Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

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From the safety of a stolen Volvo station wagon, parked down the block, Allan lifted his binoculars and watched the two hippies and the red-headed bitch get out of her car and cross over to enter a Victorian row house that had seen better days. The bitch’s house, presumably, but he jotted down the address so he could check up on that.

He’d had a dark, angry moment when he thought they might not have fallen for the ad he’d placed in the classified section. So angry, in fact, that he’d almost driven away and headed directly to Miranda’s house to execute her parents and take her that very night, rather than waiting for the perfect moment, like he’d planned.

But lucky for pretty little Miranda, the hippies from Reiden Lake had showed up at the very last minute, all out of breath and wild-eyed and tumbling out of a brand new green Volkswagen Beetle. Allan wrote down the license plate number and then settled in to watch.

They never once even looked at the Volvo, let alone at him, but he pulled the wool cap down over his forehead and slouched low in the seat, just to be on the safe side.

He found it tremendously exciting to be so close to them without them knowing he was there. He only wished the redhead had gotten out of the car to wait with them. He felt no boredom, nor desire for time to pass more quickly as they waited, together but not together.

In fact, he felt perfectly calm and content, studying every detail of the pair while composing taunting letters in his head, which he would send to them later. It was going to be extremely difficult to make himself wait for the right moment to let them know he was watching. Almost as difficult as waiting to be with Miranda. He was dying to see the fear in their faces as they realized he’d been watching.

Eventually the pair gave up waiting in the park and led Allan back to their home base, just like he knew they would. And now he would be able to start stalking them in earnest. Getting to know them. Learning their routines. Connecting with them the way he’d connected with Iverson. Because although he could easily take them out from a distance, like hunted deer, it would be so much more fun to torment them. To terrorize them and watch them squirm.

This was the best part.

17

Back at the house, Nina watched Walter stagger into the living room and plop down on one of the sofas beside the purring fur throw pillow that was Cat-Mandu. But Bell lingered in the hallway, hands stuffed in his pockets and that charming little half-smile on his face. The same smile that had caught her attention when they first met back in March, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Neurochemistry in New Orleans.

They’d both been involved with other people at the time, but the neurochemistry between them had been difficult to ignore. It was a wild weekend, full of all kinds of drunken misadventures in the French Quarter, but somehow the two of them had never found a way to be alone together. On the last day, she’d given him her card and told him to stay in touch. She had figured she’d never see him again. Until he showed up on her doorstep with this wild tale of psychic gateways and atomic murder.

When she looked over at him, his smile faltered slightly and he looked away. Things felt so strange between the two of them now, ever since the strange psychic link that they’d formed during the ill-fated acid trip.

The thing that had been so astounding about that link was that, while it was the most profoundly intimate connection she’d ever experienced with another human being, it was neither romantic nor sexual in nature. It was this powerful sense of commonality. Something not unlike the discovery of a spiritual twin, of intertwined destinies and an unshakable life-long connection.

All her life, Nina had found that nearly everyone she met was put off by her naked ambition. Men tended to feel threatened, and women were intimidated, but looking into Bell’s mind that night was like looking into a mirror, and Nina had seen her own voracious ambition reflected back at her with flawless synchronicity.

But it wasn’t just some kind of hippy-dippy soul mate “spiritual bonding” thing. Because, underneath it all, there had been something very dark and ominous about their connection. A connection that seemed to propel them both into some terrible unknowable future in which the fabric of their universe would be torn asunder by their twin ambition.

Yet that shared ambition felt stronger than ever in the face of such awful knowledge. And it was that understanding—that they were both willing to pursue their ambitions without regard for consequences—that had cemented the inexplicable bond between them.

Nina had experimented with a wide variety of hallucinogenic substances before, and many of the trips she’d experienced had presented her with images or ideas that seemed immensely weighty and significant at the time, only to be revealed as trivial and silly in the sober light of day.

In a way, she wanted desperately to believe that the dark bond she thought she had shared with Bell was just like that. An amusing figment of her chemically enhanced mind, like the time she became convinced that the paisley pattern of a friend’s shirt revealed the secret formula for a new clean-burning fuel that would revolutionize global transportation and make her a millionaire.

But every time she locked eyes with him, she could feel herself resonating inside like a tuning fork, hungry for the success that she knew she wouldn’t be able to achieve without him. The success that he would not be able to achieve without her.

And in the midst of all this impossibly weird mayhem, that small sliver of weirdness was the one that preyed on her, making her feel vulnerable and off kilter.

Standing there with Bell in her darkened hallway, she knew that he felt it, too.

“Crazy day,” she said softly, stepping deliberately forward into his personal space.

“Yeah,” he replied. He didn’t step back. “Listen, about last night...”

She reached up and pressed the first two fingers of her right hand against his lips. His breath was warm against her skin.

She hadn’t planned to sleep with him yet, even though she’d wanted to. Now, it seemed so much safer— and simpler than facing the true nature of the connection between them.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.

He just looked down at her for a long, weighty moment, some kind of private war going on behind his dark eyes. She turned away and headed silently upward.

There was a moment where she thought maybe he wasn’t going to follow her, and she paused halfway up, heart beating too fast. Then she heard the sound of his footsteps on the stairs behind her. She smiled and continued to her room.

In her bedroom, she didn’t bother to turn the light on. She just walked over to the pool of yellow streetlight pouring in through her sheer curtains and, without turning around, pulled her sweater off over her head. Her hair crackled with static as she tossed it aside.

She was very aware of Bell standing close behind her for a silent minute. Then she felt his big hands on the curve of her waist, tentative at first, then pulling her back against him and sliding over her belly and braless breasts. She leaned into him, feeling as if she was melting. All the madness, all the mayhem, all the strange and heavy events of the past twenty-four hours were melting, too, washed away in warm, dopamine oblivion.

She turned to face him and pulled his mouth down to hers, kissing him just like she’d wanted to so badly, back in March. Pretending they were in the French Quarter, happy and buzzed and laughing like nothing mattered. Holding on tight to the solid physicality of his long, lanky body. To the simple biological imperative of their desire. The smell of his skin, the taste of his mouth, the feel of his hands on her body.