Elusion(29)

Unbelievable.

But wait, there is another person who needs to know what happened.

Mom.

I frantically dial her private number, hoping that she’ll answer right away. She can’t be too far into her shift. In fact, she’s probably just getting settled in at HR and going through a reorientation program or something. But soon her voice mail kicks in and I quickly press the Disconnect button on my tablet.

How can I possibly explain on a message that I saw my dad in Elusion? Mom would probably call back and ask me to come down to the hospital so the psych staff could check me out. It seems like the only thing left to do is stare at my watch for the next hour, willing each restricted minute to disappear into thin air.

When the last one finally does, my fingers fly to the touch pad of my wristband and the screen of my tablet, furiously entering every critical numeric code. Then I put on my visor and reinsert my earbuds.

When the immersion countdown begins, I feel like my chest is filling with helium. A tickling sensation ripples up and down my limbs, making all the little light-blond hairs on my skin stand on end. A large swath of incandescent light covers everything in sight, and when it dissipates, I’m transported to the same beach where I saw my father.

I look around, stunned.

There must be some mistake. This can’t be the same Escape I left an hour ago. If it is, something terrible has happened here. It looks as if a bomb has exploded, leaving devastation everywhere. Fierce scarlet-colored ocean waves batter a torn charcoal shoreline. The extraordinary flowers have been scorched, so all that remain are burned fragments of stems. The forest is totally obliterated too, and the stench of decaying vegetation thickens the air so much I have to cover my nose with my hands. I’m yanked left and right by howling, storm-grade winds that spray salt water across my cold, bare skin, each and every droplet stinging me like acid rain. The wall that my father was sucked behind is nearly impossible to see, fading into the pitch-blackness that surrounds me.

The environmental conditions aren’t the only things that have changed. I’m jumpy, nervous, filled with an overwhelming sense of doom. I begin hearing faint voices inside my head. As the wind strengthens and shifts, I hear them taunting me relentlessly.

You’re going to lose Patrick.

Your mother doesn’t care about you.

Your father is dead; don’t you wish you were too?

Shaking them off, I take a deep breath and force myself toward the swirling sea, moving closer to the spot where I saw my father. Each step becomes easier, and soon I’m running, the wind blowing my hair every which way as my feet sink into the sand. As I reach the edge of the water, I trip over a piece of pale gray driftwood and fall to my knees. I push myself up as another turbocharged current of air sprays sand into my face.

“Dad!” I scream, shielding my eyes from the debris. “Where are you?”

I look toward the firewall, but I can barely make it out through the dust fragments flying around me. A clap of thunder sounds as a bolt of lightning streaks through the midnight sky, striking the beach only inches from me. I jump up and run in the other direction as hail begins to fall in heavy sheets, pelting the sand with pebble-size rocks of ice.

A roar comes from the horizon, so loud I’m certain the world is about to crumble. In the distance, far on the edge of the bubbling ocean, a cone of water rises out of the sea, twisting ferociously, like a violent tornado. I remember my father telling me a long time ago that I couldn’t get hurt in Elusion, but suddenly I’m doubting him. Even so, I’m not leaving until I find him again. I crouch down in the sand, hugging my legs to my chest, bracing myself for whatever happens next.

Just as the funnel is about to suck me into its vortex, the rotating column suddenly turns away. I tilt my head up and watch as it practically flies back over the water, disappearing into the sea’s horizon. But it has left something behind. A number is carved into the sand in front of me.

5020.

It’s a message. A message I’m certain is from my dad.

Then, from out of nowhere, two strong arms grab me from behind and yank me up.

“I’m getting you out of here, Ree,” Patrick says, holding me tight.

“No!” I say, fighting him off. “My dad is here! We have to find him!”

Patrick reaches over and presses the emergency button on my wristband.

“No!” I scream above the wind, trying with all my might to wrest myself from his grasp.

And then everything fades behind a blinding wall of light.





SEVEN


BRIGHT ORANGE-AND-BLUE FLAMES crackle and jump in front of my eyes, sending me into a mini-trance. I search my mind for a memory of the last time we used the steel-encased ethanol fireplace in the den. Thanksgiving, maybe? It was definitely on the first night the temperature bottomed out, right before it started to snow.

But I doubt everything right now.

Patrick and I have been back from Elusion for about a half hour. I can hear him in the kitchen, shouting into his tab at one of his senior programmers. The minute Aftershock wore off and Patrick could move his hands, he called Orexis, looking for an explanation as to what happened to my Escape and how I managed to see a man who has been dead since December.

My head falls forward a bit and I feel the heat of the fire on my cheeks. It reminds me of the comfort of my father’s hug, and the soft timbre of his voice, but these aren’t remembrances from months ago—they are images from the here and now, stolen moments that I want back more than anything in the world.