CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Russell:
The world faded and changed; all the color bled into one corner, all apricot sparkles. Sweet, like the orange huck-a-bucks that Isabelle ate in the summer. Frozen Kool-Aid in plastic cups. She gobbled them up until her mouth turned firework orange. Then she would stick out her tongue and we would both laugh.
But now words slammed through the orange fabric, silver and gray, words like bullets, sharp as knives, coarse razor-edged words that sliced through a velvet coral womb.
a€?Mr. Domingue! Can you hear us?a€?
When I first walked through the door, Marguerite was alivea€”she was laughing, joking with Pete. Then somebody messed with the dials in the universe, changed everything a sickening shade of mango orange. My wife sailed over the edge of the balcony and time stopped. Not long enough for me to say goodbye. Only long enough for me to wish that I could have saved her.
a€?What happened, Domingue?a€?
They flickered around me, all firefly light and electric current. Not real people. No one was real anymore. No one a€?cept Isabelle.
a€?Isabelle?a€? My voice sounded like someone had stuffed cotton down my throat. I tried to lift my head, to see where she was. a€?Where ya€?at, baby girl?a€? My eyelids were stuck together, like somebody had poured glue over the lashes. I blinked.
a€?Where is your daughter, Domingue?a€?
My eyes met his, I saw a familiar glare. Even through the VR suit I knew who he was. Skellar. What was that monster doing here?
a€?Is anybody else alive in here?a€? he asked, looking back at one of his wavering shadow-bright detectives.
a€?We hasna€?t found nobody yet, Lieutenant.a€?
a€?What do you mean?a€? I blinked again. a€?Pete, tell a€?em youa€?re okay.a€? I couldna€?t hear Petea€?s answer, but I was too tired anyway. I took a long, deep breath, almost a sigh. My head sagged back and my eyes closed.
a€?Hey! Hea€?s goina€? to sleep, somebody get that medic up here.a€?
a€?He gots a darta€”a€?
a€?I know he has a dart, you moron, thata€?s why he needs a medic! Anybody here know what the yellow feather means?a€?
I could have told them. The yellow feather turns everything orange, it slows the world down, it paints everything with a melancholy brilliance, and it takes your breath awaya€”
At that point somebody untied me and I fell off the chair, my mouth open. I slammed shoulder first, facedown, gasped like a fish dangling on a hook. My legs shook and my arms trembled. If I could have screamed, I would have.
But by now, the cotton was all the way down inside my lungs.
Oxygen was a distant memory. And in its place, a black ocean rolled in.