Alpha Page 22

  Ash pushed through the door and slumped against the wall. We’d rented a place about a mile from Fort Hannity. It was small and smelled like old cheese, but it was ours. I’d enrolled in school and was set to start in two months. Everything was right on track.

  “So, um, we need to have that conversation you’ve been avoiding.”

  She dropped her gaze to the ground, suddenly fascinated by the loose thread in the carpet at her feet. She rolled it around beneath the toe of her sneaker, bringing her foot back and forth several times before sighing. “Gotta give you credit. You kept your word.” She lifted her head and spread her arms.

  I’d made her promise to discuss going back to her home world to meet her family. She’d made me promise not to bring it up again until we’d moved our stuff into the new place.

  “You saw how things worked out for Kori. What are you afraid of?”

  “My situation is different from hers.”

  Ash had been taken from her family as a child, stolen by an evil version of my own mother, and given to her world’s version of Rebecca Calvert as a way to keep the woman focused on her work. During our escape from that world, Ash had skipped to her home world, but had chosen to stay with us until Dylan—and Cora—had been stopped.

  Once things had settled, I’d worried she’d leave—but she’d been putting it off, even going as far as suggesting we get a place together…for a while.

  I leaned back against the table and ran a hand through my hair. “Ya gotta make a choice, Ash.” I was treading on thin ice. I knew we’d needed to have this conversation, but I’d been dreading it. Before Cade and I skipped off to follow Dylan? Yeah. The me I’d been then would have simply ignored the issue. Let her settle in and get comfortable, because I wanted her here. That me was selfish.

  I was still that same guy, but I’d changed, too. I wanted what was best for her. And what was best was for her to do the thing that would make her ultimately happy in the end.

  “So you’re asking me to choose? Between you and home?”

  I crossed the room and took her hand—the one that housed the chip allowing us to travel between parallel versions of Earth. “You don’t need to choose. Kori didn’t. You can come and go. Get to know your family and your home, and still be with me.” I gestured to the small, cluttered apartment. “This doesn’t have to be for now. It can be home. It can be home without sacrificing everything else.”

  “What if she doesn’t believe me? She won’t recognize me…”

  I tugged her forward and gently nudged her down on the only chair in the apartment. “I never told you about when we got to Kori’s world, did I?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “We changed tactics that time. Used to be that we just jumped into it. Started hunting Dylan, following the trail of bodies, yada, yada. That time, though, we took a big chance. Walked ourselves right into Fort Hannity and requested an audience with Anderson.” I pulled over a stack of boxes and sat down across from her. “Cade did all the talking. Had some weird opinions about how I jammed my foot down my throat every time I opened my mouth.”

  She snickered. “Go figure.”

  “He told him the truth about everything—except me. All he said about me was that I was a fellow soldier on a mission to apprehend a criminal. Do you know what Karl said?”

  She shook her head.

  “He called Cade on his bullshit. Said that he’d know his own son no matter what. Didn’t matter that he’d technically never met me. Made no difference that we’d never said a word to each other. He just knew.”

  “And you think they’ll just know? My parents?” She rolled her eyes, but the action lacked her usual sarcasm. There was hope in her eyes, barely distinguishable beneath the layers and layers of walls she’d built up over the years. I’d broken through—like she’d broken, smashed through mine—but the rest of the world still had a ways to go.

  “I think they’ll feel it in here.” I lifted her hand and placed it on my chest, across my heart. “I feel it…when I look at you. You belong with me. We just… We’re supposed to be in each other’s lives. I think they’ll feel that, too.”

  “Why, Noah Anderson, that was uncharacteristically deep of you.” She grinned and pressed the back of her hand against my forehead. “Feeling all right? Need a glass of water? Maybe an aspirin?”

  I smacked her hand away but returned the grin. “I’m serious, Ash. I know things between us… Well, a lot of shit is kind of left unsaid, and I think we both like it that way. But…”

  She leaned in a little closer. “But…?”

  “But, I mean…” Shit. Why the hell was it so hard? She knew how I felt. This wasn’t anything new. Not like it was news falling from the sky or anything. But we’d never said it. Made it all official and shit.

  “But you love me?” she supplied.

  “And you love me,” I replied. “We can do anything together. Take down evil mad scientists—or go meet long-lost family.”

  “That doesn’t sound horrible to me. And, the future…?”

  “I’m not, like, suggesting we run out and get rings and a dog and matching tattoos or anything, but I want you to know. You’re it. For me. You, Ashlyn Calvert, are the only girl for this Noah Anderson.”

  Reunion

  Kori

  Three days after the events of Alpha…

  When I lost my mother, I would have given anything to see her again. A month, two weeks, five days…two minutes. Any small snippet of time. It was a dream, though. A fantasy. Science and medicine had made huge advances in my lifetime alone, but we couldn’t bring people back from the grave. No one could do that.

  Then I met Cade. Dedicated soldier, total hottie, sometimes too serious, and resident of a parallel version of my Earth. And Noah… Unrivaled pain-in-my-ass, secret softy, and the brother who’d died before I was born. I’d traveled the multiverse with them. Seen countless wonders and horrific atrocities. Found adventure and the fulfillment of a promise I’d made to my mom. Living my life in vivid color. They made it all possible.

