Rose Tinted (5 page)

She opened her mouth to tell him that he was right; that they should leave right then and there. Run away together to solve the biggest mystery of their lives. But before she could voice this opinion, her tablet buzzed within her purse, causing her and Jonah to untangle themselves guiltily.

She quickly pulled the tablet out and answered the call from Ty, his face appearing on her screen and instantly making her feel like a horrible person for her thoughts of leaving him behind only seconds before.

“It must be cold on the beach, your face is all red Brynn,” Ty said with a laugh, the sounds of the city muffled behind him.

Brynn instantly brought a hand up to her cheek in embarrassment while Jonah
suppressed a grin beside her.

“It’s really cold,” she lied
, while trying to look innocent and not like she had just kissed the boy Ty couldn’t stand. “So what’s up?”

“Amber and Bennett insist on seeing a few sights before I drag them back to the hotel room
, so we’ll be a little later than expected,” he informed her with a roll of his eyes. “Have you two made any groundbreaking discoveries?”

“It’s been a very
enjoyable trip,” Jonah said, leaning in close to Brynn to smile at Ty on the screen.

“Can’t wait to hear all about it,” Ty said,
his complete lack of comprehension making Brynn feel even guiltier. “Well I’ve got to go pretend I care about the millions of clothes Amber and Bennett are making. I’ll see you guys soon.”

With that, the screen went blank and Brynn’s guilt increased.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say you won’t be coming with me now?” Jonah said with a raised eyebrow.

“I can’t just leave him
, Jonah,” she responded, already beginning to walk back to the city so that he couldn’t ‘convince’ her anymore.

She knew she wouldn’t be strong enough to resist that kind of persuasion
. He ran to catch up with her and sighed deeply.

“Can’t blame me for trying right?”

“Did you kiss me just to get me to go with you?” Brynn asked indignantly.

“That’s something I’ve w
anted to do for a while but I couldn’t very well kiss you with Ty always hanging around now could I?” he asked, amazing her with how up-front and honest he always was with her.

There was never any pretense with Jonah.

“Anyway,” Brynn began, trying to change the subject off of the embarrassing turn it had just taken. “We should probably head back to the hotel room.”

“I was thinking of hitting the library, seeing if we can find anything
interesting there.”

“I don’t know. I’m exhausted,” she answered, finding that the emotional rollercoaster she had just been on had completely worn her out.

“Why don’t you go take a nap while I look then? You can tell me what new and interesting things Eris has in store for you this time,” he joked, reminding Brynn of exactly why she slept as little as she could.

“Sounds like a ball,” she answered sarcastically. “I guess we’ll all regroup tonight and figure out a game plan for getting up that cliff to the tunnel.”

“
That works for me,” Jonah began. “Oh and Brynn?” He said, looking over at her with the smile that always seemed present on his handsome face. “Thanks for the rain check.”

Chapter 6: Maxwell

Brynn had only spent a short amount of physical time in A1. The
brief trip she’d taken there had been enough to scare her away for the rest of her life. The same, however, could not be said for the too-brave-for-her-own-good scientist whose memories Brynn dreamed in.

For a moment, as Brynn walked through the hallways of the white facility
, she forgot that she was most likely dreaming and actually felt as if she had somehow wound up back in A1. The mere fact that she was walking around and not strapped to a bed was enough to suggest such a bizarre twist in her fate.

As she walked though, she realized how little control she had over her own body.
While she felt internally compelled to walk down this hallway with a purpose, she had no idea why and she got the sneaking suspicion that even if she had wanted to turn and run, Rachel wouldn’t let her. Passing in front of a reflective door Brynn turned to take in her appearance, shocked by what she saw.

Staring back at her
, was an exact physical copy of herself that looked slightly off. It was as if someone had taken her body but didn’t use it the same way Brynn did. Instead of the determined yet apprehensive stance Brynn usually assumed, this copy of herself was brimming with confidence, her eyes alert and slightly suspicious of her surroundings. It was like hearing your voice recorded for the first time and realizing what you really sounded like.

Brynn continued to look at the reflective surface of the door, finding that she was oddly interested in what lay on the other side of it when a pair of arms encircled her waist and pulled her into a hug from behind.

“Hey you,” said a male voice that she was sure she had never heard before, though it did stir something in the recesses of her memory.

She could feel warm lips press against her neck but
she didn’t pull away like she would have if she had been in control of her body. Instead she could feel a smile passing across her face, a warm feeling bubbling up in her stomach much like it had when she and Jonah had kissed earlier that day.

“Hello Maxwell,” she heard herself saying, breaking away from the boy’s embrace and turning to face him.

