Alexei's face didn't change in any discernible way when he saw me sitting on the couch, or when he looked over and noticed Adam at the bar. Instead, the smile only grew wider over his chiseled face and icy blue eyes. Putting the groceries down on an entry table, he reached out a hand to Adam as he crossed the room to meet him, and my body shivered like an ice cube had dropped down my spine. But when they had finished shaking hands, I was relieved to see that Alexei still seemed oblivious as to who we were.

I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. This Alexei had never met us before. I didn't know what time period he was from, or when he had crossed over to this dimension, but whenever it was had to have been before any of our interactions with him.

"So you're the competition," Alexei joked in his crisp, clear voice that betrayed almost no hint of an accent. Every time I'd heard him speak, I was struck by the idea that he must have studied hundreds of hours of American television to emulate our speech patterns, and ended up speaking a hybrid that was almost too perfect to be believable.

Now he stood back and appraised Adam from a foot away, that knowing smirk never leaving his face. Then he turned to Jenny on the couch. "Well, I think I could take him, honey. What do you think?"

Jenny only giggled in response, playing her part again. Meanwhile, Adam stood still as a statue, only a glimmer in his eyes letting me know that his mind was working overtime to assess the risk here, and to make a plan to get us out of it.

And then Alexei turned on me, his eyes drinking me in from head to foot like I was new furniture. "And you didn't come alone," he continued, still addressing Adam. "What a lovely girl you are. What is your name?"

"Mara."

"Ah, like el mar, the sea," he smiled, proud of himself for this observation. "And you're as pretty as an ocean."

I shivered again despite myself, Alexei's eyes boring through me and making me feel suddenly naked. Was I wrong that he didn't know us? Why was he still staring at me? Unable to hold still anymore, I started to get up. I didn't really have a plan, except to stand near Adam. To feel safer by his presence.

"No, don't get up," Alexei said before I could fully stand.

"I'm just going to get a coffee."

"I'll get it for you," he offered, and his tone let me know that it wasn't an offer. "Sit back down."

I swallowed hard, my legs trembling in a way that I hoped wasn't noticeable as I sat on the couch again.

"Jenny, sit next to her."

Jenny looked up at him, surprised, from the other side of the coffee table. "Why?"

"I want to look at you both at once," Alexei said, heading behind the bar to get me the coffee that I hadn't really wanted.

And as Jenny slowly stood and made her way over to my side, I looked over to Adam, whose anxious eyes now landed on a decision.

"We actually have to go," he said, his voice straining to sound steady despite what I could clearly make out as nerves.

"Not yet," Alexei smiled again, pouring the coffee. "You came to see Jenny, right? From a long distance, she says. You must have had good reason."

"Just to visit," Adam continued, every muscle in his body clearly tensing.

"So visit," Alexei snapped, his voice turning harsh as he slammed the coffee down. "Look at her. That's what you came for, right? To see her again..."

Adam started to back away from the counter towards the couch, but he was stopped in his tracks by something I couldn't see behind the bar. He whispered something I couldn't make out, though it sounded like "please."

"Stay where you are," Alexei said, and when he walked around the bar again I could finally see what Adam was reacting to. He had a gun in his hand, pointed at Adam's chest.

"No," I begged, standing without thinking, "please, stop. We'll go."

"Sit down, Marina, please," Adam pleaded, his attention still on the gun as his hands went up by his sides.

"You should listen to him... Marina," Alexei added, not blinking for a second as he looked at Adam. "Did you think I wouldn't know you?" he continued, and I knew he meant me. "You look just like your mother."

"Alex, baby, please," Jenny begged by my side, "they didn't do anything. Let's just let them go."

Alexei just shook his head at this, disappointed apparently. He nodded to the corner of the room, indicating the direction he wanted Adam to walk. "Go sit in the corner and don't move or I'll kill you."

Adam looked tortured as his eyes darted to Jenny and me on the couch, locking with mine for only a second, and the look of anguish on his face made me want to cry out. But I knew I couldn't. No matter what, I had to keep my wits about me now. I had to think as clearly as possible. There was a way out of this. I had to find it.

Adam moved to the corner as he was told, and I sat back down by Jenny, not wanting to upset Alexei even more by ignoring his order.

Alexei continued to shake his head in frustration as he backed away from Adam, coming back over to where he could clearly see the two of us on the couch, sitting side-by-side, powerless before him. I knew from the smirk that returned to his face that he wouldn't just let us go. Men like him got too much pleasure out of making others suffer, especially women. Watching the two of us trembling before him was probably the greatest thrill he'd had in a long time.

"I'm just so disappointed, Jenny," he said now, although his face still looked smugly satisfied. "I really thought we'd have more time. I didn't expect you to be faithful..." and at the word, a sob eked out of Jenny's throat. Her body began to tremble forcefully by my side, and I instinctively took her hand. She grasped mine back.

"Please," she whispered, barely able to form the word.

"But I did think we'd have more time."

