Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
The more he thinks, the more foolish he feels.
So he decides not to think.
He stops and closes his eyes instead.
All around the room, in every direction, he feels anxiety. The coldness of fleeting hope. Dreams of fame, bubbling and desperate. Wanton longing for riches, luxury, and power. For sex. For relief from sadness. Prickling bitterness. Loneliness.
Kyle is determined to feel him. To find him.
Tristan could do something like this, couldn’t he?
During their twenty six years together, the two of them make little use of their gifts, staying hidden away, avoiding all people. But back in school, before everything, when they had to endure the presence of others, Tristan seemed unstoppable. He claimed that one time in class, he could hear a heartbeat from down the hallway. He heard Mr. Reed stealing jockstraps and socks from the locker room. He heard people having sex in a closet. From across the school, he heard everyone’s secrets. Is it so unreasonable to think Kyle can do something similar?
“Reach for me,” Kyle mutters to himself, determined. “I’m here, Elias. I came for you. Reach out to me, if you can. Put out something I can hear, something I know is you. I promise I will know. Please, anything, Elias, just … reach.”
He senses more desperation. More sadness. More coldness. All around him as he reaches out with his gift, he drowns in a sea of shattered dreams and crumbling hope and bitterness.
This is Hell, this vile place, this building. It has trapped all the saddest and most broken of souls.
Kyle grimaces as he bears it. Tears sting his eyes. It’s nearly too much, feeling everything in the room. He bears it anyway, fighting off the ache, the despair, the depression. “R-Reach,” he begs, voice choked. “Please reach, damn it,” he growls, a tear letting loose, trickling down his cheek. “Elias …”
Then, a lone note of calmness.
A sturdy, certain calmness, ringing out like a tiny bell.
As warm as a hearth. As a home-cooked meal. Tacos at two in the morning. A mischievous yet welcoming smile.
Kyle turns his body, eyes still closed, until that sensation is the strongest. He reaches with his gift toward that smile, that lone voice cutting through the gloom, that voice he knows.
Then, a connection.
Kyle’s eyes flap open, shocked. With as much certainty as grabbing hold of a long length of rope, the rung of a ladder, he has connected to that voice. It nearly feels physical, as if it is something he can hold with his hand.
“Elias,” breathes Kyle, certain of it. “I found you. I actually found you. I …” He clings to that warmth, that all-too-familiar warmth that can only be Elias. He’s known it intimately before. “You’re here,” he says in disbelief. “You’re really here.”
But where, exactly? How far away did Kyle’s gift reach?
Kyle starts moving before he means to, now with the help of his attachment. The moment it feels weak, he pivots, makes way in a corrected direction. Several times, machines and walls are in the way, and he has to circumvent them. His heart swells with hope, with real hope, as he hurries along.
He will find Elias at last.
He is certain of it, as the connection grows and grows.
Kyle turns a corner, then stops abruptly when he sees a pair of employees standing by a propped-open utility stairwell door, atmosphere-annihilating fluorescent light spilling out. The two seem to be arguing about something to do with vacation time, the female employee holding the door open, the male one with arms crossed, looking nervous. Fake bite marks on their necks, shadowy makeup around their eyes. “I can’t ask for more time,” says the female. “Why not?” “I’m due for a raise this month, I have to keep low.” “If you still wanna hit Long Beach with me, I gotta know by tomorrow.” “Well, I guess you can count me out.” “But you said last weekend you’d go with me.” “Not if Jeff’s coming, that man whore.” “Okay, but what about me?”
Kyle lingers near a slot machine, feigning interest in it, as the employees continue to bicker. His heart is pulling him right to that door, beyond the back wall of the casino, somewhere in the bowels of the building where the guests don’t belong.
“Damn it, I don’t even care about Long Beach, it was never about fucking Long Beach, I just …” The male employee looks on the verge of tears, the female, bewildered. “I just wanted to spend time with you. Just us. Away from work. I … I like you.”
The female stares back at him, blank-faced.
Kyle grits his teeth. What an annoyingly inconvenient time for a puppy-dog love confession.
“Kyle, what the fuck?”
Kyle spins. Standing there is a freshly-showered Brock, his hair messed up, half-dry, in a t-shirt, shorts, and fuzzy slippers.
As if things couldn’t get worse. “Please go back.”