Marshall, Marshall, oh God – be alive. Survive. Please, survive. I need you. Our baby needs you.
A low, keening cry lifted from my throat, swelling to a scream.
“Where the fuck am I?!”
I suddenly realized someone was watching me.
I returned to awareness in the dining room at Shore Leave, late afternoon. Benign sunlight rimming the windows, falling in long, slanting beams across the floor; flat on my back, I blinked and then sat straight with a wailing cry.
Malcolm…
I scrambled to my feet only to pitch forward and stumble, blood draining from my head as I moved too quickly. I grabbed for a chair and clung, letting the dark blotches recede from my vision, inhaling deep breaths as I scanned the familiar space. I let myself believe that we’d done it, that the real timeline had been restored.
“Mom! Tish! Mathias!” I gained enough strength to stand and dashed outside, skidding across the icy porch and down the steps, next sprinting across the empty yard. My shouting garnered attention and the door to Aunt Jilly’s apartment opened, revealing my sisters. Ravaged, despairing – exactly as I’d left them.
I slammed to a halt as swiftly as if crashing against a brick wall, looking up at their faces in the chilly light of late March. I saw. I realized. And then I went to my knees in the slush.
“No…”
“Ruthann.”
I scuttled backward, away from the horror of that abnormally calm voice.
But he advanced through the emptiness, unavoidable as death.
“No one has ever followed me here. It is as I suspected, you are as close to an equal as I will ever have. You are meant for me, Ruthann. Deny it if you wish, but it changes nothing.”
There was no hope of retreating. I was naked, alone, without weapons or hope.
I am in hell.
Fallon stopped a few feet away, staring down at me as I hunched with arms wrapped almost double around my body, more helpless than the ant I’d earlier envisioned. Fallon could crush me beneath his boot or keep me trapped in this jar, at his whim; he had maintained the upper hand to the bitter end.
“So much anger. Never mind. You’ll move past it.” His gaze flickered south and his brows lifted. He crouched so that our faces were on the same level. With obvious astonishment, he observed, “You’re pregnant.”
My lips parted, primal rage exposing my clenched teeth.
His pale, terrifying eyes held mine as he considered something before speaking. He gripped the lower half of his face as he whispered, “I was wrong. Patricia is not the one who will produce the heir. You are.” He became at once solicitous, ingratiating. “Come, I’ll find clothing for you. No additional harm will come to you.”
I blinked, so shocked words refused to take form on my tongue.
Fallon continued thinking aloud. “I’ve been betrayed in more than one way today, it seems. Things have been kept from me. Dredd’s counterpart, for example. Apparently he too is able to jump.”
I swallowed, tasting sour bile, limbs frozen in place.
“Come,” he ordered, with a growing edge of impatience. “Stand up.”
Only my eyes seemed capable of moving, darting like moths entranced by an open flame. Panicked. Out of control. Seconds from becoming ash.
“Get. The. Fuck. Up.”
The moths flew upward in an unexpected arc, alerted to rapid movement just beyond Fallon’s right shoulder. He must have been startled by the change in my expression because he shifted – but was too late to duck the powerful blow delivered to the back of his skull. I skittered sideways to avoid Fallon’s sprawling body, my stunned eyes alighting on a sweating, wild-eyed Derrick Yancy. He gripped a sturdy snow boot – one of his own, I noticed, in a stupor of blank astonishment – the heel of which had just knocked Fallon to his stomach.
“Quick, move!” Derrick ordered, harsh and breathless. “He’s not out!”
I obeyed without a word, scrambling away, skittering to my feet as Derrick raised the boot above his head. He would have delivered another solid strike but Fallon rolled to one side and kicked Derrick’s legs out from under him.
I moaned.
Oh God oh God…
I can’t outrun him. There’s nowhere to hide!
Fallon was no stranger to a fight, gliding like a snake to straddle his brother, pinning him by the neck in order to slam white-knuckled punches into Derrick’s face.
I hesitated for only a fraction of a second before realizing what I had to do.
Help him!
I figured I might as well die right now, attempting to save us – the alternative included my baby and me existing as Fallon’s prisoners.
Flat on his spine, Derrick groaned and struggled. Fallon’s back was angled toward me and so I leaped forward, hooking my right arm around his neck, thinking of Aemon Turnbull once doing the same thing to me, long ago in Howardsville. Aemon had kept his head to one side to avoid a backward strike and I did the same, squeezing Fallon’s fragile windpipe against my elbow. Outrage lent me courage and strength. Fallon released his hold on Derrick, immediately clamping both hands around my forearm, allowing Derrick the seconds he needed to buck free and grab Fallon’s wrists. I grunted with the effort to apply more pressure, bent in a half-crouch, fear replaced by pure red fury. This man had caused harm to those I loved for the last fucking time.
“He’s disappearing!” Derrick rasped.
Tish raced down the outside steps, clinging to the wooden railing, Ruthann on her heels.
“Milla! Where
