The hospital kept them overnight for observation, which meant Kyla had plenty of time to stare at the ceiling and replay everything in her mind. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that portal—the swirling blue light, the dark landscape beyond, those shapes moving closer. It had been real. She knew it had been real.
But if it was real, where had it gone?
The next morning, a nurse brought her discharge papers along with breakfast that looked like it had been made in 1987 and reheated three times since. Kyla was picking at something that might have once been eggs when Josh appeared in her doorway, already dressed in his regular clothes.
"Please tell me you're not eating that," he said.
"I'm not entirely sure it counts as food." Kyla pushed the tray away. "Are we officially discharged?"
"Yep. Doctor said we're good to go, but we should take it easy for a few days. No strenuous activity, no driving for twenty-four hours, blah blah blah."
"So we're definitely going back to that house today."
Josh grinned. "Obviously. I already called an Uber. Chen thinks we're going home to rest."
"We're going to get in so much trouble."
"What else is new?" Josh tossed her a bag. "I had Stevens pick up some clothes for you from your apartment. Hope the sizes are right."
Kyla opened the bag and laughed. Stevens had packed jeans, a t-shirt, and somehow found the ugliest sneakers she owned—bright orange with purple stripes that she'd bought as a joke and never actually worn.
"Stevens has jokes apparently," she said, pulling them out.
"Hey, at least they're comfortable. And they'll help us run if we need to make a quick escape."
Twenty minutes later, they were in an Uber heading toward Oakwood Drive. The driver, a chatty guy named Ramon, kept trying to make conversation.
"So what happened to you two? Bar fight? Car accident?"
"Something like that," Josh said vaguely.
"Man, I once got hit by a door at the grocery store. Gave me a concussion and everything. Saw stars for like three days. You guys seeing stars?"
"More like seeing things that definitely shouldn't exist," Kyla muttered.
Josh elbowed her. "We're fine, thanks for asking."
They had Ramon drop them off a block away from the house. In the daylight, 5621 Oakwood Drive looked less threatening and more just sad—a deteriorating old house that nobody cared about anymore. Yellow police tape was strung across the front door, but otherwise the place looked abandoned.
"You ready for this?" Josh asked.
"Not even a little bit." Kyla ducked under the tape. "Let's go."
The front door was unlocked, probably from when the police had swept through. Inside, everything looked exactly as Kyla remembered from the night before—dusty furniture, peeling wallpaper, that strange chemical smell. They made their way to the basement door.
"Last chance to turn back," Josh said.
"Not happening."
The basement stairs creaked under their weight. With each step down, Kyla's heart beat faster. What if the portal was still there? What if something had come through? What if—
The basement was empty.
Just a regular basement with concrete floors, exposed pipes, and boxes of old junk. No portal. No glowing fragments. No evidence that anything supernatural had happened here at all.
"This doesn't make sense," Kyla said, walking to where the portal had been. "It was right here. I saw it. We both did."
Josh was examining the walls, running his hands over the concrete. "There has to be something. Some kind of evidence that we're not crazy."
They searched for twenty minutes, looking behind boxes, checking the ceiling, inspecting every inch of the basement. Kyla was about to give up when her foot caught on something. She looked down and saw a small gap between two floor tiles, like one had been recently removed and put back slightly wrong.
"Josh, come here."
Together they pried up the tile. Underneath was a hollow space, and inside it was a notebook. Kyla pulled it out carefully. The cover was leather, worn and stained, and when she opened it, she saw pages and pages of handwritten notes.
"Jackpot," Josh breathed.
They sat down right there on the basement floor and started reading. The notebook appeared to be a journal belonging to the old man they'd seen. The entries went back years—decades even. The handwriting got shakier and harder to read the older the entries were.
Kyla read one entry aloud: "June 15th, 1997. Today marks twenty years since I discovered the first fragment. The power within these stones is beyond anything modern science can explain. They are not from Earth—of this I am certain. My research into the portal phenomenon suggests they originated from another dimension entirely. A dimension with its own ecosystem, its own civilization. And if my calculations are correct, that civilization is far older and more advanced than our own."
"This guy's been at this for decades," Josh said, flipping through pages. "Look at this—he's got drawings of the fragments, maps of where he found them, equations I don't even understand."
