Elusion(37)

A crashing sound suddenly echoes throughout the room, startling us both. We look to see what caused it and notice that a strong gust of wind has knocked a big shard of glass out of a nearby window frame. That’s when the black spray-paint numbers on the wall beneath it nearly stop my heart.

5020.

I gasp so loudly that Josh backs away from me, uncertain of what to do. I leap up from the mattress and run over to the wall, pressing my hands over the number just to make sure that it’s real. The dingy, crackling concrete under my fingernails confirms this isn’t make-believe or imagined.

Whatever is happening with Josh’s sister and her so-called friends is somehow connected to the vision of my father.

When Josh falls in on my right, Patrick’s voice is no longer ringing in my ears. Now I hear my dad calling out.

You need to find me.

I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly before speaking again. “I saw my father in Elusion last night. He was in the Thai Beach Escape, and he talked to me.”

Josh is silent for a moment, his cheeks flushing a deep shade of pink. Then he exhales and says, “Tell me everything.”

As the wind outside continues to howl, I tell him over the rattling windows about my dad, the crumbling Escape, and the number 5020 carved in the sand. When I’m done, the room is as black as the oil clouds outside.

“This can’t be just a coincidence,” I say to Josh. “There has to be a link between what happened to me in Elusion and what’s going on with Nora.”

“So what do we do now?” he asks me, but when I feel him take my hand again, it’s like he already knows what my answer will be.

“We find out the truth on our own.”


Inside my father’s study, everything is exactly as it was the morning we found out he died. His worn brown leather slippers are near the foot of his favorite nest chair. The laminate coating on his desk has a thin film of dust over it. The central air is still set at what my dad thought was the perfect temperature—sixty-eight degrees. But what stands out the most are the walls, which are covered with antique paintings and drawings in square gilded frames. Gorgeous landscape scenes filled with serene baby blue skies, rolling green hills, and picturesque lighthouses perched on towering stacks of rocks.

“When’s the last time you were in here?”

I feel Josh’s eyes on me, but I don’t turn around when I answer him. I guess I’m a little afraid that my composure might crack if I see his face.

“Six months ago, I think.” I walk over to my dad’s chair and graze my fingers along one of the armrests. “I woke up at three o’clock in the morning and wandered downstairs to the kitchen for a glass of water. On my way upstairs, I saw a light peeking out through a slit at the bottom of the study door.”

I risk a glance at Josh, and I see his lips are turned up in a sweet yet concerned smile, like he regrets asking me this question.

“Dad and I didn’t see each other much back then. He was always at the Orexis lab, working on Elusion, and when he was home, he was too tired for anything but small talk.” I sit down in my father’s chair. “I knew I shouldn’t disturb him. He treated this room like a private library. But I came in anyway and”—I cover my mouth after letting out a laugh—“he was just sitting here, doing these stupid word puzzles on his tab.”

Josh chuckles. “Sounds like top secret work to me.”

“We wound up solving a ton of them together. We didn’t even notice the sunrise through the window.”

Suddenly my eyes fill up with tears, and I quickly swivel around so that my back is to Josh.

“What do you think we’ll find in here?” Josh asks after a brief pause. I know he realizes I’m upset, and I appreciate him not forcing the subject.

I glance at the closet at the far left of the room. Behind its closed door, on the top shelf, there is a silver box with the Orexis logo emblazoned on the side. In it are Dad’s personal items, which Patrick brought over to the house a week after my father’s accident. My mother hid the box away because she couldn’t bring herself to go through it.

But I have to. I don’t have a choice. Something is wrong with Elusion, and this box is the only remaining unexamined piece of the life my dad left behind.

“I’m not sure,” I murmur. “But hopefully there’s something that will give us answers.”

I get up from the chair and walk toward the closet, which opens the moment I step in front of the motion sensors. I stand up on my tiptoes and stretch, grabbing the box.

“Do you need help with that?” Josh asks, reaching up to assist me.

But when I pull it down, I’m surprised by its lightness.

“No, I’m okay. This thing is, like, less than a pound.”

Josh takes the box out of my hands, holding it at different angles and inspecting it carefully. “Yeah, this looks like metal, but it’s probably made of something like carbon-fiber polymer. Where do you want me to put this?”

I point to my dad’s desk and Josh sets the box down. My heart in my throat, I take a laser pen out of his top desk drawer and shave through the thick strip of quick-seal across the top of the box. I breathe in deep and open it up. Inside there are only a handful of items, and one of them I’ve already seen before.

Tucked underneath a mug with my picture printed on it is a paperback edition of Walden.