Page 182 of Wallflower

But that’s impossible.

I feel her there, occupying the once empty parts of my soul.

My eyes catch the dinosaur calendar hanging on the wall. It sways in the breeze blowing through the window, the Ceratosaurus showcasing a month already passed.

Another anomaly I don’t know how to explain.

Looking closer, today’s date is circled in pink highlighter, Kyle’s familiar writing taking up the whole box.INFILTRATION DAY!is written in capital letters, thick black marker standing out against the white background.

Today’s my first meeting with Maximus, and potentially the initial encounter with Rose that sent my future self spiralling out of control.

Was that merely a horrifying dream? Or an omen?

Have I been given a chance to avoid her? A choice to sidestep the mess my life would become by having her in it?

Do I have free will? Or will the universe transect our paths no matter what I choose?

Is she even real?

The clock on the stove tells me it’s early evening. Why the hell was I in bed so early? And why don’t I remember sliding between the sheets at all?

Determination solidifies itself within my bones, chasing away the uneasy feeling. With the handful of hours I’ve been gifted until my meeting, I have to find out if Rose is a figment of my imagination or not.

My phone sits abandoned on the counter to my right, antique tea pot nowhere in site. Though, theFlourcanister sits back against the wall, the biggest out of the set of four. One look at it replays the final fragments of a nightmare that was far too lucid to brush aside as nothing.

Snatching up my cell, I swipe to Kyle’s name and press the call button. This plan forming in my mind is unhinged, borderline psychotic, and definitely something that will be added to my crime boss repertoire.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” The groggy tone of his voice garners no sympathy from me.

“Get that sorry excuse for a helicopter ready, I have somewhere to be.”

I’m about to hang-up, not giving an inch of wiggle room on my order. There’s so many warring emotions waging hell inside me. I need an outlet for them. Something more than bouncing on the balls of my feet, because that's not doing fuck all to abate the fear-laced anticipation snaking through my system.

“How long?” Kyle shoots back, voice snapping to attention in an instant.

“Immediately, I’m leaving now.”

“Fuck. Okay.”

Kyle ends the call, as I try to rationalize what the fuck I’m doing. Rose may not even exist. But if she does, I’m not about to waste the moments I have remaining that could save her an insurmountable amount of trauma.

If she’s not on that cruise ship, no harm, no foul. It will be another incident added to the list of things I can’t recover from.

If by the grace of some god, she is there, and suffering the same evisceration as me, maybe we can give it a shot, knowing all we know now.

If her face doesn’t recognize mine, kidnapping is always an option.

The distinctivewhump-whumpof the helicopter blades are no doubt going to be heard by those on the ship, but I’m too far gone to care. Nervous energy zaps beneath my skin, the anxiety-sweats making my clothes near suffocating as they stick to me.

This is the most insane thing I’ve ever done, and I stepped into a firefight to pull off my takeover of Bleakcrest.

We were airborne in no more than 30 minutes, thanks to Kyle sleeping at the warehouse, and me ‘borrowing’ the Ninja he stores in my garage. It’s times like these I’m thankful my bestie knows how to drive almost everything with an engine, license or not.

The lights of The Tenebris shine through the encroaching mist settling over the water as night creeps in. There’s no city pollution out here, the ocean’s vast, barren, and unsettling.

“She’s moving at about twenty-one knots, Rip. I’ll come up on her rear, then keep pace as you descend.”

“Got it.”