CHAPTER SIX
diner discussions

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KADENCE HAD NEVER imagined that something as extreme as taking a hostage could be boring. Most of the movies she'd been into when she was younger—action and superhero films, of course, to mirror her actual life—featured sacks over the head and bright lights shining into a prisoner's eyes and ropes tight enough to cut off the circulation in their wrists. Kidnapping was a dramatic thing, played up for the cameras, and usually ended either with the prisoner chewing off their own nails to pick the locks of their handcuffs or a hero bursting theatrically in at the last minute and saving the day.

None of the movies Kadence watched had a prisoner who was basically given free rein of a mansion. Nor one who received free appetizers—crackers and cheese, pigs in a blanket, and mozzarella sticks, all prepared by a slightly malfunctioning Grace—every half hour, if he so desired. No movies ever had a prisoner who seemed completely content to sit back and just wait to be let go.

But that was their situation right now. Not only were Ben, Sloane, and Fei all insistent that Luther Hargreeves be able to have everything he needed—"We're not tying him to a chair and blindfolding him, Kadence. Jesus, we're trying to be good hosts, here!"—but their prisoner himself had spent his entire time in captivity with googly eyes. Sloane had forced Kadence to come along to give him the tour of their facilities, and with each room they entered, his grin only grew wider. Even Kadence's frequent threats of what she would do if he even stepped a toe out of line—most of them featuring an encasement of rock around his brawny figure—didn't snap him out of his excitement.

Sloane finally told her to leave. Her sister seemed to want alone time with their prisoner, anyway—and the implications of this made Kadence gag—but even if she hadn't, Kadence needed a break from the real-world equivalent of Kronk from Emperor's New Groove.

So she headed back outside to the garden again. There were two aims to this—one, it was something to do other than make throat-slitting motions at their prisoner, and two, it could distract her from the likely idea that the Umbrella Academy had kidnapped Marcus. Oh, it wasn't like she was worried about him—they were all a bunch of imbeciles that he could surely outwit—but she hated to imagine the slightest possibility of him being hurt, regardless. Marcus had been about as good to her as the rest of her siblings had, but he was still her leader. She couldn't help but want to see him safe.

Which was how she ended up here, clipping overgrown leaves and spreading fertilizer on the fresh dirt. The sun beat down on the back of her neck, surprisingly hot and heavy for April. Dirt streaked her face and arms.

To her surprise, though, she was only out there for half an hour before Jayme and Alphonso came to find her.

Jayme was clad in her usual dark hoodie, her expression as sour as if she'd just sucked on a lemon. Kadence didn't take it personally—Jayme always looked like that. Alphonso was in a jacket and appeared marginally happier than his sister. He grinned when he saw Kadence, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

"Kadence! So nice to see you. I feel like it's been forever."

"I saw you at breakfast," Kadence said, straightening up. She tried to shrug Alphonso's arm off. He kept it stubbornly there.

"Oh, yes, but God, so much has happened since then, hasn't it? I mean, it might as well have been years, especially with Loser roaming around."

Against her will, a slight chuckle slipped past Kadence's lips. Loser wasn't particularly creative, but her brother did have a way of making everything funny.

At the sound, he crowed triumphantly. "And there it is! The great Kadence Hargreeves has laughed! Victory is mine!"

"Jesus." Kadence shook her head fondly. Alphonso could be... a lot, but then again, so could she. Though he generally hung out with Jayme, there were times when he dragged Kadence along with them. Something, something about being the 'underdogs' of the group. Kadence would always point out that he was at least Number Four.

"My God, stop harassing her," Jayme grumbled. That was how she spoke—in grumbles. Oh, sure, there were moments she'd crack a smile, but they were almost as rare as days their father was proud of them. Few and far between.

Alphonso pouted. "But it's my favourite thing to do!"

"Harass Ben instead," Kadence suggested. "I'm sure he totally won't kill you."

He pretended to consider this, then shook his head. "Nah. I'd rather annoy my second favourite sister!"

"Second favourite? Wow, Alphonso. I feel so loved."

"Hey, I've got four. You should feel honoured to make the top two."

"Somehow, I doubt that matters," Jayme said. "But, um, anyway, Alphonso noticed that you were, like, totally, embarrassingly alone, and he wanted to ask you if you wanted to join us."

Alphonso glanced at her. "That's not at all how I remembered it going, but okay."

Kadence, who'd picked up enough of her sister's language to know that this had really been her idea, simply asked, "Join you in what?"

"We've got some errands to run," Jayme explained. "Alphonso wants to go to the pharmacy to get some dumb hair product, and I thought I'd come along for the snacks. I mean, it'll probably be super boring, but we could probably sneak into a movie afterward. You know, like the old days, or whatever."

