1. Tempi

CHAPTER 1

TEMPI

T he day's been as long as the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies, and thoroughly less enjoyable. My work shift was filled with fender benders, broken bones, and one very disgruntled old man who swore up and down he wasn't having trouble breathing to his children. The old man passed out only a minute after we arrived from lack of oxygen. When he woke up again in the back of the ambulance, he'd been belligerent and insisted we let him out. It had taken all three of my team to get him inside the hospital. I'd given the nurses a sympathetic look as we'd left and have never been more thankful to reach the end of my shift. I pat Leo, my partner, and Ben, my trainee, on the back and take off in my beat-up Camry.

La Llorona, my faded white Toyota Camry, isn't the best-looking car on the road and she often makes children cry if she backfires around them. The loud noise damn near makes me jump every time. Not to mention the fact she whines when I put her in gear and ease onto the road. She's earned her name with every new sound she makes. One of these days, she'll quit on me, but for now, she's what I've got. No need for a new car when she gets me around just fine.

And. . . I know I'm focusing on all the wrong things given what today is. But I can't bring myself to think about it for too long. The moment I cross into my neighborhood though, the memories come rushing back despite my attempt to think of anything else. I can't help it. The big neon sign above the local casino was Bella's favorite. She'd always gush about the colors, so I got her a little neon heart for her birthday to hang on her wall. She'd been so excited. She used to say that she'd have a big house chalk full of neon when she got older, every wall covered in it.

If only she'd gotten the chance.

Today would have been Bella's eighteenth birthday. We would have gone to her favorite pizza place as we did every year, her, me, and her father, and then we would have done something fun, something that she wanted to do. I haven't been back to that pizza place in five years, not since she'd gone. It hurts too much.

Just as it hurts to come home to my one-bedroom apartment every night. Alone.

As I'm heading home though, I remember that the milk I have in my fridge is expired and that I'll need coffee creamer for the morning if I'm going to be coherent enough for work. I'm going to need all the coffee I can get tomorrow, and I can't drink the shit black as much as I wish I could. My tastebuds aren't quite cultured enough for that, or degraded enough, depending on who you ask. I need syrups, milk and sugar, all the fancy shit without the high price tag that comes with Starbucks.

The local taqueria is on my way home and they always have what I need, so I swing La Llorona into the potholed parking lot and throw the car into neutral before pulling the parking brake. When I climb from the driver's seat, I realize how disheveled I look after fighting with the old man, but it's nothing new. Juan has seen me in far worse states than my wrinkled EMS uniform. For a while, I only showed up here while drunk off a cheap bottle of tequila. Lucky for me, Leo pulled me out of that time. Unlucky for me, every year, on the anniversary of their deaths, I'm tempted to fall right back into bad habits. And that's tomorrow.

I stumble to a stop before the door of the market, the thought stopping me in my tracks. Their deaths. Fuck. Tomorrow is the anniversary of their deaths, just one day after Bella's birthday. My baby. My love. I reach up and clench my hand over my heart, dragging in a great gasp of air. It's been five years, but it still feels as raw as the day it happened.

No mother should have to bury her child. She certainly shouldn't have to bury her child and husband the same day. It does things to you. It destroys you.

And yet I keep on living.

Dragging in great gasps of air, I manage to take another step, and then another, until I'm able to drag open the door of the taqueria . A little bell chimes as I walk in, and Juan looks up with a smile.

"Tempi! I wasn't sure if you were going to swing in tonight," he declares. His eyes flicker over to the rows of alcohol with worry, but I shake my head.

"I need coffee creamer. I've got a long shift tomorrow," I answer, smiling tightly. I'm careful to ignore the rows of liquor lining the shelves. No need to tempt fate.

"Tomorrow?" He glances at his phone. "But tomorrow. . . aren't you usually off tomorrow?"

I nod. "Usually, yeah. But my rent increased. I gotta work extra hours to make up the difference. You know how that goes."

" Chinga tu madre ," he mutters. "I do. My rent jumped up five hundred dollars a month this last contract!"

