Page 19 of Once a Villain
Joan dropped her head, but she knew it was too late. “We’ve already been recorded.”
“Not much we can do about that,” Aaron said reluctantly. “At least it’s dark enough that they won’t have seen much of us. And I have a way in....”
He guided them along the wall of the estate, stopping out of sight of the gate. Nick stepped back, assessing the climb. The wall was more than twice his height, and covered in ivy so thick that it could have been hedge.
“We’re not climbing it,” Aaron said. “Or at leastI’mnot—not in these clothes.”
“Your clothes?” Nick said incredulously.
“This is a Jonathan Meyer original,” Aaron said. “Probably the only one left in this timeline.” At Nick’s blank expression, he rolled his eyes. “Save us all from the great unwashed.” He pulled the ivy aside like a curtain, revealing a wooden door, weatherworn and moss-stained.
Despite the wear, the wood was solid. Joan examined an intimidatingly huge lock set into an iron plate. She had pins in her hair, but the keyhole was so big she might need sticks.
To her surprise, though, Aaron just lifted the latch and cracked the door, revealing a glimpse of trees. It wasn’t locked.
“Not very secure after all that security,” Joan whispered.
“I don’t think anyone knows about this entrance but me,” Aaron said. “I found it as a child, and never told anyone about it.”He went to push the door farther.
Nick stopped him. “Let me go first.”
Aaron hesitated and then stepped back. After a moment, Joan did too. It was their first mutual acknowledgment since they’d arrived in this timeline of who Nick was. Of who he’d once been.
Moonlight silvered Nick’s dark hair and outlined his muscled shoulders. Back on the bridge, Joan had thought of him as vulnerable, surrounded by people who could kill him at a touch. And he was, but... even in his latest incarnation,born and raised as an ordinary human, he was far more dangerous than he seemed. Over the last few days, he’d begun to wield some of his old abilities again—he’d caught a man’s fist mid-punch, breaking bones. He’d snapped a thick metal chain with his bare hands.
What else might he still be capable of?
Joan wondered suddenly if monsters here had myths of a human hero in this world. Did theystill tell legends of a boy who slayed monsters? Did some part of them remember him?
The door was barely ajar. Nick pushed it open farther now, just enough to slip inside. He cocked his head, listening, a still shape in the darkness against the shifting leaves of trees. Then he beckoned for them to join him.
Joan went first. There were scratches on the brick where the door met the wall, but that was the only sign of human life here. They were in a garden—apparently untended. Dense trees obstructed the moon, and ankle-length brambles tangled underfoot.
It wasn’t quite as wild as it seemed, though. The bramblesbrushed harmlessly against Joan’s legs as she walked in—they were thornless—and she could smell crushed mint and thyme. This was a Georgian-style savage garden, untamed and overgrown in appearance, but carefully designed.
Behind her, she heard Aaron’s soft footsteps and then the clunk of the latch as he closed the door behind them. Joan turned to see ivy curtaining the exit, completely concealing it.
Unease bubbled up inside her. Even though she’d just walked through that door, she couldn’t have easily found it again. All the trees here looked the same, and the leaves were unbroken along the wall.
Nick held up a hand to stop them walking farther in. Joan took his lead and just listened. There was no sound but rustling leaves.
Aaron broke the silence first. “No one ever comes to the wall. Look—” He kicked at the overgrown grass. “Even the gardeners neglect the grounds here.”
Joan nodded, but unease ran through her again, stronger this time. She turned back to that ivy-covered wall. The leaves fluttered, mothlike, in the breeze. Joan realized suddenly what had been disturbing her. “You said no one comes up here,” she whispered, “butsomeone’sbeen using that passage. When we came in, there were marks on the stone—scrapes from the door. More than what we just made.”
Aaron frowned. “I’ve never known anyone else to come up here.”
Maybe that was true in the last timeline, but things were different here. They’d arrived at the Oliver mansion withassumptions that were proving wrong. They hadn’t known there’d be cameras along the wall or a security lodge at the gate.
“It’s okay,” Nick said, his voice low and reassuring. “We made backup plans. We can take a different route out if this one is compromised.”
Aaron took a step in the direction of the house, and then he was the one hesitating. The hairs rose at the back of Joan’s neck. Aaron had turned to the ivy wall, as if he’d seen a ghost.
“What’s wrong?” Joan breathed.
Aaron took a moment to reply. “When Eleanor altered the timeline, you protected us,” he whispered to Joan. “You shielded us from the changes she was making.”
“Yes... ,” Joan said uncertainly.
