Page 148 of Victorious

His fingers tightened on the scope.

He’d never really had a temper—he couldn’t afford one, looking the way he did—but he did have an aunt who told him once that some people came out of the tap already bubbling, while others had to boil. But given time, all of them could get hot enough to burn.

“Mitch,” prompted Victor, impatient.

He swallowed. “Not yet,” he said, panning from Victor’s position to a facade near the center of the park. A massive sign built into the front read MADMAN’S MANSION, the letters jagged, painted red. “But I can see the ride. You’re heading in the right direction. Just take the path to the place it splits and go right.”

Mitch’s gaze slid back to the house. He couldn’t tell if it was built to look like it was falling down, or simply was. There were no windows, but he still searched, desperate for some sign of the kid, some proof she was alive, and safe, though every passing second as the cold air cleared his head, it filled with questions. How had she gotten away at the motel, and why had she come here? He taught her better than that, made her practice what to do in case of ambush or attack. She should have kept moving, kept running, not let herself be surrounded, cornered. It didn’t make sense. There was something they were missing.

Mitch panned back toward Victor.

He wasn’t there.

Panic shot through Mitch as he scanned the park, the path Victor had been on, now empty. No sign of him until—

There. Mitch found him, no longer heading for the ride, but sitting on a bench in an open square, exposed.

“What are you doing?” Mitch hissed into the comm.

But Victor didn’t answer.

Something was wrong.

“Victor, can you hear me?”

Just then, a set of headlights cut through the thinning dark. A third black van. Mitch spun toward it, boot slipping on the metal grid. He gasped, grasping for balance, heart jackhammering inside his chest as he stopped himself from falling.

Below, the carrier stopped behind the one he’d been locked inside and killed the lights. Doors swung open, and four dark shapes spilled out.

Reinforcements.

Mitch swung his attention back toward Victor in time to see him stand, and start to walk again, cutting toward a roller coaster on the far side of the park. “You’re going the wrong way,” said Mitch as the agents poured through the second gate.

He wavered, torn between his cellmate’s order and the trouble heading toward him.

“Victor,” he tried a final time.

When only static greeted him, Mitch swore under his breath.

He closed his eyes. He missed the cabin back in Herald. Missed chopping wood. The way the axe rang through his palms. The smell of chimney smoke. Sydney curled on the sofa while he made dinner, Dol beside her, head resting on her feet.

He held the image in his mind like a promise, or a prayer.

And then he opened his eyes and began to climb down.

VIIINOW. THEN.

SYDNEY sat across from Eli at the kitchen table.

The polished wood was the only thing between them as Serena put the final touches on the cake. When her sister opened the door, Sydney had hoped—and feared—it would be Mitch. But her heart had dropped into her feet when she saw him.

Now he sat across from her, squinting slightly, as if trying to focus through a fog, a fresh scar, like a dog’s jaw, circling his throat.

Sydney felt along the bottom of the table.

She had a theory. Serena was creating some kind of illusion and seemed to be in control of everything Syd saw, and heard, and felt. But when the world had faltered, she’d been standing upright somewhere else. Like a sleepwalker. Which meant, when she was moving through the Brighton Commons house, she was also moving through that other one. That’s why she’d caught her foot—even though, in the living room, there’d been nothing to catch her foot on.

She couldn’t break free of Serena’s dream, but that brief flash of discomfort had been enough to let her briefly glimpse the other world. The real one. Now, her fingers searched until she found what she was searching for. She didn’t dare look down, or close her eyes, but even if she couldn’t see shard of wood, she felt its splintered edge. Sharp enough to register through the gauzy wrapping of the dream. Sharp enough to prick her skin as she tried to pry it free.