There was a moment, in the dark, before dawn, where I floated somewhere between sleep and awake, and Adam's arm was draped over my hip, and the world was still, and the birds had not yet woken, and I forgot—for just that one moment—to feel anything but peace. It was warm in the cabin, the musky smoke of last night's fire still drifting in the air around us like perfume.

I thought of Tina, the girl who had rescued me in the dead zone, and of her brother Christopher. I thought of that dilapidated house they would live in with their father, Jeffrey Garrison. It wouldn't be that long before the twins were born, somewhere in a world that still might look a bit like this one.

A world with trees and birds. A world with sweet pine air and a cool breeze floating off a lake nearby. As if in answer to my thought, the first mating call of the morning echoed off one of those nearby treetops, a strong and vibrant cuckooing from a male in a nest over the water. A moment later, a slightly different pitch answered him—the female he was calling to.

The sound made Adam stir a bit beside me, his palm landing fully on my stomach before his breathing steadied and faded back into sleep.

Tina and Christopher lived forty years in the future. What would this cabin look like by then? Would there be water in the lake? Birds in the trees? Would the creatures prowling in the woods at night still call this place home, or would they be the first victims of the dust?

In his sleep, Adam pulled me in closer, his mouth finding my shoulder.

I had told him before we fell asleep about Alexei—how he'd been right about him. And how we'd come to Portland to try to stop him from making the ICDs himself. His face in the moonlight had been tight and pensive while he listened. But we hadn't reached any conclusions about what to do next by the time he placed my head on his chest. We fell asleep like that.

Now shadows fell over his strong jaw from the last of the dying starlight above our heads. He stirred again, his lips on my shoulder tickling me so I couldn't help but smile.

"I have to go," I said softly.

"Mm," he protested, not removing his lips from my skin.

"I want to be there when they wake up."

I looked down to see his long eyelashes fluttering open. They closed again for only a moment before he pulled back and licked his lips, his gaze finally landing on mine beneath heavy lids. The first gray light of morning was now breaking through the stillness in the air around us. "Were you going to tell me the story first?"

"What story?" I asked, smiling at his sleepy face.

He reached for my cheek, and I closed my eyes to feel the silky slide of his fingers on my skin. But his hand kept reaching, and finally it landed on the hair at my temple, pulling it back to reveal my ICD.

I reached to cover it, flinching away from his touch. Feeling suddenly exposed, I clutched the sheets up to my neck.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice it?" he asked calmly.

"It's not what you're thinking," I protested as I reached for my shirt.

"What am I thinking?" he asked in a steady voice, his eyes turning cold and focused.

"That I'm not the real Marina. That I'm from the future."

"I know you're the real Marina."

"How's that?"

"Because only my Marina would be as angry at me as you were last night."

I slumped over into myself, pulling my knees up to my chest.

He gently rubbed my back as he sat up more fully. "And you're too young to be the other one. So why is that thing in your head?"

I couldn't look at him as I answered. I just closed my eyes and let myself feel his warm fingers working their way up my spine and back down again. My voice was clipped and uncertain as I told him. "I landed inside the dome. Elaheh and my aunt Amalia were there. And Brady. Elaheh did it after dinner the first night. She put something in my food. I woke up and it was there."

His fingers on my back had turned to claws as I spoke. But he said nothing, not at first. Then before I knew it, he was grabbing his pants and stepping into them as he left the bed. He shot out of the room and into the small kitchen area. I swallowed hard, stepping into my jeans and lacing up my shoes before following him.

I found him at the hearth of the small fireplace, reaching for George's shotgun from its resting place on two red hooks above the mantel.

"Don't," I warned, closing the space between us and resting both hands on the warm skin of his bare back. "Please don't."

"I'll kill them," he said through gritted teeth. "I'll kill them both." His muscles rippled beneath my fingers, as though springing into action.

"You'd have to go through the portal again, and I'm not letting you do that." I had a million other reasons as well, starting with the fact that I still loved my aunt, no matter what she had done. But my concern for Adam was the main reason.

"Not the portal," he said, spinning to face me with empty hands. The shotgun remained on the wall. "There's another way."

I could feel my eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. "No there isn't," I said dumbly.

"You know there is, Marina," he said with his fingers now finding my chin, raising my face up to meet his. "You're the one who told me about it—about your brother. How do you think I got home?"

I backed away from him, stumbling over my own feet. "What are you talking about?"

He sighed deeply, and I couldn't help but notice his feet separate slightly into his wrestling stance. Instinct. He wasn't going to fight me. His opponent was floating somewhere in the air between us. "When I went through your aunt's door, I had no idea where I would land. I just knew it was somewhere I couldn't risk letting you go. Frankly, I assumed it would be an alternate present. That's where most people seem to want to go."

I had backed myself up so far from him that my legs ran up against the table. I steadied myself with my hands landing on the cold wood before I nodded for him to continue.

"But I knew as soon as I saw the dust. I hadn't been through a Tomorrow door in years, but once you've seen it, you never forget. You can never quite get the rotten smell of that yellow dust out of your nose."

