5. Emma

Oh my god. Oh my God.

Oh my god. Oh my God.

I tried to force a coherent thought into my consciousness but it wouldn't materialize.

All I was capable of was those three words stuck on auto-repeat.

Oh my god. Oh my God.

I didn't understand what'd taken place in my bedroom.

I mean, I was there.

I saw everything.

I was even part of it.

But none of it made sense.

I kept on running.

I didn't know where I was heading or what I would do next.

My feet slipped and slid inside the oversized sneakers I'd snatched from the shoe rack.

They belonged to Olivia.

Her large duck feet made running in the sneakers difficult.

But it didn't matter what I wore at that point.

I could have run in clogs and I could set a new world record.

I ran because it was what my instincts told me to do, because I didn't know what else I was supposed to do.

Nothing like this had ever happened in my boring life before.

This was why you should never pick someone up from a club, I thought.

But even I couldn't have predicted something as crazy as this happening.

Iav was a nice guy.

He turned me on more than anyone ever had before.

The effect he had on me when we kissed…

It had to mean something.

But he was dead now.

Someone had kicked down the door to my room and filled him with bullets.

No, not bullets.

With shards of light.

White-hot light that left purple cigarette burns in my eyes.

How did I explain that?

What sort of weapon was it?

I shook my head.

I must have imagined it.

The moonlight, I decided.

Moonlight must have bounced off the bullet and made it look like it was a bolt of light.

That made sense.

Didn't it?

My breaths grew horse and heavy in my throat, rasping like I'd been smoking ten a day.

I couldn't keep running all night.

I needed to stop somewhere.

Help.

I needed help.

But from who?

My friends.

They would probably still be at the club.

I changed direction and trotted down the street and came to a slow stop.

Did I really want to go running into a crowded place?

I might cause a panic.

And the loud music and flashing lights weren't going to help.

And let's not forget that was where I'd met Iav in the first place.

No.

I needed to go somewhere else.

The police.

I would go there.

I had only ever gone to the police station to pick up our dog, Scruffy, after he ran away from home on one of his adventures.

Only now I was the one on the adventure.

I shifted direction again and turned another corner.

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck and for a while I had thought someone was on my tail.

I checked over my shoulder and was pleased to find Iav's twin wasn't following me.

Twin?

Was that right?

I'd only seen the figure with the pistol once, and that was only with the aid of a thin shard of moonlight, but what else did you call someone that looked identical to the guy I was about to fuck?

He had the same smoky eyes, the same square jaw, the same broad shoulders, and muscular frame.

I gulped.

Did they want to share me?

Was this whole thing part of some horrific game?

If it was, it'd ended in tragedy when one blew the other away.

Why?

Why would he shoot his twin in the chest?

None of this made any sense.

It made going to the police station an even better idea.

I needed to explain my side of the story.

I didn't want to go to prison for murder when it had nothing to do with me.

There was some freaky shit going down and I wanted no part of it.

Except they had already made me a part of it.

When the stranger had turned up, I was both horrified he had shot Iav and relieved at the same time.

How messed up was that?

It was beyond comprehension.

He had touched a part of me so deep, so primitive, that it had laid dormant all these years.

I would extricate myself from this twisted story as soon as possible.

I didn't want to know what was going on.

Tears spilled unbidden down my cheeks as I sprinted for the warm beacon of light that stretched across the sidewalk toward me as if reaching out to welcome me into its warm enfolds.

Safe and secure.

A nightmare had come and I couldn't wait for it to pass.

I leanedback in my chair and the relief hit me all at once like a sledgehammer.

It was cathartic to tell the police officers everything that'd happened to me over the past few hours.

They were trained listeners and felt the weight of each word as I unloaded them.

I considered holding back some of the more… unusual aspects of my story but decided not to.

I told them everything.

After all, when they got to my room and noticed the scorch marks on Iav's body, they would assume I must have left something out, so why not tell them everything upfront?

The recording machine whirred quietly between me and the female cop, Officer Rodriquez, on the other side of the table.

Her partner was Officer Ducard, who stood with his arms folded over his chest, listening but letting his partner ask most of the questions.

I didn't have to wait longer than ten minutes before the officers came out to meet me.

