Dangerous Designs (12 page)

"Until early tomorrow, I'd say."

"Does Paxton monitor all the screens all the time?"

"Yes. He or someone on his staff."

"Then why don't we go back to your world? They can see that you did your job and..." she held up her hand to forestall his words from flying out, "and then you can help me escape again."

He rose and stormed around the small room. "Because I can't guarantee your safety."

She nodded. "That's why we're going to have to be crafty."

"I don't understand."

"Come on, I'll show you." She snatched up her sketchbook and sat down beside him.

"Storey, are you in there?" Her mother knocked on her door. Panic-stricken, Storey turned to face the door as Eric tried to squeeze his length into her closet, scrunching beneath her hanging clothes. Grabbing her mp3 player, Storey walked to the door and opened it, a quizzical smile on her face. "Of course I am. What's up?" Music blasted from the cheap earbud in her hand, the other one sat in her ear.

"I thought I heard you talking to someone."

Storey snorted. "Yeah, right. As if. I don't have anyone to talk to, remember?"

"Well, Eric would talk to you. He seemed like such nice boy."

Uh oh. She so didn't want her mother talking about this, especially not when Eric could hear. She shook her head. "We're not going there, Mom."

"I just wanted to tell you I'm heading over to Sandra and Daren's place, if you don't mind, that is?" She appeared anxious, as if waiting for Storey's approval.

Storey sighed. "Mom, that's great. Go have fun. No, I don't want to join you, and yes, it's totally fine that you're going."

Her mom gave her a worried look. "Are you sure?"

Maybe it was the imminent threat of death or the thought of her mom waking up to find her gone – maybe forever – that prompted Storey. Regardless, she leaned forward and kissed her mom on the cheek. "I'm sure. Go have fun."

Relieved, her mom turned away. 'There's some snack food downstairs if you get hungry later."

"We just ate, Mom. I'm fine."

"You didn't eat much. I could..."

"No. You couldn't. Stop. I'm old enough to know when I need to eat. I'm not hungry. If that changes, I promise I'll go and find something."

"Okay then. I might be late, so I'll see you in the morning."

"G'night, Mom."

Storey closed the door and turned to lean against it with a heavy sigh. Her mother would be devastated if something happened to her only child.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Let's get started." Story crossed over to the bed and opened her sketchbook to a clean page. "Where are they likely to take me, once we get to your side?"

"The worst case would be the dungeons."

She gave him a horrified look. "What? That sounds bad."

"It is. Nasty place. Most prisoners sicken and die." He pondered the idea. "I don't think they would start with that punishment."

"Good," she muttered. "I'm looking to draw exits from your world to mine."

"That's risky," he warned. "I can't guarantee where they might take you."

"True. However, if you hand me over and I have some exits on me already, then I could get home if I don't happen to care for the accommodations. And I need to take spare paper for my stylus, just in case."

He shook his head. "You're going to have to be so careful. If they catch you, they'll take the stylus away from you and you won't be able to use it."

"This is why I want to draw the exits now. While I have the stylus." She twisted the pencil in her hand. "Do you think I could draw a weapon? An assistant? A new happy world for your people? Like what are the limits of this thing?" She stared down at the pencil, wondering just what was possible. "Have you used one yourself?"

"No. There are very few of them in existence, and they bond to the death, so a new bonding can only happen when the owner dies."

"And mine belonged to a scientist? Weird." She studied the pencil, trying to read the writing trying to not think about what might happen to her if the Torans took it back. "So no one really knows what they can do."

"No."

"If I draw a cupcake with it, will it create one?"

"I don't think so. Whatever you draw has to be contained in the paper."

Scrunching up her face, she struggled with what he was saying. "So I drew a door and the paper became the door. If I draw a window and hold it up, can I see what's on the other side?"

Confusion filled his gaze and then he blinked hard. "It's not like the picture is going to change and show you what's there. Maybe you can put your face through the paper or something. I don't know. Honestly, I think you're going to have to try it out."

