* * *

  Pegasus went straight to Cypher’s station after leaving Zeus’ office, thankful he wasn’t the only one unable to get some early rest tonight.

  “Why is it you again?” Cypher complained.

  Pegasus gave him his most dazzling smile. “I forgot something. I need to look at some personnel files from Center. Zeus should’ve sent you something.”

  “Are we trying to return Scorpion again?” Cypher sounded excited about that prospect.

  Pegasus tried not to laugh. “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “I need to get some photos.”

  “Photos?” Cypher didn’t try to hide his astonishment. “Are you trying to set someone up?”

  “Why? Are you volunteering?”

  Cypher tossed him a glare. “Should I care why you want to grab photos?”

  “Not particularly.” No one needed to know for now. How long they’d be able to hide this mess was a different was a different matter.

  “There you go.” Cypher pointed at a station not too far from his own. “You have access for the next five minutes, make it quick.”

  Temporary access indeed. Pegasus pulled up the registry. They couldn’t directly access Center’s systems, of course, but they maintained a copy of their personnel in their own computers for any eventual checks during emergencies.

  Finding Lore’s file was easy enough. He copied her photo over to his tablet before the first minute was up. He’d never met Lore personally, so he hadn’t had any idea what the woman looked like. But looking at the image in front of him, it was as if Sarah’s description had come to life, right down to the hairstyle.

  To be sure though, he was planning to grab a few other photos at random that matched her description. That shouldn’t be too difficult. He left the registry and accessed their own database, searching for suspects and witnesses from at least five years ago.

  He found five other women who looked similar enough and saved those as well. It was important that these were outsiders and not involved in current cases to avoid the risk of Sarah having seen them before.

  Pegasus finished saving the other photos and tossed them all in the same folder. He pulled up Lore’s photo on his tablet. What would it mean if Sarah had truly met the other version of Lore?

  A sudden force pulled his chair away from his desk, spinning him around. He had to hold on tight to his tablet to keep it from flying off. He pressed his foot down, stopping the motion, and looked up at Scorpion. “Are the others back?”

  “Not yet. Mermaid and Unicorn are still out, getting stood up by Mermaid’s informant I bet.”

  He nodded absentmindedly. Hopefully, nothing had happened to the man. Their only other viable option for getting some information, the captured terrorist Franklin Mason, hadn’t exactly been cooperating.

  Other than the protests popping up all over the place and inflamed by the New Nation, the New Nation had been pretty quiet so far. There were a few larger protests with expected crowds numbering over two hundred and fifty thousand protesters planned for the following weeks. Maybe that’s why he was feeling so nervous. They could do a lot of damage if they targeted one of those events.

  Scorpion glanced down at her watch. “I’m gonna have another go at Mason. Care to join me?”

  “I’ll watch.” Sarah would hopefully be getting some rest. He could talk to her tomorrow, after their training session.

  “I can’t figure out how to get anything out of him. He’s got no family, and no friends outside the New Nation. Nothing we can use for leverage. Am I missing anything?”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Pegasus shrugged. He couldn’t think of anything.

  “Do you want to go about it like a ouija board?”

  Pegasus scratched at his scalp. Had he not gotten all that paint off? “You want to put a map of the city in front of him and wave around a pen and see what happens?”

  Scorpion laughed. “Start with city, then the surroundings where we caught him.”

  They had nothing else to lose. “Why not? Even if that fails, we might actually summon some spirits.”

  * * *

  Sarah woke up slowly, unwilling to move. Unable to open her eyes more than a slit, she checked the time.

  Damn it! She’d forgotten to set her alarm and was very much at risk of being late for training.

  Tossing her covers aside, Sarah rolled off the bed like a giant log being pushed downhill towards a river. She splashed cold water on her face, changing her clothes under a semi-panicked haze.

  When she opened her door to leave, thick smoke enveloped her. She shrunk back to her room, slamming her door shut, but the smoke followed her in.

  Sarah dropped to the floor in search of air. Dust coated the back of her hands and smaller debris pricked at her skin. A sharp breath brought hot air that burned her throat and started a fit of coughs.

  No alarms, not a trace of the tiles in her room. Her eyes couldn’t make out a thing beyond the smoke.

