UNDERGROUNDER

Copyright © 2022, J.E. Glass

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

ISBN - 979-8-9852555-0-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Editing by Charlie Knight, Pamela Willson and Shannon Massey

Cover design by Ashley Hankinstein

Book illustrations by Ashley Hankinstein

Formatting by Eliott Griffen

For more information visit linktr.ee/JE_Glass

For my wife, who learned to love a beast

and became the sun to my moon.

Without her, I wouldn’t glow.

Table of Contents

The Van

Winter Sky

Dark Water

Mother

Contingency Plan

Monster

Little Bird

Hidden Passage

Risk and Reward

Expect the Unexpected

Situational Hypocrisy

Look but Don’t Touch

Freedom

Paid Luck

Always Watching

For Hire

Wrong Outcome

Temporary Balm

Stay

No Need for Threats

Calling In A Favor

Wraith

Phantom of the Opera

Liaison

Queens and Rooks

Rabbit Hole

Mule

APB

Does Not Compute

Riddle Me This

Little Red and the Wolf

Goliath

Queen to Queen

Funny Story

724 Underground

Dangerous and Different

Serious Case of FFH

The Visitor

Bombshell

Little Sister

Daisy Dukes

Not Welcome

Letter

Towards. Not Away

Just Dance

Top of the World

Taken to Pieces

Are You Happy?

Olive Branch

Feast Day

Fall

Master of my Disease

Ghost Lights

Run

Here There Be Monsters

Fallen Underground

Promise Me

I Love You

End of an Empire

Lost and Found

About The Author

The Van

A rough hand dug into her scalp like a trowel, jerking her back with bruising force. The dark van rocked with every turn and pothole like a ship in rough water, but Alex could see enough to make out the faces of the three men towering above her.

“I love it when we catch them in the wild,” one of them snarled with grim enjoyment; close enough to her ear she could smell the sweet and sour haze of day-old rum on his breath. He cracked his knuckles individually like a villain out of a Sunday morning cartoon, the sound overly loud in the small space. Alex’s attempt to recoil earned her a hard, warning jerk back to center.

She didn’t know what was going on or what these men wanted. She didn’t know them. She didn’t know how this situation found her. One second, she was walking home from her office, going over source documents for her upcoming spread and working out who her chief editor needed to reach out to. And the next? She was being pulled into a van by three sets of hands like a scene out of a horror movie.

“I — I don’t–”

The first blow to connect came out of nowhere like a bolt of stray lightning and sank into Alex’s stomach, driving the breath from her lungs in a wheezing rush. She might have painted the filthy van floor with her partially digested lunch had a second fist not burst against the side of her head with the sound of a bat striking a melon. Shock kept the worst of the pain at bay, but there was a second heartbeat in her mouth from where she’d bitten her tongue and the faintest hints of copper creeping into her nose.

“Didn’t give you permission to talk.” Thick fingers dug into the soft skin below her jaw, choking off any plea of innocence or mercy. Alex was drawn closer to the speaker, a nondescript white male with a scar on his upper lip and cold brown eyes. “You know what you did, and you know why we’re here. Marco doesn’t like when his girls disobey a direct order, so tonight, we’re going to discuss a valuable lesson about what happens when you talk too fucking much.”

Marco...Alex’s panicked mind ripped through her memory, seeking the name in the frantic scramble of someone sliding slowly off a cliff. A client? A source? Someone tied to her most recent set of exposés for the Times? Only one came to mind, and it sucked the blood from her body, leaving her frozen to the bone.

Marco Falconi. Notorious crime boss. Oh, God. Oh, God, please not that.

“Don’t know… Falconi,” she managed to say through gritted teeth, but Alex might as well have been screaming into the wind. Thugs weren’t hired to listen to their marks. They were hired to follow orders.

“Sure you don’t,” came the condescending reply. The man in front of her looked at something over her shoulder and gave the silent command to continue with a jerk of his chin.

Something white-hot sparked against Alex’s lower back, sizzling like a Tesla coil. Her spine involuntarily snapped into a hard C that rendered her lungs incapable of letting out a scream as the electricity jumped from muscle to muscle. A taser. She’d just been tasered. Left to fall with the graceless thud of immobile limbs, the swing of a boot launched her into the wall of the van and brought the wolves to the kill.

From that point forward, it was difficult to determine where one fist ended and the other began. Or was that a foot? Hard to tell. Alex tucked into herself as best she could, curled on her side like a question mark, the hands she used to cover her head providing little protection against steel-toed boots.

Lost in the tight curl of self-preservation, time turned to molasses. Alex tried to cling to all those sensationalized How To Survive an Abduction stories circulated in popular magazines and taught to bleary-eyed school children at assemblies. Pay attention. Track the turns. Don’t fight back. Humanize yourself. The bitter truth was none of those things were remotely possible, so it came as a shock when the hail of abuse abruptly stopped like someone hitting pause during an action sequence on TV.

Hauled to her knees, head held aloft by her hair, Alex stared incoherently through her only working eye at the scarred man crouched in front of her. He sucked his teeth in appraisal, cocking his head as if to gauge whether or not her condition met his seal of approval. Somewhere down the line, his men must have fallen short because he reached around and brought something metallic into view, waving it teasingly to get Alex’s attention.

“That’s right. Follow the birdy. Now, I hope you learned a valuable lesson,” he sneered, joined by his comrades in a slithering snicker as he tapped Alex’s nose with the tip of a wicked-looking knife. “Falconi had orders from HS to bring you back in, but that mouth of yours got my brother caged for five fucking years for breaking Community law. And for what? Because you saw something you shouldn’t and thought going to a priest would save you? Well, don’t worry. We’re gonna send a message to the Good Father once we’re through with you. And since you’re so keen on confession, as one poor sinner to another, let me help prepare your body for what comes next.”

The new smile that spread across his pockmarked face was a shark’s grin. “I baptize you in the name of the Father.”

Alex grunted wetly in a stunted attempt at gasping when the man grabbed her by the shoulder and sheathed the knife to the hilt in her side.

“The Son.”

The sharp crack of his forehead against the bridge of her nose hit mute on her senses, leaving only blinding white behind.

“And the Holy Spirit.”

The door to Alex’s right slid open with the low rumble of wheels gliding along a track. Bitter cold swept into the van and dug talons into her throat as Alex was dragged to standing, the heels of her unshod feet dangling over the edge. Instinct brought her hands up too late to grab the frame of the sliding door as it slipped past in slow motion.

“Amen.”

The fingers around her throat dropped away, and Alex plummeted like a stone.

Her next sensation was the gut-sucking swoop of falling, the stagnant, sick-smelling musk of the van replaced with the razor-edge sharpness of winter air and frost. Alex had enough time to think “Oh Go–” before the left side of her body struck a rough, sloped surface with an ugly crunch that wiped cognition from her mind and–

Blackness.

Current.

Thrashing with no end and cold.

Alex broke the fast-moving water’s surface but couldn’t force her lungs to drag in the air she needed, snowmelt mixed with high volumes of out-of-season rain wrapping every muscle in groaning rust. Slapping the black water in a futile effort to stay afloat, she caught sight of the departing van, an island swept away in a squall, as she went back under, taking half a lung full of water with her. When she surfaced again, the mouths of twin circular pits rose from the drain canal. Backpedaling of any kind was useless against the pull of the current. Alex was a body dragged behind a car, the water pulling her beneath the concrete lip giving way to an undertow that tightened its grip and sucked her down into darkness that had actual matter. Alex felt her body crest the ledge of another drop only to fall once more, spat out and recaptured in the same dizzying breath as the night closed its fangs around its newest victim without so much as a scream.

Winter Sky

The heavy iron door protested when Lee pressed her shoulder to the metal, rusted hinges squealing piggishly in the cold. She winced through the noise that felt like an ice pick driving into her ears. No one usually guarded this entrance to the Underground, but the sound was still abrupt and alarming for such a quiet night.

Poking her head through the crack she’d made in the mausoleum doorway, Lee found the coast clear in either direction and replaced her concentrated frown with a mischievous smirk. She’d made excellent time. Hood drawn, she ducked into the darkness of Trinity Church Cemetery and struck out due east through rows of dated and weathered headstones, checking her watch to be sure she still had time to meet her liaison and get back without her absence noticed. Mother would blow a tempest otherwise, but as Laurel Ulrich liked to say, “well-behaved women rarely make history.”

Mindful of the time but eager to savor this rare moment of independence, Lee forced herself to slow to a casual stroll and soak in the season. There was something undeniably healing about the breeze rustling her hair and tasting the metallic hum of New York on her tongue. Something wild and thrilling and natural. Especially during winter. Winter was a magical season. Fall was a close second, with its prismatic colors and earthy smells, but winter was full of frost and ice, foggy breaths, and snow. In the Underground, there were no seasons. Nothing to break up the days save for repetition, chores, and the tolling of the clocks. No sun. No moon. No stars.

It was toward the black heavens Lee turned her face, letting the wind swirl crystalline and cold in her lungs. Squatting, she gathered a handful of snow off the top of a headstone and held it to her nose. Icy fractals tickled her skin, making her laugh when she snorted and sent the whole fistful flying. She must have been a sight to anyone unlucky enough to glance into the gloomy darkness of the cemetery. A black hooded figure cackling into the winter air. New York’s very own urban cryptid. How fitting.

Sticking to the older parts of the cemetery furthest from West 153rd St — disobedient she might be, but stupid Lee was not — she lost herself in the crunch of her boots in virgin snow and the company of so many silent dead. In hardly any time at all, she was moving into the newer burial sites where the mausoleums lost their beautiful Gothic architecture in lieu of modern, static buildings with hard edges and ruler-straight lines nestled among young trees barely worth their weight in firewood.

Slowing as she reached the West 155th St cemetery entrance, Lee performed a fast glance across the yard between headstones in either direction to be sure no one occupied the street other than the rows of parked cars. Sensing she was safe, she broke into a sprint and vaulted over the ornate wrought iron fence ringing the property, hands and feet barely touching the black metal. Years of playing subterranean Tarzan meant few obstacles could truly hinder her. If I fit in, I slip in, she chuckles to herself.

Successfully free of the cemetery, Lee straightened with a self-satisfied tug of her jacket and veered to the left, following the high stone wall opposite her toward the low bridge cutting under Riverside Drive. Blackness awaited her, but so did the person lingering just within the bridge’s arched underbelly. She could make out his silhouette each time he pushed off the wall and walked forward only to double back and disappear again like a toy soldier keeping watch.

Lee was more than ninety-nine percent sure this was her man, but to save herself the chance of a very awkward encounter that could potentially end in screaming, she reached into her pocket and retrieved a tiny flashlight. Tucked tight against the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, she clicked the side button three times and waited.

One heartbeat. Two. Three.

The figure didn’t move for another four seconds before the darkness was broken by a tiny prick of blue light flashing in answer to her silent question. Yep, that was him. Lee audibly exhaled her relief in a plume of white fog and jogged to safety, happy to be out of sight.

“Evening, your Eternal Spookiness,” the man said with a lopsided smile, balancing a cardboard box on his hip like he’d done this before, which he had. Several times. “You’re punctual as always.”

“Greetings, my Midnight Minion,” Lee said in return, signing with her hands. “I’m always on time. Mother’s rules.”

“Oh, I like that one. Midnight Minion,” he said, tasting the world with a grin that showed off crooked teeth. “Might get that embroidered on a jacket. Hella cool.”

“You’re welcome. Midnight Minion sounds better than Francis anyway.” Lee barely dodged a good-natured shove, laughing as she danced out of reach.

“Asshole,” Francis muttered. “Might just stick to calling you Wolfman from now on instead, yah ugly bastard.”

“You walked into that one, and you wouldn’t be far off the mark. I do have a face only a mother could love. So what did you bring me?”

“I should take my box back and make you wait, but I don’t want to carry this shit another ten blocks.” Francis passed the box to Lee and took the opportunity to light a cigarette now that his hands were free while she dug through the contents. “I got what I could for your order. Copper wiring. Solder, plus a new kit. Circuit boards. Microwave transformer. Oh, and those L-bends you needed. Found a few at the shop. No luck on the flanges or valves. I’ll keep looking.”

“You are a treasure,” Lee said, transferring the contents of the box into the backpack she’d hidden under her jacket.

“Damn straight I am,” Francis mumbled around the cigarette, the coals at the tip glowing orange when he sucked in, tinting his brown eyes momentarily gold. “Think this will last you longer than four days?”

“Oh, not likely.” She gave a helpless shrug. “Two days tops. I’ve got plans for everything.”

Francis blew out a lung full of smoke and tapped away stray ash. “Well, try to make it last. I can’t make another trip for at least two weeks, and I don’t know if Luke’s available yet.”

Lee made a noncommittal noise and signed without looking up. “I can always call Jerry.”

Arms elbow-deep in the box of scrap, Lee heard Francis’ distasteful snort. “I mean if you want to. God knows why Mother keeps him as an Insider.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, and he’s competent enough to get the job done. Anyway, thanks again for the late call.” Lee stood and slung the backpack over one shoulder, the contents clanking as they settled. “Oh, and here.”

From the depths of an inseam pocket, she dug out a velvet bag that jingled when tossed between them. Francis caught it smartly with one hand, curiosity plain. Upending it, his palm filled with yellow circlets of various size, some adorned with precious stones, some intricately crafted.

“You robbing jewelry stores now?” Francis’ eyebrows climbed into his thinning hairline as he lifted one of the rings into the weak light.

Lee grinned, showing the length of her upper and lower canines. “I’d never have to wear a mask. Who would believe the Wolfman just robbed them? But no. You’d be amazed what washes up in the Underground. See what you can pawn. Night!”

Dark Water

Lee should have turned on the balls of her feet and spirited her Topside spoils back to the Underground. She should have whisked herself away like a good little gremlin, skittering under her rock with a cackle because no one was the wiser to her mischief, and she’d gotten away with breaking the rules. Again. She should have done a lot of things that didn’t include departing from Francis in the opposite direction of the cemetery and heading for the river. But tonight wasn’t merely a night for secret rendezvous and package drops.

Tonight was about breaking records… and working on equipment.

Lee liked to think of it as a lonely game of chicken she played with her nerves. Since the start of her secret Topside adventures years ago, she hadn’t walked more than half a mile out in the naked open, and even that took working up to. Tonight, with the bite of winter stoking the fires of her bravery and a new trail mapped out, she intended to double that.

Maybe even triple.

Lee followed the tunnel under the bridge until it spat her out at the mouth of an enclosed catwalk terminating in a set of stairs, then jogged down to the street below, taking the steps two at a time. West 158th Street ran parallel to the Henry Hudson Parkway, but parallel wouldn’t take Lee where she needed to go. Straight was the desired course, under the looming parkway ramp that resembled the flight deck of an aircraft carrier from her position below it to the shore of the Hudson River on the other side.

Keeping her hood high to hide her unusual face when nearing puddles of weak streetlight, Lee hung back from the edge of the curb and let the sporadic bursts of traffic flow by until the street was clear. Sliding her arm through the remaining strap on her backpack, she stepped off onto asphalt and thanked her lucky stars for sharp hearing. The rev of an engine and the chirp of tires was all the warning she had that a car without headlights decided to ignore the red light and blow through the intersection. The dark van roared past like a cannonball, missing her by inches.

What the hell!? I’m right here!

Not for the first time, Lee wished she had a voice to scream with. Instead, she settled with kicking dirt in the van’s direction while flipping up a middle finger and swearing loudly enough in her head God might have flushed and hit mute.

Asshole, she fumed, watching its tail lights trail off. A curse upon you and your household, you ignorant bastard. Hope your ball sack gets ingrown hairs.

A hearty shake and a few steadying breaths later, Lee regrouped and jogged across the street, not stopping until she reached the Hudson River Greenway. Here, the jungle of steel and concrete receded like ocean surf, ushering her to the edge of smooth, dark water cleaving the land in half: New York on one side, New Jersey on the other.

Standing on the border between states, it wasn’t hard imagining she was looking at another kingdom. The opposite shore was a Tetris landscape of black buildings studded in gold and white. A sparkling, industrial mountain range that felt a world away from someone who stole glimpses of Topside through grates and manhole covers like a crow might steal crumbs.

Tonight, however, she would feast rather than salvage.

Heart taking flight, Lee hit start on her imaginary stopwatch and began walking in the direction of the George Washington Bridge. Her hope was to stake her misbehaving victory more than a mile away.

A mile my mother would take in flesh if she ever found out I was doing this.

Lee snorted a burst of white fog at her exaggeration. Like it or not, she understood the reasoning behind her mother’s rules. For the protection of her daughter and the people she governed, Undergrounders didn’t go Topside. There was no need to leave the sanctuary when they had Insiders who would get Undergrounders whatever they needed.

For thirty-two years, Lee chewed and swallowed the same stale, dry rhetoric that left her starving for something new. Anything new. And for eleven of those thirty-two years, she listened and obeyed until the precocious preteen finally worked up the courage to climb beyond her synthetic sky of concrete and cabling. Only then did she discover a world full of wonder, mystery, and technology.

A grin crinkled Lee’s face at the memory of her early tinkering years and what her nimble fingers birthed from nothing but Topside scraps, imagination, and a sturdy grasp of basic engineering. Heating. Radio communication. Lifts and pulleys. The foundation for so much. And as her knowledge grew, so too did her ambition. That was the root of her emergency delivery this evening. She was so tantalizingly close to completing what she hoped would be a continuous power source capable of detaching the Underground from New York’s electrical grid.

Trailing alongside the Hudson, Lee let her thoughts wander with the slow crawl of the icy current. Tonight’s plan was simple with a complex outcome. She had a little over two hours to make the trek from Trinity Church Cemetery to the George Washington Bridge. Her aim wasn’t necessarily the bridge itself but a forgotten section of antique sewer channels buried at the base of the bridge where the steel legs of the hulking suspension tower bit into the earth.

Lee knew from map study that a system of channels had been laid in the 1800s to help alleviate flooding when the aqueducts were assembled. Some of those early channels tangled with more modern pipes, and a few, in particular, had been equipped with floodgates controlled by wheel valves. If she could find the valves in question, Lee could open the gates and redirect a healthy amount of river water to the Underground where her slumbering machine would finally receive the power it needed.

The hike from the cemetery was uneventful but no less thrilling. Enthralled with the landscape, Lee detoured quite a few times to entertain herself on playgrounds or roll across empty soccer fields like an animal freed from its concrete paddock. Topside was so different. Lee’s world was hard, dark, and cylindrical. Rarely were there places big enough for a body to run in any direction without hitting a wall or dropping into a pit. Topside was massive, and standing beneath the George Washington Bridge only helped drive that fact home.

Like Jack and the beanstalk, she marveled, bending backward to take it all in. If the beanstalk was a double-decker highway bridging landmasses.

Boots crunching softly in the sandy gravel, Lee circled the base of the bridge’s suspension tower and the two-layer chain link fence standing sentinel around its enormous feet. The outer layer was straight and tall, meant as a basic deterrent. The inner fence rose higher than the first but reared back at the top like a cresting wave to prevent intrepid adventurers from climbing up and over with ease.

Poor idiots never planned for me.

A second walk-around confirmed there was no additional security, which was a needed stroke of luck. Lee intended to get her machine operational two years ago, but then 9/11 brought the city to its knees and any hope of accessing such a vital travel artery went up in smoke. Security on all bridges doubled. She didn’t blame them.

Cinching the straps of her backpack tight against her shoulders, Lee raced up the first fence with the same animal ease that had taken her over the cemetery fence and perched at the top like an urban gargoyle. Target in sight, she waited until perfectly balanced before launching for the high crest of the second fence and catching it with both hands. Dangling midair, Lee swung sideways and hooked her heel over the lip of the crest, anchoring her hold. From there it was just like any other day in the pipes: pull and roll.

And just like that folks, Leanna Farrow sticks the landing, she crowed upon righting herself on the other side, clapping rusty flakes from her palms.

With the felonious act of breaking and entering now behind her, the journey forward was a matter of threading her way into the steel bones of the suspension tower, finding the right hatch, and slipping back into a darkness Lee was more than intimately familiar with. It was home as much as her skin, and she neither feared it nor truly loved it. In shadow she may have been raised, but all creatures craved light to some capacity. Which was why the moment she slipped past the security door, she flipped on her headlamp and went to work.

Down a narrow flight of stairs into something akin to a bunker ribbed with cabling and pipes reminiscent of that particular raptor scene in Jurassic Park — thank God the only monsters Lee had to worry about were herself and Goliath — she found the hatch in question in a forgotten corner. It shrieked as she lifted it and froze halfway up, forcing Lee to shimmy over the lip into the room below on her stomach.

The drop was blessedly short, and her return ascent would be much easier thanks to the iron staples embedded in the wall. Silver dust motes danced dream-like in the beam of her light. The cramped chamber was suffocatingly silent, the stale air musty from years of stagnation. Lee felt a pang of nostalgia flare in her chest that fled in a sudden gust of grin-inducing triumph when she glimpsed the farthest wall.

Her maps hadn’t been wrong.

Three of the four gray walls were bare save for one holding an overabundance of wheel valves. Digging out a copy of the area’s blueprints from her pack, Lee squinted at her scribbled instructions and approached the valves. Judging by the layer of dust and corrosion coating the faded metal, no one had touched any of these in quite some time. All the better.

Taking the first wheel in both hands, she braced her shoulders and fought to turn it. Old and weathered meant exactly that, and the metal pulled against scabs of rust and disuse as it was turned counterclockwise three times before Lee moved on to the next and repeated the action. A part of her expected to feel a deep groaning of cogs and pulleys echoing through the floor like in the movies. The room, however, remained tomb-silent. Only when she went to inspect her channels would Lee know if her adjustments worked.

Blind faith isn’t only for the religious, but I pray to whatever lives in the sky that I didn’t just unleash a demon into the city’s sewer system.

Winded and damp with sweat, Lee checked her watch and gave the air an enthusiastic victory punch. Forty-five minutes to check and see if her gamble paid off. Plenty of time.

Thirty minutes and one dodged subway train later — it grazed her by a hair’s breadth, but at least it missed this time — Lee wove through a maze of cool-colored, semi-wet tunnels and hated every second of it. The stench was a direct assault on her entire physical person. Without a source of fresh air, the rotting sewage and mold flowed like a putrid onion beneath her feet in a brackish trickle. But this olfactory overhaul was nothing new. Living underground meant living with dirt under her nails. Well, more accurately claws and not exactly dirt either.

Bent at a forty-five-degree angle against the sharp slope of the ceiling, Lee hurried toward the roar of flowing water. Another fifty feet and the tunnel abruptly dropped away into a cylindrical shaft two stories deep and studded with dozens of openings like holes in Swiss cheese. Some were bone dry. Some dribbled like the one she stooped in. But one gushed water with the force of a water main break.

Was it the right one? Lee counted. Counted again. Couldn’t believe her answer was correct and did the math a third time, but everything lined up. It was all here. She’d done it.

Oh my God, YES!

Excitement inflated her chest with carbonation, making it difficult to grab the length of rope hanging on the hook at her shoulder. Her mind kept screaming, “IT WORKED!” in loop at the same time as, “Grab the dangling umbilical cord and climb down, you idiot!” but Lee got the rope on her second try, passing through a fine mist drifting from the foamy torrent on her way down. The roar of the water and its accompanying echo was deafening at the bottom of the shaft, drowning out her jubilant shrieks of success. After two harrowing years of setbacks, she was finally making headway.

I have so much to do! Lee spun in place, hands against her temples in an attempt to keep her excitement contained to the borders of her skull. I have to check the channels! I have to look at it all! The gauges. The pipes. They need to be fitted to the machine. I have to calibrate everything. Oh my God, this is actually happening!

The water pouring from above collected in a deep cistern near the back of the shaft and followed the four-foot-wide channel into another arching tunnel almost as long as a football field. Readjusting her pack, Lee followed the channel to the end of the corridor and back, pretending to check the flow but really just marveling at how this whole venture had worked in her favor. Who would have–

A loud splash startled her, the beam of her headlamp following the tight twist of her torso as she sought the source of the noise. She didn’t see anything amiss, but it wasn’t uncommon for the grates or stones from above to come loose and fall. Rust and rot ate through everything, and New York was infected with a terminal case of both. If a grate or, God forbid, a piece of concrete had chosen this moment to break loose, Lee needed to find and remove it immediately or risk hampering her vital flow of water.

Hurrying back down the channel, Lee swept a critical eye between the ceiling and the churning line of dark water. She was so engrossed in her search for fallen debris, she nearly missed the body slide past. If it hadn’t been for the ghostly half-moon flash of a face, Lee would have written the figure off as flotsam.

Was that a body!?

Mother

Panic reached through her stomach and took hold of her lungs. The how and why this person was down so far didn’t matter. Lee was running after them without thought or hesitation.

The water was fast. Faster than she initially realized as she fought to make it to the end of the corridor before the body slipped under the mesh grate at the channel’s end. Another drop and collection cistern bigger than an oil tanker waited on the other side, churned into a foaming frenzy by the water collecting there before draining into four smaller tunnels. Anything unlucky enough to hit the pit would become ensnared in a crushing undertow powerful enough to grind stones to sand. There was no escaping a hole like that.

Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Five. Lee pushed forward with a wordless cry and splashed into water cold enough to rob her lungs of air. She felt the current wrap around her legs and lower torso with the malicious promise to drag her under if she misstepped, but water and its unforgiving current were no stranger to her. Fingers gripping a length of pipe, she caught the figure by the hem of their pants just before they slipped over the falls, claws biting into more than just fabric.

Arms wrenched wide, Lee summoned the full measure of her strength with a roar and dragged the stranger one foot at a time through the tenacious current. It was like trying to simultaneously hold on to and drag a super magnet. The water refused to let go of either of them, fighting every step until Lee collapsed panting on semi-dry land next to a waterlogged, unmoving body.

Little known fact… I always wanted to be a… lifeguard, she gasped, torso and lower extremities numb from the cold. Friend, to quote the immortal Rick O’Connell, “It looks like you were on the wrong side of the river.”

Grunting with the effort of sitting up in heavy, wet clothing, Lee crawled to the stranger, shakily adjusting her skewed headlamp as she went. Hello? Oh my God, I wish you could hear me. Are you okay, other than almost drowning? Where did you come from?

She wasn’t prepared for the face that came into the light when her gentle hands rolled the stranger onto their back. The freezing water had done a marvelous job of keeping the swelling at bay, but even with the bloody evidence scrubbed from her skin, the woman’s face was a roadmap of abuse centered around the purpling bridge of her slightly bent nose.

Ma’am? I understand this communication thing isn’t really effective when you’re unconscious and I can’t speak, but if you could just… oh no.

Lee rocked back, a hand sliding over her mouth when she spotted the two-inch puncture in the woman’s side from where her blouse had torn open. Had she just reeled in a corpse? No, her brain told her. Blood only flowed when a heart was still beating, and there was a steady trickle of bright red slipping from the puncture wound, mixing with the water pooling under Lee’s knees.

Meaning a life hung by a thread.

Leaning down, Lee put her ear close to the woman’s mouth, eyes tightly closed as if that would somehow help tune out the white noise of flowing water. She counted to five. Counted again, but not a whisper of breath tickled the fine hairs of her face. The woman wasn’t breathing.

Oh no. No, no, no, no.

What should she do? What could she do was the better question. Lee wasn’t a doctor. Hell, she wasn’t even fully human by Topside standards, but a very real, very injured Topsider had just floated past her and she’d followed the instinct to save her without a thought as to what came next. Torn between “I’m out of my depth” and “this person needs help now,” Lee managed a solid ten seconds of joint-locking panic until reason entered the scene and booted out any further argument.

Like it or not, Lee was responsible for the wellbeing of this stranger because she’d chosen to intervene. No matter the outcome, she couldn’t live with herself knowing she left someone to die without trying. That was the whole point of the Underground. To save those with no means to save themselves.

Working quickly — thank God for her Aunt Emilia’s childhood safety lessons — Lee got them both into position and sealed her lips over the stranger’s, acutely aware of how bitterly cold she was. Three hard breaths passed from one body to the next before Lee bore down on the woman’s sternum, compressing it sharply five times. From there, it was rinse and repeat. She was through her third set when the body under her spasmed, a jolt curving her spine. Lee startled and turned the woman onto her side in time for her to expel the liquid in her lungs in a series of hacking coughs and foamy vomit.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Lee exhaled, adrenaline draining from her limbs and leaving leaden shells behind. Her relief was palpable, but triumph was eclipsed by a terrifying moment of “what now?”

Well, now she went home with a body in her arms and a lot of uncomfortable explanations to make.

The way back into her subterranean world was winding and dark, unraveling like a Grecian labyrinth. And it was, in a sense. False walls. Hidden passages. Trap doors. A monster lurking at its heart, but Lee knew the way. Even this far out, she knew every turn and step and obstacle, but it still took far longer than anticipated to make the trip home. The wet body in her arms didn’t get any lighter and made maneuvering an arduous fight in tight spaces and downright terror-inducing in areas requiring both hands to climb. Add the numbing effects of lost dexterity due to being cold, and Lee was struggling.

But one way or another, she made it.

Lingering briefly by a red pipe that ran like a limbless tree through the concrete, Lee readjusted her grip on the woman, self-aware of the wheezing breaths tickling the column of her neck, and leaned an ear against the metal. Most of the Underground would be blessedly asleep at this hour. Good. Fewer eyes meant fewer questions and a greater chance of success surviving the inevitable storm she was about to unleash upon her household.

Like a flame gaining strength on a wick, the chilly grays and blues of the upper tunnels settled into warmer browns and reds the further down she went, the cold outline of industrial engineering giving way to hand-chiseled craftsmanship. Halls becoming rough-hewn and wide, subtle hints of habitation surfacing if one knew where to look. Writing on walls. Small murals left behind by curious children. Markers and arrows. Well-traveled paths. Stairs rubbed smooth by the passing of feet over several lifetimes.

Using her boot to unlock a false wall, Lee shouldered into a rickety lift little more than a flat piece of plate steel ensconced in bands of welded rebar. A birdcage, if birds ever mastered the art of spot welding. It was a shortcut that would plunge her arrow-quick into the heart of her subterranean home, bypassing unwanted obstacles.

With the flick of a switch, the cage gave a stomach-churning shudder and started its descent into the dark shaft, sparks flickering to life overhead like tiny shooting stars. The landing was rough thanks to the added weight of another body, but Lee was where she needed to be and breathed a sigh of relief when the hidden door two hallways from her home rolled aside on well-oiled rollers to reveal an empty hall.

So far, so good.

A wave of peppermint tea and the remnants of dinner brushed past her keen nose when Lee stepped into the main room of her home. Mother always had a cup before bed while poring over one of the thousands of tomes in her collection. Grunting with the effort, Lee hurried down the short flights of steps, unable to prevent the squeak of her waterlogged footfalls from announcing her arrival.

“I thought you turned in an hour ago,” Mother said without looking up, smoothly turning a page. Her curly hair had been freshly washed and pinned off her neck in a messy up-do reminiscent of the ‘60s, a graying bandanna holding the smaller hairs off her face. When her comment wasn’t met with an immediate reply, Mother lowered her book just a fraction only to startle, coming out of her chair as if a current had passed through it. “Leanna!”

Mother, please, Lee grimaced, reaching across the divide and filling the void with a voice she knew the woman didn’t physically hear with her ears. She was losing both her strength and grip, back bending with the effort to keep the woman from slipping to the floor. Help.

Despite her shock, Mother leaped into action and cradled the drooping half of the body in her daughter’s arms. Together, they carried the unconscious woman to an unused couch in a nook away from the main room.

“Leanna.” Mother’s voice was soft but brittle, eyes locked on the stranger. “Explanation. Now.”

I was... Lee faltered, unsure if admitting her guilt would hurt less than trying to dance around it. And it wasn’t like denial was a viable possibility. Defeated, she opted for shoulder-sagging truth. I went to the changeover station and filled the reservoir.

“You broke into the suspension tower.” It was voiced as a statement, not a question.

I found the hatch, Lee said by way of indirect answer. She was proud to say she didn’t flinch when Mother’s outward appearance hardened, the hazel of her eyes flashing like marbles in the low light. When I went to check the channels, I found her floating in one. I don’t think she was down there willingly.

Mouth pressed in a bloodless line, the older woman nodded slowly several times in what was either an acknowledgment of her daughter’s confession or a way to vent the blotchy anger crawling up her neck. “Oh, I don’t doubt she was,” she said as if Lee was supposed to understand, which she didn’t. Not because the ways of Topsiders were strange to her but because what human could do that to another and still have a soul?

“But tell me,” Mother said, straightening like a branch snapping back after a hard gust of wind. “What, pray tell, do you expect me to do about this?”

Apparently, the ponderance of a soul extended beyond Topside. The question rocked Lee, and she leaned back to get a better look at her mother, unsure the words had fallen from her lips. Heal her. She motioned with frantic gestures as if her hands could convey what she couldn’t. Save her.

“To what end?”

What do you mean to what end? She needs our help! I couldn’t very well leave her face down in the channel drowning and bleeding to death, which she still seems to be doing on our couch!

“You don’t understand the gravity of what you’ve done.”

I do. I invoked sanctuary. Snarling at the dispassion, Lee crossed the room and snagged the Tap swinging next to a pipe, ready to make a call the Underground would be sure to hear. A sharp reproach from Mother, however, stops her mid-reach.

The older woman turned tightly, arms locked over her chest. “You had no right to invoke that without my go-ahead.”

Time wasn’t a luxury I had much of at the moment.

“She wasn’t anywhere near our territory.”

I am the Underground, by extension, Lee said with a sarcastic smile, motioning to her face. Where I go, it follows.

“You know damn well that’s not what I’m talking about!” Mother shouted, the creeping anger turning her neck red and finally reaching the fuse of her voice. “You brought a Topsider into our world. I want you to think about that before you make another move. What will happen once she wakes? What if she doesn’t? What if she dies, and her disappearance leads the authorities to us?”

She needs our help! Lee neglected to tell her mother that a body wouldn’t have been discovered anytime soon had the woman gone over the falls. She didn’t need to know how sickeningly easy it would have been to stand down and let the woman float by.

“She isn’t one of us!”

Weren’t you the one who made the vow never to turn a person in need away, regardless of their station? Isn’t that the foundation of our world?

“You don’t think sometimes, Leanna! She’s a Topsider!”

She’s a human, and she’s hurt. She’s dying. She needs our help, not you and me arguing moral semantics about saving a person’s life! You’re a doctor. You took an oath you’re to uphold until death!

Mother bristled, shoulders bunching around the lobes of her ears. “Watch yourself, daughter.”

Either swallow your pride, or I make the call. I’m not going to stand here and watch someone die because of your personal bigotry. That’s not who I am. You raised me better than that.

The two women squared off like challenging rams, both believing they held the moral high ground. When the silence grew to the point of charged discomfort, Mother pressed her lips into a hard line and exhaled through her nose.

A decision had been reached, and Lee knew she had won.

Contingency Plan

“Help me move her to your bed. I can’t very well give her a full examination on the couch.”

Working together, Lee and her mother moved the practically blue woman to Lee’s bed in the next room. From a drawer in the living room, Mother withdrew a pair of latex gloves and crisply slid them on before setting about peeling the wet clothes from the stranger’s frozen skin. Finally able to get a clear look at the damage, her face visibly paled but her posture remained professionally straight.

“I can tell from the bruising alone that she has broken ribs. Those will need to be set and wrapped. She’s also far too cold, but that works in our favor. Cold slows the heart and closes the blood vessels. She hasn’t exsanguinated, but hypothermia is a very real danger. Get me gauze from the medical kit for her ribs. Hopefully, we have enough.”

Lee retrieved the needed item after tripping into a dry pair of pants and a fresh top, returning in time to watch Mother cut the blouse, bra, and slacks off the woman and discard them in a soggy heap into a plastic hamper. Only a small pair of underwear remained to help keep modesty intact, but even those would eventually be removed.

“There was blood on her slacks and the inside of her thigh, but I see none on her underwear aside from staining from the stab wound,” Mother said matter-of-factly without looking up, fingers probing flesh. Lee understood the implications—blood on the inside of her thigh near her groin—and felt her face scrunch into an animalistic snarl. “Before you jump to conclusions, I won’t know if an assault like that happened until I examine her thoroughly, but this stab wound is worrisome, especially if she was submerged in water. I’m going to need help.”

I’ll help, Lee volunteered gruffly, handing over the gauze and preparing to retrieve a suture kit from the few she kept on hand.

“You don’t know the first thing about the medical treatment of a human being!” Mother snapped only to wince immediately. Closing her eyes, she took several calming breaths. “I apologize. You’ve done enough. I need someone with skilled hands and a surgical mind. Call Taft.”

Sulking, Lee obeyed but bypassed using the main pipe that ran like a fat anaconda through the main room of their home, opting instead for the slender copper pipe next to it that belonged to the Underground’s resident surgeon. The Underground might have been rigged with plenty of shortwave radios, but when you didn’t have a voice to speak with and needed to communicate, Morse code was the next best thing.

CALLING TAFT. MOTHER NEEDS ASSISTANCE. COME QUICKLY. EMERGENCY. She tapped out the message with a small wrench and waited, wondering, perhaps, if it would have been faster to jog down to his apartment. But without fail, a reply echoed back.

TAFT RESPONDING. ON MY WAY. WHAT TYPE OF EMERGENCY?

SURGICAL. BRING KIT AND ANTIBIOTICS.

TAFT RESPONDING. AFFIRMATIVE. HOLD TIGHT.

Lee moved back to her room to help Mother further undress the woman. Thankfully a second, more thorough examination yielded no evidence of sexual assault. Instead, the blood mother had seen appeared to have come from four deep gouges in the small of the woman’s back. An identical match to Lee’s claws. Neither addressed this, something Lee was immensely grateful for given her spike of guilt for causing unintentional harm.

Not two minutes later, a knock and a concerned, “Hello?” alerted the women to the surgeon’s arrival. Mother reacted faster, moving to intercept the man after leaving instructions for her daughter to fetch as many water bottles as she could find and fill them with warm water to pack against the woman.

“Rebecca?” a visibly worried older gentleman called from the doorway when Mother rounded the corner, salt-and-pepper hair disheveled from both interrupted sleep and his harried sprint up the tunnels. Brown eyes searched for the source of the emergency and stopped at the bloody gloves yet to be removed. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

“Close the door behind you.”

Tense with worry, Taft did as he was told. “I assume Lee was the one who called? Are you alright? Do you need–”

“Leanna went Topside,” Rebecca cut in, walking a short distance into the main room. Her daughter had excellent hearing, and this wasn’t a conversation for sharing. The color drained from Taft’s wrinkled face, his mind leaping to the worst-case scenario, but a raised hand from Rebecca forestalled the thought before it could take root. “She brought back a Topsider who was body-dumped in the river.”

“Oh, God.” The surgeon’s bewilderment was eclipsed by the gravity of the situation. “She brought one of them down here?”

“She’s in the other room, badly beaten, and appears to have been stabbed. I need your steady hands to stitch the wound closed.”

Taft couldn’t forestall his immediate look of concern. This wasn’t an ordinary request. This was downright unheard of. Rebecca Farrow, matriarchal leader of the Undergrounder, called Mother by many, did not let strangers wander into her home. Ever. But there was no need to voice this obvious fact. Rebecca already knew what he was thinking, and a sharp shake of her head told him this wasn’t the time to question her authority.

“I will see what I can do.”

“I assume from this woman’s state that my daughter resuscitated her after pulling her from the water. If it appears she is beyond repair,” Rebecca said, stepping closer and dropping her voice, “I trust you will end any suffering quickly.”

Taft blinked, understanding dawning in the next heartbeat. “Of course,” he said, the hesitance in his voice brief. “I wouldn’t... want there to be unneeded suffering.”

“Thank you.”

Dogging Rebecca’s heels, Taft nodded at Lee when he entered her private quarters before turning his attention to the bed.

“She’s certainly worse for wear, isn’t she?” With methodical care, he retrieved his needed tools and laid them out before sterilizing his hands with alcohol.

Though reassured she wasn’t needed, Lee stubbornly refused to leave, opting to sit at a nearby table cluttered with half-made tinker toys. In heavy silence, she watched her mother and Taft methodically flush, clean, and stitch the wound closed after Taft deemed there hadn’t been any internal damage done.

“That is, as far as I can tell by feel alone,” he warned. “Which is still remarkable. Either the person who did this was very skilled, or this young woman was very lucky. I do, however, worry about the potential threat of infection. Hudson water is teeming with bacteria. I’ll administer antibiotics, but it might not be enough.”

It took more than two hours from start to finish to patch the Topsider, leaving her wrapped from hip to shoulder in snug, white bandages. The water bottles Lee retrieved were strategically placed against the major arteries in the woman’s neck, armpits, and groin to help warm her slowly in an effort to prevent thermal shock.

“I’m afraid this is as much as I can do.” The surgeon stripped off his gloves with precise care and stuffed them in his coat pocket. “From here, it’s up to her. I can’t say how much blood was lost between her initial assault and now, but it was probably a severe amount. Tonight will be very touch-and-go.” He looked up at Lee, eyes softening. “You should brace for the possibility that this was all for naught. I’m sorry.”

Lee nodded without comment, watching the Topsider from the curled position she’d taken in her desk chair.

Leaving Lee to what was doubtlessly gearing up to be a sleepless night, Taft exited the room.

“What are we going to do?” he asked once he and Rebecca reached the door, dropping his voice again. “She can’t stay here. You know that.”

“I’m aware of how vulnerable this makes us if she leaves and draws attention down here. If,” Rebecca clarified, emphasizing the word so Taft would catch her double meaning.

“If is a good word to use.” He nodded, working a fast calculation. Reaching into his bag, the surgeon retrieved a vial filled with a pale-yellow liquid and it’s accompanying syringe. Tapping the vile, he filled the syringe, capped it, and handed it to Rebecca. “Do I need to tell you what this is?”

Rebecca scoffed, stowing the syringe safely away from prying eyes. A small, sad smile lifted the corners of Taft’s lips. Their world was precious. Sometimes that meant the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few.

“I didn’t think so. Should the need arise, it never hurts to have a contingency plan against unwanted accidents.”

Monster

For the longest time, Alex was enveloped in darkness, untethered from her body, and that was perfectly reasonable. Darkness meant rest. It meant escape from the hell she had been thrust into. But it wasn’t meant to last. Unconsciousness, much like snow, melted away in the heat of distress, and Alex’s body was screaming.

Her jerk back into existence wasn’t a slow dawning but rather done with all the gentleness of a speeding truck slamming into a wall. Breathtaking pain screamed at her like a banshee, growing louder as it neared until it was all she could process. Confusion hit next, a one-two punch to her senses. The last thing she remembered was the van...the knife...the water.

She was drowning, held tight by a black current smashing her against every solid surface available as it forced scalding water down her throat. Choking her. Strangling her. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. Up and down meant little until she was falling in earnest, or dying, or both, in a never-ending tumble through a watery hell. Swim, her mind demanded. Breathe, her instincts shrieked until Alex was clawing upright through a haze of gray, a strangled scream wrenched from her throat.

But the water was gone. Wasn’t it? Disoriented, Alex couldn’t grasp where she was. She could still feel the fingers of death wrapped around her lungs. Squeezing. Wringing the life out of her.

Where was she?

Something soft propped her up. The heaviness weighing on her chest wasn’t the crush of exchanging all her livable air for liquid but blankets. Quite a few of them.

Was this a hospital? How?

No, the room was dark, but what little her one roving eye could see didn’t shout “sterile hospital room.”

Someplace new?

Panic was an impossible poison to shake when it sank its fangs in. Alex couldn’t breathe again. Could barely see. Couldn’t shift enough to better gauge her surroundings. It was like an episode of sleep paralysis; only she knew she was awake because never in her wildest dreams would she ever be in this much torment.

Everything hurt. Volcanic acid seeped through the cracks in the glue used to patch her back together after half a dozen boots and black water smashed her to pieces. Unable to rise from her resting position, she sent searching fingers to fumble under the blankets — she had to know if all of herself was still intact — and met starchy gauze bound almost cruelly tight around her torso.

Ah, that explained the constriction, but bandages? Why?

Exploring further, Alex’s blind searching moved past her navel to her bare hips and thighs, the revelation piercing her to her core. She was naked from the waist down. Exposed. Vulnerable. Violated.

Alex’s heart rate exploded through the stratosphere, all traces of caution evaporating. Clawing at her abused face, she tore off the bandages that obscured her vision but failed to regain the full use of her sight; the skin of her right eye fused shut from swelling. She felt herself hyperventilating, sinking into an ocean-deep panic that cast the room into a kaleidoscopic swirl of distorted colors and shapes. Alex choked herself into a wet coughing fit, setting off a domino effect. It was enough to make spots flash in her limited field of vision and stomach bile burn her already scorched throat.

Her struggling must have alerted someone because through the haze of terror she could hear the clump of boots headed in her direction. Lacking the ability to push herself upright, all Alex could do was flinch when a figure skidded into the dimly lit room.

Oh no, someone — a woman by the sound of it — gasped. Oh no, hold on. Please, don’t panic.

A light popped on nearby, banishing most of the darkness and revealing the stranger in her midst, but Alex had been mistaken. This wasn’t a woman. This wasn’t even a human.

Beastly was a good way of putting it. Subhuman. Its nose was wide, the bridge flaring out between its eyes rather than receding, culminating in a more pronounced brow and deeper set eyes. Had Alex seen this in any other setting, it would have looked like a person wearing a Hollywood werewolf prosthetic complete with pointed, humanoid ears poking out from under a mop of wavy brown hair. Only there was nothing fake about what she was seeing. Especially not the jagged set of top and bottom canines that caused the creature’s mouth to sit slightly ajar or the blue eyes so bright they glowed in the semi-darkness.

Screaming was the inevitable response, but the sound lodged in her throat like a sideways twig until the creature spoke. It’s okay! It’s okay! You’re safe, I swear! Let me just...

Alex’s eye bulged. The monster never moved its mouth, but she heard a voice, tinged with panic, inside her head. Inside her head!

The creature seemed to rocket to the same understanding just before a strangled, Oh shit! skipped across Alex’s thoughts and shattered whatever fragile tether held together her sanity.

Her scream was accompanied by a hard flail that propelled her sideways. Run. That was all she could process. Run and never look back. And Alex would have succeeded had her backpedal not sent her careening off the side of the bed. The sudden impact of her skull smacking against the unyielding concrete woke stars in her vision. It felt like something had torn inside her. Hell, something had torn outside as well, but Alex was choking and shaking and gasping and going nowhere fast, caught like a fish in a net.

“Leanna!?” She heard the shout but couldn’t place the speaker, focus fading in and out with each pitiful groan. She was hot, she realized thanks to the cool kiss of the concrete. Hot and so achingly cold.

“Jesus, did she kick off the side of the bed?” another voice joined in — a woman like the first.

“Emilia, help me get her up before she makes things worse. No, Leanna, you keep back.”

Lying partially on her side tangled in blankets, Alex heard feet approaching and tried to retreat but was pulled upright by two strong sets of hands. Unfortunately, this provided an all too visceral reminder of the ordeal she suffered in the van and triggered a pure terror response.

“Holy shit,” the woman behind Alex grunted, trying her best to hang on without causing more injury when Alex began to struggle in earnest. “Honey, calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself more if you keep this up.”

“Please,” Alex begged, clutching the collar of the woman in front of her, the one with messy salt-and-pepper hair and hard eyes. “Please, don’t kill me. Please! I don’t want to die!”

The world was an angry sea in a storm, pitching in a dizzying spin the harder Alex fought to free herself. She didn’t have a plan, only the desperate need to seek shelter somewhere familiar. Somewhere away from monsters that spoke without speaking and women with hard eyes and rough hands.

“My apologies.” It was all the warning the older woman grunted before pulling a syringe from her pocket and biting off the cap.

Alex stiffened at the unexpected pinch of a needle breaking the skin of her neck before the sedation took immediate and powerful effect. Between heartbeats, she went limp, exhaling one final plea for mercy before the world blackened, taking her and the pain with it.

“God, was that necessary?” Emilia snapped at Rebecca, easing the unconscious woman back and covering her naked lower half with a blanket for modesty’s sake.

“I’m not going to fend off a hysterical Topsider in my home,” Rebecca growled, spying the seeping red stain overtaking the bandages on the woman’s left side and swearing. Loudly. “Radio Taft. She popped her stitches.”

“You could have just reassured her she was safe instead of drugging her! Didn’t she almost drown two days ago? Would a little compassion kill you?”

Rebecca threw Emilia a look she knew she shouldn’t be able to see but caught the younger woman staring at her regardless.

“I’m blind, not stupid, Rebecca,” Emilia deadpanned.

“She was beyond soothing.”

“Fucking understatement of the year right there.”

“Just call Taft!”

Raising her hands in irritated defeat, Emilia rose and made her way to the radio on Lee’s dresser, counting her steps as she went. “Where did Taft get those sedatives, anyway? Last I checked, we used the last when Macy gave birth.”

Rebecca neglected to answer, stowing the syringe while wrestling to soothe her frayed nerves and the shaking it was bound to wake. She could hear the exchange between the two on the radio, the irritation in Emilia’s voice stealing her focus. Refocusing again, Rebecca honed in on her body, willing the tremors to subside before Emilia reclaimed her place on the edge of the bed.

“God, this is a mess.”

“Understatement of the year,” Rebecca threw back, already expecting the dirty look to come. “Watch her. I need to speak with Taft then find my daughter.”

“Sure, yeah, leave the blind woman to watch over the possibly violent outsider. That’s smart. Nothing could possibly happen with that genius plan.”

“I trust you’ll manage. If she gets out of hand, use your cane.”

Behind her, Rebecca heard, “I have a mind to use it on you first!” and couldn’t help rolling her eyes.

Entering the front room and exhaling the dregs of pent-up aggression, Rebecca paused by a set of drawers and dug out an orange bottle with a white child-safety lid. Two pills rolled into her palm, small and pale-gray. She dry-swallowed them with hardly a flinch, hoping they would be enough to ease the tremors starting to crawl down her spine.

Taft was slower to answer this time, caught up in previous engagements. When he rapped his knuckles against the steel of Rebecca’s door sometime later, her shaking was gone, and she could once again slip into her role of Mother, doubt and worry an afterthought.

“Apologies. The Baker’s little boy decided to test his flexibility and got stuck between pipes. Leanna has to stop teaching the kids how to tunnel. One too many broken arms. Anyway, I assume from Em’s message our Topsider has returned to the land of the living?” he asked, a rueful smile pulling at his lips.

“It appears that way,” Rebecca said, ignoring the first half of Taft’s gripes for a later time.

“Put up a fight, eh? That’s surprising.” Sarcasm dripped from every word, making Rebecca frown.

“She woke up in a foreign place in pain. I wouldn’t expect anything less,” she bit back, not in the mood for cynicism. Taft picked up on Rebecca’s hostile tone and adjusted himself accordingly, drawing attention to the item in his hand.

“Her name is Alexandra Bailey,” he explained, handing over a flier. “You might have heard about her, or at least read some of her work, seeing as she’s a reporter for the Times and the daughter of Christopher Bailey, the man currently running for a Supreme Court position in Washington.”

Rebecca looked at the missing person’s flier , mouth set in a thin line. The picture certainly looked like the unconscious woman in the next room. Under the swelling and bruises that had bloomed like grisly flowers once her body heat regulated, she was a pretty thing of exactly thirty-six, according to the physical description printed below the photo. Her smile was genuine. Her features were the kind of soft commonly found in those who grew up in an easy life, but her eyes were sharp. Sharper than Rebecca was comfortable with.

“The police believe her abduction might have something to do with the mob.”

At the mention, Rebecca’s head snapped up. “Which family?”

“My Insider source didn’t say, but they think Falconi. That’s the running theory. Word in the pipes says Falconi had a recall on one of his girls. Maybe this was a case of wrong place, wrong time?”

“Or maybe our Topsider has a few secrets of her own.” Rebecca neatly folded the paper and exchanged it for the syringe in her pocket. Taft cocked his head, noticing how little solution remained.

“How much?”

“Enough to sedate.” What would have been a fatal dose remained behind in the syringe.

The man arched a bushy eyebrow over the rim of his glasses. “Are you sure this is wise? Your mind was more or less made up when we last spoke.”

“No, I am not sure. Especially knowing this woman’s connection to the media and possibly the mob.” Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose, moving away from Mother and becoming Rebecca once again. “I can’t stomach the thought of having blood on my hands. Not again, Taft. Not if I can help it. I was angry and off-kilter the night she came. I am permitted to have second thoughts.”

“Yes, but what’s one less Topsider in the grand scale of things?”

The older woman stilled, cold stare turning icy. “I’m not willing to make that decision and play God. Let fate determine whether she lives or dies.”

Taft snorted. “You don’t believe in fate, Rebecca, or God.”

“Tonight, I believe in one of those things. Now, please see to your patient. When she woke, there was a scuffle, and she popped her stitches.”

The surgeon hummed, setting his bag down on a nearby table and assessing his on-hand medical supplies. “Between rambunctious tunnel climbers and the Topsider, I’m going to need everything refreshed at this rate.”

“I’ll make the necessary calls. Emilia is waiting in the other room. She’ll help you.”

“You won’t be joining us?”

“I need to speak with my daughter.”

Little Bird

Lee tried to concentrate on the pipe she was attempting to solder. She could feel the hot coils of shame and guilt expand and contract under her skin in tandem with the heat billowing around her in smoky plumes. The image of the Topsider’s reaction to seeing her replayed in her mind like a tape stuck in a loop. The startlement, confusion…fear.

“Leanna?”

That was the last voice she wanted to hear.

Holed up in the heart of her ongoing project, Lee pretended not to hear her mother and cranked up the oxygen on her torch, making the flame burn a brilliant blue. Tinted goggles down, she hoped the illusion of activity would send the woman on her way. She should have known better.

“Leanna, please come down,” Rebecca called from the bottom of the steel and copper behemoth sitting like the trunk of a mechanical tree in the center of the room. She could see her daughter’s leg dangling from an open duct near the ceiling, the flame of an acetylene torch turning the nook bluish-white.

I’m setting pipes. It was a flimsy lie no thicker than rice paper. Lee wasn’t doing anything more than splashing molten solder all over the place and making a mess of an easy patch-job.

“We need to talk. Please don’t make me climb up there. My knees wouldn’t appreciate it.” Despite the small bit of jest in Rebecca’s tone, her smile was tight and short-lived.

Exhaling a burst of hot irritation and the side of her head with a knuckle — Lee knew her mother would stand there all night — she cut off the torch but didn’t immediately descend. I don’t want to talk right now.

“I know you’re upset.”

No beating around the bush here.

I’m not upset, she argued, picking at a hole in the knee of her pants. From the ground, Rebecca gave her a pointed look through her wire-rimmed glasses. I’m not upset. I’m disappointed in myself. I didn’t mean to scare her.

Lee watched her mother’s face fall and imagined she could hear her heart hitting every rib on the way down. This exact situation was something she knew her mother wanted to avoid. Forever, ideally. For thirty-two years, she raised Lee without shying away from the obvious topic of her looks, instilling in her a sense of self-pride. Her differences didn’t make her better or worse than those around her. It was simply how nature chose to form her. Yes, there had been instances of friction over the years. Even the nicest people could say cruel things when they didn’t think sharp ears were listening, but as a whole, the Underground treated Lee as a normal, functioning human because, regardless of her appearance, she was.

But Topside would never accept her for anything other than a freak of nature, and that broke her mother’s heart.

“You are what you are, Leanna, and that’s the end of it,” she said with firm gentility, hands planted on her hips.

My looks don’t bother me. Lee sat up, swinging her legs over the lip and motioning at her face. I know what I look like. I know it’s not normal, and I know it can be a bit… shocking. I know this. I understand this, and I’m still proud of who I am. But I scared her, Mother, and that wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to help, but I made things worse. I made her worse, and that hurts.

“You didn’t do it intentionally.”

Regardless of intent, it happened.

Rebecca crossed her arms, terse in the face of her daughter’s innocent ignorance. “Yes, it did, and this is why I’m so selective about those from Topside I bring down here.”

Leaving her wasn’t an option.

“You shouldn’t–” Rebecca pumped the brakes on her scalding words, refusing to engage in a fruitless battle and opting to pick her battles more wisely. “You have a kind heart. Kinder than this world deserves. But I don’t want to see you hurt by someone not from our world. Now, please come down out of your nest, little bird. We have work to do.”

Wouldn’t it be more of a Pride Rock than a nest? Em’s always called me cub. Lee smirked lightly, swinging her feet.

“Leanna...” Rebecca’s tone carried a warning edge. One she didn’t intend to hone further.

All right.

With a few well-placed leaps, Lee landed nimbly at her mother’s side. Wiping her oily hands on her filthy jeans, she almost toppled when pulled into a hug, one that was just a bit too tight. There was little resistance on her part. In all the Underground, there was no happier place for her than in her mother’s arms, even if they quarreled more often than not.

“I love you,” Rebecca muttered into her hair. “My strange and wonderful daughter. I just want you safe and happy.”

I know.

Rebecca chewed her lip, prolonging the hug until she was ready to speak. “Let me and Emilia take care of the Topsider. Let her think you were a fever dream. When she’s healed enough to move, we’ll take her Topside and be done with it. But for your sake, stay away.”

She’s in my room. How am I supposed to come and go without being seen?

“Emilia’s with her now–”

You left Em alone with a Topsider?

“Emilia is perfectly capable of taking care of herself and an incapacitated patient.”

Em’s blind.

“You know that’s not necessarily true. Anyway,” Rebecca pressed onward. “If you need something, Emilia or I will get it. I can’t help that these are the cards we’ve been dealt.”

Lee didn’t have to look hard to see the double meaning. They were in this situation because of her. Still, it was a good plan, even if it made her heart sink. Not only did her attempt to help backfire spectacularly, but she lost the opportunity to pursue an avenue of curiosity that went far deeper than her mother realized. This Topsider, this woman, was the key to a world Lee desperately wanted access to, and now the opportunity had been lost.

I understand.

“Good. I know this isn’t what you wanted, but it’s for the best.”

For who? Lee wanted to ask but wisely kept that thought to herself.

“Are you at a stopping point?” Rebecca asked, looking up with an expression of profound awe and pride at the hydroelectric machine beginning to take shape.

For now, yes. I need to align the pipes to the new reservoir above and calibrate the gauges. After that comes the pressure system, and I’d rather do that all in one day.

“Then I need you to run an errand for me. Taft has run short of medical supplies, so I’m arranging a meeting with an Insider. Can you pick up the order at the Manhattan entrance?”

Lee brightened, knowing which Insider Mother was referring to. Have you radioed him?

“Not yet. Why?”

Johnson knows Francis. I need him to see if Francis was able to find those flanges for me.

“I’ll let him know. Maybe I’ll even ask him to deliver a pie along with it.”

Beaming, Lee whooped and kissed her mother’s cheek. If there was one thing that could brighten her heart, it was a decent slice of pizza. Lombardi’s?

Rebecca scoffed at the suggestion, already walking out of the engine room. “Rays, of course.”

Lombardi’s is so much better! How can you stand those impostors?

“Fine. Fine,” Rebecca relented, unable to keep her smile from showing. “Lombardi’s it is. Emilia will be thrilled she’s corrupted you so thoroughly.”

Must have been a trait I inherited from my biological mother, Lee teased, poking her mother in the side.

“I’d imagine. No flesh and blood of mine would ever eat swill like that,” she shot back with a wink, happy to see her daughter smiling again.

Hidden Passage

The passage was tighter and darker than she remembered, but then again, Lee hadn’t used this particular entrance in a while. Years probably, judging by the stale dust creeping into her nose. Climbing the creaking rope ladder one rung at a time, she tested for the hatch somewhere above, unsure how many rungs of wood separated the bottom of the shaft from the top, and was more than a little relieved when her fingertips brushed smooth steel.

Gently and as quietly as possible, Lee lifted the hatch and crawled into the chamber above, ears perked for any signs her presence had been noticed. Shifting positions on her stomach, Lee was careful not to bump the ceiling seeing as it was the underside of her bed. No sense terrifying the poor Topsider more than she already had been. Then again, she was crawling out of a hidden passage under the bed. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best place for a secret entrance.

Can’t really help that now.

Oh, Lee kept her promise to stay away from her room and the woman sleeping there for as long as possible. A whole fourteen hours. It was a record. One she would proudly look back on as she smashed through it. Well, more like army-crawled. Smashing involved making sounds, and that was the antithesis of what she needed right now.

A quick search and she found the sliding door that popped open with a tug, low light seeping through the seam. She stopped and listened, extending her senses into the room beyond but couldn’t hear anything save for soft breathing and the sporadic ticking of settling pipes.

Perfect.

Arm over arm, Lee wiggled forward like a salamander and managed to get her shoulders through the opening before someone out of sight cleared their throat. Startled, she jumped, smashing her head into the wood frame and fighting back a yelp.

“Nice of you to join us.”

Peering through her pained wince, Lee spotted the speaker sitting in a chair not three feet from her and felt a cold shock of relief fizzle through her extremities. It could have been worse.

How did you know it was me?

“Was that a crack at my lack of sight?” Em tilted her head, lips quirking in a half-smile.

No?

“Good, cause I was going to say, I knew it was you because of the lingering odor of maternal betrayal and broken promises, but that would be mean. Also, I always knew you had something like this in here. I just didn’t know where.”

You gonna rat me out? Lee asked, rubbing the fresh bump on her head to help dampen the sting.

Em made a rude noise with her mouth, waving the question away. “Good thing I’m the fun aunt and not your mother.”

Crawling the rest of the way out and dusting herself off, Lee took quick stock of the room and was happy to discover no one else present. Did Mother make you stay?

“Someone has to make sure our guest doesn’t try to run on broken ribs again. Now, why are you sneaking into your own room?”

That should be a rhetorical question.

“Cute but try again.”

I wasn’t sneaking anywhere. I was testing to see if my old tunnels were still accessible.

“Sweetie, how long have I been in your life?” Emilia deadpanned, her milky eyes eerily tracking Lee as she shifted away from the bed. “If I recall, I’m the one who taught you how to sneak. You are talking to the sneaking master, young Padawan, and I am appalled you have forgotten your training.”

Forgive me, Master. Lee pantomimed a scraping bow, settling at her aunt’s feet and clutching her ankles pleadingly. I am but a simple tunnel rat who forgets so quickly the ways of the Masters.

“Buttering me up will get you everywhere,” Em chuckled, not bothering to push her niece away. “So, what did you need to get?” The question was simple enough, but Lee’s hesitance spoke volumes. “Ah, curiosity it is. You know what they say about that.”

Good thing I’m not a cat. I just wanted to check on her. She wasn’t doing well earlier.

“That’s on account of your scaring the shit out of her.”

Lee crossed her arms, fighting the urge to sit on the edge of her bed. I feel bad about what happened. I didn’t think...

“Because you’re so used to people down here and how open they are with you.” Em filled in the gaps Lee couldn’t bring herself to vocalize. “You might be smart, my little tunnel pup, but you can be unbelievably stupid sometimes. And I mean that in the most loving way possible.”

I know, Lee pouted.

“Ah, but goddamnit, I still love yah.” Digging something out of her shirt, her aunt passed over a folded piece of paper. Lee took it with a quizzical frown that smoothed and lifted into an expression of surprise when she unfolded it. “Since I know how you operate, her name is Alex Bailey. Some type of journalist Topside for the Times. Father’s a judge, from what your mother told me. No idea why she went missing, but the circumstances are murky.”

Lee wasn’t listening. She caught the name, but after that, everything fell away, her attention captivated by the woman looking back at her from the crumpled paper.

Alex was beautiful. That first thought cropped up like a weed in Lee’s head and put down roots. Her wavy auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing a square jaw and kind eyes nestled under dark brows. She was well stationed in the Topside community — not everyone could boast they worked for the New York Times — with a smile capable of lighting up a room. It stirred something in Lee, shifting a mass just below her sternum and releasing what felt like a swarm of butterflies.

“Hey, tunnel rat? You home?”

Lee popped her head up, coming back to the present. What?

“If you stare any harder at that flier, it’s going to burst into flames.”

I was reading it, she said defensively.

Em’s unconvinced stare remained in place. “And I look at porn for the articles.”

Lee snorted dismissively, happy her aunt couldn’t see the color creeping into her cheeks. She’s very beautiful. Kind of looks like that actress from ‘Catch Me If You Can,’ she hedged, taking a moment to step closer to her bed and the sleeping woman occupying it. For comparison reasons. That’s all. Just that.

“Gosh, I wouldn’t know!” Em gasped dramatically, waving her hand in front of her face to emphasize her point. “But great movie either way.”

I wonder what happened that night? Why was she in the water?

“My best guess? She either saw something she wasn’t supposed to see, or she wrote something that pissed someone off. You have to snoop to make the news, so maybe she stuck her nose too far into the badger’s den and got a nasty surprise.”

They didn’t want her to be found, Em. She was far enough down her body wouldn’t have surfaced for years.

“I don’t pretend to know how the criminal underworld functions, but if they didn’t want her found, that tells me she knows something they don’t want out.” Em moved to stand, edging past Lee so she could return the braille book she’d borrowed from one of the many bookshelves cluttering the room. “So what’s your endgame, Leanna? I’ve been dying to ask.”

Again, Lee’s reply was slow coming. I don’t think I have one.

Em wrinkled her nose like she’d caught the stench of something foul. “I find that hard to believe. You brought a Topsider down here knowing full well the hell it would unleash if word ever got out.”

Lee didn’t much care for her aunt’s accusatory tone and bristled. It was knee-jerk, Em. I saw someone floating past me, and I reacted. I’d have done the same thing for you if you were in a similar situation, and because I did, I became responsible for her safety.

“Relax, pup.” Em patted the air. “I’m not judging you, and I’m not upset either. I’m just curious about what happens next. Your mother told you to stay away, yet here you are.”

What does someone do when they’re told no?

“So this is rebellion?”

I just... Lee raked her hands through her hair, snarling in frustration. She wasn’t good at explaining how her mind worked and how she felt about things. It made sense to her but trying to put a voice to her thoughts was like trying to translate two different languages to non-native speakers. So much was lost in translation. I didn’t plan this. I feel like everyone thinks I purposefully went Topside and brought a stranger home for fun, but I had no choice. I’m conditioned to help. That’s what I do. I help and create and build. I can’t give you a better explanation. I also want to learn. I want to know about Topside. I’m restless down here, Em. Everything’s too small. I know all the faces. I just...I want something new.

“This woman isn’t a toy for your amusement, honey. She’s going to leave once she’s better and will likely never return.”

I never said she was.

“She also can’t see you, Lee. I know you’re curious, but this,” Em motioned at her own face spattered with scarring around her white eyes and across the tops of her cheeks, “is going to make conversing with her damn near impossible. And we also don’t need a reporter writing an expose about ‘colonies of monsters in the sewers.’ I don’t care if it’s tabloid bullshit at best. It only takes one curious person to bring all this down on our heads.”

Pretty sure I know better than anyone how people react when they see me for the first time. And on that note, not everyone is a threat, or else we wouldn’t have Insiders who know what I look like.

“Those people have been vetted, Lee.”

A quiet groan and the sound of blankets shifting stopped both women mid-conversation, two sets of eyes training on the bed.

“Well, that cue for you to leave was astronomically well-timed.”

Which, logically, it was, but Lee’s feet wouldn’t allow her to move. Too many conflicting signals. Instead, she whirled around and tucked herself into a beanbag chair beside one of her many bookshelves, wedging good and tight into the shadows. Hood drawn, she all but disappeared.

“What are you doing?” Em hissed.

Observing.

“Damnit, this isn’t birdwatching! Your mother’s going to kill the both of us if this woman starts screaming again.”

I’m doing what I do best, Em. Being invisible. Just...do this for me. Please?

“I have to be out of my fucking mind,” Em muttered but didn’t try to make Lee leave.

Risk and Reward

There was no point trying to decipher how long her bout of unconsciousness lasted this time. There were no windows. No glimpse of the outside world in any direction. For all Alex knew, it could have been days. Or it could have been a handful of hours. This time, it wasn’t pain that dragged her from sleep but the sound of voices and her body’s cry for an essential component of life.

Blinking away sleep crust, the groan that slipped past her teeth sounded like gravel in a blender, throat parched to the point it felt like her tongue was trying to overtake her mouth. Judging by the cracks along her bottom lip, her tongue wasn’t the only thing in sore need of liquids, which was darkly ironic, seeing as she’d survived drowning.

Is that how they’re going to kill me? Alex wondered groggily, failing multiple times to orient herself. Dehydrate me to death?

It seemed a wasteful thing to do, bandage someone up only to leave them to die. Waste of materials and time, if Alex was being logical, which she wasn’t. For all she knew, this was one of those cells she heard other journalists whisper about. The ones who hated what she was and the truth she tried to uncover. In the world’s current climate, the idea wasn’t all that farfetched. Was she going to be one of those poor souls in those videos, forced to kneel on camera with a bag over her head while someone read off demands? Was it really Falconi who ordered this to happen? Was the water just a test of pain?

The answers wouldn’t come. Not now, at least. She was far too weak to do her job. Coupled with the pain-induced delirium and a fever that wouldn’t break, her head was a fuzzy cloud of nonsensical information and rotating fears.

You can’t get answers, but you can at least get a feel for your surroundings, a stable part of her mind suggested. Look around. See what you can see. Log that away.

Good plan. Yes, that was a very good plan. But there was a battle to wage against grogginess, likely due to whatever the older woman injected her with, Alex wasn’t sure she could win. How long ago had that been? No matter. Alex still had one functioning eye that cracked open and roamed the room until focusing on the woman sitting beside her. She didn’t react immediately. Not like she had before when she’d dreamed of the creature at the foot of her bed. This person looked real enough, and that was something at least.

“Are you… going to kill me?”

Why did she ask that? What possessed her to put that thought into the mind of someone who may do exactly what she feared? Again, Alex blamed the delirium. If she could have, she would have slapped her forehead, but the idea of lifting her arms made her nauseous.

The curvy woman shifted uncomfortably, fiddling with a pair of oversized sunglasses like she wasn’t used to having something covering her eyes. She didn’t look like the “terrorists” splashed across the pages of every major newspaper since the Towers fell, homegrown or otherwise, with her black hair tied back in a loose braid and a soft green t-shirt with a worn Nike logo splashed across the front.

“You always start conversations with strangers like this?” the woman asked, shifting again.

Alex tried to swallow, but her esophagus got stuck. She had to cough to clear her airway, which was a terrible idea.

“No, we’re not going to kill you.” The woman tried to sound reassuring, but it read to Alex as patronizing. “You’re too damn feisty, and I don’t feel like being elbowed in the ribs again.”

“Who are you?”

“Emilia, but you can call me Em. I’d prefer it, actually.”

“Em. Where am I?” Good question. Make them give you a location, even if it’s a false one. It started the ball rolling.

“Someplace safe. I know it’s not a reassuring answer after what you’ve been through, but it’s all I can give. You’re safe, so that’s all that should matter.”

“Safe from… who?”

“From the people who tried to kill you. I’d ask about that, but you’re not in any shape for discussions. You’re running a fever. We’re giving you antibiotics to help fight the infection.”

Was that why her bones felt like they were melting, but she was freezing inside? “Th-thirsty.”

“Now that I can help with. Hold tight.”

Alex used the break in conversation to look around the room as the woman moved away from the bed and was intercepted by another figure. In her bleary state, it was impossible to gauge whether or not the person had been there to begin with. In fact, it was getting impossible to keep her head from dropping back against the pillow.

“What are you doing?” Em signed to Lee, making sure her back was to the Topsider while she spoke with her hands. Before it became known Leanna could communicate telepathically, Em taught both her and Rebecca sign language. One of the benefits of going blind later in life and having a deaf parent. They rarely used signing now, though there were some in the Underground who Lee couldn’t speak to with her mind for reasons unknown.

“Helping,” Lee replied, scurrying over to the sink.

“You aren’t helping; you’re halping. That’s the opposite of helping.”

Lee ignored her and handed over a filled cup that Em refused to take. “Oh no. If you’re so invested in this, you give it to her.”

“But she might see–”

“Give it to her, or do as your mother says and stay away. Decide now.”

Jaw set, Lee double-checked to make sure her hood was pulled good and high before approaching the bed, struggling to ignore how dry her mouth had become. She didn’t hand Alex the glass of water directly, knowing she lacked the strength to grip it. Instead, she helped her to sit up, careful not to reveal any aspects of herself that might prove alarming.

At the first brush of cool liquid against her lips, Alex latched onto the cup with little decorum, swallowing greedily like a vampire finding an artery. Relief was instant. Eyes closed, she hardly paid attention to who was caring for her.

“Thank you,” she exhaled after draining the glass.

You’re welcome. I’m Lee, she said, keeping her head low, so it wasn’t obvious she wasn’t moving her lips. If you need anything, Em and I will get it for you.

“I’d like to go home,” Alex whispered, her one good eye bright in the dim light.

Lee shifted, searching for the right words and feeling Em’s glare bore into the back of her head. We’ll get you there soon. You’re not well enough to move yet, and we’re... kind of remote. Rest for now. You’re safe. No one will hurt you here.

“Thank you, Lee.”

Hearing her name on the other woman’s lips set fire to Lee’s blood in an unforeseen rush. Not trusting herself to converse further, she retreated before blowing her cover.

“If you think you can get to the kitchen without tripping over your own feet, get her some food, yeah? Poor thing must be starving,” Em said. She caught Lee’s arm and signed, “You’re putting me in an impossible situation. I hope you know that.”

“She needs to be reassured.”

“She needs to not know who you are! And I don’t need to catch shit from your mother! Don’t pull me into this.”

“You’re already a part of this. We both are.”

From that point on, Em and Lee began taking turns, juggling the responsibility of caring for Alex while dodging Rebecca and keeping suspicion down. Lee knew this was a dicey game. She skipped down a knife’s edge every time she walked into her room to deliver food or water. She was risking exposure to a possibly hostile Topsider as well as defying her mother’s direct order, but the rewards of petty rebellion and time spent with Alex outweighed the risks.

For now, at least.

Expect the Unexpected

Over the next few days, Lee gleaned what little she could about Alex. Most of her visits began with bringing her food and water and patiently waiting for the Topsider to wrangle her mind away from the haze of healing, but every day Alex grew sharper and more aware as the antibiotics and good old-fashioned rest did their jobs of mending what was broken.

In the rare instances the two spoke, Alex continued to ask repetitive questions centered around where she was and who the Undergrounders were. Lee made sure to deflect as much as possible, keeping her answers as vague as her appearance.

To keep Alex from climbing the walls out of fear again, she covered herself from head to heel, wrapping her face and going so far as wearing ski goggles and gloves to further distort her troubling features. She looked like an extra from a steampunk apocalypse movie — Mad Max minus the bondage gear — but the disguise served its purpose.

Seldom would Alex answer Lee’s inquiries with whole truths when the conversation was turned back on Alex, but sometimes Lee got half an answer that let her peek into the comings and goings of the woman who had inexplicably dropped into her life.

Alex was a journalist — Lee didn’t reveal she knew this already. She lived in an apartment somewhere in Manhattan. Didn’t have any pets. Enjoyed reading. Loved Asian food. Didn’t have a pizza preference. Was loyal to only one deli but had several favorite bagel shops. Enjoyed the occasional documentary and graduated near the top of her class. All Alex gleaned from Lee was that she lived in the Underground all her life, the constant tapping and ticking came from hundreds of feet of pipe above their heads, and that they were somehow still in New York.

“How’s that even remotely possible?” Alex gaped in disbelief. “Sewer engineers would have found out years ago.”

It’s an old system, and we are very good at staying hidden.

With a routine set, Alex’s healing flourished, but it was slow and excruciating. Without the full range of standard hospital medicine, she was forced to endure her recovery in the raw without painkillers or sedatives — Mother refused to offer any more of Taft’s supply — which meant Alex awoke in tears more times than she wanted to admit.

Sometimes, she could keep unconsciousness at bay and drift into a milky haze somewhere between asleep and awake. Sometimes, the agony was enough to render her a sobbing mess until exhaustion claimed her. And any plea she managed to choke into the semi-darkness was met with silence. Alex thought no one could hear, but someone did. Every time.

