Reality (The Girl in the Box Book 52), page 1
REALITY
The Girl in the Box, Book 52
ROBERT J. CRANE
Ostiagard Press
Reality
The Girl in the Box, Book 52
Robert J. Crane
copyright © 2022 Ostiagard Press
1st Edition.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Teaser
Author’s Note
Other Works by Robert J. Crane
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER ONE
Heidi Hutchinson was in complete control of her world, and it was beautiful.
“Raise the lighting level on Brandon,” Heidi said, concentrating on Brandon McDaniel's high cheekbones, the studio lights shining upon them, his brown eyes shining against his caramel-colored skin, cheeks spotted with freckles and his teeth gleaming in perfectly even rows. “He's so handsome. Let's really showcase that to the audience.”
Brandon was speaking, the cameras all on him, and the lighting level rose at Heidi's command – subtly, not too fast, not enough to make it look like they were spotlighting him. Just enough to allow him to nearly glow as he spoke.
“When we first met,” Brandon said, voice slow and serious, “I didn't know what to think. My life had been a series of steady screwups in love. Like a desert highway almost, with very few stops, if you know what I mean.”
“I do,” Kristin Cole said, her red hair shining in the studio light. Heidi had chosen the stunning gold off-the-shoulder dress with care to really pop against Kristin's perfectly styled locks and green eyes. “I really do.” Her voice rang with an almost desperate earnestness; she was looking Brandon in the eyes with that rarest, most beautiful thing–
“Cue the music,” Heidi said, standing before the darkened panel. The scene was unfolding before her, but on a screen. The real thing was happening only ten yards away, on the other side of a glass window, but she was solely concerned about the glowing phosphor of the screen image. “Give it a slow rise as he speaks.” Heidi concentrated – on Brandon, on what he was trying to say.
“But I feel like since I've met you,” Brandon said, slowing, selecting his words carefully, like flowers for a bouquet that needed to be in perfect visual harmony, “it's like I entered a green valley, with pine trees on all the sides, and grass everywhere–”
“Heidi, is he describing the town?” Sarah Barlow's voice rang in Heidi's earpiece. Sarah was her number one and bestie, and this was a keen insight.
“Shhh,” Heidi said. “It's fine. Let him go. He's speaking from the heart.”
“–and I don't want to go back to where I was before,” Brandon said. Now his eyes looked teary. Perfection. The words were flowing now. “I don't want to go back to the desert. I don't want to go back to the dry dust, the empty spaces.” He spoke again, and this time blurted, “I don't want to go back to not getting laid.”
“Ohmigosh, did he just say that?” Sarah's voice crackled in her ear.
Heidi stared at the screen, the background and everything seemingly turning red before her eyes. Her hands threatened to shake, but she kept them steady, moving her finger to flick a switch to quiet the channel her headset was connected to. “Brandon,” she said, directly into his ear from a room away, “we talked about this.”
On screen, his eyes widened as Heidi's words cut through.
“This is not about 'getting laid,'” she said, feeling icky for just saying it, for being so crass. “This is about finding love, true and eternal. Love, Brandon. With depth and meaning, the thing that inspires volumes of poetry, the thing that's behind a million songs, the great and the trite. We're talking about matters of the heart, not the trifling urges of your body. Now get back to the point – the right one.” And she flicked the switch again. “Give me a ten-second cut right there, I don't want that – that filth he spoke to ruin this beautiful moment.”
“Sure thing, girlboss,” Sarah said. “We'll fix it in post.”
“Brandon – go,” Heidi said.
“I know exactly how you feel,” Kristin said, because of course she'd come in to save Brandon's bacon. That was fine, though; it looked like she'd be doing so for the rest of her life, if Brandon could keep from fouling this up. “Before I met you, it was like I was dead inside. Like life and love had passed me by and I was just waiting for the grave.” Her hands were clasped in his, pale and freckled against his caramel skin. “But since I met you, it's like I was Sleeping Beauty and you were the prince.”
“Kinda overwrought, don't you think?” Sarah's voice chimed in Heidi's ear.
“These are normal people,” Heidi said, feeling a lump in her throat. “They're not poets. Let them say what they feel without criticism, Sarah. This is the language of their hearts, and as long as it comes from their heart we just need to listen.”
“Oh. Right. Okay.”
“I'm so glad I woke you,” Brandon said, perfectly on cue. He was a good guy, Brandon was, or at least good enough. He had his flaws, but he was going to deliver here, Heidi could feel it.
“Take it home, Brandon,” Heidi said. “You can do it.”
“I don't want to go back to sleep,” Brandon pulled Kristin's hands closer to him, against the lapels of his tuxedo. Slowly, he sunk to one knee. “I just want to be awake, to be here in the green and verdant land, and alive – with you.” He let one hand go, reaching inside his jacket...
“Yes!” Heidi was on her feet. This was it.
“Kristin...” Brandon sprung the simple, black ring box open to reveal the glittering diamond, “...will you marry me?”
Kristin was silent for a moment longer than necessary, and Heidi held her breath, though she knew how it would end. This was the moment, though, and the suspense was part of it. “Hold it,” she whispered, right into Kristin's ear. “Hold it...and...now.”
