16. Moonlight
Moonlight
Isaak
He’d really fucked it up this time. Dylan joining the heist was the last thing he wanted. Not that he didn’t want to spend time with her. Of course he wanted that, and more than he’d admit. But putting her in danger like this, it was enough to shake him.
“Was that a wolf?” Dylan’s eyes moved rapidly, hands clenched.
“Just stay calm.”
“Can’t we just rip the tape off?” she asked, hand hovering over her temple.
“No, STOP!”
Isaak crashed into her, trying to grab her hand. She lowered it, and held on to the lapel of his jacket to steady herself, and his arm dropped behind her, down to her waist. The fingers of her other hand touched the back of his head, eyes looking directly into his.
Dylan’s heavy breathing, the tensed muscles of her chest, the smoothness of her skin through the white dress she wore all the time in here, all threatened to turn him into an anxious mess.
Knuckles whitening, he longed to hold her even closer and kiss her.
Her eyes were like gateways into other realities, the heightened, augmented reality of the Tapeworld somehow making her even more beautiful than she already was in real life.
No. She was the same. It wasn’t that the Tapeworld created something fake, rather it revealed the full extent of Dylan’s beauty.
“It’s not safe,” he finally let out, with a deep exhale. “You have to tape out somewhere safe, always.”
A quick nod showed her understanding, but she stayed silent for now. Dylan was waiting for him to make the obvious move.
“Why are you still holding me like this?” she asked.
Or maybe she wasn’t.
He stepped away and helped her regain her balance. Her eyes showed curiosity, and her voice betrayed excitement. “No, I—”
Another growl echoed through the trees, closer this time. The package inside his side bag vibrated, humming with an electric noise. There was no time to look at it.
“We have to go. Come on!” Isaak instinctively held out his hand, walking away from the howls and getting ready to run.
What am I doing, holding out my hand like an idiot—
Her hand grabbed his, the soft texture of her skin shooting through his nerve endings.
Whoa!
“Isaak!” she said. “My boots!”
Oh shit. He waved his hand and her usual Dr. Martens materialised on her feet.
“Now let’s get the hell out of here!”
As they sprinted away from the chorus of howls behind them, he was surprised to find that she matched his speed easily.
Everything was forest and dirt footpath.
“Can they hurt us in here?” she asked between breaths, her pace now faster than Isaak’s. She had to keep slowing down to match his comparatively slower run.
His chest heaved with each hard breath, head shaking. “I don’t fucking know. I’ve never fought in the Tapeworld.” Except for that security guard you killed. No, no, I don’t know that’s what happened. Astrid said he was just a bot.
But Astrid was hardly trustworthy.
He dodged a branch. They were deep in the forest now, and they were both starting to flag a little, so he risked slowing down and glancing behind him. There was something strange about the trees here, but he couldn’t work out what. “Wait a minute,” he called to Dylan.
She immediately slowed down and looked back at him. Her dress caught on a branch, fabric pierced by the end of a pointy twig.
“Your dress is stuck.” He moved closer to her, hand ready to pull the fabric out.
With one swift tug, she pulled the fabric from the twig, and it ripped a gash in the dress, exposing most of her thigh. “It’s okay, I’ve got it.”
He tensed up, the sight stopping him in his tracks.
A note of desire surged in him, mixed with the fear of what was hunting them.
Maybe this woman was everything he longed for.
But the wounds of his recent romantic entanglements had left him cold, wary of jumping into something again.
And who was to say that she would be into him that way?
He resisted giving any hint of his reaction.
It wasn’t the place and it certainly wasn’t the time.
“Can’t you unsummon them?” Fear stuck to her voice like wet paint.
“If I could wish them away, I would. But that’s not how it works.”
Another chorus of howls reached them through the forest, sounding closer now.
The wolves were closing the distance. But maybe they were hidden well enough…
He tensed up, tracing a circular shape in the air with one hand. He took a deep breath and waited.
“What’s that?” She drew a tight smile across her lips, taking a step back. “You summoning something?”
He nodded. “A tape-tube to get us out of here. But…” He frowned. Tried again.
And again.
Nothing happened. The portal wouldn’t open.
“Fuck. Counter-measures?”
