Chapter 13: Space Between Moments (2)
Demi was quiet for a long moment.
Then he straightened in his chair, and the manic energy returned like a flood.
"OKAY. OKAY. So we have a plan. We have a MISSION. This is exciting. This is TERRIFYING.
This is the most interesting thing that's ever happened to us and I'm going to need SO MUCH COFFEE to get through the day without losing my mind."
El's eyebrow twitched.
"You're always losing your mind."
"True. But today I'm losing it PRODUCTIVELY."
Demi pulled out his laptop, then immediately pushed it aside.
"Okay, but real talk. The playground. Midnight. What do we bring?
Flashlights? Snacks? Weapons? I still don't know about weapons.
What's the appropriate weapon for a potentially supernatural encounter?"
"I don't think weapons will help."
"BUT WHAT IF THEY DO? What if we get there and there's a demon and I have to fight it off with-"
He looked around desperately.
"-with this stapler?"
He grabbed the stapler from his desk and brandished it like a sword.
El stared at him.
"Too much?"
Demi asked.
"Way too much."
Demi sighed and put the stapler down.
"Fine. No weapons. But I'm bringing snacks. That's non-negotiable.
Supernatural investigations require sustenance."
"Fine. Bring snacks."
"And coffee. We're going to need coffee. Lots of coffee. This is a coffee-level emergency."
El thought of the cracker in his pocket.
The old woman's words.
You'll need sustenance.
"I think we'll need more than coffee," he said quietly.
Demi studied him for a moment.
Then he nodded, serious again.
"Then we'll figure it out together."
He glanced toward the break room and groaned.
"But FIRST-I have to deal with THE APPLE. Wish me luck."
He stood, marched toward the break room with the determination of a man going to war, and disappeared through the door.
El turned back to his computer.
Tuesday.
Moving forward.
A plan.
And somewhere, in the back of his mind, Kaye's voice:
Find me.
He opened his spreadsheet and started to work.
---
EL'S CUBICLE - 9:30 AM
The morning passed in a blur of spreadsheets and reports.
El's fingers moved automatically over the keyboard, formatting cells, organizing data, finding patterns in the numbers that sang to him like old friends.
This was the part of his job he actually enjoyed.
The quiet.
The order.
The way everything fit together if you looked hard enough.
Quarterly reports were due Friday.
He was already ahead-way ahead, thanks to countless Mondays of practice.
The numbers danced across his screen, telling their story of profits and losses, of trends and anomalies, of a company that sold paper products and somehow made it interesting.
Marketing Assistant.
The title felt small, but the work felt... satisfying.
In its own way.
A shadow fell across his desk.
El looked up.
The intern stood there, clutching a tablet to his chest like a shield.
His name was Théo Nakamura-twenty-two years old, fresh out of university, with the kind of face that hadn't quite decided if it was done growing.
He was average height, slender, with messy black hair that fell into his eyes no matter how often he pushed it back.
His eyes were large and dark, perpetually wide with the expression of someone who expected to be yelled at at any moment.
Today he wore a button-down shirt that was slightly too big for him and a tie that was slightly crooked-the uniform of someone trying very hard to look professional and not quite succeeding.
"Uh. El?"
His voice cracked slightly.
"Mr. Hendricks wanted me to ask if the Q3 projections were ready for review?"
El blinked.
"They're due Friday."
"I know, I know, but he said-"
Théo swallowed.
"He said he wanted to 'get ahead of the curve.' His words. Not mine."
El thought of Mr. Hendricks.
Gerald Hendricks was fifty-seven, a heavyset man with a permanent scowl and the kind of aggressive authority that came from being in the company since before anyone currently working there had joined.
He stood at 5'10" but seemed taller because of the way he loomed over people.
He had a thick gray mustache that seemed to have its own personality (mostly disapproval), small eyes that squinted at everyone like they were personally disappointing him, and a habit of assigning coordinator-level work to assistants and assistant-level work to coordinators.
He was the bane of the marketing department, and everyone knew it.
"Tell him they'll be ready Friday,"
El said calmly.
"Per the original deadline."
Théo's eyes widened.
"You want me to tell Mr. Hendricks... no?"
"I want you to tell him the truth. The deadline is Friday. He'll have them Friday."
"But-"
"Théo."
El's voice was gentle but firm.
"If he wanted them early, he should have asked early. That's not on you."
Théo stared at him for a long moment.
Then, slowly, a small smile crept onto his face.
"You're kind of terrifying," he whispered.
"In a calm way."
El's eyebrow twitched.
"Thank you."
Théo scurried away, probably to deliver the message and then hide in a closet for the rest of the day.
El turned back to his spreadsheet.
Q3 projections.
Patterns.
Numbers.
Safe.
But his mind kept drifting to midnight.
To the playground.
To Kaye.
To the old woman's words:
She's been waiting in the spaces between, too. In the moments you forgot. In the cracks of your memory.
What did that mean?
