Shadow of the Sun (Timeless #1)

Chapter 2: Darkness

Even though the coffee was cold, I continued to drink it while staring into oblivion. The events of last night swam in my head, and I was nervous about going back down to the lab. Would those dead bodies still be dead? Or would there be three humans—supernatural beings?—waiting for someone to let them out?

The door to my office flew open and slammed against the wall; one of my photos rotated sideways. Sally backed in with my dry cleaning and a large box in her hands. As she struggled to bring it all to my desk, I sprang forward to relieve her of her burden. I wasn't a complete jerk, contrary to Sally's belief. She hung my clothes in the closet as I set the box on my desk.

"Thank you," I said.

"Yeah, no problem," Sally answered bitterly, smacking her lips in an irritating fashion.

"Dr. Moretti," I corrected.

"No problem, Dr. Moretti." She slammed the door behind her. She must have fumed the whole way to the post office. I smiled at the thought.

Forgetting the box, I locked my office door and went straight for the clean clothes. I grabbed the first business suit in sight and headed toward my bathroom. Because of the many nights I ended up staying here to perform research, the director was kind enough to have a shower unit installed in my office. It was either that or they moved the lab to my house, which was not an option as far as I was concerned. Luckily for me, there weren't many other people willing to do this job; of those who were, few had the credentials or the patience to study both cellular and molecular physiology and biomedical sciences. Ergo, a bathroom.

The hot water ran down my back, which helped to calm my hyperactive nerves. It was difficult to be completely terrified about what was downstairs in the lab. The only motivation behind applying for this post was the prospect of discovering something not of this world, or even better, something so ancient and mystifying my life would find some definitive significance. My sister Jenna had thought I was absolutely nuts.

"This isn't about your parents, is it?" Jenna asked me.

"Of course not."

"Well, I would understand more if it were. The mysterious circumstances of your appearance were strange enough."

I sighed and ignored her talk of the parents who had abandoned me and never came back to claim me. "My parents are the same as yours," I said

"I know. Our relationship goes beyond blood." She hugged me, and I hated the fact she felt the need to reassure. Her past wasn't any better. "I was just happy to have a sister when they adopted you."

I knew she loved me, and I loved her, too. She was right: our relationship went far beyond any type of blood link.

I was five when my adoptive parents first came across me. I'd been confused; my memory was gone, and they never really told me the circumstances or what had happened. They said it was probably best I didn't remember. Many psychologists claimed it could have been something so tragic my subconscious suppressed it. "Retrograde Amnesia," they said. I had made peace with my diagnosis, but I still wanted an explanation as to why my parents abandoned me. Was I really so terrible?

"That place doesn't hold the answers," Jenna had said to me one day after she caught me trying to find out about my past through Zelko Corp's wealth of knowledge. "You're just going to drive yourself mad."

We had agreed to disagree, but now I was beginning to wonder if I really was going mad. I didn't believe in things that went bump in the night, but I wanted to. That was why I had taken the job at Zelko Corp. They offered me something other companies couldn't: the opportunity to find the supernatural and be paid to do it. There have been weird and unexplained things I've come across, but nothing yet that really changed my world. Nonetheless, I never, ever, thought I would come across something as paranormal as this. It had rocked me to my core.