Page 24 of Inextricably Tied

After rolling his eyes around the room, Agony shakes his head. No use lingering, then. As Harbinger works, Flint moves Agony back into the kitchen. “Anything?”

“It’s the same room, no matter which way you turn me.” Agony traces a finger along the cabinets. “It’s familiar. Might have been a background. But I told you, this isn’t the main location.”

It’s frustrating that both Harbinger and Agony have an idea of what they’re looking for. Visual cues, feelings, things Flint can’t cling to. But that’s not why he’s here. He’s here to protect Harbinger and keep Agony in line, at least until they can get rid of him.

Harbinger returns from the garage, wiping her hand on her catsuit. “A lot of traces of OID members crawling through here, bagging and tagging. I didn’t get a hint of the girls or anything malicious in there. But there was something…” She moves through the kitchen, skating the counter with her bare palm as her brows knit. “On the wall, there were holes puttied over, sanded, painted. I wouldn’t have noticed them, but when I touched them, I saw some sort of weapons’ rack used to hang there.”

“Hunting rifles?”

“Yeah, but also a tranquilizer gun? Some kind of feathered darts, blue and yellow.” Her fingers trace the cabinets the same way Agony had. “They were newer. Reid removed them before the OID cleared the house. They didn’t know it was there.”

Flint’s brow knits. “What kind of vehicle did Reid have?”

“An off-roader. Pretty serious for someone who lives off the highway.”

“Unless he spent time outside the city. This house looks unlived in: overgrown outside, spotless in.”

Harbinger turns to look at them. “Where’s the closest place you’d need a vehicle like that?”

“The Break. Only place for a hundred miles with terrain that rough.” Flint shifts his weight, floor creaking beneath him. “But you don’t waltz in there. The geography would make it a pain, even with the right vehicle. None of the packs there would want Reid in their territory.” Flint glances to Agony. “This is the quietest you’ve been.”

“Well, you told me to ‘shut the fuck up,’ in no uncertain terms.” There’s a lift in Agony’s voice that’s almost playful. His eyes follow Harbinger around the room. Flint’s about to turn him away when Agony speaks again.

“I don’t know if anything happened here, but something has permeated. The carpet, the walls, the same way the smell would stick if someone had been smoking for years.”

“Something like what?”

“I don’t know…” Agony’s eyes slide toward Flint, deadly light searing through them. “Evil.”

Harbinger finishes touching the cabinets, the floors, the dishwasher with clicking knobs instead of digital buttons. She shakes her head. “Nothing. I got some inklings, but no traces of the girls.”

“What do you see, exactly?” Agony’s eyes light her face in the shell of her helmet. Flint keeps a tight grip on his chains. “It’s not what you saw when you looked inside me, is it?”

Harbinger’s gaze flicks to Flint. His jaw is tight, antsy, ready to tell Harbinger not to answer — but she does. “I see what happened on these surfaces. OID agents sweeping the place, Reid prepping meals or sorting through mail. I can’t feel his thoughts or emotions. The memories play like a movie.”

She passes toward the back bedrooms, closer to Agony than Flint would like. He keeps Agony in the living room, guiding him around the last remaining furniture to see if anything sparks recognition: beaten-up couch, mismatched armchairs, rickety television stand.

“Anything?” Flint asks.

“An overwhelming boredom I may never recover from.” Agony kicks at the hearth in front of the fireplace. “Wait —”

Flint tenses, but Agony makes no attempt to escape, leaning toward the wooden mantle on the chimney. It’s inconspicuous. Plain. No detail that stands out among the rest of the room, but it draws Agony toward it.

“I remember this.” He reaches out a hand to brush along the wood, following the whorls and knots.

“What about it?”

“I don’t know.” There’s a knot of frustration in Agony’s brow, as if he’s actually trying to remember. “It wasn’t important.” He presses his fingers to the wood “But it was there, in the background.”

“So something happened near it?”

“Maybe.” Agony feels along the seam between the mantle and brick. “The dreams did, anyway. But it wasn’t here, in this house. The chimney was somewhere else.”

“That’s not exactly helpful. Or possible.”

Agony works against the mortar. “I can only tell you what I saw. Things from your world showed up in the dreams, but they were all distorted. Fuzzy. Washed out.” There’s newfound bitterness in his tone, a snap that gives away his irritation. “I don’t provide the props; I just set the stage.”

A chunk of brick tumbles to the ground. The hole it leaves is no larger than a ring box, but it’s empty. Flint grips Agony’s biceps to keep him still, but Agony feels along the inside of the hole, like he’s not sure what he’s looking for.