He did see the woman standing near it not looking at him.
“Alice,” he said.He’d had a feeling that not dealing with her would come back to bite him.
“Alice?”Stella’s voice was high pitched with shock.
Family reunions.How he hated them.
They appeared to have won the battle, Con noted, but it felt like the war wasn’t over.They were still in a dystopian somewhere that existed in heaven only knew when.
Dystopian was one genre of sci-fi he had never been that fond of and he sure as heck had never wanted to live it.
At least Rita was mostly okay.Ty had latched onto Alice, who still hadn’t said anything to her mother.
She’d abandoned Alice as a child, so their situations weren’t the same.And he’d been going to die, he reminded himself.He still felt like a punk for leaving his mom because he wasn’t dead, but she thought he was.
He really wanted his mom right now—because he wanted her to meet Rita.And not because he needed his mom or anything.
It was, of course, a lie, but it was a lie he needed to tell himself.
Rita’s head rested on his shoulder and he had his arms around her.That helped a lot.But the main question remained.
How did they get home?Did he even know what or where home was anymore?When they’d left, the silo was gone.
“Where are Jack and Mel?”Rita murmured in a low voice.
“They stayed with the camper.”
Mel had said something about them being the missing piece that could unravel everything and no one wanted that.
As Con had helped repair theRay,he’d gotten updated on what they knew, and he’d shared what he and Rita had learned.It was a lot to process and might be the reason he wanted his mom.
“As long as they are okay,” Rita said.
Were they okay?Were any of them okay?
There were some possibly key things Rita might not know.For instance, that she was Jack’s aunt.That her brother was alive—or had been alive.If this was the future, then he probably wasn’t alive.Did she even know she’d had a brother?
And there he was, right back to missing his mom.What was it about a mom hug that pushed the confusion away, even if only for the length of the hug?
His attention turned to Alastor and Ness.Alastor still looked shell-shocked, though much less angry than the last time Con had seen him.It felt somehow appropriate that they seemed to be arguing.
Ness’s voice rose enough for him to hear her say, “I’m not a little kid anymore, dad.”
Right now the guy might be wondering why he’d tried so hard to find her.
A butterfly flew across the square, rising and falling close to the ground, then rising again.
“That’s odd,” he murmured into Rita’s ear.
Rita lifted her head.“A new odd?”
Her smile almost distracted him from the butterfly.He half turned her so she could see the butterfly.It was beautiful.She was beautiful.Both she and the butterfly felt right for the moment.
“I thought there was nothing alive here but us,” he said and felt Rita stiffen.
“That’s not good,” she said.
“It’s just a butterfly,” he began but it wasn’t just one.