Tonight was no different. The pain had her firmly in its grip, pulling lines of hot tears down her face. Alex curled her fingers into the blankets to the point her joints cramped, jaw sore from bearing down on her molars.

I’m sorry, a voice drifted from the shadows, startling her enough she flinched. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help.

Alex knew who was speaking without having to look. “It hurts,” she hiccupped, fighting not to squirm. It was like her body was trying to pry itself away from itself. If only she could shift in just the right way, she would find the perfect pocket of relief. “It never stops.”

I know. I... Alex heard a defeated sigh and tilted her head in the direction of the sound. I only have what’s available to us down here, which isn’t much. But...when I was little, something that helped me through hard times was when Mother read to me. I could do the same for you. It might take your mind off the pain.

The strange offer was enough to give her pause. No one had ever read to her, not even her parents when she was little. They just weren’t the type, but Alex nodded regardless of the oddity, desperate for anything to take her mind off the here and now. Realizing Lee couldn’t see her gesture of affirmation, Alex managed a strained, “Okay,” between hard swallows.

A shadow pulled away from the wall, silent as a wraith and almost entirely black. This was nothing abnormal — Lee was stealthy to a fault and tended to appear out of thin air — but for a split second, Alex’s heart rate spiked. Behind each slow blink, she saw flashes of hands reaching for her, dragging her backward into a van, holding her down, holding her close “…I baptized you in the name of the Father,” a voice rasped in her ear while a knife slid into her ribs. Hot pain in her side suddenly flared, a sinister reminder of an ordeal she was still muddling through.

As if the silhouetted figure could sense her distress, Lee stopped, holding a stiff pose like someone trying to reassure a skittish cat they weren’t a threat. I’ll leave if you tell me to.

This was a commonplace offer. Lee was acutely aware of Alex’s discomfort and never did anything without affirmation. Her asking Alex if she wanted her to leave was a precursor to most of their conversations.

Alex couldn’t bring herself to speak, shaking her head in the two-fold hope of reassuring Lee while dislodging the slimy voice from its echoing reverberation in her skull.

Lee continued along her predetermined path, making sure her movements were fluid and that Alex couldn’t see her hands. Pausing at a bookshelf, she plucked a well-worn paperback from the stacks and came to the side of the bed.

There’s a chair here. May I sit?

“Yes.”

There’s also a cup of water near me. Would you like me to hand it to you?

“I think it’s empty.”

Hold on. I’ll get you a fresh glass.

Lee returned in short order with a tall glass of water and a damp cloth, which she handed to Alex first. For your forehead. Em always has me use one when I’m aching.

Alex only jumped a little when she felt gloved fingers brush the top of her hand as a cup slid into her palm. Shaking, she managed to swallow two mouthfuls before settling back, the cold compress making its way to the back of her neck. It was heaven incarnate, the tension in her spine melting away.

I hope you don’t mind mystery. It’s my favorite genre.

Despite Alex not being able to see much of the woman’s face, she could hear her eager excitement and offered a small smile of her own. “I’ve not read much Mystery in the past.”

Then you’re in for a treat.

Alex straightened in surprised recognition once Lee cruised through the few first paragraphs and turned to the next page. “Are you reading me Angels and Demons?”

Is that a problem? There was a wariness to Lee’s voice, and Alex felt herself being weighed and measured.

“No... just unexpected.”

Sometimes “unexpected” is a good thing. Keeps you on your toes. Makes life less boring. Now, where were we?

Alex chuckled at that and settled back, listening to Lee melodically move through chapters. Eventually, sleep caught up, and she drifted into a dreamless void, prompting Lee to bookmark their place and leave after pulling the covers over the sleeping woman. Her hands only shook a little, but her heart continued to slam long after leaving the room.

This became a nightly routine regardless of Alex’s pain level. Lee would come to her once the lights were dimmed and resume reading. Sometimes, she managed to get through multiple chapters before catching herself nodding off. Sometimes, Alex would fall asleep early on, and Lee would shamelessly remain in her chair after closing the book, goggles pulled up and scarf down, eyes drifting over the woman, pondering things that had never crossed her mind until now.

In fact, Lee was doing a lot of thinking lately, and what a dangerous pastime that was. It wasn’t like she was unaccustomed to being stuck in her head. More often than not, that’s where she spent the majority of her time. But something was changing. Something she couldn’t put into words, and that frustrated her.

Feeling her mental funk turn pensive, Lee idly toyed with a freshly minted gear soon to be added to her hydroelectric machine. It didn’t dawn on her she was zoning out with a lit soldering torch in hand until the flame licked across her sleeve, setting the fabric alight. With a yelp, she attempted to smother the flames with a rag, only to realize too late it was coated in a highly flammable grease. The resulting incident involved a lot of flailing, very quick disrobing, and excited shirt-stomping.

Oh my god, what are you doing? she berated herself, brushing ash from her face. Get a grip before you accidentally blow up this entire room.

Looking sadly at her melted work coat and the charred right arm of her hoodie, Lee knew a replacement was in order. But that required a trip to her room. Out of schedule. In the middle of the day. Lee didn’t have the slightest clue if Mother was about, and she couldn’t very well risk using her secret entrance in the event Alex was awake. That left only one option.

It would be fast. She would be covered. Just grab a spare set of clothes and leave. No big deal. Em was supposed to be in there by now, so Alex would be distracted. Hurrying through the narrow hallways that made up the topography of her subterranean home, Lee kept an ear out for signs of Mother. So far, so good. The living room was clear, and so was the kitchen. Turning a tight corner and bolting the last few feet, Lee used her momentum to swing around the final corner and almost fell flat on her face when her feet suddenly stuck to the floor.

Alex was awake and braced against the wall closest to the bed. Em was nowhere to be found.

Tesla’s left testicle! Lee swore, spinning before Alex could see her partially uncovered face. Readjusting the scarf over her nose and mouth, she pulled the goggles nesting in her hair over her eyes, completing her disguise.

“Oh, umm… hello,” Alex greeted with a hesitant wave, voice betraying her physical discomfort. Standing unassisted was a new venture, and she was clearly feeling it. Lee also couldn’t help notice how tall she was, even barefoot.

Hi! Hello, yes… sorry to barge in like this. I… uh, Lee’s speech became stilted as she attempted to wrangle her startled thoughts into a cohesive herd of words. I just needed to grab something. Just gonna… go over here.

Moving in a cartoonish scurry, she ripped open her dresser only to realize a second later she couldn’t very well change in front of Alex. There were things she was bound to notice, and even the small distance between them was burning with the intensity of the Topsider’s stare. Swallowing a curse, Lee dug out a replacement outfit and was prepared to scram when Alex nervously cleared her throat.

“I... umm, could you… help me? You look like you’re in a hurry, and I’m sorry, but...”

Is everything okay? Lee asked without turning, still bent over her drawer.

“I need to use the restroom, but I don’t think I can make it on my own,” Alex said a little shyly. “Em usually helps me, but she hasn’t shown up yet, and things are getting a little urgent.” She laughed the last bit of her plea with a forced smile.

Lee bounced from foot to foot. Of course, she would help, but up until that point, she and Alex hadn’t touched one another save for their hands brushing every so often. Distance was Lee’s best source of anonymity, but she couldn’t leave the poor woman to walk to the bathroom alone with her mending injuries.

Of course. Lee slowly moved to the bed, heart pounding so hard she wondered if Alex could see it beating through her clothes.

“Thank you,” Alex deflated in visible relief. She leaned into Lee’s offered aid but frowned after a handful of steps. “Are you all right?”

Too late to reverse course, Lee realized the arm she’d slung around Alex’s waist was trembling, and it had nothing to do with supporting another person and everything to do with close proximities and rattled nerves.

Peachy keen, she lied, eyes forward. Had a little mishap earlier that left me a bit rattled.

“Is that why I smell something burning?” Sniffing, she wrinkled her nose and searched for the source before catching sight of Lee’s arm when it swung into view. “Did you burn yourself?”

Lee froze, almost dropping her charge. Alex was noticing things. Oh, God. Oh, fuck.

Yeah, that was the mishap. Soldering torch bit me. No biggie, was all she could manage in her momentary panic. The itch to readjust her goggles and scarf buzzed at her fingertips like a nest of bees.

“You work with fire down here?” Alex didn’t mask her surprise, and Lee couldn’t blame her. Fires underground were a recipe for disaster when you relied on Topside vents to keep things oxygenated.

I have a few pieces of machinery I maintain. That’s half the reason we have electric lights, Lee replied honestly, brightening when an idea bloomed. She motioned to her face. Hence the goggles and scarf. Fumes and debris are a bitch when they get into your lungs. I’ve just gotten used to wearing this all the time.

“Well, surprise notwithstanding, I can see the logic in that. So what made you decide to test your flammability today?”

Needed to see if I really am too hot to trot, Lee joked, starting to ease up. A small shoulder wiggle got Alex laughing, which was a bonus that made her heart flutter. In all seriousness, I had to readjust something in a machine that’s been fighting me for a few years. Wound up getting a little too excited with the soldering torch.

“I’m glad it was only superficial.”

Lee left Alex at the curtain leading into the bathroom. Although “bathroom” was a loose term. Domestic plumbing in the Underground wasn’t an exact installation, but with modifications and extensions made, basic amenities like outhouse-style toilets fed directly into gray water pipelines were possible.

Emerging a few minutes later looking relieved and leagues more comfortable, Alex accepted help back to bed, the two taking their time so she could stretch her stiff, unused legs and work the kinks out of her back.

When the stumble happened, it was small. Just a dip in her knees, but Lee — unaccustomed to helping another human walk — twisted too fast, pulling against Alex’s grip in an effort to catch her before she hit the ground. Alex, in contrast, grabbed onto the first article of clothing her fingers brushed against in an attempt to right herself, taking Lee’s hood and scarf with her.

And just like that, the charade unraveled.

Both women shot away from one another, their reaction never the more opposite. Alex’s hand slapped audibly over her mouth to silence any incoming screams. By comparison, Lee almost crawled up the adjacent wall behind her, ripping off her goggles and holding her hands up to show she wasn’t a threat.

Oh, this was bad. This was very, very bad. The only thing that could make it worse was…

“...know I’m late–”

“You’re two hours late,” Mother griped, sounding bitter and annoyed.

“Damn, can’t a woman sleep a few extra minutes?” Em whined. “Not like she’s going anywhere on account of...”

The room’s occupancy rose by two.

Four women stared at one another: two in varying shades of terror, one in shock, and the fourth...well, Rebecca’s expression looked carved from marble. But there was a hint of hot anger turning the hazel hue of her eyes dark.

Situational Hypocrisy

Alex had been relatively fine up until a few seconds ago. She’d summoned the strength to stand on her own and walked more steadily than she had the previous day. It was still almost impossible to stand fully erect without her stitches pulling, but she was managing. She’d even graduated to using the restroom unassisted — it was only slightly humiliating having to rely on others for hygienic and sanitary needs. Even her reflection in the small, second-hand mirror bolted to the bathroom wall was improving. All-in-all, her spirits had been on the rise until the Undergrounder’s hood fell.

Oh my God, it’s real! was the first thing her mind screamed when she took in a face far removed from the human visage. The second was, What is it?! Heart beating like a V8 piston, Alex shot away, hardly aware of the aches voicing their complaints.

It hadn’t been a dream.

It was real.

It was all real!

Shock was a bolt of lightning, terrorized understanding swooping in as the thunderclap. All of a sudden, every cheesy, impossible sci-fi movie lost its implausibility right before her eyes.

Stuck in a quagmire of petrification, Alex missed the startled terror on Lee’s face. Missed the submission in her stance — hands raised, palms out, head down. She was trying everything in her power to appear as non-threatening as possible, but that didn’t work when she had the face of a predator and the teeth and claws to match.

“What are you?!”

Lee recoiled from the exclamation and the implication she was a thing rather than a person. Thing, object, inhuman.

It was hard to tell whether Rebecca and Em’s appearance was Alex’s saving grace or downfall. Likely the latter, if the cold rage glared at the two women was anything to go by.

“Do. Not. Scream,” Rebecca snarled in warning.

Scream. Alex recalled she possessed the ability to vocally test the full range of her terror, but the severe, hawkish woman’s stare set the distance between them on fire, snuffing out any exclamations under a heavy blanket of implied threat.

“Who the fuck are you people?!” So much for keeping quiet.

“The ones responsible for saving your life!” Rebecca shouted loud enough to make Alex jump before the older woman turned her boring gaze onto Lee. “And the people greatly regretting that decision.”

Mother, please. This isn’t Alex’s fault. Be angry with me, not her, Lee pleaded.

“You know her name?” The accusation wasn’t lost on anyone.

Lee flinched. I saw the missing persons flier.

Indignant betrayal colored Rebecca’s cheeks, her glare turning toward Em, who seemed to be the only one in the room unfazed by the leader of the Underground’s temper.

“In my defense, she was going to find out one way or another, and it was easier to converse with Alex by name rather than calling her Topsider.”

Rebecca sucked in a breath that was meant to be calming and let it out in a slow ten count. Unfortunately, she didn’t look any calmer than before. If anything, the air had only stoked the fires rather than putting them out.

“You’re right,” she agreed, gaze drifting to her daughter. “This is your fault. And since you’ve decided your whims take precedence over the rest of ours, you have put us all in an impossible situation. One I will have to deal with directly.”

Not surprisingly, an already panicking Alex translated this into “you’re about to die because you know too much” and felt an all-too-familiar terror well up inside her. It was the same sensation that wrapped her in a vice after the first fist connected with her face in the van. After being told her attackers were there to “send a message”. After being stabbed and thrown out of a moving vehicle into black water. It was mortal panic, and it commanded her to run.

Forgetting she’d been bedridden for more than two weeks, Alex shot off the wall and made it past Em before Rebecca snatched her by the back of her borrowed sweater. A hard twist had Alex falling unceremoniously into a wingback chair, the well-worn cushions blunting the abrupt pain of her landing.

“Sit. Down.”

Something in the way Rebecca commanded the room hit pause on Alex’s urge to flee. Or maybe it was pure self-preserving instincts coupled with the shock of being caught and thrown into a chair. Whatever the reason, Alex stayed put.

“Stay,” Rebecca said, pointing at the floor.

God, she’s not a dog! Lee shouted, having moved when Alex made her break for it. She’s terrified and confused. Talk to her like a normal person rather than the animal she thinks I am!

“You are not an animal,” Rebecca bit back over her shoulder.

She doesn’t know that! Explain this to her. Explain us. She needs to know.

“That’s the last thing she needs.”

“I’m actually in agreement with Mother on this one,” Em said, sucking her teeth. “The less she knows, the better. Sorry, kiddo.”

Then we’re not going to get anywhere, and she’s going to keep trying to run.

“Then it’s time for her to leave,” Rebecca declared. “If she has the ability to run, she no longer needs our care.”

She’s not going to last ten minutes walking alone Topside, and you know it!

“She seems well enough.”

And who’s going to take her back up even if she could walk more than fifteen feet without getting winded? Me? Em? You? Do you think she’s going to go anywhere with us willingly when she thinks we’re mad scientists creating monsters in the dark? Just talk to her!

Rebecca snarled, fists balled at her sides. “We wouldn’t have to deal with this mess had you simply listened to me!” Mother and daughter stood facing one another like two cocks preparing to duel. “I told you to stay away. For once, I thought you would listen, but you deliberately disobeyed me!”

Stop using my treks Topside as a way to skirt the issue. You’re treating Alex like a criminal when she hasn’t done a damn thing wrong.

“She’s from Topside!” Rebecca shouted as if that said it all. “And this is my home!” She gestured to the room as if that excused her actions.

This is my home, too!

“Wrong.” The older woman raised a finger. “You forfeited your right to your home when you declared sanctuary for a complete stranger and brought her down here against our community’s wishes!”

I didn’t realize home came with a price tag, nor did I realize the community spoke with one voice. When did it turn into a monarchy? I don’t remember voting on that.

“Leanna–”

I did what you raised me to do! Lee stormed on, persistent despite the thunder growing on her mother’s face. To help those who truly need it! To treat others the way I want to be treated. Those are your laws, and I followed them!

“You’ve brought a liability into our world all because you couldn’t pick and choose your battles!”

She was dying!

“Sometimes, there will be unforeseen casualties in life. You can’t save the entire world, Leanna, and you can’t save all of Topside!”

I’m so sick of your situational hypocrisy! You raised me one way, but then you act another. Why does your compassion stop with those from above?

“Because they are undeserving of compassion! They are the reason we are down here! I raised you Underground because I knew you would never be accepted by people like her!” Rebecca jabbed a finger at a stunned Alex. “To them, you are something less than human, and I will not stand for my daughter being viewed as subhuman by the vain, heartless creatures who crawl Topside!” Spinning on Alex once more like a spring under tremendous pressure, Rebecca seethed. “I want you well, and I want you gone. And God help you if you ever darken my doorway again!”

“I never asked to be here!” Alex exploded, reaching her breaking point. She surged to her feet, eyes lit from behind with a rage that had festered for weeks. “I never asked to be kidnapped walking home from work! I never asked to be beaten to near death, stabbed, and thrown into the sewers to drown in the dark! I never asked to be rescued by people who think that whatever I am is a pariah to society. I never asked for any of this, so don’t stand there and accuse me of anything like I had a say in the matter! I was supposed to die that night! I was supposed to drown, but I...” Alex rocked, suddenly unsteady. Hearing the hard, ugly truth spoken aloud broke something buried deep in her chest. When she sucked in, it was around a sob she barely capped with her hands. “I did drown. I remember drowning and knowing I’d never see home again. I… I died that night.”

There’s your heartless creature, Mother. A Topsider coming to grips with her mortality. I hope this pleases you.

All of a sudden, Lee’s hit a flash point, and she cleared an end table of books in a vicious sweep before storming from the room. A second later, the front door slammed shut with the metallic bang of a gunshot.

Rebecca stood in suffocating silence, trying and failing to hide the shake of her hands moving into her shoulders. “I can’t do this. See to it that she’s taken care of.” Those were her only instructions before retreating to her personal chambers, leaving Em alone with Alex.

“Ya mátenme,” Em muttered, screwing the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I’m too old for this.”

When neither woman moved, it was Em who broke the stalemate with a gusty sigh aimed at the ceiling. “Look, I apologize for Rebecca and for what you just heard. No one blames you for what happened. You were just trying to survive and were thrown into a world where you’ve become the scapegoat for a lot of things that don’t involve you. That’s on us, and I’m sorry.”

Alex heard her, but the words couldn’t stick their landing while she was processing the grim knowledge she’d skirted another fatal encounter. “I just want to go home,” she hiccupped, arms around her stomach.

“And you will. Once you’re well enough to make the journey.” Em retreated to the small kitchen off the main room and returned with a handful of damp hand towels she handed to Alex. “Look, Rebecca was out of line. I’ll be the first to admit that, but she gets defensive when people attack her daughter or our way of life. And unfortunately, you threaten a lot of things just by being who you are. I’m not making excuses for her behavior, just giving an explanation. I know all of this is hard to grasp. I know you’re scared. But please try to understand that we’re trying too.”

Alex sniffed hard, clearing mucus from her face with the towel. She didn’t confirm her understanding because how could she ever understand?

“Okay, I think that’s enough excitement for one day. You should probably lie down.” It was voiced as a command rather than a suggestion but gentle in its delivery. As Em helped Alex to her feet, she followed wordlessly, leaning on Em until they made it to the bed again. Fighting the urge to curl on her side — neither her ribs nor the stitches would allow that — Alex stared at the ceiling.

“Is she human?”

Em paused, shoulder resting against the wall in a casual lean. “She is. She’s also my unofficial niece, who I love very much, and believe it or not, she has feelings and is very conscious of how she looks.”

Alex only blanched a little. In another life, she knew better than to jump and scream at someone. She was a journalist, for Christ’s sake. She’d reported on countless stories of discrimination over the years centered around that exact thing. But she’d never encountered anyone who looked quite so beastly.

“Lee’s also the person who fished you out of the water and carried you down here, in the event you didn’t gather that from the shouting match. And before you ask,” Em added, “she has Cerebral Mutism due to head trauma suffered as a child. That means she can’t verbally speak very well.”

“She can speak,” Alex retorted, thinking back to the nights Lee read to her, putting the pieces together. “With her mind.”

“Yeah, funny how the brain adapts to trauma. Good night.”

Look but Don’t Touch

For a solid week after the catastrophic collision between Topside and Underground, Alex saw little of the people to whose care she had been entrusted. Em was the only one keeping a consistent schedule, coming to help shuttle Alex back and forth between her bed and the bathroom and dropping off food. Lee, however, had well and truly vanished.

At first, Alex didn’t ask after her, unsure another face-to-face meeting would end on a pleasant note. Then her reluctance turned into shame when she was forced to admit she’d been a massive ass about the whole situation. Em didn’t bring her niece into their minimal conversations, and Alex couldn’t ask, so the subject was left open like a ragged incision neither knew how to treat.

What hurt more as time wore on was how much she missed Lee’s visits and nightly readings. They’d been a rare highlight, a treat Alex had taken for granted, and now? Now, Lee’s absence grew like a black hole in her gut until finally, after days of festering in woolly silence, Alex’s reservation broke. Like it or not, she had to apologize. It was the least she could do to begin making amends to someone she owed her life.

Alex waited for her moment and took it after breakfast and her morning to the bathroom. Em always left shortly after and wouldn’t return for another two hours, which gave Alex plenty of time to test the limits of her recuperating body. She was happy to report that sliding out of bed didn’t pose as much of a hazard anymore. Standing fully erect and walking still posed a challenge, but Alex’s back and forth trips were doing wonders for reestablishing her balance and core strength.

Somewhere in the less irrational part of her brain, Alex suspected she shouldn’t wander. First, this was unfamiliar territory. Second, she was looking for someone who probably wanted nothing to do with her. If Rebecca was anything to go by, the people of the Underground were intolerant of Topsiders, but no guards waited outside Lee’s room. No Em. No Rebecca. No disgruntled Undergrounder. Just a comfortable quiet interrupted every now and then by pipes creaking.

The main room — largest of the areas Alex had seen so far — was cluttered with scavenged furniture, rugs, overstuffed bookshelves, loose papers, and trinkets of every size. It was cozy in a sort of chaotic, pack-rat kind of way, illuminated by bare light bulbs ensconced in colorful glass shades. In the air, Alex detected the faintest hint of pipe smoke and mint, lending to the wizard workshop atmosphere.

Stopping at an overloaded bookshelf, she ran her fingers across the spines, noting their varied genres. Most were thick medical journals with names she could hardly sound out in her head, much less pronounce. Others were dated and worn textbooks that had seen better days ranging in developmental age from kindergarten to early college in every subject imaginable. Alex thumbed through a few of the college-level textbooks, unsurprised to discover a few were pilfered library books. One book, in particular, had a library card still wedged into the back, the name R. Farrow written in pencil in the tiny margin.

From the main room, Alex’s optional paths branched out like the upper arms of a Y. Left would take her up a small flight of stairs to the front door: a heavy, ship-hatch-looking thing with a wheel lock. Right opened into a hall leading deeper into the dwelling. She knew she couldn’t very well head out the front door. By looks alone, it would make a hellacious racket and probably weighed more than she could push in her weakened state. Right, it was.

The first doorless, square room she stumbled across was possibly Rebecca’s quarters. As far as Alex could guess, anyway. The décor was less chaotic and more organized here than in the front room. Sterile. Almost drab. Only a few touches of human warmth peppered the space in the forms of a child’s scribbled artwork, Polaroid pictures of Lee in various stages of growth, and small trinkets undoubtedly made by the matriarch’s daughter over the years. Most of those photos were tacked to an enormous cord board dominating the back wall. Beneath it was a desk that had seen better days piled with carefully placed manila folders, and beside it was a tiny twin bed, neatly made.

The hall continued straight for another twenty feet before branching off and bisecting into two completely new tunnels. It felt like each time Alex moved through one tunnel, three more would materialize, making her trek labyrinthine and all the more eerie due to low light and hissing pipes. Not for the first time, she questioned the necessity of her task and was prepared to turn back when the distant sound of music snagged her attention.

Approaching the t-joint, Alex peered around a blind corner and caught the outline of a partially open hatch on the right side of the narrow corridor. Light spilled out of the crack, painting the adjacent wall in a swatch of gold and notes of a song she immediately recognized. Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark. One of her all-time favorite jams. Familiarity bolstering her courage, Alex stepped closer and peered through the seam between door and wall, officially ending her quest.

Lee slid careless and carefree around a work table pushed to one side, lip-syncing in the gleeful, unjudged way someone did when totally alone. Hair pulled back into a messy bun, she rubbed grease from her hands on the front of her stained overalls before taking up the rhythm of the song, fingers tapping the beat on the metal table. Between the words of the chorus, she picked up parts from the pile and fit them into their assembled places, totally at home in her element.

It was such a stark contrast to the reserved, shy woman Alex had grown to know that she looked away. These stolen glimpses into fuzzy intimacy hadn’t been earned, but distance also provided Alex with a rare opportunity for observation without consequence. An opportunity she was loath to pass up.

Since their ill-fated encounter over a week ago, Alex hadn’t been able to compute what she had seen. A deformity? Mutation? Some strange amalgamation between the two? How could this creature — this woman — exist when the laws of reality told her otherwise? Was Alex thinking too deeply on the matter? She would have gladly puzzled the conundrum further had the door’s treacherous hinges not given out under her weight with a happy, attention-grabbing squeal.

Despite the volume of the music, Lee popped up with a cheerful smile that fractured upon seeing who was in the doorway. Spinning to put her back to the door, she groped blindly for the off button to the boombox, plunging the room into deafening silence as the echo of the cut-off notes faded.

Frozen with her haphazard plan turning to ash, Alex struggled to wrestle a surge of shameful panic pooling like liquid nitrogen in her stomach. She didn’t unfreeze until Lee took the initiative and raised a hand toward the ceiling and waved it like a flag of surrender. It was Alex’s only warning she was about to turn around.

Chin tucked close to her chest so the top of her head was more visible than her face, Lee lifted shaking hands and began to sign. When Alex didn’t answer after several seconds, Lee chanced a peek and groaned, smacking her forehead in the universal gesture for, “I’m an idiot,” and made a “stay” motion. From the door, Alex watched her scramble to find something, tossing tools and material aside like a raccoon digging in the trash.

“I’m sorry. I can come back,” Alex stammered, already pulling away from the door.

Lee made a noise that sounded like a frustrated “no” and cast about one more time before resigning herself to some unknown fate with a sad shoulder slump. Gripping the table edge, she squeezed her eyes shut, a visceral grimace contorting her features as her shoulders bunched up under her ears.

“I...” The word was torn from her throat like a stubborn band-aid, sticky and raw. She snarled, baring her teeth — something that made a wash of cold sweat prickle Alex’s back — body as tense as a wire as she wrestled her disused vocal cords into action. “’m...s-sorry. N-eed help?”

Alex’s chest cramped, ears and cheeks flaring bright red. So that’s what Em was trying to tell her: mutism caused by head trauma when Lee was a child.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, rushing several feet into the room to stop Lee from speaking further. “I didn’t mean...that is I, uh, I’m disturbing you.”

A triumphant hoot made Alex jump. Lee ducked down and snatched something from under the table and held it up with a whoop, gesturing for Alex to stay.

Are you alright? Lee scrawled in black marker on the whiteboard she turned so Alex could read. Need me to call Em?

“No.” Alex shook her head after making sure she read Lee’s scratchy handwriting correctly, gesturing to the air. “I heard your music. I like this song. Springsteen is a favorite of mine.”

Lee’s face broke into a smile out of reflex. One of my favorites, too. She motioned to an empty armchair beside a red cabinet not five feet from Alex, her face conveying the invitation.

“Oh no, I don’t want to disturb you.”

The marker squeaked again. Not disturbing. Please sit. Your ribs aren’t heeled yet.

Alex squinted at the black lettering, opening and closing her mouth. “I think you spelled healed wrong.”

Lee frowned and flipped the board around. This time, she did slap her forehead. Sorry. Nervous spelling mistake.

Alex fidgeted, stuck between decisions. She came all this way with an apology in mind, got caught playing the part of a Peeping Tom, and then dismissed a genuine offer of aid. God, how much worse could she make this moment?

Lee knocked on the table to get her attention, motioning at her face before writing. I know I look strange. Sorry I scared you.

Alex let out a breath and finally pointed herself in the right direction. “I wanted to apologize. For what happened a couple of days ago and for spying on you just now. It was wrong of me to react the way I did. I should have known better. I do know better, and it was wrong of me to assume the worst. I’m sorry.”

Some kind of negative reaction was expected. Maybe a, “well, yeah, that was kind of shitty of you” or even self-deprecation, so it came as a surprise and just a little telling when Lee’s dominant expression was shock.

Don’t feel sorry. You didn’t mean those things.

“In the moment, I did,” Alex confessed, ears burning.

Okay. Apology accepted even if not needed. Last thing — she had to stop and clear the board with her arm — I want is to make you uncomfortable.

“Thank you.” Alex bobbed her head. “You also don’t need to use the whiteboard. I know you can speak in other ways.”

But it scares you.

“It’s just odd having someone talking in stereo inside your head.”

Lee’s sudden laughter was such an unexpected sound it made Alex’s scalp tingle. Open and pure, it was the laugh of a person accustomed to knowing joy. The marker squeaked one more time. Sure you want me to?

Alex nodded, the gesture more to convince herself than Lee.

Still sure? Lee asked, tilting her head and watching Alex jerk when the brush of another consciousness met hers.

“I’ll get used to it.” Her reassurance was tight but genuine. “I mean, I’ve kind of already gotten used to it. I just didn’t know it was you.”

A mutant’s greatest power is their anonymity.

“Was that an X-Men reference?”

Lee pantomimed, being struck in the heart. The fact you caught that makes you, like, a thousand times cooler, but you really should sit down.

“I was getting restless.” Alex spread her hands with a shrug, but the longer she remained standing the more her body begged for rest. Ignoring Lee’s knowing glances, Alex rethought her previous dismissal and moved to the open armchair. “What are you working on?”

Water pressure system. Down here, we have to piggyback off of the Topside electrical grid. I’d like to build something that will make us completely self-sufficient.

Alex’s eyebrows almost lifted clear into her hairline. “That’s incredible. Did you come up with the idea on your own?”

Negative. Lee tapped a fat pipe with a wrench. There was another Undergrounder before me. Patricia. We called her Pats. She designed this behemoth but sadly wasn’t able to finish before her time came. She used to be an engineer and taught me what she could.

That explained some of the books Alex discovered in the main room. “Don’t let me distract you.”

The distraction is welcome. I’ve been trying to figure out this internal valve component for three days. Thought I had it, but it failed on me. Might have to fabricate the piece.

Lee went on to enthusiastically explain the machine, walking Alex through the parts she would have to manufacture and their function. Most of the intricacies flew miles over her head, so she sat back and observed — a journalist’s most valuable tool.

She didn’t intend to doze off and blamed the comfortable chair. One second, she was listening to Lee describe a series of hydraulics, and the next, Alex was slipping into a comfortable daze only to startle awake when something touched her shoulder.

Sorry! Lee apologized, skipping back to give her space. You were nodding off. I know from experience that this chair is deceptively comfortable. Your back won’t thank you if you sleep in it long. Believe me. I’ve had my fair share of nights in it. May I… take you back to your room?

Alex’s first instincts were to gracefully brush off the aid and make the trip on her own. After all, she walked here under her own volition and didn’t want to be any further bother. Lacking self-sufficiency chafed at her, but being a stranger in a strange land meant Alex needed the guidance even if she refused the physical help.

“I never got to properly thank you,” she said after reaching Lee’s room and the sweet relief of a soft mattress. It was a miracle her body made it, stubborn though she was. The trip took more endurance than she had on tap, filling her limbs with lead and her head with helium.

For what?

“For saving my life.”

You don’t have to thank me. Sitting crookedly on the edge of her bed, Lee handed Alex a glass of water and a cool compress to mop the sweat from her face. It might have been her imagination, but something flickered across Lee’s face. Something that looked how Alex felt when she was brave enough to touch the memory of that night.

“I never… asked where you found me,” she said after a long pause. “It’s not something I want to think about, but I would like to know.”

There it was again. Hesitance wrapped like a sour coating around the memory of something awful. Lee looked down at her hands, worrying the tip of one nail onto the cuticle of another.

Two stories below Topside in an old flood tunnel. I’d just broken into the George Washington Bridge and opened a two-hundred-year-old floodgate to help my machine. You fell from one of the pipes into the channel I was inspecting.

Alex processed this with a jerky nod.

You didn’t die.

“What?”

I heard you hit the water and caught you before you went over another fall point. You weren’t breathing, but your heart hadn’t stopped. I knew that because there was still blood seeping from your wounds.

Alex didn’t have the courage to ask what would have happened if her heart had stopped; if Lee had fished a corpse from the water and not someone clinging to life, but one look at the other woman’s pinched expression said more than a thousand words piled on top of one another.

Lee would have tried. Heartbeat or not, she would have tried to save a stranger because that was just the person she was.

May I ask a hard question?

Alex nodded.

How did you end up in the water?

The van. The man with the shark-smile grin. “Your mouth got my brother caged for five fucking years.” The knife. “I baptize you in the name of the Father.” The feeling of the blade biting into her side and then falling, falling, falling into black water.

Alex?

She jerked, sucking in a sharp breath. Something wet trailed down her cheeks. A lot of wet. When had she started crying?

“The man who stabbed me claimed I’d put his brother in jail because of something confessed to a priest.” Alex did her best to keep her voice steady. “With that in mind, I’m inclined to believe I wasn’t the intended target, seeing as the last time I saw a priest was at my mother’s burial.”

The feeling of a hand gently taking hers was a lifeline she didn’t know she needed until she squeezed back. Lee’s face was painted with sympathy, the blue of her eyes soft in the low light. I’m so sorry this happened to you.

Then just as quickly as she’d taken Alex’s hand, Lee let go, squashing the brief flutter of warmth climbing Alex’s forearm.

You know, Lee hedged. Down here, they can’t get you. Down here, you’re safe.

Alex smiled despite herself. “But I can’t stay here forever.”

Now it was Lee’s turn to nod with an unhappy crease growing across her brow. You walked pretty far on your own today. Another few days, and you’ll be Topside again. But for now, rest.

“Would it… um. Would it be any trouble if I asked you to keep reading? I’d like to know how the chapter ends.” A strip of pink warmed the bridge of Alex’s nose when Lee cracked a familiar grin, the book already waiting under her chair.

No trouble at all.

Freedom

Four days later, Alex — dressed in borrowed clothes and shoes that were just a smidge too small but worn into soft comfort — followed Lee through another maze of semi-dark tunnels, their pace slow to make certain her endurance didn’t flag before she could return home. It was decided after Rebecca learned of Alex’s trip to Lee’s lab that she was well enough to return to her world. For the most part, Alex agreed, though her terms for removal raised the matron’s eyebrow.

“I would like Lee to escort me.”

“My daughter has risked enough for you,” Rebecca said, and it seemed the matter was settled until a few hushed words from Em softened the older woman. “Fine. Leanna will escort you, but only to the upper tunnels. If you provide us with the location of your home, I’m sure we can deposit you close enough.”

“That won’t be necessary. If you can get me close to West 59th St, I can make it the rest of the way on foot.”

“So be it. There’s an Underground entrance in Central Park we can utilize for this occasion.” Rebecca stepped closer, purposely invading Alex’s personal space. “But I have a condition of my own that will be agreed upon before we proceed further. I’m sure there will be hard questions once you return. A woman of your status rising from the grave will pique quite a bit of interest. I trust you will remain silent about our existence.”

“And if I can’t?” Alex challenged, rising to meet the woman.

“It’s not a matter of can, my dear. It’s a matter of will. You will remain silent about our existence.”

“Is this a threat?”

One side of Rebecca’s lip quirked in a smug half-smile. “Threats are a coward’s way of control. I’m telling you what will happen.”

Alex was good at calling people’s bluff; she made a living out of it. So it was more than a little chilling when she found no bluffs in Rebecca’s face. “I’ll find a way to keep you and your family out of any investigation that might ensue. That’s the best I can do.”

Satisfied, Rebecca let the matter drop, though Lee wasn’t pleased to learn about the hike Alex would have to make back to her apartment.

But I could take you so much closer! she complained, swinging down from a set of valves near the ceiling. Alex sat in her chair, watching Lee attempt to clear cooking oil smeared with axle grease from her arms with a rag and failing miserably. Lee claimed it helped her maneuver tight spaces. Alex wasn’t so sure. The tunnels run under most of the buildings in this city. I know the streets and their adjacent tunnels by heart! If you want to be dropped near West 59th, you have to live close to Hell’s Kitchen or Midtown East!

Alex smiled wanly in an attempt to fight back a hot flare of dread. If she was going to sever ties, she was going to do it the right way, even if it felt like she was spitting in Lee’s face. She had enough surprises to last her a lifetime. “I appreciate that, but there are things I need to do before I head home. According to your mother, I’ve been gone for more than a month. No doubt, people have been looking for me. I need to go through the right channels to let them know I’m okay.”

But what about the people who hurt you? What if they’re looking for you, too?

“They won’t be looking for me. As far as they’re concerned, I’m dead. They probably aren’t even in the city.”

Alex danced artfully around the lie, thankful for the learned trick of keeping a convincing face when speaking absolute bullshit. The men who attacked her had counted on her drowning and never resurfacing. Her sudden resurrection was going to cause quite a stir that would make her a very solid target, especially when a mob family was involved.

But that was Alex’s battle, and she refused to get Lee involved. So, four days after she visited Lee in her workshop, Alex took her leave after a brief goodbye to Em and a respectful, if not a little cold, nod to Rebecca.

Every few yards, Lee glanced back to see if Alex still followed or extended a hand to help guide her over a fissure, but for the most part, the Undergrounder remained stuck in her head. Alex didn’t pry and took the lapse in conversation to shift her awed attention to the world unfolding around her.

It was like walking through a man-made cave system. Crumbling pillars of cement-reinforced rebar made up the rust-rotten stalagmites. Pipes of varying sizes made the stalactites. There were moments where corridors dropped into deep pits bridged with strips of steel and rope with glittering black channels of fast-moving water below. In some areas, old, rusted-through pipes spewed torrents of water over the sides like waterfalls. And scattered throughout were the endless mazes of false doors and secret entrances. It was like this place had been designed to be hidden, but Alex was having trouble fathoming who was responsible for creating the Underground. Rebecca? Someone else?

When you get back, what will you do? Lee asked, bringing Alex’s attention back to her travel companion.

“Well, speaking with the police would probably be my best course of action. After that, contact my father.” She let out a discontented sigh, not looking forward to the conversation to come. He and Alex weren’t especially close regardless of what the tabloids said. Her mother died years ago, taking with her the glue that held the family together. Christopher Bailey didn’t know how to raise a child, so he left Alex to forge her own way.

Lee nodded, sensing this train of conversation was causing a strain. First thing you’ll eat?

That made Alex laugh. “Ice cream. You and your mother cook fine, but I’ve missed Ben & Jerry’s triple chocolate brownie ice cream. Maybe after that some Thai food. And a shower.”

One of the modern amenities she missed the most while recuperating was a proper shower with water pressure. And the chance to sleep in her bed almost brought a tear to her eye.

You don’t smell so bad from a distance, Lee teased.

“Says the woman covered in oil half the time.”

It was strange how naturally their conversations developed. Lee’s easy-going, goofy attitude put Alex at ease and made her want to converse just to hear what Lee had to say. Alex caught herself laughing more openly and smiling more often as if their first tumultuous encounter never happened.

Another forty-five minutes and a handful of passages later, Lee touched a hidden switch with her hand and opened the last door separating the upper tunnels from the lower ones. If Lee intended to uphold the promise she’d made to her mother, this was where she and Alex would part ways. And it came as no surprise when she wasn’t inclined to uphold anything of the sort. Not one bit.

The final tunnel took on a slight upward gradient and ended at a sturdy wrought iron gate. Peering through the bars, Alex was met with her first real burst of natural light in weeks, filtering through the brown, leafless overgrowth dominating in this section of Central Park. It took two hands to wrestle the gate open, but Lee managed to pop the rust with a hard shove and ushered Alex through to freedom.

All yours. We should be close to Gapstow Bridge. A jogging path is just through those trees to your right.

Raising a hand to shield her weakened eyes against the onslaught of the afternoon sun, Alex stepped out from under the lip of the tall, circular entrance and into the world above. It was unnervingly chaotic moving from the narrow, circular shape of the tunnels to a snarled, feral landscape, but there was also a sense of being wrapped in a familiar, earthy hug. Alex knew Central Park. Not as intimately as some, but all roads lead to civilization. The breeze was cold but tinged with an undercurrent of warmth, hinting at an early spring. It sighed easily through the trees, moving her hair off her shoulders.

“God, I’ve missed this,” she hummed, taking in as deep a breath as she could manage. After what felt like a lifetime, she was going home.

Excitement and relief fizzing in her blood, she turned back to Lee with a grin. The shorter woman shared a similar smile but it lacked Alex’s wild abandon. In fact, hers looked rather sad, like she was trying to keep her drooping shoulders up with her cheeks alone.

“You can come out here too, you know.” Alex extended a hand to which Lee shook her head, remaining rooted under the cement ceiling.

Not the best place for me during the day. We Undergrounders tend to burst into flames when we go into direct sunlight.

“Well, you are rather pale,” Alex mused, tapping her chin in faux thought. Then she squinted, looking suddenly suspicious. “I knew it. You’re all secretly a clan of subterranean vampires.”

A predatory grin split Lee’s face, but Alex found little fear in the glint of her fangs. Ah, I see you’ve discovered our actual identities. That’s problematic. I’m afraid I can’t let you leave now.

“Good thing I’m out here, but take your best shot, fangy.”

Lee burst into laughter, sadness temporarily banished. Alex laughed too, stepping back into the tunnel so she could better see the woman who had, in such a strange and inexplicable way, become something of a friend. They shared a few more giggles before sobering, the inevitable finally here.

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me.” She surprised Lee by pulling her into a tight hug that left her rigid for half a heartbeat before hesitantly reciprocating. And just like that, something in her chest shifted like a key finding the right lock.

You’re welcome.

“I owe you and your family my life.”

You don’t owe us anything.

“I do,” Alex insisted, still holding tight. “I’d be dead without you, and someday, I’ll repay the kindness.”

Just get home safely. That’s all the payment we need.

Alex nodded, lips pressed in a wan smile that didn’t reach her eyes as she drew back, fingers squeezing Lee’s before letting them drop. Subconsciously, she knew the sudden burst of fear crawling up her back was the result of a long, isolated recuperation, but Lee had been by her side for weeks. Even if they started out rocky, Alex had found a kind and caring soul in the Undergrounder. Feeling her slip away and detaching from the safe space Lee provided made Alex break into a cold sweat.

Beyond this point lay the unknown. Reintegration. Talking with the police. Facing her father, her friends, her life. Answering hard questions. Reliving her attack. Possibly facing her assailants. It made Alex nauseous. For so long, she operated on the opposite end of the spectrum. Listening to the accounts of assault and reporting them. Now she was one of them, and the understanding of what came next put her heart in her throat.

Alex?

She tried hard to hide the tremble making her knees weak when she turned. Lee was watching, eyes bright in the shadows. You’ve got this. Everything will be okay. Just breathe.

“I’ve got this,” she repeated. “I’ve got this.”

You do.

Before common sense had a chance to catch up, Alex turned back one more time. Lee positioned herself for a final goodbye hug — arms already stretching out — but froze when a pair of lips connected with her cheek.

“Thank you,” Alex breathed before setting off on the jogging trail, unaware it would be a long time before Lee returned to her world or of the gaping hole her absence blew through the Undergrounder’s heart.

Paid Luck

“Eight weeks. Eight goddamn weeks. Children all over the country go missing every few seconds, but the whole world has to stop for a journalist who’s run off,” Georgia Battle, ex-cop turned private investigator, grumbled to herself for the hundredth time that hour. She tried to shift in her car seat, looking for the sweet spot that would keep her ass from going numb, but the entirety of her backside from tailbone to the backs of her knees was already a fuzzy void of sleeping nerves. Whoever said stakeouts were fun could swallow a cactus.

It was cold, too. Damn cold. Too cold to be cooped up in an old blue Chevy without the engine running or the heat on. No use wasting gas when all she was going to do was sit and watch, but the extra heat would have been nice. Ensconced in a thick thermal coat, gloves, and beanie pulled tight over her ears, Georgia fought to keep from shivering, the chemical hand warmers nested in her gloves beginning to lose their edge.

She blew out a steaming sigh, sipping from her thermos and wincing at the lukewarm contents. Was nothing warm in this city? “Why am I doing this? Oh, that’s right. The money’s good. So good it’s ‘get your business off the ground and buy a new car.’ good.”

Reaching over, Georgia snagged a handful of goldfish crackers from the plastic bag wedged in her cup holder and popped them into her mouth, chewing while keeping her eyes trained on the building across the street.

She’d seen the news when all this went down. Who hadn’t? Renowned journalist gone missing. Manhunt underway. At least, that’s how it went those first two weeks. Georgia remembered seeing the fliers and hearing the news reports. The speculation handed down by media pundits extrapolating how someone could just leave the face of the earth without a trace. People were worried. The political climate wasn’t exactly friendly. Not with the Towers having fallen two years prior, the Anthrax scare months after that, and the Afghanistan war effort now in full swing. There were a lot of people throwing around words like “terrorist cells” and “infiltration.” Georgia had her theories about what happened. Alexandra Bailey wasn’t what one would call neck-deep in damning information on Al-Qaeda. Her areas of journalism tended to have more domestic roots, but anything was possible.

It did, however, come as a surprise when Christopher Bailey descended from his high throne in Washington D.C. to seek Georgia out for hire. He claimed she was the best in the business, which Georgia knew was bullshit, but she wouldn’t refute that to the man’s face. There were plenty of private investigators chomping at the bit to be a part of this. Likely, he drew her name out of a hat and just went with it, but she wouldn’t complain. The Baileys were loaded and money talked in every language.

“Rich girl isn’t coming back,” Georgia mumbled between bites, picking up the conversation she was having with herself. It was a great way to pass the time, even if it made her look a little loose in the head. “Rich girl probably ended up in the river because she stuck her nose in someone else’s business. That’s what you get for being a journalist, but that’s not my problem.”

Finishing her less than nutritious meal, Georgia reached for her coffee again when movement caught her attention. It wasn’t anything unusual or brow wrinkling. This was New York. People of all walks came and went at all hours. But this person looked like a rabbit flushed out from under a bush. People didn’t look like that without reason, and people didn’t usually run in front of oncoming traffic — getting shouts and honks from startled motorists — without a good reason either.

“What’s your problem, little miss?” Georgia muttered, brown eyes tracking the figure as it made a mad dash for the apartment building across from her. Something about the situation ignited sparks between her shoulder blades. Digging out her binoculars, Georgia held them up and focused the knob and froze. Looked again just to be sure while her heart took off like a 747.

“Holy fucking shit!”

No way. No possible way her luck was this good, but it couldn’t be anyone else. She’d been looking between the missing person’s flier and the picture pinned to her visor for eight weeks. That was Alexandra Bailey.

A thousand and one questions popped off like flashbulbs. Namely, where the hell had Alex been, and why was she showing up now?

Georgia put her thoughts on hold in order to kick open the car door and make her way across the street. It was easier to look at the woman now that there wasn’t a streaky windshield between them. That was Alex Bailey, though there were marked differences between the circulating media photos and the skittish woman on the sidewalk. Alex’s clothes were a well-worn kind of second-hand and a bit too small for her figure. She also seemed to have lost a considerable amount of weight in her absence, which for someone her size raised more than a few concerns.

What, exactly, was happening here?

“Alexandra Bailey?” Georgia called when she moved close enough her voice would carry without shouting, keeping a cautious eye on her surroundings. Missing persons didn’t just show up out of the clear blue sky at their place of residence. Not in this city and not without reason. Without the ability to tell in advance if this resurfacing bore nefarious roots, Georgia kept her hand on her concealed pistol while the other dug out her license.

Truth be told, she didn’t know what to expect, so when Alex whirled, clutching the front of her worn hoodie, Georgia knew this whole situation was going to be like an onion. Stinky and layered.

“Hey, hey, easy. You’re okay,” Georgia soothed, putting out a forestalling hand. “My name is Georgia Battle. I’m a Private Investigator. I was hired eight weeks ago by your father to find you.”

Alex didn’t seem the least bit convinced. The poor thing looked traumatized, and it didn’t take a genius to see why. Most of the remaining bruising on Alex’s face was a faint yellow, but Georgia couldn’t help notice how the woman’s hand drifted to her left side, almost like she was covering something sensitive.

“Miss Bailey, are you alright? Are you in any kind of–” She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence because Alex bolted. “Hey! Do not make me chase you!”

The woman making great strides in hauling ass down the sidewalk showed no sign of slowing, so Georgia took chase lest she lose her mark after just making contact. By right, her job was done, but she had to deliver the woman to the police before any kind of final payment with Christopher Bailey would be exchanged.

“Fuck my life! Just, fuck it.”

Running after so many hours sedentary was like trying to get a car to turn over in the cold. Georgia forced her legs to cooperate, stumbling several times before the movement warmed her muscles. In just a few strides, she was almost on top of Alex, managing to snag the woman’s thin wrist when she tried to swing around a corner. The flush of victory, however, came to an abrupt end when a fist connected with the bridge of Georgia’s nose, making the world flash white. Stunned, she let go, blind from involuntary tears and the sudden wash of blood painting her upper lip.

“Jesus!” she swore when the pain kicked in. Sagging against the brick wall beside her, fingers pinching her bleeding nose, Georgia helplessly watched Alex disappear around a corner. Just like that, her quarry was gone...again.

“She actually got the drop on me. Damn, I’m getting rusty.” Scrunching her face to make sure her nose wasn’t broken, she spat blood and exhaled a great puff of irritated steam. “Is the money that good?” She gave herself a brief pause to consider, counting the figures. “Yeah, it is.”

Returning to her car, Georgia cleaned up with leftover napkins from her glove compartment. No use crying about the blood on her jacket. She could buy another one when Christopher Bailey’s payment went through because it was going through. She hadn’t wasted eight weeks of her life just to lose Alex in the clutch. Fuck that.

So now came the planning. Alex was obviously alive and well — or at least well enough to take a swing at someone. Georgia should have made a call to the NYPD, but without a body physically in front of her, she wasn’t about to do anything until she could get Alex cornered. As cliché as it sounded, tipping off the boys-in-blue could lead to a sticky situation if someone unsavory were listening in. Plus, this was her mark. Best to play it safe. Georgia would wait, knowing it wouldn’t take long for Alex to resurface again. This was home. This was familiar territory, and Georgia recognized the desperate burn the moment she set eyes on the other woman.

Alex wanted to go home, so home was where Georgia would wait.

Always Watching

Eight weeks of healing ensured Alex’s body was back to some semblance of normalcy, but her endurance had been shot to shit. As was almost always the case, adrenaline kept her legs moving long after she lost track of the dark-skinned woman claiming to be a PI, but Alex was losing steam, the wintery air burning her lungs with each inhale. But she had to keep going. Had to run. Had to hide. It wasn’t safe, her mind kept repeating.

You should have stayed with Lee. It was safe with her.

Logic demanded Alex turn and face her pursuer. Self-preservation nixed that impulse immediately. PI. Hitman. Bystander. It didn’t matter. If Alex couldn’t tell the difference, she wasn’t about to find out by asking.

It wasn’t hard to lose her pursuer. Alex was no street rat. She didn’t know the ins and outs of every alley as well as some, but she knew enough to keep hidden until the sun began to climb down from its perch, casting long, welcome shadows. Warmed from exertion she might have been, but her borrowed hoodie and jeans weren’t thick enough to stave off the chill for long. Alex waited until the sky turned blue-black and headlights lit the streets before sliding from her hiding place behind a laundromat and picking her way home.

Skittish of onlookers, she kept her head low and her hood up, heart a churning piston behind her freshly mended ribs. Every passing car made her jump. Every shoulder or arm that bumped hers tied another anxious knot in her stomach. Images flickered across her consciousness, dark and foreboding. It had been this time of night when they’d taken her. Would it happen again? Would she survive this time? Unconsciously, Alex rubbed the fingers of her right hand against her palm, the memory of Lee’s hand slipping from hers a distracting echo.

Maybe Lee’s mother was onto something about the dangers of Topside.

Rooted on a street corner choked with pedestrians waiting to cross, Alex scraped together the shreds of her courage and jogged the last few feet to her apartment building. Climbing the front steps, she braced for another confrontation, but no one intercepted her. No one called her name. No one looked twice. Giddy with relief, she pushed open the front doors and almost wept when the smell of lemon-scented floor polish and bleach wrapped her in a familiar hug.

Stepping onto the eighth floor, Alex checked whether or not the coast was clear before giving in and bolting down the hall. Hand on the knob third from the end, she felt tears prick her eyes until a chilling thought hit her in the spine, bringing the world to a screeching halt. Here she was, back in her apartment, so close to sanctuary, yet she lacked the means to enter. Alex didn’t have her keys. She didn’t have anything. No ID. No credit cards. She was a nameless face standing in front of a locked door, feeling for all the world like a prisoner just denied parole.

So close. It wasn’t fair.

Chewing her lip to keep it from trembling, Alex tried the handle. Just to see. Just to be sure she really was locked out and was gobsmacked when the thumb-pad clicked down. No. It couldn’t be that easy. Her door was unlocked. The how or why suddenly didn’t matter because Alex could see a bit of her apartment, a bit of her old normal life, through the dark slit. Suspicion, thankfully, won over desperation.

Alex pushed in with cautious ease, eyes and ears open and ready. Anyone familiar with horror movies knew better than to call into a dark room. That was guaranteeing a knife in the neck. Instead, she kept her hand on the knob while the other groped for the light switch. Her fingers barely brushed the metal plate when the door was suddenly jerked out of her grip and kicked forward, the wood making hard contact with her right side. Alex had just enough time to catch herself as she fell sideways before the door slammed shut with a crack, and light flooded the apartment.

“Figured you’d come back after dark.”

Fight or flight instinct wrapped Alex in cold chills and a thundering pulse. It was happening again. Oh God, she couldn’t do this again! Only it wasn’t a thug waiting for her or all the monstrous images that sprang to mind. It was the woman from before. The one who said she was a PI. The one glaring at her with her back pressed against the door and dried blood, almost as dark as her dusky skin, crusted around her nostrils.

“You aren’t that hard to read,” Georgia said.

Poised like a deer flushed out by a hunter, Alex searched for a means of escape and zeroed in on the windows across the room. The one that led to her fire escape. If she could...

“Okay, I’m going to say this once,” Georgia warned. “Today’s been a shit day, and you’ve got me in a mood. Now, your father didn’t say anything about you coming back to him whole. He just wants you back. So if you make a move towards that window, I might be inclined to take out a knee.”

Digging out her license, Georgia tossed it across the distance separating them where it slid to a stop on the linoleum. “One more time from the top. My name is Georgia Battle. I’m a private investigator hired by your father, Christopher Bailey, eight weeks ago to find you. Take a look. I know you know what to look for. I’m just going to stand right here while you decide what happens next.”

Hesitating, Alex stooped and picked up the license, scrutinizing it for inconsistencies or telltale signs of forgery. She found nothing. Feeling woozy, she slid down the back of her couch, pooling into a heap on the floor.

“Has it really been two months?” she asked softly to her feet. When she looked up at Georgia, lost and confused, the taller woman softened.

“Yeah, it has.”

“My father hired you?”

“You know how slowly the folks in blue move. He added me to the case so the wheels would remain greased, so to speak. I have the paperwork in my car. I can show you later. Right now, I need to get you to a hospital and take a–”

“No!” Alex yelped, surprising the PI with her sudden panic. “No hospitals. No going anywhere. I just… want to take a shower and be in my own home. That’s all. I know what procedure you need to go through, so just… give me a minute to acclimate.”

Bruised nose scrunching in thought, Georgia’s hands migrated from her chest to her hips. “If I walk away from this door, are you going to bolt again?” Alex shook her head. “Okay. Let’s move this conversation to the couch.”

“I really, really want a shower. If you give me that, I’ll give you a full statement to take to the police and my father. Hell, I’ll call him myself. Just let me get clean and into my own clothes.”

Georgia considered Alex for a moment — curled up on the floor, knees to her chest, looking like a scared child left behind at a gas station — and caved. “I’m going against all kinds of protocol, but fine. I still have to call this in.”

“I know.” Alex climbed to her feet and pointed to something over Georgia’s shoulder. “There are plastic bags in the cupboard. I’ll put my clothes in them.”

The PI blinked. “You know I’m not a cop, right? I can’t stop you from just throwing them on the floor. This isn’t an official investigation. I was only hired to find you.”

“I know the procedures, though. The detective you call will want my clothing in evidence bags,” Alex replied curtly. “I’ll be out by the time the police get here.” Without another word, she retrieved two plastic sacks and stripped out of her borrowed clothes, leaving them outside her room.

Once safely sequestered in the master bathroom, Alex scrutinized her reflection in the large mirror while the shower heated. Her first thought was that she didn’t look a thing like herself. Not completely unrecognizable, but there were hard lines under her eyes and a tempered leanness to her features that hadn’t been there before. Her eyes were the most changed. It was like an innocence had been lost, staying behind in the water.

Judging the shower hot enough, Alex stepped in and sank to the tiled floor, overwhelmed and overjoyed at the same absurd time. The tidal wave she had been running from since waking in the Underground finally succeeded in cresting her hastily built walls, and in the familiar seclusion of her bathroom, she let herself cry.

It was quite some time before she emerged, scrubbed clean and cherry red from the heat. A detective waited in her living room, chatting amiably with Georgia. When Alex entered, wrapped in a robe in anticipation for the body examination to come, the woman stood and put out a hand, her smile clinically professional.

“Miss Bailey. I’m Detective Cecile De’fante, NYPD. I’m glad to see you’ve returned to us whole and healthy. If you’re feeling up to it, I’d like to take your statement.”

It wasn’t a request.

“Of course. Would it be all right if I made an order for something to eat? It’s been… quite a while since I last ate.”

Georgia and Detective De’fante shared similar looks before the latter shrugged, waiting patiently until Alex was done.

“Right, now let’s get down to it.” Alex took a seat on her couch while Detective De’fante took the low chair opposite her. Georgia leaned against the island in Alex’s tiny kitchen. “I guess the first order of business would be to discuss where you’ve been for the past eight weeks and what contributed to your disappearance.”

Alex answered every question as evenly as possible, recounting the incident with as much detail as she could muster while muddling through the memories. She gave a description of the van and the men who took her. Described in graphic detail what they did to her. Showed the detective what little remained of her injuries and the fresh scar from a knife wound.

“And what makes you say this was an intended mob hit?” the Detective asked between scratching fresh notes.

“The man responsible for stabbing me accused me of putting his brother away for five years due to speaking with a priest about something I presumably saw. He said HS had instructed Marco Falconi to bring me in.”

Detective De’fante tapped her pen thoughtfully on her lips and leaned forward. “He said Marco Falconi by name?”

“He did, yes.”

“Did he happen to mention which priest or what it was you might have witnessed?”

“No. Only that Falconi was ordered by someone called HS to bring me to him. I was thrown into a flood channel after that and woke up in the care of others.”

Something like calculation worked behind the detective’s eyes. “In the sewers?”

Alex’s scalp tingled at the same moment her stomach swooped. “Why would I have been rescued by someone in the sewers?”

“Just covering all my bases,” De’fante smiled without looking up from her notepad. “You’ve been gone for two months, and there was an extensive search made for you. We have to check all viable locations, and there have been reports of homeless and gang camps in some of the older subway tunnels. Anything’s possible in this city. So if you weren’t in the sewers, Miss Bailey, may I ask where you’ve been?”

“I’m sorry.” Alex shook her head, opting to stare out her darkened window rather than lie to the woman’s face. “I can’t answer that.”

Detective De’fante glanced up, a wrinkle marring her brow. “If you are in danger, I need to know.”

“The people who helped me are friends, and after learning my attack was potentially mob-related, they became fearful for their lives. They asked to remain anonymous, and I intend to keep it that way. I am here now, so that should settle the matter.”

Detective De’fante didn’t look convinced, and neither did Georgia, but there was nothing either could do. There were no laws against protecting a Good Samaritan.

“I see. Well, I believe that’s it then.” The Detective stood and shook Alex’s hand again. “I’ll need you to stop by the station in the morning for a follow-up. Until then, I’ll place an officer outside your building for safekeeping.”

Alex expressed her thanks, unsure whether she needed protection but appreciating the gesture all the same. She bid the woman good evening and would have done the same with Georgia had the PI not dialed Alex’s father and handed her the ringing phone. Unsure she was ready to have this conversation, she was saved by a knock at the door.

“Delivery from Chang’s,” a man with a nasally New Jersey accent called through the wood. A quick exchange of currency should have sent the runner on his way, but the man stopped Alex before she shut the door, handing over a piece of paper.

“Oh, I usually put it on a tab, sorry.”

“Nah, you’re fine,” he shrugged, half of his face lifting in a smile that looked more sneer than jovial expression. “Mother just wanted me to give you this. Have a good day, Miss Bailey. Remember your promise to the Underground.”

Alex felt all the oxygen leave her body. Petrified, she watched the man until he disappeared into the elevator with a wink. Dropping the bag of food on the counter — suddenly, Alex wasn’t hungry — she opened the note with shaking hands and stared at the black letter scrawled neatly on crisp white paper.

I trust you will keep your promise in regards to your silence. We are watching.

-Mother

For Hire

“Miss Bailey! Miss Bailey, can you give us a statement?”

“Miss Bailey, you’ve been missing for two months. Can you go into detail as to why you had to go into hiding?”

“Were you targeted by Falconi? Do you have any idea what his motives could have been?”

“Was your father in on this?”

“Was this just a stunt for an upcoming story?”

“Have you been undercover?”

It had taken exactly two days for word to spread about the missing journalist who had “come back from the dead.” Alex had known her story would eventually get out, but she’d seriously underestimated the level of frenzy that would take her world by storm. In the eyes of her peers, she was the hottest, juiciest story this side of the East River, and being on the receiving end of the media mob was both a jarring and humbling experience.

“Give the lady some room!” a voice boomed over the demanding chatter. A moment later, Alex felt a strong set of fingers catch her elbow and fought hard not to flinch. “I told you to step back!” Georgia thundered when the masses ignored her warning, throwing out an arm to sweep a path clear.

Finally making it to Georgia’s beat-up blue Chevy, Alex scrambled into the passenger seat and slammed the door, hitting mute on the mob. Her jaw ached from clenching, and she could feel her fashionable blazer sticking to the sweat accumulating along the small of her back.

“Goddamn, they really are like sharks.” Georgia swung into the vehicle with nimble grace and slammed the door soundly behind her. “First sign of blood, and they swarm. You okay?”

Alex managed a curt nod, eyes fixed ahead. Eight weeks ago, crowds like this wouldn’t have phased her. She would have walked among her peers with cool grace, fully at home in her element. Now, she couldn’t swallow her heart from where it lodged in her throat like a sideways chicken bone.

Georgia took her silence as an answer and put the car into drive, all but mowing over more than a few reporters stupid enough to jump in front of the car for one final picture. Then they turned into traffic, and the mob fell behind.

“Hell of a way to start your second morning back among the living,” Georgia said conversationally, easing back into her seat as the tide of gridlock closed around them.

“Yep,” was all Alex managed, her back muscles burning from her rigid posture. Staring out the window, she couldn’t shake the sensation of disjointedness. This was her city. She’d grown up here, but it felt foreign now. That, or she was the foreigner.

“You finally get hold of your father?”

Alex nodded again, neglecting to go into further detail about their conversation, or lack thereof. Christopher Bailey wasn’t a man of sentiment despite his emotional display for the media. As far as Alex was concerned, it was all for posterity’s sake. Assurance his investments hadn’t been wasted. Alex was home, good. That would fare better for her father’s upcoming campaign. Sympathy sold, especially when white women were involved.

Alex had hung the phone up in disgust and tried to scrub the slimy crawl from her skin for over an hour. She’d only given herself sore arms and a mild steam burn.

“Good. Then my end of the deal has been done.” Georgia thumped a fast rhythm on the steering wheel with her thumbs while they waited at a red light. “I know this is probably the furthest thing from interesting to you, but that money’s going into helping me get the hell out of dodge and funding my PI business. Really get myself off the ground and maybe fix up this old hand-me-down.” She patted the steering wheel with an expression of fond affection.

“Why leave New York?” Alex asked, still staring out the window.

“I don’t think I need to tell you how many private investigators exist in this city. I’m a small fish in an ocean of sharks. I need to go where the pickings are easier. Maybe DC or Florida. Maybe just say fuck-it and head to St. Louis or Chicago. Anything’s better than New York at the moment.”

The rest of the ride to the station was a quiet one. They pulled into a reserved lot where the PI let her passenger out with instructions of where to meet the detective overseeing Alex’s case.

As it turned out, much like the day before during her first initial visit to the precinct, getting to the building took longer than Alex’s actual appointment. After offering her coffee and a light chat, Detective De’fante revealed she only needed to go over a few more pieces of paperwork before the department and the great state of New York could declare her “properly resurrected.”

“I’ll need you to stop by sometime later today to sign these last few documents after the Magistrate faxes them back, but as it stands, you are free and clear. Welcome back to the world of the living, Miss Bailey.”

Alex forced a smile — trying, and failing, to tap into the easy-going, confident woman she used to be — and shook De’fante’s hand. Appointment complete, Alex didn’t linger, already mentally preparing for the next step in her “resurrection,” which wouldn’t go as smoothly or as quick. Not when returning from the dead required her to walk straight into the bullpen with the very people climbing over themselves for her exclusive story.

The media was an insatiable beast, and the Times was no different. They just liked to believe they were a step above the run-of-the-mill press.

“Is that wise?” Alex’s head editor, a handsome man who wore suits sharp enough to cut glass at a distance, said from where he leaned against the edge of his desk. Professional though the two might have been, Phillip was one of Alex’s closest friends in the newsroom. He’d bypassed any sort of formality when she entered his office and pulled her into a crushing hug, muttering, “Thank God you’re okay. I thought I’d lost you,” into her shoulder.

“I have a job to do,” Alex replied a little more tersely than was strictly necessary. “The world doesn’t stop–”

“It does when something like this happens to you! Alex.” Phillip slid into the chair beside her, taking her hand in his. “I’m talking here as your friend. Take some time and recover. Your work will be here when you get back. You need time to process. No one will blame you for taking a few weeks to re-establish yourself.”

Alex wanted to argue the last thing she needed was solitude with only her thoughts for company, but dueling Phillip was pointless. His suggestion, though friendly in nature, was a veiled command. At the end of the day, he was still her boss.

“At least give me something to work on. I can’t just sit and stare at my walls.”

“Some of us have invested in these little things called TVs. Maybe you should get one?” Phillip’s innocent suggestion was greeted by a snort.

“There’s just nothing good on when you work twelve hours a day, six days a week.”

“Which is even more reason for you to take a break. The news isn’t going anywhere.”

“Especially when it’s all about you,” she mumbled, spying the newspaper prints cluttering Phillip’s desk. “How many row-backs have you had to release?”

“None, thank God,” Phillip said with a soft smile, sensing the jest in her tone. “We really thought you were dead, but you surprised us and pulled a Jesus. You were just five weeks and four days late.”

Alex made a face. “That’s wrong on so many levels.”

“Yet here you are, in the flesh, skirting my suggestions like always.”

Knowing she had no alternative but to accept, Alex caved but issued an ultimatum. “One month, but I’m coming back after that, Phillip. Don’t give me any shit then, either. I’m only listening to you because you have power over my paycheck.”

The man raised his hands in surrender. “It’s a deal. If you’d like something to keep your brilliant brain sharp, we’ve got a few puff pieces that need editing. Grab them from Stephany before heading out.”

“Have a runner drop them off. I have to make one last stop at the police station to finalize a few things.”

Phillip agreed and saw her out. Unlike that morning, no journalists were waiting to pounce. Every staff member was kept on a tight leash and thankfully muzzled. By all accounts, it was just a normal day. So normal, in fact, it almost slipped Alex’s notice when a dark Cadillac coasted by a little slower than necessary.

Almost.

Unbidden, the last line of Rebecca’s note flashed through her mind, and the hairs on the back of Alex’s neck stood at attention. We’ll be watching.

When a taxi stopped at the curb to let its passenger out, it was all she could do to get in the now vacant vehicle as fast as possible and lock the door. Don’t get paranoid, she chastised herself, head in her hands. Paranoia makes you sloppy. It makes you see things that aren’t there. Stick with the facts.

Her second trip to the police station was about as eventful as the first. Alex signed the forms De’Fante left with the front desk before, at long last, pointing herself in the direction of home.

Planted on the curb, Alex could smell the faintest traces of water in the air over the permanent stench of car exhaust and pulled her coat closer around her torso. She’d like to get home before the skies opened, if it could be helped. Midway through hailing a fresh cab, however, she froze, arm halfway up like a flag stuck at half-mast. Across the street, almost parallel to the precinct, idled the same sleek black Cadillac.

It could have been nothing. It should have been. But it wasn’t.

A man leaned against the mirror-finished body, his suits as sharp as his designer sunglasses and styled silver hair. He looked like something out of a high fashion catalog, but what caught and held Alex’s attention was the Rottweiler sitting at perfect attention by his side. Even from across the street, the canine’s ice blue eyes held her with an intensity and made her shiver. Among the masses, they stood out the most, letting the flow of traffic, both pedestrian and otherwise, flow around them like a river around a rock.

Alex didn’t need to think hard about who the man was and what he was doing across from the station. There was no denying it. He was a hired hand, the payrolled employee of a sinister trade. The man watched her watching him, unperturbed and unhurried, letting his presence speak the warning into being.

The standoff lasted a few more frantic heartbeats before the suited man and his dog slid back into his car and closed the doors with a barely audible click. Alex tracked the Cadillac until it faded from view, unable to catch her breath, and almost jumped a foot when something firm came down on her shoulder.

“Whoa, hey, don’t go swinging on me again.” Georgia backed away. “Sorry I spooked you.”

By the time Alex mustered the cognition to answer, the first few spatters of rain had begun to darken the sidewalk. “It’s fine,” she deflected, straightening her coat in an attempt to buy time to regain her composure. Too bad her voice shook like the rattle inside a paint can.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t even remotely believable. Try again, but this time, try not lying to an ex-cop. One of my superpowers is being a human lie detector.”

“I’m not...” Alex bit her bottom lip and wondered, between Rebecca and now this, how much more shock her system could take. “I think I’m being followed,” she admitted around an uneven laugh. It was a better alternative than tears. “Which is probably just paranoia, so I’m to the point of wondering if this is real or PTSD from the attack. I think I just saw a black car and a hitman staring at me, but I can’t be sure because I’m–”

“Alex, take a breath.” Georgia guided her off the curb to an overhang as the rain picked up into a steady, soaking drizzle that turned the passage of cars into a constant hiss. “Breathe and start again. Slower this time.”

The gesture of smoothing back her damp hair did nothing to reset her nerves. “I sound unhinged.”

“No, you sound scared. And look, I believe you.” That hadn’t been expected, and the expression on her face said as much. “I was a cop for almost twenty years, Miss Bailey. Had I not taken a bullet to the hip, I’d still be one. Fact of the matter is, I learned a long time ago to listen to women. We had too many girls come into the station who were turned away because they were being ‘hysterical’ or ‘unreasonable’ or ‘lying’.” Georgia mellowed, her gaze growing distant. “Too many times those girls didn’t come back, or I’d read about them in the DOA reports. So yeah, I take accusations like this seriously. If you tell me you think you’re being stalked, I’ll listen.”

Alex didn’t know whether to cry, wrap her arms around the taller woman, or both. She did neither, folding inward like a sagging cardboard box and chewing her next set of words. “I think I’m being stalked.”

“Good place to start. Any idea by whom?”

“Best guess? Falconi.”

“The man doesn’t like loose ends.”

“And I’m one hell of a loose end.”

Body facing the street and back against the wall, Alex tried to wade through the murky waters of where to go from here. It wasn’t an unfair assumption that for most of her life, she’d lived in a fragile bubble of false security. Most people did. Bad things happened to other people. They were the stories reported in papers or the cautionary tales on TV shows. Their accounts were the ones always consumed from the safe distance of a newspaper or behind a screen, furthering the fantasy that danger happened far away to an unlucky few.

Alex’s bubble had popped. Violently. And reconciling with her new reality was proving difficult. Where could she go? Who could she turn to? How could she establish a sense of safety when a potential boogeyman lurked around everyday corners?

“Have you considered hiring someone to watch your back?” Georgia asked, drawing Alex out of her spiral.

“I’m not keen on the idea of a bodyguard,” she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“Care to explain why?”

Alex inhaled and exhaled at the same slow speed, tasting the cold rain and city funk. “I can’t just hire a bodyguard because I feel scared. And you might call this a slide into self-deprecation, but I don’t feel important enough to have a constant shadow. I’m also not sold on the idea of a stranger living with me and driving me everywhere like I’m Princess Diana.”

“Okay, first off, Princess Diana died, so that’s not a good example of a bodyguard,” Georgia ticked off on her fingers. “Second, status doesn’t mean a damn thing so long as you can pay. Third, I understand your apprehension, but it’s something to think about while the police dig into your abduction.”

“De’fante isn’t confident they’ll find the men who abducted me,” Alex muttered, crossing her arms in an attempt to make herself more compact. “Which means, if they don’t find them, I’ll be living in fear and walking on eggshells until something gives. And I’d rather that something not be my skull giving into the force of a bullet.”

The rain was picking up, forcing the two to scoot closer together to avoid getting soaked by the fat torrents of water sluicing down the awning’s front. The slap of water hitting concrete mixed with the hiss of wet tires on asphalt took Alex by the neck and pulled her back to a similar sound. Falling water. Hissing current.

Her heart was suddenly a hummingbird, and her ribs the cage.

“I hate this,” she growled into her hands, forcing the terror back like a lion tamer with an upturned chair. “I’m a journalist. Going into dangerous situations and navigating my way out of them is my job. Why am I balking?”

“Because the story is about you this time,” Georgia said without turning her attention away from the street. She’d taken to leaning against the same wall as Alex, putting them shoulder to shoulder.

Because I drowned and I can’t turn on my faucet or stand in the shower without getting flashbacks, Alex wanted to add but kept silent.

“You’re an onlooker. You investigate some pretty sketchy things, sure, but you always have the benefit of knowing you’re just a pair of eyes. You’re never the one the story’s about. You’re just the monkey who reports it, and at the end of the day, you get to unplug and go home to your world of pretend safety. Now the story’s about you, and, rightfully so, you don’t know how to cope.”

Which was a fair assessment, but it surprised Alex how candid Georgia was being. They’d only met a few days ago, and maybe it was the anxiety heightening her sense of awareness, or perhaps Alex was looking with fresh eyes because when she leveled her gaze on Georgia, something clicked.

“Miss Battle… how much work have you done in security?”

“I’m not going to be your bodyguard if that’s what you’re asking,” she snorted. “That’s a whole other skill set I don’t possess. Plus, I’ve seen your couch, and I’m not sleeping on it for love nor money.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.” Georgia cracked a sly grin and winked. “To answer your question, you pick up a few useful skills by osmosis while on the force, so I know a little more than the average bear when it comes to securing a building or setting up a beefy security system.”

“Are those services available for hire?”

Surprise lifted the lines of Georgia’s face. “You want me to beef up the security in your apartment?”

“Among other things. I would like the expertise of an ex-officer in how to protect myself that goes beyond the cut-and-paste answer of ‘just get a gun’.” Alex made sarcastic air quotations. “I’m not a fan of firearms, and I don’t feel comfortable having one as my sole means of protection.”

“Oh, yeah, God no.” Georgia pulled a face. “I hate that answer, too. A gun isn’t a foolproof security tool anyway, and half the time, people wind up shooting themselves because they don’t have a damn clue how to properly handle one.”