"No!" I growl. "These pendejos are gonna get what's coming to them one day. You wait and see."

"We can only hope," Juan nods. "I stocked the salted caramel creamer just for you, Tempi. It's in the cooler."

"You are a literal godsend, Juan. Don't let anyone tell you different," I tell him as I make my way into the back for the creamer.

"Hey! Tell that to my wife!" he laughs.

The taqueria isn't large, but it's grown so much since it first opened. Juan deserves any success he comes across. He and his family came here only fifteen years ago, desperate for a better life. Now, his oldest is in college to be a doctor and his youngest is about to graduate high school. I need to remember to send her some cash and a card. The girl is graduating as valedictorian. The community is all so proud of her, of both of Juan's girls. They're going to do great things, big thinkers just like their father. I've never seen a prouder man than Juan. That's why all their pictures hang behind the cash register. The photos are a reminder of why he comes to work every day.

I lost my reason.

"Creamer," I mumble to myself as I stare into the stocked fridge cooler in the back. One of them is making a strange sound like it might go out at any moment. I hope Juan gets it fixed before he loses all his food.

It takes me a minute after such a long day to find the creamer all the way on the bottom of the cooler. When I lean down to grab it, I scowl.

"I thought you said you got salted caramel?" I call.

"I did! It's on the bottom!"

"This is caramel macchiato," I say, pulling the creamer out.

"Motherfu—Are you sure?" Juan calls back.

"Dead sure," I say, straightening as I study the bottle. "Says caramel Macchiato." I flip it over. "And it's expired by six months."

"I'm going to ring that new supplier's neck!" Juan hisses. "I knew that guy didn't know what he was talking about."

I sigh and look down at the regular vanilla creamer. "It's fine. I'll get the other one for now. No harm done."

"Let me go see if Isa can call them tomorrow. Be right back. Two minutes," Juan says, disappearing into the storeroom.

I tuck the expired bottle under my arm so I can give it to Juan for evidence and open the cooler again, ready to grab the french vanilla creamer. It's not my favorite, but it'll do. Before I can lean down though, a sound starts behind me, like a large fan being turned on and the whoosh of air that follows. My brow furrows as I turn, confused, and take in the empty aisle. But the longer I look, the more I see nothing, or, maybe. . . something.

Sparkles. Wrinkles. Like the way a street looks in the high heat of the summer.

I narrow my eyes, confused. "What the?—"

The air splits and opens, revealing a swirling black hole of color. I stumble back in surprise, but I'm immediately dragged toward it by some invisible force, as if the thing has gravity.

"Juan!" I cry, grabbing at the cooler doors, wrenching them open as I'm pulled closer. It doesn't slow me down at all. I drop the creamer, and it crashes against the ground and busts open, spilling all over the floor. "Juan!"

"One sec, Tempi!" he calls from the back.

My fingers loosen their hold despite how hard I grip the cooler door. I grit my teeth, trying to hold on, but whatever this thing is, it's too strong. I scream as my hands come loose and I'm sucked into the hole completely. I start to tumble immediately, flipping end over end. Violent wind rips at my clothes and hair, jerking my hair tie out and leaving my curly mass to swirl around my face. Pain explodes in my bones, as if the wind that tears at my face is somehow beneath my skin. I grit my teeth against the pain, fear clogging my throat and cutting off any other scream I might have. What is this? Did the sewer explode again, and I'm caught in the crosshair? Am I dead? Did I inhale carbon dioxide and pass out?

But just as I start to think I'm hallucinating and that I've probably died, the air changes from bright stale nothing to fresh forest. Within a few seconds, I'm tumbling back out of the black hole and the ground rushes up to meet me far faster than I can catch myself. I slam into the ground with enough force to knock the breath out of my body and then immediately grunt at the pain of it.

"Fuck," I groan as I try to gather my wits about me while holding my aching ribcage. I'm gonna be bruised tomorrow, for sure. Everything hurts, even my bones.