He wore a white lab coat like Rachel
, though he was several inches taller than her. He had light brown hair, dark brown eyes, a wide smile that made Brynn’s cheeks go warm and thick black-rimmed glasses. Brynn looked down the hallway to make sure no one was coming, causing Maxwell to do the same before smirking at her.

“Right. Professional,” he said, setting his face in a mock serious expression. “I almost forgot we’re on the clock.”

Brynn smiled at the strange boy’s antics in spite of herself, not sure if it was her or Rachel who was actually amused by him.

“Have you heard from your parents lately?” he asked Brynn, making her wonder when the last time she had spoken to Orson and Lia was. They were probably worried about her.

“They sent a
message last week,” she told the boy, bound by Rachel’s memory to repeat whatever she had said on this day. “They’re thinking of moving to Washington.”

Though it was difficult to have her own thoughts when trapped inside of Rachel’s memory
, Brynn did have a fleeting moment of curiosity, wondering which continent Washington was on. If Rachel knew about the imminent destruction of the continents how could she let her parents live there?

“You know I went to school in Washington?” Maxwell asked her, a playful glint in his eye.

“Must be why I’m so much smarter than you,” Rachel replied, equally as playful as him. “You went to a West Coast school.”

“Says the girl who got her PhD at a party school,” he shot back.

The conversation happening right before Brynn’s eyes was utterly baffling to her. The terms Maxwell and Rachel used were foreign to her and she tried desperately to keep up.

The boy who stood before her gave a short laugh at his own joke before becoming inexplicably serious once more.

“Have you looked anymore into what we talked about yesterday?”

“I don’t need to,” Rachel said. “I know Eris hijacked the main computer. She’s about to overthrow the whole program, I just have to figure out the best way to stop her before--.”

“There you are,” said a smooth voice that sent a wave of panic through Brynn. “I was beginning to think I’d lost you, Maxwell.”

Like the awful reoccurring nightmare that she was, Eris appeared a ways down the hallway, swiftly approaching the two.

“I guess they can always hear us,” Maxwell muttered to Brynn before turning to greet Eris. “Hello doctor,” he said in a voice so comfortable, Brynn couldn’t believe that he really understood how deeply disturbed the woman he addressed was.

“Maxwell
, I’ll ask you to please meet me in my office in a moment or two. I’ve got some research to discuss with you,” she said calmly, her eyes still locked on Brynn.

“Of course,” he answered, giving
Brynn one last nod before walking away.

Eris turned to watch him go with a smile creeping up the side of her face
, accentuating her sharp cheek bones.

“He’s a very nice boy
, Rachel,” she said slowly, giving Brynn a sick feeling in her stomach.

She could only im
agine what Eris did to Maxwell and had to wonder if Rachel knew what his fate was before reaching her own.

“I usually only see him in a work environment but yes, I suppose he is,” she answered, speaking to Eris for the first time in any dream Brynn had ever had.

The walls around Eris shifted for a moment, as they had been lately in her dreams before coming back into focus.

“And how is your work coming along?
I hear your efforts to streamline the human creation process have proved very effective.”

It was odd, listening to someone as terrifying and powerful as Eris making small talk, though some small part of Brynn couldn’t help but find the whole situation slightly amusing.

“I have a lot of work to do, so did you need me for something specific, or were you just hoping for an opportunity to chat?” Rachel asked, instantly showing Brynn how someone who was physically no stronger than her could be tortured for weeks by this terrifying woman without talking.

She was strong; much stronger than Brynn had ever been.

Eris’s smile faltered for a moment at this response and she could see the Angel exercising all of her will power to not kill Rachel right then and there.

“I’ll leave you to your research then,” she said simply, her purple eyes narrowing. “Oh and don’t forget about the meeting later. My department has even offered to bring refreshments.”

“Great,” Rachel said dryly, obviously desperate to get away from Eris.

“
I hope you like sugar cookies.”

“Brynn?” Ty said quietly, bringing her back to reality in the dark, quiet hotel room.

She could feel the moisture on her cheeks from involuntary tears and wiped them away quickly, hoping Ty hadn’t seen. She closed her eyes again wishing that, for once, she could forget the problems in her real life by falling asleep like everyone else.

“I really can’t escape,” she whispered into the darkness.

Ty lay down next to her and comfortingly rubbed her back while she buried her face into the pillow.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t ever get away, Ty,” she said again, her eyes closed so tightly that it hurt. “I have to worry about Eris and everything going on every second that I’m awake, but when I sleep, it’s almost worse because I’m living it all out again.”