A slow smile spread onto Kadence's face. She hadn't done anything like that with her siblings for literal years—they were all so caught up in their own things that they simply never thought about it. But as Jayme had said, it had occurred a lot when they were younger. At first, it had started out as snatched moments, days their father was at his nicest—though 'nicest' meant prickly as a hedgehog instead of an especially spiny cactus. Then, they'd gotten older and decided to start giving him medication to keep him suppressed. They had a lot more free days after that.

"Sure," she said, taking off her gardening gloves. "Why the hell not? We're all out of Cool Ranch Doritos, anyway."

"I think Christopher ate them all," Jayme said.

Alphonso grinned. "Ah, yes! Family time! Team JAK is back in action!"

"Team JAK?" Kadence asked.

"Jayme, Alphonso, Kadence. I mean, come on. Wasn't that obvious?"

Kadence rolled her eyes. Even so, a weight felt as if it had been lifted off her shoulders. She had something to do. She'd been invited out by the underdog team—Team JAK, apparently. Now, she wouldn't have to stay here and either garden or watch their prisoner's jaw unhinge at the sight of their bathrooms or whatever.

Which was how, twenty minutes later, she found herself entering the pharmacy with her siblings. It was a quaint little thing, with a modest snack shelf, but it always carried Cool Ranch Doritos. That was the most important thing.

"Guys, get me munchies," Alphonso ordered, making his way to the hair care section. He then proceeded to stand there, sniffing at each one individually, as if smell had anything to do with how well a product worked. Jayme rolled her eyes and grabbed Kadence's arm, tugging her along to peruse what snacks they would pick up.

Kadence found her Cool Ranch Doritos and tucked them under her arm. Jayme broke open a box of sour candy and held it to her lips, chugging half of them down in one swallow. Kadence held out her hand. Jayme dumped a good portion there.

"Thanks," Kadence said, tipping her head gratefully. She swallowed the candy, making a face as the acidic sourness burst onto her tongue, then grabbed a bottle of Coca-Cola to wash it down. The cap opened with a pop and a hiss, spits of the soda misting Kadence's face. She sipped it, then swirled it around like it was mouthwash.

Her father used to always get on her case about cavities. He barely let the Sparrow Academy eat sugar. So, this was another middle finger to him—and an embrace to the thirteen-year-old girl who never dreamed of getting such luxuries.

She was swallowing sip after sip of Coca-Cola beside Jayme, grateful for the company, when the store manager—who'd been skulking his way around the pharmacy as if attempting to sniff out thieves—made his way up to them. He cleared his throat with an expectant look, and, even though he didn't speak, Kadence caught the underlying meaning behind his judgmental expression. You have to pay for those.

She almost rolled her eyes. Did he not recognize them?

Before she could go off on a cliché rant, like all celebrities did in movies—"Do you not know who I am? Who my father is?"—Jayme hissed. It was nothing human. The sound was almost snake-like, dangerous, with an undertone of fuck off laced into it. Dark veins crawled up her skin, signalling that the hallucinogenic venom was beginning to build at the back of her throat. If provoked, she'd act like a real snake would—she'd attack.

Fortunately, the store manager backed away. Either he had, finally, recognized them—which everyone should. Seriously, their images were everywhere around the city!—or he just didn't want to deal with two women who looked as if they could crush his skull between their thighs.

Kadence laughed. Even Jayme managed the slightest smile, then promptly shoved handfuls of candy into the pockets of her jacket.

They were just deciding whether to get Alphonso Snickers or Mars Bars—Kadence was firmly on the Snickers side of things, while Jayme was insisting on Mars Bars—when the sound of a fist against flesh shattered the ambient atmosphere of the pharmacy. Kadence only had a moment to be surprised—a moment that she spent catching the Coca-Cola bottle that had nearly slipped out of her fingers—before another violent sound rang out. This time, it was of someone crashing right into a shelf.

What the hell?

"No fucking way," Kadence said. "Now? Right now?"

Jayme yawned exaggeratedly. "I guess we should see what's going on."

There was more shattering, and, all of a sudden, screams. Most patrons began to flee the pharmacy, wanting an escape from whatever fight was going on. Not Kadence, though. Instead, she peered around the shelves, only to get a glimpse of an unexpected scene.

Alphonso was beating the shit out of one of the members of the Umbrella Academy.

It was the shaggy-haired man, the one who'd been wearing that BDSM getup when he'd broken into their house. He'd cleaned himself up, now, cutting his hair and opting for a more reasonable outfit, but it was still, undoubtedly, him. Kadence's eyes widened.

