Page 28 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

and Joan realized she’d been clenching and unclenching her fist, still unconsciously trying to stay grounded. Aaron pressed

down, and the pressure of his touch did help. “Take us to the Oliver house.”

“Where are Nick and Aaron?” Tom asked, as if Aaron hadn’t spoken. “The real Nick and Aaron?”

It was the question they’d all been avoiding. The silence between them felt weighted.

“I’m sorry,” Joan said finally. She felt sick when she thought of them—a Nick, an Aaron who’d lived in this terrible world;

who’d risen above it to help people. “We think they’re gone.”

“You know the theory, I’m sure,” Jamie said softly. “The timeline wouldn’t allow two versions of them to exist. They would

have been replaced when we arrived.”

Tom folded his arms, looking as sick suddenly as Joan felt.

“We didn’t overwrite them on purpose,” Joan said, trying to explain. “It’s like you said before. We are them—born in different circumstances.”

Outside, the sky had grayed to a false twilight. The sounds of the boat seemed muted too; the lapping water was almost inaudible.

It hit Joan with a shot of fright that her senses were fading again.

Aaron’s grip tightened around her hand. She looked up at him and found him staring grimly back. How did he always know when

this was happening to her? The warmth of his hand seemed to stop the fade-out in its tracks—the world began to brighten again.

In the distance, a train blared its horn.

“ Are you taking us to a guardhouse?” Aaron said tensely.

“He’s not,” Jamie said.

“How can you know that?”

“Because...” Because I know him. Jamie didn’t say it.

He just craned around Tom’s big body and whistled five notes.

It wasn’t a melody—it wasn’t musical at all.

Outside, the boat’s console lit up, and the boat returned its own artificial trill.

“See?” Jamie said, and then clearly realized that none of them had understood the whistles.

“We’re not going far,” he translated. “He’s set the destination for that bridge up ahead. ”

As he spoke, Tom slammed a button on the console, dimming its lights, shutting off whatever channel had been opened by Jamie’s

whistle. You’ll know if I lose my temper , he’d said, and his expression now was dangerous.

“What in the R2-D2 was that?” Ruth hissed at Jamie. “You just talked to the boat!”

Tom was momentarily distracted. “What’s R2-D2?”

“Oh, this really is the worst timeline,” Ruth muttered.

Tom turned back to Jamie. “That was a private Hathaway language,” he said. The rough note made Joan shiver. “We don’t teach

it to outsiders.”

“I’m not a spy, Tom,” Jamie said tiredly. “I haven’t been listening to your radio communications, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

To Ruth, he added: “And I didn’t talk to the boat. I just activated the console and performed a query.”

“You used my password!” Tom growled.

Jamie swallowed visibly. Joan could see how hard he was working to keep it together. “We knew each other in the last timeline.

I know you don’t believe it right now, but you used to trust us. I still trust you.”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone enough to share my password. You—” He stopped, biting off the rest of the sentence, and Joan realized his eyes had caught

on Jamie’s ring with its intertwined phoenix and hound. His gaze lifted back to Jamie’s face.

Was he putting it together? The way Frankie had sprinted to him; had leaped into Tom’s arms, expecting him to catch her. The way Jamie looked at him. Could he sense that Jamie was familiar?

They’d been talking about overwriting their counterparts, but the truth wasn’t as simple as that. Memories didn’t carry from

timeline to timeline exactly, but some part of Joan had recognized Nick the first time she’d seen him. They’d been together

in the original timeline, and some part of her had known him—had yearned for him—even though they’d never met.

Tom was staring at Jamie now with an intensity that made Joan feel like an intruder.

“In the timeline I remember, you and I used to be...” Jamie faltered. “Well, we were close.”

There was still a little suspicion in Tom’s eyes. “Close?” He said it like it was an alien concept. Joan had the feeling he

was going to shut down again. Or maybe he’d decide that they really were spies. Maybe he’d open a radio channel and tell the

Hathaways to warn the Court. Or Marguerite. But instead, Tom’s eyes shifted to Frankie, still in Jamie’s arms. “What did you

say your dog’s name was?”

“Frankie,” Jamie said. Frankie woke at her name, looking sleepy and puzzled.

“I knew someone named Frankie once,” Tom said.

A glimmer of emotion in Jamie’s eyes. He blinked it away.

Tom searched his face. “Why are you here?” When he’d asked earlier, it had been accusatory, but his voice seemed a little

softer now.

“We didn’t mean to come,” Jamie said. “It’s like we said. We tried to stop Eleanor, but—”

“No, I mean why are you here —on this boat? Why is Aaron pretending to be Aaron? Why is Nick pretending not to be Nick? Why do you care about the message in the ring?”

Jamie took a breath. He put a hand on Frankie’s head, settling her again. “I think it’s clear that Nick’s and Aaron’s counterparts

weren’t just helping humans. They had a larger plan to stop Eleanor. We want the same thing.”

“This world is wrong ,” Joan said to Tom. “We all felt it as soon as we arrived here. Don’t you feel it?”

“The treatment of humans—” Tom started.

“Not that,” Joan said. “Or not only that. There’s something wrong with the timeline, something off. It feels—” She reached

for the monster sense inside herself. “Like the timeline is sick. I can almost smell the decay.”

Jamie leaned closer to Tom, earnestly. “We have to fix it.”

Joan felt Aaron going very still beside her. He’d warned them not to reveal their mission here.

