The Other Side Read online

My voice came out a quiet squeak as the snow beat against the van. “How can we know he’s okay?”

  Jens waved his hand like it was all no big deal. “He’ll catch up when he’s a hundred percent. And by then, hopefully we’ll already have destroyed the portal. Who knows? Maybe they’ll give your Scarecrow a fresh brain while we’re away, Dorothy.”

  “You shouldn’t have poisoned me,” I lectured Britta, searching for a reason to hold onto my anger.

  “I’m sorry,” Britta lied, doing her best to appear contrite.

  Elsa and Leif occupied the middle bench. Elsa called to me over her shoulder. “Liv’ll take good care of your hubby, baby doll,” she assured me.

  “My name is Lucy!” I shouted at her, pissed she couldn’t ever just call me by my name, and that my fake marriage was yet again being thrown in my face. “And don’t call Foss my husband. I’m a terrible wife. What kind of woman would just leave her husband to go through surgery by himself?” I buried my face in my hands.

  Elsa’s voice was hesitant, as if answering an obvious question to an idiot. “Um, the drugged kind? It’s not as if we gave you a choice. And I’ll call you whatever I wish. If you don’t like baby doll, I can call you Mrs. Tribeswoman.”

  “Baby doll’s fine,” I groused.

  Jamie brought me to his chest in a gentle hug I felt guilty for finding comfort in. He felt my internal debate and smiled paternally down at me. “Here, why don’t we try invisible for a bit? Have a little chat.” His hand on my back served as an invisibility conductor, vanishing us both into our own private world.

  I pondered briefly the pros and cons of being laplanded to Jamie, and knew at some point I’d have to make my peace with someone being in my head and near me all the time.

  We can disappear and talk privately whenever you like. Isn’t this nice? he asked, tapping into my thoughts.

  I guess so, I admitted, the awkwardness at being so close with him faded as I adjusted to our strange reality. The trunk wasn’t a bad place to have a little pow-wow. I don’t like that we just left Foss. He risked his life to put himself back in the mission, and we just ditch him? Feels off.

  Foss will be fine. Liv said she would call Elsa once they know he’s on the road to recovery.

  I thought he was dead, I admitted, tears springing to my eyes. I buried my face in Jamie’s broad chest to keep my emotions under wraps. I was so scared he... he…

  Jamie’s arms enveloped me in the warmest hug. In our quiet, cold cave, I could feel the platonic affection he had for me. It was nice. Like having a much older brother.

  Jamie smiled at the comfortable label he fished out of my jumbled thoughts. Liten syster, you saved him.

  Could you be my brother? I feel like I need it. Plus, we have to have a reason we’re always together and not, you know, together.

  Britta will be my wife, and you’re with her brother, so in a way, that does make you my sister. Jamie held my hand, weaving his fingers through mine. My sister in Tonttu never had much time or patience for me. I should like to have had a sister like you. Would’ve made the palace more enjoyable.

  I’d be good in a palace, I thought to him. We’d pay your dad back for being a foul smackhole right quick. I’ve got loads of tricks up my sleeve. I can’t imagine them treating you like a second-class citizen. I rubbed his tummy like he was a pregnant woman. I won’t do that to you.

  I know. And Foss knows of your love for him.

  I swallowed and allowed Jamie’s words to settle without a debate. Wow, you’re turning me into a big, giant mess back here. We should probably rejoin humanity before I start bawling even more.

  Take as much time as you need.

  The very second the tears passed, I removed myself from Jamie and kicked him out of the trunk so he could put his arms around his girlfriend. I craved the solitude of the trunk and crept back into the sleeping bag, napping to avoid conversation and the dread of what was to come.

  24

  The Magic of Headlights

  Jens tapped out when the traffic started to thicken around the middle of the evening. “I can’t drive anymore. My eyes are going cross, and the lines are all running together. Let’s get a hotel.”

  I’d been awake for a while, but had kept to myself in the trunk. “I got it,” I volunteered.

  Jens shook his head as he pulled off the freeway. “No. Let’s get something to eat and get a good night’s rest.”

