Chapter Text
It had been a quiet few months at Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Unusually quiet, even. Todd hated it.
Amanda had left after Wendimoor to tear up SoCal with the Rowdy 3 and experiment with her powers while looking for others like them. She called periodically and occasionally Todd could track her progress via Instagram or miscellaneous news reports about vandalism in the San Diego metropolitan area, but it was weird not seeing her at all after they’d finally mended their fences and bonded again.
All that crazy shit they’d been through had changed her. It had changed them all, really, but between the introduction of the Rowdy 3 and the development of her new powers, her life had been really shaken up, and it showed. The good news was that she was still the amazing person Todd had always known and loved, and she was using all of that crazy shit to help people.
Todd would never forget the first time she’d told him that she and the Rowdy 3 were going to be vigilantes.
“What, like Batman?” he’d asked.
Amanda had laughed over a chorus of boos in the background. “Fuck Batman,” she said. “All that pussy does is cry in the dark about his manpain. We fuck shit up.”
As far as Todd could tell they really were dishing out some justice, catching criminals or Nazi sympathizers or Republican congressmen and going all Carrie Underwood on their cars, houses, and occasionally faces. As Vogel would put it, their “privileged male tears” were like a five-star restaurant to him and the boys, and Amanda got to let her inner anarchist go wild. Todd was happy for her, she deserved to have a good time.
They found leads on the others here and there, but Todd didn’t hear much about that. He didn’t know if the radio silence was due to the nature of the stuff they were dealing with or the general infrequency of their communication, but he trusted Amanda to handle it. She was a big girl now, she could take care of herself.
He saw even less of Farah, who after getting shot had finally been convinced to take a vacation for once in her life and was on an extended trip to South America to explore with Lydia. Their days seemed to be split pretty evenly between scenic spas and archaeological sites of historic significance, so they were both getting a lot out of their time together.
She still spent some time on the side using questionably legal methods to monitor various government agencies for red flags relating to their detective work, but they seemed to be off everyone’s radar. Whether that was because of Blackwing or the universe or anyone else, no one could tell.
Todd and Dirk had continued to work the detective agency with Farah’s generous grant. There wasn’t much else they were qualified for, honestly. There definitely wasn’t anything else they wanted to be doing.
The universe had brought them corporate espionage, followed by a brief stint as dog-walkers while they searched for a missing parrot, and an unfortunate month and a half that involved otter waste removal at the Seattle Aquarium. Everything connected in the end, it always did, and Todd was getting used to the idea that he could never reliably know what to expect.
Cases had been getting fewer and farther between, though.
At first a little downtime had been nice; Todd had taught Dirk how to play pool in the back of a dingy bar Dirk didn’t even pretend to like, and Dirk had forced Todd to sit through every episode of The Great British Bake Off he could find.
They’d tried baking, but only once. Dirk had shown up at Todd’s apartment with a single egg and a blowtorch and had insisted they make crème brûlée. Todd agreed on the condition that Dirk would stop trying to speak in a French accent, because he sounded like a pug eating yogurt. By the end of the day no one had eaten anything, Dirk was covered in sugar, and one of Todd’s eyebrows had been singed off. They stuck to takeout and cereal after that.
At first, the cases had just started getting less exciting. Corporate espionage and pet ransom turned into mild vandalism and shoplifting, and while the security guards at the local mall were enjoying the extra help, it didn’t quite have the same thrill to it. Eventually the stream of creation became a trickle, and Todd had a nagging suspicion that it might have slowed to a drip.
“Maybe the universe just wants us to take a break,” Todd said over a bowl of cereal on a generally normal-seeming morning.
“Todd, that’s literally never happened,” Dirk responded as he took the box of Crunch Berries for himself. He’d become obsessed with American cereal and Todd half-expected him to apply for a green card just to better declare his loyalty to it.
Todd wasn’t actually sure what Dirk’s immigration paperwork looked like. He made a mental note to have Farah check it out just in case. The last thing they needed was a deportation hearing.
“You have to admit it’s been a while,” Todd said. “I don’t think that last one was even technically a case, we just kind of watched security ask that drunk guy to leave the Burger King.”
Dirk scoffed. “Yeah, but if we weren’t there would he have been asked to leave?”
“He poured Diet Coke onto his chicken nuggets and then threw them at the wall,” Todd said, and Dirk stared at him as if to say ...and? “The security guard was two feet away, we had literally nothing to do with that.”