She'd meant to tell Jayme and Alphonso about her sighting of that blonde woman from earlier, but it no longer mattered, not when another member had gotten far closer. Diego, she was pretty sure he was named. And he was also an idiot.

Seriously, he kept attempting to punch Alphonso in the face, despite the overwhelming evidence that he was only hurting himself. Even when a part of Alphonso's chin fell to the ground—something that, despite being disgusting, Kadence had gotten used to—he still didn't seem to get the picture. Alphonso took advantage of this by bowling him into a shelf of soup cans.

Honestly, despite Alphonso's self-proclaimed laziness, he was doing just fine on his own. He might not even need his sisters' help.

As Diego lay, groaning, on the floor, a kid darted out and bent over him. At first, Kadence thought he was trying to see if he was okay, but then he grabbed a knife out of one of Diego's many holsters and prepared to throw it. It caught Alphonso in the leg. The boy promptly groaned in pain as an identical wound appeared on himself.

Alphonso sighed. "You getting how this works yet?"

"That's my kid, asshole!" Diego responded, then struck again.

With one kick to the chest, Alphonso was sent to his knees. He shook his inhaler, gasping for breath, and Diego loomed over him, leering. "Are you getting tired yet? Heart's getting weaker?"

"Not... even close," Alphonso responded. Diego kicked his inhaler out of his hand.

Okay. That's it.

"Hey!" Kadence shouted, moving out into the open. Diego whirled around, his eyes narrowing when he laid eyes on her. A scowl appeared on his face.

"Oh, great. It's you."

Predictably, he pulled out a knife. But just as he moved to throw it, Kadence curled her hands into fists. It only took half a second to take control of the matter that made up the weapon and transmute it. Which was useful, since this asshole was fast. The knife was already leaving his fingers when Kadence turned it to sand.

"What the..." Diego's face blanched as a pile of sand spilled down to the floor. "That was my favourite knife!"

"Oh, boo-hoo, fucker. I'm sure Mommy can get you another one for Christmas."

"Fuck you!" he shouted, then lunged at her. No knives, this time. Just fists.

He only made it halfway before Kadence turned a patch of the floor into tar. But, though his feet quickly stuck in the pitch, he still attempted to carry himself forward. The momentum had him windmilling his arms, trying to stay upright. He was embarrassingly close to face-planting on the floor.

"Stay away from my brother, dickbag," Kadence sneered.

"You stay away from my son!"

He slipped his feet out of his shoes and leaped over the patch of tar, then slammed a punch into Kadence's face. It was a surprisingly agile move, and the blow actually connected. Kadence went staggering back as pain erupted into her nose. She put a hand to it. Blood spewed between her fingers.

Instead of trying to finish her off, though, Diego seemed more focused on kneeling down beside the groaning boy—his son, apparently. After a few concerned questions, he then switched to telling him to stop crying. Kadence almost laughed.

Seeing her siblings in trouble—Alphonso still groping for his inhaler and Kadence wondering whether or not her nose had been broken—Jayme finally dropped her snacks and entered the scene. She tilted her head, hissed, and then two globs of venom came expelling from her clenched teeth. They made their way toward her enemies, but before they could connect, the boy blocked them with a frying pan. Jayme frowned.

"That girl was gonna hork on you, dude," the boy grumbled. Kadence finally took her hand away from her nose. Her entire front was covered in red—that Diego may have been an idiot, but he sure did have a good hit. Even so, it didn't matter. She'd bled during missions before—she'd even broken bones. She would be fine.

Jayme hissed again, and Diego and his son scrambled out of the way of the flying venom. They then decided that throwing shit was the best way to ward off their attackers. A few cans actually connected with Jayme, and she sunk to her knees, swearing.

Before Kadence could jump back into the fight, though, Diego grabbed his son's arm and pulled him away. The two of them stumbled out of the pharmacy, limping, leaving only Kadence, Alphonso, Jayme, and the manager, who was half hidden behind the checkout counter.

"Fuck," Kadence swore.

Jayme lifted her head. There was a slight welt where a can had connected to her forehead. "Did we just—did we just lose?" she asked.

Kadence was asking herself the same question, and it was seriously hurting her self-esteem. There was no way she'd lost again. Not after yesterday. Not after her promise to herself. She was supposed to have been better.

She swiped a hand across her nose, coating her knuckles with a smear of blood. "This isn't over," she spat. "They ran away. But we're going to find them. And we're going to make them pay."

Now that was a promise she had to make to herself. Because there was no way she was letting the so-called Umbrella Academy be the death of everything she'd been working for.

