I slammed my palm against the invisible barrier, feeling the vibration of my punch absorbed almost instantly. I pulled my foot back and kicked, hard, the toe of my shoe smashing against nothing, fire filling my foot. “What the hell?” Whatever this was, there was no moving it. It was real. I was a girl in a bubble—an indestructible bubble, apparently. It felt like literal glass had been placed between him and me, separating us. It even felt like the air dropped in temperature, getting cooler as the seconds ticked by. “Beck, what’s going on?”
I lifted my gaze from my hands and found the panic morphing into something fiercer in his light, light blue gaze, his black pupils looking almost like they were floating in the whites of his eyes. I’d never seen the ghastly expression before, never, and the appearance of it now made my heart beat faster. “Beck,” I whispered, pressing my palm flat against the barrier. “What’s happening?”
A sudden, sharp, piercing scream echoed through my side of the wall, shrill and startling. I whirled around, one hand still on the barrier, sucking in a breath. The scene behind me seemed normal, though the sky was indeed darker on my side, a grayish purple fog forming above all the buildings in sight. It almost looked like the sky was about to crack open and thunderstorm, but I’d never seen a storm like this before.
I took a step toward the direction of the buildings, my fingertips slipping from the barrier as I stepped just out of reach. It was almost like I was in some sort of chamber. If I looked up, I could see a shimmering sort of material curve around the town, and I could see the line of the barrier. It was easy to see, for the strip of blue sky was violently cleaved in half, putting the other in that strange violet hue.
A thought coursed across my mind. No, not a chamber. A cage.
Another scream, distinctly female, filtered through the air, close enough that had me reeling back against the barrier, ice water dousing my entire body. It was the kind of noise one made when something truly terrified them. Ripped from their chests, drawing blood in its wake.
It reminded me of the scream I made when I found out my parents were dead.
“Beck,” I whispered, moving to turn. “Did you hear—”
Beck had both of his palms pressed against the barrier, eyes still wide, mouth moving quickly. Quickly, yet there were no words coming out. The pain was still in his eyes, the panic, but I couldn’t hear a word he said.
I touched my fingertips to the barrier, right where his were. “I can’t hear you.”
He cut off abruptly, brow furrowing. I watched his lips move. “You can’t hear me?”
I shook my head, the movement jerky.
Curse words fell from Beck’s lips—or so I assumed, unless he was really saying ‘truck, truck, truck’. Hearing Beck swear was rare, mostly because he never really understood how they worked. Once I told them that they were actually ‘bad words’, not appropriate in some situations, he never used them again.
Him saying ‘truck’ now was not a good sign.
“Do you know what’s happening?” I asked, hoping he could hear me since his eyes were pinched shut. The fact that he wasn’t watching cracked another fissure of terror inside me, as if I could disappear now that he wasn’t watching me. I smacked my hand against the barrier, hard, hard enough for pain to lance across my skin.
When Beck’s eyes opened again, they were white with black centers, the blue completely gone. I watched him take a deep breath, watched his chest quiver. “Listen to me,” he mouthed slowly, enunciating clearly. “Go to the apartment. Run to the apartment. Go—” The rest of his words got jumbled together.
“The apartment?” I echoed, my words shaking. “Is—is it even in this glass thing?”
The apartment was almost on the opposite end of town, on my side, yes, but how did Beck know that it wasn’t on the opposite end of the barrier? Unless—
“—run, okay? You have to—closet and wait for me.”
“Closet—the closet in the bedroom?” The closet I wasn’t allowed to go into, the closet that revealed his true identity to me what felt so long ago. Thatcloset?
Apparently, because Beck nodded, quickly. “Lock the door. Wait for me.”
Another screamed filled my ears, this time so much closer, and I pressed myself against the barrier, unable to catch myself before crying out. “People are screaming, Beck,” I gasped, squeezing my eyes shut. “Why are people screaming? What’s going on?” The air chilled to a degree that brought goosebumps to my arms, my bare legs knocking together. There was no way I was going to get to the apartment. What was going on further down the road that sent everyone screaming? How was I going to get through all that when I couldn’t even take two steps in that direction? How was I—
I stopped. Everything inside of me stopped. My blood stopped pumping, my heart stopped beating; everything froze. I had my forehead against the glass wall, but I slowly raised my gaze to Beck’s, barely seeing his mouth move. “What?” he mouthed.
The breath I drew in shook. “Cassie.”
I jerked when Beck slapped the barrier, not from the noise but from the suddenness of his movement, drawing my eyes to his. “No,” he mouthed fiercely, and his whole body shook from how the intensity. In his gaze, in his expression. Tension lined every inch of him. “No, Jonas. Go to the apartment. Go to the closet.”
“He’s waiting for me,” I told him, unable to breathe evenly. “Mrs. Rivers was going to leave once her soaps came on, he could be all alone.” Or worse, whatever was making all those people scream could be… I cut that thought off. “I have to.”
There was no choice.
“Jonas, please,” he begged, crouching a little so his eyes were aligned with mine. Their waterlines were red, as if something burned at his eyes. “The apartment, the closet, please—”
“I’ll run,” I told him, nodding quickly, trying to assure myself just as much as him. “I have to pass his house anyway. I’ll run, I’ll grab him, and I’ll go to the apartment.” Before, I’d thought panic passed across his face, but that was minor to his expression now. His lips moved, quickly, but I quickly pressed my forehead back to the glass, right next to his. “I love you,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut, forcing a tear out. “Come find me.”
Without another look in his direction—surely if I looked at his face, his fear, I’d change my mind and not be able to move a step further—I pushed away from the barrier, my shoes slipping a little on the gravel on the sidewalk as I broke into a run, into the purple storm and towards the screams, and away from Beck.
