Roses Manor, Weston Chapter 15
Gabriella had a headache the next day. It could have been dehydration or overworking. Or maybe a bug that was going around. But her chest felt just a little tight, and she was on the edge of nauseous all morning. Not like she was going to throw up then and there. But more, if one thing changed, she might be at risk of throwing up.
Tossing back some antacids and continuously sipping water helped her as she powered through the workday. There were a few cases in and out of the building to deal with, including some UFO research that had her dusting off her binders, before she could sit down and work on the Sixteen Roses. Not that it did much good. By five that afternoon, she was still standing uselessly at the end of the next level. The high of figuring out the window trick had faded quickly as she realized that finding the next code was going to be much worse.
“It has to be in the emails,” she said to Madelyn, who was sitting on the bed, sifting through the email printouts with a heating pad pressed to the small of her back. “I got lucky with the window, but it was a thought of looking beyond the obvious, I think. Between that and the level that didn’t have a code, maybe this is all a test for something.”
The words had come out before she truly thought them through. Madelyn glanced up at her, eyes tired behind her thick glasses. “Test for what, though?”
“Beats me.”
She glared at her avatar, who was tapping his foot impatiently at the end of the level. Gabriella’s stomach churned and she groaned and rubbed her eyes. The sensor beside her flickered for a split second and she hoped Madelyn hadn’t seen it.
She did. “You should take a break,” Madelyn said.
“I’m fine. I’ll just do this a little longer. I just want to be done with it.”
Gabriella drank more water and went back to the beginning of the level, scouring each item and jumping at anything that looked even slightly different from everything else. About ten minutes later, Madelyn spoke again.
“Seriously, leave it for the night and go get some rest.”
“I’m fine,” Gabriella muttered. “It’s a stupid video game, I’ll just do a few more minutes to wrap it up.”
Her heart was pulsing in her ears, blood audible as it sloshed through her veins. Another minute. She needed to get this done so that they could put it away. Then she’d rest. She was fine.
Madelyn was on the side of the bed, grabbing Gabriella’s arm before she realized what was happening. “What the hell?” Gabriella snapped as Madelyn flipped her arm to reveal the heart monitor, which was silently flashing faster than she’d seen it yet.
“Stop,” Madelyn ordered. “You need to fucking stop, Gabriella.”
“I can tolerate a few more minutes, I’m healthy enough!”
“And you need to stay that way!” Madelyn shouted.
Gabriella jerked back, startled, but Madelyn wasn’t finished. “We’re falling apart and we can’t afford for you to…”
She let go of Gabriella’s arm, trembling. “I’m not going to get better,” Madelyn said, her voice back to its usual volume. “I’m going to die with metal in my back and I can go in the field, but never at full strength. You saw me yesterday when me and James got back. I couldn’t stay awake for the meeting.”
Gabriella wanted to say something, maybe something encouraging, but Madelyn didn’t seem to want that. “And Bradley got hurt. And yeah, he’ll be back in the field, but-” Madelyn’s voice was lower now. “But it’s not like knees are famous for bouncing back when you get older. The Foundation isn’t hiring new people, and we’re young. And you’re healthy. Don’t fucking risk that. We can’t all be on partial duty and I’d kill to be back in the field full-time, but that’s never going to happen. Don’t risk ending up like me so you can finish a case ten minutes earlier.”
Gabriella logged out of the game and closed the laptop, pushing it away as Madelyn sat on the edge of the bed, breathing shakily. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, I’m sorry,” Madelyn replied, her face red. “That was inappropriate.”
“Nothing new around here.”
Madelyn laughed softly, but still looked embarrassed. “It’s not up to you to keep this place running,” she said.
“I didn’t take it that way.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but Gabriella also knew both that it wasn’t her responsibility and that Madelyn felt bad enough as it was. So there was no reason to open her fucking mouth and make things worse.
“I’m struggling to do things I was able to do even a couple months ago,” Madelyn said. “I think it’s temporary, this class is taking so much energy and I’m so mad about it. I could have banged this out with no effort in college.”
“When is it over?” Gabriella asked.
“End of December. But I’m worried about everything,” Madelyn said. “I can’t sleep some nights, I’m so worried they’re going to shut us down.”
“And if we’re all on desk duty, that gives them a reason.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s not on you either,” Gabriella said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Madelyn nodded. “I worry about Amelia,” she said.
“And she worries about you.”
“And Graham. He told me about yesterday.”
“You know how it is too, when the humanity of this catches up,” Gabriella said. “It’s hard. And it takes a while to find that balance between caring and getting eaten alive by the horror of it all.”
She laughed slightly. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”
“Just take care of yourself,” Madelyn said. “I mean it. Not for us, but for your own safety.”
“I will.”
She looked down at the heart monitor, which was already slowing down. “My dad died of a heart attack,” Gabriella said. “I know I told you before, but I’ve been thinking about him a lot.”
“I’m sorry.”
She’d never been completely sure how to respond when people said that. “It was a long time ago,” she said. “It wasn’t genetic, but I should be more careful. And I can’t be mad at you because I forced James not to bring work home the other day.”
“Good.”
“Do you think they’ll shut us down?”
“Do you?”
Gabriella thought back to her visit to the Boston headquarters a few months earlier. “I have no idea,” she admitted. “They’re such a mess, they might just forget we’re here first.”
