A Journey Through Time

Tommy and I darted out from behind the pillar at the same time that Cayla and Paul emerged from behind theirs. Matilda followed right after us but Rodriguez stayed hidden.

“Sean!” Cayla exclaimed again. His dark eyes brightened when he saw us and a wide smile broke out on his face. He struggled to his feet, wincing slightly, and met us at the door of the little cell. He looked awful, which was not something I was about to say out loud. He was wearing his jeans still and his t-shirt was torn in several places. He was missing his shoes, he was caked with dirt and dried blood, bruises covered his arms and his face, and his left eyes was swollen shut. I forced my hands through two holes in the chain-link and gently cupped his face.

“Oh Sean, what have they done to you?” I whispered. He chuckled lightly and put his hands over mine gently. I knew that Sean liked me, I knew he liked me like Tommy did and I knew Tommy got jealous easily, but none of that mattered once I saw the state of Sean’s face. Despite how vulgar Sean could be when he talked to me, I hated to see him that way.

“I’d probably look a lot better if I’d keep my mouth shut, but you know how that is. How about you kiss it and make it better?” he teased. I sighed in annoyance and pulled my hands back through the chain-link. Just like that and Sean was back to his snarky, stubborn self. Paul smiled slightly and shook his head before tapping his knuckles against Sean’s through the chain. Tommy just scoffed.

“In your dreams, Lacey” he snapped. I looked back at Tommy and gave him a gentle smile. He returned it and I felt his arm wrap around my waist. Sean watched our actions and then spent a few seconds looking back and forth between us. Then recognition dawned in his eyes and he nodded in understanding.

“Finally. It’s about time you two got together, how long have you been crushing on Tommy, Nessa? Six years?” he asked. I reached through the chain-link and smacked him gently but I didn’t say anything. Tommy laughed lightly and shook his head. Cayla pushed passed Paul to stand right against the chain in front of Sean.

“This isn’t the time for joking, guys. Sean, how much do you know about all of this?” she asked. Sean’s smiled faded and he took a deep breath. I mentally chided myself. I’d been so surprised to find Sean alive and mostly in one piece that I’d almost forgotten where we were. He ran his hand through his oily matted hair, pushing strands down over his forehead.

“Pretty much everything. They seem to think I’ll never make it out of here, so they had no problem spilling their guts to me. I know that the place we were in really is an alternate dimension from the Black Hollow we know, they call it the Hidden. Those symbols they post everywhere are the dimensions birthmark, a creation of the D.D.S., which are pretty much the police to that place. Right now, you are standing in the jail for the Hidden, where the D.D.S. keep everyone they’ve ever trapped here. The good news is we’re not actually in the Hidden, just a building heavily under the protection of those damn symbols. Makes it pretty much invisible to people who don’t have the mark. Which brings up the question: how the hell did you guys get here?” he asked. I sighed and glanced back at Tommy. At least he seemed to know everything we know.

“Detective Rodriguez decided it was smart to touch one of those symbols just after it appeared on the wall of the old museum. It pulled us here” I said. As I said his name, Rodriguez emerged from the dark on the other side of the room. He gave Sean a tight lipped smile in greeting. Sean jerked his chin up at him.

“Nice going detective dumbass” Sean retorted. Cayla and I sniggered lightly while Paul and Tommy laughed out loud. Rodriguez just glared at us from where he was barely out of the shadows. I saw his eyes flit nervously to me and I smirked again. He was too scared to get close to me.

“Where are Jesse and Leigh-Anne?..............And my sister? Are they okay?” he asked. His tone went from concern to worry when he asked about his sister. There were a lot of things wrong with Sean, you could fill a book with his faults and bad habits, but he genuinely cared about his friends and family. Cayla raised her eyebrows high on her forehead.

“Define okay” she muttered. I slapped her arm and she shot me a defiant look. Sean had enough to worry about without us telling him that Moira was losing her mind, literally. Cayla stuck her tongue out at me and I rolled my eyes before turning back to look at Sean. He had one eyebrow raised and was watching me with a look of slight disbelief on his face.