APPARENTLY, VIKTOR HAD chosen a diner as his meeting place with Marcus. The three of them made their way there an hour before the leader of the Sparrows was due to show, heading in single-file and listening to the chime of the door announcing their presence.

This was the first diner Nadine had been to since the '60s, and upon entering, she found a part of herself glancing around for those wretched 'Whites Only' signs that had decorated far too many of them. She could tell that Allison was, as well. Nadine remembered the story she'd told about the protest she'd staged at Stadtler's, the very same lunch counter Nadine had stumbled into on her first day in 1961. The employees had dumped salt on the protesters' heads, and a particularly racist man had spilled coffee into her lap. All because she'd dared claim a seat at the table.

Nadine found herself taking her friend's hand. She wished she had something to say to her, but as a white woman, there would always be parts of Allison's experience she'd never understand. She'd never been assaulted in such a way, even when she'd kneed a man in the groin. Her white privilege had saved her from the retributions Allison would've undoubtedly received if she'd done the same thing, and that was difficult to come to terms with. But it was the truth. And to be any sort of ally, Nadine had to come to terms with it.

So, she held onto Allison, a reminder that she was here for her. Allison substantially relaxed at the gesture, and at the diversity of the diner's patrons. The pride flag on the wall couldn't have hurt, either.

They all ordered coffee, and Nadine used the last of her change to purchase a ham and cheese croissant, as well. Breakfast had been hours ago, now, and she was starving. She didn't know how Viktor and Allison could run around for so long with empty stomachs.

Nadine dumped sugar into her coffee and stirred it with a little spoon, listening to the satisfying tap of metal against the cup. No one seemed up to doing much talking—Viktor was slumped over his coffee, bags under his eyes, and Allison seemed intent on people-watching—so Nadine found contentment in just listening to the bustle around her. The clatter of silverware against plates. The ding of the doorbell as someone new entered. The occasional burst of laughter.

If she was being honest, she hadn't quite gotten used to the shift that 2019 brought, yet. Oh, sure, it was her era, but after two years in the 1960s, it had almost become as foreign to her as America had been the first time she'd touched down. All of the cars that rushed by her on the road were futuristic, now. All of the clothes seemed too casual. When she'd walked past an electronics store, she'd been momentarily spellbound at the crisp quality of the televisions.

Well, she'd needed time to adjust to the 1960s. She supposed she needed time to adjust to 2019, too.

She pulled her phone from her pocket, even though it seemed like kind of a rude action, with Allison and Viktor there. Neither of them seemed to be paying much attention to her, though, so she supposed it must be all right. She answered the security question and found herself on Other Nadine's home screen again.

There was free WiFi here, so Nadine connected, then pulled up the Internet app. The article about Molly was gone—thank God—and only a blank Google search engine stared back at her. As a test, she typed in weather. In seconds, the forecast for the week—both here and in Dijon—popped up.

Back in the '60s, no such raw power existed.

She was just considering what else she could look up—nothing about history, nothing about Molly Hamasaki—when a smile started to grow on her face. Holy shit, she'd completely forgotten about the best feature of 2019 technology. And it wasn't social media or the Internet or the ability to look up information within seconds.

It was music.

It had been literal years since she'd listened to her favourite songs. ABBA, Queen, David Bowie, Juniore... none of those bands had even existed in the 1960s. She'd had to deal with a whole lot of annoying jazz, and not a single French artist. It was exhausting.

But here, at her fingertips, was access to every single song that had ever been recorded. And maybe she couldn't listen to it loudly—she was in a public area, after all—but if she put her phone on the lowest volume and held the speaker up to her ear, she might be able to enjoy it, regardless. Which would be really nice. She'd really fucking missed her favourites.

Before she had time to peruse the catalogue, though, her phone suddenly vibrated with a text message. The notification startled her, and she nearly threw her phone across the room before remembering that this was normal. Then, her heart began to pound. Someone else was texting Other Nadine. This might give her another glimpse into the life her alternate self led.

Nothing could have prepared her for the name of the contact, though.

Maman: J'espère que vous vous installez bien en Amérique! Tu me manque. S'il vous plaît appelez-moi quand vous en avez l'occasion—je veux tout savoir à ce sujet! Je t'aime XOXO

I hope you're settling in well to America! Missing you. Please call me when you get the chance—I want to know all about it! Love you XOXO

What. The. Fuck.

There was no way. There was no way. There was no way that Louise Fucking Vidal would text any version of Nadine like this. There was no way that she would ever even say that she loved her—she only did that when she was going for a guilt trip. There was no way Other Nadine had named her contact Mom instead of Louise or La Chienne or, quite simply, blocking her number. No. Way.