  “I’m rested,” I argued, flipping my leg over the backseat between Jamie and Britta. “Find a drive-thru and let me take a crack at it.”

  “But the sun’s going down.” Jens looked as tired as he sounded. He had bags under his eyes and his smile was forced.

  “Behold, the magic of headlights. I’ve got news for you all. I’m a better driver than everyone here, except maybe Leif. We were born into this world. As much as you all picked up from being sent here, I can hold my own just fine. Believe it or not, I can even drive a car at night.”

  “Alright, Mox,” Jens said, pulling into a mediocre fast food chain I had not often frequented in my travels. “Shout out what you want, otherwise it’s burgers all around.”

  Jamie ordered Gar and roast duck, which was, well, adorable. His face soured when he bit into the atrocity that was this chain’s excuse for a burger. “Oh, this is awful, Lucy. Is this really what your food tastes like?”

  “The low-brow stuff,” I explained, buckling myself into the driver’s seat. The snowstorm was daunting, and I wondered for a second if it wouldn’t be wiser to turn in for the night as Jens suggested. “I’ll make you all a giant Thanksgiving dinner when this is all over. You can even slaughter the turkey if that makes you feel more at home here.”

  “Give me a real challenge,” Jamie scoffed, his arm around his fiancée.

  Jens was settled in the reclined passenger’s seat with a comforter draped over him. “You’re totally precious right now,” I told him, earning a true smile from his perfect lips. “You should always dress in patterns with roses on them.”

  He glanced down at the girly comforter and snuggled it closer. “Only real men can rock roses.” He held up his fist with his little finger and pointer sticking up in an imitation of a true rock and roller. “I miss your Thanksgiving dinners. You and your mom could whip magic out of cans. I don’t know how you did it, but your mashed potatoes tasted incredible, like nothing else on earth. She always shooed me out of the house so I wouldn’t steal her secret.”

  I swallowed as I remembered my mom and me dancing around the kitchen as we listened to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. She had a thing with the female greats and Thanksgiving. One year Linus rebelled and blasted Kid Rock (I know. I take no responsibility for his taste in music) while we were cooking, and Mom responded by duct taping his iPod to the oven and threatening to cook it with the bird if he didn’t knock it off.

  My mom was cool.

  I reached over and kissed Jens after I situated the seat and mirrors to the reach of a normal person. “If we get outta this alive, I’ll teach you how to make those potatoes myself.”

  “But if we don’t live through this, no potatoes?” he clarified. “Then that settles it. Pesta’s going down. I wasn’t properly motivated before. Those are some high stakes, Mox.”

  “Get some sleep,” I told them all. “When you wake up, we’ll be halfway there.”

  My voice was light, but my fingers gripped the wheel as I pulled out onto the main road. Sure, driving through the night was no big thing. My family did it all the time when we relocated with no warning. I wasn’t worried about falling asleep. I was concerned about the weather hazards, sure, but more troublesome was Tonya gunning for me in her SUV. Tired as they all were, I wasn’t willing to stop until we reached our destination and tore down that portal.

  25

  Calm Before the Storm

  Elsa wrestled the wheel away from me around noon the next day when they were all begging for a bathroom break. I wasn’t trying to be a tyrant, but my father’s w
ords flowed out of me faster than I could stop them. “We’ll get there when I say we’re there, so either go back to sleep or think up solutions to end world hunger in your head. I’m driving.” My dad was a cute old grump. That’s about the time Linus would start popping his gum. The calm before the storm.

  Jens sniggered at my tone. My wince at sounding like my father had not gone unnoticed by him. “Sure thing, Rolf.”

  When we pulled over at a rest stop, I was on high alert. The snow was several feet deep off the parking lot, but I knew Canada had elk, which could easily become Were-elk in a jiff. “Get back in the car as soon as you can, guys. I’ll fill her up.”