Pouting into his cereal, Dirk reluctantly agreed. “The universe is… taking its time,” he said. “I do still think we should go back to the mall tonight, though. I have a hunch it’s the place to be.”
Todd took his bowl off his desk and stood up. “Does this have anything to do with the new frozen yogurt place that opens today?” he asked, and laughed when Dirk couldn’t make himself look innocent fast enough. “Whatever, I could go for ice cream or a case, come get me when you want to leave for either.”
He drained the leftover milk out of the bowl before heading upstairs. The office Farah had gotten for them was on the second floor of a three-story building, and once The Ridgely was officially no longer an option, she bought the whole building for “security reasons.” Todd wasn’t 100% sure it had been strictly necessary, but he had a sweet new apartment on the third floor and Dirk had moved into the one at street level so he didn’t go out of his way to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Despite technically living in separate apartments, both Todd and Dirk had made the office their second home. More often than not they could be found there, eating whatever food was vaguely appropriate for the time of day or making elaborate structures out of a deck of Uno cards or trying to see how far away Todd could get before Dirk stopped being able to throw M&Ms into his mouth.
When they had cases they’d discuss them there, but it had been a long time.
*
Unsurprisingly, Dirk was at Todd’s door about 20 minutes prior to the opening of the hipster new frozen yogurt place that was just called “jógúrt” as if having an unpronounceable Icelandic name would mean their particular generic frozen desserts had anything special about them to set them aside from every other ice cream place in the city. Todd hated them on principle, but they’d been advertising a peanut butter flavor and Dirk wanted to try it, so Todd was getting dragged along.
“I still don’t get why you only like peanut butter when it’s cold,” Todd said as they made their way to the mall. It was a longer walk and normally Todd would have suggested driving, but it was a nice afternoon and walking with Dirk had seemed like a better option.
“I’m telling you, Todd,” Dirk said, “put it in the freezer. It’s like ice cream.”
Todd looked at Dirk sideways. “You can’t just buy peanut butter ice cream?”
“It’s not the same,” Dirk insisted, and even though he hadn’t tacked on the word “obviously” at the end, it was heavily implied. “Besides, this isn’t about frozen yogurt, it’s about my hunch. The mall is the place to be tonight, I can feel it.”
Todd looked back at where he was going, the sidewalks in this neighborhood weren’t great and he wasn’t totally sure he could afford a broken arm like the one he’d gotten two streets over when he was 14. He wasn’t actually sure if they had insurance at all, let alone what it covered. He’d email Farah as soon as he got home.
He decided that for now it was probably easier to just let it go. “Lead the way,” he said, as if it was ever anyone but Dirk doing the leading. Dirk had started to say something back, but tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, flailed wildly, and fell halfway into the street. Once Todd knew he was okay, he said, “Universe didn’t tell you that was coming?”
“Ha ha,” Dirk said sarcastically, righting himself. “We both know that’s not how it works so really the one who looks like an idiot right now is you.” Todd noticed a tense stiffness when he stood up that didn’t seem to be from the fall, but before he could comment on it Dirk was already marching on towards the mall.
*
The stream of creation, it seemed, was running nowhere near them that night. Todd followed Dirk around for two hours without anything happening. They went in and out of almost every store there, some multiple times, and Dirk was acting shady enough that if they hadn’t just spent a month busting a shoplifting ring someone would have called security.
Finally, he came to a stop in the food court. “Maybe I did just want frozen yogurt,” he said, frowning and looking so disappointed that Todd couldn’t even be mad about wasting his night doing nothing in the mall like the kids he’d made fun of in middle school.
“Come on,” Todd said, pulling out his wallet, “let’s go get some jógúrt. I could use a snack.”
Dirk laughed, and Todd felt himself reflecting the smile. “I’m sorry, Todd,” he said, “but that is categorically not how that is pronounced.”
“What, you speak Icelandic?” Todd asked, not caring about linguistics enough to feel defensive. “Do they even eat frozen yogurt in Iceland?”
“Isn’t all yogurt frozen in Iceland?”
“I thought Greenland was the cold one.”
“Come on Todd, that doesn’t make any sense.”
The line at the store, mercifully, was only partially out the door.
*
Later they found a bench outside and ate their overpriced but admittedly excellent frozen yogurt while the sun set over the parking lot. Todd was pretty sure the flavor of berry he’d gotten didn’t actually exist, but he didn’t know enough about Icelandic pomology to feel comfortable calling it out and was enjoying it nonetheless. Dirk had saved the gummy bears for last and was fishing them out of the bottom of the cup with his spoon.
