Page 165 of The Pansy Paradox
I push off the stairs and fly forward. Henry clutches my hand. If we’re lost, at least we’ll be lost together. My shoulder slams into something solid and bruising, and then my cheekbone strikes wood so hard that I nearly let go of Henry.
I grope and find the cool metal of the door handle. Henry crashes next to me, his force shaking the structure. I take his hand to guide it toward the handle. If it’s locked? Henry doesn’t have his lock picks. Even if he did, we still can’t see a thing. Could we break the glass? Crash through a window?
No, wait. According to my father, it’s simple. Just walk through the front door. So I grab the handle and push. We tumble inside into an expanse that’s devoid of the static but just as empty. I feel myself falling, like in those moments before sleep, down, down, down. Along the way, my hand slips from Henry’s. A cry starts in my throat but emerges as a whimper, muted and heavy with fatigue.
Something catches me, something unaccountably soft. I’m not expecting soft, not after everything. Something else anchors me in place, not cruelly, but in a way that’s familiar, secure, and genuine.
But it’s the fatigue that wins in the end. I give myself over to it and close my eyes.
My sleep is dreamless.
Chapter 73
Henry
King’s End, Minnesota
Saturday, July 15
She was so damn clever. Morse code? Why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? But his head had been filled with everything else—how to end up as the sacrifice, if it came to that, and how to ensure Pansy wasn’t—that the practicalities of making it back weren’t in the forefront of his mind.
Henry felt the gravity of their reality close around him like a cocoon. Everything was heavier here, but more solid, more substantial. In retrospect, the fantasy house was like strands of gossamer, sweet like cotton candy and undeniably lovely but ultimately counterfeit. A life built on daydreams couldn’t truly be real. That was evident in Max Monroe’s sorrow.
A breeze washed over him, puckering his skin. The heat of the day had diminished, which meant it must be close to sunset.
Henry’s eyes flew open, that one thought propelling him upright. They had minutes, at best, to escape the housing development. He scrambled to his feet, using the coffee table as leverage.
The empty coffee table.
Henry pawed the surface as if that could make their umbrellas, the field packs, and the burner phones reappear. For a moment, his vision tunneled. Maybe Pansy had woken first. Maybe she had moved them somewhere safe. But no, she was there, on the couch, nestled in the dust sheets he’d tucked around her in what felt like a lifetime ago.
As if she felt his stare, she peered from her cocoon, face shrouded. She let out a single squeak and burrowed beneath the sheets.
What the hell?
“My father said that travelers come through naked.” Her voice emerged from the depths of the couch, the words muffled. “I didn’t realize that would apply to us.”
That was when Henry glanced down.
Oh.
In the dining alcove, Henry tugged a dust sheet from a chair and secured an improvised toga. In the kitchen, he unearthed an old flannel shirt and blessed the extra large, extra tall worker for leaving it behind.
“Here.” He tucked the shirt next to Pansy. “I’m decent, so whenever you’re ready, we need to find our umbrellas and…”
The evening breeze puckered his skin once again, followed by ominous chills and a dread he hadn’t felt even in the Sahara. The front door, the source of that breeze, was open. Footprints marred the dusty floor. The pattern looked almost like a scuffle, although there was only one set of footprints beyond their own.
“Someone’s been here.” He crouched and examined the tread of a pair of sneakers, but there was no way of knowing who had been here, or when.
“And they took our stuff?” Pansy padded over to him on nearly silent feet. “Our umbrellas?”
“So it would seem.” He stood then, glanced her way, and forgot all about their missing items. “Pansy. What happened?”
He raised his hand to caress her cheek but thought better of it. A bruise bloomed bright across her cheekbone, the red livid, the purple coming in angry. She brought her fingertips to the wound and then winced.
“The door. I slammed into it.”
Henry whirled. He had an instant ice pack … in his go bag. He cast his gaze toward the ceiling and swore.
