Page 27 of Midnight Coven

He’d forgotten to be afraid of what they might do to him. He’d nearly forgotten what they could do to Wynter, how easily they could destroy his life and the lives of everyone he loved if he pissed off the wrong people.

He had to get them the fuck out of here.

He had to bring them with him, back to that other Earth.

He had to get all of them back there, somehow.

The thought had been growing stronger every day.

Nick couldn’t remember exactly when it started. He didn’t know at what point after San Francisco he started thinking about it actively, and nearly all the time.

Once it really began to resonate there, he couldn’t let it go.

He couldn’t afford to let everything fall to shit now.

He couldn’t afford to be in prison.

He hadn’t even tried to find some way to get them back to that other world. Hell, he hadn’t even thought about whether it might be truly or remotely possible. He hadn’t talked to Mal about it, or Tai, or hell, even Brick. He hadn’t even asked Kit or Wynter to go through the archives of Archangel, to see if they could find out something.

St. Maarten might know if it was possible already.

She might know of seers with the ability to open those doors.

If Nick let them lobotomize him before he could do any of that, or throw his wife in prison, or if they simply lit him on fire and cut off his head…

It would be too late.

All of it would be too late.

He would never get out. He’d never get Wynter out.

He’d never get back home… to hisrealhome.

As all of that ran through his mind, Nick realized he’d already made up his mind.

He wasn’t considering whether they should go.

He already intended to go.

If he could find a way out of here, he was gone.

Moreover, he’d known that before he left San Francisco. He’d known it before he finished that initial, fucked up conversation with Brick.

He just hadn’t admitted it to himself.

Nick might have been thinking about it before he got Brick to admit it out loud, ever since he realized the truth himself: that Nick wasn’t on the version of Earth where he was born, that it washimwho’d been the one to leave, not all the seers he loved.

Nick hadn’t been abandoned on his birth world.

He’d been the one to leave them.

He left his family, all his friends, everyone he loved.

He didn’t even know why.

Regardless, ever since he’d learned the truth, the thought of getting back there, the thought of returning to his home dimension, had never been far from his mind.

He’d never stopped thinking about it.

---