Kyla turned to a more recent entry. "Listen to this one. It's from last month. 'The Messenger contacted me again. He claims to serve someone called the King—a ruler from the other side who seeks to expand his domain. The Messenger says the King has been watching Earth for millennia, waiting for the right moment to cross over. The fragments are the key. When all twelve are brought together during the celestial alignment, the portal can be stabilized long enough for an army to march through. I have told the Messenger I will help him, but in truth, I seek only knowledge. I must see the other side for myself before I die.'"
"So the old man isn't even the main villain," Josh said. "He's just helping this Messenger guy because he's obsessed with the portal."
"And the Messenger serves the King, who's apparently from another dimension and wants to invade Earth." Kyla closed the notebook. "This is insane. This is absolutely insane."
"But we have proof now." Josh held up the notebook. "This is evidence. We take this to Chen, we—"
"We what? Tell him there's a magical portal to another dimension in this basement that conveniently disappeared? Show him a crazy person's diary about alien kings and dimensional invasions?" Kyla shook her head. "He'll think we're still concussed."
Josh slumped against the wall. "So what do we do?"
Before Kyla could answer, they heard footsteps upstairs. Heavy footsteps. Multiple people.
They looked at each other in alarm. Josh quickly shoved the notebook inside his jacket while Kyla moved toward the stairs, trying to see who was up there.
"—certain they came here," a voice said. Male, unfamiliar. "The Messenger wants them dealt with before they become a bigger problem."
"How do you want to handle it?" Another voice, also male.
"Quietly. Make it look like an accident. Concussed officers investigating alone, old house collapses. Tragic."
Josh's eyes went wide. He mouthed the word "out" and pointed to a small window near the ceiling. It was barely big enough for a person to fit through, but it was their only option.
Moving as quietly as possible, Josh helped Kyla climb up to the window. She managed to squeeze through, scraping her arms in the process, and landed in the overgrown bushes outside. Josh passed the notebook through, then started climbing himself.
He was halfway out when one of the men appeared at the top of the basement stairs.
"Hey! Someone's down here!"
Josh dropped the rest of the way through the window just as someone started running down the stairs. Kyla grabbed his hand and they ran, crashing through the bushes and into the neighbor's yard. Behind them, they could hear shouting.
"Move, move, move!" Josh urged.
They ran through backyards, jumped fences, and cut through an alley. Kyla's head was pounding from the concussion, and her lungs burned, but she kept running. Those ugly orange and purple sneakers Stevens had picked were actually pretty good for running, it turned out.
They finally stopped three blocks away, ducking behind a dumpster to catch their breath. Josh pulled out his phone.
"We need to call Chen," he panted.
"And say what? That mysterious men who work for an interdimensional king tried to kill us in a house we weren't supposed to be investigating?" Kyla leaned against the wall, trying to stop her hands from shaking. "Josh, someone wants us dead. Actually dead. This isn't just about burglaries anymore."
"I know." Josh's face was serious. "Which means we need backup we can trust. But we also need more information before we can convince anyone this is real."
Kyla thought about the notebook, now safely tucked in Josh's jacket. "The old man's journal mentioned he's been researching this for decades. He must have more information somewhere. A lab, an office, something."
"Ravenwood Books," Josh said suddenly. "That's where Ortiz saw him. Maybe that's his base of operations."
"The place was locked up tight."
"So we find a way in." Josh looked at her. "Are you up for this? You took a pretty hard hit last night."
Kyla's head did hurt. And her arms were scraped up from the window. And she was pretty sure she'd twisted her ankle jumping that last fence. But when she thought about that portal, about those creatures on the other side, about some king planning to invade Earth, she knew there was only one answer.
"I'm in. But first, we need to get somewhere safe and actually read this whole journal. Figure out what we're dealing with."
"My apartment," Josh offered. "It's close, and nobody knows the address except the department."
They caught another Uber—a different driver this time, thankfully—and headed to Josh's place. He lived in a small one-bedroom apartment above a Thai restaurant. The smell of pad thai and curry wafted up through the floorboards.
"Sorry about the mess," Josh said, kicking some laundry out of the way. "I wasn't expecting company."
"This is what you call a mess?" Kyla looked around at the relatively tidy space. "You should see my place. I have dishes in the sink from last Tuesday."
"That's nothing. I once left a pizza box on my counter for three weeks." Josh grabbed two sodas from the fridge and tossed her one. "Okay, let's see what else our friend the mad scientist has to say."