  Even filling up the gas tank was rife with tension. The usual truckers and a smattering of families were at the rest stop gas station, but I was looking for Tonya’s face alone. I was getting paranoid and the drive had made me jumpy, but I was dealing. I got the biggest coffee they offered, and then a whole smackload of cream and sugar because, let’s face it, coffee’s disgusting. It’s a necessity, and I needed it.

  When everyone piled into the car, Elsa and Jens shook their heads at me when I commandeered the driver’s seat. “My turn, baby doll,” Elsa insisted, gloved hand extended for the keys.

  “I’m good. I’ve got another couple hours in me, at least.” I opened the driver’s side door, but Jens kifed the keys from my hand. “Hey! I said I’m fine. Got me some coffee, and I’m wired anyway.”

  “We’re taking turns. You can’t drive half-cocked, Mox. You’ll get us all killed.”

  I blew on my coffee and wished they didn’t serve it so scalding, you couldn’t drink it for half an hour. I needed to be awake now. “Elsa, I love ya like the crazy aunt I never had or loved, but you drive too slow. We’re trying to beat Tonya there, or at the very least, outrun her. She’s gunning for us, so we can’t slow down.”

  Elsa nodded. “I’ll go as fast as the weather will let me.”

  “Sorry, not fast enough.” I grabbed at the keys in Jens’s hand, but he tossed them over my head to Leif, who slid into the driver’s seat and started up the car. “Hey!”

  Elsa nodded to her husband. “We’ll take the next shift. You two get some rest. You sped through the night and most of the day. You shaved five hours off our drive time. Well done, baby doll. We should get there later tonight, which means you’ll need to be well-rested.” She held up her hands to stave off my protest. “And Leif’s a far more reckless driver than me. He’ll get us there in no time.”

  Jens went around to the trunk and moved our bags to the middle of the car, spreading the sleeping bag out on the floor of the trunk so the feet stretched under the backseat like a little hidden bed underfoot. “Get in,” he said to me.

  There’s something about the sexy way the man you love tells you to get into bed with him when you’re dog tired that makes you swallow the “shove it” you had all stored up. With my coat and boots still on, I crawled into the sleeping bag with Jens, loving the closeness the small cocoon forced us to share. Our legs were tangled and he smelled like pine and sugar cookies, which was never a bad thing. I was in his arms, and as the van hurtled down the freeway at a speed I could not complain about, I was asleep in seconds.

  I’m not sure how long later it was that the van swerved, but holy crap, it did. It had to have been some amount of time, because I had to wipe my drool off Jens’s arm when I tried to reassemble my bearings.

  Leif was crying out, but I couldn’t understand him. Seatbelts were buckling furiously, but Jens and I were still under the seat in our bag.

  Jens moved his bicep atop me and caged me in, using his body as a shield for any bumps that were bound to happen. His face was serious and calculating, which made me afraid. I clung to him to protect him from being flung about and hurting his back on the seat if the car went over any large bumps.

  We swerved again, and Elsa screamed. “She found us! Hang on! We can make it over the bridge! We can make it!”

  Jens reached around for his red backpack and slipped it over his arms as I slid out of the sleeping bag and into the trunk.

  I’m sure Jens’s intention was to get us to the seatbelts. I’m sure he had a well thought-out plan. None of that mattered when the vehicle giving chase crashed into ours.

  26

  Gunning for the Portal

  A freeze like I’d never experienced hit me when the trunk popped open and I fell out the back with the luggage. I didn’t see much, but the horror and the loss on Jens’s face stayed with me as I hurtled through the widely spaced rungs on the bridge, flew through the air and splashed through the ice below.

  Ice. Pure arctic ice pierced me. Every pore on my body closed in protest, screaming at me in hatred and panic. I didn’t dare open my eyes, lest they freeze. I fought my way to the top, my head cutting through the surface seconds before the water froze over and sealed me in. Jamie was shouting in my head, panicking enough for the both of us. He’d never experienced cold like this before.

  Polar Bear Clubs. Ice fishing. Crazy frat initiations. All those people survived getting dunked in frozen water, and so would I. Nik would have known what to do.

