Page 28 of The Other World

“Come on, you miraculous girl,” she said. “Let’s go find my Sam.”

The other three moved to follow her.

“Wait,” I called out, wanting to warn them that they’d come face to face with other versions of themselves, but they were too fast for me. I followed them through the portal and into the other world.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I emergedfrom the portal into what looked like some sort of comedy skit, or that meme with Spiderman pointing at the other spidermen. The Tennysons and Altheas were just staring at each other in shock. Nikolai was looking around, I assumed for his doppelganger, and Mrs Spencer had run off into the night. Althea walked over to other-Althea and hugged her. It surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. I was forever underestimating her. Tennyson nodded toward other-Tennyson, who nodded back.

“Okay,” I said, wishing I had somewhere to put my sword. Mrs Spencer could’ve stolen a handy sheathe along with it, honestly. I looked to the Altheas, figuring I could at least count on them for logic. “I guess we need to assume Sam didn’t escape and work from there?”

My Althea nodded but other-Althea shook her head.

“I’m not going back to that place,” she said, which was fair.

“Do you think you could guard this side of the portal? Make sure nobody goes in or out?”

She nodded. I meant to include other-Tennyson in that, but he stepped closer to me.

“You can’t…” other-Althea said to him, but he shook his head and came to stand by my side.

My Tennyson looked at the two of us and raised his eyebrows, then moved to stand on my other side.

“Okay,” said my Althea. “What do we need to know?”

I explained about the portal at the lighthouse, or magic door, whatever it was, and gave her a vague description of the layout of not-dad’s compound.

“You won’t be able to hack his security a second time,” said a cold voice behind me.

I wrinkled my nose up in annoyance. Other-me.

“You said you wanted no part of this,” I said, not turning around to look at her, though I could see Tennyson’s and Althea’s surprise when they saw her. I wasn’t sure I liked the expression on Tennyson’s face but I didn’t have time to be jealous. “It’s a bit late to backtrack now.”

“Wrong,” she said, stepping forward to inspect the portal. She waved to Hannah and Harper on the other side. Harper waved back. Other-me spun back to face me. “You need me, if you want to get anywhere close to Daddy’s compound.”

I gagged at the way she said “daddy” but motioned for her to go on.

“He’ll be on high alert. The gateway from the lighthouse is probably closed and even if it isn’t, the other side will be heavily guarded.”

“So, we need another way in,” I said.

She shook her head. “There is no other way.”

I rolled my eyes. “How is this helpful?”

“I will contact my father, tell him that Nikolai double-crossed me and I have captured him and two of the escapees.” She motioned toward my Tennyson, Althea, and Nikolai. “He will then give me access to the compound and you can travel through and enact your little plan.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “And what’s in this for you?”

She shrugged. “I want to overthrow my father. He mismanages his empire and his ideas are antiquated, it’s time for a new leader. Your ill-conceived escape can serve as a distraction while Nikolai and I stage our coup.”

I didn’t trust her, not one bit.

We don’t have any choice, Tennyson said.We have to go along with it.

Other-me started when he spoke in my head, as if she could hear him.

Monkey farts,I said back.Spaghetti jockstrap rainbow.

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