Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.

- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Once Leah's legs provided enough support she scrambled up, pressing her cheek into the cool wall until it cut. The pain allowed a much-needed moment of clarity amongst her chaotic thoughts.

She was in shock. That's why she felt so unbalanced. Deep down she'd never expected to pull this off, or to kiss Jared like that. She closed her eyes, placing mental barriers around any unnecessary emotions and evened out her breathing.

Once she'd stopped shaking, she darted out into the dim corridor, grabbing the first doorknob she found. The room beyond was empty and she rushed to the window. The house was on an acreage. About thirty metres away the Australian bush started, extending up past the hills. She bit down her unease as she took in the unfamiliar surroundings. This didn't look like Narra, but that was okay. As long as she didn't panic, it would all be okay.

...

Ten minutes later, Leah was panicking.

The kitchen and living room had provided nothing useful and she doubted Jared would remain unconscious much longer.

The next door opened onto a bedroom. Clothes were scattered around the floor and the bedsheets were pushed back haphazardly. She nearly cried in relief when the top draw of the bedside table revealed a line of rope. Bundling it up, Leah turned to leave, but paused as a black bulge protruding from underneath the pillow caught her attention. She edged closer, pulling the object out.

It was Jared's gun.

With a grim smile, Leah thrust it into her pocket and rushed to her room, relieved to find Jared where she'd left him.

She hauled him onto the corner chair and started winding the rope around his body, working methodically until she was sure he wouldn't be able to break free of the binds and knots.

Then, she sat back and waited, eyeing him cautiously. His head was falling limp to the side, brown hair brushing his eyelashes and blood crusting under his nose, and for reasons Leah didn't want to analyse just yet, she grabbed a cloth and started wiping the blood away. He looked vulnerable like this, harmless enough to confuse her.

Until today Jared had occupied only one band of her heart, the one dominated by fear and anger. Now there was something else leaking in, sinister in its subtlety. It made her want to get up and run as far and fast as she could. But that wasn't an option anymore. She'd been dragged too deep to leave here without answers.

Movement beneath her fingers snapped Leah back to reality and she jerked her hand away. Jared's eyes had opened and he was watching her like one watched a mirage; distant but determined.

Leah jumped back, pulling the gun from her waist and pointing it at him.

"Don't move."

For a moment he stared in confusion, but then he glanced down at the ropes. His gaze travelled back to the gun and it clicked. A look of pure, acid-coated fury crossed his features, his eyes lashed with a darkness that swallowed Leah up whole.

"I see you found my gun."

His words were slurred and he frowned after he spoke, shaking his head to clear it.

Leah didn't answer.

"And you tied me up," Jared continued.

"Yeah, I did," Leah said, gun hand wavering slightly as he continued to stare.

A nasty smirk turned up the corner of his mouth and his head tilted back lazily.

"Look babe, I appreciate the attempt to get kinky, but I'm not really into the whole dominatrix thing."

"Shut up," Leah hissed. "I need answers."

Jared squinted at her, wincing when the action obviously triggered some pain. "You're not going to get them."

Anger flooded her veins.

"Yes," she said, voice low and dangerous, "I am. Because unlike me, you actually have the answers I need. Now start talking or I'll shoot you."

Jared smiled. "You wouldn't kill me."

"I didn't say I'd shoot to kill. I might shoot your leg first, then maybe an arm."

Jared's smile twitched with recognition, the moment from the cliff replaying in both their minds. He'd under-estimated her then, she had a feeling he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

"I think that's the first time someone's quoted me," Jared said. He didn't sound particularly happy about it.

"Talk," Leah hissed through clenched teeth.

"No."

Leah's eyes narrowed and her finger pressed down on the trigger.

Jared yelled as a bang blasted through the room and Leah watched with cool composure as he glanced down, examining his body for bullet holes. When he didn't find any, he twisted around and stared, wide-eyed, at the hole in the wall behind him.

"Tell me what the Mors Mortis Device is," Leah hissed. "Tell me what's going on and why you think I know things that I don't."

Jared spun back around to face her, his eyes blazing. "Are you fucking crazy?"

Leah smiled. "For your sake, let's hope not."

Jared stared at her, indecision ripping through his eyes.

"You were much nicer when you were sticking your tongue down my throat," he grumbled.

Leah chose to ignore that.

"What did you do to me?" she asked. "Why am I still alive?"

"I'm not telling you anything," Jared snarled, leaning towards her menacingly.

Leah pointed the gun at him once more, face hard with resolve.

"Alright! Alright!" Jared back tracked. "You're not dead."

Leah glared at him over the top of his gun. "I know that already. Why not?"

Resentment ran rivers through Jared's eyes when he spoke next. "Because you weren't alive in the first place. No one here is."

Leah's gun hand dropped in shock. "What?"

There was a satisfied curl to Jared's mouth that Leah might have found frustrating in a different situation.

"You're in the world of the dead, Leah, you have been for years. That's why you didn't die when you jumped of the cliff, because people don't die here. If your body gets mutilated enough to stop working, it simply reforms itself. Again, and again, and again."

Leah's heart was beginning to pound fast, her mind hurtling towards a breakdown.

"I'm... I'm dead?" she whispered.

Jared grimaced. "Well, no, not exactly. You're in the world of the dead, that doesn't necessarily mean the same thing."

Leah's attention snapped back to him. "What does it mean, then?"

