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Her anxiety was off the charts and if not for the tiredness allowing her to rest, she would have gone crazy waiting to go home. She had nothing but time on the flight, though, and her mind wouldn’t stop rolling over the same things again and again. Why couldn’t she reach Ethan, and why had Belinda said those crazy things?
She had no way of letting Ethan know that she’d left. Hell, she’d never even told him where she lived. They’d gotten so swept up in their fast, passionate fling that all the normal getting-to-know-you stuff fell to the side. Though she drifted off frequently during the flight, she couldn’t sleep. She kept dreaming that a shadow was behind her, watching her and waiting to strike. And when she finally disembarked the plane, the sensation of being followed was strong.
Frantically checking her phone after landing and clearing the terminal, she held back tears of disappointment. Ethan still hadn’t reached out and every message she tried to send him before she’d gotten on the plane hadn’t gone through.
Discouraged and heartsick, she gathered her things and took a cab home, barely made it through her security entrance as her stomach lurched. Racing to her apartment, she stopped hastily to find a box at the door.
The frond of a fake plant sticking from the open top looked terribly familiar. Digging out her key, she moved closer… and dropped her suitcase. The box had a courier sticker on one side. The return address was Earth magazine’s main offices.
“Oh, no. No, no!” Pressing a hand to her forehead, she peered into the box. Everything from her desk at work was inside. Right down to the hot pink paper clips she kept in a drawer to break the monotony. Forgetting the imminent need to be sick, she rummaged in the box for a note or letter or something. Jim hadn’t fired her! He would have called. He would have…
He would email so he could hit send, close his laptop, and not have to deal with any theatrics. Fishing out her phone, she woke it up and thumbed the notifications screen. There was nothing there! Panting in desperation now, she went straight to the email app, but it wouldn’t open. The phone went completely black. Staring at it, she pressed all the buttons, but it wouldn’t turn on.
“What the fuck?”
Tears streamed down her face as she shoved her key into the lock and opened her door, dragged her things inside and slammed it shut.
Sinking onto the edge of her old couch, Kimber pressed the power button on her phone. It flickered, then powered up. Wiping angrily at her eyes, she was finally able to open her work email app.
Kimber. Pel informed me your sole focus was getting him to talk about his interest in the extraterrestrial presence in Dingle. He expressed deep disappointment that you could not be redirected and persisted in questioning him over things that had nothing to do with his clean air initiative. He also said you got drunk and threw up on him at a fancy restaurant, after he repeatedly turned down your advances. Let me express deep disappointment that I trusted you to satisfactorily complete this assignment. This isn’t the behavior we welcome at Earth magazine, and clearly, you’re not the employee I want representing it. You’re fired. Your final paperwork and check will be sent to you. Besides getting that bicycle, you might want to get some therapy and straighten yourself out.
This couldn’t be happening. Pel had totally sold her out. Why was she surprised? He’d done everything possible to sabotage her assignment from the moment they’d met, and Jim had done nothing to support her. He was a terrible boss and Pel was a terrible human.
Huffing a few breaths, she leaned against the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling fan had collected an impressive amount of dust. A clump hung down and slowly swirled round and around with the fan blade. Ireland should have been the trip and work assignment of a lifetime, but her life felt the same as before.
And now she needed to find another job. Closing her eyes was easier than holding them open. She sat like that for a long time, wallowing, deflated. Empty. Until a series of chimes came rapid fire from her cell phone. The glitchy bastard had finally got its shit together. Absently picking it up, she looked at the screen with eleven messages from Dana and a bunch of internet alerts for the Dingle lights. Ignoring everything, she resumed her position, closed her eyes, and fell into a depressed sleep with all the lights on.
It was almost nine in the morning before she woke up with a start. Something was making a noise inside her apartment. Realizing she was on the couch and still had her coat on from last night, Kimber listened intently while slowly pushing into a sitting position. Her brain was foggy with sleep, and she wasn’t even sure what had startled her.
There. A shuffle, like footsteps in the bedroom hallway. A tingle of familiarity went through her. It was like the sounds she’d heard in the dark hall that night in Pel’s castle. And the dream she’d had on the plane… the same sound, the same feeling, had overcome her then, too.
Ugh, she was so nauseous. But starving. No, ravenous! Forgetting about the sound, she burst from the couch as her stomach began an angry somersault and hurried to the galley-style kitchen. The refrigerator was empty save for a jar of strawberry jelly and a half empty bottle of ketchup. Grabbing both, she slammed the door and flung the cupboards open one by one. She grabbed a box of spaghetti noodles, some dry black beans, and a can of chicken soup. Vaguely aware of what she was doing, Kimber could only focus on the incredible need to eat something,anything. Popping the top off the jelly, she used her fingers to scoop some into her mouth, then chased it with a long squirt of ketchup.
More!
Cracking the long, hard spaghetti noodles into small pieces, she crunched them up, then ate more jelly, then another mouthful of noodles chased with an even bigger glob of jelly. It stuck to her cheeks and cemented her fingers together. Suddenly looking at her hand, she blinked in confusion. What the hell was she doing?
“Oh my God.” She dropped the box of noodles and backed up.
Something was wrong with her. Very, very wrong.
Someone pounded loudly on her door. Rushing to look through the peephole, Kimber hugged the jar of jelly in the crook of one arm and yanked the door open with her sticky hand.
Dana came at her with open arms. “Oh, Kimber, I texted you so many times, but you didn’t text me back and then… Oh, my God, what’s wrong?”
Dropping her arms, she gave Kimber a shocked once over as she slid inside.
Kimber shut the door and dissolved into tears. “I heard a noise and then I was starving, so I ate jelly and ketchup and I got fired! Dana, something is wrong with me!”
Suddenly too hot, she dropped the food onto the table in the entry and shed her coat. “I’ve been sick for the past four days and I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
Dana’s mouth dropped open. The grocery bag in her hand fell to the floor. “Ah, Kimber–”
Following Dana’s hasty gesture, Kimber looked down at herself and jumped back in shock. “What the hell?”
Her once smooth abdomen was perfectly round, like she’d stuffed a small sports ball beneath her shirt. Pressing her hands against the protrusion, she stumbled backwards into the door and sunk to the ground.
Chapter Nineteen