“So, will you help me?”

“Does that mean you’re hiring me as a security consultant?”

“I am.”

Georgia’s grin was all tooth and gums. “Sounds like my self-employment savings account just got a boost!”

Wrong Outcome

A deal may have been struck, but the first three weeks under Georgia’s careful and clinically precise tutelage were both eye-opening and disheartening. Alex knew so little; Georgia was a pro. The learning curve was steep.

Georgia didn’t begin and end with home security. Alex received a crash course in identifying everyday, overlooked weaknesses that could lead to sticky situations. She was briefed on everything from how important it was to take alternate routes to work to picking out clothes that didn’t provide someone an easy handhold. She was shown, with limited success, how to break a wrist grab and disentangle herself from potentially fatal situations.

Together, the two mapped out improvements that Alex’s apartment needed while Georgia combed the home for listening devices or anything that might point to mob tampering. She found nothing but maintained it was important to leave no stone unturned. A new door lock was installed, and updated window locks were put on order. Georgie tried to talk Alex into a security system, but she balked at the idea, stating the landlord would make a fuss about the installation.

It was all a whirlwind, and by the end of it, Alex was desperate for a reprieve. Anything to take the edge off, which was why she found herself seated at a bar in the middle of the afternoon with a cold beer clutched between her palms, the amber liquid missing most of its foamy head. Alex didn’t make a habit of day drinking. Her colleagues were fond of “alcoholic lunches” and took them often enough. It was a kind of sport in her world. She enjoyed the occasional beer or Friday night bender, depending on the roughness of her week, but since returning Topside, alcohol had become a favorite way to steady nerves and chase away bad dreams.

Nothing like the perils of self-medication.

This particular afternoon, Alex and Georgia were sharing a light lunch that started innocently enough with light conversations and updates on the orders Georgia placed. Alex was starting to feel the tension in her shoulders lessen until the conversation strayed from safe waters. Strange how fast the tides could turn when sensitive topics were teased like a finger in a bullet wound.

“I think you should mull it over.” Back against the bar, elbows resting on the polished edge, Georgia watched her hunched lunch date out of the corner of her eye. If Alex coiled any tighter, she was liable to start a friction fire.

“Thank you, but I’m not interested,” she muttered between bitter sips, wishing for something stronger. Her eyes drifted longingly to the whiskey bottles on the rack behind the bar.

“You have a good reason why?”

Alex capped the venomous response building on her tongue by biting the muscle. This wasn’t Georgia’s fault. This all came back to how disjointed Alex felt. Nothing was normal. Her apartment was a work zone. Her days were spent in the company of an ex-cop she barely knew rather than spent in her office. Her city was a death trap waiting to snap closed around her. Alex knew it would take longer than a few weeks to re-acclimate, but that said nothing about kick-starting the healing process, which had ground to a total halt. When she wasn’t with Georgia, she was at home hiding from the media.

As expected, her lesser colleagues had done what they do best. Dig and push and wheedle until they sucked all the blood and marrow from her, leaving behind a rattled woman reminded every time she turned on the TV or picked up a newspaper she was a victim of kidnapping, of assault, of attempted murder.

Over and over and over again.

Her face. Her shell-shocked expression. Her pain. Her scars spread out for the world to see. Alex felt naked and exposed, and despite her professional acquaintance’s best efforts, the last thing she wanted was to sit on a therapist’s couch being reminded she was just another statistic.

Mood soured beyond salvaging, Alex pushed away from the bar, stool legs squealing against the hardwood. Digging out a twenty — far more than her beer fare required — she slapped it down and made for the door, ignoring her companion’s calls.

“Hey, hold up!” Slowing from her brisk jog, Georgia alighted alongside Alex. “Look, I know we’ve only been working together for three weeks, and I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

Alex continued in silence, eyes the sidewalk. It took two blocks for her to thaw enough she was certain anything she said wouldn’t give Georgia a second-hand freezer burn. “I appreciate your concern.”

“But?” she prompted, stretching out the word.

“I’m not some kind of helpless victim.”

“Alex, you are a victim. What happened to you was awful, and there’s nothing wrong with accepting that you’re not okay because of it. Everyone who’s been in your shoes or in similar situations goes through stages like this.”

Alex stopped walking so fast Georgia almost overshot her. “Don’t cop-voice me,” she growled. “If I wanted a lecture about the effects of victimization, I’d go talk to Detective De’fante.”

“You need to hear the truth and not some sugar-coated bullshit about how ‘you won’t be a victim if you don’t treat yourself like one.’ Something bad happened to you. That makes you a victim.”

“I’m not–” Alex closed her mouth so fast her teeth clacked together. She tried again, this time with forced calm. “I’m not like other–”

“Do not finish that sentence,” Georgia cut in, giving Alex a look that made her scowl look like playdough next to concrete. “Do not throw other women under the bus just so you can feel superior. This isn’t a pissing contest. What happened to you is just as bad as a woman getting slapped around by her husband or getting mugged or raped behind a dumpster. You are a victim, but that doesn’t define you as a person. It’s the byproduct of what happened. But you don’t get to play the superiority card. Not with another victim standing right in front of you.”

That hit like a Mack Truck. If Alex’s eyes grew any wider they’d pop out of her skull. Georgia, on the other hand, casually rolled her shoulders, the look on her face reading, “you really thought you were the only one?”

“A lot happens when you’re one of the only female cops at your precinct. And no, I’m not talking about sexual assault, so you can unclench.” Alex relaxed, not realizing she’d been holding her breath. “Guys don’t like sharing the same space as ‘females.’ You know that. I know that. Lots of comments. Lots of ‘good-natured shoving.’ But at the end of the day, it was a ricochet to the hip during a shootout that sealed the deal.” To emphasize, Georgia patted her right hip. “Ended my career in law enforcement, among other things. And for a long time, I was just like you. I didn’t want to feel like I was a victim. Hated the looks I got from people. I mean, I put myself in that situation and knew the risks. Why the hell couldn’t people treat me with enough dignity not to wince whenever I limped by? So yeah, I know where you’re coming from, and I’m telling you, the sooner you start accepting that the ‘V’ word has become a part of you, the faster you’re going to heal from this.”

Awkward silence didn’t even begin to describe what settled between them. Alex continued down the sidewalk with Georgia beside her, but their conversation didn’t resume again until they were more than halfway to her apartment.

“I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but I am sorry for what happened to you.”

“It was a long time ago. Water under the bridge.”

“Thank you for sharing that with me. You didn’t have to, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to coddle me just because we share similar instances of pain.”

“Oh, I’m not going to coddle. I’m going to tell you the truth and let you come to your own conclusions. This isn’t a Swayze movie. I’m not bridal carrying you around.” Georgia added the last bit with a friendly shoulder bump that got Alex to at least chuckle. “You’re a grown woman. You can make hard choices on your own, but that’s why I’m telling you this. We might have had different circumstances surrounding our trauma, but it still affects us in similar ways. Therapy helped me, and it will help you.”

Alex sighed and leaned against the cold pole of the crosswalk, letting her breath plume around her head. “I’m not ready, Georgia. Maybe that makes me juvenile. Maybe that makes me stupid. I don’t know. I just… can’t.”

“And that’s fine. Work at your own pace. Just don’t forget the options available.”

By the time the two made it back to Alex’s apartment, the sky had turned slate gray, spitting flurries like a weak sprinkler. Georgia mentioned she had a date later with her dad — “We meet up on Tuesdays for dinner at our favorite dive. Can’t disappoint the old man!” — and swung into her Chevy. A puff of grayish-black smoke and a pop later, she was trundling down the road.

Alone again, Alex took herself back inside, shedding her coat after locking her new series of deadbolts, and turned to face her once tidy living room. The floor looked like a printer exploded, throwing papers to the mercy of the wind. True to his word, Phillip sent a runner following her meeting with him that first day. And true to form, Alex went straight to work between her sessions with Georgia but found it increasingly hard to focus on standard bits of light journalism. She would hem and haw, busying herself with one thing and then another, making excuses for the delay but knowing it had less to do with the actual work and everything to do with her state of mind.

Maybe Phillip had a point about taking time for myself.

Shaking herself to be rid of the cloying fingers of self-pity, Alex poured a glass of wine — despite the beer still fresh in her system — and settled in, content on losing hours to proofing and busy work waiting for her seal of approval. The passage of time wasn’t marked by the hands of the clock but the depletion of her wine bottle and the steadily increasing growl of her stomach. The hungrier she became, the longer the shadows grew until New York was awash in neon and streetlights.

Heading out alone was still a nerve-wracking experience — the subtle threat of the black-clad henchmen still squat in the back of her mind — but with the wine in her stomach making her far less lucid, Alex trekked to a nearby deli before halfheartedly browsing the racks at her local Blockbuster. Rentals chosen, she went home and deposited herself on her couch but didn’t make it past the first twenty minutes of her movie before finding the inside of her eyelids too fascinating to resist.

When Alex jerked awake with a neck dampened by drool and a dark living room, the digital clock on the DVD player read 11:36. Blinking away sleep and rubbing her tired eyes, Alex groaned into a joint-cracking stretch.

“Another wild and crazy night for you, Bailey. The kids just can’t keep up.”

She flicked off the TV and had just nabbed a glass of water to wash the stale booze and lingering hints of mustard and onions from her mouth when a metallic clang from outside made her jump, the glass in her hand hitting the floor with a shivering crash. Her knee-jerk reaction was to rip onto the landing and throttle the little shits from the tenth floor who always used the fire escapes as a jungle gym. But the scalding shout building in her lungs died a guttering death right alongside the shattered glass at her feet when she whipped around to face her living room.

Someone crouched on the landing outside, hands bracketing a hooded face pressed against the window.

The world narrowed, taking the air with it. Or did it only leave her lungs?

Was this the man from the Cadillac? Had he come to finish what Falconi started? No, she was safe. The window was locked. She made sure of it. Locked up tight and secure, and...why was it sliding open?

“Oh God,” Alex wheezed and ducked behind the island in her kitchen, feeling something in her bowels shift when the figure started edging in through the small crack they’d made.

Had they seen her?

Did it matter?

Should she run?

Scream?

The phone was within reach, but she wouldn’t be fast enough to dial 911 before being descended upon. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to turn down someone living with her.

Something brushed her searching fingers, solid and familiar despite it being a new addition to her home. A gift from Georgia. Physical security until the rest of her system was installed. Crude but effective was how Alex put it when she hefted the bat. Georgia had grinned.

It happened like a bullet fired through molasses, the world slowing while she moved at lightspeed. One second, Alex was by her kitchen sink, and the next, her hand was closing around the weapon, hardening the steel in her spine.

Not again. Never again.

Like a vaulter, she jumped the island, soundless in her fury and singular in her intent. The figure had just climbed to their feet when the bat cracked smartly against the side of their head, cutting them down like a blade through grass.

And then it was over.

Heart beating a war drum tattoo, Alex righted herself from the overcompensation of her swing, fingers barely registering the aluminum object hanging slack from them. Legs like jelly, she groped for the couch arm. Her brain couldn’t decide which direction to take — shock or limbo — and stalled on pause.

It shouldn’t have been that easy.

Where was the catch?

When did the other shoe drop?

Edging around the body with her weapon brandished in the fashion of every major league player she’d ever seen in movies, Alex chanced a swift kick to the black-clad figure’s shoulder. When the body rocked lifelessly, she sucked in her lips and chewed until the fragments of her courage were pulled together by the magnetism of morbid curiosity. Wedging the bat under the body, she grunted with the effort of turning it, prepared for any number of outcomes.

Except this.

“Oh my God!” Alex lunged for the light on the table next to her. Missed. Almost knocked it off but recovered fast enough to catch it before it hit the ground. Flicking it on did little to banish the shadows, but it pooled just enough to illuminate the still and bleeding form of the woman who had saved Alex’s life more than eight weeks ago. “Lee?!”

Temporary Balm

Home invasion terror usurped by the very real possibility of accidental manslaughter, Alex’s hands flew over Lee like agitated birds, seeking everything and finding nothing. She didn’t know where to touch or for how long. She didn’t know if the woman was even alive, and that thought brought her close to vomiting. It was a solid thirty seconds of undiluted panic before Alex’s chaotic mind found traction beyond the looping, “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit,” and kicked into gear.

Her first instinct was to grab the cordless phone and dial 911, but the moment that thought touched ground, she punted it off a cliff. One look at Lee and the CIA would have a showdown with the FBI over whether or not to take her to Area 51 after killing Alex and silencing anyone else involved with her. Alex’s second thought was to do what she should have done from the start and call Georgia, but then there was the very real possibility that she would shoot Lee out of reflex.

Between the paramedics, the cops that inevitably follow all 911 calls, and Georgia, there were too many guns to contend with.

Fuck.

“Oh my God. Okay. Focus.”

First things first, Alex needed to make sure Lee was even alive for the decisions that came next. Lowering her friend’s hood with care, she gasped at the vicious damage caused by her homemade burglary deterrent. Damn Georgia and her reasonable but effective weapon! Blood matted the left side of Lee’s head like someone popped a red-dyed water balloon against her skull, bright red and wet in the lamplight. A ragged, finger-long gash lay open beneath the mat of blood and hair, a gruesome eye squinting up at Alex mockingly as if to say, “look where all good intentions get you.”

Swallowing a nauseous wave of guilt, Alex gently moved Lee’s head to the side and found the pulse point just above her collarbone. She pushed two fingers against it, paused, and tuned every sense onto that one task which ended in an exhale a step away from a watery sob when a steady rhythm fluttered against her fingertips.

Alive. Unconscious but alive.

Relief was a cold breeze on a muggy day, blissful but brief. Out of her depth and over her head, Alex had no idea where to turn. In this unfortunate case, Rebecca had been right. All of Topside held the potential of open hostility toward Lee: paramedics, cops, nurses. They all functioned in the safe, sanitized belief that humans were the period at the end of the species sentence. That wasn’t to say Lee wasn’t human, but her obvious differences was a crime capable of landing her in unimaginable danger if Alex didn’t tread carefully.

Sudden inspiration sent Alex scrambling for her phone, clumsy fingers succeeding in dialing out on her second try.

“We’re closed,” a gruff voice picked up after five agonizing rings. “Call back tomorrow after eleven.”

“No, wait!” Alex panicked, fingers going white around the receiver. “I’m sorry. Please, I...I just need to place an order. It’s Miss Bailey. I’ve done business with Chang’s for years. It was a late night at the office. Please.”

“Food’s been put up for the night,” the speaker rumbled, his voice receding as he moved to hang up.

“I’ll pay double!”

Silence from the other line. Alex expected to hear a click and then a dial tone, but the silence stretched on, and she could feel the gears turning.

“I’m not firing up the stove for a small order,” the cook said, his drawl making it sound like he was chewing on something sticky.

“Double my usual order and throw in an order of tom yum goong and spring rolls.”

“Usually, I’d say you’re shit out of luck, but the ovens are still warm. I’ll take the order, but just this once! Don’t make this a habit.”

Alex was nodding despite knowing he couldn’t see her. She felt like crying. A strangled laugh came out instead. “Of course! Oh, could you send the runner you sent with my last order?”

“Jerry?”

Was that the man Alex was thinking of? God, she hoped so. “Jerry, yes. I forgot to tip him.”

“Yeah, sure. Be there in thirty minutes.”

Alex hung up and allowed herself another withering exhale full of hope and trepidation before launching into the next phase of her coagulating plan. First, Lee needed to get off the floor, and the couch was the best alternative to dragging her down the hall. Circling round to stand with her feet on either side of Lee’s head, Alex slipped her hands into the hinges of the woman’s armpits, squatted low, and pushed off with her legs.

Or tried to.

“God,” she grunted, hamstrings screaming. “What does your mother feed you?” Oh...that was a particularly sharp spike of dread. If Rebecca found out Alex used her daughter’s head like a piñata? “Jesus, I’m so fucked.”

It took her an embarrassingly long time to close the short distance from the window to her couch and even longer to lift Lee onto it. By the time Alex succeeded, she realized a gym membership was in her future.

Snagging a wet rag and a bowl of hot water from the kitchen and planting herself on the floor, something struck Alex the moment she settled. This exact scene was probably a near-perfect doppelgänger to what Lee had done for her all those weeks ago. The thought tightened something already wound tight in her chest. Had she been this worried? This scared? Guilt pressed a rock into Alex’s heart, each beat closing the muscle tighter around the lump.

Biting her bottom lip, Alex worked methodically to clear the matted blood from her friend’s head and hair, careful not to touch the wound. It was slow going, every inch soaked and cleaned until she could blot the puckered skin on either side of the gash. Alex was so caught up in her surgical focus she didn’t notice she was a hair’s breadth from the Undergrounder until the shadow of Lee’s nose caught in her periphery and made her glance up.

An unexpected flush of heat pooled in Alex’s cheeks, spreading down her neck and across her ribs, making her bones hum. It was hard to comprehend how a short time ago, this face played the part of a monster rather than a friend. But Lee was so delicate right now. So humanly shatterable. Made of the same veins and muscles that granted Alex life.

The skin along Lee’s cheekbone was warm under the stroke of her thumb, fragranced with something reminiscent of cinnamon and oranges with the barest undertone of machine oil. Or maybe that was the scent of her hair. Alex traced the strange shapes of Lee’s nose and brow that lent her a youthful appearance under the lupine accents, and it struck her like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. Lee was beautiful. There it was, stubbornly clinging to the tip of Alex’s tongue. She was beautiful in the way a Jackson Pollock painting was beautiful. Beautiful in her strange uniqueness.

Three sharp raps at her door snapped Alex out of her fuzzy, mildly off-putting reflection with the grace of a wet towel to the back of the leg. Skidding on slick stacks of papers in her effort to rush the door, a quick look through the peephole confirmed the man standing on the other side was the man who delivered Mother’s letter with a cocky wink the day of her return Topside.

“Late night deliv– what the fuck?!”

Jerry half-stumbled, half-fell into the apartment when Alex reached through the gap she’d opened and jerked him in with more force than necessary. Their four-step stumble landed both at the edge of the couch.

“Jesus, get off me, you goddamn–” His profanity-laced exclamation fell like a led balloon the moment Jerry spotted the body sprawled across the cushions. Alex moved away, hands around her middle, hoping her gamble paid off.

“Please, tell me you can help her.”

Jerry blinked with the slow understanding of a sleepwalker coming to. Once the ball started rolling and he saw a combination of Alex’s pained expression, the room, and the bat, it was downhill from there. “What the fuck did you do to her?!”

Alex skittered back when Jerry advanced, keeping distance between them lest he take a swing or attempt to grab her. “She crawled through my window!” she gestured to the chaotic state of the living room as tangible proof of the scuffle. “I thought she was a burglar, and I didn’t know who else to call! You’re an Insider, right? Can you help her?”

The question froze Jerry in place and dangerously focused his attention. “How do you know I’m an Insider?”

“You gave me Mother’s letter.”

“Doesn’t mean you should know what I am or that word. I know all the local Insiders, and you ain’t one of them. How are you connected with the Underground?”

Without a doubt, this was the last thing Alex wanted to do, but it was a game she was sadly familiar with. Not necessarily with these stakes, but to get information, you had to give, so Alex gave what she could to win the man’s trust. “You watch the news, right?”

“Don’t see how that pertains to this.”

“Just... level with me, okay?” She put a hand out to forestall any more argument. “I’m Alexandra Bailey. The woman who came back from the dead. Eight weeks ago, Lee saved my life by taking me to the Underground.”

Shock pried Jerry’s expression into one of wary confusion. “That was you?” But no sooner had he said that a swirl of cloudy suspicion overshadowed his surprise. “You best not be tugging my dick.”

Alex’s jaw would have made an audible sound hitting the floor had she not clenched it to the point of cramping. “If I meant Lee or her family harm, I would have dragged the police to the Underground entrance and let them loose the second they let me go. Instead, I’m talking to a two-bit asshole of a delivery boy in the middle of the night trying to get help for a friend I accidentally mistook for a burglar rather than calling the paramedics! Have I made a decent case for you, Jerry the Delivery Boy, or would you like me to start sending up smoke signals?”

Jerry, for the most part, was smart enough to swallow the embarrassment turning his cheeks radioactive pink before approaching the couch. Alex did her best impression of a pacing tiger, fearing if she moved closer she would disrupt the tentative balancing act going on in her living room.

After a handful of silent moments, Jerry exhaled through the fingers he rubbed over his patchy goatee, fingernails picking at an unseen scab. “This isn’t good.”

“But you can help, right?”

“Lady,” he groaned with all the irritation of a scripted Jersey sitcom. “I deliver food and machine parts. That’s my Insider chore that keeps me in good with Mother. I ain’t a fucking doctor, which is what Lee needs, not two wack-ass idiots playing like they know what they’re doing.”

“We’re all she’s got seeing as we can’t take her to a hospital.”

“Of-fucking-course not! They’d peel her apart like a bug just to see how she ticked.”

Alex tried not to gag on the mental image. “Then what do we do?”

“Shit, I don’t know!” Jerry shoved back to his feet, hand moving from his face to his neck as he rubbed out the nervous energy. “Maybe don’t hit people in the head with bats?”

If Alex still had the bat in question, she would have gladly toed the line between attempted murder and radical catharsis.

“This is why Mother harps on Lee to stay Underground,” Jerry muttered. “Because people like you happen to her.”

It was unfair. Jerry didn’t know the situation. He wasn’t present for the terrifying sight of a black-clad figure crawling through Alex’s window. He hadn’t had a toxic mix of terror and rage pumping like nitrous oxide through his limbs, but Alex couldn’t avoid the sliver of guilt his comment pushed into her heart. Hadn’t Rebecca expressed the same concerns? Did this mean Alex had proven them right?

“And who thinks a bat is good security?” Jerry continued to rant. “You wanna make sure you’re safe? You get yourself a gun and learn to lock your windows. This ain’t Law and Order. You get yourself a good chain lock and window jams, that way assholes can’t–”

Whatever else he was about to say died when a groan pulled two sets of eyes to the couch.

Lee twisted against the cushions, a fast jerk of the spine like she’d been stung. Alex couldn’t fathom how she was coming to after the blow she’d taken, but something was wrong. It wasn’t that Alex expected Lee to pop up smiling or give her a sheepish “my bad”, but the corded twist of her face, the hard curl of her fingers digging into the air above her chest, the flash of fangs in the dark. It looked like pure agony, and it looked wrong.

Maybe it was what pain did to the body. Maybe it was the low lighting. Or maybe Alex was trying to rationalize what her mind couldn’t close solid fingers around. Lee’s fingers looked like they were lengthening, her angles growing sharper, darkened by inky pools of bruised skin spreading under her eyes and along either side of her nose and jaw.

The moment broke when Alex made out a strangled, Hurts...it hurts! and felt her organs plunge to her knees.

“Shh, Lee, it’s okay. It’s okay.” She slid in, trying to soothe when she knew words wouldn’t be enough. “You’re–” Alex caught her as she rolled sideways and barely flinched at the vomit spattering her thighs, too caught up in holding the smaller woman as her breathing sped into choking sobs when something in Lee’s chest audibly cracked.

Oh, what the fuck?

“There… there are doctors in the Underground, right? Someone patched me up,” Alex stumbled over her words as she swiveled around to look at Jerry. “You have to know someone that can help her!”

Jerry looked as lost and scared as Alex felt until he drew back with a burst of sudden inspiration. “I know who to get!”

“Wait! Help me get her to my bed. It’s closer to the bathroom.”

Alex dogged Jerry’s heels as he lifted Lee into his arms — muttering curses tinted with gentle affirmations — and carried her into the back room. Lee whimpered against him only once before falling silent, and the absence of sound was almost worse than if she’d woken screaming. Task complete, Jerry sprinted from the apartment, leaving Alex adrift in an unforgiving, unfamiliar sea. Wilting on the edge of the bed, she tried to catch her bearings but couldn’t fight the sensation of being in a spin cycle.

“If I caused you this much trouble when you brought me Underground, I’m so, so sorry.” Bathed in the honey-glow of the bedside lamp, Alex tracked the fresh bruising settling like spilled ink under the skin of Lee’s face and wrapping the knuckles of each finger joint. It wasn’t the blue-black kiss of blunt force trauma. This looked more like something pushing to get out, pressing at strategic points until the lock broke free. And that notion deeply disturbed Alex.

Lee didn’t stir further, slipping into a soundless sleep, so Alex did the only logical thing she could until proper help arrived. She fetched a fresh washcloth, laid it against Lee’s head, and crawled up beside her, counting each rise and fall of her chest.

Stay

Her attempt at drifting back to consciousness was about as smooth as airplane turbulence. Lee’s head throbbed like it was a pipe someone was beating a frantic message onto. Even with her eyes closed, the pounding was intense. Opening them just elevated it into an all-out assault on her senses.

She knew, somewhere in the scrambled depths of her memory, something had happened. There were fragmented glimpses. Prisms of images. A fire escape. A window. The rush of pride and the crackle of excitement. Then...something else. A bang, or maybe a thud. Then the world flipped, taking her with it.

Had something hit her? It felt like all the times she’d accidentally rammed her head into the underbelly of a table or caught it on the end of a pipe, only a million times worse.

Relaxation didn’t dull the throb. Shifting worsened it and woke new agonies in the joints of her fingers and bands of her ribs. The pain roared through her, a creature pressing its hands against the seams of her body. Trapped in a hazy fog that splintered her focus, time and its progression became irrelevant.

Sometimes, the pain was so intense Lee thought she was hallucinating. Bathed in sweat, she opened her eyes and her mother would be there. Or Emilia. Or Alex. Sometimes it was a horribly distorted creature that looked so much like her but not. Like looking at herself in a funhouse mirror. Too many teeth. Eyes too bright, face too savage and angry. A feral animal backed into a corner.

What was happening, she wanted to ask. Where was she? Why did it hurt? But every time Lee’s mind moved to form words, there was an atrociously bright light and the sense that she’d lost or misplaced something important. Then the darkness came and took her away, and oh, what sweet relief there was in dreamless sleep.

Her second attempt at consciousness was more successful. Content on lying still and letting the cacophony in her head vent from her body like steam, Lee permitted her other senses to absorb the information her eyes couldn’t. One: the plush comfort under her suggested she was lying on a bed. Two: the pillow propping her up smelled familiar. Three: there was something warm to her right, and every three seconds, a puff of air brushed against her.

Lee’s eyes snapped open, the spike of her pulse sending a lance of pain shooting behind her left eye and down her jaw. Though it dialed her discomfort up to eleven, she turned and locked every muscle in her body to keep from jerking out of shock. As far as she could tell, this wasn’t a hallucination, but she wasn’t sure if that was a kindness either.

Alex lay beside her, close enough that if Lee turned fully over they would be within kissing distance. Curled on her side like a cat, she slept on her folded arm with the ease of someone used to falling asleep on top of beds rather than in them. It was hard to say whether or not Alex fell asleep in that position or rolled there. Either way, Lee was finding it hard to wrestle her pulse into a manageable tempo that didn’t sound like a jackhammer.

Disconcertingly, some time seemed to have passed since her trip Topside. The pale, dishwater gray of pre-dawn peeked shyly between the seams of drawn curtains, illuminating Alex’s sleeping form, turning her hair into an auburn halo highlighting the faint dusting of freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose, like stars in the Milky Way, and the soft angles of her cheek.

Lee wrenched her eyes to the ceiling, swallowing against a sandpaper throat. Oh, no. Oh, this wasn’t right. She couldn’t do this. Her plan hadn’t involved this.

Back in the tunnels, when this insane idea took root and grew into a wayward sapling after wringing Alex’s address from a flustered Jerry, Lee hadn’t thought beyond the driving singularity of wanting to see her friend. It had been a grand total of three weeks since Alex returned Topside. Twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours. 30,240 minutes. Not like Lee had been counting. That would be weird.

Em told her, loudly over the beat of yet another power ballad Lee lost herself in while working, that pining after a ghost was as ridiculous as being upset there was less sunlight in winter. And she was right. Alex was her Apollo who had taken the sun. Which meant it was only proper for Lee to recapture it so she could finally put to rest the perpetual twilight of her mind. She should have known better. Flying too close to the sun meant her wax wings were doomed to fail.

Gently, so as to not depress the mattress, Lee slid to the edge of the bed and managed to swing her feet over the side. That was encouraging. Motor function working and all that jazz. She could even wiggle her toes. Now she just needed to stand.

Which was, of course, a stupid idea.

No sooner had she straightened her legs, the world listed like a ship taking on water, sending Lee toppling into a dresser. She caught herself before her knees buckled, but it was an awful racket. At least, she suspected it was. Checking to see if Alex had been alerted to her escape attempt required looking back. Lee didn’t think she could do that without risking her already tentative, newborn fawn balance, so she decided moving forward was better. Because only the most intelligent tried to stumble out of apartments they’d broken into with a head injury they didn’t remember receiving.

That intelligence got Lee as far as the bedroom door before her treacherous feet gave out and she was once again falling. Funny how gravity worked in slow motion when the anticipation of a shattering landing presented itself. Funnier still was when she didn’t collide with the floor. Dazed, Lee lifted her head and realized the buzzing in her ears was coming from someone talking. A specific someone. Alex was there, bearing Lee’s weight in an awkward tangle of limbs that had them both positioned like a house of cards.

“...hear me? Nod if you can.”

Lee raised and lowered her head, the motion curdling her stomach. Step by careful step, the two returned to the bed, the soft mattress creaking when Lee took a heavy seat on the edge.

“You need to lay back down.”

Just… give me a second. Room keeps… spinning. Hands braced on either side of her thighs, Lee warred with her body, struggling to regain control of its haywire sputtering. Once she mastered that, she could face Alex like a proper adult.

She breathed in. Breathed out. Over and over until the throbbing dizziness stopped creating nauseous offspring in the back of her throat. When at last the chaos subsided, Lee opened her eyes and faced the woman kneeling between her parted knees.

Um… hi. Long time no see.

Smooth. That was just so unbelievably smooth.

“Hello yourself,” Alex offered with a wan smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She looked tired and a little haggard, the bags under her eyes hanging with the gravity of worry. “Welcome back.”

Lee puffed a laugh, more nervous than relieved. Had her head not felt like a cracked piece of fruit, she would have scratched the side out of nervous habit. Where did I go?

Alex didn’t reply right away, and the silence was almost worse than a ready-made answer. Her gaze was the heavy kind reserved for mathematicians staring at lifelong theorems, and Lee couldn’t help notice her eyes kept skating over parts of her face. Like she was looking for something. Unnerved and uncomfortable under the scrutiny, Lee looked down at her hands and jumped almost a foot off the bed.

Oh my God?

There were bruises. So many bruises. Each finger, beginning with her nail beds and jumping from joint to knuckle to the ligaments running down the back of her hands, was painted a dusty blue-black. Curling them woke the faintest echo of soreness like she’d repeatedly punched a door weeks ago, and the wounds were on the mend.

Only Lee hadn’t planted her fist against anything in recent memory, let alone something that could do this.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Alex asked, gently taking Lee’s right hand and running her thumb over one of her bruised knuckles.

I... Lee grasped at straws, partly because her memory was spotty and partly because Alex was a very welcome but blaring distraction. Coming here. Getting to your fire escape. Seeing you. Did… I fall?

That would explain the head pain and probably the bruises. Though Lee had experienced quite a few types of falls in the Underground and all of them left more than just her head and hands hurting.

“No,” Alex exhaled, this time sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I hit you in the head with a bat thinking you were a burglar. And you…something happened and you…” Whatever else she was going to say dissolved into hand gestures that meant little to nothing. “I’m sorry. I can’t explain it, but something happened when you started waking up.”

Silence again. This time, it was the cold kind crawling up Lee’s neck and sucking the blood from her face. Mortification was too light a word. The earth could have opened and swallowed her, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

“Please don’t!” Alex scrambled onto her knees when Lee lurched to her feet again, hands out, ready to catch if her strength failed. “I’m not upset in the slightest. If anything, I feel awful for what I did to you.”

If anyone should feel embarrassed, it’s me, Lee said without making eye contact.

“I hit you in the head with a bat.”

I broke into your home.

“I assume you had a good reason.”

Heat pooled in Lee’s cheeks, contrasting with the paleness that had just been there. I was worried about you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.

“Really?”

Well, yeah. She frowned at Alex’s naked shock and did the absolute worst thing by trying to explain. You were scared when you left the Underground, and it’s been three weeks. When I didn’t hear from you… that’s not to say you have to come back or keep in touch or anything! I was just… the men who came after you… I–I wanted to make sure you were safe, and God, this hurts.

Teeth gritted, Lee slumped back down onto the mattress, hand against her forehead. The throbbing was back with a vengeance, along with a dull ache under her sternum she couldn’t shift in any direction to alleviate. What the hell was going on?

The sudden presence of something cold against the side of her neck made her flinch then melt with relief. Once again, Alex was kneeling between her legs, holding an ice pack against the side of her neck.

“So, I’m just going to come right out and say it,” she said after a beat, her tone the light kind of conversational with an added lilt of forced jest. “I’m very concerned about your methods of home entry mixed with your clothing choices. If one wants to break into an apartment without seeming threatening, one might choose something more colorful. Or perhaps knocking on my front door. I’ve heard that’s an effective way to gain entry.”

That got a laugh, albeit a weak one. Next time I’ll consider green neon. That’s offensive enough. And you don’t want this face looking back at you through a peephole. Trust me.

“Okay, rule one of being in my house. You are absolutely not allowed to self-deprecate. Also, neon clothing sounds like grounds for a visual assault charge. I like it.”

They both shared a laugh, which was good. Laughter meant things were mending. Hopefully.

What time is it?

“A little after six.”

Lee swallowed. She’d been Topside longer than anticipated. Ah, well then, I guess a good morning is in order.

“Good morning. Is it safe to stand, or am I going to have to make sure you don’t try bolting again?”

Go or stay. An age-old argument playing tug-of-war with Lee’s heart. She would be lying had she said a part of her didn’t want to run back to the safety of the Underground and hide from her mistake. The other part, the curious and hopeful naivety that drove her Topside, pleaded to stay.

I am at your mercy, Miss Bailey. Treat me tenderly, for I am a fragile idiot who frequently scares my friends.

Alex’s grin was infectious. “You’re breaking my first rule again.”

Sorry.

“You are forgiven so long as you can forgive my bedside manner. It’s been a while since I last had someone to share a bed with.”

Was that a playful glint in Alex’s eye? Was she messing with her purposely or subconsciously? Was playing along allowed?

You know, Lee ventured, taking the ice pack and reapplying it to the back of her neck, you should reconsider going into medicine. You’ve got a very gentle touch.

Alex rolled her eyes. “I don’t have the first clue what I’m doing. In fact, I wasn’t even the one who carried you in here. Thank Jerry for that. As for the rest, fixing injuries isn’t really my forte. I learned everything I know from trashy sitcoms.”

Jerry was here?

Alex made a sour face that told Lee more than she needed to know. “He was for a short while. I called him right after I hit you and… umm… look, I’m just going to come right out and say it. That man is a–”

A special kind of stupid?

“That’s a nice way of putting it. Are you hungry? Is it okay to eat with a head injury?”

I think food would be fine. If I didn’t die in my sleep, I think it’s safe to assume I’m in the clear. Heavily under-exaggerating the seriousness of head trauma, Lee leaned on Alex, allowing herself to be guided into the living room.

“Wait... die in your sleep? You could have died?” Alex’s voice jumped an octave.

Pretend I didn’t mention that.

“Lee!”

No Need for Threats

As it turned out, Lee was far more unsteady than either of them anticipated. While walking wasn’t an impossibility, her equilibrium had been severely compromised, and the pain worsened when she stood upright for long periods.

Lee tried not to look at the evidence of her ill-fated attempt at breaking and entering when Alex lowered her onto the couch and headed into the kitchen with instructions for her to sit tight. She tried to look at something other than the papers strewn all over the floor like the aftermath of a Black Friday doorbuster — a bat thrown carelessly in with the mix — but try as she might, it felt like returning to a crime scene. Time stood frozen around the violent disturbance, preserving the chaos in amber. Guilt tinged with embarrassment flushed Lee’s cheeks scarlet. A distraction was needed, and while her head ached and her vision continued to slip in and out of focus like a car slipping gears, Lee took the opportunity to take in the rest of her surroundings.

The apartment was small — kitchen by the door, living room, bathroom, master bedroom — but radiated the Kashmir warmth of a well-lived-in home. Pictures decorated the walls, but one in particular behind a squat writing desk overtaken with notes provided snapshots of a world far removed from New York’s concrete jungle. Curiosity overriding the ebb and flow of her watery balance, Lee shuffled closer to the desk and was delighted to find photographs highlighting points in her friend’s life throughout the years.

Alex, much younger than the woman in the kitchen, in a vivid green jungle, spattered in mud, laughing with her whole body, hair back in a cherry red bandanna. Alex on the roof of a dusty city at twilight, face trained on something in the distance that pulled her expression into a pensive frown, notebook in hand. Alex in a market so alive with color it almost seemed staged, dressed in a saree that hugged her curves and wearing a smile so bright it could power a city by itself. Alex crouched in front of a gaggle of children in threadbare clothing, her arms elbow-deep in a backpack, mouth open mid-speech.

Why, Miss Bailey, I didn’t realize I was standing in a room with someone so well-traveled. Lee tried to keep jealousy from showing.

“You’re supposed to be sitting,” Alex chastised.

Lee turned with a smile. I’m supposed to be a lot of things. How much of the great wide world have you seen?

“I used to travel a lot when I was younger,” Alex said with an exasperated smile over her shoulder as she straightened from her crouch in front of the fridge. “Before I went off to college, I did a little work for Greenpeace, if you can believe that. It was for my resume and credentials, but I wound up loving the work my team did. I realized I wanted to be a journalist during one of my last trips to Sudan.”

A journalist and a philanthropist? Is there nothing you can’t do?

“Shut up.” Alex playfully stuck out her tongue. “I can’t cook if that makes you feel any better. And I can’t wrap my head around complex machinery like you can, Miss Leanna.”

A thrill crackled up Lee’s spine. Why did her full name have such a sultry drawl to it when Alex said it? Or was she imagining the other woman’s lips curling around the last vowels of her name?

Touché, she coughed, managing a straight face.

Alex turned away, leaving Lee to wander until she felt herself being magnetically pulled toward the nearest window where something powerful suddenly dawned. Ignoring the pain direct light caused her sensitive eyes, Lee braced her hands on the frame and felt her breath catch.

For the first time in thirty-two years, she was looking down at her city in the light of day.

It wasn’t the sheer grandeur of overlooking Central Park from a high rise or clinging to the observation deck of the Empire State Building as the different boroughs of New York lapped like waves against its shore. This was just Alex’s block from eight stories up, but to Lee, it was like standing on the brink of a brand-new world.

Lee’s life had always been subterranean. Always looking up. Always dreaming what the city looked like from above. New York was a living, breathing beast, and Lee had played in its organs since learning to walk. But this? This was the beautiful, industrial pelt of that same creature seen for the first time. The cars, the people, all milling around, going about their lives unaware of how lucky they were. How free.

The tinkling of glasses being pulled from an overhead cabinet and the ding of a microwave pulled Lee’s attention away from the window. Or attempted to. It was just a glance. A wrong pivot that snagged the ghostly outline of her reflection in the glass like a camera lens refocusing on the foreground and brought her up short.

“Lee?”

She heard Alex but didn’t respond, watching her reflection lift a hand and prod the bruises that traced her nose, encircled her eyes, and bled down either side of her jaw. Faint as new winter frost, it could have been mistaken for swatches of eyeshadow or theater makeup had it come off when rubbed.

Do I… She pivoted to look at Alex and then faced the window again just to be sure this wasn’t a trick of the light. Do I look strange to you? The absurdity of her question hit like a fart in a silent library. To fill the sudden, awkward emptiness, Lee let out a nervous, one-sided chuckle. Says the obviously not-werewolf to her very human friend, but were these here… before?

Alex set the glasses in her hands down and came out of the kitchen. “They appeared after I got you onto my couch. Same with the ones on your hands.”

Ah, was all Lee would muster, just as confused as Alex. Well, it looks like you hit me hard enough to knock some pigment into poor pale me.

A sour attempt at a joke, but the punchline hit well enough for Alex’s brows to snap together before she snorted a laugh. “You’re lucky that bat didn’t do to you what that baseball did to David Bowie.”

Am I, though? Lee parried, happy to see Alex loosening up. Am I really? Could you imagine how hot I’d be with heterochromatic eyes?

“What’s to say I don’t like your blue eyes?”

That food smells awesome, by the way, Lee coughed, hiding the flush warming her cheeks.

Alex gave her a playful ‘I won’ shoulder wiggle and poked the tip of her tongue between her lips, placing the plates of reheated food and glasses of water on her coffee table. “It’s from Chang’s where Jerry works. That’s... kind of how I got him here last night.”

It’s incredible you knew he was an Insider. How’d you find out?

“He delivered your mother’s message,” Alex said offhandedly, shoveling a sizable forkful into her mouth. “It’s not like I could have forgotten him.”

Lee stopped mid-reach for a nearby utensil. My mother sent you a message?

Alex nodded mutely until she noticed Lee had gone still and repositioned herself so they faced each other, the friendly air growing tense. “Yeah. I thought it was just your standard ‘keep our secrets or else’ kind of threat.”

What did she threaten you with?

“Nothing,” Alex said like this was a common enough occurrence in one’s life. “I figured it was left ambiguous for obvious reasons.”

Lee felt something hot uncoil below her sternum, the spike of her temper curling her fingers and peeling her lips off her teeth. Turning in profile to hide the murder brewing in her eye, she curled her clawed hands into her jeans and locked her shoulder blades to keep from launching into an acidic tirade.

My mother had no right to threaten you, she snarled with her back turned, facing the wall of photos. That’s not how we operate in the Underground. We are built on a system of mutual trust, not twisted arms and blackmail.

“Like I said, I figured it was just an added form of security, and I’ve done my best to uphold my promise.”

For my people’s sake, thank you, but she shouldn’t have threatened you or sent Jerry to do it. It was wrong, and I apologize.

“Why...” Alex hesitated. “You never did tell me why you all were down there. I asked Em, and she flat out said no, so I never asked again. But I’m asking now. Why the pipes under the sewers?”

Lee kept her back to Alex despite feeling the weight of the other woman’s eyes between her shoulder blades. My mother has her reasons. All I know is it had something to do with her past, but what that was, she won’t say. Not even to me. I’m not sure even Em knows, to be honest. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve always been down there.

“And those people? Were they part of her past too?”

No. Most of the Undergrounders are people who can’t live Topside anymore. Homeless. Family-less. Friendless. They’re the rejects who just needed a community to help support them. Like me.

The heartbreak on Alex’s face Lee saw after she turned back around clenched the muscles of her heart, but her words were true no matter how much they stung.

I wouldn’t fit in up here.

“You’d be surprised,” Alex said, but even she could sense the frivolity of her words and tried to bite them back.

My biological mother didn’t even want me. I was found during a Topside trek when Mother still did them. She took me in. She raised me not to be ashamed of how I look, but her fear of Topside prejudices are founded in truth, even if that makes her more or less a bigot in her own right.

“We all have our demons, and she did a good thing teaching you not to be ashamed of yourself.” Alex took Lee’s hand and squeezed it gently. “There’s nothing wrong with how you look.”

Lee blushed and offered another closed-lipped smile before becoming serious once again. Mother is extremely protective of the Underground. Of me. But that doesn’t give her the right to threaten someone I trust enough to keep our secret without threats.

“Thank you. That means a lot coming from someone I’ve come to call a friend.”

Likewise.

The awkward but not uncomfortable pause in conversation was prematurely broken by a knock at the door. Both parties started. Lee scooted to the edge of the sofa like a cat prepared to bolt. Alex rose and made a “lay down” motion with her hands, mouthing the command as well, before approaching the door and cracking it open. In hindsight, she should have remembered to use her chain lock or at least looked through the peephole. No sooner had she thrown the deadbolt and turned the handle, she was sent flying when the person on the other side bulldozed through.

Lee popped up at the rancorous sound of Alex’s startled shout and the door slapping the wall hard enough to leave a dent, but her shock turned into heart-palpitating dread when her aunt stormed through the doorway followed by a man she didn’t recognize.

“Oh, good,” Em chirped, grin so sharp it would make a shark recoil. “She lives. Looks like there’s only one homicide planned this morning.”

Calling In A Favor

It didn’t escape Alex’s notice this was the second time in her life someone used her door as a battering ram. And while that revelation might elicit a chuckle years in the future, at the moment, she was more than a little pissed off.

Rising to her knees, Alex snagged the knobby end to her baseball bat and came up with it half-cocked beside her head. Her intention was to launch forward and start swinging, but both intent and momentum died when Emilia’s slender white cane came to rest just shy of the junction where her neck and shoulder met. It might have been a light touch, but Alex sensed the implied threat that was backed up when Em squatted down.

“Good morning, Alexandra. I heard you had an interesting night.”

“Em?” she blinked, letting her cocked arms droop.

“You know, I have a mind to use this,” Em said, readjusting her grip on her cane and adding more downward pressure. “You hurt one of mine; I hurt you. That’s the rule.”

Em, stop! Lee threw out a hand like it had the power to grab her aunt from halfway across the room. I’m fine. Let her up.

“You’re not in a position to bargain, Leanna,” Em snapped with all the sting of a whip crack, turning to glare at her niece over her shoulder. “Not after shacking up with a Topsider overnight.”

Alex felt her jaw hit the floor and pushed to her feet, ignoring the threat of Em’s cane in lieu of her own indignation. “Now wait just a minute–”

I didn’t plan on staying here all night, Lee argued, a telling and mildly cute stripe of pink growing across the bridge of her bruised nose. It was an accident. I just wanted to make sure Alex was okay.

“An accident that left you unconscious and bleeding? Do you know how freaked out Jerry was when he came down? He almost went and got your mother when he couldn’t find me! If you think this is bad, try to fathom how fucked you’d be if she was here and not me.”

“Ladies, can this wait?”

Up until then, Alex and Lee had completely ignored the fourth member of this impromptu party standing among them. Short and portly, the man dressed in colorful scrubs looked between the Undergrounders like he’d misjudged this errand, mouth twisted in judgmental upset.

Who the hell is this?

“This is Michael, one of Taft’s Topside connections. He’s the man keeping our medical supplies in stock.”

“Much to my chagrin. Now,” Michael said tersely, dropping his medical bag. “I called in late to my shift at the hospital for this, so please take a seat, Miss Leanna. I’ve been instructed to look at your head.”

Lee recoiled from the use of her full name, giving Em a scandalized look for revealing it to a complete stranger.

“Let him look at you, or do I need to hold you still?”

The scowl she gave her aunt peeled her lips off her canines. Em was less than impressed. Alex, on the other hand, felt her stomach drop. Something about the way the bruises shadowed Lee’s face dragged the human right out of her.

While Michael plied his trade, Alex moved to her kitchen island to give them space. Em followed, bravado dropping away like humidity after a hard rain as she leaned against the counter. Retracting her white cane, she pushed back the dark glasses hiding most of her facial scars and gave the apartment a once-over.

“Somehow, I pictured you living in opulence,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I work for the Times, not Goldman Sachs,” Alex replied snippily. Was there something she was missing in regards to how blind Emilia was? “And how can you tell what kind of place I live in?”

“Irrelevant. So you wanna tell me what happened last night, or do I need to browbeat my niece some more?”

“That depends. Are you going to believe me, or would it be wise to just take the whipping?” Alex threw back, still sore, physically and otherwise, from the multiple intrusions she’d been subjected to as of late.

Em screwed up her face. “Melodrama doesn’t suit you.”

“Look who’s talking. And before you launch into another tirade, last night was a mistake. Lee came in through my window. I thought she was a burglar. I assumed Jerry would have relayed that, but maybe that was asking too much.”

Em surprised her by laughing, earning a quizzical look from Lee over the back of the sofa. “He means well.”

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Alex admitted, watching Michael apply antiseptic to Lee’s head before pulling out a suture kit.

Em started talking again, but Alex wasn’t listening, focusing on Lee instead. She took the stitches in stride, wincing only a few times until she caught Alex watching and offered a smile. And though Alex didn’t deserve it, she felt warmed by the gesture. Maybe, just maybe, things weren’t as bad off as she thought.

“She has a concussion.”

Okay, maybe they were.

“It’s severe enough to cause concern. She needs rest and anti-inflammatory medication. Getting her home is paramount, though how you’re going to hide those stitches and these bruises from Mother is beyond me.”

“What bruises?” Em frowned.

It’s nothing, Lee tried to interject.

“Michael?”

“Your niece appears to have suffered a bout of hematoma to her hands and face, though nothing appears broken or dislocated.”

Alex said they appeared after I was hit with the bat.

Alex didn’t like the way Michael and Em turned their gaze on her, one hostile, the other bored, but she didn’t shy away. “She’s right. When I moved her to my couch, they started showing up.”

“Yes, quite the mystery,” Michael drawled, moving to the door after gathering his things. “If they aren’t causing you pain or limiting your dexterity, there’s probably no cause for concern. Now, I’m late for work, so if there’s no further need for me, I will see you all when the next catastrophe arises.”

“Wait,” Em called. “You’re not going to help me get her back down?”

Michael looked over his shoulder with a cool indifference that made Alex’s hackles raise. If this was the man’s bedside manner, she pitied those in his care. “In case I miscounted, there’s an extra body in the room perfectly capable of helping. Beggars can’t be choosers, Em.” And with that, he was gone.

What an asshole.

“Fucking wonderful,” Em swore, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“He’s right, though,” Alex hedged, coming to stand behind the couch, half to insert herself into the conversation and half to be closer to Lee. “I can help. It’s the least I can do.”

Siding with Alex on this one. Can’t move around with only one crutch.

Em hung her head in defeat, exhaling a sigh that came from the soles of her feet. “I swear to God, it’s like you both set this up. I hate this.”

I know.

“I also hate you.”

No, you don’t, but I understand you’re upset.

“Christ, why are you so likable?”

My charm makes up for my appearance.

Together, Alex and Em helped Lee arrange a disguise that would ensure her safe passage home. Hood pulled over her bandaged head and scarf over her face, the only extra addition came from Alex, who offered a spare pair of dark shades to hide her eyes. The result left Lee looking more like an extra from Top Gun than an actual person.

The day was bright and crisp as a fall apple when the trio stepped onto the world and moved in a steady cadence toward Em’s destination of choice. With Lee’s arm slung over her aunt’s shoulder and Alex’s arm around Lee’s waist, they used what Alex liked to call the “drunk frat buddy system” to help her walk as normally as possible.

Thankfully, the closest entrance — the one Em used earlier — was two blocks from Alex’s apartment, squeezed between a laundromat and an appliance store. The appliance store had a basement entrance secured with a combination lock and heavy chain. A few spins of the dial and they were descending into the musty depths of a concrete room stacked with crates and machine parts arranged to hide a false wall in the back. Em activated the hidden latch, popping the brick open like something out of a fantasy novel.

“This is our stop.”

“You sure?” This tunnel wasn’t anything like the ones Lee led Alex through during her ascent. Those were winding snake trails of brick and cement. This was a dark, yawning maw plunging arrow-straight into an endless void.

“No.” Em’s acidic sarcasm could have melted steel beams. “I’m just guessing and hoping for the best. Stay here. I need to make sure there’s no one nearby that might raise an alarm.”

“You know, we need to stop meeting like this,” Alex said with a hesitant smile once Em was out of earshot. “One of us can’t keep bleeding when the other comes around.”

I don’t know, Lee said, using a nearby crate to lean against so she could remove her disguise. I kind of like the element of danger. Fits my visual aesthetic.

“First rule, remember.” Alex playfully shoved her shoulder.

Thank you for not killing me with that bat. It would have sucked haunting your apartment for eternity.

“I’m still really sorry about that.”

There it was again. The same heaviness Alex felt tugging against her bones during their last goodbye. Like she and Lee were distant planets suddenly caught in the same gravity well, circling one another but never touching. Alex longed to take Lee’s hand and wade back into a world where life seemed simpler and just a little more kind. But the logical half of her brain whispered the Underground wasn’t her place. Lee said it was meant for misfits, and Alex was anything but an outsider in her world. Born into privilege, she was destined to be a Topsider, which meant swallowing the hard truth that her heart and mind couldn’t always get what they wanted in the end.

Disappointment was a part of life. Period.

“Coast is clear,” Em said upon return. “Let’s get going before we miss our window of opportunity.” Then to Alex, she said, “Spin the lock before you leave, and don’t tell anyone about the door, or we’ll have to kill you.”

The older woman yelped when Lee slugged her aunt hard in the arm and gave her a blistering glare.

“Thank you for breaking into my apartment and giving me a heart attack,” Alex snickered over Em’s dark cursing, sliding in to give Lee a quick hug that ended too quickly. “I’ll dream about it often.”

I’ll be sure to haunt your dreams from now on, Lee winked and dipped into a mock bow. Slipping her arm over Em’s shoulder, she waved once more before the darkness swallowed both women whole. Once the door closed and sealed itself shut, Alex lingered in the dusty semi-darkness, milling around uncertainty before reluctantly taking her leave.

Alex?

She spun. Lee could have been right behind her for how clear her voice was, but there was nothing there except a solid brick wall, darkness, and dust.

“Lee?”

Meet me in three days at the West entrance to the Underground in Central Park. The one I brought you home through. 6 pm. I don’t know the combination code for the door to this entrance yet. I’ll get that for you soon, but I want to show you something. Will send a friend.

Alex barely caught that last bit, Lee’s voice pulled thin by distance, but the message was received loud and clear. A reckless smile planted itself between Alex’s cheeks that didn’t fade until she reached her apartment and realized she would have to walk through Central Park, at night, in the dead of winter.

“God,” she groaned, resting her head against her apartment door before pushing it open. “What have I gotten myself into?”

“I don’t know, but it better not breach our contract.”

Alex swore, feeling more years of her life slip away. “Why does no one use a phone?” she raged, throwing her coat across the counter and glaring at Georgia seated on her couch.

“Good to see you too.”

“While I love our visits,” Alex said, rubbing her cold-chapped face, “what are you doing here?”

By way of answer, Georgia held up a bag of metal parts and shook them enthusiastically like a bag of marbles. “Your new window locks got here yesterday, and I figured I’d get a jump in installing them. I’m also absolutely keeping tabs on you for funsies. Bit early for a walk around the block, isn’t it?”

“Depends on how long you’ve been up,” she muttered, avoiding the question by walking into the kitchen and popping open a cabinet. “I need something alcoholic and bitter.”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“Breakfast of champions.”

“I’m guessing you walked a little on the wild side last night?” Georgia said while Alex poured herself a healthy shot of whiskey and settled down on the sofa, knocking it back in a single motion and barely wincing at the burn.

“I had guests,” she coughed around the burn cauterizing her throat on the way to her stomach.

“Those the two I saw you walking with?” Georgia took a slow sip of coffee from her Styrofoam cup and offered Alex a doughnut by way of nudging the paper bag nested between them.

“My aunt was visiting.” Alex found it easy to conjure the story with liquor in her system. She eyed the doughnuts, mouth salivating, and chose a powdery one at the bottom. Cream filled or not, she bit into it with the intention of making her clean shirt look dusted in cocaine.

“You don’t have an aunt.”

Fuck.

“Friend of the family,” she clarified between chews. “She and her niece dropped in unexpectedly.”

“Literally dropped in, judging by the mess. You three play Drunk Twister? That why the short one was hanging off you like a sailor with no sea legs?”

Alex appreciated the metaphor, just not Georgia’s sharp eyes. “They aren’t the most fastidious people. Em’s niece got a little over-eager.”

“You know, using big words doesn’t make you smart, right?” Georgia smiled over the rim of her steaming cup, eyes almost as dark as the roast she sipped. After devouring her sugary breakfast, Alex dusted off and roamed around the broken expanse of her living room, picking up books and papers at random until a small piece of cardstock snagged her attention.

She hadn’t known what possessed her to take it before leaving the Underground. Maybe it was a way to best Rebecca. Maybe her old sleuthing instincts were still intact. Maybe it was a tactic to possess something that linked her back to Lee. Whatever the case, she returned to the couch with a pensive cloud growing above her head.

“You know, twenty years being a cop means I know that look and the danger behind it. Something particularly interesting about an overdue library book?”

“You could say that,” Alex said, and the inflection in her voice must have given away the question rolling around on her tongue because Georgia asked, “Calling in a favor already?”

“Not exactly.” Alex turned the card over and zeroed in on the initials written in faded graphite. R. Farrow. It was so easy she didn’t even stop to wonder if this was a good idea or not. “I’d like to open a case with you.”

“That costs.” Georgia sucked her teeth, but Alex saw through her faux disinterest. “What kind of case are we talking about?”

“Something well within your wheelhouse.” Alex flipped the card in her friend’s direction with the practiced ease of a Black Jack dealer. “I need you to find everything you can on a woman named Rebecca Farrow.”

Wraith

The next morning, Alex rose before dawn in her eagerness to fully return to work. It was like itching a scratch she hadn’t been able to reach for weeks. Inactivity was chafing. Boredom had her practically gnawing at the bars of her prison. Even with Phillip’s busy work to keep the jitters at bay, it wasn’t the same. Alex could feel the honed edge of her mind growing dull, but thankfully there were still leads waiting for her to follow and reports to type that would work her like a whetstone.

Even dull knives could be resharpened with enough effort.

Arriving at her office a minute past six and easing into the chair behind her desk, Alex took a moment to marinate in the pre-rush lull. It was surreal. Her office was a time capsule. Everything was as she left it the night of her abduction. Her pens were still in their holder. The photo of her mother smiled next to her acrylic boxed Princess Diana bear. Filing trays had been neatly stacked on the far end of her desk, waiting to be filled with incoming and outgoing papers. It was all here, frozen in time like an insect in amber, making Alex feel like a transplant. No, it was worse. She felt like an amputee. Her brain knew what to do, but her hands wouldn’t budge, the muscle memory forgotten.

The feeling will fade, she reassured herself, taking the first step by booting her computer and scrolling through three months’ worth of emails. The backlog was enough to make her slouch, but the simple monotony helped warm her reflexes. In no time, Alex was back into the swing of things, buried so deep in cathartic repetition she didn’t notice the day passing until Philip came to drag her out of the office.

Day two of her return to normalcy was about as eventful as the first. Alex felt her skillful knowledge waking from hibernation with each line typed. Like shaking dust from an old blanket, she was finding her place again, wading back into the glorious simplicity of routine. She almost cried after her first phone interview. Not out of fear but relief. Finally, finally, she was back where she belonged. Behind the pages of text and not in them.

Alex reclined in her office chair after flying through a series of newsprint retractions, satisfied with the war her red pen waged with the print, and let her mind wade into the warm afterglow of the post-editing high. Most of her thoughts drifted to the story she’d been chipping away at about unionized dock work, but something else brushed the fringes that, when inspected closer, sparked like static on a cold day.

I wonder how Lee’s doing?

Alex shifted, amused by the carbonation bubbling beneath her sternum. Thinking of Lee had that effect. Like warming her hands around a hot cup of spiced cider on a cold day. Part giddy excitement. Part breathy relief. Both of which were alien to Alex. It wasn’t like she didn’t have friends, but Lee was undoubtedly a different case. She was an enigma, for starters. Hell, her whole community was — Rebecca chief among them — but it was a puzzle Alex found herself happy to be a part of. Her life might have been turned into a funhouse mirror, but at least it was no longer stagnant. That singular act of violence had made sure of it like a meteor to her ecosystem. Alex’s world was forever changed, but she’d gotten Lee out of it. Her strange, wonderful, brilliant friend.

And the friend you gave a concussion to.

Well, yes, there was that. Technicalities and all. Maybe she would take Lee a gift to make up for her home security zeal.

Day three and four at the office went as swimmingly as the first two, but day five brought an abrupt end to Alex’s coveted peace.

Ducking into her building at just past seven with a healthy amount of rainwater sluicing off her umbrella, Alex was surprised to see Philip waiting in the lobby. The strangeness of his presence — Philip was always behind his desk long before Alex breezed in — and the panicked look in his eyes killed her cheerful greeting stone dead.

“Phillip?” The gray pallor of the tall man’s skin and the look of relief that washed over him when she called out didn’t quell her sudden spike of anxiety. “Are you okay?”

“I need to show you something,” he said once she was near enough his shaking voice wouldn’t carry. Were those tears in his eyes?

Red flags sprung up like weeds between the carefully laid stones of Alex’s thoughts. Never in her six years with the Times had Phillip ever met her in the lobby with the complexion of a man who had seen a ghost and appeared on the verge of tears. She didn’t question him until they stepped into the elevator, heavy silence trailing behind them like wool cloaks as the mirrored doors slid shut.

“Philip, what happened? Is Brian okay? Are you?”

“I...” He licked his lips, fidgeting with a button on his sharply tailored vest in the door’s reflection. “I received some correspondence from Brian at the Daily Post. There’s a developing story that, um… that you should be aware of.”

With each flight the elevator climbed, Alex felt her stomach drop that much further like it was attached to a bungee strap on the first floor.

“Something about me?” Dear God, she didn’t want him to say yes.

“It’s best if I show you. But Alex…” Phillip turned just as the elevator docked, gently taking her by the upper arm. It was unclear if it was to steady her or himself. “I need you to brace. This isn’t... just be ready.”

Well, if her anxiety wasn’t already through the roof, it was passing Mars now.

Both of them made a beeline for his office. Alex stood in the middle of the room while Phillip locked the door and walked around his desk, picking up a Manila folder and holding it out. His hands were still shaking.

“Brian gave me this heads up in good faith. One of their reporters got the scoop from an unknown source and is running with it. This is going to be tomorrow’s headline, and I wanted you to see it here rather than bumping into it on the street.”

Already a self-contained seismic event, Alex perched on the edge of an available chair and opened the folder, unprepared for what slid into her hands. Like someone hitting mute on the world, Alex’s senses narrowed to the paper’s fine black print.

The article didn’t matter. The careful words they used like “alleged” or “brutal homicide” meant nothing because Alex was back in the van, feeling arms wrap around her body as she stared at the black and white photo of her face looking back at her from the depths of an opened mortician’s bag. Tunnel vision dragged her down, erasing the room in a wash of static.

“Marco doesn’t like when his girls disobey a direct order.”

“Send a message…”

“I baptize you in the name of the Father…”

It was like the scarred man was right behind her. She could smell him. She could feel the spark of the taser against her back. Every blow. Every cracked rib. Every fist. And then she was gasping and gurgling, trying to see through water as black as the eyes of the man who stabbed her. Sucking in liquid instead of air as she spiraled out of control farther and further underground into a frozen hell.

Alex? The voice cutting through the quagmire of chaos wasn’t Phillip’s. You’ve got this. Everything will be okay. Just breathe.

A bright memory of cheerful blue eyes and a fanged smile. Alex knew those eyes. They’d been the ones watching over her while she recovered. She knew that smile. It flashed countless times at her bedside. She knew the strong arms replacing cruel ones, the arms that helped her stand and walk before she knew who hid under the mask and goggles.

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Alex pictured the tunnels and Lee, using her as an odd yet blessedly wonderful grounding point. After an indeterminable amount of time, she broke through her paralysis, aware of Phillip standing at a respectful distance beside her.

“This happened last night?” Her voice didn’t register above a whisper, but she was heard.

“As far as we can tell, it was earlier last week. The police just gave the Daily the go-ahead to post the article.”

“Do the police know if this is related to what happened to me?” Alex liked to think Detective De’Fante would have spoken to her if the two were connected, but then again, if it was just a coincidence…

Phillip shook his head, genuinely at a loss. “I don’t know, but it...God, she looks like you. I thought–” His voice cracked, and Alex wanted to reach out and take his hand just to reassure him she was here and not the woman printed on the front page. It took Philip several wet blinks to master himself. “I thought it was you until I read the name and date. I’ve been trying to call your house all morning, but you must have been on your way in.”

Ah yes, the article. Alex should probably read that because in just a few hours she had a sinking feeling her ordeal was about to be boosted back into the spotlight. The prospect of that made her want to become physically sick.

It was through sheer force of will she looked again, going through the story line by line. Even without the police there to offer confirmation, her suspicion had been right. Mistaken identity was the culprit behind her abduction. The original hit was meant for the woman in the photo. Her nose was a little different, and she had a sharper chin, but Debora Jane was an eerie doppelgänger.

“The coroner reports that Debora Jane was–” Alex almost gagged, her breakfast of coffee and a half-stale muffin from her fridge threatening to make a reappearance. She put the newspaper down against her thighs and focused on anything but the memories trying to pry their way past her defenses like fingers digging under an orange rind.

“Alex?”

“I’ve got it.” She cleared her throat, blinked several times, and continued. “The coroner reports Debora Jane allegedly drowned after being stabbed five times in the upper torso. Her body was arranged, post mortem, inside the confessional of the Church of the Intercession — Oh my God.”

“Jesus Christ,” Philip whispered, hand against the side of his head.

“They went after her because they got the wrong...” Alex couldn’t finish the sentence.

“You can’t know that.”

“Can’t I?” she challenged, wanting a fight but not with Philip. It was like she was a soda can left in a pressure cooker. Her skin was too tight. Her bones were too heavy. Any second now, she was going to combust. “Aside from the fact she looks exactly like me, Debora Jane was drowned. I haven’t told anyone, not even Detective De’Fante, but when I was rescued, I wasn’t breathing because I drowned too. And the men who took me made mention of sending a message to a priest, so yes, I can conclude through basic deduction that these were the same men who took me. We’re reporters, Phillip. These aren’t hard clues.”

Phillip’s stunned expression paled as the blood left his cheeks. “Fucking hell, Alex. I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know, and it’s… it’s not something I want to relive again.”

“But why now?” he asked, the familiar mask of a seasoned reporter slipping down despite his shock.

“I don’t know. That’s a question for the police. Maybe Debora Jane was hiding. Or the priest was. Maybe I’m being sent a message.” Alex recalled the man in the black Cadillac and shivered. “Or maybe it’s just business.”

Pushing the file away, Alex sat back, rubbing the creases between her eyebrows to smooth them. “You said the Daily will post this?”

“Tomorrow morning. Brian was kind enough to send me an advanced copy because he knows… well, he knows how sensitive this topic is going to be.”

“How kind of Brian,” Alex muttered low enough Phillip didn’t hear. “And we can’t ask him to call for a retraction?”

Philip spread his hands. “You know as well as I do that this is going to get out.”

“Which means the tabloids are going to run ruck-shod over this whole thing. I’m New York’s juiciest take. Again.” Saying it aloud filled her mouth with bile she would have loved to chase away with strong liquor. Like it or not, the wasp’s nest was about to get kicked again, and Alex wasn’t sure how many more stings she could endure.

“Take the rest of the day off.”

Was it possible for the mind to suffer whiplash?

Alex prepared to protest — rebuttal ready — but Philip continued talking over her, taking her hands in his. “I love you. You’re one of my best reporters and as close a friend as I could ever have. I know you just got back but take the afternoon to get your bearings. I’ll see you here bright and early tomorrow.”

“You and I had a deal.” Alex took her hand back. “One month, that was it.”

Phillip did his best to scrape his jaw off the floor. “You just found out your doppelgänger was murdered. I figured that called for a–”

“What am I going to do at home other than dwell on the fact the men who tried to kill me successfully killed the right woman this time?” Alex snapped, reaching the end of her rope. She wanted normalcy, damn it! And she’d take it by force if she had to. “My place is here. My work is here. My life is here, Phillip.”

This time, she listened to her body and moved out of her chair, burning off nervous energy by pacing. “I have to do something. I can’t–” She opened and closed her hands, desperate for the words to describe what was happening but unable to grasp the right ones as they flocked by. “I need to be here. Don’t kick me out over this.”

“It’s not a punishment.”

“It might as well be! Phillip, please. I need normalcy. I need to feel like myself again, and going home isn’t going to do that for me. I need to stay. I want to stay.”

“Okay.” It came so earnestly Alex didn’t think she heard right until Phillip stood and joined her. “Okay, Alex. Okay. I understand.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, releasing the tension from her shoulders.

“If you need to get those files down to printing, I’d do it now before the rush. I’ve kept you long enough.” But while it was said with a friendly nod, Alex caught the strain behind each word, and the plea for her to slow down.

Little chance of that.

Taking her leave, Alex returned to her office and tried her best to fit back into the square peg of her usual routine, but she quickly discovered her shape had changed once again. No longer a square, she couldn’t find the right fit. But she managed, for a time. Managed to push aside the crippling dread climbing her spine and the guilt gnawing holes in her stomach. Managed to pretend her life revolved around her articles and op-ed pieces. But Alex was a ship taking on water, slowly sinking as she tried to reach the shore.

By mid-afternoon, she could barely think straight and called it quits. Alex knew, deep in her bones, the first thing she should have done was call Georgia and show her the article. Falconi was tying up loose ends. Maybe it was time to hire someone to shadow her, but she hesitated, hand hovering near the phone before she let it drop. It was selfish. It was stupid, but telling Georgia would bring the flimsy walls of her false sense of normal crashing down again.

The cab ride home came and went without notice. With all the cognition of a sleepwalker, Alex trudged into her apartment and let her satchel fall by the door. She didn’t want to be here. The silence gave her too many opportunities to think, Debora Jane’s face haunting the darkness between blinks.

“I can’t do this.”

Redirecting her trajectory, Alex changed out of her work clothes, grabbed the knapsack she packed the night before, and left. It was still hours before dark, but she had a lot of courage to muster and plenty of daylight to wander in.

By the time she reached the corner of 6th Avenue and W 59th St, light pollution had long since replaced sunlight. Sore, hungry, and grim, Alex stood at the entrance to Central Park with a Magnum flashlight in one hand and her backpack strap in the other, her only two defenses against the wilds of the world.

“I am insane,” she said to no one in particular, watching the silhouette of trees sway in the breeze like a great beast shaking its pelt. Whether it was insanity or the sense she had something to prove, Alex pressed forward, willing to meet the beast of fear head-on.

It wasn’t difficult hiking back the way she’d come weeks ago. It was just dark. Unreasonably dark even for being in the center of a major city. Alex’s flashlight did little to banish the gloom, cutting swaths of white across a black canvas that turned trees into monochrome pillars and bushes into glowing halos. She walked for what felt like hours until finally reaching the chain link fence with a broken lock swinging forlornly below a faded “Keep Out” sign. Sliding through the gap in the gate, Alex prowled forward a handful of steps until she caught sight of the circular pipe sticking out of the ground like the mouth of a breaching earthworm.

“God, Lee is… stronger…than she looks,” Alex wheezed, wrestling the iron gate her friend had effortlessly pushed aside. The sound the rusted hinges made was abysmal, stabbing the night like someone taking an ice pick to a pig. “Oh, please get louder. I want all creation to know I’m here.”

The gap she fought to make wasn’t as wide as Lee’s, but it was big enough for her to squeeze through without snagging her pack or clothing. Before anyone had time to investigate all the racket she’d made, Alex jogged into the tunnel and kept going until the gradient slope leveled.

A thought niggled at her when she stopped to rub her palms free of flaky rust on her jeans a few minutes later. Lee never mentioned how she would know of Alex’s coming other than the time of day. No one picked a rendezvous point. Did she need to bang on a pipe and wait? Alex was so engrossed in thought, she jumped a full foot when something brushed her leg. The flashlight beam whipped around, cutting through the impenetrable blackness like a knife until it landed on the source of her startlement.

“Cat.” The word burst from her like a bullet fired from a gun, and she scowled at the orange tabby blinking owlishly up at her. “You are lucky you’re not a rat.”

Cats and sewers went together as well as rats and sewers, so the presence of the feline wasn’t odd. There was ample hunting to be had and plenty of room to wander. What was odd, however, was the growing number of cats. The orange tabby was joined by several others until the tunnel was clustered with them. Alex had to shuffle her feet to avoid stepping on a misplaced paw or tail, but the cats paid her no mind, roaming where they saw fit and rubbing against her legs whenever possible. Their presence was comforting until suddenly they disappeared, scattering to places unknown at the exact moment the hairs on the back of Alex’s neck prickled.

It dawned on her in that strange, dreadful moment as self-preserving clarity moved to the forefront of her mind that she was utterly alone underground, exploring without anyone knowing where she was, and descending into the unknown with only a flashlight as both torch and sword.

“Oh, you idiot,” she whispered, her voice carrying despite its low volume. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

Something shifted behind her, boots on concrete.

Her turn was fast, done on the balls of her feet. The flashlight followed, but it didn’t illuminate as it should. Instead, the beam was blocked by a massive torso. And when that same beam traveled up and landed on the face two feet above her head, all Alex could do was freeze because this couldn’t be real. There was no face to look at. Only a solid white mask devoid of flesh and features, accented with a stripe of red across the eyes like war paint.

A giant.

A wraith.

A true monster of the Underground who reached out, cupped the lens of Alex’s flashlight, and crushed it into dust between its fingers.

Phantom of the Opera

Alex had only known darkness like this once before. When the pipes swallowed her that horrible night as she struggled to stay above the surface where there was air and light. She was there again. In the water. Sucked down. Crushed beneath the weight of the city above and the blackness wrapping her in an unbreakable embrace.

Something cracked in the dark like a wishbone snapped between fingers. Was that her breaking? Smashed against another wall she didn’t see coming? No. Somewhere above, a small green speck winked into existence, shaken into higher intensity by a hand larger than Alex’s face.

A hand?

That’s right. She was in a tunnel. Not the watery kind. A dry one, but the presence of light didn’t banish the monster she found herself sharing close quarters with. The giant was holding the glow stick between its thick fingers, green light casting ghastly shadows over its mask as it watched her without moving so much as a muscle.

Barely able to get her breathing under control, Alex didn’t move from her pressed position against the wall when the creature reached into its tattered coat and retrieved a scrap of paper and tossed it to her with casual ease along with the glow stick. Her eyes made the jump between creature, to paper, to glow stick and back again, the air heavy with tension until the giant pointed sharply at the paper.

Read, the gesture said with an “or else” thrown in for a spicy flavor.

Craning her neck, Alex could make out faint scribbles of familiar handwriting. If she squinted hard enough, she even identified recognizable letters. Specifically, letters spelling her name. Using her foot to drag the paper and glow stick into range, she scooped up both, keeping the giant in her periphery.

“Alex!” the note began. “I’m so sorry, I goofed and didn’t tell you where to meet. My fault. Blame the concussion. If you’re reading this, you’ve met Goliath. Don’t worry, he’s harmless so long as you don’t mess with his cats or shine something bright in his face. I sent him to wait for you. He’ll send me word when you get here. Sorry again! See you soon!”

Lee signed her name at the end with a smiley face that looked like it was winking.

Relief was a slow tire leak, deflating her inch by inch. Head falling back against the concrete after reading the letter for the fourth time, Alex let the fight or flight drop from her limbs, unsure how many more heart attacks she could dodge before one successfully killed her.

“Lee sent you?” she asked with obvious skepticism, still unsure if this was a trap. Maybe this was Rebecca’s way of coming through with her threats. Whatever the case, Goliath didn’t answer, staring through his impassive white mask as Alex stood and dusted herself off.

“Did Lee send you?” she repeated, stretching her words so she was sure he heard. “Are you like her?” She pointed to her head when he didn’t answer. “Do you speak in other ways?”

Silence.

“Maybe you sign?”

More silence.

“Level with me here. I’m not a pro at this. Should I write it dow–” Alex felt the muscle giving her life stop when a hand closed over her face, fingers flexing against her scalp just enough to give her an indication of implied threat. Her nose was flattened against a rough palm, stunting her sharp intake of air.

“Okay, okay,” she squeaked, hands out. “I get it. No more questions. Just take me to– Where are we going!?”

Without removing his hand, Goliath paraded Alex further down the tunnel, forcing her to shuffle sideways like a crab or risk stumbling over her own feet. The sound of scraping stone and the rumble of something heavy moving on a track gave her the impression a door was opening, but without the ability to see, it was just so much noise.

“I appreciate the, uh… guidance,” she said behind Goliath’s hand. “But it’s not necess– oh okay, we’re going into the dark tunnel together. Yay!”

Once the door shut behind them, Goliath removed his hand and began walking, taking his glow stick with him. Alex hurried to catch up, fully intent on staying within the shallow puddle of light.

The first time Goliath’s wrench struck the fat pipe bolted along the wall like a metallic vein, Alex flew out of her skin. The impact made her vision warble. Three more times, the giant struck the pipe. Three more times, Alex tucked into herself to combat the assault by sound.

“Is that how you communicate? With the pipes?”

Goliath didn’t slow or even indicate he heard.

Time and distance were difficult to discern in the Underground. The two could have walked for miles or blocks. It wouldn’t have mattered. Everything all bled together. There were a few turns and one instance where Alex had to climb down a rusted ladder stapled into the wall. Her silent companion merely jumped down the shaft like the landing wouldn’t have blown out Alex’s knees, but other than that, it was a straight shot.

Gradually, the tunnels widened until the two could walk side-by-side, the stone growing older and warmer in color the deeper they descended. Three more times, Goliath struck the pipes, but this time Alex was surprised to hear a faint response reverberating through the metal. Someone was talking back.

After what felt like hours, Goliath ushered Alex into a series of halls dimly lit by running strands of cage lights. The floor sloped until it became spiral steps broken into a fork mid-way down. Goliath went left, and Alex did too, down a few more plateaus until they came upon a rough-cut archway hewn into the stone. Here, the giant stopped.

“Is this where I get off?” Alex tried a smile that felt far too manic to be genuine and shifted on the balls of her feet.

Goliath stared at her with impassive stoicism, the glossy white and red surface of his mask shining in the yellow light. Thankfully, Alex didn’t have to repeat herself. With a jerk of his head, he both confirmed her question and indicated where she was meant to go before turning away, footfalls nonexistent as he exited the hall. He might as well have been a phantom.

Hesitating long enough to question quite a few recent life choices, Alex approached the archway and peeked into the room, unsure what to expect. It certainly wasn’t her jaw hitting the floor.

The chamber was three times larger than her apartment and domed. There was no telling what the original intention for this place had been during the tunnel’s construction, but it now held dozens of wrought iron candle stands — some freestanding, others bolted to the walls — and clustered sitting areas made from reclaimed furniture and large pillows. Countless hours of candle-burning had blackened the ceiling and left stringy stalactites of wax dribbling down stands, giving the chamber an air of otherworldly reverence.

Motionless in the doorway, Alex let herself be carried forward by a wave of curiosity and waded into the firelight with a faint, “Hello?” Her voice expanded and bounced back, the acoustics remarkably good. “Lee?”

No one answered, which spiked her concern. She was meeting Lee, right? Em and Rebecca weren’t going to pop out and ambush her? Passing the first of many lit candle stands, the soft notes of a violin settled over Alex like down from a broken pillow. The melody was gentle. Coaxing. Almost like a lullaby, but also...familiar.

Oh… oh, she knew this song. Of course, she did. The notes were as familiar to her as the scent of her childhood laundry detergent or the weight of a favorite blanket. And what teen growing up in the late ‘80s and ‘90s didn’t know the notes from perhaps one of the most famous Broadway to ever grace the world stage?

“Who hides in the shadows? Friend or Phantom?” she called with a knowing grin.

I see you are a woman of taste, my Wandering Child.

Alex rotated but couldn’t pinpoint where Lee might be hiding. The fact her voice bloomed in her skull without first touching her ears didn’t help either. Like playing hide-and-seek with only Walkie-talkies. So when a body dropped down beside her from only God knew where, Alex understandably shrieked then dissolved into helpless laughter when she saw Lee had traded in her ripped jeans and t-shirts for a worn black and red suit accented with a customized Phantom mask that twisted Alex’s stomach into knots.

“Did Halloween come early this year?” Her question tapering into giggles, Alex felt the stress of the day fall from her shoulders like she was made of Teflon.

With a face like this, every day is Halloween, Lee teased, her grin the biggest Alex had ever seen it. Catching the edge of her cape, she swept it over her nose and mouth and turned in profile so only the mask peeked over the edge of her arm. Will you sing for me? she crooned.

“If I say no, are you going to kidnap me and keep me prisoner in your lair?”

There is… a chance.

“Ah, well then.” Alex crossed her arms over her chest. “My answer is someday. Until then, you’ll just have to use your imagination.”

I think I can live with a maybe. Lee nodded, dropping her cape and pushing back her mask. I won’t go on a murderous rampage and try hanging your boyfriend with a maybe. I’m willing to compromise. Also, I’m glad you came.

Opening her arms in a proper greeting, Lee looked surprised when Alex closed the gap and wrapped her in a tight hug. The ease of the gesture and how well they fit together didn’t go unnoticed by either woman, but Alex fought the urge to seek comfort and tuck into the crook of Lee’s neck. Instead, she increased the tightness of her squeeze and kept things uncomplicated.

“Thank you for asking me to come back. I’m glad you’re okay. How’s the head?”

Still a bit tender, but overall, I can’t complain. Gonna take more than a bat to bring me down.

“Good,” Alex said, boldly taking Lee’s chin between her fingers and turning her face toward the light. They both knew what she was looking for.

The bruises faded after a day. Less than that, actually. It was really strange. Lucky for me, I was able to dodge my mother until they faded. Anyway, how are you? How are things Topside?

Alex knew how to mask herself. Growing up with a politician for a father, she’d learned early on the art of misdirection and lying with a straight face, so it came as a surprise when that talent encountered friction in Lee’s presence. She couldn’t bring herself to mention Deborah Jane’s murder or the depressive spiral it had thrown her into. Even now, Alex could feel the shrapnel from that bombshell digging into and tearing open fresh wounds still on the mend, but she didn’t want to lie.

“There’s been a bit of an adjustment period and some friction, but I’m managing.”

Anything I can help with?

“No, just me getting my bearings back at the office. It’s been… a wild few days. Oh, and thanks for the advanced warning about your friend in the mask. I didn’t need another heart attack today!”

Yeah, that’s my bad, Lee winced. I should have sent a letter sooner. Goliath is kind of hardcore when you first meet him.

“Hardcore?” Alex parroted back. “He crushed my flashlight in his hand! Like a grape!”

Lee’s wince grew by degrees. Yikes. Yeah, he’s not fond of bright light.

“Or speaking.”

Or speaking, yeah.

“Is he...” Alex made a few gestures she hoped better conveyed her sensitive question without making her seem like a total ass.

Nonverbal? Yes and no. He can speak but chooses not to.

“Ah. And the mask?”

Lee shrugged. You’ll have to ask him about that. Now, come! We don’t have much time.

“Are you expecting someone else?”

Not someone. Something. Taking Alex by the hand, Lee led her to a nest of pillows and blankets laid out on the floor, motioning to the setup like she was showcasing a prize on The Price is Right. Madame, your reservation.

“A picnic?” Genuine delight lifted the wrinkles of Alex’s forehead. There was a red and white cooler next to a mound of cushions and a six-pack of something beside that.

My version of a long apology for sneaking into your apartment and scaring you. Also, a thank you for not killing me and nursing me back to relative health.

“Is this an Underground way of asking me to dinner?” Alex almost smacked herself the moment the words left her mouth, but she couldn’t take them back now.

Little tit-for-tat, Lee said, a flush warming the tips of her ears. You fed me. Now I feed you.

“And the...” Alex gestured with a closed-lipped snicker at Lee’s attire. “Outfit? How did you know Phantom was my favorite?”

Now the Undergrounder looked bashful, toeing the floor with her boot. I might have noticed your signed Phantom of the Opera playbill in your living room.

Alex didn’t expect the level of warmth spreading through her limbs like golden sunshine as she took a seat and discarded her backpack. No one had ever gone through so much trouble for her, past or present. “You didn’t have to do all this. I should be the one apologizing to you.”

Not true, but we can argue about that later. Now, wait just one more second. I need to... Lee held up a finger like she was feeling for a breeze. Satisfied with whatever she felt, she shifted a step to the right and looked up at the ceiling with the squint of someone trying to hear something not quite in range. Oh good! Just about ready!

“For?”

Her grin was all teeth and a little frightening. Wait and listen.

Hands in her lap and back straight, Alex did just that. Lee checked her watch once more, went to a lever on the wall, and turned it several times, angling a pipe above her head. Alex instinctively leaned in toward the L-shaped piece of steel. The sound of distant murmuring drifted from its mouth, a conversation taking place miles away. Listening harder, a few lines of dialogue drifted closer, sharpened and amplified when Lee moved the pipe just a little more to the right.

“...with a little illumination. Gentlemen!”

That couldn’t be right. They were floors underground. It must be–

When the first chords roared through the chamber, Alex came off her cushion like a startled cat. That was an organ. A pipe organ! Where? How? And then she recognized the notes for what they were because only one pipe organ on earth played that melody.

“How is this possible?” She had to almost shout to be heard. “Is this a recording?”

Nope! Lee beamed, throwing out her arms as the music swirled around them. You are listening to the live performance taking place above us. Welcome to the Chamber of Echoes, Miss Bailey! The only place in the Underground where you can hear almost any show on Broadway if you know which valve to turn! Tonight’s venue, Phantom of the Opera!

Liaison

“How did you find this?”

Totally by accident! Let’s just say there was a lot of screaming, a dislocated shoulder, and grease involved. One day, I’ll tell you the whole story, but for now… food and Phantom!

Lee kicked open the cooler and withdrew two hearty sandwiches, various finger foods, a few slices of cold pizza, and bags of sweets, arranging them on a cushion between them.

Alex chose her meal, and together, they sat back, listening to the drama play out in real-time. Lee knew all the lines and songs by heart, matching Alex’s own intimate knowledge. They would lip-sync along with the actors, gesturing wildly and making exaggerated faces at one another. More than once, the two “acted out” scenes as best they could, or as Lee expected they would be performed on account she’d never seen the Broadway live.

Sometimes Alex was Christine, and Lee was Phantom. Sometimes Lee was Carlotta and left Alex breathless with laughter on the floor as she acted out the diva’s more memorable moments. At intermission, Lee took a flying leap off the nearest chair into a pile of cushions, imitating Phantom’s ride down the chandelier.

“That was very dramatic,” Alex laughed, helping her friend crawl back to their sanctuary of junk food and crumbs.

It’s a dramatic scene!

“You should see it on stage. He actually rides the chandelier down.”

How many times have you seen it?

Alex puffed out her cheeks. “Must be a dozen by this point. I saw it for the first time when I was eight. My mother took me, and I fell in love with the music.”

Mother read me the original story years ago. I didn’t even know there was a stage play until Em let me listen to some of her old cassettes with Sarah Brightman as Christine. Lee put her hands over her heart and mimed being hit by something. Love at first song.

“I got to see one of her last performances,” Alex said with a smug half-smile.

You suck! Lee gaped, pushing Alex’s leg away. You suck so much! I’d have killed to see that!

“Maybe someday you’ll get a chance to see it live.”

Intermission came to a close, and they picked up where they left off. Sitting back to catch her breath, Alex watched Lee stomp around the room, reciting dialogue and playing multiple people at once. It was both amusing and captivating, her magnetic smile pulling at something deep in Alex’s chest.

They listened as the play edged closer to climax, wrapped in the warm moment. ‘Wishing You Were Here Again’ drifted through the chamber, filling the stones with its mournful melody. Lee told Alex it was one of her favorite songs, though she didn’t know why. Nothing in her life mirrored the scene, but the music stirred something in her. She hummed along until the sound of a hard sniff pulled her attention away from the ceiling.

“No, no, I’m fine. I always tear up during this scene,” Alex reassured, palming away the moisture gathering in her eyes and waving away her friend’s concern. “The song brings a lot of things back. It used to be my mother’s favorite, so it always makes me think of her.”

Used to be?

“My mother died when I was twelve,” Alex explained, folding her arms over the tops of her drawn-up knees, eyes focused on the past. If she squinted, if she focused hard enough, sometimes she could catch glimpses of her mother’s face. Flashes of memories. Hints of a ghost she didn’t mind haunting her.

I’m so sorry.

“It was a long time ago,” Alex shrugged. Time had done its job and numbed the pain, but there were moments when the old aches made themselves known. Moments like these.

What… um… what was she like?

“My mother?” Lee nodded, scooting closer until they were almost hip to hip. “She was the foundation of my family, to be honest. She and my father were quite a pair, and by that, I mean they were opposites in all things. My mother grounded him. She was a teacher for several years. Taught at Columbia in the History department until she had me. Teaching was her profession, but singing was her passion. I loved it when she sang.”

I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.

“You’re fine. It was hard in the beginning. I used to spend so much time at her grave. It wasn’t the healthiest coping mechanism, and it made my father so angry when he found me there, but it was the only way I could get over losing her. I’d sit at her grave and sing ‘Wishing You Were Here Again’.”

They didn’t talk for the rest of the performance. After the finale, when the applause died down and the theater drew away from the Echoes, Lee finally spoke.

I didn’t start speaking until I was five. The statement gave Alex pause. Lee struggled to hide her flush when she turned and resettled in the cushions, giving her a searching look. You shared a little bit about yourself, so I thought I’d share something about myself. It’s only fair.

“Oh.” Alex processed this new information. “Speaking like you’re speaking now?”

Mother said I was developmentally behind for years. I was nonverbal, thanks to a knock to the head as a baby. Em was the one who taught me sign language. She taught Mother and me both. When I was five, something just clicked in my mind. Literally, something clicked, and I could speak to Mother through this weird mental connection. Lee ruefully smiled to herself. Mother cried. I thought I’d done something wrong, but she just kept hugging me. Em cried, too. Lots of crying that day.

“Do you know how you’re doing it? The speaking with your mind thing?” Alex gestured at her head, wiggling her fingers.

No idea. I mean, it shouldn’t be possible, right? Telepathy belongs to superheroes. I’m just a tunnel rat with a weird face. Leaning back against the cushions, a sad expression eclipsing her former happiness. I always liked the line in Phantom that says, ‘Why was I bound and chained to the cold and dismal place? Not by mortal sin, but the wickedness of my abhorrent face!’ Kind of fits. Living down here, kidnapping pretty girls and bringing them to my lair. My killer fashion sense.

“Your face isn’t wicked or abhorrent.”

Says the woman who screamed so hard when she first saw me, she fell out of bed, popped her stitches, and almost crawled up a wall the second time.

“Now hold on, that’s not fair. I wasn’t at my best that first day. Waking up after being stabbed and drowned kind of leaves your nerves fried. And I’ve already apologized for the second time.”

Lee flushed bright red. You’re right. That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.

She stiffened when Alex scooted closer and reached out with gentle hands to turn her so the candlelight could better illuminate what she knew was already there. Nervousness and the sparkle of something unspoken turned Lee’s eyes luminescent when Alex’s thumb smoothed the skin beside her strangely shaped nose.

“Your face holds no horror for me now.”

It’s in your soul where the true–

“Don’t you dare finish that line,” Alex warned with a hard poke to Lee’s chest. “I’m not afraid of you. I might have been in the beginning, but I shouldn’t have been.”

I know what I look like, she sighed, relaxing into Alex’s palms. Phantom and I have a lot in common.

“You’re not a monster. Phantom chose to become a beast because he thought the world owed him because of how cruelly he was treated. Hiding his face was a metaphor for hiding his true nature under something palatable and beautiful. You and he are not the same. You have people who love you. You’re not a monster. You’re kind and gentle and caring without incentive. You’re you. A little different, but beautiful just the same.”

The bomb detonating between them was silent but no less destructive. Had Alex just said that? Both women found themselves awkwardly drifting in smoky aftermath, stunned and blinking to re-calibrate.

“Wow, God, it’s uh… a lot later than I thought.” Alex cleared her throat, thankful for the distraction of time to chase away… whatever just passed between them. It was well past ten. She needed to be up no later than six, which meant, in the terrible habits of a working adult, she needed to be in bed no later than eleven.

You could always stay the night. It’s a long walk back.

“Stay the night, huh?” Alex quirked an eyebrow. “Would we sleep right here? Curled atop these cushions like subterranean cats?”

Lee gave her a confused look, completely missing the “this is a trap” social cue. No, I have a bed.

“Oh, so a shared bed then?” Now Alex just looked wicked, propping her chin on her palm. “Pushing the envelope, Miss Leanna? I’m not the kind of girl who sleeps over on the first date.”

Sudden understanding hit, and Lee choked like a fish out of water. She panicked through a series of backpedaled explanations and beat red apologies until Alex couldn’t maintain her stoicism and burst into snorting laughter behind her hands.

“Lee, honestly, you’re fine,” she said between giggles and the other woman’s hasty explanations. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tease. I knew what you were asking. No, don’t roll away!” Alex attempted to catch her friend before she rolled off their shared mound of comfort and flopped face down on the carpeted concrete.

I’m going to stay right here until I expire. This is where I die. Watch me become one with the stone.

“Come back here.” Alex once again struggled with Lee’s weight and was reminded of that impending gym membership in her future. “I would love to stay, but I can’t. I left work early and need to finish edits before my boss strings me up by my toes. So if you’re done becoming a human gargoyle, Miss Leanna, I would appreciate company for my walk home. I mean,” Alex schooled her face into a proper mask of enticement, “I can’t navigate this labyrinth on my own.”

You make a good point, Lee sighed dramatically. I can’t morally keep you here against your will.

“Such benevolence.” Alex reached down to help her friend stand.

Call it self-preservation. I don’t want Mother to find out you were here.

Alex pretended to be offended, but Lee made a good point. The last thing either of them needed was for the Matron of the Underground to discover their liaison.

Come, Persephone. Lee put out her arm for Alex to take. Let us return you to the world above before Demeter discovers you’re missing.

“You are such a dork,” Alex said, taking Lee’s arm with an ear-to-ear grin.

You love it.

“I do, but wouldn’t Demeter be your mother and by default make you Persephone? Out of the two of us, you have more to worry about from her than I do.”

I live in the Underworld. That makes me Hades by default. Lee shot Alex a wiry smirk with just the right amount of mischief sprinkled in for fun. And you ate food from the Underworld, dooming you to a half-life spent between worlds. My trap worked perfectly.

“Oh no!” Alex feigned swooning distress. “To be trapped in the Underworld with the only Greek god who isn’t a whoremonger and actually loves his wife. What a tragedy!”

Now who’s the dork?

“Oh, it’s still you. I can just match you stride for stride.” Eyes forward, Alex pretended she didn’t feel the tips of her ears heat up or the sudden swoop of her stomach when Lee pulled her just a little closer as they left the Echoes.

Queens and Rooks

Nine hours later, the announcement of Debora Jane’s murder did exactly what Alex knew it would do.

Less than a day after the story exploded like an incendiary bomb over New York, the media whipped into a frenzy. It was entertainment of the most gruesome kind, sparking a tempest of debates and wild theories with Alex caught in the crossfire.

For a solid week, she endured the media storm with glacial patience and jaw-clenching dignity. Shoulders back and head high, she took both Georgia and her newly appointed lawyer’s advice, speaking candidly with a trusted few and referring the rest to the detectives investigating the case. Like any flash-pan media event, it would burn itself out. But a second dose of regurgitated trauma barely a month after Alex’s return Topside was a brick to her already brittle nerves. Her life was spiraling, and if she didn’t force herself to dig in, she would lose herself entirely.

So she went to work in the literal sense.

The solitude waiting for her at home was too quiet. Alex’s modest apartment had become too large for one person and the thunderously intrusive thoughts that let questions and fears slip past her armor. And in truth, her apartment had only been a place to rest her head, grab a shower, and secure her pay stubs. Alex’s home, her real home, was behind her desk at the Times, so that’s where she retreated. Behind walls where the media and its eye couldn’t penetrate.

If she could swing working eighteen hours or more, she would. If she couldn’t — a few times, Phillip had to physically chase her out of the office — Alex bundled herself off to a diner close by. Wedged in her favorite seat in the back where no one looked, Alex kept herself alive on a corrosive mix of black coffee and espresso shots courtesy of the concerned barista next door. The poor boy asked, more than once and with growing hesitance, if Alex was sure she only wanted to purchase straight espresso.

“As much as you’re legally allowed,” she replied in all seriousness, probably solidifying herself as a local cryptid right alongside her baleful celebrity status.

Head buried in her work, Alex seldom paid attention to the passage of time. She lived in the city that never slept. The path of the sun and moon meant little as long as she was at her desk at a reasonable hour or at the very least got her projects turned in on time.

It was during one of those bleary afternoons in the diner that someone came to stand beside her table. Well, “coming to stand” was a loose term. The body rocked to a standstill with a shrill squeak of rubber on linoleum that could have spelled disaster had there been any amount of water on the floor.

“You Alex Bailey?”

The sound of her name on a stranger’s lips dragged Alex out of the trenches of note-taking. She blinked owlishly at the man practically humming beside her like a sonic jewelry cleaner. He was wickedly lean under his Spandex pants and sporty jacket like a piece of jerky wrapped in vacuum compressed plastic. If his obnoxiously bright, streamlined helmet wasn’t a dead giveaway, the satchel slung across his chest certainly marked him as one of New York’s professional bike messengers. Albeit one of the more eccentric.

“Are you Alex Bailey?” he asked again, slower this time like he was asking a skittish child if their parents were home.

“Depends on who’s asking.”

No one she knew used bike messengers. Phillip wouldn’t be caught dead channeling messages back and forth through anything other than email, and Alex didn’t have any contacts or sources who used them as means of communication. So the appearance of this man was more than a little off-putting.

“Look, I don’t have time to debate this. I was told to deliver this to Alex Bailey in the back booth of the 9th Avenue Diner. You look like the woman from the TV. You’re in the back booth. I have a package that needs signed for.”

The package in question was a manila folder without so much as a return address or place of designation. Alex eyed it with the suspicion of a rookie TSA agent. She eyed the man with the same squinted suspicion, leaving the folder hanging between them. Who the hell knew she was here other than Phillip? Granted, the diner was open to the public and her face was unfortunately recognizable, but who told a messenger she could be found here, on this day, at this time?

“Ma’am, I’m on a tight schedule,” the messenger pressed, growing irritated. “And I won’t get paid if I don’t deliver this package. If this is you, please take it and sign.”

Feeling backed into a corner, Alex took the folder with a dark scowl and signed the man’s slip. The ink was barely dry when he turned and sped out the door, whizzing by on his bike a second later.

“Pushy asshole,” she muttered. Holding the package between her fingers like it might bite, Alex tried to feel for hints of what might be inside, but it was crisp-edged and smooth like it had just come off the FedEx rack. When she shook it, nothing shifted or, thank God, ticked, and there wasn’t a mark on it. Just a nondescript package she should have set aside for a later time, but curiosity and a rumble of bitter irritation at the intrusion had her folding back the wire closer and shaking loose the contents out away from her. The Anthrax scare might have been two years ago, but the fear it stamped in the population was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

Three things — thankfully with no hints of an insidious white powder — spilled onto the table over her notes and clutter of pens: a folded newspaper, a yellowed clipping, and what looked like a plastic ID card.

Largest of the three, the newspaper demanded her attention first. It was an excerpt from The Daily, neatly folded along the larger crease, but the date was slated for tomorrow. Another advanced copy? Alex shifted noiselessly in her seat, the hairs prickling the nape of her neck proceeding the icy spiders trailing webs down her spine. Nothing of great consequence stood out on the page until she caught sight of a circular red stain marring the black and white print. Flipping the paper over, the sounds of the diner vanished.

Brutal in its simplicity, the headline did its job as both bait and hook. Four bodies recovered from a home in South Queens. An attempted triple homicide ending with all four assailants dead. Four black and white faces stared back at Alex, four strangers, all save for one. The man with the scar above his upper lip.

The man who put a knife in her ribs.

Alex felt the world tilt and had to grab the table to keep from tipping to the floor. She stared long and hard at the photos and the article next to it, emotions conflicted. Relief jockeyed with rage. Joy with terror.

This can’t be real. Her mind tried to ration. Someone was fucking with her just to get a dark laugh. But no. There was no evidence of forgery. There couldn’t have been. No one but Alex knew what her attempted murderer looked like, and that face was staring at her now in the grim lighting of an old police lineup.

Her heart felt like a speedboat propeller caught in kelp, and Alex ground the heel of her palm into her temple in an attempt to reattach her critical thinking hat. First Debora Jane and now this. She didn’t need the subtlety of fine print to fully understand what was being shouted. This was a warning like a sonic boom, and it was doing a fine job of rattling the windows of her nerves.

Setting the paper aside, she reached for her half-empty coffee cup and the dregs of espresso lingering ominously at the bottom. The bitter bite would be the shock she needed to keep her body and mind grounded. She’d just managed to knock back a rough, lukewarm shot when her attention shifted to the last two articles extracted from the manila folder. All of a sudden, the warning from the newspaper shifted gear into a flat-out assault.

The world retracted to a single point of origin so sharp all Alex could make out was the old newspaper clipping and the plastic ID. Worn into a patina after years spent under too many bleaching lights, the yellow paper hadn’t held up as well as the image printed on its surface.

Two women in lab coats stood shaking hands outside a nondescript building, their heads turned just enough for the camera eye to capture their faces. It was a glimpse back in time to what Rebecca Farrow must have looked like as a much younger woman because that was who Alex was looking at. The matron of the Underground standing proudly beside a younger, shorter woman no older than seventeen. A woman Alex knew to be blind now. And written in the margin with the same sizzling red ink as the sharpie circling the murder story was a cryptic line like something out of a political thriller.

“Never send a rook to do a queen’s job.”

It was this sinister statement coupled with the woman on the plastic police ID that brought Alex out of her seat like a ballistic missile. With all the decorum of a smash and grab thief, she shoved her work into her satchel, threw money on the table, and fled the diner, Georgia’s old police ID biting into the meat of her palm.

Rabbit Hole

“Georgia! Georgia, open up!” Alex slammed the flat of her palm against her friend’s apartment door until it stung. She knew she was making an awful ruckus, people peering through peepholes and chain locks all across the floor, but she didn’t care. Panic dictated the volume and vehemence of her actions, and it was dialed up to eleven.

“Georgia Battle! Open this–”

The sudden absence of wood under her palm put Alex off-kilter, making her stutter forward until she caught the doorframe.

“What in Christ’s name are you screaming about?!” a very alive, very pissed off Georgia barked, thunder in her scowl and a small-caliber pistol clutched in her rock-steady right hand.

Relief took her legs out at the knees. Alex sagged against the doorframe, limbs shaking with excess adrenaline and vision blurred with moisture she couldn’t blink away fast enough. “You’re okay,” she panted hoarsely. “Oh my God, you’re okay.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask why you’d think otherwise,” Georgia frowned, sliding the sleek black gun into its holster while her eyes roved the hall.

“Those Girl Scouts are getting bold. Tell ‘em we don’t want any!” Alex heard another speaker call from the apartment, piquing both her interest and anxiety. Who else was here?

“Give me a minute, Keesha!” Georgia called before dropping her voice and leaning in close to Alex. “What the hell is going on?”

By way of answer, she handed Georgia her police ID, unsurprised when her friend’s expression made the warp-speed jump from irritated to shocked.

“Where’d you get this?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Alex croaked, weak in the knees and nauseous from running with nothing but espresso and black coffee in her system as fuel. Swearing under her breath, Georgia grabbed her by the front of the jacket and dragged Alex inside, throwing multiple locks behind them.

From her vantage point in the entryway, Alex gathered Georgia’s apartment was the same size as her own except newer. She was led into a tight living room populated by a worn leather sofa, a few articles of furniture, and bookshelves. Lots of bookshelves. So many, it made the room feel more like a library than a living space.

“Figures you come banging on my door when I’m getting my braids put back in,” she muttered, drawing Alex’s attention to two things: one, her friend’s very asymmetrical hairstyle, and two, another woman standing next to a stool planted in the middle of Georgia’s living room.

“Didn’t know you were expecting company,” Keesha said in the middle of tying back her white and pink interlaced braids.

“Give me a second.”

“Not too long,” she warned. “We gotta keep moving now that the jam’s in your hair.”

“How long have I been braiding my hair?” Georgia fired back. “Grab a drink and a seat. This’ll only take a second.”

Alex followed her into a second bedroom remodeled into an office near the back of the apartment. Shutting the door, Georgia put her back against the wood, brown eyes scraping across Alex before she closed them and pushed out a breath.

“My scalp isn’t happy, so you’ve got three minutes. This should be secured in an evidence locker. Where did you get my ID?”

“From an unmarked manila envelope at the diner,” Alex explained from her boneless hunch against the desk, head in her hands. Without having to look, she could feel Georgia’s alarm.

“Planted?”

Alex shook her head, dragging her hands through her hair in a calming motion. “Bike messenger ran it into me. Didn’t give me any specifics other than he was told I could be found in the 9th Avenue Diner in the back booth. Your ID was in the folder along with this. I’m starting to think The Daily might have its fingers somewhere it shouldn’t.”

Alex passed over the newspaper, tucking her hands into her armpits to keep herself from picking sores into her cuticles.

“Oh... shit. Are these–”

“Yeah.” Alex’s mind rotated through the faces like a flipbook. “Yeah, they are.”

“Was there anything else?”

The correct answer should have been Alex showing her friend the old newspaper clipping of Rebecca. After all, she’d been the one to hire Georgia to look into the Underground matriarch, but her automatic response died before it could leave her mouth. Something told her this wasn’t the time to play her hand. After all, Georgia was the only person on earth who knew about Alex’s interest in Rebecca.

“No, just those two things.” The lie was easy but left her feeling dirty.

“Fantastic.” Georgia circled behind her desk and pulled out drawers until she found the right one to deposit her ID into. “We have a problem then. This ID wasn’t supposed to leave Property and Evidence at my old precinct, which means we have a mole.”

“You think Falconi’s behind this?”

“I think he’s the only person on this planet who would whack his own thugs to cover up their botched murder. And we know he’s been tailing you since you got back. This screams intimidation.”

“Well, I am sufficiently intimidated, so job well done.” Though Alex wasn’t one hundred percent confident intimidation was the only thing at play. Certainly, the most glaring element, but something lingered below the surface like a hazy face under ice. If she could just clear away some of the film…

“Why was there blood on your ID?”

“Night I got shot,” was all the answer Georgia gave, and Alex didn’t press. “All right, three minutes are up. I intend to get to the bottom of this once I’ve got my head on straight. Literally. And since you’re here, I also want to go over something with you, but we’ll have to do it in my living room. Keesha’s been my friend for a long time, so I trust her not to pass on what I’m about to tell you.”

Alex had no choice but to tail Georgia back into the living room. Before they started, the PI retrieved a folder from the bookcase next to her TV and handed it to Alex, then took a seat on the stool.

“Sorry, Ke. This is Alex. She hired me to look into a few missing person cases for the Times. Alex, this is Keesha Anderson, longtime friend and RN.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Alex nodded politely. Keesha didn’t seem perturbed by the intrusion on her session, nodding a hello while her fingers began her intricate work.

“I seriously thought the reason you were raising hell against my door was because you found something on your missing person before me,” Georgia laughed. “I wanted to be the one to break the ice.”

Alex’s voice ticked up an octave. “You found something?”

Georgia’s triumph manifested in a huge grin just like the one shown on her besmirched police ID. “You’re damn right I did, but it’s a bit of a give and take, so bear with me while I break down how awesome I am. Keesha, listen to how awesome I am. You’re gonna love this.”

“I get enough stories from Bobby,” Keesha teased, tugging on a braid and pleased by the yelp it elicited. “I don’t need to hear any more from you. How many times did you tell me about that Grand Larceny ring you supposedly broke up your fifth year on the force?”

“Nothing about that was embellished!”

“Sure, sweetie.”

“Whatever. Don’t listen to her, Alex. In regards to what you and I were looking into, Rebecca is a ghost, and I don’t mean that sarcastically. This woman doesn’t have a birth certificate. No social security. No credit cards. Nothing but a hinky obituary mention that leads nowhere.”

“Well, someone doesn’t want to be found,” Keesha commented, starting another braid.

“I’ve not been able to find census records or even a credit trail. By all accounts, she doesn’t exist. But your girl pulled through.”

“So she says,” Keesha winked at Alex, who couldn’t help but suppress a giggle. If Georgia scowled any further, her eyebrows would clap.

“Only tease if you aim to please,” Alex said, clearing her throat to reset her features.

Georgia snorted. “Shit, I could have you speaking in tongues in thirty minutes. Don’t try me.”

“Georgia!” Keesha gasped, pretending to clutch her chest like there were pearls hanging from her throat.

“Anyway, I might not have gotten anything substantial on your missing lady, but I did dig up something very interesting that led me to said missing lady. Let’s take a trip down the rabbit hole.”

At Georgia’s behest, Alex withdrew a healthy stack of papers secured with a sturdy paper clip and set them on her thighs, skimming the page while her friend spoke. “Rebecca Farrow might be a ghost, but whoever tried to erase her from time didn’t think a school newspaper was important enough to shred. Bear with me here. Rebecca had a protégé: Emilia Eloisa Gonzales Sotomayor.”

“Holy crap, that’s a name.” Alex stared at the high school graduation photo, poker face in play. Her hair was shorter and curled. She wore a thick pair of black and orange glasses perched on her nose, and her face had the softness of youth left to spend, but little else had changed even after thirty years aging in the Underground. That was Em. The same Em from the manila folder.

“Modern-day prodigy, from what I’ve dug up,” Georgia was saying. “Smart girl with a bright future.”

“Prodigy of what?”

“Some kind of science that’s way beyond my pay grade. Something to do with diseases. Like, CDC level stuff.”

“So my area of expertise,” Keesha said, the interest in her voice not matching her focus, which was on Georgia’s scalp.

“You treat the diseases. Emilia created them…or something like that. She graduated high school at fifteen–”

“Shit.”

“I know, right? She then went directly to MIT with a full scholarship.”

“Not Johns Hopkins?” While MIT was as prestigious as a school could get, they weren’t famous for their medical or disease research departments. Technology and engineering were more their style.

“Thought the same thing too,” Georgia nodded, earning a smack from Keesha.

“Do not move.”

“Christ, sorry. Anyway, your missing lady was affiliated with the school. My guess is Rebecca taught there at one point, but the records have been wiped clean. Two years after graduating high school, Emilia winds up working with Rebecca, which was a huge deal. Warranted a picture of the two of them in the school’s paper, which is how I found both of them.”

Rifling through the file, Alex came across said photo. The same one as her newspaper clipping. Only this was a photocopy.

“Emilia goes to work with Rebecca, everything’s wonderful and normal for a teenage genius, and then the building they’re both working in blows up.”

Keesha and Alex both went still, one out of curiosity and the other shock. “An accident?”

“No, and here’s where it gets wild. The building was hit by a military-grade ballistic missile.”

“How?” Alex gasped, but Kesha excitedly spoke over her.

“I think I remember my mom telling me about something like this some thirty years ago! It was a huge controversy in the medical community. If it’s the lab I’m thinking of, the building was part of the North Star Foundation, and whoever ran it put their entire medical staff under an NDA when they signed on. Mom was offered a position there but wouldn’t do it. Refused to sign the paperwork because it wasn’t coming from the CDC or a medical affiliate. Hinky shit.”

“So someone blew up a suspicious building where suspicious things were happening,” Alex surmised, thinking out loud. “How did this not make national news? Especially if it was bombed?”

Georgia drew in her lips, must have thought better of whatever action she was about to take, and shrugged instead. “That’s the crazy part. There was no evidence that anyone, military or otherwise, fired a damn missile into a civilian building. It literally appeared out of nowhere and took the whole complex out. That’s the official ‘sealed’ report. What civilians were fed was your standard ‘it was a gas leak’ excuse. There was a fake investigation and everything, but the long and short of it is that all thirteen members of Rebecca’s team were killed, including Rebecca and her protege. However, Emilia’s parents didn’t buy it. Something about this whole thing seemed rightfully off, so they had her remains exhumed and tested.”

“They weren’t hers,” Alex finished.

“Bingo-Bango. Emilia is a missing person tied to a damn building brought down by military-grade weaponry. Her parents still have her case open. Poor people are in their seventies now, but it’s thirty years cold. If she did survive, she’s done one hell of a job covering her tracks and going underground.”

You have no idea, Alex wanted to say. “Were there any substantial leads as to why a building like that was destroyed? Disgruntled workers or failed military contracts?”

“Nothing concrete was ever uncovered. The only suspect the feds had was a Cedric...ah crap, it’s in there. Look for the yellow paperclip.”

Alex did and found the document, reading the highlighted name aloud. “Cedric Barrowman.”

“That’s the guy. Apparently, he’s suspected of being an arms smuggler but nothing concrete has ever been pinned on him. And before you ask, finding anything on Cedric Barrowman was about as successful as looking for Rebecca. Guy’s a ghost too.”

“What did the investigation say about Rebecca?” Alex asked.

“Remains were recovered, but with no one to claim or verify them, it’s hard to tell if she’s dead or alive. My guess? She’s dead, but that doesn’t explain who went to the trouble of erasing her.”

“Sounds like someone with a lot of power,” Alex supplied, locking eyes with her friend. The two shared similar thoughts.

“Sounds mob-related, if you ask me,” Keesha said.

“Or government.”

“Or that,” Georgia hummed. “But if the government was covering this up, there wouldn’t be traces left behind. There are some pretty blaring breadcrumbs.”

Alex reclined on the sofa, digesting her four-course feast of information. None of it made sense, but at the same time, it was painting a very ominous picture of Lee’s mother. Who was she, and why go through all this trouble?

“You really pulled a rabbit out of a hat on this one.”

“What can I say?” Georgia spread her arms. “I’m damn good at what I do.”

“You are.”

“So then why does it look like your wheels are spinning?”

“I…” God, how was she going to explain this without dropping she knew more than she was letting on? “I have a feeling there’s more to this than what we’re seeing. Regarding Rebecca.”

A beat of silence. Georgia folded her arms, the stool creaking with the movement of her returning to center. Wise enough to keep quiet, Keesha went back to braiding but was obviously listening intently. “Are you working on a hunch or something more concrete?” Alex’s unwillingness to answer right away heightened Georgia’s suspicion. “What’s Rebecca to you, Alex? Why are you so interested in a ghost?”

“We all have to have our obsessions,” she said, gathering the papers in her lap and standing. “It was very nice meeting you, Keesha. Sorry for barging in.”

“Alex,” Georgia called. Her voice hadn’t risen, but her tone might as well have been a hook into the meat of Alex’s jaw. “I don’t like secrets with clients. What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing’s concrete yet,” she evaded moving to the door. “I have a hunch I’m working on. Something I don’t want to breathe into existence yet. When I have something more, I’ll let you know.”

Mule

Rarely did Lee wake to the smell of breakfast cooking. In the Underground, perishables like eggs, meat, and dairy were scarce commodities due to a lack of widespread refrigeration. It was hard smuggling a refrigerator into the tunnels unless it was a minifridge, and even that lacked space for essentials. Waking to the scent of searing bacon was a welcome treat.

Flipping onto her back with a grunt as stale muscles re-energized, Lee took a moment to stare at her ceiling and the night sky looking back. She lived most of her childhood ignorant to the tidal flow of celestial bodies circling her little planet until Goliath snuck her Topside one year for her birthday. That began the Undergrounder’s love affair with astronomy, and that love soon found itself spilling onto the ceiling of her room in colorful swatches of paint and adhesive stars.

Stretched and ready to rise, Lee tugged on a threadbare David Bowie band shirt and followed her nose to the kitchen. Taking a moment to linger in the doorway, she watched her mother move from the counter to the cast iron skillet settled over a gas camping stove, dropping in ingredients with methodical care. The motion was smooth, but her mother’s expression was tight with forced concentration. So much so, a line of sweat glistened at the edge of her hairline. When Rebecca moved to scoop diced vegetables onto the pan, the illusion of effortless control was tarnished by a quiver in her fingers that had her picking up more than a dozen fallen pieces. Lee’s stomach dropped. The more she watched, the more she picked up on the rigidity in the older woman’s stance like she was trying to lock every muscle down through sheer force of will. Which she was because the tremors were getting worse.

My birthday isn’t for another four months, she said as she slipped into the room and planted a quick kiss on her mother’s cheek. What’s the occasion? Also, good morning.

“Can’t a mother want to spoil her child?” Rebecca asked with a lingering glance over her shoulder. Lee gave her a “good try, but I know better” look that made her chuckle. “Call it an apology for being scarce recently. I asked Jerry to make a special run.”

Need any help? She asked it with the casual flair of someone voicing a secondhand thought so as to not tip off her mother she’d seen her struggling. Rebecca would close off if she sensed anyone, even her daughter, had caught a break in her otherwise impenetrable armor.

“Set the table. I have the rest.”

Lee expected this response, but it didn’t stop her from making a pained face once her back was turned. Place settings in hand, she slid into the only other chair at the table, intent on watching the process while luxuriating in the smell of searing garlic and mushrooms.

It was a topic of contention in Lee’s household, the tremors. They had been there for years, but Rebecca refused to acknowledge their existence beyond curt, ready-made responses or flat-out refusal if her temper was up. The only two people privy to the issue were Em and Taft, and that chafed at Lee worse than sand in a sunburn. To be purposefully left out of the information circle, barred from knowing what was happening or why, for reasons unknown hurt. She’d tried everything short of begging but would receive the same regurgitated reply.

“What are you working on today?” Rebecca asked, setting the sizzling skillet between them. Lee had already filled their glasses with water and helped herself to a cheesy spoonful of omelet after serving her mother.

Today’s a big day. Like the big day.

“Oh? And what celebrations are in order?”

I’m getting the hydro machine up and running, she beamed, happy a mouth full of food didn’t inhibit her speech. I finally got the hydraulics calibrated and the pipes fitted into the cistern above. I’m so close. I can taste it. She punctuated her point by taking another hearty bite.

“If you need a second hand, I’m free,” Rebecca offered, picking at her food with half-hearted interest.

Really? Lee gasped in delight, cheese and onion sticking to her teeth when she grinned.

“Swallow.” Rebecca rolled her eyes with an affectionate smile. “And yes.”

Yes! Yes, I’d love the help! Mother-daughter workday! Lee punched the air excitedly. We’ve not had one of those in a long time.

“Too long. I’ve been so busy making sure we’re set for summer and further expansion into the tunnels. I feel like I’ve neglected our time together.”

Unable to stomach the guilt slumping her mother’s shoulders, Lee reached across the table and took her hand, ignoring how prominent Rebecca’s knuckles were becoming. I know why you’ve been busy, and it’s okay. I’m grateful for any time we get to spend together. I know things have been a little crazy since the beginning of the year.

Lee tried not to mention Alex, unsure how much she could hide if her mother looked at her close enough. She wasn’t ready to tell her about Alex. There was still too much strain tangled in her existence.

“How did I get so lucky to have a daughter like you?”

The comment came out of left field and landed like a warm splat against Lee’s heart. Rebecca wasn’t a sentimental woman. The few times Lee saw her as she actually was — the caring, loving, expressive woman under the aloof mask — was during quiet moments like these, and she cherished them.

I could say the same thing about mothers. She winked. Guess something in the universe just wanted it that way.

They finished their meal at a leisurely pace, neither feeling there was an immediate rush. Once the table was cleaned, Lee gathered her blueprints and met her mother in the lab, catching Rebecca admiring the behemoth.

“This really is an astounding machine.”

Lee bobbed her head, hiding a blush as she cleared her workbench. Pats was one hell of a woman designing it.

“Don’t discount your own abilities. You’ve brought her vision to life. Have you hooked up the water intake?”

I was going to save that for last just in case the welds don’t stick.

“I don’t think there’s a worry of that. Go ahead and run the pipes. I’ll start soldering wires for the circuit board.”

Without further hesitation, Lee climbed into the monster and began working. The two fell into a steady rhythm, helped along by a combination of Rebecca’s series of eight tracks and the radio. Time passed without notice. They laughed and traded jokes, tried to sing a few parts of favorite songs, comfortable in their world of raw technology and engineering. And the few times Rebecca dropped a pair of pliers, missed with a wrench, or her hands shook too much for her to solder were met with guarded winces or studiously ignored.

You ready? A greasy Lee bounced with jittery excitement sometime in the late evening, fingers gripping the lever that would determine the fate of her machine and the Underground.

“At your command,” Rebecca gestured, a proud smile quirking the edges of her lips. The lab was dark, lights either dimmed or switched off so they could determine whether or not the hydroelectric machine was doing its job and to prevent unnecessary explosions.

And Lee said… let there be light!

The lever fell, clicking into place with heavy finality. At first, nothing happened, which was to be expected. The machine was slow to rise from its slumber, but when it did, the room shook. Pipes groaned. Pressure increased. Pistons began to make slow revolutions, driving hydraulics deep in the belly of the beast. In the semi-darkness, it was like hearing the approach of a mechanical heartbeat.

Gauges reading steady, Lee said, catching sight of a cluster of needle gauges next to her, fingers still clenched around the lever just in case she had to terminate.

“It will hold.”

Pressure is rising into the green. We’re looking good. Still no power to the valves.

“Give it a moment.” Rebecca smiled, feeding off her daughter’s excitement.

Almost… almost… there!

Smashing a blinking green button, Lee activated the final catch, and the machine burst into action. Overhead, the dormant lights flickered into existence like stars sucking in life-giving nebula gas.

Yes! Lee jumped away from the machine, arms straight up. She went back to the gauges, checked again, saw they were holding steady, and began bouncing around the room. It works! It really works! Mother, we did it!

Overcome, she wrapped her mother in a tight hug and swung her around, both women laughing like fools.

We can get off the grid now. We’re completely self-sustaining.

“I knew you could do it!” Rebecca grinned into her daughter’s messy mop of hair, kissing the top of her head multiple times. “I’ll go find Em. She’ll want to see this.”

Think a celebratory pizza might be in order? Lee called, feeling like she was a helium balloon.

Rebecca gave a thumbs up over her shoulder. “Make the call, my wild little scientist.”

Lee fist-pumped, spinning in place, watching her baby rumble through its first few moments of life. Four years’ worth of work finally coming to fruition. If she spread her arms, she swore she could fly.

Climbing into the pipes near the ceiling, Lee double-checked her fittings just to be sure, still skittish even with things up and running. Thread lock in hand, she was just about to apply a healthy dose to a loose nut when a series of beeps gave her pause. Those hadn’t come from the machine and were too regular to be background noise. Leaning out, Lee listened again and tracked the source to her radio. Odd; it sounded like Morse Code.

Climbing down and cleaning oil from her hands on her stained jeans, Lee snatched up the speaker attached to a long, kinky cord. Message received. You are a go for Lee, she radioed in, using the clicker on the side to tap out her message.

It’s Lucas, came the reply seconds later. Is it safe to speak?

Frowning — Insiders always radioed Mother directly with inquiries unless Lee had a secret order on hand… and as far as she could remember, no orders were pending — Lee radioed back she was alone and to go ahead.

“God, I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour. I need you to come Topside and get Mother’s package.”

We’re not expecting anything.

“This was rush ordered, and I don’t like delivering shit like this.”

She got you running tampons again? What’d you do to piss her off?

“No, it’s...” Lucas hesitated. “Taft ordered it. Insisted it was an emergency, but you tell him when you get back, I can’t be his mule.”

Alarm bells sounded in Lee’s mind. Mule? What’s the package?

“Just get up here. I’ll be by the East entrance at my usual spot.”

Lucas, what are you carrying? But there was no further reply.

Letting the speaker drop and bracing her hands on the table, Lee tried to wrap herself around the message. Drugs? No, that wasn’t right. Nothing like that was permitted in the Underground. Not even liquor could make it past the upper tunnels. Mother had strict rules. People were searched before they came in, and no orders for either substance could be made from Insiders, so Lucas must have meant something else. Right?

He’d said it was an emergency. What emergency?

Knitting her fingers behind her head and bending until her forehead touched the cool metal table, Lee let her mind bounce back and forth like a ping pong ball. Something wasn’t right. She could feel it in her gut.

Shit… shit!

With no clear alternative and Lucas waiting, Lee hurried from the lab, grabbing the hoodie she’d designated for Topside excursions and a scarf. She did her best to duck out without anyone noticing — leaving a note for Mother saying she was intercepting their pizza delivery — and stuck to the lesser-used passages.

Emerging into the upper tunnels, Lee moved as sure-footed as a mountain goat, her subterranean home falling away to the openness of a breezy New York night. Spring was almost behind them, the air warming with each passing day. Head down and hands tucked into her pocket, she jogged to the meeting location, using the shadows as cover. Lucas liked to rendezvous under a grove of oak trees, using the canopy and underbrush as a shield. Tonight, he paced like a cat in a cage.

“Christ, it took you long enough,” he hissed when Lee emerged.

“You radioed me like forty minutes ago,” she signed, scowling at the rude welcome. Much like with Taft, Lee hadn’t made a telepathic connection with Lucas, and no one knew why. “Chill your jets.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucas apologized, rubbing the back of his head. “I just...tell Taft this is the last time I make a run like this. I don’t fucking care what he wants it for. I don’t run shit like this anymore.”

Before Lee could object or even ask, a tightly wrapped brick of black cellophane was pushed into her hands along with two bottles of pills. Her chest clenched, understanding hitting her like a brick in the back. These really were drugs.

“I don’t understand.” She grabbed her friend before he could dart off, stuffing the package into her hoodie pocket. “Drugs aren’t allowed in the Underground.”

“Yeah, well, apparently they are now.”

“Tell me what’s in the cellophane.”

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“Lucas–”

“We can’t do this here!” he snapped, shooting a nervous look over his shoulder. Lee swallowed, his unease bleeding into her. “I don’t think I was followed, but this whole deal almost went sideways earlier. So, you tell Taft what I told you. I’m not going to be his mule–”

Two things happened simultaneously. One: four magnum flashlights winked into existence like tiny spotlights, bathing the clearing in blinding white light. Two: six figures emerged from the thicket like ghosts sliding out of fog.

“NYPD!” someone shouted at the top of their lungs to their right. “Get on the ground! Get on the ground now!”

APB

Lee spun, fear sinking its claws into her as she squinted through the glare of the flashlight beams. Instinct drove her into a protective crouch, the chasm between her people and Topside growing that much wider as the reality of her situation struck home.

Here, she was a stranger.

Here, she was a threat.

And when they saw her face...

Everywhere her eyes darted loomed approaching silhouettes, dominant arms extended. Guns. They had guns. Lucas must have come to the same realization because he spun and screamed, “Go!” before tackling the closest officer, drawing attention away from his panicked friend.

Lee’s legs were springs released by a hairpin trigger. She launched into motion, bowling past two stunned officers and diving into the underbrush. There was no finesse to her movement. No skilled footfalls or flashy moves. This was the terrified scramble of prey fleeing a predator.

“I said on the ground, you son of a bitch!”

Pop! Pop!

Something whizzed by her shoulder, grazing her hoodie with the whine of an angry hornet. Another nicked the tip of her ear, but Lee heard and felt nothing. It was like the gunfire was stuck on a loop in her head, echoing until it became a cacophonous static blending with the churning of her lungs.

She made it a reasonable distance before a set of arms wrapped around her waist, dragging her to the ground. Earth and sky traded places with a stinging slap, the taste of soil and fallen leaves exploding against her senses when her head bounced off the ground. Pain lanced across the stitches in Lee’s scalp, the healing wound catching fire like someone trying to wedge their finger into the puckered seam.

The world blackened and dimmed, fuzzing out the park and the sound of the officer climbing noisily to his feet. Gasping on her stomach, an arc of something powerful and hot snaked down Lee’s spine, coiling her inward. For a split second, she thought she was trapped on the business end of a taser, dragged into a ball by muscles she no longer controlled, had she not felt a shift come from inside her body as if she was a hatching chrysalis.

Something pushed against the metaphorical bars of her ribs, a face peering from within a flesh and blood prison cell. Out, it demanded. Protect, it promised, reaching clawed fingers through its cage.

Help! Lee pleaded to the darkness, and the door cracked open.

Sucked into a kaleidoscopic tunnel, Lee felt her mind detach and drift above her body as it filled with pressure and heat. Her skin was hot tar poured over the fiery coals of her bones. Her blood was steam pushing at deforming joints and twisting ligaments, but she was only aware of this from a thankful distance.

Movement.

Booted footfalls.

Human snarling.

“When I tell you to get on the fucking ground, you get on the motherfucking–”

The officer never got the chance to finish his sentence, taken to the ground when the coiled figure he mistook for prey suddenly became the predator. Screaming filled the night with the wild thrashing of teeth and claws peeling flesh from bone. Bones that bent and broke, painted red with blood and muscle. The screaming intensified, but the sound was sheared of humanity, rendered into a feral roar belted from a mouth glistening with gore.

Quiet. Quiet! Quiet goddamnit!

Quiet meant safety, and they wouldn’t be safe until there was no more noise. But he was still screaming, still moving, and reaching for his radio to bring more noisemakers. Couldn’t have that. So a hand grabbed him by the throat and spun him around, throwing him like he had done to her… to them. Never mind the head now bent at an awkward angle, white bone glinting gray in the darkness. Never mind the skin opening, painting the leaves in crimson. There was silence. Yes, blessed silence at last, and that was all that mattered.

Panting, slipping into a crouch, a new world vibrated with alien colors and sensations. Noise came from afar. More noisemakers coming with lights cutting like knives through the dark. They were running again with iron in their nose and meat in their fangs.

Safe. Safe. Where was safe?

Auburn hair. Blue eyes. Smile like sunshine.

If I’m not safe, she’s not safe, Lee told the pilot pulling her strings. Keep her safe.

The pilot turned, sniffed the air, and dove into an unfamiliar city.

Across town, Georgia swung into her car, head flopping back once the door clicked shut. She and Alex had been combing through MIT records for the better part of four hours, and her eyes were feeling the strain.

“Like being back on desk duty,” she muttered, rubbing moisture back into her sockets with her thumb and forefinger. Reaching for her coffee thermos, Georgia sipped the dark roast, content on letting her car warm up. She’d be happy once they put winter fully behind them. There was no telling how much longer her old blue Chevy would last.

“Gotta give me at least two more years, baby girl.” She patted the dash fondly and turned up the heat.

Out of habit and just a little boredom, Georgia flipped on the police scanner attached to her dashboard, listening half-heartedly to the chatter as she scanned the channels until a frantic call made her stop.

“135 to dispatch, we have an officer down! I repeat, 65 is down. Need rescue here yesterday! Suspect still at large!”

“Jesus Christ! It looks like a bear attacked him!” Another officer on scene shouted in the background.

“What in the fresh fuck?” Georgia frowned between sips, turning up the volume.

“Confirmed, 135. Rescue en route to your location,” the dispatcher calmly stated over the speaker. “Do you have a description?”

“Suspect fled the scene wearing a maroon hoodie, dark jeans, black or blue scarf, and dark shoes. Considered armed and dangerous.”

“Well shit,” Georgia harrumphed. “Must be a busy night in Central–” She almost hit the roof of her car, spilling her coffee in the process, when someone slid across the hood, metal squealing in its wake. Unhampered by the obstacle, the figure continued their dead run as Georgia ripped open her door and screamed at their retreating form.

“Yeah, you better keep running, you goddamn– what the fuck did you do to my car!?” Mouth agape, she stared in dumbfounded disbelief at five long claw marks raked through the fading paint of her hood. “Is fucking Wolverine running around the city?!”

Whipping back around, she caught a glimpse of a maroon hoodie and black pants as the figure darted into the alley and shot up the fire escape like a seasoned gymnast, barely touching the rails.

Maroon hoodie...

“Oh, fuck no. No way.” Georgia ran across the road for a better look and squinted into the dark. It was hard to tell where the figure was going, shadows and the steel of the fire escape distorting their position, until it stopped on the eighth floor outside Alex’s window.

Sprinting back to her car, Georgia snatched her radio and dialed into the correct channel. “Dispatch, this is Georgia Battle, do you copy?”

“Get off this channel,” came a growled reply from the other line. “This is for active personnel only.”

“Shut the fuck up, Teddy. I’ve got a visual on your APB. Heading south on West 75th street. Just climbed a fire escape. Looks to be heading into the adjacent apartment building.”

“Stay put, Battle. You wait for us.”

“Bullshit I will, you prick,” Georgia spat after dropping the radio. She wasn’t about to wait and unholstered her gun.

Does Not Compute

Rolling her neck to stretch the tension out of a mounting migraine, Alex reclined on her sofa, arms thrown over the back, content on letting her spine stretch from its four-hour hunch. She and Georgia had spent an uneventful afternoon weeding through files and hadn’t broken any further ground on Rebecca. Dead ends were par for the course in a journalist’s line of work. When one door closed, another opened, but Alex was starting to worry Rebecca’s case wasn’t as much a case of the wrong door as it was the wrong house, wrong street, wrong state.

Deciding she’d flogged herself enough for one night and deserved a proper retreat into relaxation, Alex rose with the aching groan of a truly ancient thirty-five-year-old and headed for the bathroom. A hot shower, maybe another glass of wine, and bed were very much in her future. In that exact order. She was already running through her mental list of chilled beverages when the sound of someone racing up the fire escape nabbed her attention.

Odd.

Positioned in the hall just out of sight of her windows, Alex felt her pulse quicken when a figure swung over the railing and landed crouched on the fire escape. What should have been a wash of trepidation turned into a burst of excitement she had to grin through. Leave it to Lee to sneak out again and climb her tower like Alex was some kind of stranded princess.

Rerouting back into the dark living room, Alex flipped on a light and threw the security latches on her window, opening it enough for a body to climb through with ease.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this after-hours venture?” she challenged, crossing her arms. What Alex expected was the start of witty banter. What she got was silence. The silhouette shifted but remained outside the pool of light cast by the tableside lamp, and the strangeness of this gave Alex pause.

“Well? Are you coming in, or do I need to entice you with more reheated food?” Her smile was genuine with just a hint of apprehension at the edges. Again, the shadow neglected to respond, and a seed of doubt put down roots in Alex’s subconscious, spreading cold fingers across her shoulders. Was something wrong?

“Lee?”

Alex crouched, leveling herself with the figure to get a better look at what the night hid and felt the whole of her reality twist and splinter. No time to recoil. No time to speak or breathe or think as the crisp line between fantasy and reality blew away in the gale-force winds of a hooded head lifting, illuminating eyes like cold stars nestled in a face plucked from hell.

A hand reached out and curled around the bottom of the frame, long fingers smeared in sticky red sliding into the light. A leg joined the first appendage, the womb of darkness beyond the safety of Alex’s home birthing a nightmare that unfurled like a sinister flower in her living room.

Too long of limb. Too lean of figure. It was a mockery of human proportion while still maintaining recognizable traits. Forward balanced on the balls of its feet, the thing that wore a hellish, mottled distortion of Lee’s face advanced with the smooth ease of a stalking puma.

Forced backward — ground given and taken in what felt like a deadly dance — Alex tried to put something, anything, structural between herself and this… this monster but sorely misjudged her retreat when the backs of her legs bumped the sofa. Gracelessly falling into the cushions, she didn’t have the wherewithal to try and catch herself. Instead, she braced with a full body recoil when the feral shadow of her friend closed the distance.

Eyes screwed shut, Alex trapped a breath that could well and truly be her last in her chest and willed herself not to move. That’s how it always went in movies when the monster approached, right? Easier said than done when she was being throttled between reality-bending confusion and pants-pissing terror of unforgiving claws pushing into the naked skin of her thighs.

A muggy breath tinged with the copper penny smell of blood washed against her cheek. Sharp, rhythmic sniffs orbited her head. Alex had the sense she was being evaluated, weighed, and measured against an unknown scale, but for what she couldn’t fathom. A nose butted her jaw, making her wince with a whimper that jumped into a startled gasp when she felt the wide plane of a hot tongue swiped along the top of her collarbone.

Alex’s eyes popped open out of pure instinct and locked onto the beast above her, an altogether different sensation spread pins and needles through her torso. Framed by brown locks tangled with leaf debris, the bloated, rearranged face inches from hers resembled less of the woman she knew and more of a half-finished Halloween prosthetic. It was as if the artist had abandoned a wolf muzzle mid-sculpt and haphazardly pushed the clay back into a semi-human shape. The proportions were there but were… wrong.

But it was her.

It was Lee.

Because who else on this godforsaken planet could it be? But more importantly, what the fuck was happening, and why were there dried smears of blood on her chin and hands?

Holding the moment, beast and beauty stared at one another, lost in the thaw of fear giving way to impassioned concern. With new eyes, Alex saw the bruising and recognized its pattern from the night with the bat. Could it be related? It had to be.

“Lee?” she called in a shaky whisper, eyes searching for signs of her friend in the ocean of the woman’s near pupilless eyes, hoping to hear a needed voice brush the tangled web of her consciousness.

“Alex!”

Not the voice she wanted to hear.

The shout from the hall was immediately followed by the riotous concussion of a door being kicked in. Shrapnel flew from the broken frame as Georgia thundered into the apartment. Somewhere, in the calmer depths of her mind, Alex wanted to know why the universe held a personal vendetta against her door because, at this rate, she might as well just hang a sheet. In the present, however, all she could do was yelp and duck.

“Get away from the window! Someone–” Georgia took one look into the room, saw something her mind couldn’t compute, and dropped every ounce of color in her face at the same time she leveled her gun.

Oh fuck.

Oh no.

Alex knew before the next breath passed her lips what was about to happen. She could feel Lee’s already tense body coil, the hands on her thighs curling as she pivoted on the balls of her feet toward a new threat. Fangs on full display, the deep purpling discoloring her features darkened further, making the phosphorescent of her eyes an electric blue rimmed in black.

Lee was going to lunge.

Georgia was going to shoot.

Alex would lose two people in one night unless she gambled with the only chip she had available.

Launching off the sofa, Alex picked the closest target and dove into Lee’s anticipated attack like a professional grappler, wrapping her arms around the woman’s disfigured waist and twisting hard with her hips. Strong Alex might not have been, but with leverage and momentum on her side, she was able to momentarily lift Lee off the ground and pivot her away from the door with a squeal of sweaty flesh against hardwood.

“Leanna!” she shouted over and over as her friend fought to be free. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Calm down.”

Alex could hear Georgia swearing, more than likely due to her inability to line up a clear shot, and tucked further into Lee who intensified her thrashing with a frustrated roar that rattled Alex’s ribcage. The two stutter-stepped across the floor in a deadly tango, feral fire pitted against the drive to keep one of the best things in Alex’s life alive.

“Lee, I know you’re in there,” she pleaded, somehow managing to get the smaller woman pinned against the wall. Forehead to forehead, she ensured she filled Lee’s vision, forcing her to see her and only her. “I know it’s you. Hear me. See me. Focus on me. I’m right here.”

The beast pushed back, death in its eyes and carnage promised on its fangs. Its strength was tremendous, but Alex was terrified and desperate. She held on. Squeezed tight. Wrapped Lee in her arms and felt the bulging joints and straining muscles stiffen before they began to slacken as the high of adrenaline faded.

“You’re okay.” Alex risked freeing one of Lee’s arms so she could stroke her cheek and keep her focus forward. “Come back to me. Come back. I’m right here. Look at me. That’s it.”

Like a spooked hound readjusting to its surroundings, feral rage stubbornly melted against Alex’s familiarity, giving way to painful gulps of unsteady breaths and water limbs. Lee’s body sagged against the wall, blue eyes losing their glow as the black of her pupils expanded.

W-What’s– Lee suddenly arched with a cry, chest cracking like a stick broken over a knee. The sound and sight of the bone resetting made Alex want to gag, but she was too focused on keeping Lee’s eyes from sliding back into her head.

“No, no, no, stay awake, honey. Stay with me.”

Make the n-noise st-stop.

“What noise? Lee, what–”

“Alex, I’m going to need you to move.” The command was punctuated by the mechanical click of a bullet sliding into a chamber.

Cold dread bathed Alex’s skin in ice. She didn’t have to turn to know there was a gun barrel pointed at the back of her head and lifted her hands in a show of surrender.

“Georgia...” Her heart throbbed like a jackhammer when she turned and came face-to-face with the sobering reminder of just how mortal she was. “Please, put the gun down.”

“Get away from it.” Georgia jerked her head to the side in the universal sign for “move,” but Alex didn’t budge, standing to her full height while keeping Lee behind her.

“She’s not an ‘it’. Her name is Leanna, and she’s hurt.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Far as I’m concerned, that’s a wild animal. Step. Away.”

“I’m going to have to ask you not to refer to my friend as an animal and to lower your weapon.” Alex might have applauded herself for maintaining an Oscar-worthy poker face while staring down the barrel of a very loaded, very live weapon had it not been for that very loaded, very live weapon. Was this bravery or stupidity? Both. It was both.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Then you’re going to shoot your friend.”

A standoff ensued, and the two would have remained deadlocked had the sound of multiple sirens not thrown a brick through the fragile silence. Even eight stories up, the blue flash of cruiser lights illuminated the windows and stone of the surrounding buildings.

“There’s an APB out for a suspect who attacked a cop in Central Park tonight,” Georgia glowered over the top of her 9mm. “Maroon hoodie, black pants, dark shoes. Funnily enough, that’s what I’m looking at behind you with blood on its hands and face. So what happens next is up to you.”

Alex let the scope of the situation settle around her like the fall of down feathers. Something happened tonight, but it couldn’t be what Georgia described. However, one look behind her at Lee slumped on the floor — face, hands, and body retracting into normal proportions like a nightmarish flower closing — made her wonder… made her doubt… made her question.

“I can vouch for her.” She said it and meant it, already deciding which side of the fence she would make her stand on.

“Tell the officers that when I take her down. They can decide things at the station.”

“She saved my life the night I was taken. Lee’s the reason I survived, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt she didn’t attack anyone without cause. I’d stake both my life and career on it,” Alex tried again, floundering for a way to break through to her friend.

“It attacked a cop in Central Park! What part of that don’t you get?”

“She!” Alex corrected loudly, making Lee whimper. “Lee is a she, and you don’t know if she did or didn’t.”

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m looking at, Alex! That’s what I do know! The APB matches, and she left five claw marks across the hood of my car that will probably match the claw marks left behind on the officer she mauled. So I’m not making assumptions; I’m following the evidence.”

“APBs can be wrong. The Park was dark. It could have been someone else in dark clothing. This is all circumstantial at best.”

“You know that’s bullshit,” Georgia spat.

“And I also know you’re not an officer anymore,” Alex countered, spine straight even if there was a quiver in her voice. “You don’t have the authority to make me move. You are a civilian with a weapon drawn on another civilian.”

Thunder rumbled in the crease of Georgia’s brow, and lightning flashed in her brown eyes.

“Look at her, Georgia!” Alex made a sweeping gesture, stepping aside enough to reveal the barely conscious form on her floor. It didn’t escape her notice the PI flinched, eyes and brain struggling to compute with one another. “What do you think the police will do when they see her? You think they’ll calmly cuff her and put her in a squad car, or are they going to open fire? What’s going to happen when they get to the station and find out she’s nonverbal? Better yet, what’s going to stop them or someone from the City from taking her to the first available lab?”

That struck a nerve. Alex watched doubt creep into Georgia’s stance, the hard set of her shoulder loosening as she lowered her gun a fraction.

“Look, I know this goes against everything you know, but Lee can’t go with them. She’s not even supposed to be up here, let alone in my apartment. If something happened tonight, she was provoked. Topside isn’t her world.” Alex saw Georgia take the bait and pounced. “Yes, you heard right, and I’ll tell you everything about where I was for the months I was missing if you make the police leave.”

In any other situation, Alex knew bargaining would have been met with stubborn resistance, but this was an extraordinary predicament. Lee didn’t match the standard hallmarks for a human, and Alex knew that. She understood the confusion and fear Georgia was feeling, having felt them herself, but there wasn’t a chance in hell Lee would be walking through her broken front door to be led down to a firing squad.

“You really want to take that gamble?”

“I know I’m asking a lot–”

“Yeah, you are!” Georgia exploded, startling Alex. “I’ve already put my life on the line looking into a mob hit and a missing person for you, and now you’re demanding I do the same for my career and credibility all for some freak with fucking teeth and claws!”

Georgia spun away, shoving her gun back into its holster. “You and I had a contract, one I could terminate at any point, and I’m doing that now. I don’t care how much you’re paying me. I have morals just like everyone else in this city, and you’re asking me to piss on all of that. I’m not a vending machine you get to kick and shake until you get what you want out of me!”

“She’s my friend,” Alex said lamely, at a loss.

“Yeah, I thought I was too.”

Trapped in a sinking ship with no hope of reaching safe harbor, Alex threw out the one lifeline she had at her disposal, knowing the can of worms it was about to open.

“Lee is Rebecca’s adopted daughter. I’ll tell you everything.”

Silence.

“You told me when we first met you shouldn’t have ignored those women who came into the precinct looking for help only to be written off as hysterical. They were ignored, and something terrible happened to them because of it. That’s what’s going to happen if you take Lee down to the officers. Please, Georgia.”

Alex searched her friend’s face for signs of anything recognizable and was saddened by the betrayal drawing Georgia away from her. It took several seconds for the PI to compose herself, going through a series of facial journeys in the process.

“When I get back, I want the whole truth,” she hissed, low and dark. “And if it isn’t what I want to hear, you and I are done. Fucking done, Alex, do you understand me?”

All Alex could manage was a frozen nod as Georgia stalked out of the apartment, unsuccessfully closing the broken door behind her.

Riddle Me This

“Lee? Hey, I’m gonna need you to open your eyes.”

It took several agonizing seconds for the Undergrounder to respond, but she came around, blue eyes cracking open to squint up at Alex. Relief should have been instant, but there were only a thousand and one questions mixed with nauseating dread that made Alex feel like she was standing on the storm-tossed deck of a ship.

“Hey,” she tried to smile but couldn’t quite complete the expression. “Do you think you can stand?”

Lee gave a jerky nod that came with sound effects as more joints popped and resettled.

“Okay, I’m going to help you to the bathroom.”

You’re... wrong. H-hurt that m-man.

Their connection was spotty, Lee’s voice crackling in Alex’s head from what felt like a significant distance, but it was a balm she didn’t know she needed.

“We’ll talk more about what happened once I get you cleaned up.” The reassurance, however, wasn’t hitting its intended mark.

Don’t wanna hurt you, Lee whimpered, tears sliding from the corner of her eyes when something low in her pelvis popped.

“You’d never hurt me.” Which felt like a half-truth because Alex wasn’t so sure after coming face to face with something she couldn’t explain and firmly planted in the realms of the paranormal. Maybe even the supernatural.

Lee shook her head and snarled through a low hiss when the elongated joints of her fingers snapped back to human length. Something in here… with me. Hurt him and don’t remember. It could… hurt you too… I think.

Alex couldn’t wrap her head around what “something in here” meant other than the gut-sucking fear a monster lurked under Lee’s skin, but she pushed the comment away in lieu of another shot at soft reassurance. She really, really needed to get Lee cleaned up before Georgia returned.

“Listen to me.” She cupped the smaller woman’s face but kept her touch light in case the bruises felt as bad as they looked. “If I was afraid of you or what you could do, I would have let Georgia take you downstairs. I know you would never hurt someone intentionally. So please trust my judgment, and trust me. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

When Lee finally came around, she was led at a glacial pace to the master bathroom and helped out of her clothes, but that was where both women stopped cold. In the fresh yellow light of the bathroom, Lee’s body was a patchwork quilt of abuse. The bruising pooled in oily splotches of black, purple, and yellow around every joint as if someone had painstakingly painted a map of her skeleton atop her skin. From the back, each vertebrae and accompanying rib was highlighted like sickly islands in a pale sea. From the front, the ghosts of her grizzly transformation painted her face, chest, arms and hands in black ink.

What’s happening to me? Lee sobbed down at her body, barely able to blink away tears as she looked at her bruised hands that slid over her mouth when she caught her reflection.

“Hey, hey.” Alex swooped and turned her attention away from the mirror. “Focus on me. We’ll figure this out together, but one step at a time. First, let’s get you cleaned up.”

The shower sputtered to life in a gout of sparkling water, and before long, the room filled with drifting steam. Leaving Lee to shower in privacy, Alex collected her friend’s bloody clothing and stuffed them into a trash bag. When a black cellophane brick and two bottles of pills fell out of her hoodie pocket they went unnoticed until Alex accidentally kicked them, sending the bottles rattling across the carpet. The brick was… concerning. She wasn’t naive enough to surmise it was something innocuous, but she also didn’t want to believe the worst. Not yet, so she set the pills and brick on her nightstand and dug out a soft pair of sweatpants and an old college sweatshirt.

Returning to the bathroom, Alex rapped her knuckles once on the door before entering and walked into the heartbreaking sight of Lee, wrapped in a towel, slumped on the seat of Alex’s toilet like a dejected prom date. Hair damp and stringy around her discolored shoulders, she didn’t look up until Alex crouched in front of her and put the clothes in her lap, but even that only earned a skittish glance.

I met Lucas in the park, Lee said, hugging the clothes to her chest like they possessed the power to ward off all the bad things in the world. He had a package for Mother, but something went wrong. The police were there. They surrounded us. Lucas told me to run. They couldn’t see me. And I… I don’t... She squeezed her eyes shut. I don’t know how it happened. There was so much noise. I think someone was shooting at me–

“The officer shot at you?” Alex’s eyebrows jumped. Unconsciously, she made a quick sweep for bullet holes before remembering she’d seen Lee partially naked a few minutes ago and would have noticed a wound like that.

He told me to get on the ground. When I didn’t, he shot at me and then everything… everything got so loud, and I felt. I felt… different. I still feel different. Like there’s someone pushing through my chest. I can’t concentrate. Lee dug the heel of one palm into her right eye, grimacing. It’s taking everything in me to just talk to you, and I don’t know why. I’m scared, Alex! I know what’s happening, but I think I really did kill someone!

“No, honey, no,” she soothed. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

I hurt someone then.

“You were protecting yourself.”

Once dressed and the majority of her hair detangled, Alex led Lee back to the living room so she could check in on Georgia’s progression with the police. Through her shades, Alex spotted her speaking with a cluster of men in uniform surrounding her car. More than once, she pointed between the Chevy’s hood and the alley, hands gesturing wildly. Whatever story she was telling the men, it was big. Alex couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. This went on for another five minutes until the officers climbed back into their cars and rolled off.

It was a victory that came at an astronomical price, and Alex didn’t feel like much of a winner.

“Lee,” she sighed, taking the empty space beside her friend on the sofa. She’d given Lee a glass of water that went untouched as the act of closing her hands around anything right now caused her pain. “My friend Georgia is coming back up here, and I’m going to have to explain a lot of things to her before we can address what happened in the park, okay? She’s not going to hurt you or me. I need you to know that. She was just–”

A little surprised by my face? It’s okay. I’m used to it. The comment came out so bland and matter-of-fact, Alex felt her heart stutter. Are you going to tell her about the Underground?

A knife twisted in Alex’s side. “I don’t have a choice, but Georgia’s beyond trustworthy. I trust her as much as I trust you. She won’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with her.”

Two minutes later, the PI returned just as grim and pissed as when she left.

“Don’t ask me how it went,” she warned when she shouldered her way through Alex’s broken door. “We had a deal. Now you tell me everything from start to finish, and I decide if you and I go any further. But before that lovely chat happens, I have a few questions for your… friend.”

“Fair enough.” Alex moved from the couch to the armrest beside Lee, motioning for Georgia to join them. She came around, spotted a skittish-looking Lee watching her from the opposite end, and froze. Alex had turned on a few lights in her absence, giving Georgia a clear view of the… thing.

Please don’t punch me because I’m ugly. The bruising is new.

Georgia went rigid, fingers itching to move for her gun. “How’d you do that?”

It was Lee and Alex’s turn to startle. “You heard her?”

She can hear me?

Georgia looked between the two with the razor-sharp indignation of someone kept from an inside joke. “If you all think I’m in the mood for games after what I just had to do–”

“We’re not messing with you, I swear. Lee, um...” Alex’s mind flipped through explanations, grasping at straws. “You know how Professor Xavier from X-Men can speak with his mind? Lee can do that.”

That’s a nice way of putting it.

Georgia pivoted in a slow rotation to face Alex. “I don’t find this funny.”

“Neither did I when she started talking to me this way when we first met, but you get used to it. Lee suffered a brain injury as a child that rendered her nonverbal. Somehow her body found another way to communicate. Just… go with it.”

