“Because Michael can’t say how long it will take. It’ll be minutes here but who knows how long for you, and if he determines you can’t be rehabbed, he’s going to move you on.”
I shook my head. “Is that a fancy way of saying I’ll be dead?”
“I don’t want to do this without you, Kendall. I don’t know if I can.”
I kissed him on the forehead. “You won’t. Michael will fix this. Or I can stay this way.”
“You can’t.” Malcolm shook his head. “You’ll never be able to control yourself like this. We hoped the lack of memory would temper the outbursts of power surges. It’ll overwhelm you.”
Well then, I guessed I didn’t have a choice, which I hated more than anything I could remember for the longest time. A bitter taste filled my mouth.
“This will feel like minutes to you. In that amount of time, you won’t even have enough minutes away from me to miss me.”
Malcolm stood and tugged me against him so fast I barely had a second to brace myself before I banged into his chest. His mouth met mine. He tasted sweet and like the man I had loved through several lifetimes.
He pulled back, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Don’t die.”
“I won’t go without saying goodbye to you.”
“Here’s the problem. If Michael doesn’t fix this, then you won’t care if you say goodbye at all. Somewhere in that thick brain of yours, keep us in there. Come home. Love us even with what happened to you. If that is at all possible, do it, Kendall.”
I stepped back. “When I get back, we’re going to talk about your lying problem.”
He put his hands on his hips. “I’ll look forward to it.”
I stepped toward Michael, and he nodded at me. Levi called out, “See you in a minute, Kendall.”
The world went black.
* * *
With my memories back, I could recall everything. Every. Damn. Moment. For over one hundred years. My head pounded, but I wasn’t surprised about the discomfort since pain was what happened every time people messed with my brain. I threw a wood chip into the fire. Michael sat across from me with his arms crossed and his gaze on the flames. In the distance, I heard the sound of an animal crying. The whole time I’d lived here being trained, I’d never seen any of the animals I heard crying. In the Shadow Dimension, I’d seen enough things. I didn’t really care what animals were around in Michael’s pit stop to death.
I raised my hand, and the fire flared.
My captor, and that really was what Michael had always been, raised his eyes. “Ready to talk?”
“No.”
I knew what he wanted, and I wasn’t going to give it him. I actually liked it in my current cage. It was warm, pretty. I had fond memories of my time from when I’d been forced to visit. I never had to worry about food or attack.
“You have to. I only have a limited amount of power left to do this with you. When I run out, I’ll have to send you on.”
I leaned back on my log. “Sounds great. Do that.”
He shook his head. “You know you could have died in the Shadow Dimension. People do.”
I stood. My log was less comfortable. “Shows what you know. I died hundreds of times. Faded into ash and then regrew. If I could have died, I would have.”
“You could have faded into nothing. Creatures do sometimes. You know it. I know it. Sometimes the universe gets rid of souls.”
He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know exactly how that worked or why sometimes it happened. The option had never been handed to me. “Your point?”
“You wanted to come back. You are strong. You are present. You are still here.”
What was his point? “Maybe I would have faded. How do I know? It was an endless cycle of hell, and you might as well call it what it is. The Shadow Dimension. Hah. You let me jump in a hole, and you sent me to hell.”
He nodded. “I didn’t want you to jump in. I told you not to.”
“Oh come on, Michael. Or whatever your name is. You took me from death when I was nine years old. You trained me to jump into that hole. There was nothing else for me to do. Don’t act like I wasn’t following directions—whether you gave them to me right then or not.”
I was sick to death of this cycle of discussion. He’d hidden behind his own lies for a long time.
His eyes flared. “I gave you a choice.”
“You’ve lived a long time. Are you going to pretend I had any idea what I’d agreed to?”
It took him a long time to answer, but I wasn’t in any hurry for his response. The night was warm, and nothing was trying to hurt me, not physically at least. Finally, he spoke. “I’m not going to pretend we didn’t manipulate all of you.”
“Thanks for that at least.” I laughed, even though none of this was funny. “Why me, by the way? There had to be hundreds of other children who …”
He shook his head. “We watched your family for a long time. You’re powerful. You had the potential to be the most powerful in the whole group. Plus, you turned around and tried to save Malcolm’s life. Like it or not, you bought your own way in and then agreed to it.”
“Fuck you, Michael. You should have left me alone.” I shouted. I couldn’t even help it.
He shrugged. “Maybe I should have. But what a waste that would have been. Life ended at nine. Nothing else. That breaks my heart. Not you, Kendall. You did things with your time. Even if you’re done.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure what to do with that compliment. I wasn’t looking for happiness and thanks from Michael. I wanted to be angry with him. He deserved my bad mood.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Here’s the thing. I have lived longer than you have, even with your added time in whatever dimensions you were in. Thousands of years.”
“None of it in that hell place where I landed.”
Michael stood. “Boo-frickin-hoo.”
I jumped to my feet. “Are you kidding me?”
“You want a fight. You’ve wanted one; let’s do it.”
