Page 192 of Victorious

“Sorry, don’t know how…” he lied, turning the volume up so she could hear the music over the opening credits—it was Mitch’s night to pick, and all his choices were old black-and-whites, the kind with the names at the beginning instead of the end.

“You totally do!” she shouted back.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

“Uh-oh, better hurry…”

Syd sighed and hit stop, plucking the piping hot bag from the microwave and shaking it to get the last few kernels. She dumped it into a bowl, grabbed a bottle of Coke, and jogged into the living room.

“Back it up,” she ordered.

Mitch looked at her in fake surprise, as if he didn’t know that such a thing was possible. “When I was a kid,” he said, “you were in your seat on time, or you weren’t.”

“I was making popcorn!” she protested.

“Oh, thank you,” he said, snatching the bowl. Sydney rolled her eyes, and Dol looked up from the floor at the prospect of a snack. Mitch tossed him a kernel and he caught it, tail thumping as the credits finished.

Sydney climbed onto the sofa. It was bigger than the one in the last place they had stayed, but somehow, she still ended up with the same amount of room. What Mitch declared a Sydney-shaped-space, which really just meant half a cushion in the corner.

She didn’t mind. She tucked her feet up against his side, and he put a pillow over them, and she felt happy, and cozy, and safe, and she thought, if she could be anywhere in the world, it would be right there.

The only thing that would make it better would be if—

Victor walked in.

As if she’d conjured him. Willed him into being.

He eyed the screen, the couple dancing on it. “I take it this was Mitch’s night,” he said, and then, instead of passing by, he sank into a chair, a whisky hanging from his fingertips.

Sydney stared at him.

She knew he shouldn’t be there, knew this, this moment, which was made up of a memory, belonged to the months after he’d left. She knew it wasn’t real. But if she didn’t try to remember, it was easy to forget.

Dol adjusted, laying his head down on one of Victor’s feet as if to keep him there.

And Syd curled up in her corner of the couch and let the movie play.

XXXVNOW. THEN.

TO Gabriel’s surprise, the world did not disappear.

It shuddered briefly, like a camera losing focus, but when it stabilized a moment later, he was still standing in his office, with its smooth green walls and hardwood floor.

He wouldn’t have known that anything was different if not for the pain in his leg as he moved toward the door. With every step, the room around him flickered, revealing momentary glimpses of an altered room—a shattered glass, Helena’s blood, and ash, the furniture askew—before regaining its composure.

Fascinating, he thought, as he realized what was happening.

That despite appearances, he was indeed inside Serena’s sphere of influence. A dream of his—and her—own making.

He must have known, on some level, that he would not see his wife and son, much as he had loved them, would not find himself transported to the house upstate, or the one he’d built his practice in. The years he’d spent toiling away on cases with no novelty, no chance for innovation. Because his job was here, his purpose, here, surrounded by his work.

This was his happy place, he thought, with a sense of vindication, as he limped into the hall.

There his good mood guttered when he found Noah lying dead. He saw—and didn’t see—the body. It lay there in reality, but had been neatly excised from his dream, the body only visible in fragments, when the pain shot up his injured leg.

Pain, it seemed, had a clarifying impact.

It briefly broke the spell.