“They’re fine, they just weren’t with us when we were sent back here” I said. He gazed at me with the same guarded look before finally deciding to believe me. He sighed and sank down to the floor of his makeshift cell. All he had was a thin scratchy grey-brown blanket, like what was normally on a jail cell bed. How very ironic.

“Why are they keeping you here?” Tommy asked. He looked closely into the cell next to Sean’s but recoiled with a shiver after just a few seconds. Sean pulled the blanket around his shoulders and shrugged his shoulders.

“They have nowhere else to put me” he answered. Curiosity got the better of me and I stared through into the cell next to Sean’s. There was somebody in it, hunched against the back part of the chain-link. There were no distinguishing features so I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but whoever it was, wasn’t wearing modern clothing. There was a lot of lace and what looked like dirty silk or satin. Woman then. She had long faded blond hair that hung limp over her shoulders and in her face. I was as curious as ever so I left Tommy’s side and ventured closer to the other cell so I could stick my arm through one of the holes in the chain-link.

“I wouldn’t do that, Ness” Sean warned. I ignored him and gently pushed back the woman’s limp stringy hair. The first look of her face sent me scrambling backwards trying to choke back my screams. Paul slapped his hand over Cayla’s mouth when she saw it and Tommy quickly pulled me off the ground and into his arms. There was no way to describe her except that she looked like a corpse. Her skin was a greenish-grey color and stretched tightly over her bones. And her eyes were sunken in slightly but wide open, like she didn’t have eyelids. All I could see was the whites of her eyes. I shuddered violently and turned to hide my face in Tommy’s chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around me.

“Are they dead?” he whispered. ‘They!?’ The sound of my inner voice made me cringe hard into Tommy’s chest and he held me tighter. I’d figured there was someone in all of the cells but did they all really look like that?! Sean sniffled lightly, rubbed his nose, and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

“They might as well be. When those people brand that symbol on their chest, they turn to that almost instantly. They’re not exactly dead but they don’t talk, don’t eat or move. It’s like they’re in a coma……………………except creepier” he said. I risked a peek over Tommy’s shoulder into one of the cells across from Sean’s. The figure wore faded jeans and a faded blue blouse. Her hair hung in the same limp matted mess as the other woman but there was something so familiar about her. It only took me a few seconds to figure out why.

“Oh god, it’s the photographer that helped us get out” I whispered before burying my face back in Tommy’s shoulder. He turned slightly to look and I heard Cayla’s small gasp which told me her and Paul had looked too.

“Wait a minute, you said she helped you? How the hell is that possible?” Sean demanded. I refused to pull my face out of Tommy’s shoulder and he ran a hand up my back and threaded his fingers into my hair. It was reassuring to know that I could count on Tommy to be there for me no matter what, it was also what helped calm me down.

“I don’t know but she did. We heard it was normal for people trapped and branded but the D.D.S.” Paul said. Sean frowned down at his hands in his lap and shrugged his shoulders. Then he shook his head in exasperation.

“Why am I not surprised? What else can these people do?” he asked. He sounded frustrated but also like he should have seen it coming. I assumed he was talking about the D.D.S. because I wasn’t even going to try to understand the people in the cells. I pulled away from Tommy but he kept his arm tight around my waist and grabbed a fistful of my shirt in his hand.

“We don’t actually know, you seem to know about as much as we do” Paul said. Sean muttered quietly to himself and shook his head. He struggled back to his feet, keeping the blanket around his shoulders, and had just opened his mouth to say something when the light shut off, pitching the room back into complete darkness. I gasped and Cayla’s scream was cut off mid-way through when Paul covered her mouth again.

“Relax; the light is on a timer. It shut off when……………………………………………………………” Sean cut off and he remained silent for so long that the basement fell back into an eerie silence. When he finally did speak again, his voice had completely changed. “Oh shit!” His voice was so low I almost couldn’t hear it but the terror in his voice was loud. I felt a shiver down my spine and I didn’t even know what Sean knew.

