When All is Null and Void

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Having been summoned to his mom's office on the first floor, Titus wandered down the staircase and nearly slipped on the bottom step. He was shaking, and his knees barely held him up. Only forty minutes had passed since Alaric left, and in that time Titus had stripped himself of the clothes he'd been wearing and stood under the scalding spray of his shower. He'd needed to wash off what he'd just done. Titus didn't know why he'd kissed Alaric. He didn't know anything about the boy; it had just been the moment, the intensity of Alaric's gaze. It had all been too much, and it had just happened.

Certain he was feverish, especially after retching into the toilet from the guilt of it all, Titus knocked on the office door. She should be out still, but apparently while he'd been upstairs acting like a lunatic, Rhea James had returned home. She'd only just sent a notification to Titus' wrist Holo, and he was certain she knew. Certain she was going to yell at him, scream at him, something.

Didn't he deserve that?

Titus' insides twisted as he hesitated at the mahogany door. The sound of footsteps on the other side shrank Titus until he was nothing more than a small child again. The door opened inward, and he steeled himself, pushing down everything that could implicate any sort of guilt. He expected her wrath, but was faced with nothing more than her soft smile—the one she always wore when she wanted to tell Titus she loved him.

"What's wrong?" she asked, somehow seeing through Titus' façade.

"What?" Titus sniffed. "Nothing." He raised his wrist. "You told me to come down."

She didn't seem convinced, but she turned and walked back toward her desk, upon which a hologram of two human bodies side-by-side rotated. Titus followed, noticing that his mom's hair was slightly askew, as if she'd been running her hands through it. She was tired, strung out, much as she wouldn't want him to see it.

"What have you been working on?" Titus asked, setting himself in the chair before her desk.

Rhea twisted her lips, probably thinking about how to dumb down her findings so Titus could understand. "The Void leaks have been getting worse since Caleb and Danielle met."

Titus perked up. "Worse? But you haven't had me close any of them."

She sighed, tapping her fingers on the desk. "I've been closing them myself still. I wanted to give you a break, remember. I should have been able to have Caleb close them by now, but..." she trailed off.

"His Ringlock is a bitch," Titus finished for her. He wouldn't show that he was still angry she wasn't having him close the leaks.

"Titus," she said reproachfully, then acquiesced. "Yes, a total bitch."

"So what are those?" Titus gestured to the holograms.

"So," Rhea started. The two projections rose further from the desk. The bodies were labeled with thick, bold letters above the heads. Natalee. Danielle. Tiny streaks of light coursed through the outlines of the body, forming almost a nervous system of lightning strikes. They mirrored each other. "I did some unethical things," she said with the tones of someone who was confessing to a priest. "I wanted to see if there was anything in Danielle's DNA that could show whether she had a connection to the Void. So I broke into her house and took a bit of her hair."

Titus frowned, leaning back in his chair. "That's a little bit creepy, but I guess I understand. Can't really ask Caleb to get her DNA." Though I bet he'd like to kiss her, Titus thought with a smirk.

Rhea looked up at Titus, her brown eyes boring into his. "Her DNA is an exact match to Natalee's."

"What?" Titus leapt up, the events of the morning forgotten. "How is that possible? They don't look anything alike!"