They spent the next two hours reading through the entire journal. It was like something out of a science fiction movie. The old man—whose name, they learned, was Dr. Edmund Price—had been a physicist before becoming obsessed with the fragments. He'd found the first one by accident during a hiking trip in 1977 and had spent the last forty-plus years trying to understand where they came from.
His research had led him to discover that the fragments weren't just rocks—they were pieces of something much larger. According to his notes, they had once been part of a massive crystal structure that fell to Earth in an asteroid over fifty thousand years ago. The impact shattered the crystal, scattering the fragments across what would eventually become the city of Tides.
"This is wild," Kyla said, reading one section. "He thinks the original crystal was some kind of anchor point between dimensions. When it shattered, each fragment retained a small portion of that power. But if all twelve fragments are brought together, they can recreate the anchor point temporarily."
"Long enough to open a stable portal," Josh continued, reading over her shoulder. "And this King person has been trying to do exactly that for centuries. He's sent agents to Earth before, but they always failed to gather all the fragments."
"Until now. Until the Messenger." Kyla flipped to the last entry in the journal, dated just three days ago. "Listen to this: 'The Messenger is different from the King's previous servants. He was born on Earth but has pledged himself to the King's cause. He understands both worlds, which makes him dangerous. He has located eleven of the twelve fragments. Only one remains hidden, and even I do not know where it is. The old woman, Margaret, guards it unknowingly in her garden, but the Messenger will find it soon. When he does, the alignment will occur, and nothing will stop the King's army from crossing over. I have helped create this situation, and now I fear I cannot stop it. If anyone finds this journal, know that I am sorry. I sought knowledge, but I may have doomed us all.'"
They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of it all sinking in.
"So we've got maybe three days before this alignment happens," Josh said finally. "And we need to find the last fragment before the Messenger does."
"But we already gave him the fragment from Mrs. Chen's garden. That was the last one." Kyla felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Which means—"
"They have all twelve fragments." Josh stood up, starting to pace. "We're too late. The portal's going to open, and an army of who-knows-what is going to invade Earth."
"No." Kyla stood too. "We can't think like that. There has to be something we can do. Maybe we can destroy the fragments, or scatter them again, or—"
Her phone rang. Unknown number. She almost didn't answer, but something made her pick up.
"Hello?"
"Officer Martinez." The voice was cold, smooth. She recognized it immediately—the Messenger. "I hope you and Officer Reeves are feeling better after your little accident."
Kyla's blood ran cold. She put the phone on speaker so Josh could hear.
"What do you want?"
"To give you a choice. You've seen what's coming. You know you can't stop it. The King's army will march through in two days, during the full moon. When they do, this world will change forever." The Messenger paused. "But you could be part of that change. Join us. Serve the King. You've already proven yourselves resourceful. The King could use officers like you in the new world order."
"You're insane," Josh said. "We're cops. We don't help interdimensional invaders take over the planet."
The Messenger laughed. "Such loyalty to a world that doesn't even know you're trying to save it. How noble. And how pointless." His voice turned colder. "This is your only warning. Stop investigating, or you'll be dealt with. Permanently. The men at the house today were just a taste of what will happen if you continue to interfere."
"We're not scared of you," Kyla said, trying to sound braver than she felt.
"Perhaps you should be. After all, accidents happen to police officers all the time. Especially ones who stick their noses where they don't belong." Another pause. "Two days, officers. Then everything changes. Choose wisely."
The line went dead.
Kyla and Josh looked at each other. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
Finally, Josh said, "So, that was terrifying."
"Yep."
"And we're definitely not backing down, right?"
"Not a chance."
"Good." Josh grabbed his jacket. "Because I have an idea. Dr. Price said he didn't know where the last fragment was, but he's been studying these things for forty years. He must have research notes, equipment, something that could help us. And I bet it's all at Ravenwood Books."
"So we break in."
"So we break in," Josh confirmed. "Tonight. After dark. We find his research, we figure out how to stop this portal from opening, and we save the world."
"Is it just me, or did our job description suddenly get a lot more complicated than 'catch bad guys and write reports'?" Kyla asked.
Josh grinned, though she could see the worry in his eyes. "Welcome to Tides, partner. Things here are never simple."
As evening fell over the city, Kyla and Josh prepared for what might be the most important investigation of their lives. They weren't just cops anymore. They were the only people who knew the truth about what was coming.
And they had two days to stop an invasion.
No pressure.
End of Chapter 6