I gulped down a sudden sensation of choking—the feeling of that dust in my face, scratching against the corneas of my eyes, blinding me and suffocating me.

"I turned around and I could see the dome. I was just outside of it. But there was no way in. I tried to find the portal I had come through, but it closed immediately. And I didn't have another coin to open it again. I prayed that you wouldn't follow me, and I waited several minutes just to make sure."

A heavy force weighed on my shoulders as he spoke. We had been so close to each other after I crossed. Only that LED screen that comprised the dome had separated us. So close we almost could have touched.

"I started trekking across town. There were only a handful of landmarks left, some old houses I recognized. But they were enough to be certain of my route. I made my way towards the high school. Every time I'd been through Tomorrow, that was how I'd gotten back. The doors beneath the school. In some versions, there wasn't even a school anymore, just an abandoned building. But the doors were always there. This time, though—"

"They were gone," I said with a heavy sigh. "My mother destroyed them."

His gaze hardened with understanding, and his lips clenched tight. "That explains it."

"Adam, I'm sorry—"

"There was only one other way to get home," he said, his pupils shrinking with the memory, like he was staring at the sun. "One other way that I knew of, anyway. A great dust storm came, and I sheltered in an abandoned house until it was over. Then I made it to the train tracks. There was garbage everywhere, a crew of workers pushing it aside so the tracks would be clear."

He nodded to the table, where the ICD he had been tinkering with lay idly on its side. "I grabbed that off the ground. Thought maybe I could do something with it. And then I found a penny and flattened it under a passing train."

He swallowed hard before he continued, and I could feel my heart exploding out of my chest with fear.

"I stood on the tracks, in the same spot where we saw the portal created in the '40s, with the penny in my hand. And I waited for the train to come."

I rushed to him, throwing my arms around his torso. He was so dazed from the memory that he didn't even reach for me. His arms hung uselessly by his side.

"What if it hadn't worked?" I asked. "What if that portal was gone too?"

His voice was distant as he spoke, his body unflinching beneath my hands. "Then I would have died," he answered. "It would have been better than living in that hell."

I shook my head into his chest, furious at him for taking the risk, while also marveling at his bravery. "You have to promise me you won't do that again."

His hands finally seemed to come to life, and they wrapped around my back.

"I mean it," I continued. I swallowed hard, seeing the tension in his jaw as he told the story. And I shuddered to think of him alone on that nightmare train that had imprisoned my brother for almost four years. But Adam knew something my brother hadn't—something I had told him a year before—how to get off of it. "Did you see the Conductor?"

"Yes. I gave him the coin and asked him to take me home. I could have sworn I was only on that train for a few hours. But when I stepped off the train, I was here. In Portland. And I quickly realized that weeks had passed. I called your house and I heard the panic in your brother's voice. But I didn't say anything. I just hung up. I knew it meant you were gone."

"I didn't mean to scare you," I whispered.

He kissed the top of my head. "I thought maybe George would know what to do. He always did before. But when I got to this cabin a few days ago, he was gone. And I sat down in this kitchen and cried. Because I knew that even if you made your way back here, you'd be better off without me. I knew I couldn't save you."

"That's not true," I said softly. I kissed his cold lips, but he didn't kiss me back. Finally, one corner of his lips turned up in amusement, and he chuckled softly to himself.

"What?" I asked.

"This was the room where I fell in love with you."

I smiled, but there was something sad and distant in his face. Finally he looked at me fully, his hands finding my upper arms and pushing them gently away. "I won't let Alexei start the war this time. I'll stop him. I'll find a way to stop him."

I looked at him quizzically, my skin tightening at the low timbre of his voice. "You mean we will," I corrected him.

He smiled and nodded, and his throat bobbed with tension. "You should get back, sweetheart. Your family will be worried about you."

I tried to force a measure of warmth into my eyes as a smiled in response. But there was something cold between us suddenly. And it scared me to my bones. "I'll come back and see you later," I whispered.

He nodded, his lips a tight line. "Go on."

I opened the front door, but then turned back and stared at him for another moment, struck by how handsome he looked in the blue wash of light reflecting off the lake. "I love you," I said, and it was like the air carried the words to him through a barrel of molasses. They hit him a moment later.

"I love you," he answered. For a moment I thought he might spring away from the wall and reach for me. And I was ready to stay here with him all day, to let everything else fade away to nothing.

But he didn't move. And so I headed for the woods.

I walked the trail slowly, careful this time not to trip on all the roots and leaves. I found each footing, my eyes marveling at the cacophony of sound above my head as the birds all woke and sprang to life.

Slowly, the first warmth of day started to seep into the cool night air, finally lifting it away from my chilled skin.

And I made it about halfway back to the hotel before I heard a click to my left. A paw breaking a branch. Or maybe a snake tangling with a tree.

Or a footstep.

I turned blindly in the middle of the trail, my eyes landing on a whirl of shadows and streaming light. A deception of color. An endless forest.

And then the footstep was behind me. And I turned just in time to catch a glimpse of Alexei's face before a rag was over my mouth.

And everything went dark.  

****

Doesn't he just ruin everything?