Jared sighed. "Usually the live and dead worlds don't interact with each other. They lie parallel, existing in exactly the same space, but within different dimensions. If someone dies, their soul transitions. That's the way it's meant to be. But sometimes – rarely – people fall through the cracks. Their soul transitions while their body is still alive, leaving them in a coma of sorts."

Leah stared at him, aghast. "Are you saying that happened to me?"

"Yes."

"How?"

Jared shrugged and something passed through his eyes, too fast for Leah to identify.

"That, I don't know."

Leah was trying very hard to put her prejudices aside, the ones that told her all this was impossible. If she'd already lived a life before this one, why couldn't she remember it?

"I... I don't believe you," Leah said.

"Why not?" Jared asked, leaning forward. "How else can you explain what you can do? You move faster then everyone here, you're stronger. It's because you're not meant to be here. You're still alive in a world where life is shorter and brighter; a world that moves much quicker. Your soul is still tethered to a body when no one else's is. It gives you an advantage."

Leah's ears pricked. "But you're even stronger than me."

Jared didn't reply, waiting as Leah put the pieces together.

"You're from that world too, aren't you?" Leah asked eventually. "And the boys I dream about, you knew their names."

"They're your brothers," Jared said.

"How come you can remember that world and I can't?"

"That I don't know," Jared said simply. "Even the dead can remember their lives. Something obviously went wrong with you, the transition wiped your memory somehow."

Leah processed all this quickly.

"So, what's the Mors Mortis Device then?"

"I've already told you more then I should've."

Leah pointed the gun at him again and he grunted, eyes flashing angrily. "Fine, it transports people from the live world to this one. On mass."

Leah blinked. "So, it kills a lot of people."

Jared's jaw tensed, but he stayed silent.

Leah straightened, eyes narrowing. "Why do you want it?"

"That's none of your business," Jared snapped.

Leah stared at him. Really stared at him. If what he was saying was true then this wasn't actually her life. Instead there was one waiting in another world. A world where everyone was like her. A world where she had brothers. What was it to be alive then, if she wasn't alive here?

She turned back to Jared.

"What's so special about the live world? How is it different to this one?"

Jared shrugged. "It's not all that different. This world is created from it. Everything that leaves there ends up here, at least for a while."

Leah considered this. "I want you to take me there."

Jared snorted. "No."

Leah scowled. "Why not?"

Jared's smile was sharp. "Because I don't want to."

"How do I get there then?" she asked through gritted teeth. "Tell me and I'll leave you alone."

"I'd rather not," Jared said, his lip curling up. He'd been smirking an awful lot for someone who was tied up.

"You don't have a choice," Leah growled.

Jared laughed, and as he did the ropes holding him to the chair loosened slightly, slipping with the movement.

"Actually, I do."

Before Leah could move, he sprung forward, grabbed her and slammed her down onto the bed behind her. Leah screamed as he tore the gun from her grip and threw it across the room.

She tried to push herself up, but Jared pressed something sharp against her neck. Leah glanced down and caught the flash of a hard, pointed metal surface. She pushed further into the bed, paralysed with fear.

Jared started laughing at her expression.

"You really should check if the person you're tying up has any weapons on them in the future," he snarled in her ear.

Leah tried to move her arms, to push the knife aside, to do something. Jared batted every attempt away easily.

"Please, Jared," she said, swallowing down her pride. "Please don't —"

"Please don't rip your throat out?" he asked innocently, skimming the blade across her skin.

Leah shuddered, mind running in overdrive. If she paused for a moment she would have remembered what he'd told her, that death didn't affect her here. But it was hard to fight a fear that was ingrained in you.

Jared sighed and glanced down at her, eyes unreadable. Leah wanted to push him, to hit him, shoot him. But then he spoke.

"Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you."

Leah didn't register his words until he'd moved, letting her go and backing towards the door, grabbing his gun as he went. She sat up and stared at him in astonishment.

"Be ready to leave tomorrow morning," Jared said, his gaze turned away. "I'll take you wherever you want to go."

Leah's mouth opened and closed in surprise.

"Why?" she managed to ask.

"You're becoming more effort then you're worth," Jared said, and then he turned and walked out the door, leaving it open behind him.

...

The moment Jared stepped outside he was running, feet pounding against hard-packed dirt.

He felt on the brink of an explosion.

An eruption.

Fucking electrocution.

What was he doing? He couldn't take Leah back. He couldn't even look at her without wanting to shoot himself.

Waking up tied to that chair had been humiliating. He'd wanted to grab Leah and shake her, scream at her for getting the better of him.

Again.

When he'd realised the knife was still in his pocket, his mind had filled with revenge. But once the ropes were cut, his anger had diminished somewhat; and when he saw her fear, it vanished as fast as foam, only leaving confusion behind. So, he'd said the first thing he could think of to calm her and ran.

A sense of Deja vu pounded in his head, bringing back memories from a year ago. The bridge. The cars. Jared could still hear Brenton's voice in his ear.

You've always had a soft heart.

It didn't feel soft though, it felt jagged.

Once he couldn't see the house anymore, Jared came to a stop and gathered his thoughts. He was angry. Probably angrier than he'd be tomorrow, but that didn't matter. He wanted to go back and lock Leah up once more. But no, he had to play this her way. He had to pretend. She obviously wasn't going to tell him anything by force, he'd have to convince her to trust him.

Making up his mind, Jared and closed his eyes, and spun the ring on his finger; once, twice, three times. And then he vanished.