FULL ECLIPSE (Book #2)

𝕱𝖎𝖛𝖊

"Wake the bloody hell up, Zinedine!"

Balls of spit from Dad's shouting spray all over me. He shakes me uncontrollably, trying to get me to come back into consciousness. The jump back gives me whiplash but I'm starting to get used to it now.

"Okay! Okay! Alright!" I shove his hand away. "I'm awake now, goddamn."

I realise I'm lying on a dumpster lid. They got me over somehow, thank god because that was probably by far the worst time to have jumped.

"How long has this been happening!?" Dad asks Amber, and not me, like as if the roles are reversed and she's the older sibling now.

"I-I-it's been-" she stammers.

"How long?!"

"Since the beginning!" she exclaims, under pressure.

"I'm fine," I lift myself and jump down from the dumpster. "I just passed out, Dad, it's all goods."

"We're definitely talking about this later," he takes a quick glance at his watch.

I look at the chain-link gate we jumped over. The lurkers are pushing themselves onto the gate and you can see how it's weakening the hinges.

"Follow me, fast but steady," Dad slides his army green shemagh back over his face.

"You good, bro?" Bray pairs up with me.

"Better than ever."

"You've been passing out a lot lately, aye?"

I've been thinking about it quite a lot lately and I think I need to tell my best friend about this dimension thing. It's too much of a burden for me to carry all on my own. And that's why we have friends, isn't it? So that they can help hold some of it. But when I told Ella about it, she took me for something I'm not. That's the only thing stopping me from telling Bray. What if he sees me like her? Like some lunatic.

"True... Needa tell you something, bro."

"Shoot," he says.

"I... Maybe it can wait," I head-nod to Dad who has his fist in the air.

Dad runs ahead and does a quick search of the perimeter of a small warehouse. He inspects the inside too while we wait at the end of the alleyway. A few minutes go by before he reappears and ushers for us to go in.

❖

"Dean," Dad nods at me and walks away.

Great, he was serious about talking about it later. Can't say I missed the lectures from him. I give Amber an annoyed look and roll my eyes. She understands it right away and shrugs. Amber doesn't realise it but I'm still looking at her when she breaks eye contact. Her scan drifts to Jace and they both share a look of mutual concern. Before I can make any guesses, I bump into Dad.

"Sorry."

"When have these blackouts started?" he goes straight to business.

"Dad, it's not that serious, for real."

"When?"

I sigh, "like Amber said, since the beginning."

He exhales and runs his hands through his hair. Oh my god, why is he making such a big deal out of it? It's just blackouts, blackouts where I jump into another reality. My little secret, a secret that Ella knows about in that world and maybe Bray in this world if I grow the balls to tell him.

"What happens when you blackout?" he asks such a question that stops me from thinking altogether.

Does... does he know what happens? Or is he just asking?

"I... I just blackout, nothing, it's just dark," I lie to him, I don't know why I do.

"Alright, Dean, listen."

All ears.

"When the outbreak happened, everyone was being evacuated and so on. A conference was held while your mother came back for yous. During the meeting, I couldn't change the government's mind about the missiles. The most I could do was delay it due to me being a respectable member of the squadron."

"Okay..."

"During this conference, reports were coming in about these unusual occurrences of blackouts in some civis – not just some normal blackouts. Experts were after these civis but something tells me it wasn't for the right reasons."

"Does that mean... they're coming after me too?"

"Possibly. I was told if I came across such a civi to bring them in for examining."

"And are you-"

"No, you're not some experiment. The last thing I'll do is bring you in. No one can know about you. These 'blackouts' just stay as blackouts. We don't know who we can trust."

"But-"

"No one, understood?"

I nod, "understood."

Just when I thought I could tell Bray... I can't. Like the universe knew or something. But what if I do tell him and I make him promise not to tell anyone else? If there's one person I can trust in this world, it's him. It's Bray.