I laughed in surprise and suddenly recognized that sour smell as a hint of manure. I’d arrived at a barn. There was no barn on the Forge campus, but I recalled at least one in Forgetown. I dug in my pocket for a nub of tissue and wedged it under the door, lodging it to the side near the hinges.
Then I turned around to start back. I trudged the flat length, then started up the slope. I passed the arched, dusty door and the octagonal glass room. I recognized a broken light fixture from before, and I finally opened the door to the landing for the elevator. I was almost out and eager to get back to the sunlight and fresh air. The vault, through the glass on my right, was as dark as before. I pushed the button to call the elevator and brushed myself off as I waited. A slight sound came from behind me.
“Lost?” Dean Berg said.
I spun around.
Berg. Here. He stepped through the door from the vault, and I stumbled back against the wall, unable to speak.
“One of my techies told me a visitor went missing,” Dean Berg said.
“I was looking for the bathroom,” I said hoarsely.
“It’s back upstairs,” he said.
The elevator doors slid open, and I scrambled inside.
Berg came more slowly. Every instinct in me recoiled from him, and I pressed back into the corner.
Slowly, deliberately, Berg pushed a button on the panel. Then he turned to look me over. His sandy blond hair was as tidy as ever, and he wore his classic jacket with the elbow patches. His pale eyebrows and ruddy cheeks made the picture of boyish good health, but I knew every expression of his, every manner, was a disguise for the blackest heart.
“You’re expecting,” he said, his voice lifting in surprise. “I’m Dean Berg. What’s your name?”
The doors slid closed.
There was no point lying. “Althea Flores.”
The elevator started up.
“I’m normally very good with names, but I can’t quite place you,” he said. “Have we met before?”
“No,” I said.
“Very few people find their way down to the vault,” he said. “Who told you about the elevator button?”
“Nobody. It just got stuck.”
He smiled at me oddly. “Are you sure we haven’t met?”
My heart lurched. It felt like he could see right past my Althea exterior to the depths of me inside.
“I’m sure,” I said.
“I’d like to see your phone, please.”
“It’s dead,” I said. “The battery’s dead.”
“That doesn’t matter. Please.” He held out his hand.
I slowly passed it over, and he smiled as the screen lit up.
“Not so very dead after all,” he said.
He set his phone on top of mine, and the next moment, a barcode came up on the face of my phone. Dean Berg held his a couple of inches over it, so his camera lens lined up on the barcode, and a second later, he was thumbing through my phone.
“What did you do?” I asked. I couldn’t see how he got past my password.
“I’m just checking your recent calls,” he said, frowning. “Tom. Who’s that?”
“My boyfriend. He’s outside. Give me that.”
“Mom. Dad. One unidentified. That’s all your calls.” He took a photo of my call list with his phone, and then glanced up at me. “You clear your history. Smart girl. And no photos. Very, very interesting. New phone?”
“Yes,” I said. “Can I have it back now?”
He handed it to me as the elevator came to a stop. The doors slid open, and I hurried out.
“I’m glad we met, Althea Flores,” he said. He stayed in the elevator, and his gaze rested on my belly again for a moment. He set a hand on the elevator doorway so the bumper jumped and retracted to stay open. “Before you leave, I have a little message for you to convey.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s for whoever told you about the elevator and how to hold the button in.”
“I didn’t do anything special to the button,” I insisted. “It just got stuck.”
He smiled urbanely. “Tell your friend the button still works, but it’s the only thing left. He’ll never find any answers here. He should get on with his life.”
Bewildered, I stared. Berg let go of the elevator doorway, and the doors closed him in with a soft hiss. A shiver lifted along my skin.
Tom entered the foyer from the main door. “Thea, where have you been?” he asked. He did a double take. “You’re filthy.”
“I got lost,” I said.
I was more confused than ever. Could there be other dreamers who came back looking for the vault, like me?
Tom gently took my arm and guided me outside. The sunlight made me wince, and I glanced down at my clothes to see that Tom wasn’t exaggerating. I had brushed myself off while waiting for the elevator, but dirty webs still clung to my sleeves and leggings. With a shudder, I wiped at them, and Tom brushed off my back.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked.
“Let me think. Can we just go?”
“Of course,” he said, and we made our way to the car.
Berg’s message kept replaying in my mind. Possibly, like me, other dreamers had been aware of the button and how it worked from their own trips down the elevator. Did they really come back looking for answers? I had this image of a horde of us zombie dreamers coming back here, driven by a restlessness we couldn’t resolve.
Would Rosie come? I needed to find her more than ever.
Berg had taken a photo of the phone numbers I’d recently called: Tom’s, Madeline’s, Diego’s, and the unidentified one that belonged to Linus. I nearly dropped my phone.
Berg was going to put it together. He hadn’t recognized my name just now, but I was certain he was going to look up Althea Flores, and then he’d find out that I was connected to Rosie. Whatever advantage I’d had by being unrecognizable would be gone.
“I’m dead,” I said.
28
ROSIE
VISITORS
“LINUS! YOU UP?” Otis yells from downstairs.
I wake in Linus’s arms. It’s daylight. He slams out of bed and leaps to the door. He opens it and leans out.
“What is it?” Linus calls.
From below: “You forgot to take the garbage out. Parker’s upset. Come talk to him.”
I reach around the rumpled bed for my shirt and pull it on. Underneath, I adjust my camisole straps.
“Give me one minute!” Linus yells down. He closes the door and spins around, all but naked in his underwear. Grinning, he swears under his breath. “Sorry,” he whispers. He hitches up his jeans and pulls on boots. He scoops up his shirt from the floor, takes a whiff of it, whips it toward the laundry basket, and pulls a fresh one out of a drawer. He pulls it over his head, shrugs it into place, and runs a hand through his wild hair. “You okay for a minute?”
“Yes.”
He’s gone.
My lips feel sensitive when I touch them, and I’m not exactly embarrassed, but I’m fully conscious that we did a lot more than kiss last night. I pluck out my shirt to look at my port lump again, and though I hate it as much as ever, the rest of me feels pretty good.