“What is it?” Tommy had barely gotten the question out when Sean broke in again.

“You guys have to get out of here now! The guards come in as soon as the light goes off!” he exclaimed. He kept his voice low; like he was afraid someone would hear him. Another shiver went down my spine. Sean wasn’t afraid of much so to hear the intense fear in his voice was eye-opening. Something was coming and it scared the hell out of Sean. The heavy metal door scraped open again but this time the light didn’t turn on. Sean squeaked slightly in alarm and his hands stirred the air in his panic.

“Hide somewhere and don’t move! They’re blind but they can sense movement!” he hissed. Tommy, Matilda, and I dove down behind the far row of cells and Tommy grabbed tightly to my hand. When I looked around the room, I realized I could see about eight points of light. They were about at eye level and they didn’t really illuminate anything, they just……………………………..glowed. It was a faint pale grey light, like the glow the grey mist had given off. It wasn’t until the pair of lights I was staring at winked out of existence for a split second and came back, that I realized what they were.

These guards that Sean was so afraid of were in the room with us, I could hear them shuffling around blindly, and the points of light I could see were their eyes! I gasped out in horror before slapping my own hand over my mouth. A light switched on in the far corner of the room and all four guards spun towards it. It took me until the metal stick rolled into the middle of the room to realize it was Rodriguez’s flashlight. He’d turned his flashlight on and tossed it across the room to give us light. The first really intelligent thing he’d done and I wished he hadn’t. The flashlight lit up the end of the basement where the cells were; I saw Paul and Cayla crouched down behind Sean’s cell, but it also lit up the four guards. To say that these guys were creepy would have been an understatement. They were all dressed in the dark blue jumpsuits the D.D.S. wore, they had flashlights and walkie talkies on the belt around their waist, and on their forehead was a bright red Symtrix. Whatever these things were, the D.D.S. created them. Their eyes were a dull grey and were still glowing, even in the light; their skin was tinged grey as well, like all the people in the chain-link cells, except these guards were more……………………………………………alive looking. There was a certain alertness to their eyes and a look of just absolute hunger on their faces. The D.D.S. had created zombies as guards.

I shuddered and Tommy squeezed my hand tightly. At the moment they were all crowded around Rodriguez’s flashlight, rolling around with their heavy boots. At some invisible signal, their heads snapped up and faced the back of the basement, where Rodriguez was standing with his gun drawn. The idiot was going to get us all killed. I opened my mouth to warn him but Tommy slapped his hand over it. Rodriguez cocked his gun, the sound echoing throughout the otherwise silent basement, and as one these creatures threw back their heads, letting out a spine tingling shriek, and flew at Rodriguez. These things were fast, like World War Z zombie fast. They were on top of Rodriguez before he could get one shot off and then they all changed. Their faces elongated until their chins were at their chests; their hands grew two times in size, and ink black talons grew out from their nail beds.

One of them grabbed Rodriguez by his face and lifted him off the ground. His voice was muffled but I could hear the terror in it. He pulled the trigger on his pistol and managed to nail one of the things in the chest. He hit the ground hard, splayed out on his back, and the Symtrix on his forehead blazed brightly, before he was just a pile of ash. In seconds he’d gone from disturbing half-zombie, half-mythical creature to a human shaped pile of ashes. Rodriguez was clawing desperately at the hand on his face but the guard held him like he weighed nothing. His gun went off again but the bullet pinged off of one of the metal pillars. One of the other guards ripped the gun out of his hand and launched it through the air behind him. It landed in front of the cell we were hiding behind, just a few feet in front of me, and my hand joined Tommy’s over my mouth. Rodriguez’s hand had been ripped off at the wrist and was still holding tightly to the pistol. I closed my eyes after that so I wouldn’t see anything else but that didn’t stop me from hearing it. Rodriguez’s screams grew more agonized every second and there was the odd thump every now and then when something soft and squishy would hit the floor. His scream cut off with a sudden ripping sound and a gurgling sound took its place. I turned my head and buried my face in Tommy’s chest. Utter silence followed for about five beats before Sean spoke up.

