About an hour had passed when Melody heard a commotion down the hall. She’d had to use the bathroom for a while but didn’t want them to see her leave the room. She was hoping it would be a matter of “out of sight, out of mind,” but she could no longer hold it in. 

     She carefully, quietly turned the door handle, then leaned out to see if anyone was watching. She could hear them inside the master bedroom and see a few of them with their backs turned. They were discussing something and not paying any attention to the doorway. 

     Quickly, she tiptoed to the bathroom that was next door to her room and on the way to theirs. Once inside, she quietly shut the door and did her business. 

     When she was done, she carefully stepped out and was about to return to her room when she heard part of their conversation. 

     “Look, Pierce,” said a man seated directly in front of a screen. “Recognize him?” 

     “I’ll be damned!” Kai exclaimed. “It’s the mayor!” 

     “Look over there,” Paul said. “It’s the school board superintendent.” 

     “Are you sure this is being saved, Jack?” Kai asked anxiously. 

     Jack nodded. “Two drives, the cloud, and they’re getting this feed back at the station.” 

     They quickly turned when they heard the floorboards creek. 

     Melody had let her curiosity get the better of her and wanted to see what they were talking about. Her eyes widened as she stared, afraid of their reaction to her snooping. 

     “Ma’am, are you all right?” asked Kai, standing from his chair. 

     She wrung her hands together, tugging at her fingers, as she thought of how to answer. She only nodded and looked around at the others. 

     “Oh, let me introduce you,” he told her. “This is Jack Butler,” he said of the man at the screen. “Blane Davis,” he said of another seated beside them. “Mateo Pérez, Neal Gordon, and Paul Harrison,” he said of the three standing behind them. 

     She gave them a faint smile as they greeted her, then faced the screen again.

She looked around the group in the clearing and noticed obelisks about eight feet tall in a semicircle. It reminded her of Stonehenge, and she wanted badly to get a closer look. 

     Kai smiled a little when she stood on her toes to look at the screen. 

     “Would you like to see?” he asked. 

     She chewed her lip and took a small step forward. When the three standing men made room for her to enter, she walked closer. She folded her arms protectively in front of herself, trying her best not to flinch when she brushed against one of them.

     Thinking better of it, she stepped back. The screen they were looking at was big enough, and she could see the group of people she had witnessed earlier performing a ritual. She squinted her eyes to get a better view of the stones. 

     “Is there something that interests you?” he asked, her curiosity making him curious, as well. 

     She glanced at the others and looked up at him again. 

     “The monoliths,” she said softly. “The tall stones. Can you zoom in on them?” 

     “Do they look familiar to you?” asked Kai, intrigued by her inquiry. 

     “It was my major,” she answered. “I have a master’s in archaeology and cultural anthropology.” 

     “What do dinosaurs have to do with cults?” wondered Jack. 

     “That’s paleontology,” she answered, glaring at him for his ignorance. 

     Kai laughed along with the rest of his men at their teammate’s teasing remark, then he smiled at Melody’s freely offered information about herself.  

     “Pierce?” responded Paul in question about her request. 

     “Zoom in,” Kai replied. 

     Melody looked at the towers of stone with vested interest. The only difference between them and the ones at Stonehenge were the marks she could barely make out on their sides.  

     “Can you get in closer to the symbols?” she asked, and he obliged. 

     As soon as the symbols on one of the stones became clear, Melody gasped and stepped back in panic. She tried to slow her breathing, but the images on the screen were burned into her skin. 

     “What’s wrong?” asked Kai in concern. 

     He reached out to shake her free of the trance she was in, and she screamed.  

     “Don’t touch me!” she shrieked as she swung at his hands. “Don’t ever touch me!”     

     She ran out of the room and back into the bathroom. She desperately needed to wash away the memory of her attacker’s touch. 

     She slammed the door tightly, locking it to secure her privacy. She hurried to the shower on shaky legs, pulling her clothes off as quickly as she could. Still pulling off her socks, she climbed into the shower, shut the glass door, and turned on the faucets full blast. 

     The water was cold at first, but she seemed oblivious. She scrubbed with her nails and dug in deeper when she felt the symbols beneath her fingers. Falling hard to her knees, she began to cry.