Page 18 of The Other World

“Yeah, I remember them talking about that guy. But he’d not out here today, he’s still in the cells.”

My heart sank. “The cells?” I asked. “They’re back in there?” I hooked a thumb back over my shoulder, though I had no idea what direction not-dad’s evil compound was in.

Nikolai nodded. “Yeah. There’s probably some other places too, but the main dungeons are here.”

Before I could even swear again, something came at me from the side and knocked me into a tree. I jumped back to my feet to see Nikolai using a fallen branch to fend off a feral, snarling werewolf.

I grabbed the werewolf and pulled it away from Nikolai and it spun to face me.

I froze. Even half-transformed and crazed, I knew that face.

Tennyson.

He pounced at me. I fell backward and my head slammed against a rock. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Tennyson’s face, launching toward me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When I opened my eyes,it was Tennyson’s face I saw again, but not feral and attacking. It was my Tennyson. I wasn’t lying on a forest floor; I was on a soft bed.

I grabbed him and buried my face in his neck, just breathing him in until my heart stopped hammering. In that moment, I didn’t care about the weird distance that had grown between us, the coldness. I didn’t care about anything except that he was there and he was safe.

Sorry, I said finally, but didn’t pull away.

You met the other me?

I loosened my grip on him so I could look into his eyes.

The only other times I’ve seen you so afraid is when you’ve thought you’ve lost someone.

I nodded.You were so…

I didn’t have the words. The way he’d looked at me, with no recognition. It wasn’t even that he’d attacked me. Tennyson,myTennyson, was always so controlled, so composed, that to see him so broken was incomprehensible to me.

“You’re bleeding,” he said aloud, pulling his hand away from the back of my head and staring at it.

“I hit my head,” I told him, not wanting him to feel guilty for something his counterpart had done.

I let him fuss around me, dressing the wound on my head, making me a cup of tea and a little tray of cakes. For the moment, things seemed back to normal with us, the weirdness between us, if not forgotten, at least ignored. It was so nice to be there, to be with him, in my own world. I didn’t want to go back. But I had to.

“I think I found Sam,” I said, once I’d finished my cakes and everyone had gathered to hear my news. I told them everything that had happened since the last time I’d been back. Nikolai was disgustingly proud of his other-self, catching on to the fact that I wasn’t who I said I was. He also seemed to like the idea of purple camo.

“Okay,” said Althea. “While you were gone, I’ve tracked down the sword. My mother apparently had a lot of security around it but I don’t know why. We can’t get to it for a few days, there’s some magic protecting it that needs to be dispelled and it can’t be done until the new moon. After that things should be easier.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I told her.

I wished I could take them all with me to the other world. Things would be so much easier if I weren’t all on my own. Even if other-Nikolai would work with me from here on, which I couldn’t bank on, it wasn’t the same. It seemed such a cold, barren world, compared to this.

I spent a bit of time looking up ways to hack into security systems similar to my not-dad’s, since I’d need it to get into the dungeons, but mainly I just wanted to hang out with my friends for as long as I could before I had to go back, but eventually, I couldn’t stay awake any longer. I fell asleep with Tennyson’s hand in my own, and I wished I could wake up the same way.

When I woke, Tennysonwasright beside me, but his hand wasn’t in mine and he wasn’t my Tennyson. At least his fangs weren’t out though.

I blinked and looked around, though there wasn’t much to see. We were in a small cave, or maybe just under the overhang of a big rock. It wasn’t just Tennyson and Nikolai, there were a few others huddled together too. I assumed they were the surviving test subjects. They were so ragged and filthy, that it was hard to tell their ages or genders, let alone species, and I’d been so focused on trying to find Sam, I hadn’t memorized the details of the other test subjects to give me any idea.

“You’re finally awake then,” said Nikolai. “I’ve been explaining how we saved their lives.”

I raised my eyebrows but didn’t correct him. He’d been very little help but there wasn’t much point saying so. At least he hadn’t stopped me, I supposed.

“I need to get to the dungeons,” I told Tennyson. “I want to free everyone there. Can you help me?”

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