"Except I don't want a window unless I could see something useful. Like into the dungeon so I could see the walls and then draw them as a way to create a door out again.

"Hmm. Not going to work."

A weird sound rumbled through her room. She bolted upright. "What the hell is that?"

Eric got his feet more slowly. "I'm not sure. It can't be good."

The noise sounded again, under her feet. She bolted upright. "I'm going to look."

With Eric on her heels, she raced downstairs to the living room. Her mother had gone, leaving the house empty. She dashed into the den, which sat right below her bedroom. The far wall had splintered and cracked. As they stood and watched, several strangely long, bony fingers crept through the crack, breaking pieces of plaster as they slid further out. Dirty and rough, with short, cracked fingernails, the fingers scrabbled for a hold on the wall.

"Oh shit. Oh shit."

Eric gulped audibly. Running his hand through his hair, he stared at those fingers in horror. A quick glance at his face confirmed Storey's suspicions.

"The Louers?" she whispered in dread. At his nod, her heart pounded inside her chest and her mind screamed at her. How could this have happened? Why were they
here
and not on Eric's side? She'd never considered this. She looked around for something, anything, to make this all go away. She glanced down at her hand, still holding the sketchbook and stylus.

Crouching down, she balanced the book on her knee and slapped down a sketch of the wall in front of her, without the crack. Then she added a door and placed a deadbolt on the side, separating the two worlds. She could have done it in half the time, but her fingers were trembling so badly, she kept messing up.

With one clean stroke of the stylus, she locked the deadbolt in place. And sat back to stare up at wall, her chest heaving from the effort. Her breath caught in her throat. Did it work?

No. Maybe? The hand was still there. It tried to wiggle as if struggling to move but incapable.

Eric gasped.

"Oh shit," She sketched faster, drawing in the crack to resemble, as close as possible, the damage to the wall in front of her. There was a hard snap, and the fingers disappeared. Then she drew a paint brush in the act of painting the entire wall in plaster. Her breath labored as she struggled to keep her panic under control.

Using a stick hand, she quickly sketched the brush moving across the wall covering up the hand and the crack. As soon as she finished, she looked over the top of the book. The hand was gone and the cracks in her wall were gone – at least where the paint brush had stroked. On a hunch, she turned to a clean page and drew another paint brush, wrote 'eraser' on it then ripped it crudely off the page. With Eric watching her in astonishment, she folded the paper such that only the brush shape showed. Walking to the damaged wall, she stroked, erasing the mess there. Unbelievably, one stroke at a time, everything disappeared. Panicked still, she couldn't stop until the last of it was gone and the wall looked as it had before. Even then, her hand continued to rub the eraser over the wall.

Eric grabbed her hand and pulled her gently into his arms. "It's done, stop!"

Shuddering, she gasped for breath. "Oh, my God."

"You can say that again."

"So much for not being able to create tools."

Holding her tight, he rested his chin on her head. "I can't believe you just did that."

"I didn't do anything. It was the stylus." She took a deep shuddering breath and let it out. "Do you think they're gone?" Pulling back, she peered up at him. "Like really gone?"

"I don't know. What about the outside of the house? Did that fix the problem or just hide this side?"

She shot him a horrified glance and bolted toward the front door. The screen door banged behind her as she ran outside and around to the back of the house. Eric raced around the corner as she was backing up to take a wider look. There were no cracks, no broken siding. Nothing to say anything odd had occurred at all.

Her breath gusted out. Hands on hips, she surveyed the back wall in amazement. "That thing was coming through the wall – as in
between
the inside and outside walls."

"No." Eric reached out a hand to touch the wooden siding. "That's the part that still confuses you. He was coming between the dimensions. Good thing it was the living room. He could have just as easily come through your bedroom." He glanced at her. "I gotta tell you, that was incredibly quick thinking on your part."

She flushed, grateful for the darkness, and wiped her hands on her jeans. "Thanks. I didn't think at all about it. I just reacted."

The evening air was cool. She shivered as she walked back around to the front of her house. "I wonder if it was the stylus telling me what to do?" His quick frown had her adding, "Or don't you think it can communicate?"