The first blast of Michael’s power hit me hard, throwing me to the ground. I hit my head, stars crossing in front of my eyes. My own abilities surged to life. I threw light back at him, jolting him back a few inches. He wanted to fight? Fine, I was game.
* * *
Hours later, I lay flat on my stomach staring at the dirt. I’d put up a good fight, but there was no question—Michael was stronger. With what little energy I had left, I pounded my fist on the ground.
Why was nothing easy?
Michael walked over to me, staring down at my prone body. “Feel better?”
I shook my head. “Not even a little.”
“You will. Eventually.”
I doubted it.
* * *
Three weeks later, I had actually started to thaw. Michael beat me in power challenges anytime I felt the urge to pick a fight with him. It was nice not to be the most powerful person in the room. Somehow it steadied my nerves. I couldn’t hurt him. I didn’t have to be afraid I would. Otherwise, we seemed to be back into a routine similar to the one I’d been in for years when I’d lived in this place. I’d even started to miss the others. Nights were quiet. I missed the way Malcolm used to whisper in the bed at night.
I missed the way my kids laughed at the breakfast table, Victoria’s easy wit, and the way the others filled up my days with happiness even when the world was going to end. I longed for the scent of new baby on Abbi’s head.
But at night the shadows came—with their horns and their evil stench to replace the daytime easiness I felt when I looked at Michael’s purple waterfalls. I rubbed my eyes.
“Someday, when this whole mess is done, I’m going to sit with you on a beach somewhere and love you in peace.”
Young Malcolm’s voice filled my ears, and I shoved away the memory. He haunted me here. Somewhere on Earth, he waited for me. Malcolm wanted his Kendall back, and I wished I could give her to him, to make things easier if for no other reason.
>
“I’m split in three—maybe four—versions of myself, Michael.” I knew he was there. He’d hardly left me alone since I’d gotten here. “Is that possible? To be four different people all struggling for dominance inside my stupid head?”
He stepped to my left, looking down at the waterfall. “Like some kind of multiple personality disorder?”
“I suppose.” I should have taken more psychology classes. “Whatever you want to call it.”
My alien companion gave Malcolm a run in his ability to be still. “Which ways are you split? You’ll have to excuse me. This was much more Gabriel’s way than mine. He used to talk to all of you. I tried to lead.”
“We thought you were mean.” Mean Michael who had made us all mad all the time …
He laughed. “I am mean.”
“If you say so.” I shook my head. “There was the first version of me. When I was a kid. Driving around in my parents van.”
My father’s voice echoed through the canyon. I wondered if Michael could hear him too. Kendall, did you finish your homework? Just because you’re having an unusual childhood, doesn’t mean you won’t have an education …
“There are multiple timelines to a person’s life.” Michael’s statement answered my question. Whatever it was that made the voices sound, he could hear it too. “If you hadn’t been shot that day in those woods, if you and Malcolm had gone for pizza instead, you’d have driven off in that van with your parents. He’d have gone with you. But you wouldn’t have Abbi. You wouldn’t have fallen in love. He’d have been more like your brother.”
I cleared my throat. “And Levi? And the other kids?”
“Not in the lifetime where you didn’t die. There would have been love. There would have been children. But not the ones you have. Not the life you’ve led. Despite the whole soulmate thing you and Malcolm feel, he would not have been yours in that scenario.”
I turned to him, staring at his hard but fake profile. He’d given himself that face. I’d seen his other one. “Can you actually see that? Like, watch it as though it was a film?”
He nodded. “Like a passing puff of smoke.”
“Then I died. Part number two. It wasn’t only a training camp. This is where I fell in love, this is where I learned to be tough. This was my life. Until you took it away.”
Victoria walks ahead of me, holding Henry’s hand. I’m behind her, clutching Malcolm’s. She floats a rose in the air, and Malcolm grabs it, handing it to me …
“We put you back into your childhood and then you had a life. Years of happiness.”
He wasn’t wrong on that account. I’d had such happiness with Levi and the kids. I’d had exactly the kind of life I’d thought I wanted. I’d never look back on that time except in happiness. Even the end, when Levi couldn’t take the truth, had been easy in comparison to now.
“Life three.” He held up the corresponding fingers. “Your memories came back. Life four?”
“Shadow Dimension—five. I underestimated.”
He snorted. “Do you want six, or can we go from here?”
“I have the ability to take out The Master. I can do it. Probably easily. Or at least easier than ever before. I can do that. But I can’t be who they need me to be. The kids … I hurt Molly.”
With my memories back, I remembered flinging my little girl across the room. Fortunately, Logan had caught her. They should keep the kids away from me. Or lock me up.
“It was never supposed to be easy. We could have done it differently. Put you in a position where you had no life. Gabriel said giving you time for a life was kind and would give you something to work for. I think you’re safe to be around people. I think it was all too much, too soon. Every week you’re here, you’re better.”
I lowered my eyes. “I’m not sure. At night, it’s like they’re all around me.”
“And that might never go away. It never leaves me, the way it was when my world was destroyed. You’re close to saving yours.”
I took a deep breath. “When you’re gone, does this place leave too?”
