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“Think about home.” I shook my head. “No, more specific. I don’t want to end up in the middle of the pond in the park. Think of our apartment, the living room, us sitting on the couch watching TV. Got it?” I squeezed his hand.
“The couch? Sure,” he said, sounding more unsure than I was comfortable with.
“This is important. I don’t know what will happen if we think of different places, but I doubt it’ll be good. Think of the couch in the living room.” I glared down at the little stone and focused all my energy on it and that ratty old couch.
The air around us shuddered, but nothing else happened. The pendant emitted the faintest glow, so we were doing something right, but it wasn’t enough.
“Think, Never,” I mumbled to myself. “What was different?”
Matty watched me warily. When another weight crashed into the door, we both flinched, and I nearly dropped the pendant.
“Fuck!”
Matty unlaced his fingers from mine and reached for it. Instinctively, I pulled back. His face flickered with some emotion, maybe disappointment, but he must have read my unwillingness to part with the thing because he backed off. “You’re sure that’s the thing that will send us home. It couldn’t be anything else?”
I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to remember the night I arrived. “It was definitely this,” I said.
“What did it do when it worked the first time?” Matty asked.
“It glowed, super bright. The air got all watery. I was startled when that happened, and I dropped it. When I picked it back up, it was smeared with blood. Of course!” My eyes flew open. “I was bleeding and it got on the pendant.” I pulled the dagger back out and opened a small cut in my palm before eyeing him. “Your turn.”
He hesitated a moment before trying to reach for the knife, but I pulled it away with a shake of my head. “You’re already bleeding.”
He looked down at the gouges in his chest. There was a moment when I thought he might actually faint. His face was quickly turning a questionable shade of green, but then another body hit the door hard enough that something cracked, loud.
He wiped his hand across his chest with a hiss. “This is crazy. You know that, right?”
“You have no idea, little brother. No idea.” I held out my hand for his, laced our fingers together, and squeezed. “There’s no place like home.”
His laugh was terrified and weak, but at least he wasn’t petrified. “When we get back, you’re so buying me red shoes.”
“Whatever you want, just focus,” I said, turning all my attention to thinking about home. Of course, it wasn’t all about that beat up old couch or our shitty little apartment, because that’s just not how the human brain works. Thoughts of Hook snuck in as the air around us thickened and shimmered. I caught the familiar scent of our apartment, faint at first until it spread and overtook Hook’s alluring scent.
The outline of our television and the second-hand entertainment stand it sat on started to form in front of us, and Matty stared at that shimmery image like a kid seeing Santa for the first time.
“It’s working!” I couldn’t hide my excitement, but I felt a deep sense of regret too. Sadness.
I shoved it away. My goal had always been to get Matty home, to keep him safe. That would always be my priority.
Another hard blow smashed the door to pieces and Leo, bloody from the battle, rushed forward, yelling something I couldn’t hear over the drone of the magic encasing us. Two steps behind him was the man of my dreams, Hook, reaching for me.
Then it was all gone.
50
NEVER
I landed on our couch with a thud, kicking up a puff of dust and dog hair. My vision was still a little fuzzy, so I squeezed my hand hard to make sure Matty was with me. His responding wince sent a wave of relief through me.
I blinked about a thousand times before the TV and the rest of the room finally came into focus. Then I let my head fall back, and sucked in a few deep, calming breaths.
“How are you feeling?” I finally asked, rolling my head to look at my little brother. His eyes were closed, and he honest to god looked like he was sleeping.
A groan slipped out. “Like I just woke up from the weirdest dream.”
I laughed, ignoring the small ache in my chest at knowing I’d never see Hook again. That was probably for the best, wasn’t it? He could go on doing his thing in his world, and Matty and I could pick up where we left off in ours.
Speaking of… I needed to find Lily. Goddess only knew how long we’d been gone. Was time in Hook’s realm the same as time in ours? Was it just three days?
