Harry rolled out of the back of the truck, falling onto a
tarp covered in tools and a scattered arrangement of screws. When her vision
focused, it revealed Will looking down on her, holding a plate of toast and
eggs.
“Can I help you with something, ma’am?”
“What are you drunk?”
Harry managed to read out the time and matter of factly stated, “Well it’s
9:30, so no. Will, believe it or not, that’s too early, even for me.”
“It never stopped you before.”
9:30 didn’t sound like the time that she had remembered it
being. Clocks weren’t really a device
known for lying. Toasters were shifty
little devils though.
“Are you going to get up?”
“Only if you make me, Will. I am quite
content to remain lying on a tarp on the concrete without my braces on.”
One of the bolts below her was starting to dig in between
vertebrae but there was no way Harry was letting that feeling show. She rolled onto her stomach, slowly crawling
off the tarp and catching her breath against the pavement.
“Harry, I brought you breakfast. What the hell were you doing down here?”
“Just looking at the portal device we took out of the jewelry store.”
Will set the plate and glass off to the side, helping Harry
off the floor and into a standing position, mainly leaning against the side of
the van.
“The jewelry store that had an accidental explosion or some
other one you decided to help?”
“The very same.”
“Didn’t this thing kill like three people?”
“Probably four.” Coughing in between the
statements, she continued, "Based on the amount of blood and bones I saw
down in the basement."
Her mind quickly flashed back to the scene from the far
corner of the basement. The one that she had made a clear point of
keeping Leo away from, so he might have a chance in keeping his breakfast
down. It wasn't that she was saying he was squeamish but the sight of
bones, rubber toys, and jewelry floating around in a pool of blood...
The job wasn't for the faint of heart.
And even she didn’t want to think about the melted jello
texture that she had to walk through to disconnect everything. There must have been another person mixed up
in all of that to cause the consistency, a life form with a different solid
make up than most of the humans and humanoids that she encountered.
"Will?"
"Yeah?"
"What's today, again?"
"It's the 23rd, love."
It should have been harder to lose a day in between but
Harry had been working down in the shop all night. And she had been
avoiding the rest of the population of the building since lunch on the previous
day. It wasn't like she had lost an entire day. Just a little over
half.
No big deal.
“Do you want to come upstairs to eat or-” Will stopped to
pull one of the workshop chairs over and rolled over to where Harry had moved
to the bumper.
“Or what?”
“Maybe explain your theory to me. You know,
the one that you don’t want to share with Leo because you don’t want to scare
him.”
There were multiple theories rolling around in Harry’s head
about what might have occurred in Beit’s store, none of them appropriate to
share with the office audience. It was
most likely that Beit was dead. And if
by some chance of luck it turned out he hadn’t died when the portal
malfunctioned, it meant the poor bastard was tied to a chair somewhere. Hopefully, if he was so lucky so far, he was
just getting beaten with a stick and not having teeth cut by a dull saw.
“If Beit isn’t dead already, he’s bound to be dead soon.”
Harry took a bite of the toast while letting Will process
the small insight that she managed to offer.
It wasn’t much to assume the man was dead. And it was even lesser to assume that he
would die quickly. But as she saw an odd
look rising on Will’s face, another possible theory spilled out of her lips.
“Or if he wasn’t so innocent in the operations, Beit is
probably hiding out on a beach already.”
“How?”
“Thanks to someone else’s portal that wasn’t bound for disaster.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know but I had to.” Harry managed to
get the words out in between bites of the toast that were starting to clog up
her throat.
“Harry, please don’t choke on that cardboard that you seem to love so much.
In the few moments while the bits passed down, her mind was
filled with flirty responses and the unfortunate/fortunate fate of Mr.
Beit. While it would be nice to think
that perhaps he was just another slimy weasel in the rodent race that was
Zinnia. But Harry liked to look for the
good in people’s souls. If Leo believed
the man was being coerced into the operations of his basement, then Harry would
try and believe in this theory too.
It was the least she could do.
“Darling, the only thing I might choke on is you.”
The response didn’t sound as good in conversation as it had
intended to be, so Harry drew Will in close with the kiss she had meant to
suggest. There was a sudden pain of
realization of the fact her leg wouldn’t hold as Harry slid onto the edge of
the workshop chair. Some bits were
missing from her memory of the past few days, probably due to the explosion,
but Harry could certainly remember the incident of the chaise lounge.
“Harry, now’s not the time.”
“Why?”
“Because Leo is standing right behind us.
Thought your eighteenth sense would have picked up on that.”
“Sometimes it gets distracted by beauty.”
Harry left one more kiss on Will’s neck before standing from
the chair, moving back to the bumper and looking for her braces. Leo came from around the corner where he was
hiding and presented the metal frames.
“Looking for these, boss?”
“Yeah. Thanks. What do you need?”
“The uh police detective, Robe? He’s
here to see all of us and requests that you join him in the upstairs office.”
Requests my presence.
What a kind way of
stating things.
The metal slipped on easily, clinging against bare portions
and crushing a few spines that didn’t manage to clear out of the way.
“I bet he does. Guide
the way.”
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