  I clawed at the ice, using my nails to grip the slick surface. I screamed, I’m not sure to what end, but the sound was good to my soul. I was still alive, and for now, that was a good thing. I clawed harder, hefting my leg up and finally breaking the surface with my knee.

  Something was wrong with my other leg, but I was too cold to feel it. Small blessings.

  Somehow, someway I rolled onto the ice that was just merciful enough to hold me without breaking. Every breath was excruciating, the ice permeating my lungs and every organ I needed to survive. I would freeze if I didn’t move, but my leg was pretty useless, so I just concentrated on breathing.

  I looked above me and saw the van on the bridge with a black SUV. Heads popped over the side to peer down at me, and I gasped when I saw Tonya smile in that evil way she did when she was about to go flirt with a hot guy who had no idea he was about to be taken down by her charm.

  Only she didn’t arm herself with charm this time.

  She had a gun.

  27

  Killed Me First

  Man Friend and Jens were at loggerheads with each other until Jens threw him off the bridge a little ways from me. Dude plunged right through the ice, but didn’t have the wherewithal to fight to the surface.

  The ice began to splinter, terrifying me to my very soul. I scrambled toward the shore, my ears ringing when a bullet burst from Tonya’s gun in my direction.

  My left leg was useless, so I dragged it behind me as I crawled. I heard a scuffle above, and I could only hope someone was wrestling the gun away from my BFF.

  I dug my elbows into the ice in an army crawl that was not terribly effective, given my broken and frozen state.

  When the second bullet zipped by my head, I let out a loud sob and hurried as best I could, my pathetic pace just above a toddler’s.

  Impossibly, I reached the shore under the bridge and hid there, catching what little breath I could. I still couldn’t tell you how I made it without falling through again or getting shot. I can only attribute my survival to luck, adrenaline and whoever deflected Tonya’s attention. When I reached the snow bank, I collapsed behind a small tundra, letting it shelter me from the wind and from sight.

  My heave of relief was short-lived. I saw Tonya running toward the water, having escaped the fight on the bridge. The smile on her face was now contorted to irritation, and her shoulder was bleeding. “I know you didn’t fall through again!” she called out to me. Then her tone turned playful. “You can’t hide from me, Little L.”

  In the early months after my family died, I was understandably in a bad place. There was no gravesite to go visit, no roses to hang. Tonya insisted on getting me out of the apartment, so she brought me to a cemetery one Sunday morning. She had stayed up all night finding two grave markers with the names “Hilda” and “Ralph” on them. My dad’s name was Rolf, but it wa
s the next best thing. She couldn’t find a Linus, if you can believe it. The two graves belonged to a family plot in a sea of Johnsons, but the intention was clear. I was to say goodbye to my parents, and she was to talk their ears off about me.

  For hours we sat on the two stones as Tonya talked. She said all the things I couldn’t in my months of uninterrupted silence. She asked my parents if they were in a better place. She told them stories about me, even admitting to our short scandal of sneaking into Danny’s club a few times. She begged them to say something, to do something to let me know that I had to stay alive and try to make a life for myself. She promised them she would never leave me, and that even though I gave up on life, she would never give up on mine.

  That was the first day I spoke. It wasn’t so much speaking as it was audible babbling and bawling. Tonya had held me, and that Sunday, we started to move forward. Not move on, but move forward. It was the best I could do, and some days, even that still feels impossible.

  As Tonya crept along the shore calling out my name in a playful manner, my heart froze over. There was no trace of my best friend there anymore. Tonya wouldn’t have tolerated a fly bothering me for too long, much less try to kill me. I slunk down in the bramble and snow as she neared the place I lay in wait.

  So attuned to her every movement was I that I didn’t even need sight to feel her coming toward me. My leg was a handicap, for certain, but I didn’t intend on using it for long.

  Four more steps.

  Three.

  I sat up and lunged for her, kicking off the ground with my good leg and tackling her around the knees. The gun went off, but missed, hitting the underside of the bridge instead.

  We screamed in unison. It would be the last thing we did together.