“Not bad for a hunch-free day,” Todd said, polishing off the last of his own cup.
Dirk stiffened minutely, and okay, maybe Todd hadn’t imagined that he was a little tense. He played it off as brain freeze as if no one would notice, and Todd realized that there was no one else who would notice something like that. He knew Dirk’s tells, and he knew something was up.
Once again, Dirk was in motion before he could say anything. He grabbed both of their cups and tossed them in a nearby trash bin and said, “I guess they can’t all be winners, and really, with frozen yogurt like that there are no losers. Home?”
“Sounds good to me,” Todd said, shrugging it off and joining him. Home sounded good.
The walk back to their building was pleasant but more or less uneventful, a feeling that Todd was starting to get used to again. He’d spent most of his life in an uninteresting haze of doing nothing important ever, but when Dirk showed up things had changed so quickly and so drastically that he’d almost forgotten what it was like before. Todd’s life was broken up into pre-Dirk and post-Dirk, and it had been a long time since he hadn’t needed to anticipate getting abducted on the way home from the mall.
Dirk was unlocking the front door of their building when Todd asked if he wanted a beer.
“I’m actually quite knackered,” Dirk said, pulling the door open. “I think I’ll pass tonight.”
That was different. Dirk had never turned down an offer to drink in Todd’s apartment before, he’d even started keeping the disgusting sour beer Dirk liked on hand.
“Oh,” he said, clearly not prepared for a rejection. “Okay. I guess I’ll call Amanda?”
If Dirk noticed his surprise, he didn’t say anything. He breezed through the entrance and paused at his apartment’s door. “That sounds nice,” he said. “I do think you phone her too much though. It’s not like she’s out there skydiving or hang gliding or anything. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“She’s a vigilante,” Todd said. “I probably don’t call her enough. Two weeks ago she and the Rowdy 3 spray-painted threes all over Dean Heller’s house in Nevada.”
“See?” Dirk said, struggling with his keys. “Vandalism, rebellion, rock and roll, it’s what they do best. And if it keeps those hooligans far away from me I can’t say I mind. You know I’m loathe to defend them, but they’ll take care of her.”
Todd couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “She made one of the threes into a penis . It was on the hood of his car. The Secret Service is saying it was the work of a cult!”
“I mean,” Dirk said hesitantly, “what is a cult though?” He finally found the right key on the ring that had way more keys than it probably should and slid it into his lock. Todd would have to ask about it later, it seemed like kind of a ridiculous amount of keys.
“My sister is not in a cult, Dirk.”
Dirk opened his door and slipped inside, avoiding opening it all the way, but Todd was too incensed to notice. “Whatever you say, Todd,” he said hastily. “Goodnight!”
The sound of the door locking behind him echoed in the now-empty hallway and Todd made his way up the stairs feeling mildly uneasy. He didn’t know why he felt so weird about Dirk not wanting to hang out, he knew logically that Dirk was capable of being tired, it just wasn’t an excuse he’d ever used before. The worst part was that it felt like an excuse; not dishonesty exactly, but not the whole truth either.
Todd was trying to shake the feeling when Amanda called.
“Hey sis,” he said into the phone. “This is so weird, I was just about to call you.”
“Whatever, dipshit,” she said, sounding too fond to really mean it. “I have a question for you.”
Kicking his shoes off, Todd tucked his phone into the crook of his neck while he pulled a beer out of the fridge. “What’s up?” he asked, impulsively grabbing one of Dirk’s.
Amanda paused for a second, which made Todd nervous. Amanda was never hesitant, not anymore. “Is Dirk acting… weird?”
“Weird how?” Todd asked, wondering if Dirk turning down free beer counted as weird. He took a sip of the one in his hands and winced. Maybe it wasn’t that weird.
“Something’s happening. With us,” Amanda said, clearly trying not to make Todd nervous in a way that definitely made him more nervous. “Martin says it’s like his batteries are draining too fast for him to charge up again. Even when they feed off my energy it’s not really enough, and my visions keep slipping away before I can get a grip on what they are.”
Todd frowned and said, “I’ll talk to him.” He didn’t know what was going on, if anything even was, but he didn’t like it.
He could hear Amanda’s matching frown through the phone. “He’s not there right now?”
