TimeBound (Time Tells #1) (COMPLETED)

Chapter Twenty Three

It was three days later, while I was neck-deep in the revisions of my draft that I receive a call.

I don't realise it's ringing at first, because I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out a particular word that could best describe a organic-computronic meld when Houston prompts me to pick up my ringing phone.

I pat around until my fingers touch the cool screen of my phone. I place it to my ear and the call answers.

"Hello?" I say, distractedly, in the midst of scoring the internet for a suitable reference to the machinery I was refering to. Dammit, the word was on the tip of my tongue.

"Wife." Static cackles.

I still and my brows furrow. I pull the phone away and stare at the screen.

The number was private.

I put the phone back in my ear. "Kri?"

The call ends immediately and the indicating sound rings in my ears.

Alarmed, I look at the phone again.

"What in the name of..." Searching for my husband's name on my call list, I send the call through.

Two rings into the call, the call is cut.
I stare at the phone.

Something was wrong. My husband never cut my calls.

I'm on my feet before I know it, flannel pants and a soft cotton shirt that was so big on me it fell off my shoulder on one side. I run to my room to only grab my purse and when I'm leaving, I tell Houston she needs to get inside my phone right now.
I don't think I could make her happier if her "Whoopiediedoo!" was anything to go by.

Houston informs me as I catch the elevator that Bal wasn't available to drive me today and if she could call—

I cut her off with a, "We'll just catch a cab."

I'm at the front, hailing a cab before Houston can say, "Uh oh."

I climb the cab and quickly spurt out directions. We were literally seven minutes away.

"Mr. Kri is not going to be happy about this." Houston says from my phone.

The cab driver doesn't react to a voice emanating from my phone and I realise he probably thinks it's a friend I have on call. I chuckle.

"I'm not very happy about you keeping me in the dark about his schedules, either." I say hotly, referring to her silence on my husband's feeding cycle.

A huff, "I told you he made me stop. He pulled out the big guns and wrote it into my program when I refused." Houston says, "Can you see me stopping from giving out statistics?"

Ugh.

She had explained this to me three times already, I still wasn't going to allow it to slide even if it literally wasn't in her hands.

"Aren't you super smart?" I say, "Unwrite your program or something."

A gasp, "Are you asking me to go Dark?" Houston whispers, "No respectable smart home assistant ever refutes her purpose."

I swipe my card over the screen and wait until the transaction is confirmed before all but sprinting out of the car, Houston tucked into my pocket. My back pocket.

"This is not a fun view." She says.

I allow for a small smile, before I'm stabbing the buttons on the elevator. I'm glad it doesn't take long, otherwise I may have irrationally considered climbing the damn stairs. I step in and code in the number for Kri's floor.