It becomes glass.
A windshield, to be more specific.
And then I’m speeding along that dark country road in the truck with Annie and Emily Connors. I can hear the sharp crackle of static on the radio, and I can smell the Body Shop Dewberry perfume oil that Annie had been wearing.
The snowy static from the radio feels electric as it fills my ears, my head starts to shake, and a loud screaming pain slowly begins to tear my mind apart.
Then, as the world around me blurs and begins to fade away and the pain from the static in my head becomes too much to bear, I sense the dark thing coming toward me from somewhere outside my reality.
I realize the world is about to end.
And that’s when I wake up.
* * *
—
“Are you okay?”
I was looking into Chloe’s face, my kitchen ceiling visible behind her in the distance.
I was lying on the floor.
I sat up and the world slowly slipped into focus. “What happened?”
“You had another…episode,” Chloe said.
“What time is it?” I asked, as I did my best to remember what had happened, how I’d ended up on the floor of my kitchen looking up at Chloe.
“It’s seven forty-five,” she said, helping me up. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“You stole the Magician’s laptop,” I said, “we looked over a few things, and then I was here.”
“I borrowed his computer. We’ve been through that bit. That was two hours ago.”
“It was?”
“I’m taking you to urgent care.”
“I’m fine,” I said as I scrambled to stand.
“Oh, well then,” she said, “as long as you say you’re fine.”
I gave her the finger—along with what I hoped looked like a carefree smirk—and sank into one of the white plastic chairs at the dining room table.
What the hell was happening to me?
The last thing I remembered was worrying about Chloe for some reason. And then it came flooding back—not the missing two hours, but the reason I’d been so concerned.
Crow.
I’d been thinking about his warning, the fact that he’d mentioned Chloe specifically. That must have been when I passed out.
Did my concern for Chloe have something to do with my losing time? I’ve heard that stress can do crazy things to our minds and bodies. Could it be that simple? Did I just need to download a meditation app and book an hour of hot yoga?
Chloe sat down across from me and folded her arms.
I was just about to try to explain away my losing time, again, but there was something in the way Chloe was looking at me.
This was it.
If I didn’t come completely clean, Chloe was going to know it, and I was going to lose her. Whatever happened, whether she believed me or not, I needed to be honest.
But more than that, I wanted to be honest.
Chloe was scared, probably picturing me in an MRI machine with wide-eyed technicians staring at a brain tumor the size of a small grapefruit.
I was pretty sure I didn’t have a tumor—although when I started running over the wild story I was about to tell Chloe, I began to suspect I might be a bit overconfident about the tumor-free nature of my brain.
I told her everything.
I started with the mysterious man named Crow, how I’d originally met him in The Tower and how he’d gone on to pull a serious Moriarty move on a city bus filled with people he must have paid off. Then I explained how I’d been feeling recently—how the sensation I called the gray feeling had flared up again after being dormant for most of my adult life. Chloe sat there expressionless. Her eyes didn’t offer shock, worry, scorn, or support. She just nodded and listened.
Okay, so technically I didn’t actually tell Chloe everything.
I left out the fact that I’d seen my childhood friend Emily Connors. I did this because what had happened with Crow was crazy, but adding a childhood friend showing up out of nowhere just felt a little…unhinged.
When I’d finished, I leaned back in my chair and waited. A few seconds later, Chloe exhaled and ran her hands through her hair.
“Crow?” she asked, clearly still trying to come to terms with everything I’d told her.
“That’s what he told me,” I said.
“You and I met Sidney Farrow?”
I nodded.
“And we drank wine with her late into the morning?”
“Yeah.”
Chloe sighed. “That would have been amazing,” she said.
“It was.”
Gradually, I began building a picture. Chloe remembered Swan and the twins, but she had no memory of anything involving Sidney Farrow—including our visit to WorGames and the three of us examining the files Baron had uploaded. I didn’t have the guts to ask if she remembered our kiss. I couldn’t bear to lose that as well—though I’m sure we’d have to confront the issue eventually.