Destroyer

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The house, the ground, the night, it all sucks away from me in a rush. Even my skin feels as if it’s being pulled from my body.

A second chaser.

That can only mean there’s another rewinder close by.

Who? Do I know him?

And how did Kane know to come here to meet whoever it is?

I’m struggling to come up with even an implausible theory to explain what’s going on when I feel my arm shake.

“Denny?” Iffy’s voice, so far away. “Denny, what are you doing? Someone might see you.”

As I blink the world slowly returns around me — the stars first and then the grass that I seem to be sitting on and finally the house that’s propping me up. At least I’m not still standing in front of the window.

Iffy is beside me, her face tense and scared.

“Denny, snap out of it,” she whispers. “We can’t stay here.”

I nod and push myself to my feet. We sneak along the house, then quickly cross the front yard and hurry down the steps. Though we can no longer be seen, I don’t feel safe. I lead Iffy to the closest intersection and turn onto the new road.

I slump down on the edge of the sidewalk next to an empty lot, my feet in the dirt.

Iffy sits beside me. “What happened? Did you see something?”

I nod.

“Kane?”

I nod again.

“Did he see you?”

“No.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

I hesitate. “The chaser.”

“You saw it?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s, that’s great! Do you think we can—”

“There were two.”

She appears confused. “Two what?”

“Chasers.”

Her eyes widen. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure. I know what a chaser box looks like.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t.”

I take a breath. “Sorry.” I’m not angry at her. I’m just frustrated and confused.

“Were the boxes open?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“Could one be empty?”

“Why would there be an empty one?”

She shrugs. “A decoy? In case you show up and try to get yours back?”

“That’s impossible. Kane hasn’t had my chaser long enough to make a copy of the box.”

“Was he alone?”

“I don’t think so. He said something to someone.”

“Who?”

“I couldn’t see who it was.”

“Could he have been talking to himself?”

I think back to when I saw him standing in the family room, facing the hallway. “No. He was responding to someone.”

Several seconds of silence pass.

“So, what do we do now?” she asks.

I’ve been pondering that question myself for the last several minutes, but there’s really only one answer. “We get the chasers. Both of them.”

We find a spot next to several tall bushes from where we can see the house, but won’t be noticed by any neighbors.

It’s well after midnight when the lights in Kane’s house start going out one by one. The lamp in the master bedroom winks off last. We give it another forty minutes before we cross the road and head back up the steps to the front yard.

Though my instinct is to avoid the front of the house altogether, we can’t chance missing an opportunity to get inside. Very quietly, I approach the front door and try the knob. Locked.

I try the windows, but none moves more than a fraction of an inch, so we head around the same side of the house where Iffy found me, and try the ones there. While neither opens, I do see through the last one that the two chasers are still on the table.

We move around the corner and work our way slowly across the back of the house, checking more windows. As much as I’d rather do this quietly, if it comes down to it — and I’m starting to think it might — I can smash through a window, grab the chasers, and get out of there before anyone inside can react.

I almost feel foolish when I ease open the screen door covering the rear entrance, and reach for the knob. I’m under no illusion that it’ll be unlocked, but then the knob twists in my hand. When it stops moving, I give the door a gentle inward push, sure that there will be a bolt or a chain holding it in place, but it slips from the jamb and swings into the house.

I glance back at Iffy and see that she’s as surprised as I am. I then push the door until it’s wide enough for us to enter. After I step inside. I pause, listening for any noise that might indicate we’ve been detected, but there’s not even a creak.

I motion for Iffy to follow me. My plan now is that as soon as I get the devices, I’ll input new jump parameters into mine and we’ll leave from right there in the kitchen.

The screen door is on a spring so that it will automatically close. Iffy eases it back into place so that it doesn’t slam, and then we step over to the table. It’s too dark for me to see any of the wear and tear marks that would tell me which box is mine, so I reach down to pick them both up.

Before I can even touch them, though, a female voice from the corner of the room whispers, “I wouldn’t if I were you. You’ll never get it open in time.”

From the hallway steps a giant of a man. He’s at least another half foot taller than me, with the girth to match. Even in the dim light, I can see his face is hard and unsmiling.

I glance at the boxes again, quickly calculating whether I can grab them and escape out the back before the man can get to me.

“Pretty, aren’t they?” the woman says, her voice still soft, almost ethereal. “Vincent?”

Someone steps into the house behind me, and as I’m turning to see who it is, Iffy yells, “Let me go!”

Kane has come in from outside and now clutches Iffy against his chest.

The unlocked door was a trap that we walked right into.

“Sorry, Denny,” the woman says. “No way out this time.”

I twist to the left and spot her shadowy shape sitting on a chair. Whoever she is, Kane has clearly told her my name. But she’s wrong about one thing. There is still a way out.

I dive for the table and grab a box with each hand. Whichever is the fake should be the lighter one, but as I raise them up, they feel the same.

Just as I realize this, the big man reaches over the table and slaps a hand against my shoulders, slamming me down. My ribs collide against the table’s edge, knocking my breath from my lungs. I gasp for air as the two boxes I’m still somehow clinging to are taken from me.

“Denny!” Iffy cries.

“Quiet!” Kane tells her.

“He needs help!”

“He’ll be fine,” the woman says, still rooted to the same spot in the corner.

The silent giant comes around the table and flips me over so that I face him. He puts a surprisingly light hand on my chest, and after a moment I begin to relax. As I do, the pressure under my ribs eases and my breath returns.

“Gentlemen,” the woman says, “please take Denny and his pet into the living room, where we can chat.”

The giant yanks me to my feet and ushers me toward the hallway once Kane and Iffy have gone past. As he and I near the doorway, I hear the strike of a match, and look over to see the woman lifting a flame to a cigarette sticking out of her mouth. The light flickers over her face, revealing a slanted sneer and features that I know oh so well.

“Hello, Denny. Long time, no see.”