“Yes,” Kristin gushed, tears glistening in her eyes, overflowing down her alabaster cheeks, “yes! Of course I will, Brandon!” And he rose, sweeping her up in his embrace.
Heidi could hear the audience applauding in her ears, blood rushing through her, warming her cheeks and her face. This was the moment of triumph, the one they'd been waiting for this whole season.
Another match made on Matchmade. Heidi smiled, enjoying the applause, the tears, the oohs and aahs of the audience in the studio for this magical moment. “How are we going to top this one, Heidi?” Sarah asked, voice a little tinny in her ear. Not perfect, nor perfectly timed. Not for this moment.
“I don't know,” Heidi said, still high on the thrill of the match, “let's worry about that tomorrow. Tonight,” and she smiled broadly, feeling alive in the way she only could after bringing a love story like this to its perfect conclusion, “I just want to bask in this.”
CHAPTER TWO
Sienna
I lay dead to the world in bed, staring up at the ceiling above as though it were the lid of my coffin. The sprayed-on white popcorn was nothing like the white cloth ruffles I'd seen on coffin lids, but in the shadows of the night it felt close, close enough for me.
My heart beat slowly, quietly enough that I barely felt it in my chest as I lay in bed, staring up. My arms were at my sides, and if I weren't so torpid, I might have crossed them over my still heart and just lay there in the dark.
Cali and Jack breathed quietly in the night; somewhere at the foot of the bed little Emma – no longer a kitten – purred quietly. So quietly I might not have heard were my ears not especially attuned, my metahuman powers giving me the ability to pick that sound out of the quiet country night.
“Here I lay, and here I stay,” I whispered to myself.
Whuh? Brianna Glover's tired voice whispered through my brain. My ghosts didn't technically need sleep, being dead and all, trapped in my brain, but Brianna seemed to enjoy taking it anyway. What are you on about?
“Nothing,” I whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
Why won't you? she asked, sounding quite vexed.
I didn't answer. I didn't need to.
The sound of a car in the distance, engine rumbling, tires cutting along the back road of the countryside provided external soundtrack that papered over the soft sounds of the television tuned to The Bachelor in the living room. Reed and Dr. Perugini spoke in hushed whispers out of respect for me and my feigned sleep. They were sweet like that.
And I just lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, as I did seemingly every night. Waiting for morning.
Waiting for death, more like, Brianna grumbled.
“I am Death,” I whispered softly. “Why would I wait for myself?”
The car's engine in the distance was growling with great intensity, I realized, the sound prickling my ears in the quiet night. Someone was really hauling ass, and the tires gripped tight to the pavement as it squealed into a turn. I slowly lifted my arms and crossed them over my chest like a vampire, felt the soft thump of a heartbeat – then another, a thudding soundtrack that would have been thunderously loud if not for the television and the whispers of the lovers watching future lovers only rooms away.
Stop thinking about him, Brianna said. You didn't even know the man.
“No,” I said. “I must have known him. I married him, after all. ...I just don't remember him.”
How do you mourn for someone you don't even remember? she asked.
I kept my hands crossed over my chest. “Like this, I presume.”
While I couldn't see her face, exactly, I sensed a deep rolling of the eyes.
Outside, the car's tires squealed into another turn as the engine downshifted. It had turned off the main road into Reed's driveway.
“Company,” Reed muttered in the next room, hearing it at last over the giggling girls and insipid monologues about their “journeys” and “future husband.”
Still, I lay upon the bed, even as the dogs started to stir.
Even as the car squealed to a stop in the driveway. I recognized it now; a current year Ford Explorer with a suped-up engine. I should have known it; I drove one myself these days, in service of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
The car door opened with a light squeak, and I heard Reed rustling with the blinds, peering out into the night. He swore softly under his breath and muttered, “It's Cole.”
Michael Aubrey Cole, Williamson County Sheriff. He only lived five miles down the road – I knew this because the fact had come across me, not because I'd gone seeking for it – but as far as I knew, he'd never been here, by invitation or otherwise.
Reed opened the door to the house and I heard it squeak as I lay, still as the dead, staring up at the shadowed ceiling and listening. “What's going on, Cole?” he called out into the quiet autumnal eve.
“She here?” Cole's feet crunched gravel softly, then hit the bottom step of the porch and I realized something.
He was wearing slippers. Soft, cottony slippers. There was no squeak of leather, either, when he walked. No gunbelt. He was deeply out of uniform.
“Far as I know,” Reed said, breaking into a run down the hall toward my bedroom. He was fast, there in seconds, pounding at the door – lightly, for otherwise, if using his full strength, he would have broken it down in a mere moment. “Sienna?”
The dogs already perked up, their faces turned to me for guidance. At least they weren't barking. “Yes?” I asked, still not moving.
He opened the door a crack, and light from the hallway streamed in on me. I was fully dressed, down to my boots, and I sat up, still languid, my head lolling softly as I affected the mood of being awakened from the deepest sleep. “Cole's here. It's after midnight, so–”