He shook his head. “No. This dimension has always been here. I don’t own it. I just use it. Why?”
“When this is over, maybe I want to be here. Maybe I don’t belong anywhere else.”
“Are you ready to go back? This is probably the last time I’ll be able to do transport you. But you can get here any time you want. I think you know that. I think you can do it yourself now. You always could, all of you.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I don’t know what will happen to me now.”
When I’d lived here before, I couldn’t have imagined doing it, but Michael needed a hug. So I gave him one. “Then we have something in common. You tried really hard to save people. I’m going to see to it that what you planned happens. I’ve been to the bad place; that’s not where you’ll be going, Michael. I can promise you that.”
Chapter Four
The next morning when I woke up, I knew Michael was gone. His spirit had moved out of the place like a sudden burst of warm wind gusting against me as I opened my eyes. His power had depleted, and whatever happened next, he’d gone to it. I studied the purple-tinged sky. So many questions without answers remained. Would the Phoenix still work? What would happen to Chelsea, our comrade whose soul he’d hung onto when she’d died? Could I bring her back as I had Mary? Or was it too late?
I’d have to find these answers on my own. This wasn’t any different than losing my parents. I had a million questions I’d never be able to ask them again.
I could come back here anytime I wanted. No one was using this dimension, and I knew how to bring myself back and forth now. Like snapping my fingers, once a power turned on, it didn’t go away. I’d show the others how to get here.
The purple waterfall rained in the distance. The pounding, which had been like background noise when I’d lived here, comforted me now. I missed Michael like a favorite uncle, and I knew I always would.
What I would do next was the question. The Master waited. He needed to be dealt with. The problem was that there was no permanence to any of it. I’d send him back to the Shadow Dimension. Then what? In a few hundred years, he’d torment another dimension. I’d be long dead, and I wasn’t going to stick around for eternity like the Others, waiting to teach some unsuspecting children in a different dimension how to fight.
Or maybe it wouldn’t be The Master. Maybe it would be some other terrible creature from where I had been. There certainly were an abundance of them.
I watched you in utero …
Rafael’s voice moved through the canyon. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since he’d sacrificed himself for me. When I’d been a child here, I hadn’t had memories return to me. But I could call on them now, hear them as though they happened in the moment.
He’d watched me in utero; the thought was so strange. Even as I considered the oddity of it, the truth of his words hit me. Why me? Why tell me? Why had Michael chosen me, out of all of the kids in the universe, to train? Why us?
Because I came from my particular family tree. We were powerful. We could do what others couldn’t. My six-year-old daughter cleared ghosts. My nine-year-old son saw visions. My oldest child had survived a demon possession. The baby cried when she sensed bad things around, and she was an infant. She’d protected herself inside my body.
“Fuck,” I screamed out into the canyon. I yelled it. Over and over again. I didn’t have to wait around to train anyone. After we beat The Master, all I had to do was train my own children. And Victoria’s. And any other children who came from my friends.
I squatted down. I didn’t want that. I wasn’t going to be this person, this mother. My own had done enough damage.
“No, that’s not fair.” Talking aloud to a canyon full of nothingness, I wasn’t helping anything. “My mother didn’t do anything wrong. I had powers. She taught me to use them. She included me in her life. Then she let me go.”
/> So was that what I was going to do? Teach my four children to live this life so they could teach their own kids? One day when the damned shadows came out to play somewhere else, they could fight them back?
They could dimension hop. They simply had to be shown.
I closed my eyes. My name is Kendall Madison Yates Fallon, and I am going to teach my kids how to be the police officers of the shadow people?
Well, it was always about choice. That was what my father had taught me, and I still believed it. We had choices. We could not be made to do anything. I’d show them how. It would be up to them what they did next. They got to say screw it and let the universe handle itself.
But first there was The Master. I was done with him, and he needed to be gotten rid of.
* * *
Appearing in the backyard after so much time had passed for me and none had passed for Malcolm or Levi was a strange sensation.
Maybe it had been minutes.
“Sweetheart?” Malcolm’s voice choked, and my heart plummeted into my stomach. I’d put him through so much pain.
“It’s not been years. Just weeks. I’m sick of time. Aren’t you?” Then, because I couldn’t control myself, I threw myself into his arms. He caught me, his head coming down on my shoulder. “Michael is gone. His powers are gone. We need to meet, and then you, Levi, and I have to speak. About the kids.”
I pulled back to look at Levi. “Tell me right now. Would you be willing to take our kids and go to the place where I lived for awhile? The Other Space? I won’t have them in the line of fire. The Master is not beyond using them and you.”
Levi looked down at his feet. “Since I know I’m completely outclassed in this fight, I’ll do as you instruct me to do.”
I walked to him fast and embraced him, different from the embrace I gave Malcolm. I loved Levi, but we weren’t in love with each other anymore. “Would you take Abbi? I know she’s not yours, but there’s no one I trust more than you if this takes longer than I’d like.”
“She’s their sister.” I understood what he was saying; he didn’t need to articulate more. Levi Yates would always do the right thing.