Page 217 of Victorious

He shoved the bite into his mouth to hide his smile. Sydney read the silence for hesitation and started rambling. “It’s okay if you don’t want me to, I can totally head back to the dorms, but it’s freezing out and I thought—”

“Kid,” he cut in, “you always have a room.”

She flashed a toothy grin.

And stole the rest of his pie.

“Gonna be a cold night,” he said when they pulled up to the cabin.

This one was yellow, not red, with a wrap-around porch, and a garden that had gone to seed now, but had done pretty well in the summer, thanks to the forum. He’d already started planning what he’d plant that year, once the ground thawed enough to dig.

Syd climbed down from the truck, boxes of takeout from the diner balanced in her arms, and Dol trailing like a happy shadow in her wake.

“You get the fire started,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll split more wood.”

“It would go faster if I had help,” she called.

Mitch rolled his eyes, and then split himself apart, one version jogging to get the door for Syd while the other headed for the woodpile.

Mitch rolled his neck and swung the axe up onto one shoulder.

He could feel and see and hear the other piece of himself, stacking logs in the stove, chatting with Syd while she made up a pair of plates, as keenly as he felt the chill breeze, the axe in his hand, as clearly as he saw the stars coming out overhead.

Small parts of Mitch Turner were scattered other places, too, versions that he’d lost, let go of. Dead, and buried, or simply left behind.

In Wrighton Penitentiary.

Merit Cemetery.

EON.

But as Mitch brought the axe down on the first log, and the sound rang through the trees, he sighed a cold breath into the air, and smiled.

Because for the first time in his whole life, he was right where he wanted to be.