“Yeah, sure, okay.” Georgia’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Just go with it. Go with the idea I’m talking to a mutant with mind powers.”

“Please don’t call her a–”

“Okay, wolf girl, riddle me this,” Georgia spoke over Alex, taking a spread-legged seat on the coffee table. Elbows on her knees and hands dangling between her thighs, she looked for all the world like an old-school interrogator. “How did an officer wind up with a flayed face and a popped jugular?”

Lee paled, shifting back so much it looked like she was trying to climb the backrest. Is he dead?

“That’s not what I asked. I asked–”

Is he dead!? she shouted, startling Georgia enough she almost slipped from her seat. Alex abandoned her perch and swooped in to calm Lee before she could shift again.

“Fuck! It’s like she’s inside my head in stereo.” Georgia wiggled a finger in her ear like it would make a damn bit of good.

“Is the officer alive?” Alex pressed, picking up the thread of conversation.

“He’s in critical condition. That’s all I was told, so I’d like an explanation as to why I’m letting this...” Georgia made vague gestures at Lee.

“Lee,” Alex snapped. “Use her name.”

“Fine. Lee. Why do I get to let you walk out of here after something like that?”

He chased me, she explained in a small voice. Shot at me when I wouldn’t stop running and then tackled me. After that, everything goes blank. I don’t remember hurting him. I just remember needing to get away.

“He was chasing you because you had drugs on you,” Georgia deadpanned, her flat judgmental gaze drifting to Alex. “Oh, she didn’t mention that? This was a drug bust.”

“That’s no reason to shoot at someone running away!” Alex almost exploded.

“Of course it’s fucking not!” Georgia replied at the same volume. “I’m laying out the facts I was given against what I’m seeing and being told by a second party.”

I didn’t know Lucas had drugs! Lee pleaded. He was supposed to be getting medicine for Mother. Taft made the order, not me! Lucas called me but wouldn’t say what was in the package!

“Lucas was getting you medicine?” Alex came to sudden attention. The pill bottles.

“If you’re talking about Lucas Pine, the PD got an anonymous tip someone was stealing pharmaceuticals for redistribution. Description matched the man arrested tonight, but he’s refusing to say what he was carrying or who he was meeting. I guess now we know why.”

Without prompting, Alex rose and went to the bathroom, trusting Georgia not to do anything in her absence, and retrieved the black cellophane bundle and two prescription bottles. She placed them on the couch with care. Straight-faced, Georgia pulled a knife from her pocket and sliced into the brick, revealing a leafy green inside.

“This is a brick of pot,” she announced as if the plant’s distinct smell wasn’t a dead giveaway. Next, she snatched the prescription bottles, expecting something generic and marketable but paused at the label.

“These are...” Georgia’s eyebrows drifted together. “Xanazine and Austedo. Anti-chorea meds?”

Alex felt her entire body petrify, limbs and organs turning to stone. She knew those prescriptions. Intimately. Why on earth would Lee need those?

No, not Lee. She said the order had been placed for Rebecca.

Oh, God.

“I don’t know what these are, but I guess the pot is part of the package,” Georgia was saying, missing the crucial pieces Alex held locked behind her teeth. “Okay, why were you picking this up?”

I don’t know. Suddenly standing, which made Georgia’s fingers flex toward her gun, Lee began to pace. I don’t know what any of this means.

“Lee.” One piece of evidence at a time, a grim picture was starting to reveal itself. Alex didn’t want to ask. She didn’t want this prognosis to be true, but she had to know. “What’s wrong with your mother?”

It shocked everyone when Lee stilled, eyes wide and glassy, before she buckled, a hard sob capped behind the hand she slapped over her mouth. All at once, this thing that looked more creature than human became more human than anyone in the room.

I don’t know! she cried, hugging her middle to keep standing. She’s getting worse. Every day the shaking gets worse, and she’s so thin, but no one will tell me anything! They keep brushing off my questions. Is it cancer? Is it something else? I’m not stupid! I can see what’s happening, but even Em refuses to talk about it, and I’m scared, Alex! I’m so scared! I think my mother might be dying, but no one will say anything! Why won’t they talk to me? I have a right to know! I have a right! I’m her daughter!

Gathering the shattered woman into her arms, Alex tried her best not to let her own heart break. To live day after day watching someone you love deteriorate and not knowing the cause was a special kind of hell. One she knew all too well.

“Crap,” Georgia sighed at length, hanging her head. It was clear this wasn’t what she expected walking back up here, so she extracted herself from the moment and went into the kitchen for a large Ziplock bag which she deposited the cellophane brick and pills into. Returning to the living room, Georgia knelt in front of the two, holding the bag between them.

“Okay, I’m going to need something from you.”

Alex’s mouth twisted in anger. “This isn’t the ti–”

“I’m talking. You shut up,” she snapped, eyes on Lee. “Tell me the truth, and God help you if you lie. Did you attack the officer in the Park tonight?”

Yes. Lee’s admission was small and hopeless.

“Was it because you didn’t want to get caught with drugs on you?”

No, and I wouldn’t have taken–

“When did the officer shoot at you?”

When I was running.

“How many times?”

Twice. Lee reached up and touched the top of her right ear where a small piece was missing. I think a bullet nicked my ear.

Georgia unhappily sucked her teeth. “What’s wrong with your mom?”

I don’t know. She was fighting back tears again. But she’s sick.

Different expressions flickered across the woman’s dark face. Some of them Alex recognized. Some remained private, but they all pointed to a hard decision about to be made.

“I want you both to know I don’t like this at all, but I’m not surprised the cops are spinning a different story. Or that our city’s esteemed boys in blue are breaking all kinds of protocol, but that’s beside the point. What is the point is that I believe you, and I’m going to tell you where we go from here. You need to get this medicine home. Do you all… umm, have a doctor wherever you are? If not, I have connections at one of the local hospitals who might be able to help.”

Lee took the offered package, rubbing away salt from under her eyes. Thank you, but we have Taft. He’s been our physician for years.

Georgia nodded, accepting that. “Well, I think things have settled down enough we can get you home.”

“You can stay here if you’d like. I don’t mind,” Alex offered, nervous about leaving Lee alone in her current state to wander the tunnels.

I shouldn’t even be up here. I left Mother a note that I was getting pizza. I should get home before she sends Em to find me, but umm… I can’t go back without food. Redness crept up her neck until she did a one-eighty and paled, a hand coming to rest her cheek. I can’t let my mother see me like this. What am I going to do?

“Tell you what.” Georgia slapped her knees and stood. “I’ll put in a rush order at a place down the street and get you a pie. You get yourself, I don’t know, covered up with some makeup or whatever, and when I get back, Alex and I will get you home.”

“Georgia, you don’t have–”

“Oh, yes I do,” she cut in tersely, “because you and I have a lot to talk about.”

Sensing she’d pushed her luck to its limit, Alex agreed and helped get Lee ready for her trip home. Though their skin tones were starkly different, Alex found a concealer thick enough to diminish the bruises and showed Lee how to apply it. She was far more nervous leaving the apartment this time, sticking close to Alex and Georgia. The PI opted to stay behind in the alley when they reached the appliance store, giving Lee and Alex privacy to say goodbye.

Thanks again for rescuing me.

“I guess we’re one-for-one now,” Alex teased, hesitant to let Lee’s hand go, thumb ghosting across her knuckles.

I… Lee looked like she was trying to swallow a twig. Tonight was… tonight shouldn’t have happened, and I’m sorry. You’ve been through so much recently, and I keep crashing into your life and bringing in all this chaos. I’m sorry about what you saw, and I would understand if you didn’t want me as a frie–

Lee almost dropped her pizzas when Alex’s lips closed over hers. It was a chaste kiss, quick and shy, but it might as well have been a firework exploding in close quarters. Sensing her shock, Alex began to move away, but Lee followed, deepening the kiss until reality bit back and they separated.

“I’m sorry,” Alex breathed, cheeks on fire and body shaking. Oh, that had been a… not so terrible idea. “That was sudden, but I couldn’t think of a way to nicely stop you from talking.”

I mean… you won’t hear me complaining. Lee’s smile was a little punchdrunk.

“I meant what I said earlier about not being afraid of you, and of course, I still want you in my life. I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

At a loss for words, Lee hummed and readjusted her pizzas.

“I have a few things to tie up here this week, but maybe we can plan for a rendezvous next weekend?” Alex offered with a hopeful shrug. “Maybe without any crazy happenings?”

Sounds like a plan. Lee bobbed her head several times before heading into the tunnels, glancing over her shoulder every few steps until Alex drifted out of view.

“So Rebecca Farrow is alive,” Georgia said when Alex climbed out of the basement.

No point lying now that the cat was out of the bag. “Yes.”

“You had me looking for a woman you knew was alive. Why?”

Alex could barely look at Georgia, nerves failing even as she spoke. “Because you could get farther than I could even with my reach as a journalist.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. You used me and lied to me. Why are you looking for her?”

“Rebecca Farrow abandoned her life Topside and rules an underground city thriving under the streets we’re standing on. I want to know why she ran and what she’s hiding from.”

If Alex expected Georgia to show confusion or surprise, she was mistaken by how much she’d overstepped tonight.

“And why, Alexandra Bailey, should that be any business of yours?”

Alex’s heart felt like it was trying to tunnel its way to China. She knew the right words were on the tip of her tongue, the same muscle that could still taste Lee’s lips lingering on hers, but she couldn’t admit that. Not now. Not when it was all so new and strange.

“Thirty people died in order for her to disappear. I want to know why.”

“That’s it? Or is it because beauty has fallen for the beast?”

Alex’s mouth went dry. Georgia didn’t wait for her denial, brushing past with all the chill of a winter storm.

Little Red and the Wolf

Fingers curled into the mattress, drawing the sheets taut. Back arched like the belly of a bow, Alex withered against a gusty exhale. Was she still breathing? Did it matter? No, because her focus wasn’t on the carbonation fizzling in her blood or the life-giving muscle roaring like a V-8 engine in her chest, but rather the relentless pace of tooth, tongue, and wiry fingers putting her through her paces.

Gasoline in her veins and helium in her head, Alex felt like a Mylar balloon filled to bursting. Her body ached and burned, fighting to accommodate the intrusion. One sharp jab was all it would take to bring her to pieces, and she yearned for it. Craved it. Panted and bucked and pleaded for it because, at this rate, she was going to self-combust or implode.

Two steadying hands snaked around her thighs, holding her still, drawing her close to the hot tongue gliding between her folds, drawing out every last gasp like a sea witch attempting to steal her voice. Alex invoked deities she had no business calling on as claws dug into the soft, pale skin of her legs. It was intoxication at its finest, a mix of pain and pleasure. She lost herself to it, feral and wanting.

But the static back-building in her lower belly was becoming unbearable. Alex struggled onto her elbows, desperate for relief. From the point of her parted legs and beyond, the room was inky dark. Darker than it had reason to be, making the blue orbs staring up at her shine like earth-bound stars.

Predator and prey, that was the thrilling sensation trickling down her spine. Brown hair ghosted across her skin, twining with the muggy breath panting against the burn of her arousal.

“Please,” she begged, voice horse and broken, halfway to a sob. The accompanying growl rattled the bones in her chest. There was a beast in her bed, and it was devouring her whole. Little Red and the Wolf, only she willingly submitted, wanton and loose.

A fanged smile in the dark, flashing like heat lightning. Terror and lust shot through Alex. The moment those same fangs sank into the meat of her inner thigh — breaking skin and spilling crimson — three fingers buried deep and twitched into a hard curl. Alex saw stars at the same time she saw sound, rocketing upright in a tangle of sweaty sheets with a gasp like she had been underwater for hours. Panic bloomed, bright and strangling. She couldn’t remember where she was until her eyes adjusted. Her room was empty save for her and a growing sense of loneliness.

Seated upright, Alex had to remember how to breathe. In and out. Over and over until the flush of climax faded. But the dregs of her dream lingered like a drunken lover.

It was an absurdly long time before she flopped back into her pillows — the heels of her palms digging into her eyes — sleep was a secondary need. This was the fourth time this week she’d been dragged out of the safe confines of sleep due to a dream. Though this was the first time it had been a dream like that. Alex chalked it up to the sad fact the last time she fell into bed with someone was well over a year and a half ago, but she knew better.

Needy and far from sated, she slid a hand between her legs, chasing the powerful sensations that had woken her. Climax came on quick but unsatisfying, leaving her a coiled, frustrated mess.

“Fuck,” she hissed, throwing her arm over her eyes. This wasn’t how she wanted her day, particularly today, to start. Flushed. Aching. Wanting. Feeling the ghost of fangs along the inside of her thigh. “I can’t do this.”

Struggling out from under the blankets, Alex figured now was as good a time as any to get a jump on her morning despite its being an hour before sunrise. Sucking it up and muscling through a cold shower, she found that even with the bracing bite of cold water, her sour mood from last night’s hard conversation hadn’t lifted.

Georgia hadn’t spoken to her for three days following her discovery of Lee, which Alex expected and respected. The PI wasn’t the only one grappling with things she couldn’t understand, but then news reached the public that the officer involved in what was dubbed “The Central Park Mauling’’ had succumbed to his injuries. New York mourned. The Police Chief gave a speech. All major news outlets talked about nothing else, including the Times. Theories both wild and reasonable abounded, echoing back on themselves until no one knew up from down except two individuals trapped like buoys in a storm.

Georgia showed up that night, and their talk went about as well as expected. She sat through Alex’s long and winding tale of her time in the Underground, saying little and asking even less. There was no yelling. No demands. Just grim silence over lukewarm beers that ended with her standing and moving to the door.

“I’m going to be straight with you. I’m very torn right now and pissed for a lot of reasons. I don’t tolerate being lied to even about unusual cases. Believe it or not, I would have understood had you told me from the start. But since we can’t move backward, here’s how we’re going forward. I’ve put more than a few clients on hold so I could focus on your case. After tonight, I will be stepping away indefinitely. I don’t know if it will be forever, but that’s up to me. I will, at the very least, replace your door.”

Alex felt her organs make a home for themselves in her knees but didn’t fight the decision. That was where they left things, and she couldn’t help feeling she lost more than she gained.

Breakfast after her bracing shower was fast, cheap, and dirty: a bowl of cereal eaten in miserable silence while reading the latest headlines, speculating, once again, that the mauling hadn’t been from a normal canine. The coroner reported differently, but the public was left to make their own assumptions. The only blessing Alex could take away from the newest media storm was that her place in the limelight had been usurped.

Out the door well before six, Alex didn’t make for the subway or her office. Instead, she hailed a cab with instructions to head for the Manhattan Detention Center. The tall brick building blended in seamlessly with its urban surroundings, unnoticed and unobtrusive in the New York city spread. But Alex knew better. Everyone knew The Tombs.

Entering through the double doors, she registered with the front desk and took her seat in the waiting room, fingers drumming a fast tattoo across her satchel, synchronizing with the rhythm of her heart rate. It didn’t take long for an officer to call her back and escort her to the semi-vacant visitation room. Alex’s early arrival had paid off in the added bonus of partial privacy. All the better.

“Good morning, Mr. Pine,” she greeted when a confused Lucas entered and took a seat in the uncomfortable plastic chair across the metal table from her.

“You’re not my lawyer,” he said, looking around as if this might have been a practical joke.

“Nice of you to notice.” Alex smiled a tight, red-lipped smile and set her satchel on the floor next to her feet, extending a hand. “My name is Alexandra Bailey. I’m a reporter for the Times, and I wanted to speak with you.”

Lucas’ face closed off, invisible walls climbing high. No one with a story to hide liked talking to reporters, and Lucas was sitting on a treasure trove of information Alex needed. When her hand went unshaken, she retracted it without taking offense.

He was young. Younger than Alex anticipated. Mid-twenties or early thirties. Unremarkable features, but kind eyes that were hardening into distrustful chips the longer they sat in uncomfortable silence. Alex understood why Rebecca used him as an Insider. He could blend in with a crowd.

“If you’re here to write a piece about what happened in the Park, I already told the officers I’m not talking to anyone but my lawyer. Last thing I need are reporters digging into my life.”

Alex wondered how long it would take him to notice she hadn’t brought something to take notes with or even a recorder. “I’m here to talk about what happened, yes. I have a few sensitive questions that need answering.”

“Well, unless you’re my public defender and you have news about me getting out of here, we’re done talking.”

“Leanna is fine, by the way.” That stopped his rise from the table and reversed his trajectory. “She found me when word reached her that you were in trouble. That’s how I knew to come here, though you are not on a good list with me after what you put her through.”

A beat of silence. The air crackled with a heavy kind of anticipation that made each breath a labor. Very, very slowly, Lucas sat back down.

“How do you know Leanna?” he husked, keeping his voice low.

“I know you’re an Insider,” Alex answered instead. “And I know you put a dear friend of mine’s life at risk just to push a brick of pot and prescription pills into the Underground.”

“How do you know Leanna?” he pressed, leaning so far forward his stomach almost touched the top of the cold metal separating them.

Alex matched him, leaning in so their faces were within kissing distance. “Answer my question first. Why were you picking up anti-chorea medication for Mother? And why call Leanna, of all people, to come get it?”

“I didn’t know who the pills were for,” he hissed. “Orders have been made in Mother’s name for years. I worked at a pharmacy before this clusterfuck happened. I got the order from Taft. I filled it, but then he asked for the pot and made it clear it was an emergency. He’s never placed a bad order.”

“You put Leanna in danger.”

“I didn’t know who else to call! I panicked, okay? But she’s okay, though, right? I heard shots and thought–” He swallowed, unable to get the last few words out. “Is it true? Is the cop… did she–”

“No thanks to you, yes, she’s fine,” Alex cut in before Lucas could incriminate anyone else.

“I didn’t mean for her to get hurt. I was just filling an order.” Lucas hung his head, letting it thump against the table.

“You know what’s awful about this entire situation?” Alex said, sitting back and schooling her face. Lucas re-seated himself, his remorse plain. “I believe you. And because I believe you, I’m willing to help you make amends for your fuck-up.”

“I’m not following.”

Alex put on her best condescending smile and folded her hands in her lap, cool as a cucumber on a snowy winter day. “Nothing in life is free, Mr. Pine. I’m sure you’re aware of that. Even us peasants who wriggle in the path of giants have to pay a toll. You have information I want, and I’m willing to trade for it.”

“What could I give you that you don’t already know?” he said, eyeing the people nearby as if they possessed the ability to overhear their conversation.

“I need to know how to call Goliath.”

Lucas paled, shrinking back like the Underground behemoth had appeared behind her. “Why the fuck do you want to call that monster?”

“I have my reasons, and I’m willing to make a deal.” In this moment, Alex looked for all the world like a deal-making shark down to the smart blouse and blazer combo to the impeccable lines of her makeup. Today was about making a statement, and she was making it quite clear.

In her hands lay the power.

Lucas licked his lips, sensing the trap but helpless to stop from stumbling into it. “What kind of deal? And what’s in this for me?”

“Freedom.”

His bark of laughter drew disapproving looks from the guards. “I’ve been charged with Accessory in the murder of a cop on top of Assault and Battery on LEO and Drug Possession. My bail was revoked. How the fuck are you–”

“A good Samaritan with a long reach. You’ll also be contacted by a representative from the DA’s office. Catherine Chandler will be overseeing your case, and so long as you’re electronically monitored, which you will be, your bail has been posted.” Alex extended her hand, holding the pose and fighting to keep her mouth from twisting downward. Her father had been thrilled to hear from her and even more thrilled to learn she was asking for a judicial favor. The conversation between them had been brief and impersonal, but in the end, Alex got what she wanted: a request whispered into the ear of one of New York’s top District Attorneys.

“She’s safe?” Lucas asked again, not budging an inch.

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to keep them safe?”

“With all the power at my disposal, yes.”

“How does a reporter keep someone safe? Isn’t it your job to expose?”

“How does a reporter reach through the judicial system and pull strings?” Alex pretended the jab didn’t hurt. “It’s not what you know, it’s who. When they say the pen is mightier than the sword it’s because I know where to put the spotlight and when to push it elsewhere. You’re going to have to trust me.”

That was it then. There was nothing more Lucas had to bargain with. He was smart enough to know Alex held both his life and freedom in her hands. So, he reached out and made the connection.

“Excellent. I’ll be waiting down the street at the Stag Head Cafe. Catherine will be in shortly with your discharge papers, and she’ll bring you to me.”

With that, she left the room, the echoes of her heels proceeding her. But power wasn’t the sensation Alex felt leaving the building. Far from it. An unwelcome weight settled across her shoulders. It’s all for the chance to get answers, she told herself in a beautiful lie. But this wasn’t about answers. This was itching a combative scratch plaguing her since leaving the Underground. This was turning the tables. Now, it was Rebecca’s turn to feel the pressure.

When a yellow cab rolled up beside the restaurant hours later, Alex knew this was her ride. Catherine greeted her warmly, the two exchanging pleasantries until Alex excused herself and climbed into the back seat.

“We’ll talk on our way to your apartment,” she said when Lucas gave her a questioning look. It seemed he expected to get lunch out of this meeting.

“Why do you need to call him?”

“I need to speak with Mother,” she replied without taking her eyes off the city as they drove.

“There are better ways than going through him. Lee and I talk through a radio. Why not just use that?”

“I have my reasons, Mr. Pine.”

He looked at her with all the hesitance of a man about to walk on hot coals. “Do you even know what Goliath is?”

Alex turned at this, the question plain on her face. “I assumed he’s flesh and blood like the rest of the people down there. Or am I missing something?”

Lucas’ cynical laughter was flavored with just a touch of jittery fear. “Goliath always was and always will be. That’s what they say. He was there before the Underground formed, and he’ll be there when it falls.”

This sounded like something bordering on fanatic superstition, and Alex succeeded in not insulting the man by rolling her eyes. “Are you presuming to tell me he’s not–”

“Human? I don’t know what he is, but that thing isn’t right.”

“I’ve encountered him before, and I can assure you, he’s just a man. A very imposing man, but human like you and me.”

Lucas shook his head, popping open the door when they arrived at his apartment. “I don’t know what death wish you have, Miss Bailey, but if you want to call the creature, all you have to do is tap. Three hard strikes, two fast. Do that three times and wait. He’ll show up.”

“Thank you, Mr. Pine.”

“Ms. Bailey?”

Alex rolled down the window so Lucas could get close. He looked like he was about to offer another warning, but suddenly, his face dropped, and a wave of unease blanched the color from his cheeks.

“I need you to know you weren’t the first person to come talk to me about the incident in the Park, and I’m not talking about reporters.”

“May I ask who came to speak to you and what were they asked?”

Lucas licked his lips and did the very nervous thing of tucking his hands into his armpits. “A man came to see me not long after my booking, and he asked very pointed questions about what happened that night and about… Lee.”

Curiosity suddenly soured into alarm. “What was his name?”

“He didn’t give one. Refused to, actually, but he said he was with this weird organization I didn’t recognize. Something government-sounding.” Lucas dropped his chin against his chest in thought until he recovered the memory. “The Haven Society! That’s it.”

“The Haven Society?” Alex couldn’t help notice how the word rolled on her tongue with the weight of hazy memory. Why did that sound familiar? It wasn’t until Lucas asked if the name rang any bells that something did chime in Alex’s subconscious. The stale smell of the cab was suddenly replaced with the musk of the van tinged with the bite of winter air.

“HS told Falconi to bring you in….”

HS. It wasn’t a person. It was an entity. And perhaps this could have been written off as a wild coincidence of acronyms had another mysterious figure not stepped into the ring.

“Miss Bailey?”

Alex blinked several times to reorient herself. She was in a vehicle, but it wasn’t a van. She was speaking to a man, but it wasn’t the scared thug who put a knife in her. Features carefully schooled, she slipped on her softest, most disarming smile and gave her shoulders a small shrug.

“I can’t say it brings anything to mind, but that’s an excellent lead you’ve given me. I’ll look into it. Thank you, Mr. Pine.”

Lucas patted the hood of the car three times before walking away and leaving Alex with more questions than answers. Who or what was the Haven Society?

“Where to now?” the cabbie asked, startling Alex out of her daze.

“West entrance for Central Park,” she said, fighting the sudden burst of butterflies raging inside her chest. Her fingers curled around the satchel strap next to her. Unbidden, the cryptic line from the envelope she’d been given at the diner drifted back to her as the cab lurched into motion.

Never send a rook to do a queen’s job.

“They never said anything about making a move against another queen with only a pawn,” Alex muttered.

But this wasn’t chess.

This was Russian Roulette.

Goliath

The sun was bright and warm when Alex entered the park with all the surefooted confidence of a runway model, each breath flavored with the smell of wet earth and food vendors. Spring was overtaking the city like a warm tide, and before long, winter would be a distant memory people would plead for when the daytime temps climbed above eighty and stayed there.

Just like any other day, no one paid Alex any mind. Not even when she kicked off her heels and waded barefoot into the underbrush. This was New York. Weird things happened all the time, and she was a smartly dressed, attractive woman walking with purpose. Their eyes would glide over her and move to the next attraction.

Arriving at the Underground entrance in the daylight felt sacrilegious, like wandering into a mausoleum or shouting in the middle of a quiet sermon. It wasn’t as eerie or foreboding as it was in the dark, but that didn’t mean Alex’s pulse didn’t quicken when the shadow of the overhang eclipsed the sun above her. Casting one last look over her shoulder to make sure she was utterly alone and perhaps to bid farewell to the sun, Alex adjusted her satchel and entered the cement tunnel. Once the gate was heaved aside, she flicked on her flashlight and waded into the palpable darkness, her shadow an overstretched elastic band below her feet. A hundred yards later, she stopped beside a fat pipe and squared her shoulders.

Three hard taps, two small, three times.

The noise of her flashlight striking hollow metal echoed for eternity, rattling through the concrete tube like the last dying notes of a car crash. Settling in, Alex resigned herself to waiting. In the dark. Alone again at the entrance to the Underground. Was this how Persephone felt at the start of her clandestine meeting with Hades? She could only guess as much. This time, however, Alex had a sense about what came next, but that didn’t mean when she heard footsteps almost an hour and a half later her stomach didn’t make the painful leap into her throat.

His mask emerged first, drifting out of the blackness like the face of a ghost materializing long before the body became corporeal. Alex came to attention from her semi-casual lean and held steady, feigning power when she knew she was powerless. Goliath drifted closer with all the eerie stealth of a horror movie, not stopping until he was close enough to invade the natural bubble of Alex’s personal space. It was a calculated move and effective. Whatever courage she came down with flagged as Goliath stared at her with the impassive judgment of an Underworld god.

“Thank you for coming.” She bobbed her head in thanks without stepping back, keeping her flashlight trained on the ground. Through the eyeholes of his mask, Alex could make out the glint of green eyes and felt her scalp tingle. Something about them was too piercing and bright to register as normal. Then again, what was normal anymore?

“I need to ask you a favor.”

Silence.

She cleared her throat as a bid for time. “I need to speak with Rebecca. It’s important. Can you take me to her?”

The behemoth didn’t budge a muscle, didn’t even appear to breathe, and the longer they maintained eye contact, the sharper the electricity prickling along the back of her neck became.

“The Underground is your home. I understand that,” Alex stammered, reaching the limit of her unease. “I understand I’m not welcome here, but something’s happening with Rebecca. Lee came to me worried sick. Please, all I want to do is help. Lee’s my friend. I care about her and–”

“What is she to you?”

Goosebumps exploded down Alex’s arms and legs. The voice sounded like shifting boulders, deeper than the deepest bass. Had that come from a man? Goliath tilted his head a slight degree to the left, pinning her with his green stare. Suddenly, it wasn’t so hard to believe the rumors.

“She’s– she’s my friend,” Alex stuttered, taken aback by both the question and the person doing the questioning.

“A friend?” It wasn’t as much a question as it was an accusation, like he could sense the half-truths lingering just beyond the surface.

“Yes, a friend. A dear friend. I–” Oh God, why was she saying all of this? Where was it coming from? Alex bit into her tongue to keep from speaking further, but she might as well have been trying to fix a broken pipe with packing tape. “I’ve come to care about her quite a bit over the past few months. We… we’ve become close, or so I’d like to think, and I want her to be my–”

Divine relief surged through her when Goliath turned away, breaking whatever spell he cast like cutting a marionette’s strings. Alex sagged, steadying herself with an outstretched hand. With long strides, Goliath began walking back up the tunnel, not waving for her to follow but not warding her off either. Alex gathered her wits and fell into step, sweating through her makeup and finding it hard to breathe.

Queen to Queen

Just like her first encounter with the gigantic Undergrounder, Alex’s trip into the bowels of the earth was done in silence. No banging. No calls. Goliath walked ahead with a smooth grace uncommon for someone his size. Alex expected him to lumber. To sway or to shuffle like a hunchback. Goliath barely made a sound, his presence more wraith than human.

“Are you human?”

She hadn’t realized the question slipped eel-quick past her thoughts and landed squarely on her tongue until it was too late. Freezing, she waited for him to react, to whip around, to growl or turn into some hideous monster now that the die was cast. He did none of those things. Didn’t even stop walking, forcing Alex to catch up after her muscles thawed.

“Once,” the behemoth rumbled, again catching Alex off guard with how deep his voice was. At first, she thought he was talking to himself until she realized he had answered her question.

“Once?” Her thoughts skipped back to the conversation she had with Lucas.

“I am flesh and blood but not human. I haven’t been human for over two hundred years.”

In the darkness, her eyes must have looked like saucers. What? What? She didn’t know how to process that, scrambling for a mental grip until something other than shock made the skin of Alex’s forehead crinkle.

“Did you… did you just quote Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire?”

Alex couldn’t see Goliath’s expression behind the mask, but when he turned to regard her over his shoulder, she was sure he was grinning.

“I guess gullible should be written on the ceiling,” she muttered, her face warming with embarrassment at being the butt of a joke.

Five or ten minutes after their brief exchange, Alex began picking up the faint tapping or settling pipes and movement that preceded the Underground. Strange how the sound had the same cathartic comfort as stepping through the front door after returning home from a long trip.

When Goliath triggered a hidden door with a wave of his hand a few yards further down and stepped through, the pipe noise suddenly became accompanied by the low murmur of crowded voices while the tunnels grew brighter, illuminated with hanging cage lights suspended from the ceiling. This was a different path than the one Alex took when meeting Lee in the Chamber of Echoes. The cement was light gray and newer, the pipes less corroded with rust and wear. She toyed with the idea of asking where they were in conjunction with the Underground’s layout, but her answer came soon enough.

The hall they passed through, which appeared to be a dead-end to the untrained eye, continued after a ninety-degree hard right turn, ushering Alex through a low arch into a monstrous corridor that took her breath away. Not because of the size, though she was having trouble fathoming the ceiling height let alone the tunnel’s length, but because of what occupied the space.

It was a city. A literal city thriving dozens of stories below the earth. In the event Alex ever saw the Underground – which she appeared to be doing right now entirely by surprise – she didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this. Her imagination had crafted its own assumptions based on what little she learned from Lee, and for some reason, Alex envisioned everything to be in a state of ramshackle. Maybe that was personal bias having grown up in a city with a staggering homeless population. Maybe it was because the idea of “homeless” invoked societal pre-programmed ideas of filth and disease, but in the case of the Underground, homeless became homestead.

Lining the walls on either side were patchwork dwellings crafted from available materials. Some structures were single level and appeared more functional than fantastic, their squatty build resembling cabins crafted from everyday materials. Some multi-level structures sought to defy their surroundings and clung with admirable tenacity to the walls, following the sweeping arc of the ceiling. Overhead, miles of support cabling criss-crossed like an industrial spider web that doubled as makeshift clothes lines and pulley systems between homes. And everything, regardless of where Alex’s feasting eyes fell, was impeccably clean.

No trash. No rats due to the sheer number of cats roaming around. No smell of fecal matter or urine. Just the lingering scent of damp stone, hard water, and the coagulation of multiple cookstoves drifting above the rumbling din of dozens upon dozens of people going about their day. There was no denying this was the beating artery of the Underground, and the moment Alex and Goliath stepped foot along its arrow-straight path, that pulse went still.

It was eerie walking through a once-bustling subterranean city to the lonely echo of her footsteps. In any other setting, the click of high heels was a precursor of power, heralding a woman like a storm. Here, it might as well have been the slow staccato of an executioner if the looks Alex spied peeking out at her from behind doors, flaps, and drapes were anything to go by.

A chilling thought occurred to her as the two walked past stunned onlookers. Either Goliath was making a spectacle of her by leading Alex to her doom, or he was ensuring her safety. If many eyes saw her, it meant that if she went missing there would be witnesses.

Oh, Bailey, you have a death wish, she agonized, feigning cool indifference when she was silently screaming.

The enormous corridor stretched for more than a half-mile before twisting off in another direction, but Alex’s journey ended when Goliath took a turn into a narrow alcove cut into the main corridor and came face to face with the purpose of her Underworld visit. She’d seen rage on Rebecca’s face before, but it was no less breathtaking a second time.

The matron of the Underground stood braced in the doorway, hands gripping either side of the steel frame. The look she threw Goliath could have put Medusa to shame, but whatever poison she had loaded on her tongue remained there. Instead, the words that fell from her lips were like ice.

“I will take it from here, Goliath. Thank you.”

It was a gentle dismissal, Alex noticed, making her wonder if there was something Rebecca feared in the Underground more than her loss of control. Goliath said nothing, taking his leave with the casual air of a man about to take a walk in the park.

“What the hell gives you the right to break into my home and parade around like a show pony?”

Ah, there’s the venom. “I need to speak with you.”

“I do not speak with trespassing Topsiders.”

Alex drew herself up, remembering the cards she held. “If you have any shred of respect for your daughter, you will hear me out.”

Rebecca stepped so close Alex could feel her warmth through the fabric of her clothing. In heels, she and Rebecca were eye-level, blue eyes meeting hazel. “What threat are you to me?”

Stride for stride, Alex matched the woman, voice clinical and cold. “If you wish to keep your relationship with Leanna intact, you will let me in, or I will say what I have to say directly to her.”

Her words had the intended effect. Rebecca faltered, unable to accurately guess Alex’s next move. It didn’t take a genius to deduce the older woman wasn’t a gambler. Rebecca was too methodical. Planned everything out far too carefully to leave something to chance, so Alex waited with strained patience, hands folded in front of her impeccable blouse-skirt combo until the pressure of her implied threat became too much.

“Three minutes,” Rebecca snarled. “That’s all I’m willing to give.”

“This is a conversation best had behind closed doors.”

Without a word, Rebecca spun back into her home. Alex followed, once again struck with an overwhelming sense of calm when the two moved into the main living area. It still smelled how she remembered: old books, steeped tea, peppermint, and pipe tobacco. Hard to believe she’d been away for almost three months. Harder to believe how drastically her life had changed in that time as well.

“Say what you have to say and then get out.”

Rebecca’s biting words were a splash of cold water down Alex’s back, returning her to the present. “We don’t need to be enemies. You know that, right?”

“Is that what you’re going to waste your time telling me?” Rebecca scoffed, pushing her reading glasses into her messy up-do.

“No, I’m starting the conversation this way because I think you need to hear it. I know you don’t like me, and I’ve not given you a reason to, but we aren’t enemies. We’re not even acquaintances–”

“And we will keep it that way. I believe I made myself clear when I told you I wanted nothing to do with your kind. You and I will never be anything more than citizens of rival worlds. The sooner you accept that, the better.”

Well then. No use beating around the bush with false olive branches. Alex straightened her shirt with a few sharp tugs. “Then I will make this brief and to the point. How long were you going to lie to your daughter?”

The question had the desired effect, catching Rebecca off guard and curtailing the burn of her anger. Her recovery, however, was quick.

“And what, pray tell, have I kept from her?” It was said with a haughty smugness that crawled under Alex’s skin and lit her bones on fire. She was already smoldering — had been since a bruised and terrified Lee broke down in her apartment — and all this encounter was doing was honing the edges of her tongue.

“The knowledge that you’re dying from Huntington’s Disease.” Alex’s blunt answer was said without a shred of emotion save for scorn, and the blow struck home with all the power of a lethal right hook.

She had to commend Rebecca for maintaining an Oscar-worthy poker face. Her expression might not have conveyed anything, remaining as smooth as lifeless marble, but there was a tick just slow enough to catch. The barest hint of a flinch in the tightening of her jaw. In the stiffening of her shoulders. In the way her body went just a shade too still.

“You have a great deal of nerve coming down here with accusations like that.”

“Yet I don’t hear any immediate denial,” Alex said, tilting her head just enough to convey the stretch of her skepticism.

“So this your sad attempt at baiting me into a conversation?” Rebecca’s laugh was scathing. “My, I thought you were better at weeding out the truth, what with you being a journalist and all. This is laughable and just a bit pathetic.”

“And I thought you cared more about your daughter. Or is this some kind of misguided attempt to protect Leanna from the truth of your imminent mortality?”

The same kind of cold rage Alex had seen the day she discovered Lee’s true face didn’t just flicker across Rebecca’s features. It embedded in them, turning the woman into a seething mass of bunched muscles and barred teeth. Suddenly, mother and daughter looked so very similar.

“Get out.”

Alex contemplated spitting back the childish challenge of “make me” but refrained. “Prove me wrong.”

“I have nothing to prove to you.”

“I think you do.”

“No, I don’t think I do. This is my home. This is my world. You have no authority here, nor do you have a voice. You are no one. You have no one. And this convoluted idea you dreamed up isn’t only sad; it’s sickening. We’re done. Get. Out.”

Rebecca twisted for the pipe to tap for Goliath but didn’t make it three steps before her world shattered against six shouted words.

“Do not dismiss me, Rebecca Farrow!”

Throughout history, there were moments when time itself froze. It had been described in countless ways: the breath before a storm, the stilling of creation, the milliseconds before impact. This was the inhale outside the walls of Jericho. This was gravity reinstating itself at the edge of a crumbling cliff. Rebecca didn’t merely freeze. She locked up, growing so still the loose fabric of her clothing ceased to move.

Alex bit into the inside of her cheek to keep from swearing. She hadn’t wanted to play that card yet, but anger made her slip. No going back now. The pieces on the board were set.

“Yes, I know who you are,” she continued, quieter this time. “Doctor Rebecca Farrow, born in Boston, 1946. You taught at MIT, taking Emilia Eloisa Gonzales Sotomayoras as your protégé. She was seventeen when she came to work with you and presumably died a year later when the lab you two worked in blew up under mysterious circumstances.”

Alex may have prematurely played her queen, but she knew the match was far from won. And that knowledge made her pay attention. Made her look. Made her catch the slow movement of Rebecca’s right arm as it reached for something hidden under her coat, spindly fingers curling around the G10 grip of the Glock she always carried.

“Think very carefully about your next move,” Alex warned. Goliath had been right, and that thought terrified her. The trip through the main corridor was meant to dip her in protection, much like Achilles. “You live in a metal tube where sound carries for miles, and dozens of people saw me coming here.”

“What do you want?” Rebecca rasped, back still turned.

“Only to talk.”

“There is nothing either of us needs to say to one another.” Her grip on the handle tightened, finger seeking and finding the safety and flicking it off.

“If you cross this threshold, you will lose your daughter forever. Leanna will never forgive you.” Hesitation. Forestallment. Alex didn’t dare breathe, but she could tell she’d struck a nerve.

“You speak as if you know her! As if you know me!” Rebecca all but shrieked. “And if you do, there is only one logical reason for that, and I can’t let you walk out of here alive.” She turned, and the hand holding the silver gun swung down to her side. “I will not risk Leanna or myself. Never again.”

Funny Story

In the back of her mind, where sanity had been sequestered, Alex wondered how she had gone from writing about the war effort and government corruption after the Towers fell to staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. Twice. In one week. Metaphorically speaking, the life of a journalist was spent moving from one dangerous encounter to the next, but somewhere in transition, Alex began intentionally placing herself in front of the firing squad.

What she saw today wasn’t the tale of a villain in her next big spread — though the story would be Pulitzer Prize-worthy. Instead, Alex saw a woman teetering on the brink of hysteria, eyes wide and dark. Fear like this was made. It was instilled in a person, driven in like nails in a coffin. Nothing Alex did or said would prove her intentions, good, bad, or indifferent, so she did what she did best when the story seemed to hit a dead end. She changed the paradigm.

“I’m going to be straight with you, Rebecca,” Alex said, once again feigning calm when she was rapidly sweating through her blouse. “I know who you are because I hired a private investigator. We found you through an old MIT newspaper clipping of the day you took Em as your protégé. From there, the research was easy.”

“Why?” Rebecca shook.

“Because I wanted to know the woman responsible for raising Leanna. I wanted to unravel the mystery of why you were down here. Suffice to say, it’s in my nature to uncover things.”

“You had no right.”

“You’re right. I didn’t. And I would have kept this between my PI friend and myself had Leanna not come to my home days ago, terrified and bleeding.”

And like any trained journalist, Alex chose her words with care, cherry-picking key points of information to control the narrative while omitting others. Lee’s actual condition that night didn’t need to be spoken of. The Undergrounder controlled so little in her life as is. Alex was more than happy to give her this small gift of privacy.

Across the room, Rebecca lost so much color she threatened to become transparent. “Why was she…what happened to my daughter?”

“You happened,” Alex accused. Rebecca sputtered, trying to find traction, but Alex was better equipped. “Your lies almost ended her life. She was called Topside to retrieve an order from one of your Insiders. An order placed by Jeremiah Taft. Yes, I know his name, too. The package was a brick of marijuana and anti-chorea medication Lucas Pine lifted from the pharmacy he worked at. Lucas was being followed by the police, who suspected him of drug trafficking. Leanna intercepted Lucas, and they were, in turn, intercepted by the police. Lucas has been placed under arrest for assaulting an officer while trying and succeeding in making sure your daughter escaped.”

Purposeful omission. Lee had killed the officer, but Rebecca didn’t need to know how close her daughter had come to actual capture or that she was the cause of someone’s death.

The knowledge closed around Rebecca like a snap trap, and she lost her grip on her gun. Alex feared she might collapse, but instead, Rebecca sank into the first available chair, losing her bravado in the process. Matron no longer, she was now a mother digesting the hard truth her daughter was harmed on her behalf.

“How long?” Rebecca breathed, eyes focused on the floor. Alex guessed what the question was referring to and sighed, not ready for the truth to come out.

“A few months. We’ve met sparingly since my return to Topside.”

Rising without a word, Rebecca shuffled unsteadily across the room and yanked open the top drawer of a low desk. Alex heard the rattle of a pill bottle before the older woman retreated to the kitchen. From her vantage point, she watched Rebecca struggle to extract a single pill and fill a glass with water, her hands shaking so badly it took several tries to get the glass to her lips. When at last she succeeded and could think again — the medication moving quickly through her system — some time had passed. Through it all, Alex remained quiet and watchful.

“Who are you to my daughter?” Rebecca asked upon returning to her chair.

And there it was. The unavoidable but unwanted question.

I don’t know! Alex wanted to shout. She didn’t know what she was to Lee other than a friend. But that wasn’t true. Not when they’d shared a kiss in a dusty basement. Not when her heart fluttered at the thought of her and her body throbbed at the need for something more carnal. So, where did the lines cross? Where was the line, was a better question.

“I count her as a close friend.”

Half-truths were better than direct lies.

“You’ve hardly spent any time with her, yet you consider yourselves close?”

Alex sensed the challenge and met it head-on, tired of being leashed by other people’s assumptions. “Yes, I do. And do you know why? Because every night for three months, Leanna would sit at my bedside while I writhed in pain and eased the agony by reading to me. She would tell me stories about her adventures down here. She showed me her lab and the hydroelectric machine she’s been building. She talked with me, laughed with me, held my hand when the pain stole my voice, and didn’t once look at me like you’re looking at me now. Like I’m the scum under your shoe. Leanna cared for me at every turn, even when I didn’t deserve it because of the terrible things I said the first time I saw her face. So yes, I’ve come to care for her. In her, I believe I’ve found a true friend, and if that angers you, prove to me you truly are a Topsider at heart and shoot me dead.”

When had she moved?

Alex came back to herself and realized she’d crossed half the distance of the small room. Rebecca looked poised to counter an attack, hands braced on the arms of a chair and elbows bent, but her surprised expression puzzled Alex. It was such an alien thing on a face that seemed to possess only two settings: cross or empirical.

“Do you feel better?” The question was meant as a dig, but Alex chose to take it as an uneasy concern.

“I...” She turned, furious with herself for getting carried away. “That’s a hard question to answer.”

“It’s either a yes or a no.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Do you love my daughter?”

Hot and cold. Yes and no. Alex couldn’t get her tongue to unravel. I don’t know! “I can’t answer that,” she said softly instead.

“So this is curious infatuation? She’s strange, and that draws you?”

“No.” Alex’s frown could have cut marble. “Love isn’t a clear-cut emotion and comes with heavy implications and responsibilities. I care for Lee deeply, but I’m not infatuated by her because of a macabre curiosity. Give me some credit.”

Rebecca looked like she might push the argument but relented.

“Would it be alright if I sat down?”

“You already invaded my home,” Rebecca snorted.

“Yet here I am asking permission rather than taking what I want,” Alex fired back. Rebecca waved at a nearby chair by way of answer. Gratefully taking a seat, Alex expelled the tension in her body like a venting pressure cooker — never mind the gun still on the floor between them.

“I inherited the disease from my mother,” Rebecca said, staring at her hands. “At the time, there wasn’t a way to test whether a child genetically contracted the disease. That knowledge wasn’t available until a few years ago in 1993, but I was able to connect the dots between my mother dying from the disease and my symptoms manifesting in my forties.”

Alex’s chest tightened. She’d come to the Underground expecting and wanting a fight after what Rebecca put Lee through just to keep a secret. But seeing her like this, seeing past the cold, hard mask made Alex realize Rebecca was just as terrified of her mortality as Lee was of losing her mother.

“The irony of choosing to devote my life to understanding the disease that took my mother only to later learn I had it was not lost on me.”

“That’s what you were doing at MIT.” Alex nodded, fitting the puzzle pieces together.

Rebecca shot her a look. “Yes.”

“And Em?”

“A brilliant microbiologist.”

“What happened that day?” Alex hedged, scooting closer to the edge of her seat. “What actually caused the lab to explode?”

It was too much of a probe too soon. Alex watched the older woman close off like a bear trap snapping shut. “You are not privy to my life and all its happenings regardless of who you think you are, Miss Bailey.”

Alex took the rebuke. “I’m sorry. I won’t ask again.”

“See that you don’t.”

“My grandmother died of Huntington’s,” Alex admitted when the conversation began to lag. Rebecca gave her another withering look. “Roll your eyes all you want; I’m not here to convince you. She died in her seventies, but she… it was difficult watching her succumb to it. My mother…” Alex faltered, licking her lips as if to help lubricate the rough words to come. “We think she died because of the onset of the disease, but we can’t be sure. Like you said, testing for the abnormal gene didn’t come about until recently. A heart attack took her when I was in my teens. She fell down the stairs as a result.”

“Have you been tested?”

Alex bobbed her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “A few years ago. If my mother had it, she didn’t pass it along to me. I tested negative.”

“I am… sorry for your loss.”

Alex hadn’t said it to garner sympathy, but the clinical condolences made her wanly smile. “Thank you.”

“And thank you for… caring for my daughter when she was in need.”

Alex could tell Rebecca was attempting gratitude but couldn’t help notice her bitter inflection. “You need to be straight with Leanna. She deserves to know what’s going on.”

“I will tell her in due time. Not before.”

“When?” Alex pressed. “When she gets caught Topside again trafficking the drugs you need to stay alive? Or when she finds you collapsed in one of these tunnels? Or perhaps when she finds you dead in your bed?”

“Enough!” Rebecca shouted, slapping her armrest. “This matter does not concern you in the slightest. I don’t care what you are to my daughter. You do not have the right to demand such things from me. This is my body and my disease! I will share its presence when I am ready.”

“This isn’t only about you,” Alex argued. “You have a duty to your daughter to be truthful regardless of your fears. She’s not ignorant to the fact something’s happening. She’s scared! She needs the truth from her mother rather than a coroner.”

“Your concerns have been noted,” Rebecca rumbled, signaling an end to the conversation.

Alex sighed, fighting from rubbing her eyes. Further argument would be like beating her head against a wall. In fact, she had a better chance of getting more from the wall.

“I think it’s time you took your leave.”

Mouth dry, Alex turned ever so slightly in her chair. “I would like to see Leanna before I go.”

“And I would like you to never have contact with my daughter again.”

“You and I both know that’s not how this works. Leanna is a grown adult capable of making her own decisions, which is something you need to respect.”

“And should her decisions put her in harm’s way, what then? What is a mother to do?”

“Trust her,” Alex implored, standing. “Trust that she knows how to make the right decision.”

“I do trust her,” Rebecca replied with an icy bite. “I don’t trust you.”

“I can accept that. But let me extend an olive branch and show you I mean neither you nor your daughter any harm. I will post Lucas Pine’s bail and front his bill for legal counsel.”

“And let me guess. As payment, because nothing in life is free, you get to see my daughter.”

Alex struggled to keep from smiling. Sometimes it surprised her how well she could play this game. “If that’s how you’d like to approach this, then yes.”

“I thought blackmail was beneath you.”

“Call it a deal. I would have freed him whether or not you agreed to this because it’s the right thing to do for all the wrong reasons. I care about your daughter, which means by proxy, I care about you and your home. You all saved my life. It’s the least I could do.”

Game. Set. Match. Alex watched the wheels in Rebecca’s head turn, pleased by the direction things were going.

“I don’t believe I need to tell you what will happen if something happens to my daughter.”

“I have an active imagination.”

“No, my dear, you do not,” Rebecca deadpanned with all the seriousness of the grave. “Leanna is my world. You are nothing but a distant star, and I will snuff you out in the most remarkably painful ways if something happens to her.”

And not for one second did Alex think that was an exaggeration. “You have my word.”

“Which means nothing. Leanna is in her lab. I trust you know the way.”

Alex did, only getting turned around once or twice. Luckily, Lee loved to play music while she worked. Today it was the deep throb and wonderful synthetics of 80’s techno Alex recognized instantly — if not a little bashfully. Ladyhawke. One of her favorite trashy 80’s movies, and Lee was listening to the soundtrack.

Standing in the doorway, Alex watched the Undergrounder bounce around, climbing with nimble ease into her humming machine. A thrill worked through Alex before giving way to a cold burst of anxiety that made her heart jump between her stomach and her throat. What was she doing? What right did she have down here? And what right did she have with Lee, a woman who could never move beyond the Underground?

If you do this, there’s no going back, she heard a voice whisper. If you start, you cannot stop because you know it would destroy her. You’re treading on thin ice, toying with the emotions of someone far more sheltered than you. If this is lust, sate the desire elsewhere. If this is something more… well then, start the dance.

“Hey,” she called, loud enough to be heard over the music. It was like someone put glue under Lee’s boots. She jerked to a stop mid-step and whipped around.

Alex? Her eyes darted around, searching for what Alex guessed was her mother or Em. Closing the gap between them, she took Alex’s hands and walked her further into the room. What are you doing here?

“Funny story,” Alex said, laughing off a blush. “I needed to talk to your mother about something.”

Please tell me you didn’t–

“I had to. She was going to find out about me one way or another, and I also needed her to know I got Lucas out of jail. A friend of mine will be handling his case, but for now, he’s out on bond and back ho–” Alex’s breath left her when Lee wrapped her in a crushing hug.

Thank you. Thank you-thank you-thank you. I’ve been so worried about him!

“I figured.” Alex hugged back, Lee’s familiar smell enveloping her.

Can you stay? she asked, face lighting up when she pulled away. Alex noted the bruising had faded to almost non-existence. Good. Even just for a little while?

“I’ve got the whole rest of the night free.” Alex grinned, feeling like she was about to take flight. “Show me around?”

Clicking off her music, Lee put out an arm. It would be my pleasure.

724 Underground

The Underground, it turned out, was a much larger place than Alex realized. Main hall notwithstanding, she wasn’t shocked by this. A place that could house several hundred people over two hundred yards in homemade, homestead shelters made from reclaimed building materials could easily have wonders hidden within. But what Alex didn’t anticipate was how ancient some of the passages and corridors were, and how deep the complex went in either direction, including down.

Lee gave Alex her first official tour with the excited flair of a caffeinated tour guide, taking her by the hand and showing her the wonders she grew up with. There seemed to be no end to the intrepid whimsy. It took all spring for Alex to learn even a tenth of the nooks and crannies in the subterranean kingdom, each new discovery a revelation all its own.

There were rooms like the Chamber of Echoes where you could hear the beating heart of New York echoing through the pipes. There were cisterns turned into communal baths fed with hot water from truly ancient boilers deep below their feet. Alex was mildly perturbed to learn hot baths had been within walking distance the entire time she was healing.

She was shown small nooks carved out by past Undergrounders dedicated to places of worship, some elaborately decorated with stained glass and votive candles still burning. They explored the deep caverns lined with microscopic crystals that turned lamplight into living fire under the bedrock of the city and shouted and screamed under waterfalls that lead into subterranean caves.

Goliath calls those areas home. We don’t venture down there unless we have to. Well… everyone else stays away. I’m a special case. He’s let me visit since I was a kid.

That pulled Alex up short during her tightrope walk along a beam of wood joining two sides of a tunnel bisected by a shallow channel. “He’s been down here that long?”

Well, yeah. Lee shrugged, pausing to help Alex the rest of the way across. They were headed to one of Lee’s favorite waterfalls for an evening meal by lamplight. Goliath always was and always will be. He was here before Mother founded the Underground. Em told me the first time Mother met Goliath was shortly after she came down here. She had me in a carrier and set it down to look at something. I’d been crying, and then all of a sudden, I wasn’t. Em said she and Mother both turned, and there was Goliath holding me in his arms.

“That’s terrifying.”

According to Em, Mother almost shot him.

That, Alex could believe. “I’d think about doing the same thing, too.”

Nah, Goliath is harmless. He’s saved me more than once. That’s one of the main reasons Mother trusts him. He calls me little sister and has saved my butt on more than one occasion. Without him there to watch over me, I’d probably be dead two or three times over.

The nonchalance of Lee’s declaration made Alex stop and look at her. Really look at her. How different had their worlds been growing up? How different were they still?

Lee spared no wonders, showing Alex the full topography of her world one miracle at a time. And their treasured time together brought the two closer like revolving magnets: just out of touch but reaching for one another, straining across the distance.

Alex luxuriated in the distraction, and the change in her demeanor didn’t go unnoticed outside the Underground. Georgia — who was still unwilling to let Alex get closer than arm’s length — told her she smiled more and was quick to joke, picking up on Lee’s humor. Even Phillip remarked she looked happier, believing his friend had finally taken his advice and found herself a steady partner.

“It’s nothing like that,” Alex reassured, keeping her eyes on her computer so he couldn’t see the lie. “We’re just friends, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

Friends.

A quaint title that didn’t live up to its label. Alex and Lee were more than just friends at this point. Friends didn’t hold hands during long walks, comfortable in the silence with one another. Friends didn’t share kisses in dark tunnels, chaste at first but bolder as the weeks dragged on. Friends didn’t make the heat in each other’s bellies roll like a furnace, tightening muscles better suited for other activities.

No, they weren’t friends, but they weren’t lovers either. Alex was adamant about not crossing that line until… well, she didn’t give herself a clear timeline. This wasn’t her first rodeo, so to speak, but the same didn’t apply to Lee. So she would let it follow through the natural channels carved out by the wanting of their hearts.

“So, where are we?” Alex wondered early one Saturday evening in June, keeping pace with her guide who had been uncharacteristically mum about their adventure this evening.

Deep in the lower tunnels near Goliath’s home.

Trailing her hands along the smooth walls, Alex was starting to gather an understanding of the tunnel systems. The cooler and grayer the cement, the younger the tunnels. The warmer the color, like honeyed sand, the older the passages. This helped tell Alex they were indeed in some of the older sections of Lee’s home.

“I gathered that by the ‘keep out’ sign we passed a few turns ago. Where are you taking me?”

It’s a surprise. Lee grinned over her shoulder. A duffel bag bumped her hip, tinkling and rattling each time it shifted.

“Congratulations for not helping quell my suspicion.”

Why Miss Bailey, Lee crooned, spinning around and walking backward, hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans. When have I ever steered you wrong?

With her cavalier grin and self-assured swagger, Alex couldn’t help fall just a little more in love with this strange and wild young woman who took her hand and said, “let’s go on an adventure.” To which Alex always replied with a ready smile.

It was another ten minutes of travel before Lee called a stop, helping Alex through a narrow opening in the rock that was little more than a fissure crack that led them to the bewildering sight of a wooden door.

Do you trust me? she suddenly asked, spinning to face her.

Alex squinted. “The fact you’re asking me that while holding our only source of light worries me.”

Be that as it may… do you trust me?

“With my life.” It wasn’t a cheap sentiment or a pretty lie. Alex meant every word.

Okay, good. Don’t move.

And then all of creation was darkness.

Alex had to commend Lee on her night vision because she was now absolutely blind. A hand reached out of the palpable darkness and took hers, gentle fingers leading her forward several steps before letting go. Door hinges squealed, followed by retreating footfalls. Alex could hear the other woman doing something in the dark with her duffel bag. When the clink of glass met her ears, she frowned, leaning towards the sound.

“Lee?”

Just a second!

“It’s uh… very dark.”

There came a pause in the shuffling activity. You told me you weren’t afraid of the dark.

Alex scoffed, hiding her unease. The honest answer would have been, “Yes, but I’m still not comfortable being robbed of at least one of my five senses.” Instead, she said, “No, it’s just a little unsettling standing in complete darkness while my friend scuttles around like a bat.”

Nah, I don’t have eyes like Em. It’s even dark for me.

“Eyes like… what does that mean?”

Em sees like a bat.

“You mean she’s blind as a bat.”

No, she actually sees like a bat.

“But she’s blind...”

Sort of blind. Alex could hear the shrug in Lee’s voice and the scrape of wood across a floor that sounded suspiciously like a stool. Medically, yes, she’s blind, but whatever happened to her when she initially went blind caused some cool side effects. That’s why she’s always tapping on things when she walks. Helps her see. Okay… I think that’s it. Watch your eyes cause here… we… go.

Alex hissed at the sudden overhead illumination driving hot lances into her corneas. Hand raised against the glare, she blinked away tears and let herself adjust before looking up and gasping. It was a common occurrence by this point… her thrilled gasping.

Welcome to 724 Underground! Lee hooted, throwing out her arms.

The antechamber was large and frozen in time like a fossil trapped in mud. Old incandescent cage lights — rewired and glowing with new bulbs — hung from wires in the ceiling. Dusty wooden tables and high-backed stools studded the floor in front of a squat bar made up of nothing more than two barrels and a plank of wood. But behind that bar, lining three of the four walls, were wooden racks supporting well over a hundred dark bottles.

“Oh my God,” Alex laughed in delight, turning in a slow rotation to take in the antique speakeasy. From somewhere unseen, upbeat jazz music played, furthering the illusion of time travel. “How did you find this?”

Like I find most of the things down here. By accident and with a little screaming involved, Lee said, rolling up the sleeves. Alex took note she’d traded her casual everyday wear for an outfit plucked directly from the closet of a ‘30s bartender, vest and slacks included. Her unruly chestnut hair was tied back in a bushy ponytail that allowed her pointed ears to be on full display.

Lady’s choice. She swept her arms in an animated gesture at the racks behind her like she was the host of a game show. Rum, scotch, gin, hooch, whiskey… whatever your heart desires. Pick your poison.

Alex drummed her fingers on the smooth bartop, dust and the faintest hint of cigarette smoke creeping into her nose. “What does the house recommend?”

Well, now, that all depends on the person asking. As you well know, certain drinks fit certain people.

The smile on Alex’s face was coy and shaded with mischief. “And what fits me perfectly?”

Let’s deduce that, shall we? Lee wiggled her eyebrows and planted her elbows on the bartop, leaning close to Alex with a low hum of consideration. Wickedly intelligent. Classy, when necessary, but always tactful even in tight situations. You know how to have a good time but sometimes might have too much of a good time. You’re a loyal friend, but you have a hard time making new ones. You also look stunning in royal colors.

Alex worked her mouth open and closed like a fish out of water. She hadn’t expected such a… poignant reading and felt a little naked in the light of such insight. How did someone respond to that?

“Well, damn.” Ah yes, college-level articulation.

So my prediction for the lady’s drink of choice comes down to Rum and Coke, Lee said, dragging her fingers across the dark bottles along a lower rack. Gin and Tonic, though I predict those kinds of drinks are more for when you socialize. Or the classic Whiskey on the Rocks, which would be the go-to comfort drink.

Alex recovered from her shock and tilted her head in appreciation with a “not bad” quirk to her lips. “Very impressive. You’ve done your research, though I don’t see any Coke–” Lee retrieved a thermos from her bag, setting it lightly between them. “I stand corrected.”

So how did I do with my spirit prediction? Shifting back to lean her hip against the bar, Lee withdrew a small silver flask from her vest pocket and took a quick drink from it.

“I think you’re scarily good at reading people. So what about you? What’s your poison of choice?”

House secret. When she caught Alex watching, her response was to wink. That’s for me to know.

Lee raised her flask again in a quick salute, but Alex was feeling playful and a touch bold. Darting in, she snatched the silver canister with nimble grace and danced out of range before Lee could react. Hooting in victory, Alex widened the distance between them, wiggling her spoils between her fingers as Lee jumped the counter and took chase.

“See, you’ve got me curious about what’s in here.” Using her height to her advantage, Alex dodged a swipe when Lee got close enough and took a swig, expecting something altogether different than what hit her tongue. “Is this grape juice?”

Lee used the lower rung of a bar stool to give herself a height boost and snatched the flask back, stuffing it out of reach into her inner vest pocket. We were all out of apple juice, she muttered, heading back to the bar. Alex followed, more than a little bemused.

“That’s some hard stuff.” She couldn’t suppress her giggle. “I’m not sure I want you hitting the bottle so early. We might not make it back tonight.”

I’m allergic to alcohol.

For a moment, Alex thought Lee was joking, but the serious set of her face told her otherwise. “Really?”

Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to drink. Tried a bunch of times when I found places like this. I might not live Topside, but I know what liquor is. Every time I drink it, I go into this weird form of anaphylaxis. Face gets hot. Throat gets tight. Can’t breathe. Pain in my stomach.

“Jesus.”

So I’m relegated to the kid’s table for life. Doesn’t mean I can’t show a pretty girl a good time.

“Is that to say, you intend on getting me drunk, Miss Leanna?” Alex teased, resting her chin against the heel of her palm after returning to the bartop. Lee’s full name always felt like honey on her tongue, and she savored it.

Lee put her hand over her heart. I would never. Good times can be had without inebriation. And it’s not fair when one of us gets forced into being the Designated Guide while the other has all the fun.

“So sensible. I like that.”

Smartly straightening her vest, Lee regained her suave air. So, Rum and Coke is the final verdict?

“You can’t drink liquor but you can mix?”

Chemistry is chemistry, love. Alex tried not to squirm at the word or the purr in the other woman’s voice. Doesn’t matter if it’s corrosive chemicals or booze. I might not be able to swallow but that doesn’t impede the use of my tongue.

Oh, Alex would have loved to smack that smug grin off her friend’s face if her lower stomach wasn’t banking heat like a smith’s fire that steadily made its way up to her neck and face. Snippets of her dream came back, phantom sensations playing in areas they had no business visiting.

“Well then,” she coughed to hide her flush. “By all means.”

Lee cracked open a dark, squat bottle after clearing away years of dust with a rag and poured the proper amounts, adding ice from another thermos when she was done. Alex took a tentative drink and hummed appreciatively, closing her eyes against the burn.

“Oh, that’s good.”

Circa 1922. Eighty years old and only getting better with age. Retrieving her flask again, Lee raised a toast. To new beginnings and happier endings.

“To new friends and fresh possibilities.” They clinked glasses, wearing matching grins. “You know,” Alex ventured after a few more swallows, sucking her teeth and reveling in the warmth spreading throughout her body. The soft jazz was doing a wonderful job of mellowing her mood. “You’re pretty much sitting on a goldmine.”

How do you figure?

“Are you serious?” She abandoned her drink and came around the bar to inspect one of the bottles. Sure enough, the label was over eighty years old like the rum bottle had been. “Most of these are almost a century old, but I’m willing to guess some are stretching into their early hundreds. Do you know how much a bottle of eighty-year-old rum or scotch goes for in most establishments?”

Asks the woman to the woman who has lived her entire life looking up and not down.

“Smartass.” Alex rolled her eyes. “A couple thousand dollars a bottle, easy. I’ve seen one go for almost twenty-five grand at auction.”

Lee whistled. Well damn. When I finally decide to fly the coop, I’ll just sell what’s here and buy a modest home Topside. Might even let you live there.

“I’m so touched you’d think of me,” Alex fake cried.

Just how Mother raised me. Setting aside her less than adventurous drink, Lee reached down and turned up the sound on the boombox next to her foot, an ambient cloud of smooth jazz filling the small room. Bobbing along, she came around the bar wearing a look that would have been at home on a Greaser from the wrong side of the tracks.

Would the lady do me the honors of a dance? she asked, comically thickening her New York accent.

Alex channeled her best Sandy Olsson, fluttering her eyelashes as she fell into Lee’s open arm. “I thought you’d never ask, stud.”

Dangerous and Different

They danced until their faces hurt from grinning, lungs filled with contagious laughter. Lee couldn’t remember ever feeling this light. She didn’t need the burn or bite of alcohol to strip her inhibitions away. Being with Alex let her do that all on her own. Lee let herself drift loose and carefree into the atmosphere like she was tied to a helium balloon. If this was what true happiness felt like, she never wanted it to end.

Still giggling like kids sneaking away from their chaperones at a dance, the two took their leave after a few more drinks, weaving their way into the younger tunnels with hopes of listening to the tail end of Phantom. Hand in hand, they stumbled and hiccupped like love-drunk fools. Alex might have been inebriated for real, but Lee didn’t care, too preoccupied with the feeling of the other woman’s fingers threaded through hers and the shape of her mouth when Alex sloppily picked up the lines of the songs they passed between them. It would have been a lovely way to end the evening had the cage lights illuminating their path not suddenly strobed, plunging the tunnel into revolving intervals of darkness.

Shit! Lee spun in place, chest cramping.

“Is the power going out?” Alex squinted, using a hand to steady herself against the wall.

No. That’s an intruder alarm, Lee explained in a rush, taking Alex by the hand and pulling her along at a fast clip.

“There’s an alarm for that?”

We have sentries in the tunnels who keep watch for trespassers. Sometimes a homeless person strays too far and gets lost. Sometimes it’s a gang. If the silent alarm is going off, it means a large group managed to get past a sentry and has gotten into the main tunnels. We need to hide.

Adrenaline of a sinister kind overtaking effervescent happiness, Lee took a hairpin corner, Alex struggling to keep pace, and found the skinny silver pipe she’d been searching for. Pressing her ear to it, she closed her eyes and listened to the messages already sprinting through the metal. People were scrambling and echoing the warning, but where…

INTRUDERS IN LOWER TUNNELS. FIVE TOTAL HEADING SOUTH. NEAR BISMARK.

Of course, they would be in their tunnel. Of course.

LEE TAPPING she responded, using a small wrench she always kept on her person. IN BISMARK TUNNEL WITH COMPANION. NEED ASSISTANCE. SEND GOLIATH.

There are five Topsiders headed our way. They can’t see us. Lee slid along the smooth tunnel wall, looking for something with both her eyes and hands. Twenty feet away from the silver pipe, she found it in a series of numbers punched directly into the metal that told her which pipe segment she and Alex were standing in.

“They might not be violent,” Alex reasoned, but even she didn’t sound sure of her words.

Towards you, maybe. Me? Lee pushed aside the fear threatening to curdle her stomach. People individually weren’t scary. She could handle one-on-one encounters even if the situation went south. But groups, like the officers in Central Park, were another matter. Groups were seldom dictated by rationality, and Lee knew enough about the Topside world to know better. I don’t want to take that chance. We’re also two women alone in the tunnels. That’s not a good combination in any situation.

Lee watched the spinning gears in Alex’s head finally find traction. What was more dangerous than a pack of humans with anonymity and the distinct lack of incrimination on their side? Lord of the Flies wasn’t far off the mark in its assessment.

Without any indication of where exactly the group had been spotted — the Bismark tunnel extended for half a mile before branching off in several directions — Lee led Alex as fast as possible toward one of those branch points. If they could get to a divergent hatch and lock the door behind them, they would be home free, but plans rarely worked so seamlessly.

Not more than a hundred yards ahead, the echoing whoops of what sounded like a dozen adolescents blew toward them like the cries of disembodied spirits. Lee felt her heart make the leap into her ears and wondered if this was what Indiana Jones felt like running through the temple with a boulder chasing him. Before the group could fully descend down the tunnel, she spotted their saving grace and shoved Alex into a tight maintenance indent between pipes, using her bulk and dark clothes as added camouflage. Unless someone took the time to look, they would only see darkness… or so she prayed.

The rectangular alcove was tall and narrow and smelled like a stale closet populated by a few upset spiders, but it did the trick. Thirty seconds later, a shrieking band of teenagers rushed past, dragging something heavy along the walls and yelling just to hear the echo. The noise combined with the metallic clanging was a physical assault on the women’s ears. Lee tucked in tightly around Alex, grinding her teeth against the pain and the flicker of something dangerous pushing at the edge of her consciousness. A growl rattled her chest, bursts of color winking to life behind her tightly shut eyes as something that almost felt like a hand grazed the underside of her sternum.

Like a squall at sea, the danger passed as quickly as it came, youthful legs carrying the gang toward their collision with the Underground’s main enforcer, but Lee didn’t budge. Not yet. She couldn’t, and it had nothing to do with the buzzing in her joints.

It didn’t escape either woman’s notice they were pressed against one another like every trashy romance novel loved depicting young lovers; one of Lee’s arms wrapped protectively around Alex’s shoulders while the other was braced against the wall to further shield her. It didn’t escape their notice how the height difference between them had vanished, bringing Alex so close Lee could smell a faint mix of rum and coke on her breath and her favorite brand of detergent. So close, Alex’s body heat warmed Lee’s front like a friction fire. So close the magnetic pull between them strained one final time and snapped with a ping that brought bodies crashing together, instinct and adrenaline guiding muscle movement.

This kiss wasn’t light like its predecessors. It was a match bursting to light. It was flint against iron, waking the hungry burn of a brushfire with gravitas and want.

Lee’s world began to change as she cupped Alex’s face and let their tongues twine. A low note hummed in her bones, and Alex’s body bowed in an answering call against the knee resting against her thighs, the moan they shared traveling arrow-quick to two shared points of heat below their belly buttons. When at last they separated, both women were swollen-lipped and breathless.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Alex rasped, voice a whisper in the dark. Nose to nose, they barely had enough room between them to fit a piece of paper.

Safe? That word meant something; Lee just couldn’t grasp it.

“Safe to move,” she clarified, gaze flicking from Lee’s lips to her darkened cobalt eyes and back again. “Do you think the kids left?”

Oh! Shifting around, Lee poked her head out, surveying the abandoned tunnel. When she turned back with an “all clear” at the ready, the sight of Alex — hair mussed and wild, eyes glittering, and clothing wrinkled — made her breath catch. She looked for too long, but Alex did too, her own eyes following a similar track.

Seems clear.

“Good.”

Lee didn’t anticipate being backed up and pushed against the far tunnel wall, Alex’s hands winding into her hair and tugging her head to the side. Her gasp devolved into a moan as hot lips sucked at the column of her neck while a firm hand pawed at the front of her thin t-shirt just over her left breast. Electricity crackled across Lee’s skin, making her muscles strain when the hand exploring her chest snaked under her shirt and found the ready bud of her nipple. Alex was lightning, and Lee’s rumbling growls the thunder that almost became a hurricane at the bold brush of fingers on the waistband of her jeans.

It was a marvelous high, but Lee was souring too fast. There was too much to keep track of. Her hands wanted to wander and reciprocate, fingers curling, fabric splitting, skin reddening under the tips of her nails. Her mouth wanted to find the pulse at Alex’s throat and hunker there, bruising skin with teeth and tongue, but her fangs were sharp. She was sharp and dangerous and different...

Alex, I’m not… Lee struggled, panting against the urges rising in her like a tide. I haven’t… I don’t know how to–

Alex froze, pumping the breaks so hard she almost gave them both whiplash. “I’m sorry,” she croaked with barely chained restraint, forehead coming to rest against Lee’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed.”

No, don’t apologize. Head back, Lee swallowed several times, grateful her voice didn’t reside in her throat. I don’t want to stop but–

“This is all new,” Alex filled in. Lee nodded, doing her best to keep her shaking hands on Alex’s hips. There was so much she wanted to do, to touch, to explore, but there was so much about her that could cause more harm than good. She didn’t know where to even begin, old fears making themselves heard after years of dormancy.

I want this. God, she puffed out her cheeks, fending off the vivid images of a naked and wanting Alex sprawled below her, I really do, but–

“You don’t need to explain yourself,” Alex reassured, backing off. “You say stop, and we stop. I’m sorry, I got overzealous. That’s on me. It won’t happen again.”

Hey, Lee reached out only for her hand to meet open air. I’m not upset.

“Okay.”

Despite an abundance of understanding, Lee caught a glimpse of hastily smothered disappointment flicker across Alex’s features and felt her stomach cramp. Had she just ruined something?

“Should we get out of here before they come back?” The question was awkward, but even weirdly shaped stones could easily break the glass tension.

Goliath is going to handle it.

“That’s ominous.”

It’s best we keep away for a while. Do you want to stay a little longer?

“Well,” Alex dragged out the word, using the opportunity to straighten her shirt and hair. “I think we’ve effectively missed the end of Phantom, so maybe we can find a less enthusiastic activity? Maybe finish reading where we left off?”

I can’t believe you’re so into these books! Lee cracked a grin, putting the uneasy feeling behind her and trying to live in the moment. However sexually charged and needy it might be.

“I’m just as shocked. Fantasy was never my cup of tea.”

Well, I’m glad I can introduce you to a whole new world.

“Was that an Aladdin reference?”

God, you’re such a nerd. Lee danced away from a light swat. Oh, speaking of musicals. There’s a new Broadway show getting a lot of buzz lately. Have you heard anything about it? A little play called Wicked?

Alex’s smile grew luminescent, mirroring Lee’s.

Serious Case of FFH

“So are you going to tell me what crawled up your ass and died, or do I need to start digging into your private life again?” Georgia asked, thumbing through the photos in her hands and picking out the most damning.

Seated cross-legged next to her, Alex didn’t look up from her sheet of credit card transactions, trying to pinpoint moments of spending that might have been out of the norm with a yellow highlighter. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific,” she said around the pen cap wedged between her back teeth.

Given Alex’s choice of career, digging into people’s private lives was almost a no-brainer. She made a living off of exposing the wet underbelly of the world, but this was the equivalent of tabloid work. A little underhanded and seedy, but it was the cleanest way to start making amends with Georgia.

The PI had been leery of Alex’s proposition to help her catch up on her neglected caseloads by being an extra set of eyes and hands. The two hadn’t said more than a few polite words to one another since their fallout, but given Alex’s unique connections, there was wisdom in taking the offer of free aid. Thus, a strange but not unpleasant work routine was established. In her off-hours and every other weekend, Alex picked up the slack in whatever cases Georgia needed help with. Anything from the mundane to the moderately difficult. Tonight was no different.

Holed up in Georgia’s apartment with cheap food, good beer, and a movie playing in the background, they worked through files one step at a time. Another affair case. Georgia’s most common commission. Guy cheats. Wife catches wind. Wants proof so during divorce proceedings she can take the bastard for everything he’s worth. Easy-peasy.

“I’ll rephrase,” Georgia said after a swig from her bottle. “Wanna tell me why you’ve been moping like a dude turned down too many times at a bar?”

Alex’s frown was sharp when her attention snapped into focus. “I’ve not been moping.”

“Bullshit,” Georgia snorted, setting three explicit photos — it was amazing what a telephoto lens and no sense of decency or proper shades could provide — down on the coffee table along with phone transcripts. “Spill it. You and I agreed. No more secrets or this whole thing starts from scratch. Something happen at work?”

“No,” Alex muttered, focusing again on the paper until it was jerked out of her hands. “Hey!”

Georgia held the sheet out of reach. “Someone giving you trouble?”

“No.” Alex snatched at it but missed and almost slipped off the sofa cushion in the process. Tonight wasn’t a night she wanted to talk. Tonight she wanted to drink, eat terrible food, and not think about her escapades in the tunnels and the relief her body kept crying for but was denied.

“You get laid recently, and it wasn’t up to snuff?”

“What!?”

That put her off balance. Ass cheek missing the edge of the cushion, Alex flailed to the floor, taking all her papers with her in the process. Snorting laughter, Georgia just looked down at her, elbows on her knees.

“You get fucked and not like it?” she asked with a lopsided grin.

“No! No, it’s– I… not really.” Smooth Bailey, she sighed, hauling herself back onto the couch and attempting to rearrange her pride.

“Not really?” Georgia had the look of a cat thoroughly enjoying tormenting a mouse. “How can that answer be open-ended? You’ve either fucked or you haven’t, and masturbation doesn’t count. Which is it?”

“I have not,” Alex said, back as stiff as her words.

“Which one, fucked or masturbated?”

“God, if you’re not my gynecologist, I don’t want to have this conversation.” She had to wonder if this was Georgia’s brand of payback.

“What could you possibly tell me that I don’t already know, Miss Bailey?” Georgia flopped back so she could watch Alex squirm. “I’ve already been through your underwear drawer and found that lovely little–”

“Georgia!”

“What? Wasn’t like this was recent, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. So you like a little silicon. At least you won’t get pregnant. Though the size was surprising. That’s a lot of meat.”

Alex was up and heading to the kitchen before her body registered the movement, face on fire.

“So you’re a small bun that likes a big dog. I can respect that.”

“Fuck you.”

“I mean, if you’re offering. At least I know you could take a strap.” Georgia boomed with laughter when Alex launched her solo cup at her, displeased it was empty and missed its mark. “Oh, come on! You know I’m fucking with you. You’re like a blank piece of paper, Bailey: white and easy to read.”

If Alex’s face got any hotter, she’d accidentally light a fire. This was the last thing she wanted to talk about. Her nights were already plagued with restless wanting and turbulent dilemmas. She thought she was better at keeping these back-and-forth feelings under wraps. Apparently not.

Alex pretended to put something in the sink to keep her hands busy until she could recuperate from the razzing. “I’ve just been busy. Between work and helping you, there’s a lot hanging over my head, and I’m having a hard time compartmentalizing it all.”

“Anything I can help with?”

Alex walked back over with a fresh beer and hitched her hip against the sofa, watching the melodrama playing on the muted TV. “Wasn’t it you who said a few weeks ago you weren’t a vending machine and I should stop trying to get things out of you?”

Georgia stilled, body settling like silt on the bottom of a lake. “Yeah, I did. But that’s because you were asking for miracles and expecting me to jump on command. I’m offering tonight, but I can rescind the request.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex apologized, returning to her place with a self-conscious curl. “That was low.”

“Yeah, it was, but shockingly enough, my offer still stands.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Not really. That’s what happens when I start caring about people. I get all up in their lives and care about them.”

It was such a touching and out-of-the-blue comment, Alex felt Georgia’s words loosen the emotional knot in her chest. “I’ve been… I don’t know, going through some stuff. Complicated stuff, and I’m not equipped to deal with it.”

“Complicated like you could go to jail complicated, or complicated like you running off to see your werewolf friend? Something happen between you two weirdos? You catch something from wolf-girl?”

“Lee,” Alex corrected.

“Question still stands.”

“No. We’re fine.”

Which, if taken at face value, was the truth. Alex and Lee were fine. They spent their spare moments together wandering the Underground, going on adventures, listening to Broadway in the Echoes — Wicked had become an instant favorite, one they listened to at least four times already — or chatting happily in Lee’s room. Alex felt like she was back in college, smiling more than she ever had and content with the simple things, but their last tactile encounter hadn’t left either of them in peace, leaving a lasting and uncomfortable impression like standing after kneeling in gravel.

Alex hadn’t attempted any further advances, policing herself like her own personal chaperone. If it bothered Lee, she never made mention of it, but the strain was evident. They had gone from gentle, yearning touches to cold turkey overnight, leaving them both reeling. It was a maddening dance, and sadly, one Alex was used to… just not to this degree.

“Uh-huh,” Georgia hummed, giving her friend a cursory side-eye. “Just what I suspected. I’m sorry to tell you, but you’ve contracted a deadly case of FFH.”

“Do I even want to know what that is?”

“Falling For Her.” The PI winked. “You’re in love, Alex. Or you want to be, and things aren’t working out, which I mean… this whole situation is beyond me.”

“Lee is just my–”

The disbelieving look Georgia shot her could have rivaled every mother catching their child in a lie. “I don’t say this often, but girl… girl, you lying to yourself isn’t doing shit but making you miserable. The two of you are the farthest from ‘friends.’ What’s so bad about that? Minus the mutant thing, you two seem pretty solid to me.”

“I...” Alex made a grasping motion like that would help summon the words she needed. “I don’t know. In any other situation, there wouldn’t be a hangup, but she– I’m– we’re just… shit, I don’t know.”

Which sounded like a cop-out, but it was God’s honest truth. Alex didn’t know. She didn’t know where she stood or what she wanted other than the obvious, but it went deeper than carnal desire. In the past, relationships had come and gone like tumbleweeds. She was a busy, driven woman. Alex had long ago dropped the preconceived idea she was meant for the white-picket-fence-life. It wasn’t the end-all-be-all of human existence.

Those personal feelings hadn’t changed. She didn’t long to settle but rather longed for companionship. Longed to feel the presence of another beside her in bed. Longed to feel the heat of passion. Longed for someone to share her mind with. And while those longings were still in play, Alex felt like an athlete trying to run on a sprain. Every move, no matter the direction, caused discomfort. It was like the trauma she suffered had bruised not just her body but her very existence, and she didn’t know how to cope. Had Lee come into her life for a purpose or was she just a byproduct of what Alex had been through? Was Alex seeking a lover or just reveling in the attention of someone who looked at her like she was the sun incarnate?

The harder she thought, the darker her mood became.

“All right. Well, whatever happens between you two, just get all your shots first and make sure Lee’s clean.”

That broke her out of her funk.

“Georgia!”

“I’m being serious! I’d tell you that even if you were with a ‘normal’ person. Be careful, that’s all I’m saying. And keep her from going wolf again.”

As unsolicited as the comment had been, Alex accepted the advice, bumping Georgia’s shoulder with her own to show she didn’t take offense. “Thank you.”

Biting back a smile, Georgia wrapped her free arm around Alex’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze and didn’t move when the other woman rested her head against her arm.

“We’ll find a nice girl for you. Don’t worry,” Alex hummed, stomach still in knots but the burden across her shoulders lessening now that part of her secret was out.

“You’d have to dig one up at this point, but I appreciate it.”

“I could always be your wing–”

“No offense, but I’ve never been one for the corporate aesthetic. I like a girl I can grab onto and not worry about snapping in half.”

The Visitor

The next morning, Alex rose from a blessedly dreamless sleep and headed to work with her mood significantly lighter. The previous night wasn’t the deep, honest conversation she needed, but she felt better having Georgia in her corner regardless of where the situation took her. It left room to hope she could gain the woman’s trust back again someday soon.

Phillip greeted her in the breakroom before their department-wide meeting with a smile and a list of client meetings as well as an invitation to lunch if she had the time. “On account you’ve been a recluse, and I’d like to catch up with my friend.”

Alex happily agreed, thankful for the workload and the paces it would put her through. She needed the mental distraction. After all, the world didn’t begin and end with the Underground. Topside turned just as regularly, and it was high time she planted both feet back where she belonged.

At a quarter past eight, Alex booted her computer and laid out her current spread. Fully immersed in her element, she breezed through her first solid draft in days, outlining a story about the polarizing effects of the Iraq War Effort. Her lunch with Phillip arrived in the space between blinks, filled with lighthearted laughter and well-worn jokes, the two making a ruckus but hardly caring. And when it was over, she was still smiling.

“Miss Bailey?”

Alex turned toward the young intern jogging to intercept her as she and Philip parted ways at the elevator. “Yes?”

“Your one o’clock is waiting for you in your office.”

“My…” Alex’s mind became a flipbook, names and dates scrolling across the front of her brain like a movie projector. She didn’t recall making an in-person appointment today. The intern waited patiently — if not a little uneasily — for her acknowledgement and permission to leave.

“Yes, my one o’clock. Thank you for letting me know.”

Checking her watch as they separated, Alex winced at her tardiness and coasted into a light jog across the department. The door to her office was open, and from the hall, she could see the back of a man’s head seated in one of the chairs opposite her desk.

“My sincerest apologies for being late,” Alex announced with a tight laugh as she entered the room and came around her desk. “I didn’t realize the time until–”

Time stopped and reversed course to her first day back Topside. A black Cadillac. A Rottweiler with blue eyes and a man with silver hair in a suit sharp enough to cut glass. That same man, minus the dog, sat before her wearing an impersonal smile, legs politely crossed and hands folded in his lap.

“Good afternoon, Miss Bailey.”

Alex’s eyes flicked to the door. It had swung partially shut behind her when she entered, but maybe if she was fast enough…

“Making a scene isn’t in anyone’s best interest, I can assure you. Please, have a seat. You and I need to speak.”

Slowly, oh so slowly, Alex lowered herself into her office chair and sat back, knowing full well any sudden movements might spring a trap. Folding her own hands, she raised her eyes like someone crawling through a bush only to come face to face with a bear on the other side.

The man was handsome in the way age matured a body, softening certain lines while showing the subtle topography of a life lived full and eventful. She placed him in his mid to upper fifties but no older. He was trim and impeccably neat, from the smart styling of his silver hair and close-cropped beard to the black suit that fit his slim build like a glove. Two silver rings glinted on his right hand, one circling his thumb and the other his middle finger.

A man of class and status… and power.

The two regarded one another for a handful of moments, playing a form of unspoken chicken. Alex wouldn’t speak. Not out of fear, though that was pumping liberally through her veins, but because this was a game. Whoever spoke first controlled the board, and Alex wanted to know where the pieces fell.

“Miss Bailey,” the man said, breaking the silence first. His voice matched his look almost perfectly. Velvety and better suited for radio hosting than accosting journalists in their workplace. “I am here for one very specific reason, and I need you to listen closely as I won’t be repeating myself. From this point forward, you will terminate all further inquiries into Rebecca Farrow and her whereabouts. You will destroy any evidence you have compiled, and you will direct Georgia Battle to cease any further inquiries with her network of informants.”

Cold shock put a fist in her stomach. She tried to lick her lips, but her tongue was as dry as her throat.

“On what grounds?” Alex purposely elongated the last word to entice the stranger into naming himself while also naming his terms. He did one of those things.

“On the grounds that further investigation will put you in the grave you barely escaped last time.”

Alex bristled at the direct threat and violation of her sanctuary. Here, in her office, in her second home, she was God, and she would not be made to feel small. “And what would you know of my brush with death?”

The smile the man offered was patronizing, and Alex got the distinct impression that if he was a hitman or some type of professional skull-cracker, she’d never see him coming.

“Several known facts and one you don’t know. That your resurrection sparked quite the interest in where you might have been hiding. Your assailants became curious, Miss Bailey, and they had to be dealt with swiftly. As I’m sure you read in the paper at the 9th Avenue diner.”

The bike messenger. The Manila envelope. The newspaper marked in red Sharpie...

“You sent me the envelope?” Alex whispered, awestruck.

The man neither confirmed nor denied this, raising a challenging eyebrow instead, and Alex realized this warning also came with a demonstration of power. Here sat a total stranger subtly flaunting that he or someone he knew killed four hired thugs in the employ of a prominent mob boss. Something that, should the wrong person overhear, would spell death for him.

Either this man had connections deeper than the lowest tunnels in the Underground, or he was a psychopath playing games.

“Anyone clever enough to read the paper and see the circulated police sketch could have put two and two together,” Alex rationalized, attempting to blow holes in his larger-than-life boast.

“Hence why the school photo and ID were included. Georgia Battle’s police ID, to be exact.” The man only leaned forward a fraction but he might as well have shoved his face into Alex’s. “Have I proven my legitimacy, or is another demonstration needed?”

The phone chose that exact moment to ring, startling Alex to the point she almost lost composure and swore. The man’s cool gray eyes flicked down and then back up, hardly bothered.

“You’ll want to take this.”

Two rings. Three. Four. Alex was tempted to let it ring until the person on the other line tired, but she reached out instead, detaching the receiver from the cradle and lifting it to her ear.

“New York Times, Alex Bailey speaking,” she greeted mechanically, watching the man watch her.

“Alex, it’s Georgia.”

“Hey, now’s not the best–”

“I need to speak with you. Privately.”

Alex froze from head to heel. The man kept watching. “Is everything all right?”

The pause told her everything and made her sweat. “No.”

Hot accusation and a silent threat of future violence flickered across Alex’s face, but the man threw it back at her with cool indifference. He might as well have been watching a telemarketer make calls.

“Is this something that can wait until tonight, or do you need to see me right now?”

“Meet me outside. Five minutes.”

The line went dead, dial tone whining between each frantic heartbeat. When Alex set the receiver back with a click she could still hear the beeping.

“What game are you playing?” She tried to sound furious but landed on scared.

The man snorted. “It’s not a game when you don’t know the rules and aren’t even a viable player, Miss Bailey. This goes beyond you in every capacity. You’re just the poor monkey who doesn’t know when to stop.”

“Then why give me information that day? Why not let the lead die?” Alex tried to remain steadfast in the face of mounting odds but felt her grip slipping. This man could be a joke, but too many things told her he was legitimate. No one knew about the diner envelope save for Georgia. And no one knew about Rebecca and Em’s shared photo inside. Suddenly, her office was too small. “I would have hit enough dead ends to call it quits eventually. Why are you here? Who the hell even are you, for that matter?”

The man’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “If only your breed were so cut and dry. A dog only stops digging when they find their bone.”

“Answer my question!”

“I am. You just aren’t looking or listening hard enough. Darker and far greater powers than your own have a keen interest in Doctor Farrow, Miss Bailey, and the more you dig, the more you wriggle like a worm on a hook. Take my word for it. You do not want these sharks to focus on you more than they already have.”

Alex paled, and the man took great pleasure in his threats finally hitting home.

“That’s the danger of peering into the void. Sometimes the void looks back with a thousand more eyes and a million more teeth.”

He stood, and Alex jumped up, anticipating an attack. None came, other than her unwelcome guest sharply tugging down the sleeves of his expensive blazer and checking the silver watch at his wrist. “Come. You and I have your friend to catch.”

“Fuck you,” Alex seethed, balling her fists and finally showing her fangs. “You don’t get to come in here, into my office, my house, and yank me around by a chain you think you’re holding. I don’t know who the fuck you are or who you work for, but the only place you’re going is out of my goddamn office and into police cuffs. The second you walk out that door is the second I start screaming.”

The man surprised her by letting out a laugh that sounded almost genuine, if a little irked. Then he did the absolute worst thing and came around the desk. Alex clambered backward — fully prepared to jump over her desk and make a run for the hallway — when the man stopped in front of the bay window that took up the back half of Alex’s office. She’d pulled aside the blinds earlier that morning, giving them both a sprawling view of the city below.

“Come here for a moment.” When she didn’t budge, the man gave her a sharp look and an even sharper jerk of the chin. “If I’d meant to harm you, Miss Bailey, it wouldn’t be in your office. Crowds are so much easier for quiet kills.”

Alex measured her odds of making it to the door without a set of hands grabbing her and saw the folly in trying to maneuver her way out of this. So with great reluctance, she came to stand beside the man as close as her body would safely allow, which wasn’t close at all.

“Thank you. Hold up your hand. Yes, like that. Now, turn your palm to face the window.”

The moment Alex did, a red dot appeared in the center of her palm and hovered there like a bloated mosquito.

“Look across at the roof to your left.”

Her neck turned with all the reluctance of a rusted steel cap. Alex didn’t see it at first but as if given a silent signal, a black figure, perfectly aligned with the red dot, moved their head into view before ducking back behind the eye of their scope.

“My name is Cedric Barrowman,” the man said, close enough Alex could smell his expensive cologne. “And you have been warned. Now, I’m going to tell you where we go from here. You are going to walk with me out of this office and to the elevators. We are going to exit the building, and you are going to meet your friend. And should you scream, should you do anything other than what I’ve outlined for you, I will shoot one of your two friends. Georgia or Philip. Do you understand?”

All Alex could manage around the heart palpitations turning her vision gray was a nod.

“Excellent. After you.”

Bombshell

Alex had to commend herself on her Tony Award-winning ability to walk through the office without once missing a beat while she had a proverbial loaded gun pressed against her back. No one paid the two any mind as she and Cedric entered the elevator and rode it down in prickly silence. The doorman nodded as if the two were expected and let them out into the muggy afternoon.

“Stop here at the curb,” Cedric said, pulling Alex’s strings and making her stop. “Hail a cab.”

Dots flashed in her periphery. Suddenly dizzy, Alex put a hand on the newsbox beside her to keep from tipping into traffic.

“Breathe, Miss Bailey. The cab is for me, not you. As I said, this was a warning I believe I’ve made crystal clear. I have no desire to cause you harm.”

Alex let her arm fall and turned. When had she raised it? When had the cab gotten there? Cedric popped the door open and stepped halfway in, left arm on the roof. From this angle, Alex caught the dark shape of a gun resting in a discrete holster against his left side. He’d had that on him the entire time?

“Let me make one more thing clear. Tell no one we’ve spoken. And believe me, I will know if my name has passed your lips. The life of your friends rests in your hands.”

With that final threat hanging like a guillotine above her head, Cedric shut the cab door, and the vehicle coasted away, leaving behind the shellshocked remains of a young woman who desperately wanted her old life back.

“Alex?”

The urge to grab Georgia just to feel a living person against her skin and keep the world from bucking under her feet almost pried muscle from bone. She knew she looked like an absolute mess, so when the taller woman led her away from the curb and against the warm stone of her building, Alex put her back against it and pointed her face into the sun. Eyes closed, she willed the UV rays to drag the color back into her cheeks.

“I’m sorry. You caught me working on an emotional piece that hit me harder than I realized,” Alex lied once she wrestled back her ability to speak.

Georgia reached out, seemed to think twice about putting a comforting hand on Alex’s shoulder, and retracted it. “Then I apologize for what I’m about to show you, but this can’t wait.”

Despite Alex having known the woman for a scant few months, fear wasn’t an emotion the PI regularly displayed. Today, Georgia looked on the verge of testing just how far her legs could carry her before her heart gave out.

“Walk with me but go slow enough we can talk,” she instructed, falling into step beside Alex, who couldn’t stop from glancing at the rooftops for the black figure. Were they listening? She so desperately wanted to drag her friend into the first available building and keep her away from the windows.

From her light jacket, Georgia retrieved an envelope much like the one Cedric slipped her in the diner and passed it over. “I stopped looking into Rebecca Farrow the night your werewolf friend came to visit, but I forgot I’d put in a request to an informant of mine. I’m going to be straight with you Alex, I’m scared, and you should be too.”

My heart can’t take much more of this! Alex screamed internally but kept her external self emotionless. The envelope contained a single sheet of paper that slipped smoothly into her waiting hands.

Alex stopped walking at the same time the earth stopped spinning, both entities sliding into limbo. The document was innocuous enough it could have been easily overlooked in passing, but two names jumped out like lightning on a dark night: Rebecca Farrow and Edward J. North.

“Rebecca Farrow was a paid employee of the North crime family.”

It was like a bomb detonating under the faux-calm surface of Alex’s consciousness, turning her entire world into shrapnel and fire. Edward J. North was a name seldom spoken unless necessary, and even then, it was always with hesitance and a swallow preceding it. Alex could remember hearing about the man a handful of times during her stint with smaller newspapers, but even those instances stood out among the blur of those years.

Edward J. North was a vicious monster wrapped in the unassuming guise of a friendly neighbor. He wasn’t flashy with his wealth. He didn’t flaunt his power like the mobsters of old. He was soft-spoken, quiet, but so was a shark, and Edward was fond of eliminating competitors in his feeding grounds with bloody efficiency.

It was joked — in private whispers — that if Marco Falconi was the devil, Edward J. North was the left hand of God that had thrown him out of Heaven. Falconi was a minnow compared to the Norths. That was the power of their family. Their reach was infinite, and one didn’t leave their employ on simple terms. They were cut out and cremated because ashes could seldom be identified.

You do not want these sharks to focus on you more than they already have. Cedric’s words came back like a backhand.

“Alex?”

It was like coming up for air beneath a sea of molasses, lies and questions and demands filling her lungs. Trapped on a rollercoaster doomed to crash, she just wanted it all to stop. “This doesn’t make sense,” she said lamely.

“It doesn’t have to. It’s there in black and white, and I know for a fact this is the original document. I don’t know who these people are that you’re associating with, but they aren’t good. People don’t just join the North Family with good intentions. I’m sorry, but Rebecca and her family aren’t who they say they are, and the last thing you need is to affiliate with any of them… her daughter included.”

Rebecca and her family aren’t who they say they are.

It clanged like a bell directly next to Alex’s head, tearing her between two conflicting realities. The people she met were good. They saved her. They helped her. They hid her while she healed. Bad people wouldn’t do that and not want something in return, and there had been plenty of opportunities for Rebecca to twist Alex’s arm, to demand, to blackmail.

“Why go through the trouble of blowing a lab and disappearing?” she asked out of reflex, speaking down at the concrete.

“To get out? To hide? To make it seem like you’re dead so the reaper doesn’t come knocking? There are a thousand different reasons she could have done what she did. The Norths deals in everything. She could have been their lead Meth cook, for all we know.”

“Edward North isn’t a second-rate drug dealer,” Alex frowned, keeping her voice down while her mind latched onto something tangible she could distract herself with. “He has his hands in property, commerce, government, and– oh...”

“Oh?” Georgia prompted when the conversation lapsed. “What’s oh?”

“He deals in legal drugs,” she whispered, a dreadful clarity settling in. “Pharmaceuticals. Rebecca was working on finding a cure for Huntington’s Disease, and Em was her protégé.”

“I’m not following. Where’s your mind going?”

That was a very good question. The simplest answer was “nowhere good” because not only had a smarmy motherfucker in a suit more expensive than most cars threatened to murder her friends if she didn’t keep quiet, Alex had just learned the mother of the woman she was falling for had mob connections. Instead, Alex slid the paper back into the envelope and handed it to Georgia. Numbness blessedly chose this moment to kick in and kept her digits from shaking.

“Burn this. Burn everything you have on Rebecca and tell your informants to do the same.”

Shock bloomed on Georgia’s face. She’d obviously come to this meeting expecting Alex to put up a fight and beg her to keep looking. Truth be told, had Cedric not made his demands clear, and had Georgia’s searching not led them to the door of Edward J. North, Alex would have.

Now, too much hung in the balance. Too many lives and too many unknowns.

“Are you serious? You want me to burn– hey! Where are you going? Alex!”

“I need to think,” she said over her shoulder, unsure if her voice carried. “Get rid of that paper.”

Cedric may have gotten her to see reason, but Alex was still a shaken soda about to pop. If she didn’t find a way to blow through the corrosive toxins poisoning her blood, they would melt her resistance and she’d tell Georgia everything. Then she’d have to bury her friend. The thought made her almost vomit.

Thank God Georgia didn’t follow. And thank God no one accosted her on the street as she wandered in a flickering daze like a torn flag in the wind.

Letting her feet guide the way, it came as little surprise they led her down a familiar path. Alex craved familiarity like a dehydrated man craved water and found it in a bar not far from her office. Stuck in a haze, she picked a place furthest from the door and sunk her head in her hands. Thinking made everything worse, but it was the only tool at her disposal. Think and think and think until she over-thought.

“You stare any harder at the wood, and you might just light it on fire.”

Alex looked up at the bartender’s concerned half-smile. “Hey, Jessie.”

The petite blonde was one of the few bartenders Alex could admit she truly liked out of the dozens she knew through the reach of her employer. Jessie was sharp as a tack but loved people enough she forwent a degree in psychology, focusing instead on a major in mixology, “Because I can make more money in a night than most strippers with half the mess and better clients. When I get bored, I’ll go back to being a shrink.”

“Hard stories today?”

“Personal matters.”

Jessie made an understanding noise and shifted so she was in front of Alex so they could better speak. “Boyfriend troubles?”

That wheedled a laugh out of the journalist, albeit a dry one. “You and I both know I don’t bat for that team.”

Jessie grinned, all tooth and Southern charm. “I always feel the need to double-check.” She offered a wink before sliding like liquid mercury over to the multicolored bottles on the wall. There were a handful of people in the building, meaning her attention was solely on Alex.

“So is this a ‘Gin and Tonic, my family’s driving me up the wall and daddy wants me to marry rich’ kind of night? A ‘Rum and Coke, I just found out I was written out of the will’ kind of night? Or ‘Dirty Martini, my sex life needs an overhaul’?”

“How about ‘Jack on the Rocks, I just found out a friend of mine is doing possible dealings with the mob’.”

Jessie’s mouth went about as round as her eyes. She grabbed two whiskey tumblers with ice and filled them each halfway with Jack Daniels, one for Alex and one for herself, both women downing them like seasoned pros.

“Well, fuck me. That’s some shit,” she said, sucking her teeth. “You doing okay? Like seriously, you need anything?”

“Not really,” Alex admitted, letting the liquor cauterize her insides. This was a light start. By the night’s end, she didn’t want to feel a damn fucking thing.

“I know you can’t go into detail, but hypotheticals work wonders, and I have a good ear.”

“Keep my glass topped off and men away from me, and I might just do that.”

“It’s a deal, sweetheart,” Jessie flashed another 1000-watt grin, filling Alex’s tumblr once more before moving off to check on the other customers.

Alex was sure to catch hell from Phillip for day drinking and skipping work. Then again, all that was left of the day could be done on Monday, so Alex put it from her mind, focusing instead on chipping away at the mountain of slag surrounding the hot core of her terror and stress one shot at a time.

“You know how sometimes you just want the world to stop spinning long enough to catch your breath?” she asked sometime later, head filling with helium and limbs loose. How many shots had she had? Did it matter? The sun had long since set, night bringing in the regular Friday crowd. True to her word, Jessie kept the men away and Alex’s drinks topped off. And true to her intentions, Alex was drinking herself blessedly numb.

“Call me weird, but I’m one of those girls who likes to hold my arms out and spin until I can’t breathe,” Jessie chuckled from the stool next to Alex, spread out with the easy grace of youth. Her shift ended an hour ago, but she stayed to talk. “Different strokes for different folks, but I get your point and might have a remedy to slow you down.”

“What’s to say I want to slow down?” Alex squinted. “What’s to say I can’t just fly into the stars and stay there? Shit makes sense up there.”

“Oh-ho-ho, well okay then. I might have something that will send you into orbit.”

“Not tequila.” Alex pulled a face, sticking out her tongue. Her very numb tongue. “Unless you want me starting a bar fight. Which, fuck, after today I just might do...”

Jessie filled with laughter that tilted her head back, exposing the smooth column of her throat to the low overhead lights. “While that would be a spectacle of the debaucherous variety, no tequila. Something a little rougher. Provided you can take it.”

Alex snorted and took the offered shot when Jessie retracted from her climb over the bartop. The contents were Vodka-clear. The punch kicked like bathtub gin and closed fingers around her lungs.

“Is this moonshine?” she coughed through the burn opening up her nasal passages and shoving her entire upper body into a bonfire.

“Shhh! Don’t spoil it!” Jessie pretended to look around for would-be cops eavesdropping. “My cousin in Kentucky made it and sent me some to try. You like?”

“Mix it with something sweeter,” Alex struggled around another cough, “and I’ll take another.”

It shouldn’t have shocked her. It really shouldn’t because Jessie had been inching closer all night, and Alex hadn’t removed herself. Jessie was flirting, and Alex was too. She was crossing a line, but Alex was done with lines, throwing caution to the wind because her life had long ago abandoned its placidity and jumped to a category four hurricane. So, when the Southern blonde bombshell knocked back another shot only to pull Alex into a searing kiss — sharing the liquor between them via tongue — it shouldn’t have put her into the stratosphere, but it did.

Oh, thank God, it did.

Someone whooped. Someone cheered. Someone might have said something derogatory, but none of that registered. Alex was spinning into blessed blackness, letting the centrifugal force launch her to space.

“Too much sugar?” Jessie breathed after breaking away, licking the liquor glaze off Alex’s bottom lip.

“Not hardly enough,” Alex grinned, taking another shot and repeating Jessie’s tactic. ‘Not hardly enough’ became a Dionisius-dive into the bottom of the bottle where the world faded into fits and starts. Their combined stumble into the night air, laughing like the world was the best comedy. The blur of streetlights. The click of a door lock. The burn of cool hands against bare skin, scorching tongues exploring sensitive flesh, breathy prayers sent into the blue-black heavens.

Alex let herself fall — literally, at least once — vaguely aware of her surroundings save for the glorious release flooding her body. It was like the satisfying ping of a wire finally snapping after being under tremendous tension. Mind cloudy and light, she lost herself to the updraft of ecstasy, unsure if the clang she heard as she and Jessie tangled together on her countertop was something hitting the floor or her fire escape.

Little Sister

The apartment was dark upon arrival, which was nothing to worry about. It was Friday. Alex was probably working late, and this had been a spur-of-the-moment venture after a late-night Insider pickup. Hands bracketing her eyes to help filter out light pollution, Lee scanned the living room and exhaled a disappointed sigh that fogged the glass.

Empty. Well, damn.

Disheartened but not detoured, Lee turned to leave — brewing a plan about weekend meet-ups and a rendezvous in the hot springs — when she caught the unmistakable sound of a door unlatching.

For a second, it was hard to decipher what she was seeing. Cast in silhouette due to the hallway light, the shadow moving into Alex’s home didn’t look human. Too many limbs and lumps, giving it a cheap sci-fi vibe until something separated the shadow into equal parts… and suddenly, Lee was falling. Not from any actual height but plummeting in a spin of shocked vertigo. She might as well have been watching a movie unfurling on the other side of the glass, unable to do anything but stare.

They tangled around one another. Hands hungry. Roaming, seeking, finding, claiming. In the light from the window, the one Lee partially obstructed, Alex came into view, hoisted and settled onto the countertop, body bathed in deep pools and estuaries of false light. She was heaving, straining, reaching for another who responded to the summoning like a feral panther crawling up her body.

Someone else’s hands tore her top, scattering buttons like bullets.

Someone else’s hands traced the curves of her pitching chest, the swell of her breasts, the planes of her stomach.

Someone else’s hands fumbled the button of her slacks, drawing them down, revealing streaks of pale flesh to the New York moonlight. A breathy moan snaked past the barricade of glass and brick and punched Lee in the chest as the other woman settled between Alex’s parted thighs and–

Twisting away, her boots scuffing the steel grate as she did, Lee slammed her back against the wall next to the window, cutting the connection. It took several swallows to push her heart back down. When it descended, it dragged all the blood in her body to her feet, leaving her cold.

You need to leave — you need to leave — you need to leave, her mind roared in a mortified rush as her body filled with static until there was only one logical thing left to do. Launching forward, Lee grabbed the railing and swung one-handed over the edge, plummeting into darkness. She was eight stories up. Hitting the ground from here would be instant death, but she expertly caught the railing a story below and repeated the process until she was close enough to the ground to jump.

It didn’t hit her until she slipped into the muffled darkness of the alley behind the appliance store what she’d seen and what it meant. Hot shock became disbelief that solidified into cold understanding the farther she moved from Alex’s apartment.

This is stupid, she thought with a shaky laugh, rubbing her upper arms against the chill despite it being September and still muggy. You’re being ridiculous, and you walked into that. That’s why you always make sure to let people know when you’re coming over. So you don’t catch anyone with their pants down. Why are you upset? This doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t mean anything. You never were anything.

Lee staggered like someone punched her between her shoulder blades, hand out to steady herself against the wall. It just slipped out, but the bitter truth coiled around her and squeezed.

You never were anything.

It was like stumbling backstage during a magic act. The illusion, so cleanly executed for the audience, was nothing more than clever mechanics disguised by pretty fabric and paint. There was no real magic left in the world. There never had been.

Embarrassment, betrayal, shame: all three nestled in Lee’s chest, beating like an angry tempest. She became aware of hot lines of salt cutting paths down her cheeks when the wind picked up, cooling her tears. What had she expected out of this insane endeavor? Happiness? Companionship? Love? No, she never went looking for that. Friendship maybe, but never love. But it sniffed her out and sank its claws in deep.

But there was no love. Infatuation, yes. Curiosity… that too. And the worst part was Lee had seen the approaching freight train but was too naïve to leap out of the way. She should have never hoped… never wished.

Dark thoughts wheedled into her mind like a poisoned worm through an apple, making her stare at her hands through watery eyes. Hands meant to harm more than heal. Hands she’d been so afraid to touch Alex with, and now...

It was too much.

She ran. Back to safety and sanctuary. Back to her tunnels. It was where she belonged. In the pipes. In the dark. Not bathed in the false neon of a kingdom no friend to her.

Lee didn’t know how Goliath never failed to show up in times like these. It was like he possessed a sixth sense when it came to her, so when her body collided with his solid mass it didn’t come as a surprise but a relief. She was drowning, and he was her buoy, strong arms encircling her, holding tight until she broke.

“Hearts are fragile things,” Goliath rumbled, easing them both to the floor. “Bleed it out, little sister.”

And she did. Wrapped in familiar comfort, Lee let herself spiral and smash against the earth.

At some point, the giant stood and took her with him, carrying her like he had when she was young and a day of play had tired her out too far from home. He entered a hidden lift destined for ancient tunnels, further even than the Underground itself where the stones turned slate-gray and the halls became arched and Gothic. The true Underground.

Lee had been to Goliath’s inner sanctum more than her fair share of times. When she was but a wee tunnel rat, she wandered the deeper tunnels looking for her mysterious friend, spending countless hours playing with the cats that followed the giant like a furry entourage. When she grew older, Lee policed herself better, respecting Goliath’s need for privacy, but sometimes the loneliness set in, and she needed a sympathetic ear when her mother and Em weren’t as understanding as they could be.

His home was a wonder, more cave than a four-walled room. Bookshelves lined the circular, rough-hewn walls stuffed with a dragon’s hoard of trinkets and bobbles, toys, and masterfully crafted miniatures. Pieces of stained glass hung in clusters like sharp fruit in front of warm bulbs, refracting millions of multicolored prisms as they turned ever so slowly. Kitchen, bedroom, sitting room, it all occupied the same circular space and was littered with cats.

Goliath set Lee in a truly massive chair next to the potbelly stove she’d installed years earlier. Even this far down, the tunnels grew cold. Lee took a moment to clear her face of tears and snot with the tail of her shirt, blinking in surprise when an orange tabby plopped into her lap.

Hello Mrs. Norris, she greeted the tabby with a watery smile, scratching the pregnant feline behind her jaw. The cat meowed happily at the attention, settling like a loaf into the curve of Lee’s hips. Goliath returned after removing his heavy coat, crouching in front of Lee and sliding off his mask so he could better see.

Handsome wasn’t an adjective she would have thought to use to describe the giant, but the few times she caught him without his mask, he was exactly that. Handsome in a ruggedly young Ron Perlman kind of way — though his exact age was a mystery. But it wasn’t Goliath’s soft features that never failed to captivate her. It was his eyes. Jade green and lit from the back with a weird kind of primal fire, they were eyes that could stare into a soul and charm a snake.

The moment was broken when Goliath placed his treasured mask in Lee’s hands, motioning for her to slip it on.

Why? she blinked, not understanding the gesture.

“A shield,” he explained. “You put the mask on, and the world bounces off. Under it, you heal. It protects you. Let’s you cry in private while everyone else thinks you’re smiling on the outside. A cheap trick, but sometimes the only way to heal is to trick the world into thinking you’re already okay.”

It was two sizes too big, but she slipped it on, feeling a weight release from her chest when she peered through the eyeholes. Goliath gave a faint, closed-lipped smile and rose to fetch the kettle that had begun to whistle.

Is that why you still wear the mask? You’re still trying to heal?

He didn’t respond. He wouldn’t, and Lee hadn’t expected him to. The man was an enigma, the rumors growing around him having turned to legend. No one knew why Goliath wore his mask. Why he seldom spoke. Or how he lived in the Underground decades before Rebecca ventured into his realm. He simply was and always would be, and that was the end of it.

A mug of hot chocolate was placed between her palms, the ceramic warm but not uncomfortable to the touch. A little-known fact Lee discovered by accident was that Goliath possessed one hell of a sweet tooth, and she loved to indulge him whenever possible.

“Drink,” he instructed, sipping from his own mug. “It will help.”

I don’t know what to do, Lee whispered down at the mug, watching the steaming chocolate ripple in the light. I know I shouldn’t be angry, but I am. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I thought we...

Had something.

That’s what she wanted to say, but it lodged in her throat like a twig.

Was it wrong to… love?

“Love has no clear answers, little sister. We can love a wasp even as it stings us.”

Am I just infatuated with someone who gave me attention? Was I wrong to care?

Goliath took a moment to answer. Around him, three small cats prowled, happy when he reached down to pet them and pull their tails.

“Was your aim to bed her from the beginning? Was this about feeling owed for your kindness?”

Lee drew back, disgust plain in the set of her body. Never. All I’ve ever wanted to do was help. I never wanted Alex to feel she owed me for anything. She still doesn’t. Yes, I was fascinated by her in the beginning, but I didn’t anticipate friendship to bloom. I didn’t anticipate any of this. I just… I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. Her, obviously, but that’s not possible, and I think I’ve been running from that. We’re too different. I’m too different, and Alex deserves someone from her world.

“You have the capacity to love.”

Lee pulled the mask up, motioning at her face. “Who could ever learn to love a beast?” she quoted bitterly.

Goliath’s smile was warm with just a hint of pacification. The mystery of his age deepened just then; he looked years beyond his apparent youth. “You are hurting, little sister. No clear answer will come tonight. Give it, and yourself, time.”

Lee didn’t want time. She wanted to be rid of the turmoil curdling her stomach and making her skin burn. Confusion made her both irritated and petulant. In the past, when she couldn’t understand a problem, she would walk away. This time that meant walking away from possibly the brightest thing in her life.

Goliath was right. Everything was muddied. Lee couldn’t see up from down. So she dried her eyes as best she could and sipped her cooling drink, watching the fire crackle in the stove. When stray tears trailed down her cheeks, she didn’t move to wipe them away.

Daisy Dukes

Alex thought she was dreaming of drums. They weren’t the sharp kind found in a low-lit jazz club or the throaty ones keeping the heartbeat in a rock show. This was the wild kind found in the deep woods, loud and capable of permeating her entire body. It shook her closer to consciousness one concussion at a time until, when she was close enough, the veil shattered into billions of bright pieces.

“Alex!” a voice thundered, warbled and disjointed in her ears. “Alex-fucking-Bailey, I swear to God, if you’re not here, I’m going to–”

The sound of something slamming detonated like a bomb, propelling Alex into the bright delirium of consciousness and right off the end of her bed. Up and down became irrelevant. The earth was a carnival ride with her brain suspended in an anti-gravity tailspin.

Where was she?

When was she?

Everything blurred together as white-hot agony pumped into her head through her eyes and ears. Sunlight was acid against the cave of her skull, stabbing needles into her eyes.

“God, at least I don’t have to call the morgue, but what the fuck?” Georgia gaped from the doorway. Alex whimpered against the rug under her, attempting and failing to fight her frazzled equilibrium. “I’ve been calling you for two hours, and here you are hungover like a frat boy and–”

Georgia’s rant cut off when her electric stare caught sight of the second body peeking out from behind the comforter, anger flickering to an unamused scowl in a literal New York minute. “Jessica Beckel,” she spat the name like it physically rubbed her the wrong way.

The other woman slid out from under the shield of her raised comforter, covering her upper body with the sheets. “Officer Battle, hey,” Jessie said, her greeting meant to sound pleasantly surprised but hitting closer to a wince. Her recovery was lightning quick, southern charm ramping up by sticky degrees. “Girl, look at you! Never in my life have I seen such a better–”

“No,” Georgia cut in like a razor through a sail.

“Oh,” Jessie drew back. “I see we’re all business. Well then, what brings you here on this fine Saturday morning, Officer Battle?” Something must have struck the younger woman because some of the color left her cheeks, and her head snapped to the side of the bed missing a body. “Alex didn’t tell me she was seeing anyone.”

From the floor, Alex made a strange series of noises that sounded like an attempt at verbal communication, but it was Georgia who responded. “This is a business call.”

“Oh-ho, well, okay then. Far be it from me to keep an officer of the law from her due course.”

“Cut the crap. You know I’m not a cop anymore, and half of that’s thanks to you.”

“Now Offi– Miss Battle, I thought that was far enough in the past we didn’t have to dredge up–”

“The fact your boyfriend led to me taking a bullet to the hip?” Georgia scowled. “Funny how things like that don’t tend to just magically go away.”

“You of all people know I’ve not had contact with Derek since he went to Sing Sing.”

On cue, Alex groaned, too mortified to care about her predicament or the fact she was sprawled naked on her bedroom floor. Fuck the world and everyone in it. She just wanted her head to stop pounding.

“Alex, dear, are you all right?” Jessie teased, sliding languidly across the bed to peer down at her impromptu bed partner. Georgia rolled her eyes to the ceiling, unwilling to catch an eye full of Jessie’s round white ass.

“Let me die,” Alex moaned.

“Aww, want me to kiss it better? You certainly liked my mouth–”

“Absolutely not! Not with me standing right here. Get your ass in the shower and get gone!” Georgia snapped. “I’ve got work to do with Miss Naked-and-Regretful.”

Jessie made a noncommittal noise and rolled back to her side of the bed, sliding on a pair of shorts and obnoxious cowboy boots that looked plucked straight from a Dukes of Hazzard movie. Negating a top, the blonde sauntered past Georgia like it was just another day, throwing her a wink as she went.

“I cannot believe you went and screwed Daisy Dukes with the Boots. I thought you had better taste.”

“Can you please stop talking so loud?” Alex whined, flopping onto her back with all the finesse of a floundering fish.

“No, I can’t! In fact, I think I should get a little louder just to drive home the point you had me worried all goddamn night!”

Alex’s instinctive curl into a fetal position with her hands over her ears must have been pathetic enough to divert Georgia’s temper. Pushing out a hard sigh, the PI crossed the room and snagged a robe from Alex’s closet, tossing it over the prone woman.

“It’s hard to stay mad at you when I’m distracted by how fucking pale you are. You need to get some sun and a fresh round of shots.”

Muttering thanks and climbing into her robe with geriatric slowness, Alex hoisted herself back into dignity by sitting on the edge of her bed. She looked a disheveled mess and felt five times worse. “Oh God, Georgia, I fucked up so bad.”

“Story of your life.”

“I don’t remember how I got home,” she said, dragging her hands down her face.

“A cab, I hope.”

“I don’t remember anything past four o’clock. Oh, God… what did I do?”

“Ditched me to drown yourself in booze, from what I can gather. I didn’t think that was really your speed, but okay.” Georgia put her hands up in a distinct “whatever” gesture.

“Can you blame me?” Alex argued, her memory spotty but not enough to block out the very real knowledge Lee’s mother was a runaway member of the mob and a man with a sniper in tow had come to her to ensure her silence on the matter. Her already sea-sick stomach rolled. “I just needed to clear my head.”

“By giving yourself alcohol poisoning and maybe an STD? How’d that pan out in the end?” Alex’s pained expression was answer enough. “That’s what I thought. Would it have killed you to talk to me instead of hauling ass to the closest bar?”

“I panicked.”

“Yeah, right into a set of tits and blonde hair.” It was hard to decipher whether or not Georgia was angrier at the fact Alex drank herself stupid or wound up fucking a blast from her past. “It’s too early for this. Come into the kitchen. A little ‘hair of the dog’ will do you some good. Last I remember, you still have half a bottle of vodka. Unless you and Coyote Ugly polished it off.”

“Georgia,” Alex called, looking distraught when Georgia turned. “I slept with a bartender.” The admission was as much a statement as it was confirmation, the haunted look in her eyes growing by degrees. “I blackout-slept with a bartender, I don’t remember it, and there’s a weird taste in my mouth...”

“That’s called a pink pussy, and I’m not talking about the drink.” Alex gagged, turning green around the gills. “Yeah, vodka will wash the tang right out and sanitize it too.”

Head splitting and body sore, Alex took her time shuffling into the living room and depositing herself on the couch. Georgia was already pulling out ingredients for a hangover cure, careful where she put her hands, “Because I don’t know where you two did things, and that white stain looks way too suspicious for my liking. I need Lysol and gloves before I touch anything.”

While Alex nursed a stout Bloody Mary alongside her friend, Jessie emerged looking fresh as a spring day. She didn’t stick around, bidding Alex goodbye with a quick kiss to the cheek and an invitation to give her a call the next time she needed an excuse for a romp.

Alex, for her part, opted for closed-mouth nods until the woman was gone. Then she flew into the bathroom and proceeded to scorch away the top three layers of her skin.

“Is there any hot water left?” Georgia said when Alex emerged almost an hour later.

“Scrubbed myself like I’m going up for auction.”

“Good. I wasn’t joking about those shots either. Get yourself checked ASAP.”

Alex accepted the wisdom, but she was distracted as she stared out the window. Last night, all she wanted was a release. It wasn’t much to ask for after the internal war she’d slogged through for more than half a year. But she woke up wound tighter than ever, feeling for all the world like a welded-shut pressure cooker next to a furnace.

“Was Jessie’s boyfriend the one who got you shot?” The question came out of nowhere and even shocked Alex, who instantly regretted opening her mouth.

Georgia didn’t answer immediately. She stared out a different window, lips pressed in a thin line. “I’m not ready to discuss that with you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Alex apologized, meaning every word.

“It is what it is. You can’t change the past,” Georgia said with a shrug that was too nonchalant. Alex caught how her right hand drifted over the edge of her pelvis. In the past, she assumed it was the habitual motion of someone reaching for a gun. Now, she wasn’t so sure...

Not Welcome

“Red lipstick and concealer,” Phillip said from the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the frame.

“I’m sorry?” Alex blinked up at him, caught unawares. Her confusion morphed into a scarlet flush when Phillip pointed to the hickie peeking out from under her hastily arranged scarf.

“Red lipstick first.” He mimed rubbing something on his neck and looking at himself in a compact mirror. “Let it dry, then add liquid concealer. Works like a charm. That’s why you’ve never seen any of the marks Brian leaves on me. At least the ones that get to breathe air, that is.” Phillip’s wink was devilish. He loved seeing his friend squirm. “Nice to see you getting out. Congrats.”

Alex couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or mortified but stowed the useful information away for later. Not like there would be a repeat performance, but any little bit helped.

The week following her Friday night bender moved on without incident, and September rolled to a soft close. Alex swallowed her pride and came to terms with her egregious mistake, taking Georgia’s razzing like a truly repentant adult. Caught between two demanding masters, looming deadlines, and Georgia’s investigations, it didn’t dawn on Alex until two more quiet weeks slipped by that she hadn’t heard from the Underground. This wasn’t uncommon. Lee could go days without sending a message, but three weeks was a stretch.

Figuring something must have come up, Alex let the matter drop for a couple of days until the seeds of unease bloomed into worry. Lee had never gone this long without getting some kind of communication to her. Unwilling to let her anxiety grow further, Alex waited until she was home and phoned Chang’s, asking for Jerry when the regular manager answered.

“Man, I told you to stop calling me at work,” he hissed, and by the muffled sound of his voice, Alex guessed he was trying to keep the conversation hidden. “You’re gonna get me–”

“In trouble with your sweet little honey?” Alex filled in, rolling her eyes in the process. This was how most of their blessedly limited conversations began. It was ritualistic at this point.

“You mocking me?”

“Why would I ever do a thing like that?” Alex tinged her voice in condescending sweetness before dropping her jest and becoming serious. “Have you been Underground recently?”

“Three days ago. Why?”

Well, that was mildly comforting. If something major happened, Alex figured she would have been informed. “Has anything happened? Anything out of the norm?”

Alex heard Jerry snort and could imagine the bored look on his face. “What makes you think I’d tell you if something did?”

“Jesus, Jerry.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’ve not heard from Lee in three weeks, okay? I’m starting to get worried. Can you please get a message to her for me?”

“I ain’t due down there for another three days, and special trips are frowned upon by Mother, so you’re gonna have–”

“I’ll pay you fifty bucks cash if you make the run tonight,” she cut in, throwing the offer like a fishing lure. Alex could hear the sound of a busy kitchen in the background, people shouting in Mandarin, utensils scraping sizzling woks. When the pause stretched for too long, she sighed into the receiver, resting her head against the wall. “Seventy-five.”

“Done deal!” The grin in his voice made her want to throttle him. “Now, actually order something so my boss doesn’t think I’m doing anything hinky behind the scenes.”

“You? Doing unscrupulous things? What an imagination. Bring my regular order. I’ll have your money waiting.”

True to form, the Insider arrived on time, give or take a few minutes, with a plastic bag full of takeout Alex didn’t want in one hand and the other outstretched for his not-so-subtle tip. He gave her an extra sleazy look when he took the money and promised to get back to her later that night. With no other options — Alex wished the Underground could receive cell service, or at the very least, a landline — she was forced to eat her meal alone and wait, killing time and brain cells by watching trashy TV.

One hour slipped by, then two, then three. It was well past eleven when she was startled from a light doze by furious pounding on her door that didn’t stop until she jerked it open. Reprimand close at hand — it was almost midnight, for Christ’s sake! — her words were silenced by a wad of cash breaking against her cheek.

“Don’t you ever fucking call me again! This arrangement between us is through.”

Dumbfounded, Alex stared at Jerry in cold shock, crumpled bills stuck in the folds of her robe. A sharp, “What?” was all she could muster in the face of his fury.

“Like you don’t fucking know!”

“Clearly, I don’t! What did I do this time?”

“Then die stupid. I don’t let people hurt my family, especially rich bitches who think they can play with Lee’s heart.”

Ice replaced fire. Alex’s entire body stuttered like a stalling engine long enough for Jerry to whirl around and stalk down the hall, leaving her sinking in frigid quicksand.

What? What?

“What do you mean play with her heart?” Alex called, running after him. “What are you talking about?!”

Inside the elevator, Jerry grabbed the doors before they slid shut. The venom in his next sentence could have melted steel beams. “The next time you decide to fuck someone, make sure your blinds are down.”

The last thing Alex registered was a proud middle finger raised in her direction before the elevator doors closed and the pressure building inside her hit a cataclysmic breaking point around one strangled word.

“No.”

It shivered in the air, a pleading prayer she didn’t even know she was saying as she scrambled back to her apartment, curious eyes watching from behind closed doors, and threw on the first warm article of clothing within arm’s reach. Neon and streetlights bled into streaks as she ran from her apartment, darkness creeping into her soul each time she stumbled or slowed.

No, this wasn’t right.

No, that hadn’t happened.

No, she hadn’t been there!

No, no, no, no, no, no!

Alex flew down a grimey alley, knowing the route by heart. The basement still reeked of mold and wet wood, but she didn’t register the smell. Crates blocked her path, but she didn’t slow, climbing over them in a mad search for the hidden latch that would open the tunnel entrance.

She shouldn’t have been there, shouldn’t even be this far from home this late, but desperation drove her like a lathered team of horses against the whip. By now, Alex knew her way around the upper tunnels near her home well enough to get around unassisted. Her knowledge paled in comparison to Lee’s, but she at least knew where to tap, seeking and finding the necessary pipe.

Retrieving a small screwdriver from her pocket, Alex raised her hand to beat her message but froze. In the quiet darkness, all she could hear was the labored rush of her breathing, a muffled version of the tempest roaring in her mind. What was she going to say? What could she say? “Sorry you caught me with my pants down? She didn’t mean anything? I was drunk and don’t remember? You’re all I want. You’re all I think about, but we can’t be together because we come from two different worlds and your family connection might get me killed? Sorry I broke your heart in the process of figuring my shit out?”

Flimsy excuses that were more insulting than exonerating. There wasn’t an apology big enough to bridge this gap.

Tears blurred Alex’s vision. All she had were her words. If they couldn’t be enough, then she had nothing.

I can’t let this end here. Please, God, don’t let it end here.

The call echoed with the jarring force of a gunshot through the metal tube before silence reinstated itself like disturbed water swallowing a thrown stone. Sliding down the convex wall, Alex allowed guilt to savage her as the bleak void of steel and concrete swallowed her.

I don’t let people hurt my family, especially rich bitches who think they can play with Lee’s heart! Jerry’s words wrote themselves on the back of her eyelids. Alex knew she and Lee had danced around tentative labels for months but neither had been prepared to commit. No, scratch that. Alex hadn’t been ready to commit. She toyed with Lee, stringing her along, telling herself she would figure out her own heart in due time, then fell into bed with that same woman watching.

When the hairs on the back of Alex’s neck pricked, she knew her solitude had come to an end, but the atmosphere felt…wrong. Like reality was a record lightly skipping offbeat, throwing the whole rhythm out of sync. As usual, Goliath stood outside Alex’s flashlight range, sticking to the shadows. The only indication she wasn’t alone was the glow of his mask in the blue-black shadows and his subtle, shadowy outline.

“I need to speak to Lee,” Alex pleaded, pushing up from the ground but not approaching further. “Please, this is urgent. I need to see her.”

Stone silent, Goliath kept his distance, but the queasy sense of wrongness didn’t lessen. And what was more, the beam of Alex’s flashlight beam was doing its level best not to alight on him, refracting and redirecting like it was hitting an invisible prism.

“I messed up. I hurt her. But I need her to know I never meant to. It was a mistake. I wasn’t even–”

“You’re not welcome here.”

The voice was a blow to her solar plexus, knocking the wind from her sails and slamming a door in her face. Hard. “Please,” she begged, fighting from going to her knees. “I need to make this right! Just give me a chance to expla–”

Darkness.

Alex swore. Her flashlight had cut out, plunging her into absolute blackness. It almost felt staged — at any moment, a laugh track would play — but when the torch blinked back to life a second later, Alex felt the whole of her reality twist and splinter for the second time in her life, terror seizing her spine.

Goliath crouched before her, his white mask barely brushing the tip of her nose. She hadn’t heard or felt him move. One moment he was at least twenty yards down the tunnel, and in the blink of a stuttering bulb, he was so close Alex could see eyelashes rimming phosphorescent green eyes.

With intimidating slowness, Goliath reached up and placed his thumb and middle finger on the bottom edge of his mask and began to push. Dread became buckshot exploding through Alex’s system. Every neuron shrieked at her to do everything in her limited power to prevent him from looking at her unmasked. Inch by inch, the white shield was lifted until the face beneath touched open air.

It was caught in flickering glimpses like sunlight peeking between tree branches from a moving car. Sunken, black hole eyes with green stars glowing at their center. Spindly gray roots for hair. Tangled. Unkempt. Bleached and brittle like the roots that grew through cracks in the concrete and fed on nothing but shadows. An ape-ish muzzle or perhaps a snout. It was impossible to tell because in one instance there was a man, and in the next, a thing crafted from solidified shadows that made Goliath grow and stretch, his bulk overwhelming the tunnel.

Suddenly, Alex understood what Lucas meant when they said Goliath wasn’t human. In that pivotal moment, Alex knew with chilling clarity she wasn’t standing in the presence of anything remotely natural, and that understanding strained the edges of her mortal comprehension to its breaking point.

“Get. Out.”

No time to recoil. No time to speak or breathe or think. Alex blinked again, and the giant was moving away, sliding back into the shadows. Even after he was presumably gone, Alex felt the weight of those green eyes watching her, glowing like ghost lights whenever she shifted her field of vision.

It took a full minute for her to turn and flee back up the tunnels, back to her world of neon and chrome, back to the safety of Topside but so devastatingly far from what she wanted.

Letter

The pencil went up the slanted desk and came back down only to be sent off again by a sharp twitch from Lee’s finger.

Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

She watched it with disinterest, head resting on her arm, eyes tracking the movement but not seeing it. Beside her, the music box assembled from Alex’s gifted kit played through its melody, internal terminals winding down until the song came to an end. Only then did she move, rewinding the spring and letting the little particleboard robot sing.

Two weeks into her sulk, Lee’s fingers lost their dexterity, creativity seizing up like an engine without oil. Three weeks, and she had to start tracking her bathing habits after her mother made a comment about lingering musk. The last thing Lee wanted was anyone prying into her sudden mood shift. The same couldn’t be said for Em, who sensed what the culprit might be and spoke her peace.

“Look, all I’m saying — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — is that you can’t leave things like they are.”

There’s no point, Em. There never was.

“Will you pull your head out of your ass for two seconds?” she snapped. Lee shot her a scathing look that Em returned with stony indifference. “You got your feelings hurt. I get that, but the two of you were never exclusive, were you? That was a direct question, Leanna.”

No, she grunted, hating the admission but knowing it for the truth it was.

“Then it seems to me some wires were crossed, and you two need to talk.”

What if I don’t want to? Lee challenged. What if I feel this was all a mistake, and I just want to pretend it didn’t happen?

“Well, for starters, you shouldn’t have gotten me and your mother involved in the first place if you didn’t want this to go anywhere. Secondly, if that’s how you really feel, then you were in it for the wrong reason.” Em said and shelved the book in her hands.

I didn’t plan on falling in love!

“No, but you blundered into it without a second thought to the consequences! You knew what was happening, and you didn’t pump the brakes. You didn’t set up boundaries. Love isn’t like the storybooks, Lee. There’s no clear path, and both parties have to communicate and put in the work for things to work out. Life isn’t a Disney movie. You don’t just kiss once and that’s the end.”

Funny, because I’m pretty much the embodiment of Quasimodo, Lee argued, making gestures at herself.

“Hija de la...denme paciencia porque si me dan fuerza la mato,” Em muttered, hands together in a prayer-like fashion, fingers pressed against her lips. She inhaled through her nose to calm herself. “Fine, sit in your cave and sulk. Let Alex go and move on. But don’t you dare do any of that without a verbal confirmation from her that this is over.”

Why should I bother?

“Take it from someone who never got to say goodbye,” Em said from the doorway, the slope of her shoulders enough to tell Lee she was wrestling an old sadness. “Whatever the pain, whatever the heartache, get closure. Don’t live your life with a what-if. It’ll eat you alive.”

Hit with a profound pang of guilt because she was being an insensitive, immature ass, Lee reached out, but her aunt was gone, leaving only her words behind.

That conversation had taken place four days ago, and even now, Em’s advice rattled around inside Lee’s head like a marble in a tumbler. The choice was ultimately hers, but the thought of seeing Alex again, and laying whatever they had started to build in an early grave, was death by a thousand tiny “what if” cuts. It was easier to mope and sulk. Then at least she could pretend this wasn’t also her fault and that she wasn’t knowingly misplacing the blame.

God, I can’t live like this, Lee groaned, thumping her forehead against her workbench, where yet another failed modification to her machine lay dying still in sketch-form. It was hopeless. No, she was hopeless and overwhelmed and so utterly done.

Propelled into removing herself from her room or risk morphing into a useless piece of furniture — was that upholstery growing behind her ears? — Lee headed to the Main Square, stretching her sore body as she did. It was delivery day, and she figured the hustle and bustle would lift her spirits.

As usual, the Square was buzzing, families standing in snaking lines to receive their essentials from Topside. Lee meandered through the throngs, offering wan smiles to a few familiar faces but otherwise keeping to herself. If anyone noticed her less than jovial attitude, they didn’t mention it.

“Lee?”

The familiar voice sent her spinning as she sought the speaker.

“Lucas?” she signed in surprise, jogging up to her relieved-looking Insider friend as he slid toward her through a small cluster of people, muttering apologies as he went. In all the years she’d known the man, Lucas never once made a trek Underground or expressed an interest in visiting. Seeing him here threw her for a loop. “How’d you get down here?”

“Umm... Jerry brought me,” he said distractedly, motioning over his shoulder to the Insider unloading crates off a lift nearby. Jerry offered a wave when he saw Lee looking. “I’m glad I ran into you. This place is huge!”

“It’s a lot bigger on the inside.” Lee grinned. “You want a tour? This isn’t even a tenth of what’s down here.”

“Uh, maybe later,” he said, making a slow rotation to take everything in before sobering. “Do you think we could talk someplace private? I need to ask you something.”

Ignoring the knots in her intestines, she moved them off the main path into a side tunnel that dampened the echoing din of so many people in one place. “What’s going on?”

Lucas rubbed the back of his neck and found his shoes suddenly very interesting. “I need to speak with Mother. Is she around?”

If his showing up unannounced wasn’t enough to raise Lee’s emotional levels from mild concern to flat-out worry, the request to speak to Mother kicked off warning bells. “Are you okay?”

Whatever bravado had ferried Lucas down there evaporated. “Honestly? No. I’ve... kind of gotten myself into some serious shit Topside, which is why I need to talk to Mother. She still permits new people into the Underground, right?”

Lee’s eyes popped like she caught a kick to the stomach. “What the hell happened?”

“Long story short, on top of the pending Accessory charge, I picked the wrong pharmacy to nick those pills from.” Lucas tried to laugh off his discomfort, but it was as brittle as spun sugar. “Your friend suggested I come to talk to Mother. She also asked me to give you this if I saw you. Sorry, it’s a few days late.” From his pants pocket, Lucas retrieved a folded piece of paper and passed it to Lee.

“She?” There was no point asking. There was only one “she” in Lee’s life.

“Your Topsider, Alex.”

Lucas didn’t see her flinch, thank God. Pushing the letter aside, Lee taxied him through the main tunnels and left Lucas with an equally shocked Rebecca before seeking a familiar sanctuary. Wrapped in the solitude of her lab, Lee climbed into the beating heart of her machine, wedged within a womb of warmth and vibration. It rankled her how cold she’d become as she unfolded the letter.

“L,

I didn’t know how to reach you other than through Lucas. I hope this letter gets to you in time. I owe you more than just an apology. Please meet me at the Manhattan Center on the 31st at eight o’clock. I believe there’s a tunnel entrance in the basement. I’ll wait there until nine.

-A.”

An apology.

She knew?

The knowledge robbed Lee of basic human function. The how and why didn’t matter. Betrayal slithered like corrosive acid in her soul, making her joints burn. Alex had known she’d been hurting for a month? They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in four weeks, and this was how she chose to contact her? With a summons attached to the possibility of an apology? The nerve… the sheer fucking–

Startled, Lee shoved herself away from the heat of easy anger and hissed through the sudden pain wrapping in her fingers in hot barbed wire. Flexing her hands, she watched a spattering of inky bruises form above her knuckles, a sure sign her body was shifting again. Was that the trigger? Anger?

Am I the damn Hulk now?

Reclining as much as she could in the tight space, Lee breathed through her hot emotions and tried to let it fall from her shoulders. It stung, thinking this apology attempt might have been an afterthought, but she felt she knew Alex better. Then again, spontaneity wasn’t her M.O. Alex didn’t do anything without proper thought behind the action. But this sounded genuine.

Crumpling the letter, Lee felt another heated wave approach and buried her face in her hands. The voice of her machine stole the roaring of her own, which was for the better, letting her bleed out the frustration without alerting anyone. She’d be dipping into Alex’s makeup concealer tonight at this rate to keep her family ignorant to the bodily changes she could barely keep at bay.

Once finished, Lee was able to think again, rubbing away the moisture in her eyes. The letter was dated four days prior. After a frantic check, she was relieved to find it was still the 31st and only four in the afternoon.

Four hours left to make a decision.

Four hours to make or break almost a year’s worth of friendship.

Go or stay, the proverbial rock and a hard place. Go and be angry at Alex to her face, or stay and forever wonder what might have been.

I hate you, Lee growled, raking her hands through her hair and thumping her head back against the metal behind her, staring through crisscrossing pipes that reminded her of tree branches. I hate you! And I want to keep hating you, but I… I love you. And I have to be out of my fucking mind.

Ditching her clothes for something heavier to combat the Topside chill, Lee fled into the tunnels she knew so well, chasing the promise of maybe and the fear of never.

Towards. Not Away

Finding the Manhattan Center wasn’t difficult. Like most buildings in New York, it had a basement. And if it had a basement, there was a good chance there was a tunnel entrance somewhere.

Lee tracked it down easily, squeezing through a series of cobweb-infested access tubes that deposited her directly under a rusted floor drain in an equally rusty boiler room. A sharp shove with her shoulders granted her access, and from there, it was a straight shot to the exit. Most boiler rooms possessed a single point of entrance...at least that was her hope tonight.

Sweeping her clothes and hair clear of dirt and irked spiders, Lee picked a direction and went for it, still stuck in her head. She didn’t want to be here, skulking around the darkness like a rat, but at the same time, she felt Alex owed her an explanation. During her trek, she puzzled out the conversation to come like a student going over a thesis argument. Line by line. The accusations. The questions. The demands and reconciliations. She wanted truth without bullshit, and a month of stewing had cemented her anger. If she wasn’t careful, she would ruin whatever this was before it started.

But with each mental pass, the razor edge of her temper dulled against the blunt force of reason. Yes, she wanted to rage, but she also wanted to plead. What had she done wrong? Where did they go now? Had she lost Alex as a friend forever, or was there hope?

Lee stuttered to a premature stop upon rounding a corner, tripping over her own feet. It wasn’t the sight of Alex standing at the end of the short hall that wrapped her entire body in bands of undulating chills. It was what she was wearing.

The dress was long and dark, possibly navy blue, though hard to tell in the low light, and so sheer Lee could make out every curve as if she was wearing nothing at all. The garment was liquid poured over Alex’s frame, breaking open at one shoulder and sporting a plunging lace neckline that could punch its way to China if need be. The addition of heels made her even taller, giving her an ethereal look matching the gentle curl of her hair pinned back with white crystals.

Lee must have made some type of noise — more than likely choking on air since she’d forgotten how to breathe — because Alex turned, and the earth rotated with her. Suddenly, it was like they had never been apart. Lee’s fingers itched to reach out, every molecule screaming at her to move even as she stamped the urge down.

“Hey,” Alex said, attempting a relieved smile that was more hesitant than happy. Her own awkwardness must have caught her off guard because her next attempt at communication was a bit surer. “I’m so glad you came. I was worried Lucas wouldn’t find you in time.”

You look...Radiant. Magnificent. Beautiful. Stunning. Like a vision. God-I’ve-just-missed-talking-with-you-and-this-month-has-killed-me-please-just-tell-me-what-I-did-wrong...Wow.

Even at a distance, Lee knew Alex’s cheeks were reddening, the dip of her head telling her as much. “Thank you.”

One hell of a date tonight. Lucky person. She almost smacked herself for her lack of tact. That was not how she wanted to start things, and watching Alex’s face fall was as bad as watching someone kick a puppy.

“I wanted to talk to you about that.” Alex threaded her fingers together in front of her instead of approaching, leaving a visible distance between. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while about what you saw, what it meant, and how sorry I am for all of this… for how I hurt you. But I couldn’t figure out what to say. We– I’ve been dancing around a lot of unspoken things, and I think it’s time to clear the air.”

Here it was, Lee thought. The bullet that was going to put her out of her misery.

“But I wanted to show you something first if that’s all right?”

Well… shit. Lee felt like she was teetering on a beam above the city. One strong gust would determine if she fell into a safety net or hit the pavement, and if she was feeling this, she knew Alex was balanced right alongside her. That gave her some measure of comfort.

“Follow me?” Alex asked with a tentative yet hopeful smile.

Not trusting herself to speak, Lee nodded and shoved her hands into her pockets, the atmosphere quilt-thick between them. This was the muggy air before a storm, charged with the potential to do either harm or good. Exiting the boiler room but not the basement, Alex led her to an old changing room below the stage somewhere above, light peeking out around the seams of the closed door. She paused with her hand on the knob, nervousness tightening the visible muscles in her shoulders.

“I want you to know there’s no obligation attached to this,” Alex said without turning. “If you want to leave, I’ll understand. You don’t owe me anything, but please give me one last chance to make this right. I don’t know if you celebrate Halloween in the Underground, and I admit, I’m not one for holidays, but upstairs, one of New York’s best dance companies is putting on a masquerade. If you’ll have me, I’d like to share a dance with you.”

That’s right. It was Halloween. How had Lee missed that?

Intrigued as much as she was confused — a dance? Topside? How exactly? — Lee watched the door swing creakily open as Alex stepped out of the way, backing into the shadows.

The room was a motley of colors and small, stuffed to the gills with a menagerie of old set-costumes and props. A large mirror ringed with circular bulbs dominated the back wall and lit the space, highlighting the showpiece presented on a mannequin waiting for her when she stepped in.

It was a suit, but not just any suit. Dumbfounded, Lee approached with a measure of caution, afraid this was a mirage. Blue-black and silk to the touch, gold embroidery shaped like creeper ivy crawled around the edges of the cuffs and hems. Under the jacket and matching vest was a royal purple button-up so dark it looked like wine. Black shoes finished the ensemble, shined to a mirror finish. Lavish was a good way of describing the gift, but it paled in comparison to the accompanying prop.

Delicately placed beside the suit on a purple cushion was a white half-mask. Nervous fingers ghosted across the intricate latticework of lace and leather, the design familiar but the execution custom. Lee would have recognized it anywhere, the songs of her childhood echoing like the call of distant spirits… music of the night.

Twisting around, Lee looked for Alex but didn’t see her. The journalist had taken her leave up the hall to give her time to decide. And what a decision this was turning out to be.

Out in the hall, Alex retreated as far as she could without returning to the boiler room. Back turned, she couldn’t bear to watch. A month away from Lee had been like suffering the sudden amputation of a limb. It left an aching void. She wandered through her days in a disjointed haze, wanting to reach out. Wanting to apologize. Wanting to scream how sorry she was for everything and that she finally wrestled the truth from herself. But her opportunity had come and gone. She missed her chance, or so she thought until Lucas sought her out after his arraignment. Only then did the seeds of hope rekindle into a fragile fire, held close to her chest for fear of it extinguishing before it could ever spread.

So, Alex kept her distance from Lee even now, not wanting her presence to sway her decision, but the truth was, Alex didn’t think she could stomach watching her walk away. It would break her like kindling across a knee.

Time was cruel, suspending her in limbo. It both crawled and sped by, the evening slipping through her fingers like sand, each minute lasting an eternity. It began to dawn on her, the later it got, that maybe she’d ruined things beyond repair. Maybe this was all for naught. Maybe this was never meant to be. And that broke her heart. If she could just rewrite time–

Footsteps.

Alex tensed, electricity climbing her spine. She didn’t want to turn, fearing she would catch the back of Lee’s head as she returned to the tunnels, and that would be it. The end of a friendship. The end of so many maybes and could-have-beens. Biting her lip so hard she left tooth impressions, Alex swallowed her fear and turned, ready to hastily grab the pieces of her heart before they shattered.

Towards… not away. Lee was walking towards her.

Just Dance

All Alex could make out at first was a halo of hair. Lee was looking down, fidgeting with a button, her hair finger-combed and allowed to cascade over her shoulders. The suit hugged her frame like a glove, dark enough to make her a shadow among shadows until she looked up and the blue of her eyes caught the light. It was like watching lightning strike in the heart of the storm, illuminating Alex to the depths of her soul.

“Lee... you...” How did she speak again? What were words? Lee stayed. She chose to give her one last chance. “You look wonderful.”

Should I even ask how you got this to fit so well? She held out her arms to admire the snug fabric.

A nervous laugh bubbled at the back of Alex’s throat. Her whole body was an electrical fire, warmth and current coursing through her veins. For the first time in weeks, she could breathe. “From the clothes you let me borrow my first return trip Topside that I never gave back.”

Well, at least they went to good use. I gotta tell you. Lee did a tight spin and struck a model’s pose. Nothing this fine has ever touched my skin.

“Go me,” Alex blushed, unwilling to commit to the admission of also snooping in Lee’s room before this whole thing blew up in their faces.

And just like that, the conversation dried up. One surprise act of kindness wasn’t enough. They weren’t mended, not by a long shot. Lee may have chosen to stay, but a month’s worth of hurt still lay at their feet.

“I’d like to talk to you about… that night,” Alex hedged, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “I can make all the excuses in the world, and I was prepared to, but you don’t deserve that. You deserve the truth no matter how hard it is for me to say. I made a mistake. I led you on. We should have talked a long time ago about what was happening between us, but I was scared. I’m still scared. And I don’t know where to go from here. Where do we go, if we go at all?”

Where do you want us to go? Lee asked, unable to meet Alex’s eyes.

“I’d like to start over, if we could? Not from the beginning. I’d rather not relive drowning. But maybe from that kiss in the tunnels the night you met Georgia?”

Lee turned in profile like she was watching something in the darkness, and it wasn’t hard for Alex to guess what she was thinking. They’d both run roughshod through this whole fiasco and look where it got them. Broken hearts and bruised egos.

I can’t make that decision right now. I’m still angry. I don’t know where up is from down. Alex’s entire being fell, but she breathed through the sting and kept herself receptive. So give me till the end of the night. I owe you that much. Show me why you went through the trouble of making this suit.

It was something. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it was something. Alex nodded, hugging her middle to keep from pulling Lee into her arms. “I can respect that.”

Then lead the way, Miss Bailey, she said, securing her bone-white mask in place. Unsurprisingly, it fit just as snugly as the suit.

“Have you ever been inside the Manhattan Center?” Alex lifted and settled her mask: a black lacework concoction that resembled an owl or perhaps something more fae-like.

First time, Lee said, adjusting to walking in fitted clothing. She hadn’t been lying when she said this was the finest fabric to touch her skin… ever.

“Then I think you’re in for a treat.”

They traveled through a service stairwell, sticking to the industrial hallways used by the cleaning staff. Pausing at a nondescript door, Alex peered through the circular glass window and held up a forestalling hand. After a beat, she waved them through, both stepping into the main hall just off the ballroom.

The sound reached Lee first, drifting lazily through the walls. Music. Glasses clinking. The general hum of human activity and a thousand different threads of conversation. She felt something buried deep in her core shift, a quiver building in her legs that pulled her to a shaky stop and made her stomach swoop like it did when sliding down a long pipe.

People.

Topsiders.

Strangers.

Even behind the safety of her mask, Lee felt an old, ingrained fear leak to the surface and poison the happy curiosity budding there. All her life, she was taught to fear Topside. To never seek it out. To hide from those who tread above. In most cases, she listened. Frequent though her trips may have been, Lee never sought out strangers, sticking to the shadows and speaking to Insiders only.

There would be no shadows here. No hiding. Nothing to keep her from the gaze of people who could easily view her for what she was: a monster.

Alex must have sensed the physical gap growing between them because she paused further ahead, distressed to find Lee frozen in the hall. It didn’t take any words between them for her to understand what was happening.

“I’m sorry.” She hurried back. “I didn’t take into account you wouldn’t–”

I just need a minute, Lee breathed, pressing herself against the wall. Try as she might, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking until Alex closed the divide, her delicate fingers seeking and finding the Undergrounder’s quaking digits and closing over them.

“We can go back. We don’t have to do this.”

I think I’d regret passing up a moment like this for the rest of my life. Lee swallowed. But I’m... afraid. I’m not like you, Alex. I’m not like anyone in there. I know you’ll hate me for saying this, but I’m a freak. And I’m afraid of how your world will react to seeing me if Georgia is anything to go by. No offense to your friend.

Alex softened, her thumbs rubbing gentle circles on the back of Lee’s hands. “No offense taken. That situation wasn’t handled well, but that’s the beauty of Halloween, isn’t it? Tonight, you’re invisible.”

How?

“Because tonight people will be expecting your face. Tonight, everyone in that room will look like you.”

Truth be told, Lee hadn’t thought of that, and some of the fear ebbed. A masquerade. Was there a better place for a creature like her?

