MirrorWorld

I’m expecting a negative reply, but Colby says, “Affirmative. I let one of those snake-handed bastards get a look at my face and gave it time to spread the word before putting three between its four eyes.”


Why would he let the Dread ID him? my present self wonders, while the me in this memory seethes with anger. He’s expecting something I don’t yet remember.

Just then, Colby turns and looks into the rearview mirror. Instead of a young man with close-cropped hair and a killer’s eyes, I see a more familiar reflection—my own. Colby pushes his hands into the perfectly molded mask of my face and starts peeling it away. “Think this will keep him on board?”

“The Dread will seek retribution.” The voice is new. Lyons. Bossman. He speaks more openly, unaccustomed to the cloak-and-dagger speak used by Katzman and Colby. “My daughter and grandson are safe here. But the others … Their loss will force a change of heart. I will mourn them, but perhaps it’s for the best. After all, a wounded predator is far more dangerous.”

As the memory starts to fade, I ask myself, When did this happen? When! I see the video’s time stamp. This was the day before Simon died. Before Maya killed him. Before the Dread … avenged what Colby, what Lyons, did that day, in my name. The blood of my son, my parents, and Uncle Hugh, along with Maya’s sanity, is on his hands.

The memory comes clear again, just for a flash, which is long enough to see Colby turn to the left and see a steaming, cracked-open, and bleeding mammoth charge between frequencies for just a moment and crush the young soldier. The mammoth is just a blur really, but I recognize it, and that Colby died for his actions that day.

A fresh memory replaces the last.

I’m in an office. Lyons’s. He’s ranting about the attack on our family. Fuming about how the Dread have just declared war. How he will do everything in his power to destroy them. He doesn’t know that I know the truth. He doesn’t know I’m seconds away from using the handgun tucked behind my back. But he quickly figures it out when I raise the weapon toward his head. “The Dread are not to blame for what happened. You brought this on our family. You killed my son.”

Lyons stops his tirade and looks at me. I can see he’s about to play dumb.

“I saw the video. Colby wearing my face. You killed him, too, you know.” My finger slides around the silenced weapon’s trigger.

He slumps and sits, the ruse up. His feigned anger melts away, replaced by honest despair and tears. “They weren’t supposed to be there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Maya and Simon. They were supposed to be here. I thought they were here! They would have been safe.”

“But they weren’t,” I say, but it comes out closer to a growl. “Because of you.” I’m not sure if he thought this information would quell my anger, because while he might not have meant to get Maya and Simon killed, my parents, along with Hugh and Allenby, whom he knew would not be at Neuro, since he’d insisted they all take vacations, were clearly his intended victims.

Instead of begging for mercy, he digs his grave a little deeper. “The Dread have been waging a war against mankind from the very beginning, frightening us, keeping us afraid of the dark, of the unknown. You know what they did to me. All those years. And it’s not just me. They’ve held us back and influenced history in tragic, murderous ways. Despite all this, you were going to walk away. The fearless killer who lost his taste for blood.”

The gun in my hand raises from his chest to his head. “I was trying to protect our family. There are other paths to peace than war.”

“My daughter made you soft.”

I nearly pull the trigger, but am not yet done trying to understand. “You and I both know that their world has been—”

“I don’t care about their world.” He leans forward, fists pressing into his desk, face red. “I don’t care how much they’ve suffered.”

“You should,” I say, and squeeze the trigger.

A pinch in the back of my neck stops me. As I slump to the ground and lose consciousness, I see Katzman standing above me, looking sullen. “Sorry, Josef.”

The memory fades, picking back up a day later.

“Stephen, I swear to God, if you don’t let me go—”

Lyons leans in close. “I am no longer Stephen to you, and you are no longer my son-in-law.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

He works the wedding ring off my finger, nearly breaking the digit as I resist.

I try to slip into the mirror world, preparing myself for a drop. But it never happens.

He looks down at me, a mix of sorrow and anger in his eyes. “You don’t think I would overlook your abilities, do you?”

“What did you do?” I ask. “Am I—”

“The DNA is dormant.” He stands up straighter, as much as his hunch allows him to. “You no longer have the ability to move between worlds.”

“I won’t need Dread DNA to—”