Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
CADEN
As soon as Emma disappeared through the portal, reality snapped taut in her absence: the rising water vanished in an instant, the chains binding Jackson and James dissolved into thin air, and both men collapsed forward like their bodies had only been held together by the threat of drowning.
They groaned, dazed and blinking at the sudden stillness, looking wildly underwhelmed to still be alive.
A moment later, the door shuddered open with a long, echoing hiss, as if whatever asshole was running this show had finally lost interest in this whole shitshow and was now politely ushering us out.
As if I’d ever walk out without Emma.
James scraped himself upright, one hand sliding down the wall as he tried to reassemble his brain. The second he managed to focus on me, he recoiled like I’d materialized out of spite. “Colt? What the hell are you doing here?”
I gave him a crooked, pathetic excuse for a bow. “Is that really the way to greet your knight in shining armor?” I tried to sound flippant, but I rasped like I’d swallowed concrete; worry for Emma had sandpapered my throat.
Jackson blinked several times, rubbing at his temple as if trying to place himself back inside his own skin. “What…happened?”
“No clue,” I said, hooking an arm around him to keep him steady while he found his footing. “You were in contact with your husband during our trip up here, but by the time Emma and I arrived, you were both unconscious and the room was filling with water.”
“What?” James hissed, snapping upright so fast his joints protested. “Emma was here? Where the fuck is she?”
I jerked my chin toward the far wall, the one now perfectly intact. “Miss Stubborn decided to yeet herself into a glowing blue portal after some disembodied, magically enhanced voice claimed it was the only way to keep all of us from drowning.”
James turned on me so fast I felt the shift of air. “And you let her?”
I scoffed, raising my brow at James like he’d suggested we hold back a hurricane with polite encouragement. “Don’t think anyone lets Emma do anything. Suggesting otherwise is…I don’t know, adorable? Delusional? Pick one.”
Jackson, clearly deciding he’d had enough of our impending pissing match, lifted a hand between us in the universal gesture for please shut up. “Okay,” he stated evenly, “we wait until she’s back, and then we get the hell out of here. That about right?”
I gave a short nod. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “That’s right.”
The three of us settled into an uncomfortable silence as time stretched, slipping out of shape until I couldn’t tell if we’d been waiting seconds or hours.
My pulse filled the quiet, beating in time with the one thought clawing at me: Come back.
And then the portal tore open again, splitting the air with a violent rush of sound and light. Cerulean energy erupted across the walls like a tidal wave, flooding the room in blue fire, before Emma stepped back through, eyes instantly darting around the chamber as she did.
Relief punched through me so hard I almost staggered. She was here. Present. Whole. Back in my world instead of slipping into one I couldn’t reach.
I almost grabbed her and hauled her out of there caveman-style.
She took us all in—me, James, Jackson—all still here, alive, dry, and very much not drowning. The water was gone. The floor was bare stone. Even the heavy door that had sealed us in now hung open, its hinges still trembling from whatever force had unlatched it.
The tension drained from her shoulders in a visible wave. Relief flashed across her face, and then something else took its place.
There was a subtle shift in her demeanor, the slight tilt of her chin, and it hit me square in the chest. The Emma I knew was still there, but something new had fused into her, something carved by whatever she’d seen on the other side.
She looked at me like I was part of something larger now, something she didn’t entirely trust, and I knew—with a certainty that twisted deep in my gut—whatever future or past she’d glimpsed, it had everything to do with me.
Before I could ask, before I could even move, James fucking Walker wrapped his arms around her.
“Emma,” he breathed out, holding her tight. “Where the hell did you come from?”
The knife was in my hand before I even realized it. Instinct. Reflex. Possession.
A second later, it was airborne—spinning clean through the air—and had Emma not pulled him sideways at the last possible moment, Cyclos would’ve been voting in a new Leader.
Walker’s eyes went wide, staring first at the blade now buried halfway in the wall, then back at me. “The fuck was that for?”
I clenched my jaw, more relieved than ever that his hands were no longer on her. “Thought I saw a murderous fly.”
Emma stared at me, unimpressed. “A fly,” she repeated, like she was testing the word and finding it as ridiculous as I did.
I met her gaze, refusing to flinch. “Big one.”