“Yeah, he didn’t want to hang out. He was… tired. Wait, why do you just assume he’s always with me?”
Amanda laughed. “‘Cause he usually is,” she said, and then there was static and the sound of shouting. “Gotta go, Todd. Love you!”
“Are those guard dogs?” Todd asked over barking in the background. “What are you doing?”
“Bye Todd!” was all he heard before the click of the line disconnecting.
He drank the rest of his disgusting sour beer by himself, flipping through his suggested videos on YouTube. Before he knew it it was midnight, and he reluctantly went to bed.
*
In the morning he found Dirk making instant oatmeal in the kitchen in the office. Farah had had an electrician remove the stove weeks ago, apparently there were only so many hikes in their insurance that four million dollars could take, and the insurance company had agreed to a lower rate once it was gone. Todd blamed Dirk for the crème brûlée incident, but didn’t object since they got to keep their own ovens if they really wanted them. Farah just trusted, accurately, that they wouldn’t use them in their own homes.
“Have you seen this?” Dirk asked. “I found it at the grocery store. Dinosaur eggs oatmeal, how great is that? I feel like a breakfast archaeologist.”
Todd forgot sometimes that there were things he took for granted having had a relatively normal childhood compared to Dirk. Stuff that he considered a nostalgic throwback was new and exciting to the guy who’d spent the prime ‘90s years as a medical test subject.
The thought made Todd sad, so he didn’t say anything when Dirk stirred even more sugar into the bowl.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked when Dirk stifled a yawn. “Like, nothing weird?”
Dirk shoveled a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth. “My entire life is weird, Todd,” he said. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Like, weirder than usual weird,” Todd said, rolling his eyes. “Amanda says there’s a weird psychic thing happening, she and the Rowdy 3 have all been super drained lately.”
He didn’t miss the way Dirk’s shoulders tightened or the way the joints in his left hand popped a little when he flexed it. Todd kicked himself mentally, he should have known better than to use the psy-word.
“It’s a good thing I’m not psychic then,” Dirk said tersely, setting his bowl down on the counter. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some things to look after downstairs.”
He left all at once, leaving his breakfast uneaten and leaving Todd very confused.
*
Todd decided to leave Dirk alone for the day, thinking it might be better to let him cool down than to try to force him to talk about something he was clearly trying to avoid. Dirk always came around eventually. Still, when dinnertime came and went without so much as a peep from downstairs, Todd decided to do his job and investigate.
He grabbed some Chinese food that was at the tail end of freshness out of the fridge and made his way downstairs to Dirk’s apartment. There wasn’t any noise coming from behind the door, which at the very least meant Dirk hadn’t fallen into another Avril Lavigne spiral. Todd wasn’t sure he would ever forgive Spotify for instigating that.
Knocking on the door, Todd raised his voice a little and said, “Dirk? Don’t hate me dude, come on. I brought leftovers from last weekend!”
No response.
Todd tested the knob and the door opened easily; apparently Dirk had forgotten to lock it. He pushed it open and ventured inside slowly. “Dirk?” he called, and rounded a corner to see Dirk, dressed exactly as he had been that morning, completely motionless on the couch.
His heart skipped a beat, then two, and he only remembered to breathe when Dirk shifted and rubbed at his eyes blearily. Amanda’s phone call had made him way too paranoid, obviously Dirk was fine. Who wasn’t guilty of a few afternoon naps?
“Todd?” Dirk asked, sitting up and trying to look alert. He took a look at Todd and the bag he was carrying and said, “You didn’t need to bring me food, I just had breakfast.”
He looked confused, and Todd was worried when he asked, “Breakfast? Dirk, that was hours ago. What time do you think it is?”
Blinking, Dirk looked around his dim apartment and seemed to realize the sun had gone down. “Oh,” he said. “Bugger, I must have fallen asleep.”
Todd chuckled and sat down next to him, setting the food down on the coffee table. “Happens to the best of us,” he said, trying hard not to think about Amanda asking him if Dirk was acting weird. Todd had never known him to spend an entire day asleep, but maybe he was getting the flu or something. Even holistic detectives got sick, right?
Dirk smiled and nodded and they reheated the Chinese food and things seemed normal for a few hours, but it wasn’t long before Dirk started nodding off where he was sitting.
“Hey,” Todd said gently after the tenth time Dirk had needed to shake himself awake. “Maybe you should go to bed?”
