Page 38 of The Other World

He pushed me away, so hard that I slammed into the tunnel wall. I was winded for a moment, so Nikolai tried to stop him instead but Tennyson pushed him off as well, with even more force.

STOP!I yelled into his brain, putting all my fear and anxiety into that one word.

It got through to him. He stopped digging and turned around, staring down at his hands, which were covered in dirt. He always kept his hands so neat, his nails well-trimmed, but now they were ragged and bleeding.

He blinked and looked up at me. “What happened?”

I shook my head.

“I have a theory,” said Mrs Spencer, who, I’d noticed, had been no help at all. “I think she must be experimenting on this world’s version of you. When she had Lucy, she was working on the connection between the two of them, using that as a way to tap into Lucy’s powers and life force.”

“You think she’s mind-controlling Tennyson through other-Tennyson?” I asked. “Is that possible?”

Mrs Spencer shrugged. “She might not even realize that’s happening, it might just be a side-effect of whatever she’s doing to him.”

I sighed. This was the last thing we needed.

“So, we can’t rely on the pack bond to find Althea?” Tennyson asked.

“I can help,” said Nikolai. “I’m not the alpha so I can’t sense her so clearly but I still can. The bigger problem is what to do if you go all brain-addled again.”

I shrugged. “I’ll brain-slap him if he does. Come on, let’s keep moving. I’m sick of this place, I want to go home.”

We followed Nikolai back through the tunnels. I stuck close to Tennyson, watching for any sign that he wasn’t his usual self but he seemed fine. Maybe it was because he’d been using hisown powers, that had somehow made him more susceptible to outward influences. I didn’t know. All I knew was that this place was toxic and I hoped I never had to come back.

“She’s close,” Tennyson said suddenly, when we were nearly out of the tunnels and back to the main building. I grabbed him by the hand, hoping he wasn’t about to go all trancey again.

“This way,” said Nikolai, leading us to a flight of stairs that was partially hidden behind a pillar.

The stairs were long and steep, and didn’t come out on any other floors other than the one at the very top. The closer to the top we got, the more nervous I felt.

“You okay?” Tennyson asked.

I wasn’t sure, but I nodded. Maybe I was just feeling bad from all the physical exertion when I hadn’t quite recovered. I hoped that’s all it was.

At the top of the stairs, we went through a narrow doorway. Once all four of us were through, the door slammed shut, leaving us in pitch black darkness. I reached for Tennyson’s hand.

She’s here, Tennyson said.

Other-me? Or Althea?

Both.

Just as he said it, the lights flooded on. For a moment, I was blinded, and then I wished I was, because the sight before me was horrible.

Althea was floating in a large glass tank full of greenish liquid. She was bound by the wrists and her feet were strapped to the bottom of the tank with iron bands. It almost looked as if she was standing upright in the water, except that she swayed side to side, her thick, dark hair billowing around her. Her eyes were closed and the only way I knew she was alive was that every few seconds, a stream of bubbles came out from her nostrils and trailed up to the top of the tank. I couldn’t see how she was breathing, but thankfully she was.

Other-Tennyson was tied to a table that looked a lot like the machine that the six-fingered man tortured Westley on inThe Princess Bride.Other-me stood tinkering at some dials at the end of it.

There were a couple more people chained up along the wall, but I didn’t recognize any of them. Actually, that wasn’t true. I recognized the girl at the end, though I hadn’t seen her in a few years. Not since my father murdered her.

“Katie?” I asked, in a choked voice. I took a stumbling step forward, toward my old roomie.

Tennyson grabbed my arm. I looked back at him and he gave a little shake of his head. I knew what he meant. We had to follow the plan. We couldn’t risk it all to save just one person, we had to save as many as possible. I knew he was right. Even though I hated myself for it, I took a step back.

“You’ll forgive the theatrics,” Other-me said, finally turning to us.

“No, I won’t,” I said.

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