Return to the Darkness - Ripley Proserpina Page 0,22

sun was hot and revealed fine lines all over his face. An urgency I didn’t understand possessed me. This place wasn’t good for him. It was taking something away from him.

We were pulled from the desert, lifted into the air, and flung across the sky. I wasn’t sure if I was controlling this. I was the fish on the end of a hook that was being reeled in. Clinging to Mr. Chee, I shut my eyes. The wind burned my skin and stung my eyes.

As fast as we flew forward, we stopped. And dropped.

Mr. Chee yelled, trying to pull his hand from mine, but I held on tighter. We had to stay together. If I was the only thing that would bring him back, then he had to stay connected to me.

My hair flew around my head as we plummeted. I mashed my lips together to keep from screaming. All I could picture was the earth coming up to meet me and my body smashing into it.

In the end, there was no smashing, no hitting. Nothing. I was simply back where I had left. In the room where I’d left the guys. This time, Mr. Chee was next to me. He looked over, nodding at me for a long second before he drifted away. Dust in the wind. I reached for him, but he disappeared.

As though he’d never been there at all.

I cried out. What had happened? Mr. Chee…

I looked around. Aaron. Oliver. Colton. Thorn. Where were they? I was alone. I got to my feet. They would never have left here, left me here. And now their father was dead.

“Who’s there?” A female voice shouted as two half-dressed people rushed into the room. They stared at me before the man, who stood on the left, advanced fast. “Who the fuck are you? Get out of here or I’m calling the cops.”

The woman grabbed a poker from the fireplace and advanced on me like she was going to hit me with the fucking thing.

I gasped. “Stop. I don’t mean any harm. I… I don’t know what’s going on. I’ll go. Now.” I turned and ran out the door, skidding to a stop only when I’d gotten a distance from the house. No, this was wrong. Looking left and right, I stared around. The house we’d rented—that now had two strangers in it—was in a development that had large, though run-down houses everywhere. While that one remained the same, the street was busy now. Bigger apartment buildings marred the landscape and several commercial buildings were visible in the distance.

What in the hell?

My hands shook. What had happened? How long had I been gone? This was like some fucked up Back to the Future thing. Smoke billowed in the distance, lights lit my surroundings up like it was daytime, even though the sky was black.

This was a smallish town. It was never so bright at night that we couldn’t see the stars.

I needed help. While I’d been with Mr. Chee, something had shifted. I had to find the guys. Only they’d be able to tell me what occurred and how we were going to fix it.

I patted my jeans, hugely relieved to see my phone was right where it had been. Pulling it out, I dialed the first number I saw in my contacts.

Aaron picked up on the first ring. “This is Aaron Chee. How can I help?”

That seemed like a pretty odd way for him to pick up the phone. “Aaron? It’s Lacey. I don’t know what’s going on.”

There was a long pause before he spoke again. “I’m sorry. Who did you say this was?”

“Lacey.” A thought dawned on me as I answered him. What the fuck else had changed?

He hung up.

I stared at it, watching the screen fade to black. What the hell just happened? Okay. Time to take stock. I’d traveled through time to get Mr. Chee. As I traveled, I’d happened upon the past. When I arrived here, Mr. Chee disappeared. I returned to a house where I was clearly not the occupant, and not just because I’d arrived a few hours after I’d left the first time.

Aaron had just hung up on me.

I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Chapter 7

Rather than risk getting arrested for hanging out in front of someone’s house, I started walking toward the bright lights.

I was home. That much I knew, but everything was different. My first instinct that I’d Back to the Future’d was actually right on.

Shit.

And not even a good Back to the