---
DEMI'S CUBICLE - 11:45 AM
"-and then Janet from accounting looked at me with THOSE EYES, you know the eyes, the ones that say 'I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed,' which is SO much worse-"
Demi had returned from his apple disposal mission approximately an hour ago and had been narrating the experience ever since.
El had stopped listening after the first ten minutes, but Demi didn't seem to notice.
"-so I had to use THREE paper towels because the mold had achieved CRITICAL MASS, El.
Critical mass. I'm pretty sure it was developing consciousness. I think it looked at me."
El continued typing.
"You said that about the banana."
"THE BANANA WAS DIFFERENT. The banana was just sentient. The apple was AGGRESSIVE."
Demi shuddered dramatically.
"I'm never eating fruit again. Only processed foods. Only things that can't fight back."
"Processed foods can fight back. They just do it internally."
Demi paused.
"That's... actually a fair point."
He leaned back in his chair, which creaked alarmingly.
"Anyway. Enough about my traumatic fruit encounters. Let's talk about tonight."
El's fingers slowed on the keyboard.
"The playground,"
Demi continued, lowering his voice.
"Mercer Street. Midnight. What's the plan?"
El turned to face him.
"The plan is: we go, we look for the entrance, we find Kaye."
"That's not a plan. That's a wish list."
Demi leaned forward.
"We need specifics. Logistics. Contingencies. What if the entrance is guarded?
What if we have to solve a puzzle? What if there's a riddle? I'm bad at riddles.
Remember that time we did that escape room and I spent twenty minutes trying to open a door that was clearly marked 'PULL'?"
"I remember."
"It was traumatic."
El considered.
"We'll figure it out when we get there. We have the card. We have the symbol. We have-"
He paused.
"-each other."
Demi stared at him.
Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face.
"That was almost romantic. You're growing, El. Emotional growth. I'm so proud."
"Shut up."
"I'm NOT shutting up. This is a milestone. Mark this day on your calendar. 'El expressed feelings. World did not end.'"
El's eyebrow twitched, but he didn't respond.
Demi's grin softened into something more genuine.
"Hey. For real. We're going to find her. I don't know how, I don't know what's waiting there, but we're going to find her. Okay?"
El looked at his best friend-this loud, chaotic, impossible person who'd face-planted into his life six years ago and never left.
"Okay," he said quietly.
---
TATE ASSOCIATION - 4:45 PM - CLOCKING OUT
The final hour of the work day crawled by with agonizing slowness.
El finished his Q3 projections, double-checked them, and saved them in three different locations.
He aligned his pens.
He stacked his papers.
He did everything possible to make the time move faster.
It didn't work.
At 4:45 PM, he finally stood, grabbed his bag, and walked toward the exit.
Demi was already there, bouncing on his heels with barely contained energy.
"FINALLY,"
Demi stage-whispered as El approached.
"I thought 4 PM would never come. I watched the clock for the last hour.
I think it moved backward at one point. Time is a construct, El. A CRUEL construct."
El's eyebrow twitched.
"You're dramatic."
"I'm ACCURATE. There's a difference."
They walked toward the elevator together, but before they could reach it-
"El. Demi."
Mira's voice cut through the hallway like a blade.
They both turned.
She stood outside her office, tablet in hand, her expression unreadable. For a moment, no one spoke.
"I'm heading out as well," she said, her voice carefully neutral.
"Walk with me to the elevator?"
It wasn't really a question.
Demi shot El a look that screamed WHAT IS HAPPENING but Mira was already walking toward them, falling into step beside El as they approached the elevator bank.
The three of them stood in silence for a moment, waiting for the doors to open.
"You finished your reports early,"
Mira said quietly.
Not a question.
El nodded.
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Good."
She paused.
"You're always ahead of schedule. Reliable."
Another pause, longer this time.
"It's... appreciated."
Demi's eyes went so wide they looked ready to escape his face.
The elevator dinged.
Mira stepped inside, and El and Demi followed.
The doors closed, leaving them in awkward silence for the long ride down.
Demi opened his mouth-probably to say something catastrophic-but Mira spoke first.
"You both seem... on edge today."
Her eyes flicked between them.
"Is everything alright?"
El felt Demi tense beside him.
"Fine, Ma'am," they said in unison.
Mira studied them for a long moment.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
"If you say so."
The elevator reached the lobby.
The doors opened.
She stepped out, then paused, looking back at El.
"Be safe tonight. Whatever you're doing."
El's heart stuttered.
"Ma'am?"
But Mira was already walking away, her heels clicking against the marble floor, disappearing into the evening crowd without looking back.
Demi grabbed El's arm.
"WHAT. WAS. THAT."
"I don't know."
"SHE KNOWS. SHE DEFINITELY KNOWS SOMETHING. HOW DOES SHE KNOW? IS SHE PART OF THIS? IS MIRA CASTILLO SECRETLY A SUPERNATURAL BEING?"
"I don't know, Demi."
"THIS IS TOO MUCH. MY BRAIN CANNOT HANDLE THIS."
El started walking toward the exit.
"Come on. We have coffee to get. And a playground to find."
Demi scrambled after him, still sputtering.