Dirk agreed with minimal objections, and getting him into bed wasn’t hard considering he was still in his pajamas. He was asleep before Todd could say goodnight.
*
If Dirk was still feeling weird the next day, it didn’t stop him from barging into Todd’s apartment at 7am. Todd hadn’t locked his front door in weeks; Dirk always managed to get in if he needed to regardless, and with only the two of them in the building it didn’t really matter much.
Dirk woke Todd up to the smell of coffee and a pile of clothes that was dropped on his head.
“Rise and shine, Todd,” Dirk said as Todd woke up with a start, shaking a pair of jeans off his face.
“Jesus,” Todd said, throwing a balled up pair of socks at Dirk in retaliation. “You’re awful chipper this morning, I take it your power nap charged you up?”
Dirk’s smile flickered, but he covered it well enough that Todd almost didn’t notice. “Just a bit of beauty rest,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. Now come on, get dressed. We have a busy day ahead of us.” Todd reached for the coffee, but Dirk held it away from him. “Get dressed, and then you can have this.”
Fortunately Dirk left him to get dressed by himself, taking what Todd could tell was the hyper-caffeinated Death Wish coffee they both loved with him. Todd put on the clothes Dirk had picked out for him; they were close enough to what he would have worn anyway and Dirk was always so proud of himself when he picked out something Todd liked.
Dirk dressed him a lot actually, if Todd really thought about it. Definitely more than anyone else in his life ever had. Still, he got a chuckle out of the novelty corgi socks Dirk had found in a department store during one of their shoplifting cases. Todd tugged them on and decided not to think about it after all.
He walked into the kitchen, gratefully accepting his coffee, and asked, “What’s the plan?”
“I have a really good feeling about the color yellow,” Dirk said, and he was so excited that Todd had to hide his disappointment. “Yellow” wasn’t a particularly specific lead, even less so than they’d been getting lately. Still, Dirk seemed to know what he was doing and Todd had accepted a while ago that he’d follow Dirk off a cliff if that was where the universe wanted them to go.
He grabbed his keys, pulled on his shoes, and followed Dirk out the door.
*
It was a frustrating day from the start. They spent the morning in a toy store checking out a truly alarming number of Minions toys before getting lunch under the golden arches of the nearest McDonald’s. They hit up six different grocery stores in the afternoon, rummaging through the yellow produce and looking for anything that might point to a case. Dirk also broke into two construction sites to look at the yellow machinery and safety gear, until a very angry security guard put an end to that.
They ate banana splits for dinner, but more because Todd was trying to cheer up an increasingly despondent Dirk than because they thought the bananas would lead them anywhere.
They found themselves in Dirk’s apartment that night, and Dirk ignored all of the furniture in favor of sprawling out on his living room floor. Todd was feeding him some bullshit about having better luck tomorrow when Dirk interrupted.
“Hold on,” he said, reaching under his couch and tugging on something. He wrestled with it for a second, but eventually pulled out his yellow jacket. “I thought I’d lost this,” he said, frowning down at it.
Todd realized he hadn’t seen Dirk wear it in a while. “Maybe the universe wanted you to find it,” he suggested, which only made Dirk frown harder.
He turned the jacket over in his hands. “I was so sure I had a lead,” he said, looking disappointed enough that Todd sat down on the floor next to him.
“It might still go somewhere,” he said gently, but even as he said it he knew Dirk didn’t believe him. “Look, come upstairs and drink with me. We can figure out what to do next.”
Dirk shook his head. “Thanks Todd, but I think I should stay here and work on this on my own.”
Todd wasn’t sure why that stung; of course Dirk was allowed to do things by himself, it was just that he usually didn’t.
“Oh,” he said. “Okay, just… text me or something. If you need me, or whatever. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Dirk said, still staring at his jacket. Todd could tell he was already lost in his own head and showed himself out.
*
The next three weeks fell into a similar pattern: disappointing leads that went nowhere came and went with long stretches of nothing in between. Dirk would disappear from time to time, and even thought it was only ever for a few hours at a time, Todd caught himself sticking even closer to his best friend than he usually did.
Eventually Dirk seemed to accept that the stream of creation had abandoned them for now and they started spending more time in the office than out of it. Todd was pretty sure Dirk was going to wear a hole into the floor with the way he was pacing around, but he didn’t say anything. It was actually a little unnerving to see Dirk so unsettled. He usually had so much confidence that he’d end up wherever the universe wanted to him to be, but Todd wondered privately if the universe was even speaking to him anymore.
