37
Billy arrived back at the apartment around quarter to three, fully expecting an earful from his older brother. After he’d seen Nkiruka fleeing and the hunters kill Odin, he felt very afraid, but it was a detached type of fear that he felt, one that Calliope had quickly exorcized from him with her ever dutiful love. She’d absolutely insisted that he stay to play a game of checkers, which she—knowing the young boys impulses all too well—had promised to play without clothes. She had assured him that a game would take his mind off his troubles, and she wasn’t wrong. After he’d stayed even longer, about two more hours, listening to the beautiful now-blonde-haired woman croon into his ear. Even as Billy was riding the elevator upwards he wished he were back in Oz with her. He felt something akin to shame for these feelings, for his own slow response and apathy toward his brothers’ situation, but mostly, he had to admit to himself, he just wanted to go back to her.
Jay would be angry with him, he was sure of it, at least until he opened the front door and found that his brother was not at home.
He felt almost instantly that something was out of place as the front door clicked shut behind him. The living room was empty at first glance. Empty as a fishbowl, and he noticed after stepping in farther that somethings were not as they had been the night before. No greeting from the computer. The room seemed somehow dark and twinged with a slight greyscale that made him uneasy. At first, he thought that perhaps someone else was there, but there was no place to hide, no curtain, no closed rooms or hidden spaces at all. All his senses were on high alert and he decided with a spark of bravery to search the whole place from head to toe. He found nothing out of the ordinary—only the vague feeling of paranoia that wouldn’t go away and certainly wouldn’t justify itself.
Eventually, this portentous feeling overwhelmed him and he decided it was time to leave—he could, would have to, find some other way to meet his brother and Faraji. He exited the bedroom where he’d been sleeping, heading for the door, but stopped short in the middle of the living room. Without being able to explain how, he knew, he could feel that someone was watching him. He rushed forward to the front door, reaching for the handle.
Lock. A slight but recognizable sound.
Billy tried in panic to unlock it with the mechanism on the inside of the door, but even that proved impossible. The switch was rooted in place as if it had been glued.
Computer. Computer?”
There was no response, he was caught. He sat down on the couch in the living room, trying not to cry.