“Okay now you guys really need to get out of here” he muttered. There was helplessness in his voice and when I looked up at him, I found him huddled in the corner of his cell. His face was green and his lips were pure white. I imagined the rest of us didn’t look much better. Cayla and Paul slowly crawled out from behind Sean’s cell and climbed to their feet. Paul was supporting Cayla and she had tear stains down her cheeks. Matilda pushed Tommy gently and he stood up before pulling me to my feet. My knees wailed in protest but I let Tommy drag me over to Sean’s cell. He didn’t even try to stand up.

“Sean, what the hell just happened man?” Even Paul’s voice was hollow and filled with fear. Cayla had both hands over her mouth and tears were still trailing down her face. I forced myself not to look over to where Rodriguez was but I couldn’t stop myself so I turned my face to the ground. There were blood splatters everywhere and about a foot away from my feet was Rodriguez’s gun.

“I’ve never seen it happen but I’ve heard about it. Outsiders will sometimes get in here by accident and it’s the guards’ job to take care of anyone not in the cells. The D.D.S. programmed them to be brutal, to not let anyone get passed here alive. But when they first started putting me down here, there was a family that knew how to get passed them. That’s why I told you not to move” he said. I only half focused on what Sean was saying, I was trying to get Rodriguez’s gun separated from his hand. I just kept slowly sliding the gun across the floor with my foot. Finally the gun came free and I swooped down to pick it up. It was still warm from the two shots he fired but luckily there was no blood on it.

“Here Sean, you need it more than we do” I said. Paul, Tommy, and Sean pulled the bottom of the chain-link up far enough that I could slide the gun under it to him. Sean picked it up and immediately hid it under the blanket. He closed his eyes and took a long deep breath, and when he looked at us again, some color had returned to his face.

“Thanks Nessa, that will definitely help. Now to get you guys out of here, there is a door on the other side of the room, right behind the bent metal pillar. I don’t know where it goes but anywhere is better than here” he said. Matilda reached through the chain-link and softly caressed his face. He smiled at her. Tommy took his mom’s hand and then wrapped his other arm around my waist. Cayla and Paul led the way to where the door was. As we were passing by where Rodriguez’s body was, everyone but me kept their eyes facing forward. My curiosity got the better of me and I looked down out of the corner of one eye. A one second glance made my stomach twist and I gagged so hard, it doubled me over. There was nothing left of Rodriguez! His clothes were in shreds and covered heavily in his blood, he had no limbs and his face was gone. I leaned over Tommy’s arm and dry heaved a few times. I got lucky because nothing came up.

“What do we do with him?” Tommy asked looking back at Sean. I kept my eyes safely on Tommy’s face so I wouldn’t be tempted to look back down at what was left of Rodriguez. I hadn’t really liked the guy and he was kind of stupid, but no one deserved to die that way. I choked on my saliva and put my mouth against Tommy’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry about him; the D.D.S. will take care of it in the morning. You guys go, I’ll be alright” Sean said. Tommy sighed and turned back to Paul. He led us through a small wooden door and up a cramped stone staircase. We came up through a trap door into the foyer of an old rundown building. There were huge boxes and small boxes and old torn or stained furniture. Old cracked church pews were stacked along one wall, huge plastic wrapped statues cluttered a corner, and there was even an old Chevy truck in the middle of the room. There were old oil paintings and cracked sculptures, antique dolls with porcelain or china faces, hand-made hope chests and an ancient wooden wardrobe. I knew where we were before Paul said anything.

“We’re in the old museum” he whispered. Cayla pulled her hand out of his and waded through the junk on the floor to the nearest window. She threw open the shutters and sunlight flooded the dark dusty room. Cayla leaned out the window and looked towards the street, before sighing and closing her eyes. She moved away from the window and fell into Paul’s arms.

