“Beck?” Her face showed confusion. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
Before I could form an answer, the sky flared again overhead, brighter this time, streaks reflecting in her gray eyes. For a heartbeat, neither of us could look away.
She broke our stare and glanced back up. “They’re… beautiful.”
“Yes,” I whispered, never taking my eyes off her.
Another meteor burned across the dark sky, painting her face in firelight. The world suddenly felt too big and too quiet, as if everything had stopped to watch.
I found myself naturally drifting closer, feeling an irrational need to be near her.
She didn’t step back.
We stood there together, shoulder to shoulder, watching the sky fall in silence, the distance between us gone because no one should witness this alone.
Whatever came after—questions, explanations, consequences—could wait.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ADRIAN
By Saturday, the building had stopped pretending it was business as usual.
I hadn’t gone home.
That wasn’t unusual during sustained anomaly events—sleep was a luxury, and meals became whatever fit in one hand. Forty-eight hours blurred into a single, continuous day.
The meteor shower was no longer on my screen.
The weird anomalies occurring now were.
People who worked in departments other than mine here at Johnson Space Center (JSC) hadn’t shown up for work, which was very unusual.
I began monitoring Emergency intake graphs and 911 calls. The call volume skyrocketed after the celestial event. People were falling ill, with symptoms similar to the flu, including fever, cough, and severe vomiting. Some officers even reported that they’d encountered violent behavior in people whose eyes had clouded over that involved…biting.
All of this could have been a coincidence unrelated to the meteor shower, but I didn’t really believe that was the case.
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my eyes. I was exhausted. I needed a plan of action, but more urgently, I needed a cup of coffee.
Hopefully, the caffeine would revive me enough to think.
I grabbed a cup from the machine I kept in my office and took a sip as I returned to my desk.
I was in the process of running more data when my phone rang.
Lucas.
I was surprised he was calling so soon after our last conversation. He usually stayed pissy for a few days after I’d annoyed him.
I answered but didn’t get a chance to say hello.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lucas asked, with no preamble.
I glanced at the clock. Late morning.
“School is in session today?” I sighed.
I thought it might have been canceled.
