as a place to sit then changes her mind and waves for me to follow her back out of the room.
She plants herself on one end of a couch and motions for me to sit in the chair next to it. I give her a look and choose a place on the couch a good two feet from her.
There’s an expression in her eyes that’s difficult to discern as she holds the tablet to her chest. “I wish there was a better way to tell you all of this.”
I nod because I feel her sincerity. Whatever she is about to show me, it can’t be worse than realizing I can never go home. Somehow, despite how Inkwell had faked our deaths and made us into something that normal society could never accept—somehow, I’d held onto the dream of going home after the war ended. I said something like that to Ray the night of dinner and he told me Director Falcon would never let that happen. He told me if we lived everyone we loved would die at the hands of Inkwell. There was no going home for any of us. Sometimes Ray says things out of rage, but I saw the truth in his eyes. Somehow, he knew our fate and it was an ugly one.
I give Lauren a reassuring smile. “Whatever it is, I can handle it.” Cause I’m still here.
She presses something on the tablet then turns it so I can see it. As the presentation plays, a myriad of emotions come and go only to come and go again, like waves on a beach. Disbelief. Confusion. Anger. Disbelief. More anger. More confusion.
Scenes from 1945 flash across the screen. How the United States ended the war stuns me. Angers me. Makes me question everything I thought I knew about Inkwell. A familiar face appears on the screen. Hugh. He explains that we’ve been gone for eighty years. He tells me to remain calm and to trust no one beyond Lauren and the people he’ll introduce in this video.
When he says that our unit was somehow trapped in silverware all this time and how he, Jack, and Ray were brought back. I look at Lauren. She responds with an awkward smile and says, “That was necessary before we fully understood the process.”
“Hard luck.”
My intention was to make her smile and it works. “Keep listening. There’s a lot you need to know.”
By the end of Hugh’s portion of the video, my head is spinning. Was this what Ray meant when he said there was no going home for us? Did he know? My head starts pounding as I try to take in that I may actually be in the future and sometimes a utensil. How the fuck does anyone come to terms with that?
Hugh promises to guide me through adjusting to this place and time. He tells me I’m not alone and in time I’ll discover that life in the future has benefits.
I’m more concerned with the past. “Did Inkwell kill my family?”
“No. Your brothers went on to marry and have children. Your parents were grandparents and then great-grandparents before they passed of natural causes. We couldn’t find any living siblings, but you have family from the following generations.”
I cover my face and let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good.” When I meet her gaze again, concern is darkening those beautiful eyes of hers. “It’s a lot to take in, but I’ve survived some heinous things. I’ll survive this.”
“Yes, you will.” She places her hand over mine and we both freeze. My experience with women is limited due to my prior condition, but I’ve pined for one or two over the years. Nothing I felt for them compared to this. Her eyes widen and she whips her hand away.
I understand. This is intense.
Lauren’s image comes on the screen. So serious. Her tone is professional and she’s in a lab coat. I’m impressed not only by her obvious intelligence, but also by her determination to help all of us. She explains that a bond is formed between the soldiers trapped in the silverware and the woman who wakes them—a bond that could easily be confused with sexual or emotional attachment. She follows that with a plan for how she intends to break that bond and free us from her.
When the video ends, neither of us speak for several minutes. I must be in shock because I’m temporarily numb. It’s too much to take in all at once.
Eventually, she says, “If you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.”
Do I? “I don’t know what I’d even ask.”
She nods sympathetically. “That’s normal. It’ll take time to sort through everything you just learned.”
“Yeah.” I run my hands through my hair and note how her eyes widen at the move. In the video, she explained that a woman named Mercedes had handed her a set of silverware. “I do have one question.”
She swallows visibly. “Go ahead.”
“If you knew that touching the silverware would bond us to you, why did you do it?”
She looks away for a moment, her voice raw. “I don’t know.”
Yes, she’s older than I am, but all I see is a proud, brilliant woman, unwilling to admit to herself that she might also be lonely.
How I feel for her and what I want isn’t as important as what I am beginning to understand she needs. “Should I apologize for kissing you?”
“Not necessary. You’re technically under the influence of the transition.”
“I don’t regret it. It was a nice way to be welcomed back.”
She smiles. “Thanks.”
I remember the silverware in the bedroom I woke in. “Do you know who they are? The fork and the knife?”
“No.”
“Do you feel as connected to them as you feel to me?”
“Yes.” Although I don’t like the idea of her wanting another man, I find myself respecting her more each time she chooses honesty when many people might have lied.
“Are you able to sense anything about them?”
Her teeth close on her bottom lip before she says. “The fork is smooth. Does that make sense? He feels like a charmer who puts up an act instead of letting someone in. Maybe I’m imagining that, but that’s what I felt the first time I touched him.”
“Franklin. That must be Franklin. What about the knife? ”
“He’s angry. Very angry. And hurt. Disappointed in both Inkwell and himself. But not dangerous the way I believe Ray can be.”
“Elliot. That sums him up well.”
Lauren picks up a smaller version of the tablet and says, “This is a phone. I promised I’d call Hugh as soon as one of you returned.”
With the speed Inkwell gave me, I remove the phone from her hand and place it on the other side of me. “Before you do that, I have a request.”
She looks unnerved by my move, but she nods. “What is it?”
“I just found out everything and everyone I know outside of my unit is gone. I need a hug.”
She doesn’t budge. “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“Is it me you don’t trust or yourself?”
Her lips press together. “Despite how we feel, there will be no sexual relations between us.”
“Okay. I can agree to that as long as you agree that hugging doesn’t have to be sexual.”
Her face tenses with confusion. “How you feel must be confusing, but—”
I lift her up and sit her across my lap sideways, wrapping my arms around her. “You need this as much as I do.”
She sits there, stiff as a board, but I don’t release her.
Against her hair, I murmur. “Just a hug. We haven’t known each other long enough for you to trust me, but I have to believe you can sense that you’re safe with me. I’d never hurt you. You’re a part of me.”
Her body shudders against mine, but she doesn’t demand to be released.
And for now, that’s enough.