She turned her head to look into his concerned eyes, almost glad for once that he worried so much about her. It felt nice to have someone more concerned about her than about what they were trying to accomplish.
Ty used his free hand to prop up his head as he watched her, obviously unsure of what to say.

“I don’t know how to make things better for you
, Brynn,” he answered finally. “I honestly don’t. I wish that I could but the only solution I can see is going through with this crazy plan to bring Eris down, and it kills me.”

“Ty you care about me,” she answered. “That’s all I need from you. You worry about me and you keep me safe. Do you know how comforting it is to know that you’ll always be one step behind me
, making sure I don’t fall?”

“It’s still not as much as I want to do for you. I just wish I could make it all go away,” he said with a sigh.

Brynn scooted over to him and laid her head on his chest, wrapping one arm around him and breathing in his comforting scent.

“I wish you could too,” she told him.

Brynn thought back to her nightmare and the feelings she had that were
indiscernible from Rachel’s. The more she had these dreams, the more she came to realize that Rachel’s feelings really were the same as hers, not just because they had to be by the confines of the dream, but because they were the same person. Though she didn’t know who Maxwell was, she mourned for him the same way she had mourned for Jonah when he had been missing. Losing her friends was not something Brynn was prepared to do and she hoped desperately that her path wouldn’t follow Rachel’s quite that accurately.

Ty made little circles on the back of Brynn’s neck with his thumb, relaxing her as much as he could after such a terrible nightmare. She snuggled closer to him in the darkness and wished for a moment that everything wasn’t so complicated; that her mind didn’t constantly compare Ty and Jonah to each other.
Though she knew such a petty problem wasn’t even worth examining when the world as they knew it could end if they didn’t act quickly, she couldn’t push the questions from her mind.

On the beach only hours before
, she knew she wanted Jonah. She would have run away with him had they not been interrupted. But laying there with Ty in the darkness and listening to him say all the right things to calm her down from his years of experience doing just that, she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever want to be with anyone else.

“Do you want to talk about your dream?” Ty asked her, interrupting the internal dispute she knew she wouldn’t be able to solve any time soon.

“Rachel wasn’t alone, Ty,” she said simply.

“
In A1?”

“I mean we know she worked with a team but
there was this boy in my dream; Maxwell” she began, not sure why this particular dream had bothered her so much when it was the least brutal she’d had. “Rachel loved him, I know she did.”

“What happened to him?” Ty asked, still tracing circles on Brynn’s neck
and speaking carefully.

“What happened to everyone? Eris killed him
, and Rachel couldn’t do anything to save him.” Brynn’s voice broke as she said this, causing Ty to pull her closer until she was entirely engulfed in him, her muffled crying almost inaudible in his shirt. “Ty I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said brokenly.

“Nothing’s going to happen to me
, Brynn,” he reassured her, now stroking her hair and making shushing noises to calm her down. “I’m always going to be right next to you.”

“What if she gets you?” she asked, turning her tear streaked face up to
look at him, her blue eyes fearful.

It always amazed her how
the mere thought of Eris could reduce her to nothing more than a crying child in only seconds.

“She won’t get me, I promise,” he said.

Ty kissed her forehead gently and brought her head back to his chest, keeping his strong arms wrapped securely around her.

“I bet Rachel was glad to die after seeing all of her friends
get killed because of her actions.”

“Brynn
, you’re not Rachel. Not in this situation. Your friends chose to follow you and you aren’t working alone. She may have had Maxwell, but you have a whole team of people who understand the situation,” he told her, silencing the dark path her thoughts were taking.

They stayed like that for a long time, Brynn’s tears
gradually lessening and her breathing returning to a slow pace. She took one deep shuddering breath before wiping the itchy salt water from her cheeks and tilting her head up to face Ty once more.

“Where is everyone else?” she asked, her voice hoarse from crying and disuse.

“I got tired of following Amber and Bennett to every store in Eastern Metropolis, so I just told them how to get to the hotel and came back here,” he said. “Not sure where Jonah is though.”

“He must still be at the library.”

“Sounds about right,” Ty answered with a laugh before sitting up, causing Brynn to follow suit. “Feeling better?”

“Much,” she responded, giving a weary smile. “
I hate to whine but it just takes its toll sometimes. It helps having you here.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, lingering there for a moment longer than she had intended then clearing her throat as she pulled away.

She had to keep reminding herself that s
aving the world was definitely first on the list of things to do; sorting out her boy issues could come later, no matter how much she wanted to kiss Ty and no matter how horrible of a person that made her. Ty’s cheeks were slightly pink when she pulled away and he cleared his throat as well, making her laugh.