Free Chastity Flame by K. A. Laity Page B

across the small of her back gently. It was a move far more
tentative than any he had used before. She adored the way he moved
confidently, matching her own swagger. Clearly he was trying to
avoid upsetting her and it infuriated her. Chastity was not used to
being weak—sure, she could seem so when it helped someone else
underestimate her. That always filled her with smug
contempt.
    But this was different. She would have
to bluff her way through it. It was simply not possible to think
about it, especially with him beside her. The mask must go up.
"Thanks for the water. Must be all the travel back and forth.
Fatigued." Chastity gave him a half smile that suggested
tiredness.
    "Maybe you should rest," Damien said,
leaning back against the pillows as he crossed his arms behind his
head. "How much time have you got before you have to
go?"
    Chastity looked over at his clock
radio. Plenty of time, she reasoned. "I've got a couple hours, but
I ought to go home and change. It's a swanky do."
    Damien reached over to stroke her arm.
"Sleep an hour. You'll feel better."
    Chastity sighed. "I don't know,
maybe."
    "Go on then. I’ll set the alarm."
Damien reached over to set the alarm and suddenly Chastity felt
very odd indeed. Her brow furrowed as she tried to puzzle out the
sensation. Lights were flashing in her right eye. What had been a
speck she thought to blink away, had become a sort of arcing light,
as if there were a mini-rainbow in her eye, but it was only in
black and white.
    She looked over at Damien. Her first
thought was poison. Damien was staring at her, however, with what
seemed to be genuine worry. "Are you all right?" he said at last,
his hand on her arm again. As his fingers touched her, Chastity
felt an immediate sensation of déjà vu.
    The room swam away and she saw her
father leaning down, his hand on her arm, asking the same question.
"Are you all right?" Then she was crying and falling to the ground,
covering her eyes with her hands, terrified at what was happening.
She looked over at Damien who looked panicked now, too. "Helen,
what is it?"
    "I don't know, that is—" she paused.
The memory was vivid but strangely unfamiliar, as if buried too
long from her consciousness. Why couldn't she sort it out? Then
another picture flashed through her mind as the light show
expanded, occluding her vision completely.
    She saw the hacker, madcap, running
down a street. He kept looking over his shoulder, but no one seemed
to be pursuing him. There was a wild look in his eye. Chastity
could feel his desperation in palpable waves. She tried to figure
out where he was. Nothing on the street looked familiar. She saw
something in the distance. She couldn’t figure out why, but all at
once it was clear: he was in Aalborg. He was near the railway
station.
    Then her eyes and brain were full of
the flashing lights and Damien was calling her again. "Get my
phone," she blurted at last. "Dial 999. On my phone. They'll know
how to find me. GPS," she added hastily. Chastity thought perhaps
she'd feel weak as the light show continued but, as the visions
parted, the light show continued, colorful and fluctuating, but not
really any worse. Her head was beginning to ache and that's when
she remembered.
    They had been living in America. Some
Midwestern town where all you could see for miles and miles was the
miles and miles. There was nothing on the horizon but flat earth.
Chastity had been walking along with her father on yet another
campus, some kind of athletic field, it seemed, when she had been
overcome by these flashing lights in her eye. Funny that—only the
one eye seemed to be affected. It had not perhaps been as strong as
today's light show, but it had alarmed her then, as it had her
father.
    The most affecting thing, however, was
the vision that day: her nana. As the lights swept across her
eyeball, she saw a vision of her grandmother in the house in Devon.
She had fallen on the floor before the fireplace in the sitting
room.