They walked up the three steps to the front porch and Eric opened the door for her. "You tell me. By now you know more than I do. Keep in mind the stylus probably doesn't know or care about the Louers. It seems to just want to get home."

Still the idea had come at the right time, and she couldn't help wonder at the intelligence level of the stylus. She studied it as she had so many times already. It looked like a thick art pencil. Remarkably unremarkable. And it was anything but.

Back inside, she returned to the once damaged wall, looking for proof of the event. Her fingers tentatively stroked the painted drywall. Sure enough, a tiny spider network of cracks dotted the wall and left the paint cracking. It didn't look bad, just old and unloved. She rubbed her temple. "Wonder how long before my mother notices."

"Hopefully forever."

Storey snorted. "Oh, she'll see it. All of a sudden she's going to realize how weary and old the room looks and will want to repaint."

Now that the crisis had passed, she had to admit she felt a little shaky. Or maybe shocky was a better word.

"I think we should leave."

"Yeah? Your world or mine?" She studied the worry etched in his wrinkled forehead.

"It's possible the Louers made it into my world." The frown rippled across his features. "If they did, my people are particularly vulnerable to them."

Storey glanced back at the wall. "In what way?"

"They're terrified of them, for one. We were raised knowing our people were once enslaved until they couldn't work anymore and ended up as food. Plus, my people aren't fighters. We don't have wars."

"Ever?" Amazing. Kinda cool, too. Who'd have thought an entire species of people could survive without trying to kill each other off?" She searched his face wondering if he was telling the truth. Or the truth as he understood it.

"Never," he said firmly.

"Only with the Louers?"

"Yes."

"Not even with my people?"

"No. We fell across your world in our attempt to banish the Louers."

"So then there could be many other dimensions out there?"

He paused, as if considering this for the first time. "I don't know that there aren't. We've never come across any, though."

"And you've never gone looking." Interesting. As long as something didn't cross their path they didn't go out of their way to learn more. Not a curious people. But rigid, in keeping to what they knew. Not liking change, or progress, or criticism, apparently. Good to know. Could she turn their traits against them in her bid for freedom?

CHAPTER TEN

"A
re you sure you want to do this?"

Straightening up, Storey winced at her backache. She'd collapsed to the floor an hour ago when they'd finally retreated to her bedroom from the family room. Her last drawing was finished. She stared at the stack for a long moment. There were a million events she couldn't plan for. A thousand more she might not be able to handle. There was no way to plan for every contingency.

For what had to be the twelfth time, Storey nodded at him as she slouched onto her bed. There was no point in trying to get Eric on board with the plan. He belonged to a society of talkers. She couldn't expect more than that from him. A teeny bit of her was disappointed. She could have used an action man right now. Sex appeal was great, but could she count on Eric when things went wrong?

She didn't know. She could only hope so. Someone needed to watch her back.

She wanted, no needed, to have paper and the stylus with her at all times. She wondered if there was a way to duplicate or split the stylus. To have two, a dummy one they might believe was real and confiscate so she could keep hers. In fact, she probably had something similar in her art kit. And that was something worth checking out. How would they know?

Scrunching up her face, she considered the problem of duplicating the stylus. There was only one way to find out. She picked up the pencil and drew a picture of it on the page in front of her. Her fingers raced to keep up as the pencil took on a life of its own.

Eric finally noticed her actions. He crouched down beside her. The bedroom had taken on a cozy feel with the two of them working so closely together for the past few hours. He was studying her sketchbook, a frown wrinkling his brow.

He glanced up at her, his frown deepening. "You don't need to look at your creation while you're drawing anymore?"

"What?" Storey glanced down at the page and gasped. "Oh good Lord."

Her hand moved across the page at a mad pace, but she wasn't the one controlling it. At least she didn't think she was drawing right now. Her hand and even her forearm felt separate, unhinged at the elbow from the rest of her. Sketching so fast, she couldn't track the lines as they formed. "Wow," she whispered.