Dreams in the Tower Part 3 by Andrew Vrana

squint.”
    “It’s an illusion,” she said. “We’re still too far away.” She dropped down to sit next to him. “What are you doing here, Jason?” She said it kindly, sweetly.
    “I got a message,” he said. “From my friend Seito.”
    “That’s good, isn’t it?”
    “No.”
    Now she was confused. When they had first met he had been upset about this friend Seito sending him a message saying he would no longer be in contact. If Jason had regained that connection, why should he be upset enough to drink alone in the dark?
    “It was a regular message,” Jason elaborated. “Not secured. Not on our special com app. A regular message that any idiot with a tablet and a basic spying app can easily trace.” He took a swig from the bottle, wincing as he swallowed. “Steph was with him. They’re both wanted. I just wonder who will find them first.”
    “Steph?”
    “Another good friend. The one who was sick. Her and Seito were sort of together.” He eyed the bottle but apparently decided against taking another drink. “The three of us met in college. We started non-E together.”
    “That hacking group you told me about?” He nodded. “Jason, I’m sure it will be fine,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. “It sounds like your friends can keep themselves safe.”
    There was no mirth in the grin on his face when he said, “That’s not it. They would probably be better off getting caught now.” She waited patiently for him to elaborate. “Steph,” he said tentatively. “Steph was one of the first to get sick, that first night. Last time I heard anything she was full-on zombie. Seito…Seito must have caught it from her. The message he sent was a video message. He was feverish and sweating and covered in filth. And he was babbling like some kind of deranged person. Talking mostly in Japanese, to people who weren’t even there. I don’t think he even knew he was talking to me.” His voice broke slightly towards the end.
    There was a long silence between them as they both stared out into the void that was the sea. Jason took another swig of whiskey and offered the bottle to Dellia, who took a small sip and set the bottle on the other side of herself, away from Jason.
    “If it makes you feel better,” she said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, “I really don’t think Silvan wants these people to die. There’s some solution to this. I don’t know where it will come from, but I’m doing all I can to help find it.”
    He turned his head around and looked at her, his eyes went wide for a fleeting second. “Your hair,” he said. “It’s gone.”
    “Don’t you like it?” she said playfully. “I need to blend in when I’m back in the real world. I won’t have as many people watching out for me now.”
    Silently, he kept his gaze on her and she stared back at him. Somewhere in that moment, peering deep into his blue-green eyes, she saw his fear and pain and vulnerability—and she accepted it. And suddenly they were kissing. His mouth tasted like whiskey and his stubbly face scratched at her skin, but just then she didn’t care. She didn’t care that what she was about to do would make the morning that much harder. Just then, she didn’t want to care about anything.
    Grasping his hand, she pulled him up and led him along the deck to the door beneath the wheelhouse tower, down the stairs, and all the way back to the corridor their room was in. She didn’t need to pull him along; he matched her rapid pace and stayed right beside her, looking over at her face from time to time. After far too long they made it to their door. The room was lit by nothing more than the sliver of light stretching in from the half-open bathroom door.
    As soon as the door was shut, the lock slid hastily into place, their mouths joined once again. Dellia moved backwards blindly, enmeshed in Jason’s lean frame, until she felt the edge of his bed nudging the backs of her thighs and dropped down on it. In less