“What does that mean?” Tom said. “ Fix it?” But he already knew. He answered before Jamie could. “You want to restore your own timeline. I doubt Aaron’s and Nick’s

counterparts were planning to do that .”

The moment felt fragile. Tom was still standing over them; still blocking their exit. What was he going to do?

“Tom, this world is wrong ,” Jamie said earnestly. “It shouldn’t be this way. Our own timeline wasn’t perfect—not even close. But it was better than

this.”

“You’re talking about overwriting this timeline. You’re talking about—” Tom stopped, but they all heard the rest of the sentence. They wanted to overwrite the people of this timeline.

Jamie swallowed visibly. “It’s not exactly death.”

Tom looked down at Jamie’s ring, deliberately this time. “Isn’t it?”

Jamie’s eyes glinted with unshed tears. “I know it isn’t. My family power gives me memories of previous timelines. I remember

living other lives, but I was always me .”

Tom searched Jamie’s face. Tom himself had told Joan once, in this same situation: He doesn’t know you. You feel things about him that he doesn’t feel about you. You miss him, and that makes you want to trust him.

From the outside now, Joan could see Tom had been right. For all that Jamie wanted to trust this Tom, he didn’t know him. To Tom, Jamie was a stranger who’d just told him he wanted to overwrite his whole world.

“What if I stopped you?” Tom said to Jamie. His tone was oddly gentle. “What if I told Eleanor herself what you were planning?

She’d stop you.”

“She could try,” Nick said softly. His voice carried a weight, though, that made Tom look at him properly for maybe the first

time.

“You won’t tell her,” Jamie said to Tom. He sounded certain. More certain than Tom seemed. “I think you know this world is

wrong too.”

Tom’s mouth tightened, and it hit Joan that he was worried about something. That he’d been worried about something since he’d

heard Nick’s recorded message.

The boat was beginning to slow; they’d reached the destination Tom had set—the Rotherhithe walking bridge. Tom whistled a note now, and the engine cut out. The sudden silence made Joan aware of how small the boat’s space was; how everyone’s movements made the wood creak.

“Wait... You’re just going to stop here for real?” Jamie said. He’d apparently assumed that Tom would tell the boat to

keep moving once he reached their set destination. “We’re in the middle of the river. We’ll drift.”

“He’s going to throw us in,” Ruth muttered.

“Don’t tempt me,” Tom said. He opened the door from the kitchenette and stepped out onto the deck.

There was a small floating pontoon attached to one of the legs of the bridge. Tom grabbed the edge and lashed the boat to

it.

“What are you doing ?” Jamie said. “Why is there even a pontoon under that bridge?”

“Come out here,” Tom said.

“ Are you going to throw us in?” Aaron said warily.

“I want you to see something.” Tom hoisted himself up onto the narrowboat’s roof.

“Why do we have to see it on the roof ?” Aaron grumbled. But when Joan followed Tom out, he fell into step behind her.

The water was choppy by the bridge, and the deck rocked underfoot. Joan’s hair flew, briny river spray spitting at her face,

as she climbed onto the roof.

“There are handholds.” Tom pointed to metal loops sticking up at regular intervals on the roof. “You’ll be more stable if

you crouch.”

The others came up one by one. It was a tight fit for the six of them, and they ended up kneeling in a line, trying to stay balanced.

“Well... ,” Aaron said. “I see the city. But I could have seen it through the window too.”

Tom didn’t smile. He really was worried about something. Unease curled in Joan’s gut.

“Look... ,” Tom said. “I’m not saying I believe that you’re here for benign purposes. And I’m certainly not saying I’ll

help you. But... Nick spoke of damage in that recording, and I think I know what he meant.”

“I don’t understand,” Aaron said.

Tom pointed at the sky. “ Look. ”

Joan followed his gaze. The sky was clouded, the sun penetrating feebly through the gray. It was going to rain again soon.

She couldn’t see anything unusual in the sky, but she was feeling even more uneasy now.

“You need to tilt your head,” Tom said. “You can only see it from a certain angle.”

Joan tilted her head. She couldn’t see anything but the sky. She shuffled on her knees, trying to line up her view with Tom’s

pointing finger. “I don’t know what—” she said, and then she stopped, the words sticking in her throat.

She heard, distantly, Aaron make a horrified sound, and Jamie groaning like he was going to be sick. She was going to be sick.

Above them, the sky was suddenly cobwebbed and black, and something was moving in the darkness, wriggling and crawling like maggots feasting on turned meat.

Joan had been sensing corruption and decay from the moment she’d arrived in this timeline. But now the feeling hit her so

strongly that her stomach cramped with nausea. She might have fallen if she hadn’t already been on her knees. She heard someone

retch behind her. Jamie, maybe.

“What is that?” Aaron choked out.

“It’s the sky,” Tom said. “The real sky.”

“I don’t understand,” Joan said.

“There’s an Ali seal up there,” Tom said. “But it has a point of failure. If you look at it from just the right angle, you

can see the world as it truly is.”

“What does that mean ?” Nick said.

Tom looked over at him. “Your counterpart spoke about damage—of running out of time to stop Eleanor. I think he was talking

about this . This world is riddled with holes, and the damage is only getting worse.”

“What?” The hairs rose at the back of Joan’s neck as her understanding reframed the view above them. She’d thought she was

looking at pale cobwebs in a night sky, but now she realized that the cobwebs were outlines of holes. The blackness above

was the void itself: the vast emptiness that existed beyond the timeline.

She realized then why she’d been sensing decay and corruption since she’d arrived in this timeline.

This world was falling apart.