Page 9 of Inextricably Tied

Flint starts to protest.

And then, her fingers touch down.

Her mind is sucked away. Submerged, pulled deeper, like the heavy tug of a drain. She’s not underwater. She’s elsewhere, surrounded by swirling black shadows, fog creeping across the edges of her vision. Everything is hazy, oil smeared over a camera lens, a murky quality that seeps over her like dread.

It’s unlike anything she’s touched. No web of interconnected strings zig-zagging through events. There’s nothing she can follow, no way to categorize what she sees. It’s not like she’s touched an object at all.

More like something alive.

But it’s nothing like touching Flint. Every part of this is subtle, lapping against her like a tide rising on the beach. Slow, gradual, until it could envelop her. Until it could drown her. Until it could swallow her whole.

There’s movement beside her.

She tries to follow it, but it’s like slogging through mud, buried in a dream, an abstract of the world she knows. She tries to make out the shapes in the distance, white noise swelling in the space around her.

Something breathes down her neck.

Harbinger jerks back, cleaving the connection and stumbling as she gasps to the surface. Back in the real world, room tilting, her head lolling back before she comes to. Flint’s broad arms keep her off the floor, his voice rushing into her ears.

“What happened?”

Her heart races against her ribs. She searches for Tamneth’s face. “What is that?”

He shouldn’t know the answer. No one has been able to determine what it does. But his eyes stay trained on her, monitoring her reaction…

Like an experiment.

He makes no move to answer. “What did you see?”

Flint tucks her closer to his chest. “Give her a fucking minute!”

Nausea roils in her stomach, head swimming at the sudden influx of sensation. Black spots bloom in her vision. She clicks her helmet open, gulping for air as her legs wobble beneath her.

Flint’s hand is steady across her back. The need to vomit slowly passes. After a moment, Flint guides her to her feet, and Harbinger steels herself against Tamneth.

“What is that?”

He doesn’t bother to look surprised any more, face settling into a cold expression as he motions to a pair of armed guards down the hallway. “It’s a night terror.”

“A what?” Surely she misunderstood. Her jaw tightens, mind whipping in a new direction. “So you knew the whole time. That’s why you called us. It wasn’t some ‘object’ you found.”

“It’s new technology we’re testing. We extracted it from Reid’s mind.” Tamneth jerks his chin toward the box on the table. “That’s a piece of it.”

Harbinger can’t fathom it. Why would the OID develop tech like that? Her mind whirls from the sensation, hands holding her helmet straight as her body tries to regulate.

“What did you see?” Tamneth insists, stepping closer. Her head jerks up the same time Flint does.

“Oh, fuck off.”

She takes her glove from Flint’s hand, trying to jam it back over her fingers.

“So you did see something.” Tamneth’s eyes are dark. Flint rises to his full height behind Harbinger.

“You paid me to read it,” she seethes. Flint made sure to negotiate that loophole. “Not tell you anything about it. And I’m sure as shit not going to now. This is why I don’t trust organizations. ‘Something Reid had stashed away.’ Fuck off!”

Tamneth tilts his head. “Technically, Reid did have it stashed away…in his mind.”

The look Flint gives should be enough to send Tamneth running. Unfortunately for all of them, he doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone.