Even though I knew he was teasing, my cheeks flooded with color. “Oh, I ... um ... .”
“Stop that,” Braden ordered, his eyes flashing. “You’re freaking her out. I don’t want you scaring her away. We’ve been dating only a month. You don’t need to pressure her.”
“I agree,” Oliver offered. He was back to focusing on his computer. “It’s far too soon to talk about anything of the sort. Yes, Brett and I would love to play grandfather to a new life, but they need to be married first.”
The simple comment made things worse.
“My sister got pregnant before she was married,” Braden argued. “It wasn’t the end of the world.”
“If I remember correctly, your sister found out she was pregnant as she was getting married. Also, your father is more indulgent than I am. If you knock up Izzy before you marry her, I’ll make sure you never procreate again.” He delivered the threat with grace and an easy smile, which made Braden swallow hard.
“Nobody is getting pregnant,” I interjected quickly. I wanted this conversation to disappear just as quickly as it appeared. “Stop talking about stupid stuff. It’s way too early to even be thinking about stuff like that.”
“Human life happens in the blink of an eye for me,” Oliver countered. “It will happen before I’m ready. I guarantee that.” His stare was grave as he glanced away from his computer and focused on Braden. “It will be very difficult for you to have more than one child if I tie it in a knot.”
Braden shifted uncomfortably, increasing the distance between us. I would’ve found his reaction amusing under different circumstances. But I felt under the microscope so I wanted to change the subject as quickly as possible.
“What are you looking at?” I moved from my station to Oliver’s so I could look over his shoulder, frowning when I caught sight of the energy spikes that had his attention. “What is that?”
“It’s the energy pattern from the gate. It is ... off.”
That was a gentle word for what I was seeing. The line, usually soft and rolling, was hopping up and down with wild swings. “What would cause that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Curious, I shifted away from his desk and moved in the direction of the gate. I’d almost gotten used to it now, the way it shimmered. It felt like it was alive.
As if on cue, the whispering began. I’d been hearing whispers from the gate since I was a child. Oliver reminded me of that. I was barely back at the gate when the murmuring began in earnest. It wasn’t constant, and I could discern no pattern when the whispering kicked into overdrive. I was beginning to believe it started whenever someone was close to the threshold on the other side. Of course, I had no way to prove my hunch. That didn’t stop me from speculating.
“Do you hear that?” The question escaped before I remembered there was no way they could hear it. I was the only one who heard the voices.
“Hear what?” Alarmed, Braden stepped in my direction. “Do you hear something beyond the gate?” He’d been present a previous time when I’d heard the whispers and I was convinced he was still edgy about what happened in the aftermath.
“I hear them.” I extended my fingers toward the rippling surface, my eyes going wide when the normally small waves turned choppy. “What’s happening?”
Seconds after the question was out of my mouth a buzzing filled the room. It was loud, almost overpowering. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Oliver hop to his feet. He looked paler than normal, which was saying something, because he hadn’t seen the sun for the entirety of his life.
“Izzy, get away from that gate,” he ordered.
Braden, perhaps sensing that Oliver meant business, took another step in my direction. “He’s right, Izzy. Get away from the gate. I think something is about to happen.”
I was positive something was about to happen. That didn’t mean I could turn away. “I just want to see.” I knew better than to touch the surface, but something inside the gate — more likely on the other side — was calling to me. “It will just take a second.”
The noise level ratcheted up until the buzzing became excruciating. It was so painful I had to cover my ears. Even then, I couldn’t stay on my feet.
The human brain is equipped to acknowledge noise only to a certain decibel level. The buzzing went beyond that. The next thing I knew, a black curtain was falling over my eyes. I fell backward, away from the gate.
By the time I hit the ground, I was already out.
Two
I was in another time.
Heck, I was in another world.
When I managed to open my eyes, the gray pall was gloomy enough that I had to blink several times to make certain of what I was really seeing. I still wasn’t convinced, even when I pressed my hands to the ground and felt jagged rock edges poking into my palms.
“Where is this place?” I meant to say the words out loud. They only found form in my head, though. I tried again. No sound came out. Was I mute? What was happening? I rubbed my forehead as I struggled to a sitting position and frowned when I realized I wasn’t alone.
It took me a few moments to absorb what I saw. It was the gate, only it wasn’t the gate as I knew it. I couldn’t see the room I’d been in only moments before. It was gone. Instead, I sat on a rocky cliff, a steep dropoff only twenty feet away. There was no sun or clouds, only gloom.
This wasn’t my world.
I rubbed my forehead to help clear the fog and focused on the individuals huddled together several feet away. They’d picked a spot in the shadow of an even greater rock face. They looked shocked, traumatized to their very bones, and they were pale and sallow.
“We have to go back through,” one of the men announced. He looked to be the bravest of the bunch, although that wasn’t saying much. “We’ve been here for two hours. We can’t continue to sit here.”
Another man, this one with blond hair and pale gray eyes, stirred. “We don’t know that we’ll survive if we go through the gate. In fact, we’ve been taught the exact opposite. The gate will kill us.”
“Obviously not,” the first man argued. “We’re on the other side of the gate right now. We survived the trip. Our instructors were clearly wrong. There’s no reason to believe we won’t survive the trip a second time.”
“Or we’re already dead,” a third man volunteered. He was young, in his early twenties, and yet his hairline was already receding. His eyes were filled with fear, the sort I’d seen only in my nightmares. And, well, a few well-acted horror movies. It was enough to make me shudder and look away.
“We’re not dead, Stan,” the first man snapped, making a face. “I mean ... check for yourself.” He pressed his fingers to his neck to feel for a pulse. “I feel my heart beating. That doesn’t happen when you’re dead.”
“How do you know?” Stan, obviously at his limit, didn’t fear a fight. “We’re out of our element here. Everything we thought was true isn’t. We could be dead ... or we could be unconscious. For all we know, this is a figment of our imagination.”