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She practically felt the instant they understood.

Seemingly in that exact same heartbeat, the soldier in front of her smiled.

“It’ll all be over soon,” he assured her. “Just think of it as a business transaction, Mrs. Graves.”

It won’t though,Angel thought quietly.

It wouldn’t all be over soon.

9

THAT GUY

The timeline jumped.

I didn’t jump anymore.

Thank Christ, I no longer had that interdimensional thing.

Unfortunately, that also meant I couldn’t take my friends out of there.

I couldn’t take Black out of there.

I couldn’t take Nick, Kiko, Dex, Jax, or Dalejem out of there, either.

I couldn’t jump at all, but the world jumped around me… around all of us… even as my mind slid backwards and forwards, throwing me in and out so fast I couldn’t catch up.

There was no way to fight back.

The thought came and went, but it stayed with me, somewhere.

It whispered in the back of my mind.

He planned this. He took you now on purpose.

Some part of me fought with waves of agitation, bouts of clarity that brought up so much emotion I’d lose that clarity all over again.He planned this.My mind spun out of control, throwing me into deep waters, stars, oceans of darkness.He fucking planned this.

He didn’t just happen upon us at our seer wedding, say “oopsies,” and decide to take us anyway. He planned it. He knew he could take us so much more easily when we were like this. He’d known, somehow, how utterly helpless we’d be.

Fear stuttered my mind into breakneck forward motion, rolling down a hill, then up, then down again. Vertigo and my stomach dropping… the motion brought my heart to my throat and distracted me at the same time, relieving some of that psychic stress. The lights blurred out on either side of me, and again I rode that rollercoaster, eyes closed, panting.

The cake thing Jem made for us was damned strong.

It was so freaking strong.

That, or whoever took us gave me something.

Maybe they’d givenallof us something.

I had no memory of anyone giving me anything, though. I had no memory of passing out, but I couldn’t rule that out, either. My mind swam through stars and out the other side, giving me glimpses of things that felt even more real, even more timeless… but then I’d see more inthisreality, in the same space where my body roiled and dipped around my mind.

I would return to the kidnapping timeline.

Suddenly I was traveling, in a car going down a highway in the dead of night.

I glimpsed a long fence to one side, blurring so fast I could scarcely see it.

Planes in the distance. Expensive planes. Strange planes…