Page 21 of Almost Midnight

“You didn’t even intend totellme about it, Nick,” she repeated furiously. “You had no intention of telling me a damned thing about what you were doing, or why you were doing it. You made a unilateral decision to risktheirlives, to completely disappear them from mine, without so much asaskingme what I thought about that idea. You didn’t even bother to run the odds on the likelihood any of you would survive. Or the likelihood you’d reach a world or a dimension where you’d be better off than you are now––”

“Jesus fuck, you are so insanely full of it,” Nick growled.

“Am I?”

“You fucking well are,” he snapped. “Given the amount of work you and Brick have put in, trying to convince me that thiswasmy world… I highly doubt my home dimension is the dystopian hellscape you’re pretending. You wouldn’t bother, if that was the case. You certainly wouldn’t bother to the extent you’ve bothered over the years. You’d just tell me the truth about how shitty my real planet was, and warn me off trying it––”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said coldly.

“Don’t you?” Nick retorted. “All those faked videos, Lara? The ones you showed Wynter, knowing she’d show me? The videos of me and Dalejem opening limousine doors? The ones with Miriam and Black, that supposedly came from ‘recovered records’ Archangel had on file here? I’m assuming Brick helped you put those together. Or possibly you got the information from me in some way, after one of your numerous brain scans or reprogramming sessions with the I.S.F. However the exact process worked, you faked a fuck of a lot of documentation, Lara, to not care at all about me trying to get back to my home world. Why go to all of that trouble? Why spend so much effort trying to convince me this was the same world where I was born? What were you trying to hide from me?”

“Nothing!” she hissed.

“Right. So you just had a bunch of fake footage of me and my seer mate lying around for shits and giggles? Then you justhappenedto assign Wynter to the task of going through them, knowing full well she’d show them to me once she saw what was on it?”

St. Maarten only glared at him, silent.

At the wholly unapologetic stare she aimed at him, Nick let out a disgusted sound, feeling the pain in his chest and gut grow hotter.

“Of all the manipulative, gaslighting, fucked up shit to foist on me. And on Wynter for that matter, who believed the ones of Dalejem were of her––”

“They weren’t fake,” she snapped.

Nick stared at her. “Bullshit.”

“They weren’t.”

Nick rolled his eyes.

He shook his head in disbelief as he stared at her.

“Well, I admire your commitment to the lie––” he began coldly, but she cut him off.

“Do you really think that was the only portal to have ever opened before, Nick?” she asked coldly. “Do you think you are the only being to have ever walked through one of those doors? That Brick is? Or Zoe? Or Wynter herself?”

The silence grew thick.

Nick stared at her through it.

“Are you saying you’ve been to my old world?” he asked, feeling strangely faint. “Are you saying those records came from there? That you went back there and stole data from the place where I was born?”

She bit her lip, almost like she was second-guessing, or even deeply regretting her own words. He saw her cheeks redden as she slowly shook her head, then fingered her perfectly cut, disturbingly symmetrical hair back into place.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now,” she said crisply. “The deed is done. The portal is closed.”

“Don’t you meanthisportal?” Nick growled.

“Do you know how to conjure another one?” she sneered at him.

Nick’s stare turned into a glower. He knew she probably saw an open threat in his eyes now, but he didn’t care.

“No,” he answered her belatedly. “I don’t know how to conjure one. And thanks so much for that, Lara. It wasn’t enough thatyouunilaterally made that decision for all of us… unlike me, who actuallyaskedthem…” he added, with venom in his words. “No, you had to kill a few vampires and kidnap a half-blood seer just to make sure we understood what a bad idea it would be to cross you again…”

“You are delusional,” St. Maarten snapped. “Those vampires dying wasyourdoing, Nick. Not mine! If you hadn’t tried to take all of them with you––”

“I thought they were wanted criminals?” he growled.

“They were!” She looked angry again, and now flustered.

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