Page 112 of Broken Obsession

“You won’t?”

“If I don’t want someone in my reality, I send them to the next.”

“You murder them, you mean.”

“Semantics.”

“I don’t know,” Eden drawled. “It sounds an awful lot like delusions of grandeur and a way to excuse your murderous tendencies.”

Zar seemed to consider his words and then offered, “In one of your potential branches, I saw you masturbating in the bathroom. Did that happen?”

He snorted. “Everyone does that in the shower.”

“The dildo was red. You looked…frustrated.”

His eyes narrowed. “Did Ares show you the footage?”

“He filmed it?” Zar grunted. “Controlling idiot.”

Controlling soon-to-be-dead idiot, if that was the case. Eden didn’t mind Ares filming those videos for himself, but to share them…Absolutely no.

“A black sylar,” Zar quipped.

“What?”

“In several of your branches, you come across one.”

“There’s no such thing.” Sylars were a feline animal with antlers and webbed wings. They were also all various shades of white.

“When you see it, you’ll have to believe me.”

Whatever. This was getting him nowhere. Eden had no interest in the gods, what he cared about was Ares.

“You said you both see cracks in dimensions. Does that mean whenever he sees your parents, they’re really here? You also said they weren’t ghosts before.”

“It’s difficult to say with certainty. What he could be seeing are energy prints from a parallel reality. A glimpse at a different universe where Father and Mother are still alive. Or it could be a view into the past, from a branch before. There’s no way of knowing. Time is—”

“A concept, yeah, I’ve heard all about that.” He nibbled on his lower lip, breaking skin. “How can you be so sure what he’s seeing is even real then? What if he needs help?” They both needed help, but that was beside the point.

“He’s not psychotic.”

“Okay, but how do you know?”

“Because he’s described dimensions he’s never been to before,” Zar said. “Ones that I’ve seen. I can confirm that much, at least. What he sees is very real, but whether or not it’s current to our timeline, or if those versions of Mother and Father can return his gaze…I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”

“Why not?”

“Because the dead should stay dead. This reality,” he stated, “my reality, is for the living.”

“Is that what Ares wants?”

“Ares wants you. Just you.”

Eden held his gaze for a moment and then dared ask, “He said a friend suggested he find Ransom…?”

“It wasn’t me.”

“That your final answer?”