Some of the others in the waiting room glared at me as they took me away.

I guess being a witness to murder was a higher priority than someone who only needed to report a missing phone.

They brought me into this interrogation room but at no point did they interrogate me.

They let me tell my story and never interrupted except to clarify certain details.

I told them everything, beginning with setting my eyes on Iav in the club and how we proceeded to my apartment.

I was a little embarrassed when I came to the sex part but the cops didn't push me to go into intricate detail.

I felt relieved I wasn't the only one who had to know this damn story.

At least now I wasn't alone and they could help me get to the bottom of it.

Better yet, they could take the entire thing off my hands and deal with it themselves.

Rodriquez and Ducard shared a look before turning back to me.

No doubt they were used to hearing strange stories but surely even they had to be surprised by the turn of events?

Rodriquez bit her bottom lip and ran a finger over the chain that held the badge around her neck.

She looked at me carefully before leaning forward.

"Who put you up to this?"

It took a moment for her question to permeate.

"Put me up to what?"

"This. Your story."

"No one. I just told you everything that happened."

Rodriquez turned to her partner, her chair squeaking beneath her hefty weight.

"This has your fingerprints all over it, Ducard. I refuse to be punked again."

Ducard raised his hands in surrender.

"I swear, this has nothing to do with me. But whoever came up with it sure has got a vivid imagination."

I peered between the two of them, my shining knights in white armor, and the blood drained from my face.

My hands were pressed to the tabletop and turned so hot and sweaty they left marks when I removed them.

"Are you telling me you don't believe me?"

Rodriquez turned back to me, her eyebrow cocked.

"I believed every word… until you got to the part about his twin showing up. And you lost me completely when you brought up the light gun."

"Plasma pistol," I said quietly.

"Right. Plasma pistol. I haven't heard a story that crazy since Ducard put a guy up to pretending he was Elvis Presley reincarnated."

Officer Ducard shrugged.

"What can I say?" he said, spreading his hands. "I'm a sucker for the classics."

His body shook and he grunted.

It was meant to be a laugh but he snatched it at the last moment and suppressed it.

Now I realized why he folded his arms over his chest the entire time I told my story.

He was struggling to keep the laughter inside.

He didn't believe me.

Neither of them did.

I told them everything, every last detail.

And they didn't believe me?

Rodriquez leaned over and turned off the recorder.

"I think we've heard enough. I'll keep it as a record for how lame you are, Ducard."

She shot her partner a look that promised retribution later.

"I told you," Ducard said. "I didn't put her up to this. I've never met her before."

I stood up, so quickly I knocked my chair over.

"I came here to tell you about a murder I witnessed," I said, my voice cold as ice. "It happened in my bedroom. I was about to have sex with a guy from the club when another guy—who looked exactly like him—shot him three times. It looked like some sort of futuristic gun. If you go to my room and check out the holes in his body, maybe you can tell me what sort of weapon it was. I got out of there as quickly as I could and I came right here. And you think I made all this up?"

Rodriquez shot Ducard a look.

The one he returned was sober.

He no longer struggled to keep his mirth in his chest.

It'd dried up completely.

"Calm down," Rodriquez said. "Nobody's saying something didn't happen to you tonight—"

"It sure sounds like you don't believe what I'm saying," I spat.

"It's an… unusual story," Rodriquez said. "But look, I promise we'll look into it. Okay?"

Maybe she said that just to humor me but I didn't care.

The moment they stepped in my bedroom they would see something had happened there.

They would see the body and the blood.

So long as they helped me, I didn't care they didn't believe me.

Rodriquez took a notepad from her pocket and read my address back to me.

"Go to my room and you'll see I'm not lying," I said.

Rodriquez looked at me and a frown formed on her brow as if she couldn't believe she was actually doing this.

"We'll check it out. In the meantime, is there someone you would like us to call? Somewhere you would feel safe?"

"I can wait here. And I need your phone. I want to call my friends and let them know what's going on—"

A shout erupted from down the hall outside.

"Don't worry about that," Officer Ducard said. "Sometimes tempers flare and criminals—"

Bang!

His eyes snapped to Rodriquez's and something passed between them that I couldn't read.

