Shadow Of The Past Trilogy ∞ THE DISPLACED

36 ∞ breath of air

Day Nine ∞ Saturday

THE QUESTION HUNG UNANSWERED over them as they stared at each other. Danny could barely shake his head, not trusting his voice. He had to make a conscious effort to detach himself from his own reaction and halt the arguments and counterarguments racing around in his head. He needed to focus: this wasn't about him, this was about her... and she was looking to him for guidance. Once the wheels of rationality started churning again they'd surely figure it out: she'd been so out of it when he found her, she must've been hallucinating. Except...

Except for one thing...

Something had been there...

He'd felt it himself.

An involuntary shiver ran straight down his spine and Mickmi flinched in reaction—her hands squeezing his for an instant. Then her focus turned inward as she lowered her gaze and slowly withdrew her hands to her lap. He watched her as she drew long breaths, the furrow between her brows flattening out. He followed suit, closing his eyes, and managed to still his inner turmoil somewhat.

When he looked up a minute later he found her regarding him, eyes still dark green, face still. She rose without a word, went to the truck a few paces away and got inside. She was finished here.

Danny got into the driver's seat and looked at her; he wanted to say something—anything—helpful, but she didn't appear to be in a talking mood. She was just staring straight ahead. Time for the next stop then. The lakeside park parallel to the road a couple of minutes further on was probably the closest view they would get of the crash site.

He parked the truck just as a car came up from the public landing with a motorboat in tow. There wouldn't be much privacy here: a pleasantly hot Saturday afternoon with scattered clouds was a day to be enjoyed. He led the way, casting his eyes around. He was surprised at how few people there were down on the beach—he would've expected to see more families... Or maybe not. There was probably still a warning in effect, that the waters were not totally safe after the crash—with the fish kill and all.

He'd reached the shoreside railing when he glanced back to find Mickmi lagging behind. She was walking with her eyes angled at the ground a distance ahead, seemingly unaware of her surroundings. 

"Mickmi," he said when she halted beside him. Her eyes flicked up to him, and he pointed to the pier extending almost a hundred feet from shore. "I think that's about the closest you can get to the site by land."

Her face remained still as she followed the direction of his hand with her gaze. There was a trickling stream of sightseers that came and left, seemingly disappointed with the ordinary view. There really wasn't much to see: just a lot of water and four distant orange buoys marking the spot of the "downed weather satellite".

"I'll wait here."

She glanced at him, then headed for the break in the railing without a word.

The urge to go with her was strong, but with all that was going on in his head right now, he felt it was better for him to stay behind so he wouldn't distract her. Or maybe she was too distracted to hear his thoughts—he wasn't sure. In either case, he needed a moment alone to sort out the turmoil in his head so he could be the support she needed.

The contradiction.

Mickmi had been right next to him when he felt the movement; with all the strange happenings that night, he'd dismissed it as an earthquake. Although he'd never actually felt a quake in this area before—he wasn't even sure if it would feel like that. Instead, she'd remembered jumping onto the back of the truck. If he took Mickmi out of the equation, that left something jumping onto the truck. It couldn't have been someone because a normal person couldn't have moved so fast that he didn't see their head.