“No fog, we’re home” she said. I studied her for a few seconds before sighing deeply in relief. I hadn’t thought to look out the window and check for the grey fog we’d seen when we were in the Hidden the first time. That was pretty smart of Cayla. I didn’t know it was coming but as soon as Tommy wrapped his arms around me, I burst into tears. I caught a glimpse of the shocked looks on Paul and Cayla’s faces before I hid my face in Tommy’s chest. It was like a dam breaking, as soon as I knew we were back home and safe; guilt, fear, and rage washed over me. My body expressed it with tears.

“It’s our fault! He’s dead because of us!” I cried. Tommy held me tightly and shushed me quietly. I felt his head rest on top of mine and I wrapped my arms tightly around his waist. Matilda wrapped her arms around both of us and I felt her hands smoothing down my hair.

“Vanessa, his death was not our fault; he died because he wouldn’t listen to you. You warned him and he didn’t believe you. Don’t blame yourself, you did all you could” Cayla said. Her words helped lessen the guilt but they only fueled the rage. She was right; Rodriguez would still be alive if he’d listened to me. It was his own fault that he was dead but that didn’t help with the fact that he was a police officer and we knew how he died. I pulled my face out of Tommy’s chest and rested my cheek against his shoulder.

“We can’t tell anybody about this. Matilda, I hate that you were there this time but now you know why we kept it from you for so long. You can’t even tell Jonathan okay? Today never happened” I said. Matilda pursed her lips tightly and nodded her head. I wasn’t worried about her telling because I could see how much what happened had scared her, but she looked worried about something. I caught eyes with her and raised my eyebrows in an inquisitive sort of way. She sighed deeply.

“Nessa, the last time you guys were in the Hidden, you were gone for two years. How long do you suppose we’ve been gone this time?” she asked. Ah, so that’s what she was worried about. Paul and Cayla shared an anxious look and Tommy, Paul, and Cayla all pulled out their phones. I knew before they showed me the time, 1:38 PM, that only the couple of hours we were down there had passed. It was still Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours after we’d all met at the park.

“We weren’t actually in the Hidden guys, remember what Sean said? That was their jail, under the protection of the Symtrix. Besides I didn’t feel the same there that I did in the Hidden” I said. Paul and Cayla nodded their heads and Matilda let out a huge sigh of relief. Tommy pulled me back into his arms and I put my chin in the center of his chest so I could look up at him. He smiled slightly and bet his neck to kiss me on the forehead.

“Come on guys, let’s go home” he said. We all pushed our way through the junk to the front doors and walked back to the park where Cayla’s car and Tommy’s jeep were. Cayla and Paul were gone before Tommy could even get his jeep unlocked but I didn’t blame them. I wished that the day really hadn’t happened, but there was no way to forget about that. It was hard to believe that only a little over two hours had passed down in that cellar. It felt like an entire lifetime, but then I suppose watching (or listening to in my case) someone die would do that. As soon as we got into the house, Matilda headed straight upstairs and closed herself in her bedroom. Tommy sighed deeply and fell down on the couch, pulling me with him. I situated myself against Tommy’s side and layed my head on his chest. For a few minutes, we were both silent and Tommy ran his hand up and down my side in a relaxing rhythm.

“You know I love you, right?” The question came out of nowhere and his tone of voice made it seem like he’d just asked what my favorite color was. Tommy had just told me he loved me for the first time and he said it like it was absolutely no big deal. I turned my head and propped my chin on his chest so I was looking up at him. He had his free hand behind his head and he smiled when I caught his eyes.

“I do now” I answered. I managed to keep my excitement mostly subdued but I couldn’t keep the huge grin off my face. The boy I’d been in love with for at least five years had just returned those feelings. I could sing! I wouldn’t though, I didn’t like my voice and nobody had ever heard me sing. I planned to keep it that way. Tommy’s smile widened when he saw my grin and he pulled his other arm out from under his head so he could gesture with it.

