“No.” I hardened my voice. “I’ll get the answers I need. I don’t want you caught up in my mistakes.”

She muttered something rebellious.

“I’m serious,” I said.

“You looked happy.”

I froze. “What?”

“Just now.” Cass waved at the render that still floated in VR. “You smiled at her picture.”

“I didn’t smile.” If anything, I must’ve glared.

“You smiled,” Cass insisted. “And I’ve never ever seen you smile at someone you don’t like. Not once.”

“If you say so.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to settle the unease that kept building inside me. If Quanta meant nothing to me, then why did she keep throwing me off balance?

I needed to figure out the truth. Eva didn’t have the answers and I wouldn’t trust her anyway. The burden was on me now. I had to dig up the truth.

“I do say so.” Cass gave me a gentle shove. “Now get out of my reality. Some of us have shit to do.”

“You promise you’re not going to get involved?”

Cass rolled her eyes. “I don’t promise anything.”

“I’ll order you a pizza.”

“I promise not to get involved.”

“Good.” I tapped into my interface to log out. The white light cut and then I was back to the workroom. As I slid off the helmet, a heavy breath gusted from my lungs.

I’d promised to honor Allison’s memory. To make up for her death. I’d never accomplish that playing puppet to some captive Red.

But I doubted it was that easy.

I needed to remember Quanta and then I could decide what to do about her.

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

QUANTA

Reality cracking sounded like glass being fed through a wood chipper.

Which was weird. I’d never heard a wood chipper in real life.

And I hadn’t seen a non-vision sky in ten years now.

And you’re never going to.

Shut up. When did my mental voice get so mean?

You shut up.

Uh. Who do you think this is?

Right.

I was arguing with myself again.

Crickity. Crackity. Another pane spat through the chipper.

At least my ghosts were here to keep me company.

They’d come back with a vengeance and they crowded so thick I couldn’t see the present. If there was still a present?

A stone room that reeks of moss; a beach of lapping waves; a barn where a fiddle shrieks and feet stamp, and ghostly couples whirl around me, whooping and laughing; gunshots and ash; whipping winds of snow and ice; smacking lips and the nauseating scent of bubblegum; a woman cubing a mango in a stainless steel kitchen; Darren laughing like the sound of my doom.

Faces. Music. Choking smells.

Loud. Loud. Loud.

“She’s non-responsive again,” said a voice from a place. Was it now, or another time?