How will I talk to you? You can’t very well carry on a conversation with a dance partner who isn’t moving their mouth.

“So then move your mouth,” Alex laughed, the sound playing Lee’s ribs like a xylophone. “To anyone watching, I’ll look like I can read lips.”

Lee was blindsided by the simple solution, her smile growing along with her confidence. I hadn’t thought of that.

“We’ll go at your pace.” Alex disconnected and stepped away. Lee immediately missed the contact and fought to keep from reaching out and drawing her back. “If you say stop, we stop. If you say you want to leave, we leave. Tonight, I follow you.”

It took a few more steadying breaths for Lee to gather the tatters of her courage and weave them into action. When she was ready, she nodded for Alex to continue, whispering the mantra: I’m invisible, I’m invisible, I’m invisible. Concentration was a hard-won commodity, however, when they emerged from the hall into the three-story ballroom.

Being that it was Halloween, Lee’s expectations gravitated toward the horror aesthetic of ghosts and goblins and all things creepy. Instead, the room looked plucked from the pages of a Victorian Gothic tale. The Phantom of the Opera would have been proud to dance in such a place. As predicted, it was crowded, patrons and party attendees milling around in their finery. Masks in place, the whole procession looked like snippets from a Homonymous Bache painting, Lee catching glimpses of the grotesque and the beautiful, the beastly and the mundane.

I’ve never seen anything like this, she marveled, making a slow rotation, eyes on the frescoed ceiling. This was as close to a religious experience as she’d ever gotten.

“Alex? Is that you?”

Lee felt Alex jump beside her before a string of colorful curses hissed past her gritted teeth. “Son of a bitch, no one knew I was supposed to be here tonight. That was the whole point in choosing this venue!” Sucking in and turning on a dime to face the speaker, her hand traveled up to Lee’s bicep and rested there, squeezing in unspoken reassurance.

“It is you! I’d recognize that toned silhouette anywhere,” the speaker crowed triumphantly as he stepped closer. He wore a posh gray suit with a crimson cravat and matching kerchief, the angles of the fabric highlighting is razor-lean figure. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight! My God, you look absolutely stunning.”

“A cock, Phillip,” Alex deadpanned, but her eyes sparkled with mischief that made Lee’s scalp tingle. “Really? This is a masquerade not a confessional. You’re supposed to be something you’re not at these things.”

Phillip flipped up his gilded rooster mask and grinned delightedly at the two women. “The true nature of the beast comes out on nights like this.” He winked, and Lee suspected by the ruddy hue of his cheeks whoever this man was had already indulged in the spiked punch. Other than being outed, Alex didn’t seem perturbed and lightly embraced the man.

“Is Brian here, too?”

“You should see his ram mask,” Phillip said with a salacious wiggle of his eyebrows. “It was his idea to come, and I couldn’t help but oblige. Any excuse to dress up and drink for free.” Phillip finally realized the figure standing next to Alex wasn’t a simple bystander and offered Alex a sly grin. “You don’t seem to be alone tonight either. Is this the elusive someone who put the fire back in your soul?”

Alex opened her mouth, but Phillip was quicker, sticking out a hand, cordial and charming as always.

“Good evening. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, stranger!”

Up until this moment, Lee had been able to float through this strange encounter as a safe bystander watching from afar. It didn’t matter if Alex knew anyone here because they wouldn’t notice her. Or they wouldn’t have had she not been glued to Alex’s hip.

Lee stiffened when the spotlight of attention swiveled her way, wrestling the urge to duck her head and hide her face. Before she could decide which direction provided the fastest exit, Alex inserted herself, acting as a barricade while feigning polite conversation.

“My date for the evening, yes. Phillip, this is Leanna. Leanna, this is Phillip Henson, my senior editor at the Times.”

Lee knew the longer she stalled returning the man’s friendly greeting the more awkward things would become, but she was having trouble catching her breath, the room growing bright around the edges of her vision. There really were a lot of people there.

“Lee works for a theater company in Jersey,” Alex hurriedly went on when her partner didn’t respond. “I thought she’d enjoy seeing the Manhattan Center’s masquerade.”

“Theater, eh? Which department?”

“Engineering and tech.”

“Ah, well then, this should feel like home to you,” Phillip chuckled, unperturbed by Lee’s inaction and likely reading it as shyness rather than outright fear. He was just starting to lower his hand when Lee finally snapped out of her shock-induced stupor and did the opposite of what her body was screaming. Her hand slipped into his, and Phillip grinned like he hadn’t seen the sun in decades, shaking it liberally.

“I’m sorry, where are my manners?” she signed, speaking to Alex so she could both hear and convey what she was saying. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too.”

“She said it’s a pleasure to meet you, and she apologized for her manners,” Alex translated.

Phillip drew back, his expression caught between amusement and confusion. “I didn’t know you knew sign language.”

“Leanna’s teaching me,” Alex smiled girlishly.

“Might be something useful to learn in the– oh, my God!” Phillip suddenly pulled Lee closer with a jerk that would have put her on her ass had she not caught herself. It was all the smaller woman could do to keep from tearing away and bolting. She knew what he was looking at, and her stomach punched through the floor. “That’s one hell of a prosthetic you’ve got on! Did you make it yourself? And you molded your mask to fit it, too? Fantastic work!”

A prosthetic. He thought...

Lee reeled, understanding finally setting in. Was it that simple? Could it be? On any given day, she looked the part of a beast, but today she was neither animal nor man because today she was herself while others played at being a monster. The reality of the situation expanded a giddy balloon in her chest. One day a year she was invisible Topside. How had she not put those pieces together until now?

“I told you, Lee works for a theater company,” Alex said, smile brittle with worry.

“It’s so lifelike. And are those fangs and claws added as well? Wow! Alex, find this woman an agent and get her to Hollywood. That is some seriously impressive work.”

“Thank you. I’ve worked a lifetime to look this good.”

Caught off guard by the burst of cheeky confidence, it took Alex a moment to translate.

“And it shows.” Phillip caught a server as he breezed by with a tray of champagne. Lee declined a flute, but Alex eagerly accepted, downing the drink like a shot.

“So, I guess I shouldn’t ask if the cock up top matches the one below?”

Alex choked, inhaling champagne and almost spit-taking had she not slapped her hand over her mouth. Beside her, Lee beamed at her mischief. Phillip looked between them, waiting expectantly for a translation.

“I’m so sorry,” Alex wheezed, getting herself back under control. “The cold weather wreaks havoc on my allergies. Lee wanted to know if you made the mask yourself.”

That’s not even close to what I asked.

“Oh God, no. I don’t possess an artistic bone in my body.”

At that moment, a figure sporting a black and gold ram mask slid next to Philip, pecking him on the cheek and muttering something into his ear. Alex took the opportunity during the conversational lapse to excuse them after bidding hello to a very tipsy Brian and pulled Lee away before any more questions could be asked.

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” she hissed as they threaded through the crowd.

But you’re such a good liar, Lee teased, looking around in earnest now that she knew no one would expect the beast in their midst.

“I’ve been known to have a silver tongue, but not to my boss.”

He seems like a lovely fellow.

“Phillip is one of my best friends,” Alex explained. “I’m happy he’s my senior editor. There’s not a more genuine man on the planet.”

So, I take it the two of you don’t attend a lot of parties like this?

“Not often,” Alex said, leading them around the outer fringes of partygoers. “I’m not a fan of the crowds. When I was younger, my father used to drag me to events like this. Culture, he claimed, was something one learned rather than being born into. I understand their draw, but I’ve never felt engaged when attending.”

Is that where you learned how to dance?

Alex smiled fondly. “Actually, my mother taught me. We took classes together before she died. She told me it was important that I learn how to dance so I could show off at my someday-wedding. I think she just wanted to take the classes so we could spend time together.”

Pausing near a refreshment table, Lee took the opportunity to swallow a few mouthfuls of punch to help wash the tightness from her throat while sneaking glances at Alex whose attention was captivated by the revolving motion of dancers making rounds on the dance floor. The mood grew more somber the longer their conversation stalled and no amount of idle snacking would chase away the hollow feeling creeping in to steal the sunshine.

“There’s still so much left to say,” Alex eventually said, fidgeting with her hands. “I have so much I want to tell you and show you, but right now, I don’t think I have the right words. So…would it be all right if we shared a dance instead?”

I’ve never danced before, Lee admitted sheepishly, tugging at the edges of her suit jacket.

“I can show you,” Alex offered with a hopeful smile. “If you’d like.”

You know… I think I’d like that.

Unable to hide her relief, Alex extended her arm, which Lee took, the two sweeping into an open pocket on the dance floor.

Top of the World

It was warmer in this pocket of the world, the air thick with the scent of perfume and cologne. Bodies brushed past them, couples locked in their own personal galactic rotations. Lee felt like a transplanted star, adrift without purpose and tugged along by Alex’s gravity, but it was enough.

They began as most partners did. Face-to-face. Chest-to-chest. Close enough to share a breath. The song before was dying in the distance, another racing to take its place with a boisterous note from nearby speakers, synthetic bass and keyboard rumbling with 80’s glee through the floor.

The hairs on the back of Lee’s neck stood on end at the same moment Alex’s skin prickled. Suddenly, the room and their fellow compatriots fell away until it was only a beauty and her beast. The graceful beat of the music swirled around their feet and brushed their shoulders, the spark leaping between them powerful enough to illuminate the room if the auditorium plunged into darkness.

Alex helped guide Lee into her respective position while Lee fought the raging butterflies taking flight in her abdomen. They joined with barely a whisper of fabric, Alex taking the higher hold, fingers light on Lee’s shoulder, her partner’s right hand sitting low on Alex’s back.

“Are you ready?” she breathed, excitement turning her eyes into topaz gems.

For you? Always.

Alex pushed off and took the lead.

Dry-swallowing and stiff, Lee’s unease was plain from the beginning. She faltered early on trying to find a suitable rhythm while focusing too closely on her feet, on her hands, on the other bodies circling them. Why was this so hard? The movies always made it look effortless.

“Relax,” Alex whispered, squeezing her hand to reaffirm she wasn’t going anywhere. “Just listen to the music. Break the rhythm down, and your body will synchronize all on its own.”

I’ve never danced like this before.

“It’s no different than when you dance in your lab.” Alex winked. “I’ve seen what those hips can do when they’re loose. Now show me in person.”

The brashness of her flirting successfully kicked Lee out of her funk with a helpless laugh. Break it down. She could do that. Briefly closing her eyes, she sought and found the rhythm.

One-two-three-four.

One-two-three-four.

One-two-three-four.

A simple four-count, nothing more, but to Lee, it was her world.

Step by tentative step, she began to understand the rhythm as Alex guided her around the room. Their eyes never lowered, Alex’s touch feather-light yet firm, and with each rotation, Lee grew bolder, hands tightening around her partner until she could feel their conjoined heartbeats. She knew this dance, didn’t she? It was the same one her heart had been doing from the moment she laid eyes on Alex all those months ago. All she had to do was grasp it like Icarus reaching for the sun, wax wings falling away and sending her into a blissful freefall.

The tides suddenly turned in a fluid rush that left Alex breathless when Lee rose up to meet her, leveling the playing field. They twirled around the iridescent ballroom awash in kaleidoscopic colors; each new step, each spin, each dip synchronizing as their bodies gravitated toward one another like the pull of the sun against the planets. Cheekily throwing caution to the wind, Lee twirled her partner like she’d seen done in every cheesy romance movie, Alex’s dress fanning around her knees with the centrifugal force. The sudden halt of Lee catching her and reconnecting their bodies pulled Alex’s loose hair over one shoulder, a bright flush heating her cheeks.

“I see you’re catching on,” she gasped, momentarily breathless.

I’m a fast learner, Lee grinned, finally starting to feel in her element.

“Oh, I have no doubt that you’d conquer anything you set your mind to.” Alex leaned in until her lips brushed the shell of Lee’s pointed right ear. “So show rather than tell, Miss Leanna.”

Shock flavored with a carnal edge sent a scorching arrow down Lee’s spine into her pelvis and lower belly. Oh, she liked this game.

Again they separated only to come back together, waves crashing against coastal walls. This close, Alex could see every facet of Lee’s blue eyes. How the color shifted around her irises in varying hues. How they shimmered while looking at her, and the spark of something carnal and wild reignited with a vengeance. This was all either of them wanted. This was submission and acceptance. The unspoken writing of wants and desires written in the curve of a spine, the brush of a hand, the tilt of a head, or the quirk of lips. It wasn’t total forgiveness. That could come later, but there was no doubt the looks they shared and the touches they traded were born out of love.

“I had one more thing planned for tonight, if you’re feeling up for an adventure?” Alex asked after they twirled each other around the ballroom at least a dozen times, cheeks ruddy and body vibrating. The hour had grown late without them noticing or caring.

I think I could spare a few more moments, Lee teased, catching her breath from her last rotation on the dance floor. Are we going to paint the town red?

“In a manner of speaking.” Alex’s grin was wicked as she took the Undergrounder by the hand and led her towards the exit. Lee only faltered once as they neared the glass doors that would ultimately lead her into the city. Into her city. Into the true Topside.

“Do you trust me?” Alex whispered, squeezing her hand.

You and only you.

That was all it took. In three quick steps, Lee walked out of the Manhattan Center and into a world only ever seen from below.

She felt like a cave dweller seeing the sun for the first time, standing in awe at the neon lights bathing her in three-hundred and sixty degrees of glow. And never once did anyone spare her a passing glance, bodies flowing around them like they were stationary stones in a river. Felt but hardly noticed.

The hum of activity turned Lee’s body into a tuning fork. She and Alex traveled in a blur, or so it felt. The world moved at a different pace Topside. At a different rhythm. It wasn’t like she was unaccustomed to New York or its currents, but there was something altogether mesmerizing about the lights and the sounds and the people.

Alex’s fingers never unthreaded from Lee’s. Not when they entered a cab, the experience of her first car ride being both exhilarating and traumatizing. Not when they spilled out onto the sidewalk at the base of a towering building whose upper spires looked like runway lights climbing into the black heavens. Not when they swept into a deserted lobby awash in marble and historical plaques, Alex nodding knowingly at the security guard. Not even when they boarded an elevator that rocketed them into the sky.

When at last the two stepped out of the lift into a glass room on the eighty-sixth floor, Lee had forgotten what air felt like entering her lungs.

Alex...

“I’m right beside you,” she reassured, lips close to Lee’s ear.

Together, they pushed past the glass doors of the Empire State Building’s observation deck and walked onto the shore of a glittering diamond sea, New York’s skyline stretching well past the horizon in lapping waves of glass, steel, brick, and light.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? Even after all these years, the skyline still awes me beyond words. I wanted to share that same awe with you. I wanted to show you your city,” Alex said quietly beside her emotional partner. “This place is as much mine as it is yours, and you deserve to see it at its best.”

I never imagined... Conquering her nerves — she’d never, ever been up this high — Lee planted herself against the protective fencing running the perimeter of the deck, fingers threaded through the links. The tears in her eyes cooled against her skin, but she didn’t move to brush them away. It’s beautiful. And it goes on forever.

“It almost feels that way. They say New York is the center of the universe. Looking out at a view like that, you can almost start to believe it’s the truth.”

You brought me to the top of the world.

“It’s the least I could do after shattering it.”

You don’t have to do this. As reluctant as she was to drag her eyes away, Lee faced Alex and was struck by how the beauty of the city, her city, paled in comparison to the woman beside her. Lit from behind by the glow of the glass room, Alex’s dress was fabric plucked from the starry sky above. The crystals in her hair captured and refracted the light, creating constellations Lee could map for years. Suddenly she understood the inspiration that drove the masters of old to create their timeless pieces of art.

“I do. Because you deserve an apology and an explanation about what happened rather than an excuse.”

Lee’s stomach twisted at the memory, but a month of stewing hadn’t gotten her anywhere other than a broken heart she’d played a part in getting. The least she could do was listen, but after the night they shared, Lee was afraid of tainting the magic.

You’ve already apologized, and you’re also not the only one to blame. I played as much a part in both of us getting hurt as you did. I need to apologize, too.

Alex’s smile wasn’t a happy one, her sadness plain. “You are the last person I need to hear an apology from.”

That’s not true. This all might be new to me, but I should have spoken up sooner about what I was feeling and how unsure I was. Am. Still am. Lee amended, hanging her head. I’m not like you, Alex. I’m not normal. I don’t even know how human I am anymore. I still go back to the night I met Georgia and the parts I can’t remember, and I’m… afraid of what kind of partner I’d make. If… if that’s where this is going.

Alex rested her forehead against the metal fence, and Lee feared she might have said too much. She wanted to snatch back the words and cram them into her mouth, but when Alex breathed in and exhaled at the same speed, the ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

“Up until the night of my attack, my life had been routine. I lived for my job, and that was it. I didn’t really have prospects for the future other than work until retirement, maybe get married along the way, maybe not, and I was comfortable with that because it was safe. Then all of a sudden, my world shattered, and ever since, I’ve been trying and failing to glue myself back together.

“For the longest time after that night, I thought there was something wrong with me. Like I was incapable of putting myself back together until I realized I had put myself back together. I just wasn’t the same person as before because along the way, I’d gained a few new pieces.”

Alex closed the distance between them, gently removing Lee’s mask so she could cup the shorter woman’s face. Her next few words would stop the progression of time and bend creation toward them both.

“I’ve been running from this, from you, for too long. You were the missing piece, and I was too scared to admit that. I thought maybe all of this was a fluke. That I’d fallen in love with my rescuer because she showed me kindness in my darkest hour. But the truth is, I didn’t fall in love with you in the Underground. I fell in love with you the day you brought me Topside and let me go. And I’ve been falling harder ever since.”

The kiss that joined them wasn’t hungry. It wasn’t desperate or clawing or perfumed heavily with lust. It was grounding, rooting them in the here and now, winding two souls into their own gravitational dance as the final puzzle pieces fell into place.

Taken to Pieces

They could have danced until sunrise, sweeping each other around the shore of a golden sea hundreds of feet above the earth, but inevitability pulled these two orbiting stars together in a collision that blotted out the sky. They had been coy before. They had let their hands wander the length and breadth of each other, learning the lay of the land, so to speak, but it was always done on the shy side of caution. Never overreaching. Never presuming.

Tonight, there was no question as to what the other wanted and what they were willing to give to get it.

It was an altogether different sensation for Alex, falling through her door wrapped in someone else’s embrace and remembering it. Hell, starving for it. How they managed to get back to her apartment was an inconsequential blip in their evening. Maybe they danced into the shadows and magically moved locations. More than likely, it was a cab.

They thumped against Alex’s door, closing it with a hard click, hands never stilling, pulling at hems and buttons and fabric as if trying to unwrap each other. Clothes came off in layered chunks, little thought or care put into the removal or where it went.

Dark fabric pooled at Alex’s feet as her dress slipped from her shoulders. Bare save for a pair of black lace underwear — a bra wouldn’t have worked with the dress — and her heels, she stood proudly in her partial nudity, eyes heavy-lidded and body on fire under Lee’s stunned stare. There was a distinct difference between imagining someone naked and seeing it in person.

Using the break in rhythm to step closer, Alex ran her fingers across Lee’s brow, moving aside the mussed hair that had fallen into her face. “Are you sure?” she whispered.

Lee nodded, the want pouring from her making Alex ache in cruel, fantastic ways. Not to be over-dramatic, but if you don’t touch me, I’m going to self-combust.

Head thrown back, Alex laughed. “Well, since you put it that way.”

In an effortless roll of her torso, she slipped a leg between Lee’s thighs, using the forward motion to grind into the junction. Lee gasped against Alex’s lips, fingers curling into the soft skin of her waist at the same moment she rose, their bodies almost fusing as Alex’s fingers worked to free the buttons of Lee’s shirt.

Smell. Taste. Feeling. It was intoxication at its finest, and Alex drank Lee in, one hungry kiss at a time. The sensation of her tongue ghosting over the sharp tips of fangs was new but woke a carnal yearning, making them both a touch wild.

Little finesse was put into getting from the door to the couch. Edges were bumped into. Apologies muttered against lips. They tumbled onto the cushions together, Lee sitting heavily back while Alex slid languidly into her lap that dug out a strangled fuck from Lee when Alex’s hands splayed across her chest and crawled around to the back of her neck.

Electricity pooled in the hollow of Alex’s pelvis when she rolled against the jizzer of Lee’s pants. She could feel the heel of the other woman’s palm between her legs, but it was a bit too high to hit what so desperately needed contact. Some cognitive part of Lee’s mind must have picked up on Alex’s minor frustration because she shifted ever so slightly lower, and Alex suddenly hissed, breathing obscenities into their shared air when she found the right angle and saw sparks. Hunger sank its claws deep, and Alex sated it with tooth and tongue, showing her approval in ways that made the Undergrounder’s world tilt.

They hadn’t completely disrobed — Lee still wearing the black slacks that fit her so perfectly and Alex in her underwear — but she didn’t mind. It was better this way, Alex thought, the waistband rigid enough to support her wrist when her hand slid south, cool fingers meeting slick arousal and heat. The angle was awkward but worth it.

Lee gasped and jerked forward. Alex stilled, watching for signs of distress, found none, and kept watching in rapt attention at the havoc her finger created as she drew lazy circles around the sensitive bundle of nerves just above Lee’s opening. It didn’t take long for her to find the ideal rhythm, and she greedily swallowed moan after moan until Lee’s breathing sped into panting gasps, the air growing muggy around them.

A thought occurred to her as she watched the Undergrounder coming unraveled, and she stopped, withdrawing her hand with an innocent smile. Dazed, Lee whined at the sudden lack of contact.

“What kind of host would I be if I let us come undone on my sofa?” she teased after a languid kiss, taking Lee by the hands and guiding her to her feet.

A kinky one?

Alex laughed, the sparkle in her eyes hinting at something salacious and dangerous just below the surface. “I’d like some room to move, if that’s okay?”

The implication, spiked with a deliciously dirty undertow, had the intended effect of very nearly liquefying the other woman, but Lee steadied herself, following Alex’s gentle guidance to her bedroom where she was backed up until her legs brushed the mattress.

“May I?” Alex asked, fingers skimming the waist of Lee’s ruined slacks. Unable to form coherent sentences, Lee nodded, shivering against the sensation of Alex’s hands against her skin.

The button popped with little resistance, fabric pooling on the floor at Alex’s guidance. It was a dirty move — fingertips hooking Lee’s sensible boxer briefs and drawing them down, the tips of her nails trailing the back of her legs as she divested her of clothing — but it had its perks. Namely the opportunity to take in the full beauty of the exposed woman.

As much as Lee appeared inhuman in the face, her body was softly opposite. Seen in its raw entirety, Alex felt the edge of her hunger dull into quiet admiration.

Sinewy and lean, her build was tailor-made for life in the tunnels. The only thing that seemed amiss were patches of chestnut “fur” running in a wide stripe down both her abdomen and spine and the silvery lines of old scars crisscrossing like a roadmap across her skin. The kiss of the room’s cool air made Lee shiver, a deep blush warming her cheeks. Arms locked at her side, she met Alex’s appraisal head-on with a steely defiance Alex had come to cherish.

“Beautiful,” Alex whispered, laying a kiss just below Lee’s belly button that made her entire body quake. “Stunning,” she kissed lower, hands snaking around behind the Undergrounder to cup the dip of her ass. “Mine,” she finished with a growl.

Lee jumped at the sensation of Alex’s tongue flattening just above her slit. Her boneless sag backward deposited her on the edge of the bed while Alex advanced, taking Lee’s left leg and hooking it over her shoulder while she guided the right to the side, opening her to the night air. Alex caught Lee’s gaze and held it for a heartbeat, her unspoken question burning across the short distance. The Undergrounder managed a nod that devolved into a moan the neighbors might have heard when Alex’s tongue made contact with the outside of her folds.

She took her time, savoring the moment. Kiss, lick, suck, bite, Alex cycled through them all, starting at Lee’s right inner thigh and working across to the other, spending languid moments at her center, learning every nook and ridge like a cartographer. She was gentle. Oh, so gentle at first because Lee was a novice and she was experienced, and sometimes that could be the undoing of an encounter. She was also torturously patient for selfish reasons that made her own arousal soak through in the catch of her underwear.

The angle was perfect, but it wasn’t enough. Alex wanted to feel as much as she was tasting, so she pushed Lee back until they both occupied the bed. Arms locked around trembling thighs, she lapped and explored, listening to the woman coming undone and was struck by a sudden, powerful realization. Aside from that singular moment months ago in Lee’s lab, this was the first time Alex was hearing her partner’s physical voice in the raw without strain or constraint. So it went without saying exhalations weren’t enough. If Alex couldn’t hear Lee speak, she could at least hear her scream.

“My dear Miss Leanna,” she purred, crawling up her partner like a puma and peppering her with scorching kisses as she straddled a thigh. “I’d like to take you to pieces.”

There was no real point in asking other than it being wicked fun. Adding an extra incentive to her request, she rolled her hips against the strong thigh below her, taking pleasure in the feeling of soaked fabric catching and dragging against smooth skin.

Please, came the strangled reply, Lee’s body stretching up to meet hers, bending like the belly of a bow. Alex, Please!

Closing her mouth over one of Lee’s pebbled nipples, an action that almost brought the smaller woman off the bed, Alex hummed a smile and let her fingers languidly circle Lee’s clit a few more agonizing times before sliding two in, seating them third-knuckle deep. Lee sucked in so hard it was like she was seeing the face of God, and Alex stilled once more, letting her accommodate and stretch before rocking forward.

Switching between sucking another bruise into livid color on her neck and stroking her clit with her thumb, Alex worked a steady rhythm, drawing out every iota of air. Benedictions and prayers were sent skyward, names of deities neither believed in crossing their lips. With each thrust, Lee bore down a little harder, rode a little more freely, hands fisting the sheets, fucking herself on Alex’s fingers.

Somewhere between adjusting her position and lightly nibbling Lee’s earlobe, Alex detected a wrinkle in the smaller woman’s brow the longer they rode out their passion. It was slight, but she recognized the expression and felt a fresh wave of heat spread through her lower back. Biting her lip, Alex waited for her cue and found it when Lee ground her teeth in a throaty snarl and bucked hard, chasing what was just out of reach. From one breath to the next, Alex seamlessly added a third finger and curled them hard in rhythm with her next thrust.

Ignition.

Lee reared, almost bucking Alex off had she not been bent over her torso. The sudden impact of the woman’s thigh connecting with her groin sent electric euphoria up Alex’s spine. Suddenly weak, she pitched forward, driving her fingers deeper and sending the young woman over the edge. Lungs pumping, release bent Lee’s spine like it had been hit by a sudden, powerful current, the following cry wild, unhinged, and feral.

Alex watched, her curled fingers slowed their purposeful stroking, dragging Lee’s orgasm out until she sank bonelessly onto the mattress, spent and gasping. She cleaned her hand on the sheets and lay beside her, trailing a feather-light fingers up and down Lee’s stomach, playing in the soft fur.

“You still with me?”

Barely, Lee managed after a handful of seconds. Holy shit.

“A proper response.”

I’d ask how you got so good at that, but it seems rude.

“Practice makes perfect, they say,” Alex chuckled, using her arm to prop her head up and sinking into the unbelievable understanding she was lying beside the person she wanted most in the world. “But I’m going to go with age makes certain things all the sweeter.”

You’re only a few years older than me.

“My statement still stands.”

So does that make you a fine wine? Lee quipped, drifting out of her post-orgasm afterglow.

“I guess that depends,” Alex said, jacking herself up on her elbow with a quirked eyebrow. “You can’t drink alcohol.”

Something in Lee’s demeanor shifted, the subtlety raising the hairs on the back of Alex’s neck. In the blink of an eye, she found herself on the flat of her back, Lee’s arms bracketing either side of her head. Startled, Alex starred up through a cascade of brown curls, the feral light in Lee’s eyes harking back to the night where Alex met a very different side of her friend.

I guess I won’t know unless I taste for myself.

“Then taste,” Alex said, trying to keep the shake from her voice. “Touch. I’m yours.”

Two simple words stilled the howling beast as surely as stepping into a soundproof room. I’m yours. Submission. Trust. Love. Yes, it was love. Not spoken aloud, not yet, but brushing it by a hair’s breadth.

Alex misread Lee’s stunned expression as something troubling, but Lee soothed her worry, reaching out to touch with new hands and new understanding. Alabaster and moonlight, mahogany and stardust. Lee wasn’t a poet, but Alex was a vision, and she was more than a little afraid this was a mirage. That in the morning, she would find this whole night had been a dream, a cruel Samhain joke.

The worry brought her hands up to trail lightly across Alex’s skin, just enough to feel the brush of small hairs against the pads of her fingers. Alex arched, biting into her bottom lip as Lee began tracing patterns on planes of her cool flesh, memorizing every iota like a blind man learning braille. Her mapping abruptly stopped when those same fingers ran across a puckered seam just below Alex’s ribs.

Even in the low light, Lee could make out the dark line of the scar. To the unsuspecting onlooker, it might seem insignificant. An accident or maybe a childhood surgery, but it was so much more. Strange how a single act of violence could write the prologue to their beginning in blood and pain. Had that night never happened, their paths never would have crossed. In a way, Lee was grateful to the universe. But she could have lost Alex before ever gaining her.

Leaning in with quiet reverence, she placed a gentle kiss against the scar, against the memories, against the lingering trauma that would always haunt Alex. The wetness in the older woman’s eyes spoke volumes when her voice failed her. No one had ever touched her so tenderly.

Show me, Lee said when she finally looked up, settling back on her knees between Alex’s parted legs. The rest didn’t need to be said, felt in the very air they shared. Show me how to be a lover.

Are You Happy?

She woke with a start sometime before dawn, startled and confused. The noises were different. It didn’t smell like the tunnels. Didn’t feel like her blankets. This wasn’t her home.

Lee half sat up, using her elbow to push herself high enough to see. The room was dark yet familiar, the sheets around her cool save for the spots warmed by her and Alex’s body heat–

Alex.

The body beside her hadn’t shifted, but Lee could detect the gentle rise and fall of her chest, breathing slow and even as she slept on her stomach, covers barely clinging to her lower half. Easing into a sitting position, Lee took in the sight, her memory quick to recall the sticky night they shared before falling asleep in each other’s arms. She couldn’t remember feeling this happy. This complete. It seemed impossible being here. Being with Alex. Being Alex’s.

Lee stayed like that for a time, watching and listening, before sliding out of bed and padding to the window. The view wasn’t as spectacular as the one at the top of the world, but it was no less arresting.

Scant hours ago, Alex had shown her their city. Standing atop the Empire State Building, the beauty of New York seemed to go on forever. All her life, Lee only knew the world by looking up. Now, she stood naked and unafraid at Alex’s window, looking down at a city both alien and familiar, terrifying and welcome.

Puffing out a breath that fogged the window, Lee raised her hand and placed it against the cold pane of glass. It was officially November. Before long, winter would grip the city in icy claws like it did every year, but this time things felt different. This time things were different in a most unexpected and wondrous way, but a sobering thought stilled the swirl of giddy emotions.

One night of revelry didn’t change the fact that though Topside belonged to her as much as the Underground did, it wasn’t her world. The magic of the previous night was gone, taking with it her anonymity. Once again, Lee moved as a monster among men and would be reminded of that if she showed her true face to the world.

“Lee?”

Even spoken softly, Alex’s sleep-muddled call cut through the velvety darkness like a shout. When she couldn’t locate her bedmate, Alex sat up, squinting into the half-light until she found the woman standing at her window.

Sorry, Lee apologized, moving the curtains back to block the light. I didn’t mean to wake you.

“You’re fine,” Alex said around a yawn. “Is everything alright?”

Just listening to the city breathe.

A beat of silence stretched across the night, heavy despite its gossamer blanket. Thankfully, Lee’s internal struggle was brief. After thirty-two years of hiding, she could spend one night Topside.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Absolutely. Lee crawled back into bed and pulled Alex in for a kiss that could have reignited the fires of their earlier encounter. The slow simmer of passion lingered just below the surface, but the night’s cool atmosphere tempered it, drawing the women closer as if their proximity could stave off reality for just a few more hours.

“Will you stay?” Alex asked after they broke apart.

Forever, if you’d allow it.

“I think I can handle that,” she smiled. Lee curled into her, tucking her head against Alex’s chest, seeking her heartbeat. “I’m here,” Alex said, threading her fingers through her partner’s hair, already drifting back to sleep despite her best efforts.

I feel you.

Lee wouldn’t count this as a “walk of shame”. There was no shame about the way she made her way back into the tunnels after a prolonged and rightfully steamy goodbye. It was more of a “sneak of mild concern” because while overnight trips in the Underground weren’t uncommon, Lee was good about letting people know where she was. That hadn’t been the case when she left to meet Alex. Now she was sneaking back home, feeling what all those sitcom teens must have felt while attempting to climb back in through their windows before their parents found out.

Choosing a more secluded route, Lee couldn’t keep the stubborn grin from ghosting across her face, steps springy and carefree. Was this what it felt like to be in love? The songs and the movies didn’t do it justice. Laughing against a sudden burst of joy, Lee took the drainage tunnel she was in at a sudden run. Ten yards away, the smooth concrete pipe dropped into an open chasm more than a hundred feet deep, but the sharp drop meant nothing to her as she went airborne at the ledge, leaping across the pit and sliding the rest of the way to the bottom by jumping pipes. Tarzan would have been proud.

Adrenaline pumping, she whooped and chased the echo, taking corners with reckless abandon, letting herself move on autopilot. In love. She was in love. And Alex loved her back. Her. The weird tunnel rat who lived her entire life underground. Reaching the hidden lift that would take her to the Underground proper, Lee kicked open the gate with unnecessary flare, dancing to a rhythm only she could hear.

“You two fucked, didn’t you?”

Tesla’s flaccid dick! Lee jumped and screamed, her grip on the edge of the lift failing. Em, what the hell?!

Her aunt leaned smugly against the back of the cage in almost complete darkness. Had she not spoken, Lee would have never seen her.

“Sneaking in through the backdoor isn’t a good look for you.” It came as a mild shock that there wasn’t judgment in Em’s voice. Only bemusement.

I’m not sneaking, Lee snorted unconvincingly after righting herself, careful to keep her collar high in case Em spotted the mouth-shaped bruises on her neck.

“Bullshit.”

I’m not! I just decided to–

“Finally hook-up with the woman you’ve been pining after for half a year? I’m torn between throwing you a party and smacking you.”

There was minimal sputtering on her part but plenty of indignation. I’ve not been pinin–

“How was the gala?” Using the handle of her white cane, Em slapped down the lever, sending the machine coasting toward the next floor and effectively trapping her niece inside with her. Lee had the brief thought she could lie her way out of this… until Em produced a crumpled piece of paper, Alex’s letter, with a dramatic flourish.

“You should burn your mail. Be thankful I found this.”

How did you even read this?

“Details. Answer my question.”

Oh, this was bad. This was very, very not good. It wasn’t... we didn’t… I mean, we did, but it… and she...

“Was the sex that good you forgot how to use your words? Goddamn, you think it would cure my blindness?”

Lee buried her face in her hands, ears burning. It’s not what you think.

“Oh, it’s not?” Reaching out, Em took Lee’s right hand and held it up. “I like what you did with your nails. Since when did you start cutting them so short?”

Lee snatched her hand back. How do you know I didn’t just break them accidentally and file them down?

“Because I’m blind, not stupid. Believe it or not, I have a basic understanding of how sex works, even if I’ve not had it in years. You don’t have a dick, so you use what you have on–”

Oh my God, I don’t want to hear this, Lee slapped her hands over her ears, humming loudly.

“Too bad,” Em spoke over her, exiting the lift when it settled. Lee had to jog to keep up. “You set yourself up for a lifetime of snark and jabs. But before I start the hazing, I’d like you to know I’m proud of you for taking the initiative and talking to Alex like I said you should.”

What makes you think we talked at all? She kicked at the ground, hands shoved so deep into her pockets it hunched her posture.

“Oh, you talked. Once you pulled your tongue out of places. You wouldn’t be sneaking back here a day later if you hadn’t.”

Emilia! Lee whined, stretching out the name. Why are we even having this–

“Are you happy?” The question and the fact that the shorter woman stopped dead in the middle of the passage and whipped around startled Lee enough she backpedaled to keep from running into her.

What?

“It wasn’t a complex question. Are you happy? Right now? As you are, are you happy?”

Yes, she ventured with wary caution that quenched the soft metal of her spine into hardened steel. The proclamation made her stand taller. Yes, I am.

Em’s facial expression landed somewhere between sucking a lemon and relinquishing an argumentative victory. “Then I’m happy for you. I might give you shit, and you can damn well bet once this gets back to your mother — and you know it will — she’s gonna pop a vein, but I’m happy for you. Both of you… even if I think you can do better. Alex makes you happy, and in a life like ours, it’s good to find some sunshine.”

Shockingly enough, Lee knew her aunt was sincere. Thank you. I don’t say it enough sometimes, but you really are the greatest aunt.

“Flattery will get you everywhere with me,” Em smiled, returning the hug her niece wrapped her in. “Now, come on. We need to think of a convincing lie while you figure out how to break the news to your mother you’re dating a Topsider.”

You mean flat out telling her isn’t the best policy? Sarcasm made Lee swagger, her shoulder bumping against Em’s when they started walking again.

“In this case, honesty isn’t the best policy. For now, at least,” Em amended. “You’re going to have to tell her at some point.”

Figured it would be like ripping off a band-aid. Just wince and rip.

“The ripping part is going to come when she rips you a new asshole,” she said, the two stepping into the main tunnel and shouldering open Lee’s door. “And as much as I understand her shock, I’d rather not–”

Both women staggered to a stop when they coasted into the living room and ran across Rebecca seated at the table. She didn’t look up when they stumbled in, eyes on the book in her lap, but that alone spoke volumes. Seeming to delight in dragging out the inevitable, Rebecca took her time finishing her page and the dregs of her tea before setting the literature aside, dusting imaginary crumbs from her lap, and standing.

“Ah, she returns. Welcome home, Leanna,” she said with a smile that was anything but welcoming. Even Em winced at the edge in it.

Stuck between a proverbial rock and a hard place, Lee didn’t know what to do. Beg for forgiveness? Plead clemency? Plead insanity? Just keep her mouth shut and wait for the explosion building beneath her mother’s forced calm?

Rebecca looked like a volcano under tremendous pressure. It was difficult to spot without years of practice, but she knew what idiosyncrasies to look for. A slight twitch here. A persistent wrinkle there. The hard glint of her hazel eyes and the rigid set of her shoulders. It was coming, and the worst part was Lee could feel her knee-jerk instinct to please kicking in.

Mother, I... She swallowed hard but pushed forward. I think you and I should have a–

Rebecca held up a hand, stunting her words as effectively as if she shouted for silence. “Believe it or not, I am not as ignorant as many would have you think.” That was directed at Em, who flinched. Rebecca stared at her daughter for a few seconds more, driving her point home, before turning and heading for her room. She paused at the threshold.

“Since the two of you are sleeping together, I guess it would be prudent to invite Alex over for dinner. That is the Topsider way, after all.”

Lee felt numb, mouth ajar. What? No. She hadn’t heard right. Her mother would never...

“Friday would suit us best. Tell Alex I expect her to bring a dish, and we will further discuss this new… venture of yours and the rules I have about Topsiders coming and going from my Underground.”

Why can’t you just be happy for me? Lee suddenly blurted. Why does this have to turn into a fight? Alex is a good person. She’s proven that time and time again, but you’re obsessed with hating her without even getting to know her.

“There are rules to our way of life, Leanna. No matter who you choose to bed, you will not break them. Alex is not a Topsider looking for sanctuary. She’s a potential liability.”

No, but I’m an Undergrounder looking for a chance to live! She is my sanctuary!

“You sleep with a woman once, and you think you love her,” Rebecca scoffed.

Heat that had nothing to do with the anger curling her hands into fists uncoiled down Lee’s spine one vertebrae at a time. She halfheartedly tried to call it back, but a petty part of herself wanted her mother to see the rage and the hot prickles it woke in her joints.

You don’t get to dictate how I fall in love, she snarled, showing fangs.

“You think yourself so old, yet you are still so young in the world’s eyes,” Rebecca sighed, equal parts sad and exasperated. “No, I can’t tell you who to love, and I never will. But why her, Leanna? Why did it have to be a Topsider? One with influence and reach?”

I can’t help where my heart goes. You, of all people, should know that. You raised me to be kind and accepting. Maybe that was your greatest mistake.

“My greatest mistake?” Something flickered across Rebecca’s face, her expression softening with painful consideration like something important was on the tip of her tongue. Then it was gone, disappearing like morning fog. “My greatest mistake was the foolish belief that a mother could keep her child safe from the world.”

Did you ever stop to consider your need to protect is actually entrapment and that keeping me down here has the opposite effect of making me feel human?

Pushing past to retreat to her own room, Lee missed the defeated look on Rebecca’s face as she watched her daughter stalk away.

“She didn’t mean that,” Em said softly.

“Sometimes honesty is a byproduct of anger,” Rebecca said, unclenching her hands and watching them shiver.

Olive Branch

Alex couldn’t say she was pleased to see Jerry on the other side of her door. Especially since she wasn’t the one who answered. Georgia beat her to it.

“Oh, great. She fucking you, too?” Jerry growled, looking Georgia up and down. Alex commended her friend on keeping her cool because she would have tested the durability of his nose with her fist.

“Hell yeah, she is,” Georgia grinned, leaning her shoulder against the frame. “Don’t you know gay women just can’t help themselves when they get around one another? Just have to scissor all night or else we turn into hairy werewolves and eat little pricks like you. Alex, who the fuck is this guy, and why is he at your door?”

For once, Jerry was silent, clearly not anticipating running into someone who could dish it out more than he could at the drop of a hat.

“Unfortunately, he’s my delivery boy.”

“From what fucking restaurant?” Georgia gaped.

“Chang’s. What do you want, Jerry?” Alex frowned, coming to stand beside Georgia.

“I ain’t your delivery boy,” he muttered as he shoved a message into her hands and then took off without so much as a word of explanation or goodbye.

“What was that all about? Forget to settle a bill?”

“No,” Alex answered distractedly, eyes on the paper in her hand. “He’s an Insider for the Underground. Lee sends messages through him...”

The letter was written in Lee’s blunt handwriting, but Alex was having trouble understanding the invitation.

A-

I would like to invite you to dinner Underground this Friday at seven. Bring your beautiful self and a dish of your choosing. Can’t wait to see you. Goliath will be on the lookout.

P.S. Mother and Em will be joining us. Not my idea… sorry.

-L

Alex had to re-read the last line at least a dozen times to make the words stick, and even then, it was hard to wrap her mental fingers around. Rebecca wanted to see her? Have dinner with her? Be civil with her?

It’s a trap! The cynical part of her mind whispered the immortal words of Admiral Akbar. Lee probably didn’t even write this. Which left Alex in quite a tight spot. Go and walk into her death again, or stay and miss an opportunity to see Lee. And what was this about bringing food?

“Bad news from wolf-girl?”

“I’m not… sure how to take it.” Alex passed the letter over so Georgia could come to her own conclusions.

“Looks like a ‘meet the parents’ dinner.” Georgia hummed with a knowing nod. “Best of luck with that. Wait, what night did she say she wants you over?”

“Why?”

“Because of the full moon!” she giggled, gathering papers and checking her phone for missed calls. “Damn, dad called, and I missed him. Anyway, I was only half-joking with that Jersey idiot. Gotta track the lunar cycle now that you have a bite on your neck.”

Alex flushed scarlet and fought to keep from touching the healing puncture marks just shy of the junction where her neck and shoulders met. Lee hadn’t meant to do it — caught up in the swell of instincts and lust — and felt awful until discovering Alex had a very powerful, very pleasant reaction to the bite.

Needless to say, Alex had markings in places Georgia would never see, but she couldn’t hide them all.

“Haha, Very funny. I’m shocked you’re not doing a silver test on me.”

“God, you’re such a nerd. Fun historical fact for the day, they didn’t use silver. They used mercury to test if someone was a werewolf. Which is why most people died cause, you know, it’s poison.”

“Now who’s the nerd?” Alex stuck out her tongue when Georgia raised a middle finger.

“Whatever. See if I grace you with gameshow-worthy knowledge in the future. And the only test I’d do on you is a sanity test seeing as you’re planning on having dinner with your girlfriend and her ex-mob mother.”

Alex knew this was coming and let it slide. Georgia wasn’t going to warn her against going or send her off with her blessings. She made it clear Alex was a grown woman who could think for herself, but she still valued her friend’s input on matters. Even matters she knew upset her. So instead of voicing the rebuttal building in her chest, she redirected into safer waters.

“What do you bring to a dinner like that? I mean, it’s been a long time since I had a ‘meet the parents’ dinner. The last one I went to was awful.”

“The dinner was awful or the parental meeting?”

“Both. What would you bring?”

“Potluck is the easiest thing to get right. Think outside the box.”

“How outside the box?”

Georgia tapped her chin thoughtfully. “How do you think they’d feel about barbecue?”

“In New York? We have that here?” Alex looked around with a dramatic gasp, pleased when Georgia guffawed.

“This is America’s melting pot, you uncultured heathen! My father would disown me if he heard a friend of mine say that.”

“Uh-huh. So when do I get to meet your parents?” she teased, getting the door for Georgia.

“Never if you think the only culinary adventure in New York is takeout and pizza.”

Alex feigned indignation. “I will have you know I also love diner fare, Miss Battle. I am a woman with refined taste.”

Georgia made a face. “Your vanilla is showing.”

“White and bland, just like my father wanted,” Alex crowed, which earned a sniggering laugh from her friend.

“You said it. Not me. Here.” Digging out a scrap of paper from her stack of folders, she jotted down a few local restaurants Alex could peruse in her off time. “I personally like the Harlem Hog Pit. Their family and mine go back to the time my dad was still on the force. Good people and good food.”

Two days later — and after one of the most eye-opening treks around New York and parts of Jersey — Alex waddled her way Underground, four enormous sacks and one brown paper bag in hand. Picking her way to the basement entrance and slipping through the false wall, she waded into the inky darkness with only minimal hesitation. Lee said Goliath would be waiting, but that prospect was terror-inducing. She hadn’t been able to reconcile what she’d seen that night and no amount of rationalization could chase away the fact she’d experienced a paranormal event first hand. Growing up a skeptic and somewhat of an atheist, what was she supposed to do with knowledge like that?

It didn’t take long for her to spot the first stray cat wandering into her flashlight beam, all eyeshine and slinky grace. Others joined it until Alex spotted the mask in the distance and held her breath as Goliath emerged.

“Good evening,” she said with a polite nod and set her sacks down. The giant didn’t reciprocate the greeting, green eyes tracking her from behind the smooth white of his mask. “I know you’re probably not happy to see me. Nothing I say will make that better, but I—uh—brought something for you. Well, for you and your… pets. Here.”

She held out the paper bag like the olive branch it was and waited. After an inconceivably long time — Alex felt she was being tested and refused to move even when her shoulders began to burn — Goliath bridged the gap and took the sack, upending the contents into his massive hands. As if sensing the new toys and treats, the cats circling his feet began to cry and rub at his legs. One fat tabby broke off and graced Alex with a rub as if to say thank you.

“I also brought you some food, too. I don’t know if you eat meat, so I got a barbecue platter and also a veggie burger.” Alex walked the sack forward, hopeful her peace offering was enough to grant her safe passage.

No thanks were given other than a grunt and a nod, but it was enough. Goliath took the offering and led the way, cats in tow. This time, however, he didn’t escort her through the central corridor but rather through the back entrance via a convenient lift and a brisk walk through connecting tunnels. Before Alex could raise her fist and knock on the familiar door, the hatch swung open, and Em filled the doorway.

“Punctual to a fault.”

“It is my bread and butter,” Alex tried to smile, tight-lipped and courteous. “Nice to see you again, Em.”

“I’d say the same thing, but I’m only privy to that lovely voice of yours.” She tapped the side of her head, a sarcastic smile crinkling the scarred skin around her eyes.

“May I come in?” Alex raised her sack-filled arms to indicate she held up her end of the deal and thus wanted access.

“That depends,” Em sniffed, not in any hurry. “I’d flat out ask what your intentions are with my niece, but since the two of you have already moved to third base, I should just skip formalities and go straight to threatening.”

Alex sighed and let her posture slip. “Is this the place you want to have a conversation like this? I know you and Rebecca are protective, but honestly, Em, I have no intentions of hurting–”

“Look, the fact of the matter is,” Em cut Alex off, “I saw this coming a while ago. And as much as I’m apprehensive about the two of you being a couple, I’m also happy. Lee’s got a good head on her shoulders when it’s not shoved inside a machine, and she’s a good judge of character. Just… be careful with her, okay?”

The tenderness in Em’s request softened some of Alex’s apprehension. “I give you my word.”

“Which means shit to me. Show rather than tell, Miss Bailey. Now get in here before Lee claws me to death.”

Alex’s confusion evaporated when Em stepped aside, revealing a relieved-looking Lee behind her, all smiles and vibrating eagerness.

I’m so glad you came! she said, swooping in for a hug that purposely shoved Em back a step. Alex tried to reciprocate but offered an awkward half-hug and a kiss on the cheek instead. Here, let me take those. God, that smells wonderful.

“Yeah, yeah, both of you stop being cute and bring the food in.”

The dwelling looked no different than when Alex last visited, warmth and familiar comfort already seeping into her bones right up until she turned the corner and ran into a glacier with all the finesse of the Titanic. Rebecca stood beside a table set for four rather than three, looking placidly grim as usual. Hands folded in front of her, she reminded Alex of a schoolmarm, complete with half-moon spectacles perched on the tip of her nose.

“Alex,” Rebecca said, inclining her head.

“Rebecca,” Alex returned cordially. “Thank you for having me. I didn’t know what all to bring, so the meal comes courtesy of a friend of mine. I hope you like barbecue.” She jumped when Em dropped something heavy in the tiny kitchen, her head popping out like a jack-in-the-box.

“You brought barbecue?” Then to Lee, she asked, “She brought barbecue?”

Smells like it, Lee said, sniffing a box before opening it to reveal a full rack of ribs cooked in a spicy-sweet smelling dry rub.

“I went to two places I thought you all might like. Em, I talked to one of the restaurant owners, and he suggested a South American joint nearby. I hope that wasn’t too presumptuous?”

“Oh, gracias conchetumare,” Em faux-sobbed, approaching one of the Styrofoam containers and holding it to her chest with tearful reverence. “I’d know the smell of pollo a la brasa anywhere. It’s been so long.”

“Now who’s being the dramatic one?” Rebecca snorted, though her look of approval wasn’t missed by Alex as she placed glasses in front of mismatched plates.

“Thirty years, Rebecca. I’ve not had pollo a la brasa in thirty years! Don’t judge me. I’m going to be here in the corner having a chicken-infused religious experience.”

Despite the lingering tension — was Lee purposely avoiding her mother’s gaze for some reason? — Alex found herself laughing. This was awkward and weird, but since when did her life make a bit of sense? Sliding into the seat offered to her, she settled in with this strange family that had come into her life like a whirlwind, warmly glowing when Lee’s hand found the top of her thigh under the table. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Emilia!” Rebecca snapped. “Put those containers back! We’re eating as a family.”

“No!” Em scooped up three Styrofoam boxes and attempted, poorly, to scuttle away to her desired corner. “These are mine. You’ll have to pry them out of my cold, dead hands!”

Alex watched the drama unfold, hand over her mouth to hide her giggles. Lee, on the other hand, dissolved into helpless laughter that would set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Feast Day

So began a strange but welcome change to Alex’s routine as winter settled into its usual rhythms.

At first, dinners with Lee and company was a weekend-only event but grew into multiple nights a week because why not? What was Alex doing with her life Topside other than working? Aside from Georgia and Phillip, who did she have? It was like a curtain had been drawn aside, showing her what she’d been missing all these years. A community. A family. A place to call her own. More and more, the Underground began to feel like home, providing levels of intimacy not often found in the bustle of millions Topside.

With each visit, Alex and Lee grew closer as both lovers and partners. Without the yoke of having to temper their affection or a timer hanging around their necks, they were able to explore freely, taking their time learning the ins and outs of intimacy while learning how to love in the quiet moments. Hours were spent in the Chamber of Echoes, listening to Broadway beneath warm blankets, hands never far from one another. They swam naked in the heated cisterns, hanging oil lamps and candles turning the water into molten pools of orange and red. They danced by the light of a million ruby crystals in the Fire Cavern. They loved openly and often, sometimes falling into Lee’s bed early on and staying there for hours, exploring the length and breadth of lovemaking, carefully tuning one another until their bodies sang.

It was easily the happiest time of Alex’s life, providing moments she wanted to look back on and cherish forever. If this was love, she never wanted to give it up.

November marched on, dragging behind it the onset of three back-to-back holidays like cans tied to a bicycle tire. For Thanksgiving, Alex was surprised by an invite from Georgia to celebrate with her family. The whole week was a whirlwind affair ending with Alex seated at a cramped table in a Queens brownstone with fifteen other people — flour on her sleeves from helping Georgia’s mother, Bianca, in the kitchen and head pleasantly buzzing from the wine — while friendly debates were thrown across mounds of food like trebuchets launching missiles over castle walls. Alex reveled in the chance to air her argumentative side, firmly planted in a friendly debate with Georgia’s father, Gregory, about the validity of the New York Times and their part in the societal news circuit.

Georgia begged her not to get him started.

Alex gladly took the bait, eager for a good sparring partner.

The night flew by, food, laughter and wine leaving her flushed and warm all the way back to her apartment. How was it a year ago she had gone from nothing to this? Was this what having a life outside work felt like?

December sprung up like a glitzy jack-in-the-box with the garish overexuberance of the Christmas season — though the world had been showing signs of the seasonal shift as early as October. In adulthood, Alex avoided the holiday madness, hiding in her apartment like the Grinch while the rest of the world celebrated. That wasn’t to say she didn’t participate in the annual office Christmas party or dine with Philip and Brian on occasion, but at home, her apartment was bare of decor, the holiday slipping by unnoticed and unloved.

That wasn’t to be the case this year.

This year, she had a family both Topside and Underground.

True to form, Goliath met Alex near her usual entrance, having heard her incoming taps. She greeted him with a Merry Christmas and a sack full of goodies for his cats, along with a set of blank masks and paints. The gift had been a spur-of-the-moment impulse, but she couldn’t hide the glowing smile bunching her cheeks when the giant regarded her in surprise and rumbled a thank you.

The main corridor was a completely different animal when Alex walked the now familiar length of the subterranean city. Garland and homemade decorations hung from doorways and snaked along the support cables like creeper ivy, accompanied by hundreds of strands of refurbished lights zig-zagging overhead. The effect it created was a tunnel within a tunnel, the homes nestled under a synthetic roof of twinkling, multicolored stars. To those accustomed to the glitzy spectacle Topside, the decor wouldn’t have counted as much, but it had an intimate feel, like those participating actually appreciated the meaning of the holiday rather than just the aesthetic. To Alex it was magic incarnate and made her slow to take it all in.

Entering Lee’s home after knocking once, she called out a greeting that was echoed by Em somewhere nearby. Alex found her in the kitchen surrounded by opened plastic containers of ingredients and mixing bowls.

“You’re here early,” Em said without looking up from her methodical work of kneading whatever resided in the bowl closest to her.

“Didn’t see a point in waiting since I don’t have work.” Alex set her backpack near the chair she’d more or less claimed as her own and took a deep breath through her nose. “Something smells amazing. What are you cooking?”

“It better. I only make Panetón once a year, and today is a special day.”

Alex craned her neck over Em’s shoulder to get a better look at the round ball of dough peppered with raisins under her palms. “I didn’t know you could bake.”

“I can also pole dance too, if the mood strikes. Funny how we all have hidden talents,” Em said, shooting Alex a cheeky smile. “Lee’s in the lab getting the turkeys roasting. Please go make sure she’s not starting a grease fire like she did last year… and the year before that.”

“What’s the occasion?” Alex attempted to slide in and steal a few errant chocolate chips waiting off to one side and barely escaped getting her knuckles smacked with a spatula.

“Woman, I’ve been known to take off fingers,” Em warned, pointing her utensil like a sword. “Steal at your own peril. Lee will fill you in.”

Alex stuck her tongue out and jogged off to find her girlfriend. God, did that word fill her sails like a warm updraft. Sure enough, Lee was planted in front of a homemade rotisserie made from several modified space heaters, two massive birds slowly rotating in front of glowing red coils.

“Em wanted me to make sure you didn’t set anything on fire.”

Lee jumped, elation replacing focused concentration. You came early!

“Wanted to get a start on my holiday.” Alex shrugged, melting into her arms. “Those are some nice-sized birds you got there. Catch them yourself?”

Oh, you know it. Nothing but the finest sewer fowl for us.

“That’s nasty.”

Does it make it worse if I say I slathered them in butter like an albino going to the beach?

“I think you mean sunscreen.”

Same difference, Lee waved offhandedly.

“It’s really not.” Their kiss was tender and slow, both of them enjoying the unhurried pace of knowing they had all the time in the world.

Now that you’re here, Lee said once they broke away, you can help us get ready.

“For what, exactly? Em wouldn’t say.” When her attention shifted back to Lee, Alex leaned back, the mischief shining in her partner’s eyes making her immediately nervous. “What?”

It’s Feast Day.

“I can’t decide if that answer was meant to be informative or ominous.”

It could go either way. Come! We must gather your festive disguise.

“Okay, now I’m officially afraid.”

Taking Alex by the hand, Lee took her back to her room and dove into a drawer while Alex perched on the end of her bed. After a moment, Lee straightened and turned, careful to keep whatever was in her hands behind her back.

You have to close your eyes. It’s tradition. Alex gave her a skeptical look. I swear it’s nothing bad. Please?

“Fine,” she deflated with a bemused half-smile.

Stand for me, please.

Alex stood.

Okay, now lift your arms.

“Why?”

Just trust me.

Complying under minor duress, Alex lifted her arms and felt something wooly and soft brush past her fingertips before the sensation swallowed her. For a second, she thought Lee was shoving a bag over her head until that same head popped out of a hole, and her arms were brought back down to her sides.

Okay, open… your eyes… now.

Alex did and burst into laughter when she came face-to-face with her reflection and the hideous Christmas sweater she’d been shoved into. “What on earth am I wearing?”

It’s your traditional Feast Day Sweater!

“Feast Day Sweater?” Alex parroted back, picking at the gaudy neon-green and red fabric that hung to her knees. The sleeves were fire-engine red and peppered with blue and green pom poms that reminded her of festive chicken pox. A dark green Christmas tree adorned the front like a medieval crest, complete with tiny plastic ornaments and actual working lights sewn into the soft fabric. It was zany, and the fact Lee was wearing one equally as absurd made the moment even better.

Yeah, you have to look your best for dinner tonight! It’s for the annual Underground feast.

“We’re having dinner with the whole Underground? All at once?”

It’s the one time of year Mother wants everyone to feel like a cohesive family. Or at the very least, a community. Everyone brings something to the table.

“So like Thanksgiving but during Christmas?”

Sure, I guess. We just want everyone to feel welcome during the holidays, Lee said, gathering a pile of small, parchment-wrapped bundles Alex recognized as the homemade toys she’d been working on for the better part of a month. A nod in the direction of the kitchen prompted her to follow. The families down here didn’t come to us with much, if anything. The Insiders do what they can, but at the end of the day, Undergrounders are, by and large, homeless. Some chose to become that way, some didn’t. So it’s been Mother’s tradition since before I can remember to bring everyone together one day a year as a community so people don’t feel isolated. She figured Christmas Eve was a good date because it had more meaning to more people.

Alex found herself at a loss for words. It was hard to fathom the implacable, unshakable, stone-faced Rebecca Farrow being anything but a solid brick wall 365 days out of the year. The fact there was the inkling of a nurturing undercurrent in the woman went beyond shocking, but then again, she raised Lee.

It’s still early, but I could use a helper dolling out goodies to the kids. Do you mind?

“I would be honored to be your elf. Lead the way.”

At a quarter to five — one hour after finishing their gift hiding around the Main Hall — Lee and Alex dragged the kitchen table into the corridor to add to the dozens of other tables snaking down the massive tunnel. The setup reminded Alex of a Viking mead hall. Rather than one continuous, uniform table, seating was broken into dozens of smaller, mismatching tables dragged from homes and set together in a long line. More than a hundred people, children included, gathered around their respective islands, all from different walks of life, all with different stories to tell.

Some looked to have come from wealth and retained that air even if their clothing was threadbare. Some looked as though their entire existence began and ended on the street, the shrewdness of their eyes and quickness of their hands hinting at hard lives and even harder means of survival. Some sat with a lingering sadness that persisted regardless of their apparent cheer, a dullness to the eyes and a slouch in their shoulders. But so many looked genuinely content, warm smiles wide as they talked, joked, and laughed hard.

A mother caught Alex’s eye as she and Lee finished spreading a table cloth over their table, a toddler bouncing on her hip. The dark-haired woman was young and offered a shy smile when Lee slid over with a wave and wiggled her fingers near the toddler’s face.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” Em asked next to Alex’s elbow.

“I never imagined there were so many.”

“More than meets the eye down here.”

“Where did they all come from?”

“Everywhere. Some came to us because they couldn’t hide Topside from whatever got them in trouble in the first place. Others came because they had no place to go. Some, like you, wandered in and never left. We’re a hodgepodge. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see a woman about a turkey.”

“I’ve got it. You all have done enough today.”

“Won’t hear me complaining,” Em said, sliding into a chair due left of the head of the table.

Alex found Rebecca where she expected her to be, but rather than heading over and taking the cooked birds waiting on the counter, she lingered by her chair, fingers picking at the worn upholstery. In her periphery, she could see her backpack and chewed her lip.

“I don’t need you hovering,” Rebecca said as she scooped stuffing from a pot and put it in a serving bowl that had seen better days.

“I wasn’t trying to hover,” Alex deflected without taking offense to the brusque tone.

Rebecca paused, glancing up. “What do you need?”

“If it’s alright, I wanted to give you your gift early.”

“It can wait until tomorrow.”

“Please?” And as perturbed as the matron seemed, she relented, waving Alex to proceed. Hurrying in case her courage prematurely waned, she retrieved a manila envelope from her pack and presented it to Rebecca.

“I believe you, and I know what this is,” Alex said, watching Rebecca carefully remove a single sheet of white paper and hold it up to the light.

Rebecca’s eyes grew wide and accusatory behind her glasses. “Where did you get this?”

“Unimportant.”

“Of course it’s important,” she snapped, voice like a whip. “If this ever–”

Before the woman could begin what was gearing up to be quite the tirade, Alex took back the sheet, pulled a lighter from her pocket, and put flame to paper. It was such a shocking move, whatever Rebecca was about to say withered as the orange flames began to climb the page.

“I was warned against mentioning this, but you should know that in early September, I was approached by a man named Cedric Barrowman. He told me, quite bluntly, to destroy any evidence I might have about you. At first, I thought you sent him as a way to scare me off like you did with Jerry. But the longer I thought about our encounter, the more I realized he was protecting you.” Before the flames could brush her fingers, Alex placed the paper in the sink where it continued to blacken and char, ropey tendrils of smoke curling toward the ceiling.

“I know about the Norths, Rebecca. And the lab. I know you worked for them at one point before breaking ties, and I know you’ve been on the run since. I know all of this, but what I need you to know is that I have done as instructed and destroyed everything, this last piece of evidence included. I know you and I haven’t seen eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but I protect what’s mine. Merry Christmas, Rebecca.”

“Cedric... came to you?”

“With a sniper in tow, yes,” Alex answered none too happily. But a curious thing happened. Rebecca’s demeanor cracked, showing a calloused vulnerability peeking through the scars of mistrust and misuse.

“How did he look?”

“Pardon?”

“Nevermind.” And just like that, the walls flew back up. Rebecca would have turned her back had Alex not understood the private double meaning in the question and reached out to stop her.

“Like a man with a lethal sense of fashion. Very silver foxish, if you’re into that kind of thing. I can safely say those were the most well-spoken threats I’ve ever received.”

Rebecca nodded, but the far-off look in her eyes prickled Alex’s “there’s a story here” senses. What ties did Rebecca have to Cedric? Was he with the Norths or something more sinister?

“He was the first Insider.”

Well, that answered one question and birthed a million more. At this rate, Alex was going to have to write a book.

“I see,” she said instead, picking a neutral response so Rebecca wouldn’t feel backed into a corner. What she didn’t expect was for the older woman to forego formality and step into an awkward but heartfelt hug.

“Thank you,” was all she said, squeezing tight once before letting go and slipping back into her reserved role. Shellshocked — had Rebecca Farrow, the Rebecca Farrow, just willingly hugged her? — Alex retrieved one of the turkeys and followed her outside where yet more people had gathered, all eager to begin.

Standing at the head of the train of tables, Rebecca raised a hand for silence that instantly fell. “Good evening. Thank you for coming. I won’t keep you long as I know we’re starving. I’m so happy to see all of you tonight and to welcome new faces.” She motioned to a young mother and a handful of infants fussing further down.

“As you all know, once a year, we take a moment to remember that, despite our differences and personal strife, we are a family. Growing up, I never understood the belief that family could include those who were not direct blood relations, but over the years, I have learned how wrong I was. Family is the community that supports you. It might be a mother and a father. It might be a friend or a lover.” Alex felt Rebecca’s gaze settle on her for a split second. “It can even be a stranger. Whatever the label, here in the Underground, we are a family. So, to my family, I say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.”

Fall

The meal was lovely, if unconventional. Alex mostly listened to the broad range of conversations drifting like a current around her, happy to be beside Lee and watch her in her element. The people loved her, especially the children. A few were curious as to who Alex was, but the majority didn’t need to be told. They’d either seen her and Lee together enough to guess what was happening or didn’t think it was their business to know.

Rebecca visited each table in turn, making her way down the line to sit and speak with every family. Alex learned she did this every year. Concerns would be heard. Grievances, if any, taken up. Larger housing would be negotiated with an onsite engineer — Lee being the most sought after build technician, Alex found out — if a family had expanded. New arrivals were also briefed on protocol and Underground procedure. Alex spied an uncertain-looking Lucas at a table farther down, his attention solely on Rebecca.

The meal lasted until the tables were bare, every family receiving their fair share and then some. As a rule, no one left hungry, and any leftovers were piecemealed out to those who needed food the most. Alex helped with cleanup until Lee nabbed her wrist and pulled her away for a “feast” of a different kind that took them in a breathless circuit around her workshop and ended in her room.

Backed against the headboard of her bed, Alex marveled at the woman beneath her. Lee said herself she was a fast learner and it hadn’t been an exaggeration. Senses on overload, Alex rolled her hips against the intrusion banking a fire in her pelvis. If she breathed any faster there wasn’t going to be enough air for them to share. Head falling against her lover’s shoulder a short time later, Alex muffled her cries as best she could before collapsing, warm, spent, and blessedly content.

So, that was my gift to you. What did you get me? Lee smiled into a nuzzle as she dragged her sticky fingers away from their play and up Alex’s naked thigh.

“Who said I got you anything?” Alex teased, arcing her neck so Lee could drag her canines along the hot line of skin. She whined when the other woman pulled away after offering a quick lick rather than the bite she’d been craving. “Aww, I didn’t realize this was a pay-to-play type of place.”

We all have to pay our dues.

With a mock pout, Alex sat up and swung off the bed, retrieving her discarded underwear and made sure to drag them up her legs with tempting slowness. She loved these little games. Seeing how far they could push the other.

“Is there no way to entice you? I have many talents, but my best has always been oral presentation.” The sway of Alex’s hips and the roll of her shoulders was properly predatory and made Lee shiver.

Really now? Show rather than tell, Miss Bailey.

Rounding the bed to where Lee sat with her legs off the edge, Alex nudged her knees apart and sank down, never once breaking eye contact with her partner as she wiggled her fingers into the elastic waistband of Lee’s boxer briefs. “I think I know a game we could–”

The sharp crack of breaking glass followed by the thud of something hitting the floor had Alex and Lee jumping to their feet, but it was the panicked, “Oh my God!” from Em that drove them scrambling from the room.

Lee was faster, Alex struggling to step into her sweatpants while moving, ripping around the corner into the living room only for her feet to suddenly stick to the floor. Rebecca lay unconscious among the shattered remains of a small glass end table.

“Lee, Leanna, the glass!” Em warned with a trembling hand out to stop her niece. Lee ignored her and slid to her knees, hands moving everywhere but not daring to touch until they cupped her mother’s face, calling to her gently.

“What happened?” Alex gasped, heart in her throat.

“I don’t know. One second, we were talking, and the next, she just hit the floor. Stay here. I’m going to get Taft.” Em bolted from the room, almost taking down a bookcase as she bounced off of it in her haste to leave.

Alex felt like she was moving through molasses while the world turned at light speed. Lee had already scooped her mother up — her slight frame like a ragdoll in her daughter’s arms — and was running for Rebecca’s bedroom, leaving Alex in limbo. Taking a turn to orient herself, she both heard and felt glass crunch under her socked feet and looked down, slow to grasp the amount of blood left to stain the carpets. How had the night gone from simple pleasures and tender moments to terror in one savage stroke?

Snapping into action, Alex ran after Lee, stopping in the kitchen to gather an armload of clean towels and throwing them into the sink, wetting them. Lee already had Rebecca on the bed when Alex arrived, towels in hand, and was doing her level best to gently move strands of hair from the blood on her mother’s face.

She was fine at dinner, Lee hiccupped, not even attempting a brave face. Everything was fine. She’s been getting stronger. What’s happening?

Alex swallowed the lump in her throat, but her internal turmoil was cut short when the body on the bed stirred, consciousness returning like a flickering bulb.

“Leanna?” Rebecca slurred in confusion when her eyes cracked open. “Why... what hap–”

Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay, Lee smiled with a watery sniff. Alex and I have you.

“You fell, Rebecca,” Alex helped fill in when the woman’s hazy gaze slid her way. Hating herself for what came next and the can of worms it would open, Alex moved closer, now shoulder to shoulder with Lee. “Rebecca, have you taken your medication today?”

No answer. Rebecca’s eyes rolled shut once more as she drifted to sleep. Alex felt Lee’s eyes on her like a firebrand and tried not to flinch, knowing she was essentially lying by silent omission. Thankfully, she was saved from making a hard decision by the sound of feet fast approaching.

“Out. Everyone, now,” Taft barked when he burst into the room, Latex gloves already pulled over his hands. Lee protested, going so far as to bare her teeth at the man, but the doctor would not be swayed. “I’m not asking, Leanna. Your mother is very sick, and I need to examine her.”

Do it with me here! I’m tired of the lies! What’s happening to her?

“It’s not my place to disclose a patient’s private affairs.”

She’s my mother! I have a right to know! The growl that filled the room came from deep in Lee’s chest and echoed for longer than it should have. All standing occupants wore varying shades of shock or confusion, but only Taft muscled on with a stubbornness born from years of dealing with medical patients.

“That’s not my decision to make.”

“Lee, please,” Em soothed, daring to take her niece by the upper arm. “Let him work. She’s going to be fine, I swear. Just let him–”

This is the last time I let you lie to my face, Lee snarled, going nose to nose with her aunt before storming off like a squall.

“She’s not been doing well, has she?” Alex asked once the door to Rebecca’s room clicked closed, leaving her and Em stranded in the hall.

“There are good days and bad,” Em sighed. “But her bad days are getting more frequent. I thought… I thought today was a good one, but she pushed herself. She’s always pushing herself.”

“You two have to tell Lee about this. Em,” Alex moved around in front of the woman, arms crossed tightly over her chest like it could keep the good of the day in and the bad out, “she’s suffering. You can’t keep pushing her away. Not if Rebecca is–”

“I know, Alex! I know, all right? But I’m stuck between a fucking rock and a hard place, between respecting my mentor’s wishes and lying to my niece.”

“I’m sorry. I know this is hard–”

“No, you really don’t. Just… give me a minute, okay? I’m still trying to process.”

Alex said no more, pointing herself down the hall and letting her feet lead the way. As expected, Lee was in her workshop, pacing its length like an animal in a cage. Alex watched her make a circuit and felt her chest tighten when she spotted the telltale black and blue bruising spreading across the hands she used to rub tears from darkening cheeks.

You know what’s happening to her, don’t you? The tone of her voice made it an accusation not a question. Lee didn’t stop pacing, and Alex neglected to move closer out of respect for her partner’s anger and the fear she didn’t want to feel prickling her scalp.

“I know she’s sick.”

That’s not what I asked. You know what she’s sick with. Blue eyes sought and found hers from behind a mop of disheveled hair, and this time, Alex flinched. They were too bright, too reminiscent of the night in her apartment when another side of Lee made itself known.

Here it was, the can of worms. “I do,” she admitted to her feet.

And like everyone else, you won’t tell me.

“Your mother asked me not to, and I have to respect her wishes.”

Why?

Alex wasn’t met with a look of hurt when she raised her head but the hard curl of someone locked in the terrifying spiral of watching tragedy unfold and being unable to stop it. “Because people are entitled to their own bodily autonomy and medical privacy.”

So that gives you license to lie to me?

“That’s not how this works. This wasn’t my decision to make. I hate that your mother won’t tell you what’s going on. I hate that I’ve been put under a gag order, but Rebecca reserves the right to share this with you when she’s ready. She’s scared–”

And I’m not?

“I never said that.”

All I want is someone to be straight with me for once!

“I made a promise–”

Fuck your promises! Lee roared, hitting her breaking point.

Alex yelped, the voice in her head booming to the point she felt pain bloom hot and ferocious behind her eyes. But it was the sound of the toolbox exploding against the far wall that had her ducking for cover.

Hunched in half in the middle of the workshop, Lee quivered like a pot under pressure, black spreading in the jerky pops of joints slipping in and out of socket. Each labored breath, one after the other, rattled in an endless snarl resonating with bone-shivering bass. Teeth bared, Lee fought to stay standing but staggered to her knees when the joints in her legs popped. Crumpling to all fours, the curve of Lee’s spine arched sharply toward the ceiling as if pulled by an invisible string and wrenched a pained cry when the smaller woman’s abdomen caved suddenly inward.

“Shit!” Alex closed half the distance to her girlfriend when Lee’s head snapped up and rooted her in place. The eyes burning from under stray strands of unkempt hair were the eyes of a feral creature. One driven by bloody instinct and self-preservation. Savage blue dominated Lee’s iris, her pupils little more than pinpricks in a turbulent sea. Watching Alex watch her, the beast exhaled a snarl that showed the full extent of its teeth, but the creature’s hold was tentative. After several scorching seconds, Lee’s pupils dilated and she blinked, dropping her gaze.

Get out. Her voice was hardly a whisper, strained and pained at the same time.

“Lee, please, I–”

Get out!

Master of my Disease

Shaken to her core, Alex fled the workshop and headed for the living room. Wrapped in silent seclusion, the first of many tears slipped unwillingly down her face. Breathing through the heartbreak was like trying to extract a piece of shrapnel from her chest. Each hitch and jump dug the object deeper until Alex’s strength flagged and she sank bonelessly into Rebecca’s chair. She’d feared something like this would happen. Now that it was here, she didn’t know how to handle the pain.

The minutes dragged on, each second landing like physical blows. It wasn’t until Alex heard the squeak of door hinges and muttered voices that she roused from her stupor. Taft and Em exchanged a brief conversation before the physician took his leave.

“How is she?” Alex jumped up when Taft slipped into the main room.

“Resting,” came the clipped reply. Despite Alex’s time Underground, she hadn’t made friends with everyone, the physician remaining coolly clinical whenever around.

“The medication isn’t working, is it?” Taft paused, giving Alex a reading look. “I know Rebecca has Huntington’s,” she said quietly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening.

One of the man’s brows drifted up to show his skepticism. “She told you this?”

“No, I figured it out when Lee was almost caught by the police smuggling stolen medication down here.”

“I hope you have enough respect for the woman who saved you to keep this knowledge to yourself.”

Alex bristled but bit back a flare of temper. “I’m sacrificing my relationship with her daughter to keep her secret safe. Is the medicine working or not?”