“I know we just got together and everything but I’ve kinda been in love with you for a while. And there’s been a lot of bad lately so I was hoping maybe we could end it on something good. Maybe someday in the future……………………………………………” I lay listening to Tommy ramble on, his left hand waving in wide arcs through the air. He wasn’t usually so twitchy but I knew he was probably as nervous as ever with what he’d admitted. I finally took pity on him and leaned up and kissed him, cutting off whatever he was saying about a fancy cake. I really hadn’t been paying attention. I moved up onto my hands and knees and crawled over Tommy until I was straddling his hips and then I pulled away. He looked up at me with wide confused jade green eyes and rested his hands on my hips.

“Relax Tommy, I love you too” I said. As soon as I said the words, heat rushed my cheeks and I slapped my hands over my face. Tommy moved under me and I felt his hands leave my hips and close around my wrists. Tommy had always been gently and soft with me, if he ever used his full strength it was to pick me up and swing me around. But Tommy’s hands were almost painfully tight on my wrists and he didn’t wait for my arms to relax before he pulled my hands away from my face. His eyes were still wide but there was no confusion in them anymore. He released his hold on my wrists and gently cupped my cheeks.

“Will you say that again, without covering your face?” he asked. Without covering my face? Exactly how much will power did he think I had? It was instinct to cover my face whenever I blushed. But I’d always had this insane need to give Tommy whatever he wanted, no matter how complicated. So I took a deep breath, grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt tightly in both hands, and met his eyes.

“I love you too, Tommy” I said. My voice shook but it was clear enough. Another wave of heat rushed my cheeks but I forced myself to grip tighter to Tommy’s shirt instead of cover my face. The once serious expression on his face gradually changed; his eyes brightened and a small sparkle formed in them, a small genuinely happy smile formed on his lips, and his eyes locked onto mine just as my blush deepened.

“I’ve only ever dreamed of you saying those words to me Nessa, you have no idea how much this means to me” he said. I smiled slightly and I felt my cheeks wrinkle under his hands. I’d always thought I’d never stand a chance with Tommy, that I would spend my whole life crushing on him. That I’d never find someone I loved as much as him, and now I didn’t have to. Tommy was mine and he loved me in the same way and as much as I loved him. I felt a squeal build in my throat and I gritted my teeth to keep it back.

“It’s the absolute truth Tommy, I’ll never love anyone else like I love you………………………….” It was his turn to cut me off with a kiss and I was glad he had. I released my hold on his shirt and brought my hands up to cup his face while he moved his hands back down to my waist. His lips were sweet and gentle but there was an undertone to this kiss that I’d never felt before. It made every twitch of his lips feel ten times as sensitive against mine, it made every caress of his tongue send white hot bolts of lightning down my spine, and every time his fingers traced bare skin, goosebumps formed.

I’d kissed Tommy before, I’d even let it get too heated in his bedroom before, but I’d never kissed him like this before. Everything felt new, like I was experiencing it for the very first time again. Tommy’s curls felt like down feathers beneath my fingers, his lips were satiny against mine and his tongue barely drifted over my lips until he found my tongue. Several bolts of lightning shot from the top of my head, down my spine and through my legs, to the bottom of my feet. The sensation should have been painful but instead I felt tingly all over. Was this it? Was this what I’d been waiting for? My mom used to tell me that when I found my true love, I would feel it in his kiss. It might not be right away, but eventually I would experience the most mind-blowing kiss ever, like she had with my dad. Was that what this was? Was Tommy my true love?

