“Please.” Luca slid down the bed enough to see around Nox.
“I keep getting glimpses of a place with cells.” He wrinkled his nose. “Not cells like a prison. These rooms are clear. The walls resemble glass, but it’s something else. Transparent like glass but….” He held up his hand and opened and closed his fingers. “You couldn’t break it. Nothing could break it.”
Commercials played on the TV.
Nox lifted his gaze. The word New flicked up on the screen right before a globe and a dividing chromosome. He furrowed his brow.
“What else do you remember?” Luca picked up the remote and turned off the TV. There was no lack of background noise, thanks to their neighbors.
Nox continued to stare at the blank screen. “Anubis.”
Luca frowned. “The Egyptian god of the underworld?”
“It’s what the people who made them called them.”
“Them?”
“The creatures that came after you.”
“You’re saying someone made those things?”
Nox nodded.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“And who made them?”
Nox traced the edge of each letter tattooed on his wrist with his thumb until the skin dimpled and threatened to bleed.
Luca stopped him. “Do you know who made them?”
Nox watched Luca now. There was nothing different about the hazel of his eyes, but Luca couldn’t shake the feeling there should be.
Then Nox blinked and whatever it was vanished.
“You better get some rest.” Nox pulled back the comforter.
Luca got under the blankets. The towel bunched up digging into his hip. He took it off and dropped it on the floor beside the bed.
A million new questions burned in Luca’s mind, but the only one he found the courage to ask was, “We’re still getting the computer in the morning, right?”
Nox stretched out on top of the blanket, leaving most of the bed empty between them. “Yeah. We’ll get a new vehicle too.”
“How come?”
“Because when the cops question all the neighbors and find your house empty and see how you left in enough of a hurry to leave behind your wallet and not lock up, they’ll probably put a BOLO out on your truck.”
A new layer of dread settled over Luca. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“They don’t know that. And if they take you in, it will give the Anubis time to find you.” Nox turned out the light on his side of the bed. “You want me to get yours?”
“Can I keep it on?” Suddenly the dark seemed far more dangerous than it had ever been before.
“Sure.” Nox lay down and closed his eyes.
But Luca had the strangest feeling the man wouldn’t sleep.