Nina listened as Marco held the phone to her ear. Her hands were still restrained behind her back and despite coming in from the sweltering heat, she trembled.
“ I have something here that belongs to you.”
“What-?” she started, and then froze as a vision suddenly blasted back at her. A vision of a…
… gigantic crowned head, with blue-green radiating spikes, and viewing holes in the crown. Two young boys look out with amazement at the view, then glance up, hoping to climb the last part up to the torch.
And a well-dressed man on the phone, a man with gray hair and piercing blue eyes.
“Nina? Are you listening.”
“I… I see you.”
Silence, then, “Do you, now?”
“Statue of Liberty.”
“My, my. What big eyes you have, my dear.”
Nina swallowed hard, her vision locked on the blood-stained onyx door, seeing beyond the splatters into the first layer of smooth darkness, the black portal that trembled in her sight like a vertical pool of water at night in a breeze.
And suddenly, she saw into it.
Into its depths that had become the past. She saw herself…
… lying on a slab-like table inside a white room. A pod. A decompression chamber. Unconscious, in a coma. Almost dead. George Waxman looking in on her with concern, and fear… Another room. Darker, but more spacious. At the end of a long, shadowy hallway with non-descript walls and doors. A subterranean facility somewhere. Soldiers standing guard at the only entrance.
Inside. Strapped to a table. Monitors checking her vitals. IVs hooked to her day and night. Machines to keep her alive, extract her wastes, keep her warm, nourish her body, monitor her pulse, blood pressure, heartbeat…
Hers. And the two heartbeats inside of her.
She sees it now, suddenly with abject clarity. Something so undeniable.
Her belly, swollen under the sheet. Nine months from the accident under the Pharos. Nine months from the night with Caleb.
Nine months.
She blasted out of it, almost falling backwards, unable to gain her balance without her hands. Marco and another soldier caught her and held her in place.
“ Nina?” asked the voice on the other end of the phone. “Where did you go just then? Did you see something? Did you finally ask yourself the right question?”
Her mouth went dry.
Her vision slammed across the room, settling on Caleb. Then on Alexander.
She whispered something to herself, her eyes still wide in amazement. How could she have been so blind? Alexander’s visions of standing before the door. He, and two others…
“Caleb,” she said, louder. “I’m sorry.”
Caleb frowned, his mouth working. Glanced to Montross, whose eyes had widened.
He knows, Nina thought. “You knew,” she said, to the voice on the phone, to Montross, to Caleb, and lastly to Alexander. “All this time, it was you. You, Alexander.” She let a smile free, took a deep breath and willed with it all the memories of their lives, memories she would soon be sharing, recapturing, enjoying as only a mother could.
“You,” she repeated, turning from Alexander to stare at Caleb, “and my twins. My boys. Our boys, Caleb. You have three sons.”