As soon as the thought filled my head, the desire to move closer to him entered my body. I was sitting in his lap, my chest flush against his, with my fingers tangled in his hair; how much closer could I really get? It wasn’t until I felt Tommy ever so slowly slide his hands up the back of my shirt that I realized I’d been wrong. My back arched under his touch and the next thing I knew, Tommy was on his back on the couch again with me lying on top of him. Our lips stayed connected and Tommy’s hands were still splayed across the bare skin of my back. It wasn’t just a physical need to be closer to Tommy; it was an emotional one as well. His hands ventured up my back, his fingers digging softly into my tense muscles and tracing the ridges of my spine, until he reached my bra strap. I felt every muscle in my body freeze, like I’d been dropped into an ice bath. My tongue still moved lazily against Tommy’s but I couldn’t force any other part of me to respond. It was going to happen sooner or later and some part of me did want it to, but on the couch in the living room? Not exactly romantic. The problem was; I couldn’t seem to find the effort to make him stop. My hands stayed tangled deep in his thick curls, my lips pressed tighter against his as if I was afraid he would pull away, and the thought of his touch leaving my body made me press closer to him. How was I going to find the will power to make Tommy stop?

It turned out I didn’t have to because Matilda came downstairs at that moment and the sound of her arrival was the only inspiration we both needed. Tommy broke the kiss and sat up, almost knocking me out of his lap onto the floor. He caught me before I slipped off the couch and moved me to the cushion next to him. Any other girl probably would have felt ashamed at how fast he moved away, but I just felt relieved and extremely proud of Tommy. Most boys wouldn’t have had the will power or the want to break away from that and I was glad Tommy had. No matter how cool his mom was, even she would have been slightly upset with how almost compromising our situation had been. Matilda stopped at the end of the couch and gave us a small timid smile; apparently she hadn’t yet recovered from our latest little adventure. When I looked closer, I noticed her hair was dripping, leaving wet marks on her t-shirt, and her skin was bright red. Like she’d been scrubbing at it as hard as she could. Had she really been in the shower this whole time? Poor Matilda. Tommy stood up and grabbed his mom’s hands. It was then I saw the tears in her eyes. I stood up next to Tommy.

“It’s okay mom, it’s over. You’re alright” Tommy murmured. Matilda wrapped her arms around both of us and buried her face in Tommy’s chest. I wrapped my arms around her while Tommy looped an arm around my waist and his mother’s. Matilda kept her face buried and we both just held her. I was so beyond furious at Rodriguez for dragging her down there with us, she didn’t need to see any of that. It wasn’t fair to her. She finally pulled her face out of Tommy’s chest and gave us a bigger brighter smile.

“I’m alright guys, but now I fully understand why you didn’t want to tell us at first. I can’t believe you kids went through it on your own” she said. Tommy looked down at me and I smiled slightly. He winked at me. As much as the trip through the Hidden had scared me, it probably would’ve been worse if Tommy hadn’t been with me.

“Why don’t you guys help me get dinner together?” Matilda suggested. Tommy smiled widely and nodded his head. As much as I would have loved helping Tommy and his mom cook, there was something I needed to do first. Someone I needed to see and I hoped what I had to tell her would reassure her a little. I pulled out of Matilda and Tommy’s arms and pulled my phone out of my pocket.

“Why don’t you guys start without me? I need to see Moira and tell her about Sean. It might help her a little” I said. Matilda smiled and nodded her head. She kissed me softly on the forehead before heading into the kitchen. I scrolled through the contacts on my phone and pulled up Moira’s number. Tommy caught my arm before I could hit send.

“Hey, be careful okay? I’ve got a weird feeling all of a sudden” he murmured. I knew if Tommy hadn’t already agreed to help his mom in the kitchen, he would have insisted on going with me. I smiled and reached up to lay my hand against his cheek. He sighed deeply and let his eyes fall closed.

“It’s just Moira Tommy, I’ll be okay” I said. He opened his eyes and gave me a half-annoyed, half-exasperated look; I giggled. He cracked a smile and rolled his eyes before brushing a gentle kiss against my lips.

“You know what I mean, just come back to me please” he said. I wrapped my arms around his waist and ducked my head under his chin. He sighed deeply and held me tightly for a few counts until his mom called his name from the kitchen. He pulled away and looked down at me, I smiled.

“Always” I said. He smiled in return and headed into the kitchen as I put my phone to my ear.