He was standing about five feet in front of us now, moving the gun back and forth between my stomach and Jenny's. Adam's body lurched forward, almost crawling towards us, but Alexei stopped him with a forceful glance before turning back to us.

My stomach muscles began to clench uncontrollably, bracing themselves for impact. The moment lasted so long, I felt like I was floating above the room. Like, somehow, I was already dead. My father's eyes appeared before me. Kieren was right. I should have never come.

I would never get to say goodbye.

And then the gun fired with a bang so loud I screamed and covered my ears.

Blood was on me, like it had been painted there. Speckles of it covered my arms.

Shaking violently, my hands lowered from my ears and seemed to move through molasses as they worked their way to my stomach, searching desperately for the bullet hole.

But there wasn't one.

Instead, Jenny collapsed into me, her body heavy and hot, and blood gushing out of her, soaking her yellow dress in red.

I looked up just in time to see Alexei running out the door, and before I knew it, Adam was on top of us, holding us both in his strong arms and choking back moans of abject fear as his eyes fell on the gushing blood.

"Who's bleeding?" he asked in a high, terrified voice. "Who's bleeding?"

"It's not me," I answered, my hands going to hold up Jenny's face as it began to wobble forward, her skin turning white and her pupils beginning to dilate.

"No, no, no," was all Adam said, over and over again, as we laid Jenny down before us. I looked around frantically until my eyes landed on a throw blanket on the couch. I grabbed it and pushed it into the entry wound.

"Adam, push here," I said, taking his unsteady hands and pressing them into the blanket. ."Keep putting pressure. I'll call an ambulance."

"Hurry, Marina."

"I am."

Outside, the rumble of a car engine was followed by the wheezing of spinning tires and the crunching of the driveway stones, and then silence. Alexei was racing off, and I knew where he was going. But I couldn't do anything about it until Jenny was safe.

I scanned the room, finally seeing a phone on an end table. I picked up the receiver and prayed that rotary phones really did work the way they seemed to in old movies, barely able to control my nerves as my finger made the long circular journey around the dial to turn the 9 key.

"You've reached emergency services. What is the nature of your call?"

"Someone's been shot," I said, trying to keep my voice steady and clear, not wanting to waste time repeating myself, as I scanned the table in front of me for a piece of mail to give the address.

On the floor, Adam was crying over Jenny, stroking her hair with a bloody hand and pressing down the blanket over her wound with the other.

"Keep talking to her, Adam," I coached while I waited for the operator to respond. "Keep her awake. Ask her questions."

"Right," he nodded, shaking off his emotions to focus on the job before him.

The operator bombarded me with questions of her own: where the gunshot entered, how many shots fired, how many victims. It was all I could do to focus and answer her as accurately as possible while I desperately observed Jenny on the floor, looking for signs of response.

I was encouraged by the fact that her eyes were still open, straining to focus on Adam as he cooed soft questions that I couldn't quite hear.

"The ambulance is on the way," the operator finally confirmed. "Five minutes."

That was all I needed to hear. I placed the receiver down on the table, facing up in case Adam needed to say anything further to the operator. And then I started heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" Adam demanded before I could make it.

"I have to follow him, Adam."

"No, Marina, no."

"I have to try."

Adam's hands didn't leave their task of applying pressure to Jenny's wound and stroking her forehead, but his face turned up to me with a new desperation. "I'll do it. You come help Jenny."

"You won't be able to get into the building, Adam. You don't have a name tag."

"Neither do you!"

"I can get one, though."

"Marina, please," he begged, his face turning red with emotion, his eyes wet. "Please. I can't lose you both."

"You won't," I promised, backing even further towards the door. "Just get her on the ambulance. Stay with her."

He only shook his head, paralyzed on the floor, Jenny's hand lying weakly on top of his as he continued to push the blanket into her stomach.

"You're doing it, Adam," I nodded, trying to offer him the only comfort I could in that moment. "You're saving her life."

And before I could see the effect the words had on him, I turned and ran out of the door. If I waited any longer, I would lose my nerve. And I couldn't let that happen. Not if there was any chance I could still stop Alexei.

At least one mystery was solved: why Jenny never came back from the past. Because the first time this had happened, Adam hadn't been there to save her. But now he was. I could only pray it was enough, that the gunshot wasn't fatal. If nothing else, we would have saved one life.

But was it too late to save all the others that would be lost if Alexei wasn't stopped?

I ran to the garage, just on the off chance that he had a second car. There wasn't one, which was just as well, considering my driving abilities.

But there was something even better waiting for me, something that gave me a shred of hope, as though it were a good omen: a bicycle.

I hopped on and started pedaling towards Fort Pryman Shard one last time, my feet slipping a bit in Mimi's heels and the seat propped up too high, but I wasn't going to let any of that get in my way. I wasn't stopping for anything in the world, not even the blaring, careening ambulance that sped past me on its way to the house, leaving a gush of hot wind in its wake. 

***

Keep reading for chapter 40!