Todd had tried to talk about it again, but Dirk wouldn’t even discuss the idea that his psychic powers might be draining. He steadfastly insisted he wasn’t psychic, so it didn’t matter what Amanda had said. Dirk was so distressed by just the conversation that Todd dropped it. Todd knew Dirk’s walls could go up quickly if he needed them to; he’d been protecting himself from a lot worse than Todd for a very long time.
So Todd didn’t ask, and Dirk didn’t say anything, and they didn’t talk about it.
Todd didn’t know how to make Dirk see that this time was different because Todd was there to help protect him.
*
Equally unnerving was the silence from Amanda. Todd hadn’t talked to her since the call about Dirk, after which she’d gone quiet. The Instagram she’d been running for the Rowdy 3 hadn’t updated in weeks, and Todd stayed up late more than one night checking police blotters to see if any congressmen had had their cars stolen under suspicious circumstances. He never found anything, not even any vaguely-rowdy graffiti.
He tried calling her a few times, but only ever got her voicemail. It wasn’t unusual for her to not answer her phone, and she’d gone off the grid a few times before, so that in itself wasn’t necessarily an indicator that something was wrong.
Something was definitely wrong, though. Todd could feel it as acutely as he could feel one of his pararibulitis attacks, which had been coming less and less frequently since all of this had started. He wasn’t exactly complaining that he’d been attack-free for two weeks, but there was no way it was a coincidence that all of this was happening at the same time.
Todd tried calling Amanda again after he realized he’d lost count of how many times Dirk had turned down hanging out in favor of sulking quietly in his apartment. He was so surprised when she actually answered that he forgot what he was going to say and dropped his phone.
He picked it up quickly and said, “Amanda, hey, are you alright?”
“Why?” Amanda asked, sounding cagey. “Is something wrong? How’s Dirk?”
“I don’t know!” Todd said, “Something’s not right but I have no idea what’s happening. We haven’t done anything holistic in weeks and I’m really worried about him and I’m worried about you and all this other weird shit I don’t understand. Tell me what’s going on.”
Amanda sighed and sounded more exhausted than exasperated, which just made Todd worry more. “You’re right,” she said. “Something’s happening. We don’t know much about it either but it’s hitting us pretty hard. The boys can still feed off of my energy but it just leaves me cold, and I haven’t had a vision in weeks. The pararibulitis attacks have stopped and all of us just feel really… disconnected. It’s kind of messed up.”
“Jesus,” Todd said. “So what do we do?”
“We’re investigating,” Amanda said. “Farah’s on it too, I called her earlier today. She can’t get back to Seattle any time soon so you have to take care of Dirk.”
Todd ran a hand over his face. “Okay,” he said. “What do you want us to do here?”
“Sit tight,” Amanda said. “If Dirk’s holistic detecting is messed up it’s probably not a good idea for you guys to try to detect anything.”
“Fine,” Todd said. He didn’t like that, and he knew Dirk wouldn’t either, but for now it was easier to just agree. He could figure out how to ignore her later. “How am I supposed to take care of Dirk though? I’m a fucking disaster, I can barely keep myself alive let alone deal with a psychic power outage.”
“You used to take care of me,” Amanda said, and Todd felt a white-hot pang of guilt stab him in the gut. “You were pretty good at it when you weren’t lying through your teeth. I think you can handle Dirk Gently until we figure this out.”
Todd sighed. “Okay,” he said. “But please no more radio silence? I need to know what you know so I can help if I’m able to.” He vaguely registered the sound of someone at his door, but he ignored it in favor of talking to Amanda.
“I’ll call you when I can,” Amanda said. “Just take care of you guys and don’t let Dirk do anything stupid.”
He was about to ask what she meant by that when the noise of his doorknob trying to turn became too much for him to disregard. He crossed his apartment with his phone still held up to his ear and unlocked his door.
Dirk was on the other side, looking pale and a little unsteady. “You never lock your door,” he said, and Todd realized he was right. He didn’t know why he’d locked it tonight but apparently the universe wasn’t telling Dirk how to get in anymore.
“Is that Dirk?” Amanda asked. “How is he?”
“I’m talking to Amanda,” Todd said to Dirk. “She says something bad is happening. How do you feel?”
Dirk answered that question by passing out cold in the middle of the hallway.