"Wait," I said. "Was that a gunshot?"

"Stay here," Officer Ducard said.

He unclipped his pistol and placed his hand on it as he approached the door.

He cracked it open and peered outside.

He raised a hand and caught someone racing down the corridor.

"Hey, Johnson. Want to tell me what's going on out there? Somebody accidentally fire their pistol?"

"There's nothing accidental about it," a deep voice responded. "Someone came into the station and drew a weapon."

Ducard hissed through his teeth.

"They opened fire on us? First they try to defund us, now this… Thanks, Johnson."

Ducard turned back to his partner.

"Just some loon venting a little anger—"

Bang! Bang!

More shouts from angry throats.

Then a sound I thought I would never hear again.

A high-pitched whining noise like feedback from a speaker.

The blood drained from my face.

"It's him. It's the guy from my room. He's here. He must have followed me."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Rodriquez said. "You don't know that."

"I recognize the sound of the weapon he used in my room. It sounded just like that buzzing noise."

Another high-pitched wail, and an officer yelled.

What the hell was going on?

This couldn't be an isolated event, I thought.

It had something to do with what happened to me earlier.

The twin had come to this police station.

And there could only be one thing he'd come for.

There was only one thing that linked the two places.

Me.

This had to be the worst night of my life.

Rodriquez stood and unclipped the pistol at her hip.

She approached her partner and they spoke in hushed whispers, casting an occasional look in my direction.

Finally, Rodriquez turned to me.

"Take a seat. We might be here for some time."

"Will you be all right with her?" Ducard said.

"I'll be fine," Rodriquez said. "You go check what's going on out there."

Ducard drew his pistol and gave Rodriquez a peck on the cheek before peering outside and checking both directions.

He stepped out and Rodriquez took a moment to check out his ass before he disappeared from view.

She remained beside the door, keeping it ajar a couple of inches so she had a good view of what was happening.

"You should sit down," she repeated. "We might be here a while."

I tripped on my chair, forgetting I'd accidentally knocked it over earlier.

I righted it and took a seat.

The room swayed, turning on its axis like a ride at the fairground.

This can't be happening. This can't be happening.

I thought coming to the police station would make me safer.

Instead, I was in the same situation I had been an hour ago when I wandered dazedly through the streets.

"Has anything like this ever happened before?" I said.

Rodriquez took a moment to answer, her attention taken with something outside.

"No. We've had a few crazies but nothing like this."

Shouts rang down the hall and gunfire exploded, much louder—and much closer—than a moment ago.

"Freeze!" an officer bellowed.

A moment later, they opened fire.

The assailant returned fire, the weapon making that distinctive high-pitched squeal.

It belonged in a science fiction movie, not the real world.

And certainly not my world.

Rodriquez drew her pistol and raised a hand toward me.

She kept her eyes firmly on the hallway outside.

"Stay right here. I'm going to check out what's going on."

And leave me alone.

The very last thing I wanted to be right now.

"You can't stand against the plasma," I heard myself saying.

Even to my ears, my voice sounded haunted.

"It's not from here," I said. "It's from… somewhere else. An advanced weapons lab maybe? Or the future."

I was thinking out loud but it seemed to make sense—to me, at least.

Rodriquez no longer sported the smarmy smile she had before.

She no longer thought I'd been put up to this.

She believed me.

And she was afraid.

She drew on her deep wells of courage and exited the interrogation room, shutting the door behind herself.

The shouts grew louder, more voluminous, and were punctuated with further gunshots and returning plasma fire.

I stared at the door, unblinking.

So long as there was return fire, the twin was still alive.

But if he wanted to kill me, why didn't he do it in my bedroom?

He had plenty of opportunity to do so.

Because he doesn't want to kill you,a voice in the back of my mind said. He wants to do far worse to you.

Something worse than death?

I couldn't imagine what it could be.

Or maybe I just didn't want to.

I considered what to do next.

Run?

Escape the police station?

Was any of this even related to what happened to me earlier?

Had I lost my mind?

Was I going mad?

Was this what it felt like when you finally lost your marbles?

Heavy footsteps trod outside the door and the shadow of a figure appeared in the frosted glass.

The figure turned to face the door.

And then it creaked open.