Madelyn nodded, still looking stressed and embarrassed. “Hey,” Gabriella said, putting a hand on her knee and smiling. “Want to go see a UFO?”
That got a smile, at least.
***
This was a date. Gabriella had to just admit to herself that this was a date with Elliot and she wasn’t exactly upset at the idea. He’d texted the night before to ask her out to dinner and she’d miraculously been off tonight. She’d insisted on meeting there, so they were at a diner they used to go to that was halfway between their houses in Fitchburg and Hillsborough.
She hadn’t been here since they’d broken up. Not that Gabriella was in this area much (aside from a haunting in an office park a couple months ago that had left poor Amelia shivering under everybody’s coats and the emergency blankets in the back of the van after numerous ghosts ran through her during the investigation), but walking into the warm, shabby diner allowed something to unknot in her stomach.
Elliot was already there, and he waved to her from a booth in the corner. “Hey,” he said with a broad smile as she approached.
“Hi.”
“You look nice.”
“So do you.”
It was awkward, forced conversation, but he did look nice. She took off her coat, unwound her scarf, and hung them both on the hook at the end of the booth. “When are you working?” Gabriella asked.
“I’m off tomorrow. You?”
“I’m in at five tomorrow morning. Thanks for meeting so early.”
It was five in the evening, so it wasn’t that early. It was dark outside, and the diner was busy. And Eliot was here, and it was just so nice to not be so resentful at his presence.
“What, um, what are you working on right now?” he asked as she glanced at the sticky plastic menu.
Gabriella laid out the details of the video game and its case as Elliot listened carefully. This was the first major difference from their previous dates. He’d always listened, but this time there were no interruptions, no corrections. He sipped his Coke and nodded occasionally, but let her lay out the facts of the case.
“So now I’m trapped on the level I’ve been on for days. And as ridiculous as that sounds to say as an adult at work, it’s so frustrating because I know the answer has to be in the emails. But there are so many of them and I have no idea what I’m looking for.”
Elliot was quiet for a moment, considering. Gabriella couldn’t help thinking about how he would have outright dismissed everything about this a year ago. But now he seemed like he was trying to solve it for her. Which wasn’t quite what she wanted here, but baby steps.
“My brother was wicked into those things,” Elliot said. “The games where there’s other elements outside the game itself. He made me go geocaching with him in the woods and we got so lost.”
“James brought up that possibility,” Gabriella said.
“What if you showed me the game?” Elliot asked. “If you want to bring your laptop over, or maybe I can go to your house. Just for the case,” he added quickly. “I swear, I’m not trying to…”
“No, no, of course not,” she said, shaking her head and trying not to think about if she wanted that or not. “But I can’t bring the laptop out of headquarters.”
“At all?”
“For safety reasons.”
“Do you really think they’d notice if it was just for a couple of hours?”
Gabriella just looked at him over the edge of her water glass. “Please don’t tell me you bring cursed things home from work,” she said with a shudder, remembering the feeling of claws raking over her arm as she laid in bed.
“No! I mean, I haven’t. But I think people on the team have, just to get things done faster. No one’s been hurt.”
“I got a monster under my bed. Don’t do it.”
He opened his mouth to ask, then closed it again. She glanced beyond him and saw a couple guys about her age, gawking in her direction. Her scar itched as she remembered its existence. “-so maybe you can send me some screenshots and I’ll have some ideas,” said Elliot.
She’d missed part of what he said. “What?”
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” Gabriella waved him off, avoiding eye contact with the guys, who were actually probably in college. “Fine.”
She moved a hand up to the scar to cover it, hoping it just looked like she was resting her head on her hand and not like she was embarrassed by her appearance. Elliot frowned at her, then glanced out toward the other table, where the guys quickly looked down at their menus.
“Are they being assholes?” Elliot asked in a low voice.
“No, it’s fine,” Gabriella said, though she couldn’t make herself move her hand.
“You know you’re beautiful.”
She wanted to tell him off, to tell him to stop patronizing her. That she was so tired of being patronized. But when he finally got her to catch his eye, he smiled, and she remembered those first few dates. But right now he looked nervous underneath all of it, like she might not believe him.
Which she didn’t, but it was kind of him to say.
“I’ll go tell them to fuck off.”
“Don’t!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said. “Please, I just want to ignore it, okay?”
She could tell Elliot wanted to go over there anyway, but he was doing his best to do what she wanted. “Alright,” he said. “But if you-”
“I won’t change my mind.”
He was being nice. He was making an effort, and she recognized and appreciated it. “So the game,” Elliot said.
“I can’t bring it out of headquarters,” Gabriella said. “But maybe since you’re Foundation too-” Wow, was that weird to say. “- maybe you could come over and take a look. I can ask James if that’s alright.”
“Yeah, I could do that. I’m free tomorrow if that works.”
Great, maybe this would help them break through with the case. “We could do dinner after, too,” she said. “As thanks for taking the trip out to Leominster. You’re welcome to stay at my place for the night too, so you’re not taking the trip home in the snow.”
“I’d like that.”
She smiled at him, finally allowing herself to move her hand. From the corner of her eye, she saw the college kids looking at her again, and she did her best to ignore it.