  Where was she?

  Eyes tearing up, she had to close them, running her hands along the floor. It was a floor, that was obvious. Underneath the piling debris, there was a smooth surface. Not concrete, not dirt.

  She pressed her face against the floor in search of cleaner air and found the soothing coldness she expected from the tiles.

  Her fingertips traced one, then another, before she opened her eyes.

  She rolled over where she was, curling into a fetal position as she coughed and sputtered. The smoke was gone. Everything was back to normal, except that she was still on the floor.

  By the time she was able to stand, she’d almost forgotten about the training session. She looked at her watch. She had about three minutes to get there.

  Using the jog over to get reacquainted with breathing, Sarah was sure she could make it to the training room at most three minutes late.

  Still a floor down, Sarah came upon Griffon, Unicorn, and Scorpion.

  “What do you mean flood?” Scorpion asked. “I thought your sister lived nowhere near the coast.”

  “It’s been raining down there for four days straight,” Unicorn said. “Her eldest said he wants a boat for his birthday so he can still go to the amusement park.”

  “Priorities.”

  Unicorn shook her head. “Poor thing is gonna be so sad when he finds out the park closes when it rains.”

  “Where are you rushing off to?” Scorpion asked Sarah when she joined them.

  Now that she thought about it, they didn’t seem in any particular hurry. Maybe she’d missed an update and the training session had been rescheduled. “Are we not training today?”

  Various degrees of confusion manifested on their faces.

  “Who told you that?” Griffon asked.

  “Pegasus said I’d be training with you today.” She searched around for him. “Or did I get the day wrong?”

  She might as well have slapped their faces by the reaction she got.

  Something terrifyingly familiar crept into her thoughts. “Where’s Pegasus?”

  Unicorn’s expression softened, a sorrowful gaze going straight to Scorpion, who was glaring at Sarah.

  “Phoenix,” Griffon said, his voice a little rougher than she would have expected. “Why—”

  “He’s dead!” Scorpion spat out, taking a menacing step towards Sarah. Unicorn placed a hand on the woman’s arm, but Scorpion pulled away.

  Sarah tried to speak, but even breathing was difficult.

  “I can’t tell if you’re that messed up or if you’re just being cruel,” Scorpion all but growled.

  “Outside the department store,” Unicorn said. “He was chasing someone, remember?”

  Sarah shook her head, starting to move away from them. “No, that was the dream,” she blurted out.

  “Is she in shock?” Griffon asked.

  “Should we get Athena?”

  She shook her head again, but she doubted they’d take her answer seriously. The last thing she needed was to get locked up.

  “Sorry,” she whispered, unable to hold back her tears. This shouldn’t be real. She didn’t want to accept that this might be real.

  She ran, ignoring Unicorn when the woman called her name. Thankfully, no one followed.

  The elevator wouldn’t be nearly fast enough to appease her, she realized, changing course towards the stairs. She was running and jumping down the steps as soon as she was out of view. The erratic movement was more on par with her mind’s own desperate run, replaying everything that had happened since she woke up.

  She made her hand into a fist, slamming it into the wall as she ran.

  Her hand! She almost tripped over a step when she slowed down to examine it.

  The wound on her palm from when she cut herself with the mirror fragments was completely gone, not a trace left. It’d still been there yesterday. And her foot… With the way she was running, the healing cut should at least be bothering her. Unless it also wasn’t there.

  Bursting out into the corridor, she forced her muscles to keep going at their limit until she got to Pegasus’ room. Somewhere upstairs, someone would be looking at a screen, wondering why she was banging so desperately on a dead man’s door. She swallowed back a sob, pushing it down her dry throat as she wiped the tears running down her cheeks.

  Pegasus had to be here, he had to. Her hands ached as she hit harder. If he wasn’t there, then this had to be the dream. It had to. Right?

  She clenched a fist, forcing her fingernails to dig into her palms. The pain couldn’t be real. But then, things had been almost too good to be true lately, hadn’t they?

  Strength leaving her, she leaned against his door, listening for any sounds from the inside. Panic was all that was left as she cried.

  If one was her world and one was the other one—which one was hers?