But here was proof, staring Nadine in the face.

Other Louise... loved Other Nadine.

Other Louise loved her daughter.

"Oh, mon dieu," Nadine breathed, reverting back into French, because there was no way she could even attempt English right now. Oh, sure, it had become her primary language during these past few years, but French had still clung onto her. She still thought in French, even after all this time.

Viktor turned to her. "Nadine? Are you okay?"

Nadine faced him. She was sure her face had drained of all of its blood. "I just... I just got a text," she breathed. "Well, I mean, I guess Other Nadine did. But it was from—it was from—it was from my mother."

Viktor tilted his head. Nadine had once explained to him that she hadn't had a very close relationship with Louise, but she'd never really gone beyond that. It was difficult to talk about all of the years with her mother. It was difficult to force out the fact that she could never really be enough for her. "I don't understand."

"My mom—my mom never loved me. And I'm not just saying that. It's actually true. I think I told you how she'd call me a demon? Well, that was just the beginning. I was barely even her daughter when I was my true self. She could barely even look at me."

She held up her phone. "But not this Louise, apparently. Because she said—she said I love you."

"Oh," Viktor said. His face softened. "Oh."

A rueful chuckle burst past Nadine's lips. "Yeah. Apparently, my alternate self has decided to fuck with me further. She's enough for Camille, she's enough for my mother... hell, she was probably enough for Mirabelle, too." She buried her face in her hands. "Just when I was starting to think that I wasn't the problem. It turns out that I have been all along."

Nadine as a whole. That had been the sentiment that Nadine had begun to embrace in the 1960s. Molly, Viktor, the rest of the Umbrella Academy... they'd all loved every part of her, not just what they could pick and choose. It had helped her learn that she didn't need to bury the uglier bits of herself. That she was who she was meant to be, blemishes and all.

But had she been wrong? Were her years of self-deprecating thoughts really just a truth that she hadn't wanted to accept?

After all, here was proof that another version of her could be loved by the same people who refused to in her own timeline.

"No," Viktor said. He caught her hand, tight. His fingers pinched hers. "No."

Nadine looked up at him. "What do you mean, 'no'? The proof is right here."

"I don't give a fuck," he snapped, and Nadine was momentarily surprised at his profanity. She'd heard him swear before, but not as viciously as this. Not with his eyes ablaze and his mouth almost contorted into a snarl. "Whatever proof you think you've found doesn't matter at all. I don't care if your other self has the whole world bowing down to her. That does not mean you're a mistake.

"You know how I know? Because this Other Nadine isn't the one I became friends with. She isn't the one that I... well, that I love. You are. You're far from perfect, that's true. You're stubborn and a goddamn idiot and thought crashing our father's funeral was a good idea. But none of that means that you're a mistake. It just means that you're human. And I would rather have that Nadine than this mystical perfect woman who exists here."

Nadine sat there for a moment, trying to process this. The last time she'd heard so much raw emotion in Viktor's voice had been when he'd told her about Sissy. But this... he was talking about Nadine. He was talking about her.

And he must have meant every word.

She wiped her eyes. She wasn't sure if she believed everything her friend was saying, but it alleviated the edge of the hurt, at least. Though she was sure it would flare up again later.

She took a deep breath. "We need to get out of this timeline."

"I know," Viktor said. "And we will, I promise. There's only an hour until we meet up with the Sparrows, now. Once we have the briefcase, we can fix everything."

"You know how to use it, right?" Allison asked, finally injecting herself into the conversation. She'd seemed zoned out when Nadine was talking, a faraway look glazing over her eyes, but now that they were back to business, she'd snapped out of it. "Because last time Klaus tried it, he ended up in Vietnam, and I can't handle another screwup, Viktor, I swear to God, I can't."

"I know, I know. Me neither. None of us can." He glanced at Nadine, briefly meeting her eyes before facing his sister again. "Hey, Five is an asshole..."

"Yes," Allison chuckled.

"...but he's not a monster. When we explain what this means to us—to all three of us—he'll help. He has to."

"He better," Nadine said. Because if he refused, citing his 'retirement' or some other bullshit as an excuse, she was finally going to snap and do what she'd constantly been threatening. By the time she was finished with him, his neck would be wrung out like a wet washcloth.

That was a promise.

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HAVEN: kind of hashtag-hate this chapter but i hope you found some entertainment from it lol. team jak ftw. too bad two out of three are gonna die soon LMFAOO

grandfather paradox next chapter ;)))) plus some unexpected news ;))))))))))))

thanks for reading!! <3333