I drag myself to my hands and knees and shove my hair out of my face so I can look around. I still the moment I get a good look, surprised. Gone is the concrete jungle I'd just left. I lift up fully on my knees. Instead of the city I came from, I'm looking at a lush forest. The trees are so full of life, vibrant, magical looking with their sparkly bark, that I know this isn't Central Park. This is somewhere else, somewhere I've never been before.

Stumbling to my feet, I turn in a circle, looking for the taqueria or any sign of home. There's nothing. I recognize nothing.

My chest gets tight so suddenly, I have to grab at it to keep from blacking out immediately. My head goes fuzzy for a moment as I fight the panic attack bubbling in my throat. It takes everything inside me to stay on my feet, but I do have to brace myself against the nearest tree.

"Breathe, Tempi," I tell myself. "It's fine. You've just. . . you're hallucinating is all." I reach into my pocket for my cell phone to call Leo. Through everything, he's always been there. He'll know what to do. But when I look at my cracked screen, I realize there's no signal at all here. The little cross out sign flickers at the top of my screen, telling me that I'm outside of my coverage area. The panic attack starts to come back in full force.

"One. . . two. . . three. . . four," I start to count, taking long deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. It's okay. This is okay. Nothing is wrong.

In the distance, I hear someone whistle, and then the sound of horse hooves on the ground. The earth beneath my feet vibrates with it as more join in, until I can't tell how many horses there are. Someone else whistles again, and then dogs begin to bay. My eyes widen. I haven't heard any of those sounds since I was a child. My father used to take me horseback riding as a little girl, but mixed with dogs, that can only mean one thing.

A hunt.

And I'm out in the fucking forest like prey.

"Fuck," I rasp, turning in a circle. I can't tell which direction they're coming from. "Fuck!"

So I take off running in what I hope is a direction away from the hunting party. I've seen this movie before. Some rich asshole kidnaps the poor folk and hunts them down like animals. I won't be an easy target. Fuck that.

Sprinting through trees I don't recognize in a direction I don't know fucks with my mind. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what good this will do. But I run anyway. It's only after a few minutes that I realize the trees are thinning. Right after I realize that, I burst out of the forest into a wide open dirt path. Scrambling to a surprised stop, I look left and see the path disappearing into the forest. To the right, I nearly topple over again with disbelief.

The road to the right opens up and reveals what I can only call a castle. It's massive, towering over the tree line in the distance, and made of dark stone. It looks like something knights and kings belong with, like something out of a medieval movie, but that doesn't make sense. There are no castles like this in New York. Not of this scale. This thing looks bigger than any castle I've ever seen before, granted, my knowledge is limited.

"Watch out!" someone shouts as I gawk at the sight.

Turning toward the sound, my eyes widen as I realize I'm directly in the path of three running horses. On their backs sit three literal fucking knights, armor and all. The metal clangs as the horses run.

"Get out of the way!" one of them yells again as I stare dumbstruck in the middle of the street.

Before I can scream, before I can be trampled to death by their hooves, another black hole opens to my right and drags me inside. It's so fast, I almost miss it when I blink, but the stomach-turning feeling of falling again alerts me to what's happening. This time, I land back on my feet, but not at the taqueria where I'd been. Instead, when I look around, I realize I'm outside my apartment complex as if nothing happened. I'd recognize that peeling paint anywhere.

I swirl, looking for La Llorona and don't find her in my parking spot. What the fuck. Did I walk home? Am I losing my mind? What the fuck is happening to me?

Patting my pocket, I breathe a sigh of relief to feel not only my phone there but my keys, as well. I'll have to walk and go fetch La Llorona in the morning, but at least I can get inside my apartment.

When I unlock my door and step inside my apartment that smells slightly of mildew, I sigh. Those tacos Leo bought for lunch from the new food truck must have been bad. That has to be it. I'm hallucinating because of food poisoning. I didn't touch alcohol. I'd purposely avoided it, so it can't be that.

But still, I stumble over to my small entry table and stare at the photos of Bella and Gilroy there. Without meaning to, I fall to my knees, still shaken by what I'd witnessed and reminded again of what today is, what tomorrow is.

The tears come so fast, I never had a hope of stopping them.