He blinked several times in rapid succession. “No, they didn’t. That’s madness. You can’t kill the gate.”
“Of course you can. There’s a failsafe.”
“I know there’s a failsafe,” he snapped, his eyes flashing. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve been in this business for decades. But nobody has ever engaged the failsafe.”
“It was engaged this time. There was no choice.”
“But ... no!” Emmet swung his head from side to side. “That’s not possible. I have to cross again. Mary is over there. She’s sick. She needs me.”
“Mary is beyond your help now.”
“Don’t say that.” Emmet extended a crooked finger in my direction. “Don’t even think of saying that. I’m going to make it back to her, and you’re going to help me.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to help you.”
“Of course you are. We’re on the same team.”
“Except we’re not.”
“Seriously, just stop it.” He stomped his foot against the ground, and in the depths of his eyes, for the first time, I saw a hint of my reflection ... only it wasn’t me. What I saw staring back was the silhouette of a monster, one I’d seen — and destroyed — on more than one occasion.
I’m a revenant. That was the panicked thought that flooded my brain right before I recovered. Don’t be an idiot, I chided myself. You’re not a revenant. He was trapped on the other side with a revenant. You’re somehow participating in a memory that you didn’t witness. Just ... calm down.
Emmet continued to swear and spit, burn every name he could muster in effigy. I could barely listen, though.
What was happening? Were they still over there? Did Emmet somehow survive? What would happen if he returned to find his wife was gone? The questions ran on a continuous loop until darkness claimed me again.
Seven
Braden was exiting the bathroom after a shower when I finally wrenched open my eyes the next morning. He appeared well-rested, cheery even, and it left me feeling annoyed.
“Morning, sunshine.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead before moving to his dresser.
I didn’t respond.
After a few moments of quiet, he slid his eyes to me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded as I struggled to a sitting position and rubbed my forehead.
“Do you want to talk?”
I remained silent.
“Do you want to do something dirty with me?” he queried.
I narrowed my eyes. “You just got out of the shower.”
“I can take another shower if you’re so inclined.”
I rolled my eyes.
He let loose a low whistle. “Somebody is crabby this morning. What’s wrong?” He plopped down at the end of the bed and tugged a black shirt over his chiseled torso. “Are you hungover? I didn’t think you drank all that much.”
“I drank enough, although I’m not hungover.” I rubbed my forehead. “I had a weird dream.”
“About me? Was I naked?”
I managed an appropriate glare. “Not everything is about sex.”
His smile froze in place and his eyes filled with concern. “Tell me what’s wrong.” He automatically pressed his hand to my forehead, as if to check my temperature. “You don’t feel warm.”
“I’m not sick.” I nudged his hand away. “I just didn’t sleep well.”
“Because of the dream?”
I nodded.
“Maybe you’ll feel better if you tell me about it,” he suggested.
I hesitated, unsure what — if anything — I should say. Ultimately, I threw up my hands. “I was a revenant.”
He looked as if the statement had caught him off guard. “In your dream?”
“No, for five minutes before you woke up,” I snapped, internally cringing at how shrill I sounded. I adjusted my tone. “Yes, it was in a dream.”
“I’m sorry. It sounds like a terrible dream.”
“There’s more.” I told him about what I witnessed in halting terms. Part of me thought it was a mistake to volunteer the information, but I couldn’t ignore what I’d seen. “I just don’t know what to think.”
“I don’t know what to think either.” He rubbed his chin, thoughtful. “It sounds like a complete and total mess. Do you think Grandpa is still alive?”
“I don’t know. I think the dream covered the minutes right after he fell through the gate.”
“Which was weeks ago.”
“Yeah.”
“So he’s most likely dead.”
He didn’t look overly broken up over the prospect and I had to remind myself that his relationship with his grandfather was much different from the one I shared with my grandfather. “We don’t know that. Aisling and Oliver were fine when they landed on that side.”
“Because that god dude took care of them.”
“Cernunnos.”
“Yeah, that name is too hard to pronounce.” He flashed a cheeky smile and gently brushed the hair that had escaped from my braid away from my face. “What are you thinking?”
“That I didn’t sleep very well and I’m going to be crabby all day.”
That had him cracking another smile. “What are you thinking about Emmet?”
It was so weird to me that he called his grandfather by his first name on a regular basis. “I don’t know what to think. I guess I’m wondering if I should tell your father about what I saw.”
He immediately started shaking his head. “Absolutely not. There’s no way of knowing what happened on the other side of the gate. There’s nothing my father can do about it even if we do find a way to come up with definitive proof that Emmet survived for any stretch of time over there. He’s dealing with enough.”
“I know, but ... .”
“You talked to him last night,” Braden pressed. “How did he seem?”
“Lost.”
“Not lost. My dad doesn’t get lost. Well, maybe he did for a bit after my mother died, but I guarantee Mary dying won’t cause him to lose himself.”
“No matter how difficult their relationship, she was still his mother,” I argued. “He’s going to feel something.”
“He is. He’ll feel conflicted. He’ll always wonder if there was a way for him to improve the relationship he had with them. He’ll also realize that focusing on them is a waste of time. He has us. He has Lily, and she’s certainly his favorite for the