Her lips twitched—barely. “Right. Because we all know how murderous those can be.”
Walker muttered something about me being insane, but I barely heard him. Emma was still watching me, the corner of her mouth caught between disbelief and something dangerously close to a smile.
She shook her head once and moved to Jackson who was now sitting on the floor. She kneeled beside him, fingers brushing his pulse, her touch steady and sure. She checked his face, murmured something too low to hear, and pulled him into a brief hug.
Oddly enough, that one didn’t trigger any murderous impulses on my part.
Then she turned to me.
I straightened before I could stop myself, every muscle caught between tension and anticipation. Some idiotic part of me hoped she might close the distance, maybe even give me one of those rare, disarming hugs she seemed to hand out to everyone.
Instead, she froze mid-step. And then, very deliberately, she looked down.
At my dick.
Blatantly.
For a second, my brain…stopped. Every coherent thought went on strike.
Then Walker opened his mouth, and all higher reasoning was immediately replaced by vivid, detailed fantasies of decapitation. Again.
“Emma,” James said, blissfully unaware of how close he was to losing his head, “where the hell did you go? Did I see you jump through a blue portal just now?”
She nodded once. “Yes. Whoever lured me here, did so to show me the future.”
My voice came out steady. “What did you see?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes flickered, something unreadable moving behind them. When she finally spoke, her tone was quieter, measured. “Something really personal,” she mumbled. “Can we get out of here first?”
“Yeah,” Jackson said as he pushed himself upright, still a little unsteady. “Any idea how?”
I tore my focus off Emma and turned to the reason of our current predicament. “Well,” I said dryly, “if you could alert that husband of yours to our status, that would help immensely.”
Jackson, to his credit, gave a sheepish laugh and rubbed the back of his neck before he muttered, “He knows.”
“Good.” I exhaled through my nose, forcing the tension from my shoulders. “We’ll take the boat all the way across the river.”
Jackson shook his head, grim. “Sean says we can’t go through Gananoque anymore. The place is now swarming with human military, they’re investigating a blown-up Coast Guard vessel?”
“Fucking shit,” Emma snapped, frustration lacing the single syllable, and Walker winced at her language.
I stared at him, my intent clear enough to make him take half a step back. The hell was his problem? Of everything that would go wrong today, her vocabulary wasn’t going to make the list.
“Everyone to the boat,” I said, not bothering to hide the edge in my tone. “Emma, get that phone of yours working and find us another route. We’re putting as much distance between us and New York as fast as we can.”
She nodded, already pulling the device from her pocket, thumb flying over the screen as the others fell into motion.
Every footstep through the corridors on our way out, echoed like it didn’t want us there.
The dock finally came into view at the end of the service tunnel: a stretch of warped planks and black water, looking like it had eaten better men than us. Our small boat was still where we’d left it, thank fuck, rocking gently against its moorings.
“Jackson, untie us,” I ordered. “James, you’re on lookout. If anyone’s following, now’s the time to mention it.”
He shook his head once. “We’re all clear.”
We climbed in, the boat dipping under our combined weight. Emma dropped into the seat beside me, while James and Jackson settled toward the back, both looking like they’d rather be anywhere else.
As I rowed us out of that hellhole, the oars biting into black water, Emma leaned forward with her phone in hand, the faint blue glow cutting through the mist.
After a moment she nodded, turning the screen toward me.
A narrow strip of forested terrain glowed on the map: an old service road cutting through the outskirts of Clayton, winding north toward the Canadian border.
Rough terrain, mostly abandoned, but still there.
A route that might get us through if we moved fast enough and stayed invisible.
“We should take this road,” she suggested, her voice low and certain. “It connects to an old customs checkpoint south of Hill Island. It’s the only ground route left that isn’t crawling with patrols.”
“If we move fast enough,” I muttered, adjusting my grip on the oars and steering us toward the shore.
She leaned in, her hair brushing my shoulder as she peered at the screen. “Well, since you’re the one rowing this glorified bathtub, that part’s on you, isn’t it?”
“Eyes forward, Thompson,” I said, as I ignored her jab. “You’re in my airspace.”
“Yes, dear,” she shot back, not missing a beat, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
The sound barely faded before the forest swallowed it whole.