Do you think there’s anything on TV?” Tess asked, as she reached for the remote control on the table in the living room of the suite. “I was hoping maybe there’d be an old movie on. I don’t want to watch the news. Maybe there’s a mini-series on, preferably not a crime one, one with a real story,” she said sort of wistfully. “One that Mom might like.” Tess hit the remote control “on” button, but nothing happened.

“Do you think there’s another remote?” she asked “Max,” quite certain he would know the answer, but he stared at her blankly. Then she remembered, “the person who used to be Max” might not be as attuned to electronics as her brother was. She tried screaming at him, “Max!! Max!!” but he just kept staring at her silently.

“This dress is very uncomfortable,” she said, quietly, her voice breaking, almost to herself. “I think I’ll go and change before I tackle the television. . . .” It was sort of an excuse because she was close to tears and the last thing she wanted was for “the person who used to be Max” to see her cry. She didn’t know why but she was certain that wasn’t a good idea. Inside her head, she was screaming, “Max?!! Max?!! Are you in there?!”

Black jeans. That was what she wanted to wear. She hung her dress up carefully but didn’t realize as she slipped it off over her head that the cat’s eye marble dropped out and rolled across the floor.

She pulled her black jeans out of the bottom drawer and put them on. White t-shirt. She wanted to wear a black t-shirt but that was too dark. Black belt. Plain, no buckle to speak of. Black socks and her sort of tennis shoes, also black, that were a little more like ballet shoes, very light with almost no sole, thin laces, so you could walk carefully, almost on a tightrope if one was around, or if you wanted to, trudge through a field. She didn’t know that both of them would be needed. But she had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

She had to get Max out of there. Or did she have to get Colin out of there—it was very confusing—without doing any harm to Max. Why? Why had it happened? The boy must want something. That was all she could figure out. Colin must want something. She didn’t want to believe that he was just evil.

Time was doing that funny thing again. Where a minute felt longer than it was and then a half hour could go by almost in an instant. Time, in Tess’s experience, was variable.

She’d never felt so alone before.

~ CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO ~

strange breaths