“Counter-measures?”
“It’s not working…”
“Isaak, whatever is out there is getting closer and closer!”
“It’s not working!”
“Isaak…” Dylan’s voice was strained, and she was visibly agitated.
Worry gnawed his gut like a shark feasting on an unwary swimmer. No choice but to keep running and get the hell out of there. “Just run and don’t stop!” he told her, setting off at a sprint again.
“And then what?” Dylan followed suit, the dress hiking up her legs, exposing more of her thighs. “I still don’t even know why you summoned me here in the first place!”
Fear and attraction coiled in his mind. “I’ll think of something. Keep moving!” Truth was he had no fucking clue what to do next. Not yet, anyway. But he was Dylan’s line to safety, and he had to do something.
More trees and branches and leaves rushed past. The sun had fully set now, darkness becoming apparent as they ran.
For now, they had to keep moving away from the house, in the hope of exiting whatever sphere of influence it was that prevented him from summoning the tube.
He would have tried to explain this to Dylan, but between breathing hard and weaving through the trees and narrowly avoiding falling flat on his face tripping over some rock, he couldn’t muster the words.
Like before, she was running ahead of him.
You’re out of shape, Isaak. As he attributed her advantage fully to his own flaws, he noticed something about her form.
She wasn’t stumbling or flailing at all as she ran.
Sweat and the rush of air pressed her dress against her stomach to reveal the outline of well-defined abs, and the muscles of her arms and legs painted a picture he hadn’t properly taken a look at before.
This was a disciplined run, born from training.
Dylan must have done more in her life than simply calling meat-eaters to get them off the stuff.
And like a colt, she threaded through the obstacles effortlessly.
He puffed and huffed just watching her do it.
Dodge, swerve, jump through the forest.
It suddenly dawned on him.
“Dylan! Wait! There’s going to be a fallen tree on your right… just about… now!”
She jumped over it. “What the…?” Her black Dr. Martens hitting the ground in a perfectly maintained rhythm, crushing vegetation, she gave him a glance. “How did you know that?” Her tone was even, tempered, the cost of running for this long clearly not affecting her as much.
He’d realised what felt off about the trees earlier – what had been feeling off since then.
The trees repeated, the branches and gnarly roots and mossy undergrowth coming into view at speed in a pattern he was beginning to learn.
“The forest. It’s a loop! When they made this tape-space, they must have used a cheap algorithm to fill in the trees, and the pattern keeps repeating. ”
She ducked below another outgrowth. “Good job! But what are we going to do about it?”
He braved a look back.
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He turned away and kept running. Don’t look back, Dylan. Please, don’t look.
She looked. “FUCK!”
“I know!”
Two large blotches of light and colour were bounding towards them, leaping over fallen trees, each footfall landing with a loud thud.
Neon-drenched nightmares, they looked like large metal dogs adorned with all manner of tubing and lights and sharp teeth.
Whoever had dreamed them up couldn’t be the same person who’d designed the mid-century modern house.
Minimalism and finesse were not concepts known to whoever summoned these beasts.
If they had been designed. No, they must have been.
The vibrations inside his bag increased, and the hum from the box got louder, the closer the wolves got.
Isaak’s legs were shaking and he was beginning to run out of breath.
He wouldn’t be able to keep this up much longer.
And the neon wolves were nearly upon them.
If he was going to do something, now was the time.
It was risky. Were these wolves like Miss Kitty?
Summoned beings that you couldn’t control one hundred percent, but you could take down? Perhaps.
“Isaak, I—” Dylan started.
He couldn’t wait. “I’m going to try something!”
Dylan slowed and looked at him.
He tensed his stomach, extending his arm, and jumped, flipping backwards towards the mechanical beasts. It was a London Lazarus move. A blue storm bubbled around his arm, and with the clicking sound of a thousand particles coming together, the black gun Astrid gave him materialised in his hand.
Time slowed down as he aimed at the closest wolf. The flesh of his finger swelled as he pulled on the trigger – hard, hard as he could – in the split seconds between rise and fall, trusting his landing to the tape and hoping the bullet would hit home.
“No!” Dylan’s shout rippled through the space around him, knocking off his aim. The bullet fired into the air and died on a tree.