“No,” Taft relented. “Anti-chorea medication helps combat muscular tremors brought about by the onset of the disease. It is my professional opinion Rebecca suffered an episode of syncope caused by minor arrhythmia. Put plainly, her heart stuttered, causing her to lose consciousness. During the fall, she suffered a minor abrasion to her temple as well as cuts from the glass. All superficial, but this was a close call.”

“Is this… an isolated event? Something random?”

“I’m afraid not. Huntington’s is known to cause heart-related issues. I don’t foresee any improvements in her health from this point on. It is the natural progression of this disease. Rebecca is entering the third stage of Huntington’s regression. There will be points of plateau followed by steep declines.”

“Are there medications that can help slow that decline? If only a little bit?”

“I’m sure there are, but without access–”

Alex closed the distance between the two, surprising the man. “What do you need?”

“I’m not sure I spoke plainly enough–”

“What do you need? I can get it for you.”

The doctor cocked his head in an avian gesture of curiosity. “You would need a medical license and access to a pharmacy, Miss Bailey. Both of which I know you do not have.”

“I have one of those things.” Darting over to her backpack, Alex retrieved a pen and scrap of paper, placing both in Taft’s hands. “Write down what you need. Whatever it is, I don’t care.”

“Miss Bailey,” Taft sighed, letting his arms drop. “Your efforts are noble, but journalists, even of your standing, do not have access to these types of medications. I’m sorry. Even if you could pull strings, it’s impossible.”

“You said it before. These people saved my life. I owe it to Rebecca and Lee to do whatever I can for both of them. Please, Jeremiah, don’t make me ask again.”

Hearing his name spoken aloud after thirty years brought the physician to an electric standstill. If his eyes grew any wider the whites would peek out. “How do you–”

“I know everything, and yet here I am,” Alex implored, sweeping her arm to indicate where they were standing and the gravity of her declaration. “These people are my family. I have the power and the means to help them. Please, let me.”

Rattled, Taft scrawled a shortlist of prescriptions Rebecca would need to both speed her recovery and prolong the progression of the disease. Alex tucked the list into her wallet, determined to seek out Lucas once the worst of the night had blown over. He owed her one last favor, after all.

Taft took his leave, and Alex went quickly to Rebecca’s room, her purposeful strides slowing when she saw Em standing in the hall beside an open door. Judging by the quiet sniffling coming from the room, Alex knew Lee had beaten her there.

Please, she heard her girlfriend beg and peeked in to find the younger woman tucked into her mother, tears wetting her shirt and the bandages beneath. Black and blue hands held on to Rebecca’s shirt like it was the last lifelong on earth. Please, tell me what’s wrong. Don’t shut me out. Let me take care of you.

“Hush, Leanna. I’m here,” Rebecca soothed in a broken voice, stroking her daughter’s head to quiet her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I’m scared that you won’t be here if I close my eyes. Don’t leave me, please. I can’t...

Turning from the scene, Em pressed her back against the wall and hung her head, silvery tears cutting long lines down her face. Unbidden, Alex set a hand against the shorter woman’s shoulder and was shocked when Em grabbed onto her. Whether it was for grounding or support was never said, but the connection spoke volumes.

Two days after a heated exchange with Lucas that almost came to blows, Alex still hadn’t received word his errand had been successful, but that was expected. Pharmacies would have reduced hours during the holiday season. Returning from a quick soak in the hot baths — she needed the opportunity to mentally place her chess pieces — Alex deemed it time to speak with Rebecca and hoped her luck held enough she could commandeer a private moment.

Rebecca was awake and sitting up, book in hand when Alex’s outline filled her doorway. For once, she was following Taft’s instructions, though Alex suspected it was due more to lack of strength than stubbornness. True to form, she didn’t look up right away, finishing her page before setting her reading aside.

“Good evening, Alex.”

“Is it evening?” she blinked in genuine surprise, squinting at the clock on the wall. Since Rebecca’s fall, time became an irrelevant concept, hours and days bleeding together like ink mixing with spilled water. “I haven’t gotten used to telling time down here.”

“That’s the beauty of a clock, my dear. You can usually tell what time of day it is by the set of the hands.”

Alex’s lips drew up at the edges despite her bone-aching exhaustion. Rebecca had to be feeling better if she was up for a bit of good-natured razzing. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired, all things considered.” The admission took some of the poise from her posture, making her semi-human once more. “And sore. You can come in rather than lurking like a vampire. I won’t bite.”

Alex waffled, sparing a nervous glance down the hall. “Is Lee around?”

“No. I sent her with Emilia to run an errand. I don’t expect them back for another hour.”

“Good.” She nodded to herself, hating that distance from Lee allowed her to relax. “I wanted to speak with you privately, if you’re feeling up to it?”

“Seeing as I’m stuck in this bed for the foreseeable future...” Rebecca motioned to an open chair, turning so Alex knew she had her attention.

“I wanted to let you know I spoke with Lucas the other day,” Alex began, taking a seat on the edge of the chair’s cushion.

“Oh? And how is our newest resident coping?” The breath Alex blew out said it all. “Something tells me your conversation was not of the cordial variety.”

Honesty was the best policy at this point. The two of them were far enough along in their tensile-thin relationship that lies would only irritate. “That’s safe to assume, yes. Lucas… isn’t very happy with me. I sent him Topside to smuggle another batch of medicine down here for you. Stronger medicine.”

“I see,” Rebecca stiffened, hands folded neatly atop her lap. “So you took it upon yourself to give an order that wasn’t within your rank to give.”

“We’re not in the military. And you were in no state to order anything.”

“How is it you came across such a comprehensive list of stronger medications? And how did you get Lucas to agree to such a venture given his delicate legal situation?”

Alex scoffed in a blasé tone, trying not to let her feelings of self-repulsion show. “I’m a journalist for one of the biggest news outlets in the world with a father well on his way to a Supreme Court seat. Coercion isn’t beyond my skill level.”

“And what happens when he’s caught stealing from the same people who ordered the hit on him?” Rebecca’s stare was electric. Alex felt the slow reversal of their roles, whatever power she’d come into the room with draining through her fingers.

“How could you–”

“Because I once touched their world, Miss Bailey, as you well know. And a stain like that, no matter how brief, lasts a lifetime. Lucas is no different, so I will answer my question for you. They will kill him, and it will be on your head. This isn’t a chess game. You can’t move people around like pawns expecting there to be no collateral damage. If Lucas is caught, he will be killed. If he is caught by the police, he will be jailed indefinitely. Are you prepared to face that? Did you even think it through when making your move? Or was your concern for me too blinding?”

“I did what I had to for the people I’ve come to care for,” Alex answered defensively. “If that means exhausting resources at my disposal, I’ll do it. I’m familiar with collateral damage and the weight one life holds against another.”

“Humans aren’t disposable assets.”

“My, you’ve come a long way since our first meeting.” Alex frowned. Rebecca blanched, the hypocrisy in her words plain as day. “A year ago, you were willing to sacrifice my life for the safety of your people. I was just collateral damage.”

“Yes,” Rebecca admitted down at her hands. “But things have changed.”

“Going back to your original question,” Alex said, redirecting the conversation. “Taft provided the list. Rest assured, I didn’t tell Lucas anything. I’m still abiding by your wishes.”

Rebecca took a slow breath and lifted her eyes, her expression one of tired sarcasm. “It’s like I can sense your next words before they even grace your tongue.”

“You need to tell Lee what’s going on.”

And there it was again, that familiar stubbornness creeping into the older woman’s shoulders, drawing her up like an empress in her bed. “I believe I made myself clear. I will speak to my daughter when it’s–”

“You have until the first of the year,” Alex cut in, mimicking Rebecca’s posture, two queens squaring off against one another.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Rebecca, I love your daughter.” No preamble. No mincing words. This was God’s honest truth, laid bare for the world to see. “I don’t think I’ve loved anyone as deeply as I love her, and I will not keep lying. It’s not only unfair, it’s cruel. Even with the new medication, you’re dying. It’s time to let your daughter in before you lose your chance.”

“That won’t happen–”

“We both know you’re living on borrowed time. We’re never guaranteed tomorrow. Lee will understand. She’s stronger than you think, but she needs to know her mother trusts her enough to carry this burden alongside her. Not after you’ve died and left her with more questions than answers.”

Alex was shooting in the dark and knew it, unsure if her plea would hit its mark. There was a good chance she was digging a hole she couldn’t crawl out of, burning yet another bridge. Back stiff, she waited for a response, bracing for the maelstrom that was sure to be brewing.

“You’re right.” Alex reeled into a giddy backpedal, unsure if she heard correctly, and opened her mouth to say as much. “No, Miss Bailey, I will not repeat myself just to gratify you. I’m aware my time is coming to a close, but believe it or not, I have taken precautions, and I do intend to tell Leanna everything.”

Alex sensed the lingering conjunction. “But?”

Rebecca wrinkled her nose, stubborn once again. “You try explaining to your daughter you’re dying from a genetic disease and that she’s a–”

The speed with which she shut her mouth gave Alex a chilling kind of whiplash. “She what, Rebecca? What does Lee have to do with this?”

“It’s irrelevant.”

“Hold on, you can’t just–”

“There’s a silver audio recorder in the chest of drawers behind you,” Rebecca interrupted, pointing. “Please, get it for me.”

Wary but not possessing enough leverage to press, Alex rose, found the drawer, and tugged it open. The contents were benign — papers, a few journals, old photos Alex had to physically drag herself away from, scraps of previous research — until her hand bumped a pill bottle and she stilled. There was only one pill in the unmarked, orange container. One single, purple pill that rattled around like the last gasps of a soul. Her look back at Rebecca wasn’t accusatory but rather pleading. The woman returned her gaze with an even one, unperturbed by Alex’s discovery.

“When you are diagnosed with a genetic disorder that will eventually rob you of your continence, clarity, mobility, and humanity, a peaceful way out is a mercy not all can afford. The recorder, please.”

“How long have you kept a cyanide pill next to your bed?” Alex’s hands came to rest on the edge of the drawer, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Since my diagnosis. I had every intention of ending my life if my research failed. It’s a reminder that I am the master of my death, not this disease. I will not leave my loved ones to suffer as they watch me deteriorate. I will not die forgetting their faces or names.”

Alex could have been angry. She could have been like so many others and accused Rebecca of cowardice as though she somehow held the moral high ground. But the truth was, Alex had no room or right to pass judgment on a woman battling a terminal illness. Society dreamed of their elderly passing on peacefully when, in reality, death came in violent, dark hues. As jarring as the discovery might have been, Alex wasn’t shocked by Rebecca’s decision. She respected it. Returning once more to the drawer, she located the silver audio recorder. Rebecca took it with steady hands, but her face betrayed her fear.

Seated again, Alex edged forward and sucked in, afraid of the cliff’s edge she found herself standing on. This was a leap she didn’t want to make, but the question had to be asked.

“I am… worried about Lee.”

“As you’ve mentioned many times.”

“No. I’m worried about the bruising and the…” She made gestures with her hands that meant nothing other than helping her coagulate her thoughts. “The changes.”

Now that she had her attention, Rebecca’s back was a flag pole, all traces of exhaustion evaporating. “You’ve seen them too?”

Her relief was a physical thing, and Alex could have kicked herself for not asking sooner. Huntington’s was known to cause hallucinations in patients the farther the disease progressed. Rebecca more than likely thought she’d been seeing things and didn’t want to accidentally reveal just how sick she was by asking her daughter about the bruising.

“Yes,” Alex nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve seen them a few times, and I… I’m afraid for her. Do you know what could be causing them?”

“I thought… “ Rebecca swallowed her embarrassment and plowed on. “You said changes. What changes?”

Alex spread her hands. “I don’t know how to explain them.”

“Try.”

She dropped her head in an effort to think of a way to put what had been seen into understandable words. “It’s like… something inside Lee is trying to get out. I know this sounds crazy, and I’m not trying to call your daughter an animal, but it reminds me of those old werewolf movies. Which does sound crazy now that I’ve said it, it’s just… that’s what it looks like. A transformation. Her body physically changes shape. That’s what causes the bruising, and it hurts her when it happens.”

Leaning back to stare at the ceiling, Rebecca wrestled with something Alex wasn’t privy to. Not yet. But she was able to steal a crumb of information when the older woman’s gaze flicked to the far wall. The one overtaken by a cork board studded with photos and papers, but before any more answers or questions could make themselves known, the sound of boots in the hall stopped their conversation. Lee swung into the doorway, all smiles and goofy charm, until she saw Alex, and her demeanor quickly deteriorated.

Food’s here, she mumbled, stepping back into the hall and leaving just as quickly as she came.

“Good Lord,” Rebecca groaned, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. “I didn’t raise her to be this dramatic. I blame Emilia.”

“It’s all right,” Alex slumped. “She’s angry, and I’m the easiest target.”

The older woman muttered something dark and incomprehensible under her breath before shouting for her daughter. Alex waited, dreading the conversation to come, as Lee slunk back to the door. Neither woman mentioned the oily puddles mapping the skeletal structure of her face, but Alex could see Rebecca looking with hyper-focused interest now that she knew they were real.

“Help me up.” Rebecca startled Alex by reaching for her, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and pushing to her feet. What followed was a series of shouts and sudden movements that ended with Lee almost crawling over Alex to get to her mother and Alex hurriedly trying to keep her balance while talking over both Rebecca and Lee. Put plainly, it was a mess.

“Listen to me!” Rebecca snapped, standing to her full height and taking command once more. “I will not be relegated to the backroom like an invalid. I am going into my kitchen to eat my meal with my family. You are welcome to join so long as you two act your age. After dinner, I want both of you to take a walk to the Echoes and exchange gifts because I know neither of you has gotten the chance. Look at me, Leanna,” she rumbled, catching her daughter’s wandering gaze. “When you and Alex get back, whenever that is, you and I are going to have a long-overdue conversation. No arguments. No whining. Do you understand?”

It took everything in Alex not to smile. At the end of the day, when the mantle of leader and Matron were shed, Rebecca was still a mother. Irritating though her grip on Lee might have been in the beginning, she did know how to reign in her child and take command of a situation.

“Now, what did you and Emilia bring back?”

Gyros, Lee mumbled, digging the toe of her boot into the concrete.

“Excellent. Lead the way.”

Ghost Lights

If Em was shocked by Rebecca’s arrival, she hid it exceptionally well, doling out pita sandwiches stuffed with thinly sliced lamb and beef like it was just another day. Dinner was a tense affair spiced with awkward undertones. No one possessed a strong enough conversational lure to break the charged silence, so they ate quietly and finished quickly.

Taking her usual seat in the living room with a mug of tea at her elbow, Rebecca repeated her instructions and waited for Alex and Lee to leave, the latter of the two’s mood darkening as they struck out in the direction of the Echoes. No music filled the cavernous room today. The pipes had been turned away from their stages and the candles left unlit, lending the Echos a crypt-like feel. It had the same mournful echo as a body with the soul scooped out, the magic gone, leaving behind a hollow, cold corpse.

Lee took a seat on one of the pillow mounds, looking off at something Alex suspected only she could see. Alex chose a seat further away, giving the woman space.

“Would you like me to go first or you?”

Picking at a loose thread on her pants, Lee let the question linger for longer than necessary. Does it matter?

“Not really.”

Let’s just get this over with so I can go back and try to keep the fragments of my family together.

Alex knew this bout of petulance had very substantial and understandable roots, but that didn’t make it any less hurtful. “I didn’t come here to fight. We missed Christmas and–”

Yeah, on account my mother passed out and fell into a glass table due to some mysterious illness no one will talk about. Sorry about that. I’ll try harder next year.

Alex felt every word like a physical blow. Try as she might, each barb hit home in its own awful way. “Be straight with me. Should I go home? Would it be easier if I wasn’t here?”

The question struck a nerve. Looking up, Lee’s expression quivered between angry defiance and indecision. No, she grunted, raking her hands through her hair. I want you to stay, I just… I’m angry, and I don’t know what to do with the anger or where to put it.

“Talking it out usually helps.”

Are you going to answer the question that needs to be answered?

“No.”

Then we’re at an impasse, aren’t we?

That was it then. “I guess we are. I’ll make this easy. Open your gift, and then I’ll let myself out.” Setting the colorful gift box down at Lee’s feet, Alex backed away to let her decide what came next.

Wedging her fingers under the edge of the folded wrapping paper, Lee peeled away the outer shell, revealing a cardboard box already slit open at the top.

“I had to add the batteries,” Alex explained without prompting. Lee ignored the comment, digging through the contents until she retrieved the object inside and brought it into the light. Immediately, her body stilled, the tense set of her features softening into something close to wonder.

“I couldn’t think of anything practical, so I decided on something a little more aesthetic,” Alex said, watching Lee turn the basketball-sized black orb over in her hands. “It’s a synthetic night sky. Turn it on, and the camera will project whatever constellations you want on the ceiling. I had the computer tech I bought it from program today’s night sky.”

Tears turned Lee’s eyes glassy as fresh cracks formed in her spiny armor. Sliding to her knees, Alex fished out the base and set the orb on top, angling it towards the ceiling. A flick of a switch was all it took for the cavernous room to fill with the vastness of the night sky, blue-black and endless.

“I figured,” Alex said, settling at her girlfriend’s elbow, “if I couldn’t bring you Topside every night to see the stars, I’d bring the stars to you. Your mother helped me pick this out.”

Lee tracked a synthetic shooting star zooming across the ceiling. It might have just been a detailed computer rendering, but she squeezed her eyes shut nonetheless. Unbidden, a stray tear slid down her mottled cheek.

I think I understand that line from Wicked now.

“Which one?”

The one about wishing wounding the heart. I’ve been wishing. As hard as I can for such a long time, and I’m so tired. I just want her better. I want Mother to grow old and happy, but she’s not. She’s dying, and there isn’t anything I can do.

The sob that shattered her spiny demeanor doubled Lee in half, breaking her like twigs. Hand over her mouth, she tried to keep herself together but failed.

I’m sorry for being angry. You didn’t deserve what I said to you. I just don’t know what to do. I thought I had more time. I didn’t think this would end so soon, and it’s killing me. I can’t, Alex. I can’t lose my mom like this!

Fuck distance. Alex pulled Lee into her, squeezing hard to help keep the fracturing pieces of her girlfriend in place as she dissolved into helpless tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into her hair, rocking gently. “I’m so, so sorry.”

I don’t want her to go. Lee clung so tight her bruised knuckles turned white. Not like this.

“Listen to me,” Alex took her tear-streaked face between her palms, pushing back so they were eye-to-eye. “I sent Lucas Topside with a list of medicine from Taft. He’s going to get what she needs, okay? She’s going to get better, I swear.”

She is still going to die.

“Someday, but she wants to make things right between the two of you. Just give her a chance and hold onto hope.”

Lying back, Alex soothed her shivering partner as much as she could, but this was a toxin that needed to be bled from Lee’s system like an abscess. She’d bottled up too much too fast. Now the overflow was tearing down her hastily built dam like a wrecking ball blasting through a wooden fence, and the process was agony.

Entwined in each other’s arms, they lay in the quiet, watching the sky make a slow revolution above them. Every now and then, a star would skitter across the synthetic dots. Alex would wish right alongside Lee for a different outcome than what was before them.

How did you survive it? she asked after a time.

“Survive what?”

Losing your mother. It feels like I’m suffocating all the time. Like I’m too big for my body. Like I don’t even know my body. She added that last part by lifting her hand and flexing her sore fingers.

“Time.” Alex hated the benign answer but knew it to be the true balm for healing. “I hurt for a long time after losing her. It didn’t feel real half the time. Like I still expected her to be waiting for me after school, or I’d look up at the dinner table thinking she’d be there, but her place was empty. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, and I think that’s what hurt the most. One moment she was there, and the next, she was gone. Your mother still has time. She’s not gone yet.”

Thank you for putting up with me these last few days. I’ve been an asshole, and I’m sorry.

Alex pressed a kiss to her temple, fingers tracing patterns against her bare arm. “You don’t need to apologize. I understand what you’re going through.”

I yelled at you, and I think I scared you. It’s... hazy after I went back to the workshop.

Alex bit her cheek but skirted the topic of Lee’s transformation and the presence of something otherworldly lurking beneath her skin. “You were angry, and I was the closest target. No offense taken, but I accept your apology all the same.”

Lee nodded, pinching mucus from her nose and flicking it away. Would it be okay if I gave you your gift?

“Of course.” Alex sat up and crossed her legs. Lee followed, withdrawing a small box from her pants pocket.

Wait… close your eyes. Alex pretended suspicion, winning her a wan smile. I’m nervous, okay?

“Fine,” she sighed dramatically, closing her eyes. Alex felt Lee move around her, heard a box opening, and then jerked when something cold slipped onto the middle finger of her right hand.

Okay… now.

Alex’s eyes flew open and snapped down. The ring hugging the column of her finger consisted of a copper body and some unidentifiable gray metal circling the band. It reminded her of perfectly symmetrical cracks in concrete, giving it an elegant industrial air.

I hope this isn’t too forward, Lee worried, cheeks darkening with a blush. I wanted it to look like a superconductor for a really stupid reason. When I’m with you, you fill me with the best kind of electricity. You’re the reason my heart keeps beating… or at least that’s what I was going to write on your card, but then all this happened, and I’m sorry if this–

Lee landed flat on her back, Alex’s lips shutting down her ramble. The kiss deepened, a week without touching leaving them both starved.

I wanted you to have something from down here to carry with you, Lee said once they separated, tucking stray strands of hair behind Alex’s ears. Alex leaned into her palm, eyes closed, basking in the warmth.

“It’s beautiful.”

I wasn’t too forward? Me giving you a ring? The look that skipped across Alex’s face made Lee tilt her head. What did I say?

“Does this mean you’re asking me to stay?”

Forever, if you want.

“I like the idea of forever,” Alex whispered, lips ghosting across Lee’s while her hands drifted down her body to an all too familiar junction. Lee’s breath caught, but then Alex rolled away, heading for the door and spinning coyly on her heels when she reached it.

“You have a very important conversation coming up with your mother, my love. I don’t think going to her bathed in an after-sex glow would help matters.”

So you’re just going to tease and run? Lee showed the length of her fangs in a grinning challenge that was only mindly frightening due to the lingering bruises.

Alex was off and running, finally able to laugh for the first time in days. God, what a feeling that was. She knew she couldn’t outrun her girlfriend. They weren’t even remotely evenly matched, but Alex put up a good fight, making it to the upper tunnels before Lee snagged her around the waist, earning a squeal. A few love-nips here and there, and the two were moving again, heading for the passage that would take them up the rest of the way but hit a snag when the tunnels they stepped into were dark.

“We came this way down here, right?” Alex glanced back at the light spilling from the access hatch.

It’s probably just a power blip. There’s a fuse box right around the corner. Hold on. Lee moved off, leaving Alex to wait.

Taking a breather against the wall, Alex lovingly admired the ring on her hand, a goofy grin bunching her cheeks. Who would have thought a year ago things would progress to this point? Alex turned her hand back and forth, admiring the work of art and how the copper peaked out from under the gray metal and how it flashed green. Green? Turning her hand again, Alex watched a speck of green glint off the metal and frowned where she saw streaks of green slicing through the stagnant air like ghost lights.

No. Not ghost lights.

Poking her head into the pipe junction that bisected the tunnel like the top of a T, Alex squinted into the inky darkness on either side of her, unsure what she was seeing. A ball of iridescent green light moved along the wall almost like a laser pointer, zigging and zagging before disappearing down the tube. Curious, she leaned out and looked for more and was shocked to find more balls of green light chasing the first.

“Lee?” she called over her shoulder.

Yup! came the reply from further down.

“Come here and look at this.”

Hold on. I’ve almost got this fixed.

“That’s so weird,” she said to herself, stepping out into the junction to get a better look. “It’s almost like–”

Thirty yards away in the darkest part of the tube, a pair of green eyes lit up like feline eyeshine, making Alex’s blood run cold. The pair of eyes didn’t blink but shifted closer, closing the distance at a measured pace. Ten yards out, one pair became two, three, four… six… ten.

Alex couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything but stare at the pack of otherworldly things drifting her way. Comprehension eluded her. Instinct failed her. Rooted in place, she didn’t have time to react.

Lee shouted in the distance, hooting her success, but Alex didn’t hear because the second the lights came back on they banished the shadows and illuminated the black-clad bodies of thirty armored men creeping towards her. Reality swung back around, taking the wind from Alex’s lungs in a single screamed name drowned out by the explosion of an automatic weapon and the concussion of bullets striking the stones above her head.

Someone grabbed her hand. Lee. She was shouting, the brush of her consciousness battering against Alex’s mind, but the message was lost to fear. So, they ran instead, Lee’s wrench sounding the alarm against the pipes.

Emergency! The Underground has been breached.

Run

Run, rumbled a voice from within the cathedral walls of her ribcage as Lee fled down the tunnels at breakneck speed, Alex half a step behind. Run. Don’t stop. Never stop. Run until the twisting maze of concrete and pooled shadow hid her from the terror making its way toward them like a pack of hungry wolves.

Something exploded behind them. Sparks ignited like falling stars as bullets ricocheted off the tunnel walls and disappeared into darkness. One whizzed past Alex’s ear close enough she felt the heat. Lee winced, feeling something pop against her left side, sharp as a rubber band snap. They couldn’t keep going like this. It was literally shooting fish in a barrel.

Taking a sudden, hard left, Lee thought on her feet and slid down a hidden recessed pipe, hand closing over Alex’s mouth to dampen her scream. Landing at the bottom in a tangled heap, they hunched there, frozen against the adrenaline turning their blood into steam. Boots raced by overhead, glimpses of green scopes and the rattle of heavy weaponry flashed past until the tunnel was silent once more. Only then did Lee and Alex crawl out of their hiding place, alone but far from safe.

“Oh my God,” Alex wheezed in a barely coherent babble. “They shot at us! Who are they? Where did they come from? Oh God, they’re heading straight for–”

Wait, the voice warned, making Lee gasp in shock. Listen.

Lee shook herself to dislodge the oily curl of something closing around the base of her skull like cold smoke. Her chest hurt but so did the rest of her body. And then…

Footsteps. Dozens of them. Coming back.

Shit! Alex, look at me. Lee took her hyperventilating girlfriend’s face between her palms and guided their eyes together. We’re safer apart than together. I know the tunnels better than anyone. I’ll lead them off. You get back to Mother, okay? Find my mother and tell her what’s happening.

“Not without you,” Alex shook her head, taking Lee’s hands and squeezing them.

You can do this. Lee brought their foreheads together and was momentarily overpowered by a smell that could only be described as the woman she loved. Two rights and a left. Remember that. Two rights and a left. Straight down this tunnel, you’ll come to a crack in the wall next to a red pipe. Go through it. It’s a shortcut to the Main Hall. I’ll meet you there, but you need to find my mother.

When Alex didn’t budge, hands locked around Lee’s to the point her skin was turning white, Lee nudged her back as gently as possible. I swear, I’ll find you. Go to where the false wall is near my home. I’ll come through there.

Boots in the adjacent tunnel. Shouted orders. They would be there any second.

Go, Alex! Lee shoved her hard this time, hating herself for the look of terror further draining the color from Alex’s face, but the push kick-started her into motion. Backing away, Alex fled down the tunnel just as Lee was raising her wrench and slamming a hasty message into the pipes around her, calling to the Underground and giving her position away. The noise raked fiery claws through her brain, colors she’d never seen before blooming all around her like neon oil floating atop water. Teeth bared, she hit the pipes again and locked eyes with Alex one final time, hope stretched thin between them, before she dove into the darkness, leading danger away from the single most precious thing in her life.

Elsewhere, where the lights didn’t flicker and the sound of gunfire hadn’t reached, Rebecca settled back with a displeased frown. Between her fingers she turned a silver audio recorder, watching the lamplight catch the edges and reflect back at her.

“Wow, it’s been a long time since I saw that,” Em said, taking a seat adjacent to her. “Not since our research days back at MIT. I couldn’t pry that thing away from you for love nor money. Thought I’d have to surgically remove it from your palm at retirement.”

“Has it been that long?” Rebecca mused, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling like she could count the years in the cement cracks. Sometimes, it felt like a lifetime ago. Sometimes, the wounds were still fresh as the day she got them.

“Thirty-four years this year.” Em puffed out her cheeks. “God, where has it all gone?”

“That’s something I ask myself regularly.” Rebecca was quiet for a time, listening to her kingdom breathe. Holding the recorder up, she caught her reflection in the metallic surface, the woman staring back unrecognizable to the younger version of herself who used to hold her instruments with such reverence. “I think this has gone on long enough, don’t you?”

The question stumped Em until the implications registered, drawing her eyebrows into her hairline. “You’re going to tell her? How much?”

Rebecca couldn’t decide if the shock she heard in Em’s voice was endearing or irritating. “We’ll start at the beginning and go from there. I don’t think everything is something she can handle all at once. I don’t even think I can handle it all at once, speaking honestly.”

“What we did is a lot to swallow.”

Rebecca hummed in agreement. “Either way, I think it’s time given the circumstances of my current health… or lack thereof.”

Em made a rude noise with her mouth. “Stop it. You’ve got years left.”

“That’s never a certainty, and you said it yourself. Leanna deserves to know. I’ve been selfish for too long.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“Between you and Alex, I’ve not gotten a moment’s peace,” she said, shooting Em a poignant look over the cooling steam of the tea kettle placed between them.

Em, for her part, couldn’t keep from looking smug. “Glad we finally wore you down. She’s going to understand, you know. Lee’s a smart girl.”

“I’m not worried about her understanding. In fact, I don’t expect her to understand at all. I don’t even fully understand it after more than thirty years, and I’m the researcher,” Rebecca sighed, slipping the recorder into her pocket and standing. Her weakness was better today, the tremble in her arms and legs gone thanks to Taft’s altered prescription regimen. If only it could be a permanent thing. “I’m worried she won’t forgive me.”

“What’s there to forgive?” Em challenged, turning to follow her mentor. “You’ve given her the best possible chance at life. Regardless of the mistakes in your past, she’s not going to stop being your daughter or run from you.”

“Always the optimist.”

“God, someone has to be your counterbalance.”

In a rare moment of emotional weariness, Rebecca stalled near the kitchen, arms holding her middle in a failed effort to keep her nervousness from showing. “I’m afraid, Emilia. When I’m gone...” She couldn’t even bring herself to finish the sentence.

“When you’re gone, I’ll still be here,” Em said, filling in the blanks Rebecca couldn’t. “I’ll take care of Lee like I always have, but I’m not the only one in her life anymore. Like it or not, I think Alex is here to stay.”

Rebecca husked a laugh as dry as leaves skating across gravel. “She has grown on me. I can say that much.”

“Yeah, she’s kind of like a fungus. Not the black mold kind that slowly suffocates you. More like those weirdly cute little mushrooms that sprout up after a lot of rain.”

That managed to wake a weak smile on the older woman’s lips. She was about to reply when the pipes running the length of the ceiling exploded in activity, the clanging so loud it was impossible to understand the message.

“What in the fresh hell?” Em winced against the cacophonous noise. She’d barely taken two steps in the direction of the radio when the echo of a shuddering boom reached the two, bringing them both out of their respective skins.

Then the popping started.

Em whipped around, fear leeching the color from her skin. There was no mistaking the sound for what it was, but disbelief stole reaction. Impossible. Not here. Never here.

“Call Goliath,” Rebecca ordered, moving for the door. “I need his eyes and ears. Tell him–”

Their worst fears, those that had been squatting in the back of their minds for the past thirty-three years, finally found a crack and crawled through when Taft wrenched open Rebecca’s door and uttered one horrifying sentence.

“The Norths have found us.”

Em couldn’t respond, her heart seizing up like a deer in headlights. But while her heart may have stopped Rebecca’s flew into her throat. Without hesitation, the older woman went into a nearby drawer and withdrew a gun Em hadn’t seen in years. Shoving it into her waistband, she pushed past Taft, barking orders as she did.

“Get everyone into Goliath’s tunnels! They’ll never find us that deep! Go!”

“Where are you going? Rebecca!” Taft called, his harried appearance matching the wild fear in his eyes.

“To find my daughter.”

Here There Be Monsters

Lee kept her head down and ran as fast as she could, outpacing the men chasing her by at least fifty yards. They might have been trained for a hunt like this, but she’d lived her life in these pipes. Smooth as a silverfish, she flew through one cement tube after another, impeded by nothing but her own stamina and the expansion of a heightened awareness sharpening the shadows until pitch blackness looked like twilight and the commands of another pressed against the limited boundaries of her body.

Not now, she snarled, pushing back against the force attempting to gain a foothold. By now, she’d grown accustomed to the eerie pull of something lurking below her skin, but not today. I can’t do this right now.

It took a few sharp turns and a false wall to lose the men, but eventually, Lee slowed and took an opportunity to catch her breath. Hands on her knees, the stitch in her side flared again, prompting her to press against the wetness soaking the front of her shirt. In all honesty, she thought getting shot would have hurt more. Then again, adrenaline was a tricky bitch. Was that where the other voice was coming from?

Think about it later, she panted, pushing the wound from her mind. It could be dealt with once her home was safe, and it was toward that safety she resumed her run, a plan already in motion.

The security doors.

Installed years ago to prevent gangs from fully infiltrating the Underground should they bypass the Sentries and Goliath, there were more than ten security doors running the length of Lee’s home. If she could get to a Fall Station, she could trigger them all at once, trapping the men in an endless maze. Even if they somehow broke through, Lee and her people would be long gone.

Taking turns at a pace that required her to hold onto pipes to keep from slipping and falling, she raced through intersections and t-joints until she found a nondescript antechamber that had everything she needed. One wall out of four had been dedicated to a dizzying array of bird’s nest wires and switches wirelessly linked to the doors. Dormant to conserve power, she would have to pump the lever to prime and wake the behemoth, something Lee immediately set to, pumping the lever until the lights under each switch glowed red. Hands clumsy with fatigue and adrenaline, she woke the sleeping servos one at a time, fumbling switches as fast as they appeared ready.

This was going to work.

This had to work.

Finger on the final switch, she turned to watch the door behind her fall but felt the floor drop out from under her. A green dot hovered like an insistent firefly around the front of her chest, drifting lazily as the carrier of the automatic rifle stalked closer.

In another setting, it would have been the perfect cinematic setup: the hero setting a trap, thinking they’d won, only for the glimmer of scopes to mar their plans. There was, however, no entertainment to be found tonight.

Lee stood her ground, knowing there was no chance for escape. Hands up, she lifted her head toward the figure emerging from the tunnel mouth, the green night-vision goggles coupled with his matte black body armor giving him a distinctly insect-like quality. The man slowed, confusion apparent even behind his electronic protection. Lee watched the gun barrel dip, a hand coming up to push back his goggles, revealing the human beneath.

“What the fuck are you?”

Well, it wasn’t like Lee could answer. Not that she got the opportunity anyway. The second the man dropped his arm to reach for his radio, a hand three sizes larger than his materialized out of the darkness.

Eyes green beacons behind his white and red mask, Goliath caught the soldier by the face with his right hand, muffling whatever startled scream or curse burst from him. It took no more effort to crush the radio along with the soldier’s left hand than it took to crack peanut shells. Lee heard bones disintegrate, screams coming in earnest now behind Goliath’s meaty digits. When the giant stood to his full height, taking the man with him, the screaming continued until Goliath slammed him into the wall once, twice, four, six...eight times. Slammed him until his cries and struggling stopped. Slammed him until his body hung limp and listless like a doll with its strings cut. Slammed him until a red stain marred the cracked tunnel wall, and Goliath discarded the body with no ceremony, dropping it like a dog tiring of a toy.

Lee backed away, eyes glued to the dead man at her feet missing half of his skull. Not even his helmet saved him.

“Shed no tears for these men tonight, little sister,” Goliath rumbled. When he lifted his mask, Lee felt the silky current of tangible shadows flow past her like a straw buried at the bottom of a milkshake. Goliath breathed the darkness in, stoking an alien fire that turned his eyes into pits lit from the back by twin green stars.

Lee’s stomach swooped like she’d missed the last step on the stairs. The heavy coat draped over Goliath’s shoulders began to shift, searching fingers of black night tasting and testing the air like snake’s tongues. Hood down and mask removed, the face peering at her over his shoulder wasn’t the handsome man who placed a mug of hot chocolate into her hands weeks ago. Instead, it was ape-ish in its symmetry, muzzle scrunched to reveal fangs longer than Lee’s pinky fingers.

“Shed no tears for the creature in their midst, either. Run instead and seek shelter.”

A rolling shrug removed the fabric from Goliath’s shoulders, revealing the body beneath as he turned to face the tunnel. A body made from weathered concrete and bleached roots. A body meant to house the kind of strength in its rocky bulk that brought whole buildings to their knees. A body one more ancient than the city and the humans who called it home. The same humans inching toward them from the other end of the tunnel.

“Because tonight, here there be monsters.”

Throwing his mask aside, Goliath faced the approaching company drawn by the sudden radio silence of their comrade and the GPS on his belt. Orders were shouted. Goliath’s silhouette popped sharply against the white flashes of muzzle fire, the roar tearing from him shaking the walls as he ran into a maelstrom of bullets and gunfire.

With no alternatives, Lee bolted in the opposite direction after flipping the final switch, her mind a battleground churned to mud under the clashing armies of fact and fiction. What had she just witnessed? What had Goliath become? Fantasy and reality collided and blurred, melting into the deafening cracks of gunfire that were undoubtedly ripping her friend to shreds. Even a creature like Goliath, whatever he was, couldn’t stand up to the obliterating power of automatic weapons.

Right?

No time to dwell on the unfathomable when desperation lorded above all else, but Lee misjudged her speed advantage. That or the hole in her side was slowing her down because the sensation of fingers curling around her arm had her spinning with a feral snarl, teeth and claws at the ready, but a deafening pop wrenched the hand away and turned the tunnel into a sound cannon. The soldier dropped stone dead, concrete and steel swallowing the screams of the bullets that had killed him. Ears ringing and senses in a tailspin, Lee didn’t register the open false wall beside her or the woman emerging from it until she was being pulled into a shaky hug.

Mother? Lee gasped, unable to comprehend the surrealism. Had her mother just shot and killed a man? But she… didn’t own a gun. Let alone know how to fire one. Right? The evidence proved otherwise, but that didn’t make it any less astounding.

“Oh my God, I found you,” Rebecca hiccupped in relief, squeezing tighter.

Lee arched against a sudden lace of pain encircling her core and shooting down her left leg. She barely caught herself when her knees buckled, using a white-knuckle grip on her mother’s jacket to keep standing.

“Leanna?” Digging a flashlight out of her pocket, Rebecca clicked it on and illuminated the passage in cold blue light that turned the blood soaking Lee’s front and the angry hole just beside her navel almost black. “Oh my God!”

I’m okay. I swear. It’s just a– Large enough to fit a Sharpie marker, the bullet hole oozed blood in a steady trickle. Wow… I, uh, I didn’t think it was that bad. Okay… yeah, that’s not so great.

“We need Taft,” Rebecca said, struggling to tear off a strip of her plaid overshirt.

I’ll be fine. Lee pushed back, giving herself space, and almost tripped when her heel glanced off the leg of the dead soldier. Pinwheeling her arms to keep balanced, she rocked upright and came face to face with a body.

Who are they? Not the right question, but it was a start. Who are you?

“I’ll explain everything later,” Rebecca said, taking her daughter’s hand and pulling her toward the open false wall. “We need to get to Goliath’s tunnels. They’ll never get to us there if you’ve activated the–”

Stop! Lee jerked away, disentangling herself. Rebecca turned, but whatever sharp reply sat loaded on her tongue died when Lee moved further out of reach. I’m scared. I’m hurt. Goliath just turned into a… a giant… I don’t know, a giant shadow gorilla thing, and you’re not helping by being cryptic! Please… don’t make me run from you, too. Tell me what’s happening.

“Leanna, I… I would never hurt you. Ever. Please believe that.”

I wish I could, Lee sniffed with a wobbly lower lip, eyes flicking down to the gun in her mother’s hand. But this… you… I don’t know where to start. Who are you? Who are these people? Why do they want me dead? And what the hell is Goliath?

“Dead is the last thing they want you to be, and I don’t know what Goliath is other than… Well, frankly, I don’t have the words for what he is because what he is isn’t human.”

You’ve known? Lee gasped, scandalized.

“Leanna,” Rebecca holstered her gun and attempted to reach for her daughter across the growing divide. “I would never intentionally put your life in jeopardy. All I ever wanted for you was a quiet, peaceful life free from the mistakes I made in my youth. I don’t have the time to tell you right now, but you will have answers when all of this is said and done. You have my word.”

You’ve promised me answers before. Why is now any different?

From her back pocket, Rebecca retrieved the silver recorder and handed it over. “When this is over, listen to what I have to say. Right now, all I ask is that you trust me enough to see us out of danger.”

Lee held the small recording device, mind whirling like water circling a drain. So many warring emotions battered her, threatening to drag her into inescapable depths.

Answer me honestly. Have you lied to me?

“Yes,” Rebecca said without hesitation. “Yes, I have, but it has always been for your benefit. I know that doesn’t make sense, but I swear you’ll get the full truth from me when all of this is over. Please, trust me until then.”

The whole truth?

“Every word. You can hate me all you like after this, but please, come with me.”

Lee knew she could run and would be justified in doing so. All her mother was and claimed to be laid in question at their feet along with the dead, but a mother she still was. Despite the fear and her thousands of new questions, Lee still loved her.

No matter what happens, you are still my mother. I could never hate you.

“And you will always be my world,” she whispered between tearful sniffs. “I will love you for the rest of time.”

We can’t wait any longer, Lee said, ending the moment. The security doors are falling.

Fallen Underground

Darkness clung to her, seeping into every pore like liquid smoke. It stole the passage of time, making it feel like Alex had been wandering for hours in this subterranean heaven turned hell. She stumbled blindly, hands groping for purchase, praying the break in the earth wouldn’t become her tomb. Pipes slipped by, jagged pieces of ancient metal hooking and tearing things Alex couldn’t see but certainly felt. It was like wading through a pitch-black forest of metal thorns.

Without warning, the passage narrowed to a strangling degree, and Alex began to panic. Claustrophobia had never been an issue in the past, but now, the tighter the passage grew, the steeper her panic spiked. She should never have left Lee. She should have stayed because now she was lost, and there were gunmen in the tunnels, and If Lee didn’t make it out alive...

Alex couldn’t even finish that thought without choking.

Lee would be there when she found her way out.

She would be waiting for her.

She promised.

A slash of gray split the blackness, dim as a sunrise. The exit! It had to be because the closer Alex shuffled, the wider and brighter it became and the more sounds she could hear. People. She could hear people banging on pipes and shouting. Feet running. Screaming...

Oh, God. Oh, God, no.

Abandoning her careful pace, Alex tore her way toward the opening, ignoring the burn of fresh cuts and banged limbs. The exit was little more than a crack in the wall big enough for a person with narrow shoulders to squeeze through. Grunting in an effort to edge around the last obstacle, Alex made her final reach for freedom when the sound of gunfire stopped her cold.

Figures rushed past the crack. Someone stumbled in the melee and went down hard, spilling their belongings. They rose with all the grace of fleeing prey, scrambling to follow the crowd, but for a split second, Alex made eye contact with the dark-haired woman she’d seen at the feast less than a week ago. How the woman found her didn’t matter because one second she was standing, and the next, the chamber erupted in the cacophonous rattle of gunfire and she was thrown sideways in a spray of crimson and lead.

Alex’s blood turned to sludge, hands of terror strangling the scream echoed by dozens of unseen bodies. Bodies… that was all that would be left.

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t compute the unfolding horror. At the mouth of the crack lay the woman, eyes open, lifelessly staring at the ceiling. The holes the bullets tore through her fragile body were larger than a human fist. Bile ignited an inferno at the back of Alex’s throat. She vomited until her stomach cramped, tears joining the blood and sickness staining the floor. With uneven steps, she exited the passage, but what met her in the Main Hall burned itself into her memory.

The Underground, razed to the ground.

Homes burning. Shelters destroyed. Cabling ripped from the walls in chunks. Acrid smoke coiled along the top of the cement tunnel like boiling storm clouds, filling the air with the stench of burning plastic. And littered through it all were bodies.

Some were faces she recognized. Many she didn’t. More gunfire popped further down the passage, but it might as well have been distant fireworks for all the reaction it woke in Alex. She walked like a zombie, eyes seeing but not comprehending, wading through tragedy too heinous to find traction in the fragments of her mind.

The Underground had fallen.

Rebecca’s kingdom was no more.

These people were innocent.

Was there nowhere on earth she could find safety?

A figure moved among the carnage, slow in their shock. It took Alex a moment to realize it was Em standing in the center of the hall, milky eyes wide and wild as the echoing sounds painted gruesome pictures for her strange sight to see. Alex’s footfalls must have alerted her, but she didn’t spin or flee. Didn’t try to run from what might have been an approaching attacker. Instead, she slowly rotated to face her, shattered disbelief sucking the pallor from her skin.

“They were never supposed to find us,” Em whispered. “We were safe.”

“Who was never meant to find you?” Em didn’t answer, shock stealing her senses. It took Alex grabbing her upper arms to get the woman’s unfocused attention to snap back together. “Emilia, who’s down here with us?”

“The Norths.”

“Darker and far greater powers than your own have a keen interest in Doctor Farrow, and the more you dig, the more you wriggle like a worm on a hook…” Cedric’s words came back and sank their icy teeth into Alex’s jugular. “That’s the danger of peering into the void. Sometimes the void looks back with a thousand more eyes and a million more teeth.”

Had she caused this?

“You do not want these sharks to focus on you more than they already have.”

Off-balance and sick to her stomach, Alex faced the destruction with new, horrified eyes. There wasn’t a word for the feeling of knowing she was the root of genocide, and the filth of her sin penetrated to the marrow, staining her.

She’d caused this.

She’d killed hundreds.

She’d slaughtered innocents.

And she would never be clean again.

“...ex, where’s Lee? Alex?”

Alex startled and snapped back to the present when Em gave her another hard shake. “She was… She was leading the men away from us. I don’t know how long ago,” Alex looked around, “but she said she’d be here when I got through.”

It took a few tries, but Alex finally grasped why Em was asking. Lee wasn’t there.

“Shit... shit!” Em spun in place like her blind eyes could see through concrete. Hands digging into her frizzy hair, she looked on the verge of madness. “Alex, the Norths can’t find her! You don’t know what they’ll do if they find her! Come on.”

“Lee said she’d come,” Alex shook her head. “I’m not leaving without her again.”

“We’re going to look for her.”

“Give her time.”

“There is no more time!” Em shouted through tears. With a sweeping gesture, she motioned to the devastation. “Don’t you get it? They’ve won! This is all that’s left of my home. The Norths took everything from me thirty-three years ago, and now they’re taking the last of my family! I’m going to find Lee and Rebecca even if it kills me, and I’m not stopping for you or anyone else along the way!”

That was it. Em sprinted off without even a backward glance leaving Alex with two choices: go or stay. It shouldn’t have been a hard decision, but it was, tearing her in pieces with what-ifs. What if they were too late? What if they found Lee and got out by the skin on their teeth? What if they were already dead? Mind in turmoil, Alex’s body made the decision for her and pointed itself at Em retreating back.

Together, the two made good time, encountering a distinct lack of soldiers in these parts until their luck ran out when they flew past a t-joint only to hear a barked order followed by the hard clump of boots in pursuit.

“There’s an antechamber ahead!” Em shouted, keeping stride with Alex despite her shorter stature. “Get inside! The door locks with a wheel latch!”

Head down, the two ran like death dogged at their heels, out of breath but not daring to slow. Alex finally saw what Em was talking about and raced through, the shorter woman coming in fast behind. Em missed her first grab for the hatch but caught it on her second, pushing it closed. Half a second later, the soldiers caught up, slamming against the metal like waves against a cliff. The concussion was enough to pop the latching arm loose and push it back toward Em who caught it before it could swing fully open again.

“The door… Alex! The door!”

Barely able to breathe beyond a squeaking wheeze, Alex put her shoulder into the metal and pushed with her legs. It helped stabilize the hatch but two women straining against the might of trained soldiers was a losing battle. Both of their combined strengths got the door to latch but neither of them could successfully spin the lock to lock it. Try as Em might, it was held in place on the opposite side by hands stronger than hers.

“No! Fuck!” Em swore, struggling to keep the wheel from turning further and beginning a deadly game of tug-of-war. Alex searched for anything within arm’s reach that could give them the upper hand and spotted a discarded spike of rebar lying nearby. Shouting for Em to move, she shoved it into the spokes to give them the leverage they so desperately needed.

“Shit, it’s not… going to hold.” Em grunted, sweat rolling down her beet-red face and teeth bared in a hard grimace that popped the veins along her neck.

“Hold on. Just hold on! I’ll find something to–”

“Go, Alex. I’ll give you a head start,” she snarled, legs starting to quake with the whole-body effort put into keeping death behind them. “That tunnel goes straight down. If they’re down there, you can’t miss them. If not, Goliath will find you.”

“I’m not leaving you, too!”

The wheel squealed a half-turn.

“Run, Alex! You’re no good to Lee dead! Find her! Keep her and Rebecca safe.”

Another slow rotation. The door was creaking open, fingers threading through the crack.

“Emilia...”

A hand snaked through the opening seam, joined by three more.

“Get the fuck out of here, goddamnit!”

Backing away, Alex knew it would eat her alive for the rest of her life when she remembered how she ran.

Promise Me

The stale tunnel air was acid in Lee’s throat. Lungs wheezing like overused bellows, she could hardly drag in enough oxygen to stave off the dizziness painting the tunnel in strobes of color. Her body screamed for rest and began carving moments of blackness out of her consciousness. She couldn’t remember getting from point A to point B, but her mother was there, so Lee dragged herself forward out of pure instinct.

When both women took the same sharp turn, Lee felt her already compromised balance waver, feet tangling and sending her into the opposite wall. The concussion sent a burst of white across her wounded left side, stars filling her vision.

“Come on, Leanna!” Rebecca caught her before she hit the ground but only just managed to keep them both upright.

H-hurts.

“I know. I know it does, sweetheart.” Lee felt her mother’s tiny arms hoist her to standing. When had she gotten so small? “I’m so proud of you for getting this far. Just a little more.”

Spine watery, Lee reached deep and slipped into momentary darkness where she saw herself standing at the foot of a cage made of bone and sinew. A horrific distortion of her own face watched from behind white bars, and she knew if she unlocked the cage she would be responsible for the aftermath of whatever this… thing was.

Out, the Other hissed. Out or die.

I can’t risk that.

I will come out… one way or another.

With that threat looming, Lee forced her abused body beyond its limits, using the benefits of forward momentum to careen onward with Rebecca steadying her trajectory. The tunnel strobed black and then white. Or were those lights flickering? Were they losing power? Up ahead, a security door began its descent. It wasn’t falling fast, kept on a preprogrammed timer, but they had to hurry.

“We’re almost there,” Rebecca cheered her on. “Just a little further.”

But the short distance might as well have been miles. Running on fumes, Lee was slowing them down. They wouldn’t make it. They wouldn’t make it. They wouldn’t...

Suddenly, she was launched forward as if a rocket had been strapped to her shoulders. One second, she was stumble-running, and the next, she was hitting the ground with an ugly thud that became a series of uncoordinated rolls until her momentum petered out. It took several grounding blinks and painful gasps to piece together that someone had thrown her across the threshold beyond the security door. The relief of finally reaching safety, however, arrived stillborn. With a groaning shudder, the steel door lost power and slammed down with enough force to shake the earth, separating mother from daughter.

No! Lee staggered to unsteady feet and charged the door only to be met with unyielding steel and a bloom of fresh bruises.

“It’s all right, Leanna,” Rebecca called from the other side. “I’ll find another way.”

Don’t move. There’s a CCTV camera over your left shoulder. Lee watched her mother through the grainy monitor overhead turn in a tight circle until she spotted the camera lens. We’ll manually override the circuits together.

“We didn’t install a manual override.”

Everything has an override.

Barely managing to stave off a fresh wave of dizziness through sheer force of concentration, Lee yanked off the control box housing on her side of the door and stared dumbly at the nest of wires. Rewiring the door would have been a cakewalk had she not felt like a half-empty water balloon. She built the system, after all, but one additionally dreadful culprit prevented her or Rebecca from attempting a reset. There was no power running to the door. Try as she might, Lee couldn’t find a circuit that hadn’t been fried. The door was down and down for good.

I can fix it! she called, pressing her clammy forehead against the metal. I can reroute power.

“We don’t have time. You know where to go. I’ll find another way.”

I’m not going without you! Five minutes. I’ll get the door up.

“We don’t have five minutes. Keep going.”

Panic wrapped her in icy arms. This wasn’t right. She could fix it if she could pull the ground wire from the–

The sound of fast-approaching footsteps had Lee rounding with the full intention of shedding blood. Blackness closed over her vision. The base instinct of an animal overrode human discernment, and she lunged, grabbing the figure and pinning them against the wall only to stop when a welcome voice choked out her name.

“I– I found you,” Alex whimpered in tearful relief, Lee’s hands the only thing keeping her standing.

Surprise and relief melted the savageness from her face. Lee dragged Alex into her arms and held her like she was the last bit of stable ground in the whole world. You’re safe, she whispered into Alex’s hair, repeating the words until her brain believed what her eyes and hands were telling her. Most of Alex’s front was spattered in blood, and her body was covered in angry cuts and tunnel marks, but she was whole and alive. Right now, that was all Lee could ask for. How did you find me? You were supposed to be in the Main Hall.

“The Main Hall’s fallen.” Alex sagged, losing her grip on the strength that had carried her to her partner. Lee helped her to her knees. “They... the Norths…they– they were shooting people. I couldn’t find your mom, but I found Em. She… I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Lee felt the earth rotate on its axis, threatening to dump her into space. Em’s... gone?

“I don’t know.” Alex hiccupped. “But they were right behind us, and she was holding the door closed. She told me to find you. I’m so sorry!”

It was like a hole had been blown through the pressurized hull of her heart, sucking the air from her lungs in the vacuum of sudden grief.

“Where’s your mom?”

Lee’s heart screamed like a war drum in her ears as she spun back to the security door, determined more than ever to raise it. On the other side. The door won’t open. Help me try to lift it.

“Rebecca!” Alex called, following Lee to the solid panel of welded and riveted steel blocking the doorway.

“Alex?” On the monitor, Rebecca turned to face the door.

“I’m here,” Alex said, speaking to the door but watching the woman on the screen.

“Where’s Emilia? Is she with you?” When an answer didn’t immediately follow her question, Rebecca asked again with trepidation in her voice.

“I’m so sorry.” Alex had to bite her lip to near bleeding to cap the sob before it manifested.

“Oh my God. Oh, Emilia.” Rebecca clutched her chest and sagged against the wall. Head hung, she went quiet in her grief before looking up at the camera. “Alex, you and Leanna go to Goliath’s tunnels. Hide. The Norths can’t find you there no matter how many people they have down here.”

I’m not leaving without you! Lee snarled but even she could tell she was in a bad way. Most of her left side was numb and the gray that had dogged her since running across Goliath was creeping out of her periphery and into her direct field of vision.

“You don’t have a choice this time, Leanna.”

Weakened but stubborn to a fault, Lee’s hands beat a rough tempo against the door, palms stinging with each impact. Mother, please! You don’t have to do this! We’ll get the door up.

“I’m sorry.” Even through the steel, Lee heard the unmistakable sound of a gun magazine sliding into place, and her intestines dumped onto the floor. “We’re out of time, and I’ve run from this for too long. I’m not letting them try to take you again. They won’t make it past this junction.”

What are you talking about?!

“I wish I had time to explain everything. I’m so sorry I don’t.”

You don’t have to do this. You can come with us. Lee pressed herself flush against the cold metal, willing it to rise. We’ll hide. I won’t go Topside again, I swear. Just please help us open the door. Please, don’t leave me like this.

But time had run out.

An explosion rocked the adjacent room, powerful enough to shake the floor. Muffled shouts reached Lee along with a shouted, “Leanna, run!” followed by the loud ket-ket-ket of a semi-automatic handgun.

“Put the gun down!” an unknown male shouted. “Put the motherfucking gun down!”

“Do not shoot to kill!” an authoritative voice boomed over the gunfire.

Rebecca’s gun popped three more times. Three more times, the screams of the wounded and dying drifted through the metal, the older woman joining in when a bullet punched through her shoulder and threw her back against the door. The video feed wobbled, smoke distorting the image.

Mother! Tears streamed down Lee’s face as she beat wildly at the divide. She watched her mother sag, left arm swinging dead at her side.

“Run, Leanna,” Rebecca’s voice cracked in her attempt to hold back a cry drenched with pain. “Don’t let them find you. Run, and know I love you. Never forget that. Promise me you’ll never forget.”

Please… please, don’t do this, Lee begged. Please let me in.

“Promise me!”

How could I ever forget? she sobbed. You’re my mother. I’ll love you until the end of time.

“I love you, too,” Rebecca choked, sliding down to the floor. Through the curling gray smoke, Lee and Alex could see the men coming, rats flooding in through the hole they made. “I have always and will always love you. From the day I conceived you, to the day you were born, and all the moments in between. I have and always will love you. So very, very much.”

Rebecca raised her right arm and shot the camera lens, killing the feed. Then the gun fired one final time.

Lee screamed like her heart had been torn out through her back, knees hitting the floor as her world turned to ash. Where there had once been a consciousness at the edge of her mind now lingered a void. The tether, the one connecting her to Rebecca Farrow, had been severed. The rope had been cut, a life ended, and Lee felt her mother’s light snuff out.

I Love You

Her mother was dead. It repeated like a gruesome bell between her ears: she was gone, she was gone, she was gone. Surreal didn’t describe it. Cruel was too soft a word. Shock stole her breath like a noose. She was turning to ice from the inside out, organs and muscles freezing while her heart beat wildly to keep her alive. If not for the constant forward motion, Lee would have petrified and suffocated.

A black hole hung where her mother’s consciousness once resided. Like losing a limb, her mind drifted to the amputation, expecting something to be there only to be met with dead space she couldn’t mentally compute.

Her mother was dead, and it was her fault.

That understanding made her weak. Made her slow to react and even slower to care what became of her body because what world did she have now? Em was gone too, along with Goliath. Would it be so bad to join her decimated family?

I can’t bear this pain, she whispered to the dark recesses of her shattered soul. Please don’t leave me alone like this.

Rest, the Other behind the bars whispered, and it’s words wrapped her in the stinging warmth of a cold body exposed to a bonfire. Let me take this from us.

Unconsciously, Lee’s hand slipped from its hard press against her side, letting the blood flow faster.

Where will I go?

Nowhere. We share the same heartbeat, but if you sleep, we won’t wake again.

“...almost there. Stay with me.”

A different voice came from afar, pulling Lee back from the brink of whatever madness she teetered on. A hand was holding hers, tight as a lifeline, the fingers slender and familiar with a band around one of them. Lee’s eyes traveled up the accompanying arm and shoulder, slowly taking in Alex’s silhouette against a grim backdrop.

Alex.

She was still here.

The knowledge jump-started Lee’s heart and brought the centrifugal spin of gravity back to a livable speed.

“I... I don’t know where we are,” Alex admitted, stopping at a three-way split in the pipes.

That way. Lee pointed down the shaft. My workshop… we’re close to it.

“We can’t go back to your house. The Norths are everywhere.”

Lee shook her head and the world became a gray-black snowglobe. I rigged a security door outside my workshop. It was one of the first to fall. We’ll be safe there for a little while.

“How will we get in?”

Backdoor.

Lee was moving before Alex could comment, one hand trailing along the tunnel wall to help maintain her balance while her eyes fixed on the prize. Her workshop meant safety. Familiarity. A chance to breathe and compute and stop.

It didn’t take them long to thread their way to the base of a vertical tube only big enough to stand in if they stood chest to chest. Iron staples climbed the smooth wall, leading to a hatch some feet above.

I’ll go first, Lee volunteered. There was a spike of morbid worry that maybe her sanctuary had already been overtaken and a bullet would snuff out her life the moment she poked her head through the opening. But nothing happened. For all the mayhem and bloodshed taking place in Lee’s kingdom, her workshop remained untouched.

Shutting the hatch and locking it once Alex was through, Lee moved around to the side of her hydroelectric machine, looking for what she couldn’t say. Maybe something to help keep her mind from slipping further into darkness but only a graveyard awaited.

A pair of Em’s glasses hanging from a hook.

A book she and her mother used to pour over while Lee was learning how to tinker and disassemble.

The first invention she successfully assembled, tucked away on a shelf with a plaque Rebecca fashioned from a scrap piece of brass.

Lee stumbled in her reach for the plaque, shoulder thumping against a cabinet as the world spun. Try as she might, she couldn’t right herself, hissing through clenched teeth whenever her torso shifted and pulled at the bullet wound. Two steps later, her legs gave out, and this time she knew she wouldn’t rise.

Alex caught her and lowered her into the armchair behind them. Lee heard her say something but couldn’t catch it until warm hands cupped her face and turned her head in the direction of the speaker.

“...’ve been shot?” Alex pressed again, attention drawn to what the dark of the tunnels had so easily hidden.

Thought it was a… bee sting. Lee lethargically watched the ceiling, shocked by how bright the lights had become and the swirling colors radiating from the bulbs. For being so bright and warm-looking, the room was cold. No, she was cold. At least the pain was starting to ebb. Thank God for small miracles.

Alex lifted Lee’s shirt to see the damage and drew back with a gasp. “Oh, God...”

S’not that bad, she slurred, halfheartedly waving her girlfriend away.

“Lee, honey, this is bad. This is very, very bad.” Taking off her overshirt, Alex folded it and pressed the fabric over the wound, earning a strangled cry from her girlfriend, who arched against the pain. “We need to find a doctor.”

Only know Taft. Can’t really… get hold of him now. Don’t even know if he’s alive. Pain momentarily blew away the fog of slow exsanguination, and Lee stilled, wide eyes turning glassy with tears. I don’t have any family left, Alex.

“Shh, don’t talk like that,” she soothed, moving sweaty strands of hair out of her face. “I’m sure Taft is with the others farther down, and I’m here. You’re not alone. I won’t leave you again.”

Lee nodded, blinking back tears. It was like fighting a hurricane with a kite. She was managing but barely.

Alex watched her girlfriend’s consciousness flag for the third time and beat back the panic threatening to crush her sternum. She was no good to Lee if she panicked. She’d been nothing but dead weight since the start of this, and she wasn’t about to lose the most important person in her life because her dumb fucking brain couldn’t push aside her terror.

Wrapped in the safety of Lee’s workshop, Alex sped through a list of people who might be able to help and came up woefully short while she pulled down a well-loved medical kit Lee kept atop one of her cabinets. Most of the Band-Aids were small, but she found an old knee Band-Aid and an unused tampon stuffed in the bottom. Grabbing both, Alex flew through the grisly motion of plugging a very real bullet wound with a menstruation product and covering it with a Band-Aid. Lee’s distinct lack of reaction save for a grunt and a grimace told Alex they were working on borrowed time.

“I think I know someone who can help us,” she suddenly perked up, picturing Georgia. It didn’t matter her friend was Topside. It didn’t matter that the Norths were probably looking for them. Alex would get Lee help come hell or high water. “Do you think I could get her on the radio?”

Worth a shot. Lee shrugged weakly.

“Sit tight.” Alex jogged around the workbench to where Lee kept her radio but staring at the dials and knobs brought her to the very real understanding she didn’t have a clue how to contact someone like this in the cellular age. And what was to say Georgia was evening listening? The PI had a police scanner, but Alex knew nothing of how they worked.

“Okay, new plan. We need to– Lee?” Lee’s bruised skin and gone pale gray. When Alex slid her hand into the smaller woman’s, the digits were shockingly cold. “Lee?”

Oh God, was she breathing?

Still… here.

Heart stuttering with relief, Alex added a fourth near miss to her tally and dialed up the intensity of her makeshift plan. “If I can’t call Georgia, we need to get to her. Is there a lift cage nearby the Norths might not have found? I know you have a few even your mom doesn’t know about.”

Doesn’t. Present tense. Rebecca was gone. She had to remind herself of that. Lee pointed weakly to the other side of the room, silently answering Alex’s question.

“You are brilliant,” Alex cheered, kissing the top of her partner’s head before helping her stand and cross the room. It took some wrangling to get the rusted cage open. When the bars finally groaned aside, Alex stepped in first to act as a helpful guide but jumped when the gate slammed closed behind her.

“What the hell?” Alex grabbed the bars of the modified birdcage and attempted to pull them aside, but they wouldn’t budge. “What are you doing?”

Lee didn’t look at her as she raised the wrench in her hand and smashed the locking mechanism, ensuring the cage wouldn’t open again on this level.

“Stop!” Alex shouted in alarm and reached through the metal slats to take the wrench away, but Lee had already moved out of reach and dropped the tool. “Open the door!”

Head bowed, Lee threaded her fingers through the bars. I can’t, she whispered, silvery tears sliding off the tip of her nose and darkening the floor between her boots. The smile she forced when she raised her head looked physically painful. I’ve lost everyone I ever loved. I can’t lose you too.

“You haven’t lost me! I’m right here! I swore I’d never leave again, and I won’t! I said forever, and I meant it!”

Please, forgive me.

“No! Let me out, goddamnit!” Alex raised hell against the cage separating them, doing everything in her power to break free. The structure rocked and stayed, but it’s assembly held even as she broke. Anger turning wet, Alex choked and went hard to her knees, begging, “Please, don’t do this. Don’t send me away. I love you. Jesus, Lee, I love you!”

Lee mirrored her girlfriend’s position so they remained eye-level. Reaching through the bars, she cupped Alex’s wet cheek with one hand and guided their eyes together one last time.

“I...l-love...yo-you, too.” Broken voice scraping from the depths of her disused vocal cords, Lee’s free hand also signed the words, writing them across the surface of Alex’s heart. Then she reached up and slammed the control lever down, sending the lift on its last trip Topside.

Alex shattered.

She screamed and begged and reached for her, but she was attached to a lifeboat at the mercy of the ocean, and Lee was the burning ship doomed to disappear under the waves.

And then there was only one and the Other.

End of an Empire

“Leanna.”

Rebecca’s voice cut through the fog in her brain, bringing her a little more upright from her boneless slump against the lift cage. Lee’s breath hitched, fingers lingering on the recorder’s play button. It had been the last thing her mother gave her. She would never hear her say her name again.

“I’m sorry. Let me say that first. I’m sorry because I know if you’re listening to this, the inevitable or unimaginable has happened, and I no longer walk this earth. I wish we had more time, I truly do, and I’m sorry my cowardice prevented me from telling you all of this long ago. You deserved better from me, but I was selfish and wanted you to have a peaceful life away from the sins that complicated your beginning. Please know I never intended for things to go this far.

“This will be my final confession. A bearing of truths you are owed. You deserve to know who and what you are from the source. My daughter, I have lied to you. Your mother never abandoned you when you were an infant. You were never found and adopted by me. Those were the easiest lies I could craft to soothe your tumultuous beginning and sate your curiosity until I was strong enough to come clean. You, Leanna Farrow, are my flesh and blood, grown in me and birthed by me.

“In my youth, I worked at MIT as a geneticist. My primary field of study was Huntington’s Disease. The disease that killed your grandmother, my mother. And the disease I later learned I ironically inherited.”

Lee turned to look at the recorder as if it was actually her mother. Genetics? Huntington’s Disease?

“My life’s work was to find a cure via gene therapy. To do that, I needed DNA from several subjects, but my research was at first inconclusive. When I learned I had inherited the disease, I… began testing on myself. More accurately, using my DNA and unsanctioned samples from various donors in place of medically sanctioned specimens. This is where you begin.

“After making several inquiries into… well, for lack of a better word, blackmarket specimens, I was approached by a man named Cedric Barrowman. Through a series of rather unscrupulous interactions, I was given a vial of fluid containing DNA I had never seen before and would never see again until your birth. The DNA was… different. Remarkable. It broke every law we’d known about how human cells worked, and it should have been too unstable to manipulate, but it worked. Suddenly, I was holding a key I couldn’t fathom, and in my absolute arrogance, I implanted that DNA into one of my eggs and fertilized it.

“Leanna, please understand, I never meant to create what I did… to create you. That’s not to say you were ever thought of as a mistake. I loved you from the beginning until the end; never forget that, but I was absolutely certain the genetic modifications I’d added to the unknown DNA would prevent it from bonding with my egg. When the impossible happened, I… well, I saw an unprecedented opportunity and implanted it myself.

“This was all done in secret and was never meant to see the light of day, despite pregnancy being quite difficult to hide. But genetic manipulation like that… it’s not ethical or moral. There’s a reason testing begins with mice and rats, but I was young and foolish and believed the rules didn’t apply to me. For that, I am deeply sorry. My ego and clout brought you into this world, and my mistake nearly ended your life before it began.

“You see, my research was being closely monitored without my knowledge by a man named Edward J. North, Don of the North crime family. He was very interested in the lucrative potential of my work. Stable gene therapy had yet to be established. Had I succeeded in creating a genetically superior gene capable of bridging the gaps in genetic research, it would have put the family on the map. Billions of dollars were at stake had I succeeded, which I did.

“I carried you to term, something that could very well have killed us both, and on the day of your birth, I was approached by Edward North who held a contract in one hand and a noose in the other. It was blackmail from the very beginning. He’d copied my research and took my original documents, even the video evidence of my testing. I was told you were now his property and that my research would continue with you as the test subject. He wanted to make you into something you were never meant to be: a lucrative donor to their cause. His very own test rat. And had I refused, my death would have looked like a tragic happenstance of a hard delivery.

“My daughter, I ran at the first chance that crossed my path, but my severance from the family was messy. There were quite a few researchers and fellow colleagues linked to the Norths who were loyal to me. Emilia was one of them as well as Taft. Emilia was a microbiologist working alongside me as my protégé at the time I artificially inseminated myself, and it was with her help I escaped.”

Lee felt like she’d been kicked in the chest. Em had been a part of this from the beginning?

“The day we ran was the day she lost her eyesight. That was also the day I nearly lost you, too. A North soldier pulled you from my arms. You fell and hit the floor. I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified in my life as I was scooping your limp form up and running under a hail of gunfire.” Rebecca’s breath hitched on the recorder, close to tears. “I thought I lost you after just meeting you, and it was then I realized there was nowhere I could go in the world where the Norths wouldn’t find us. They had eyes everywhere… except in the Underground.

“Our only saving grace was the man who started this madness. Cedric found me shortly after running from the compound and ferried us into the tunnels, and that’s where we stayed. That’s where I stayed, working toward penance for my crimes and vowing to raise you in a world where you’d never be seen as anything other than normal. That’s why your Topside trips angered me. I was scared for you, Leanna. Scared that even after all these years, the Norths would find you and take you away from me. And now we truly are separated, and my heart breaks at the thought.”

Lee was earnestly crying by this point. Everything she knew had been an unnecessary lie. They should have told her. She would have never gone Topside, but her mother just wanted her to grow up as normal, as human, as possible. Betrayal and longing made a toxic mix in her blood.

“I love you, Leanna. I wish this was something I could have told you in person. I wish our beginning hadn’t been so tumultuous. I wish I could have grown old beside you and watched you grow into the beautiful woman I know you will be. I know I’ve put so much on your shoulders, and I am sorry for that. If anything is left of our home, go to ground. Dig in. Don’t let the Norths take you. Find Emilia or Taft. If neither of them is with you, find Cedric Barrowman. There’s a radio in my room already tuned to the channel. If I haven’t activated it, turn it on and wait for his response. Until then, hide, and remember I will always love you.”

The recorder faded to static and clicked off, plunging the room into silence.

Go to ground? Call for help? Mother honestly thought Lee was going to walk out of the Underground alive? It was a sweet sentiment, but there was no leaving. No waiting until the dust cleared and starting over. Everything was gone. Her only source of relief was that Alex wouldn’t share the same fate.

It had escaped her notice until now — attention on the recorder — but there was a fizzling sound coming from the other side of the security door. Almost like a cartoon fuze. Or a plasma torch. That suspicion came into focus when Lee spotted a molten bead of bright orange metal drip from a seam forming near the top of the door.

So, the Norths wanted in, did they?

Eyes drifting closed, Lee fell backward into the darkness hovering just out of sight. It welcomed her like the soft break between asleep and awake when the mind began to drift.

I’m so tired. I’m tired of hurting, she said to the Other watching from the shadows. I’m tired of feeling. I don’t want to bear this pain anymore.

They are coming.

We’re going to die when they get here.

I can save us.

For what? We’ve lost everything.

Not everything. Not Alex.

Lee felt tears trail down her face. We can’t have her.

Not if we’re dead.

How do I know you’re real? How do I know I’m not just talking to myself because I’m a feral science experiment my mother created in a lab?

Feral, it chuckled. I like that name.

Answer my question.

Look at your face in the mirror.

There was no mirror nearby, only a few aluminum sections of her hydroelectric machine reflective enough to show the twisted horror looking back at Lee from across the room. Lifting a hand, she touched her face and the reflection did the same, two beings meeting for the first time in the light of day.

There is a time for you, and there is a time for me. Let me out, and I will get you back to her.

And Lee did.

This time, there was no resistance to the change overwhelming her body. The fire in her joints melted away like she’d released a hot rope pulling against her skin and succumbed to freefall. Bones snapped. Limbs twisted. Skin split and bled, but Lee felt none of this, carried away by gentle hands that laid her to rest in the velvety darkness of deep sleep while the eyes of another cracked open.

Staggering to their feet, Feral gauged the readiness of their limbs. Weak. Loose. Too much damage done. Too much blood lost. But the claws were still there, and the teeth were still sharp.

It would be enough.

Grabbing the closest wrench with fingers far too long and slender, it sized up the hydroelectric machine, a creation three years in the making, and swung overhanded at the closest regulator valve. Why did death take less time than birth? Why was destruction so easy? Why did life teeter on such a sharp knifepoint a strong gust of wind or a malfunctioning electrical system would be enough to tip that balance into mayhem?

Cans of flammable liquid were kicked over and thrown. Papers were torn down and added to the building flames. Standing at the epicenter, Feral listened as the machine at their back made plaintive noises, dying the painful death of overload.

Mother said to leave. No, they weren’t leaving, and neither were the men picking their way toward them. They’d killed. They’d taken. They’d stolen, and Feral would repay them in kind.

Readying themself, Feral smashed the recorder to dust under their boot — no evidence left behind — and prepared to raze their inherited kingdom to the ground. And when the hydroelectric machine issued its death bellows, when the heat in the room climbed to scorching, when the fire soared high, Feral opened the doors to their inner sanctum and met the mercenaries head-on with an eruption of fire at their back and a roar ripping from their throat.

Lost and Found

High above the burning Underground, a figure crawled from the twisted wreckage of a steel lift cage. Pale hands scrambled, bloodied and bruised, the name of a lover screamed into the stagnant darkness birthing them from rock and rubble.

The name never reached the Underground, where smoke and flames reigned. It never reached the ears of its intended. Instead, the sanctuary at the heart of the Underground was as silent and dead as the bodies littering the floor. Some still smoldered from the explosion. Others lay in pools of blood brought on by teeth and claws raking across soft skin.

A set of boots entered the room, picking their way around the dead with careful precision. Hands on his hips, the man surveyed the fruits of his labor with a frown. The cost had been high, so where was the payout?

Movement.

A body shifted among the rubble, half-hidden by the corpse of the soldier that had fallen on top of it. The man paused next to a woman not quite human but not quite animal either. Her lips peeled back when she saw him, but her strength was gone. She would be easy fruit to pluck.

A slow smile pulled at the man’s lips, pride swelling in his chest. His hunt had been successful. His information airtight. His plan brutal but effective. After all this time, he’d found Edward J. North’s legendary White Whale.

His father’s stolen property had been found.

Lee and Alex will return in

TOPSIDER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jae Glass is a Washington DC suburbanite who grew up on a healthy dose of monument hopping and city exploration that deeply fed her love for hidden worlds and galactic mysteries.

When she’s not bent over her laptop or plying her carpentry and prop building skills to her newest project, she can be found attending conventions or happily getting lost in the woods with her wife and best friend of fifteen years.