Ghosts of Christmas Past by Corrina Lawson

the concrete floors. The ceiling was at least thirty feet over their heads. It had been a bitch to get some of those lights to work. “Come this way, it’s more homey.”
    Lucy led Cassandra down a short passageway that opened to a section of the warehouse that was basically a living room, complete with couch, chairs and massive throw rug. Off to the side was a bare-bones kitchen area with some steel cabinets, a small table, a tiny stove and an industrial-size fridge, a leftover from the previous tenants. Al had bitched about getting the plumbing to work right on that fridge and the sink.
    Nothing matched, of course, but the couch was comfy, there was food and, more important, Internet at the desk/office area to the side of the kitchen. That was courtesy of Daz, who’d set up an off-the-grid system with a firewall for them. He’d also paid cash for the cell phones so the calls couldn’t be traced.
    Lucy grabbed one of the cells from the kitchen counter and texted Al. All she said was “Hey, how’s it going? Noir”, but that was code for “Call me, it’s urgent but not an emergency”. She should hear back from him soon.
    They could work together again. He’d like that. So would she, if only because that would push all their issues to the side, at least for the holidays.
    And because as good as being Noir felt today, it would have felt better with Al as her partner.
    She pulled two sodas from the fridge, hoping Cassandra stayed mellow about all this.
    As she sat down on the couch, Lucy realized she felt more at home here than anywhere else in the Double C, more even than Al’s apartment or the artists’ colony. This was safe .
    And this was her place, as much as it was Al’s place. They’d built this. But it had been over a month since they’d been here together.
    Cassandra took the soda. “Okay, now tell me the long version of your story, Ms. Invisible.”
    â€œUm, yeah, okay.” Where to start? She’d only told the full story to Al. Her parents got most of it but she’d left out the invisibility part. The reunion had been so emotionally intense Lucy hadn’t wanted to rock the boat.
    She took a deep breath and started at the beginning, talking with how she ran away from home because her parents refused to pay for an art college and instead insisted she major in business at a state school.
    Cassandra wrinkled her nose. “I thought you were going to tell me they were abusive. They sound very normal, if clueless.”
    Lucy sighed. “I know. I was a stupid idiot. They only wanted what was best and I could have gone to college and taken art courses as electives. But I was so pissed and we argued about it all the time. I realized after about three weeks on my own that I should go home.” She stared off into space. “But then I cut my hand and went to this off-the-books clinic for treatment.”
    The rest was harder to tell, especially as her memories were still somewhat fragmented. But the doctor running the clinic had kidnapped her. Lucy had become a lab specimen to the woman she’d come to know as Doctor Jill. Doctor Jill was insane, trying all sorts of human experiments that might cure her monstrously misshapen brother, Jack.
    Other runaways had been specimens too but Lucy couldn’t remember their names, their faces or even if they survived. Beth claimed that was due to the electric shocks that Doctor Jill had sent through her brain.
    But Lucy knew she’d been one of the ones to last the longest, almost six years. Until she’d cracked, her telepathic ability had clicked into place and she’d become invisible.
    â€œSo I escaped, but it took time for me to get my head straight. By that time, Doctor Jill was gone from that clinic. I tracked her to the Double C because I wanted to stop her from hurting anyone else. It was all I could think about.”
    Cassandra’s eyes were wide, her jaw slack.