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“I’ll take this,” he murmured close to her ear, as his free hand dipped into her pocket and removed the Book of Doors.
Cassie slapped harder at the arm, but her brain was shouting at her that she couldn’t breathe, that the book really wasn’t that important.
“Thank you kindly,” Hugo said, just as Drummond appeared in the doorway.
“Wha...” he started. “Aw, fuck,” he finished.
“Mr. Fox,” Hugo preened, taking a few steps away from the door. “How nice to see you again. I have your lady friend and her book.”
To Cassie, still stuck in Hugo’s grip, still struggling to draw breath, his words started to sound almost dreamlike, as if they were being heard by someone else.
“What are you going to do, Librarian?” Hugo asked. “Are you going to go into the shadows and run away again, like the last time?”
Drummond wavered, eyes flicking back and forth between Cassie and Hugo, indecision in human form.
“Coward,” Hugo spat.
And then Cassie kicked him between the legs, as hard and heavily as she could manage, hoping it was enough.
The man gasped and squeaked and dropped her, his face flushing red as she staggered away.
She moved toward Drummond and the two of them backed out of the room to the hall, even as Hugo gathered himself, as he forced his way forward, his eyes fixed on them.
“I’ve had enough pain for one day!” he muttered.
“Come on,” Drummond urged Cassie, as if he knew what Hugo might do.
“What did you do to Izzy?” Cassie demanded, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Where’s my friend?”
They were moving toward the door to Cassie’s room, still the doorto the past, their escape route. Hugo saw what was through the door as he stepped toward them, his eyes lighting up.
“Quite marvelous,” he said. Then he looked at Cassie. “Perhaps I killed your friend because she annoyed me,” he said.
“No,” Cassie said, refusing to believe him. To believe what he said would be the end of her, she knew; she would shatter like dropped crystal.
“He’s lying,” Drummond said.
“Am I?” Hugo countered. “Why would I?”
“It’s who you are,” Drummond answered.
“Either way, this is tiresome.”
Cassie looked at the Book of Doors in his hand, and then realized, in an instant, it wasn’t the Book of Doors.
“You, I have more business with,” Hugo said to Drummond.
Then he looked to Cassie, just as the book in his hand sparked into life, pouring purple and red sparks into the gloomy hallway.
“You, I am done with.”
Cassie felt herself jerked upward and backward, and she tumbled through her bedroom doorway and into the past. She heard Drummond shouting “No!” and then she felt rough concrete as she rolled along the ground in the parking garage.
She landed awkwardly, a tangle of legs beneath her, and then Dr. Barbary stepped into the doorway. He glanced around, appreciating that Cassie was now in a different place, and then he smiled at her.
“Goodbye,” he said simply, as Cassie scrambled to her feet, moving so slowly.
Barbary closed the door, the slam echoing around the parking garage like a thunderclap, and Cassie was alone, in the past and without the Book of Doors.