  They’d made today possible…

  I crossed my ankles, shifted in my seat, then uncrossed them. I threaded my hands together, then set my own digits against each other in a rousing game of thumb wars. When that didn’t calm my nerves, I jumped up and started to pace.

  “Figured I’d find you in here.” Cade poked his head through the door. His lopsided grin was a sight for sore eyes, and I grabbed his wrist and dragged him into the room.

  “Oh my God. What took you so long? What if she’d gotten here before you did?”

  He snickered and slung his free arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. Planting a kiss atop my head, he said, “The most badass version of Kori Anderson in the multiverse is afraid of a one-on-one?”

  I pulled away and waggled a finger at him. “Nope. Not the most badass. Remember that wrestler version of me? She wins. Hands down.”

  “Huh. Good point.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this.” I’d said this to him a thousand times in the last twenty-four hours. His surrogate mother, this world’s version of my mom, Cora Anderson, was due to arrive any minute.

  She’d been out of the country when Noah, his girlfriend Ash, and I had arrived here. One call and she immediately hopped a plane to the States.

  He placed a hand on either side of my face and tilted my head up so that we were eye to eye. “Cora could not get here fast enough, Kori. She’s as eager to see you as you are to see her.”

  “But what if she—”

  A knock at the door.

  The bottom dropped from my stomach. “Oh my God…”

  He kissed my forehead and stepped away. “You will be fine.”

  Before I could reply, he’d slipped out the door, leaving it open a crack.

  A moment passed. Then another. In reality it was probably only a few seconds. But to me? It felt like hours. Days. An eternity…

  She slipped into the room, closed the door behind h
er, and smiled. “Kori.”

  “Mom.” The word slipped out, strangled and hoarse, before I could stop myself. “God, I’m so sorry. Cora.”

  She came a little closer. “I am to you whoever you would like me to be, Kori.” She closed the distance, then, almost hesitantly, and brushed the back of her hand across my cheek. “You will never replace the Kori I lost, and I will never take the place of your mother. But you are my daughter. I will love you, and Noah, in any reality.”

  She backed away and settled in the chair across the room. There was one beside it, but I couldn’t bring myself to sit. My heart hammered, and it felt like at any moment it would burst from my chest, leave a nice gaping hole for the world to see.

  “Tell me about her. Your mother. What was she like?”

  “She was funny and kind. She loved bad movies and animals.” I snickered. “She made me pull over once in rush hour traffic to move a turtle from the road.”

  Cora laughed. “Don’t judge. Noah will never admit it, but he does the same thing!”

  “Oh my God, and junk food? She was frantic about junk food. Like, we kept a stash of it under the floorboard in my closet because it drove my dad insane.”

  “I knew a Cora once like that. She always had chocolate in her pockets. I used to tease her about it mercilessly.”

  Before I realized what I was doing, I’d taken the seat next to her. “Do you know a lot of, well, yous?”

  “Quite a few, actually.” She pulled up the hem of her skirt and stretched out her leg. On her ankle was the same kind of cuff that Cade and Noah had originally worn. She held up a finger to her lips, glanced to the left, and then the right and said, “I’ve been skipping since I was pregnant with Noah.”

  “So, you…what? Go in search of yourself?”

  “I’m a scientist, Kori.” She smiled. “My curiosity is never-ending. There are an infinite number of Earths out there, and I was rabid to know how they differed, how I differed.”

  “And what did you find?”

  She leaned back. “Well, it wasn’t always good. There are a few bad apples out there.”

  I snorted. “Yeah. Ran into one of them.”

  “She wasn’t even the worst. But there are good, too. I’ve made some amazing friends.”

  “Friends? As in, you still have contact with them?”

  “Of course! When you can travel across the multiverse, you’re only a skip away. Look at you. You’ve been bouncing back and forth, right? Between here and your home?”

  “I have,” I admitted. “I wanted to meet you, and…” God. This was awkward. By the way, I’m in love with your daughter’s boyfriend…

  “If that hesitation is about Cade, you stop it right now. That boy is another son to me, and to see him happy, finally, is just about the greatest joy a mother can have.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “How could I possibly mind? I love you both, and you’re finally happy. My Kori, she was amazing. So bright and beautiful and kind… But she and Cade? They weren’t the best thing for each other. You… I can see the changes in him since he’s met you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” she said. “Now. Tell me about your father. Is he at all like my Karl?”

  “He’s a general, like your husband. He’s harder, though. Sadder, ya know?”

  “I cannot imagine how he must feel. I honestly don’t know if I could survive losing him.” She tilted her head back and sighed. “I almost did, once.”

  “Your husband almost died?”

  “Well, not mine. Another version.” She laughed. “It was the first and only time another Cora found me. She came here looking for help. Her husband was sick. Dying from a disease— Kori? Are you all right?”

  I was just about the farthest thing from all right. In fact, I was ready to lose my mind. My final moments with my father, when I’d first left my own world, echoed in my head. “I… Yes. Sorry. So, another Karl Anderson was sick?”

  “With something called Intracranial Dysplasia. The disease had yet to be discovered on her world, but on mine, we had a cure.”

  “And you helped them?”

  She nodded. “I did. We were both pregnant with Noah at the time. The idea of him growing up without Karl…” She shuddered. “I couldn’t fathom it.”

  “And that Cora? Is she one of the ones you keep in touch with? Your friend?”

  A wistful look flickered in her eyes. “I would have loved that. Unfortunately, my cuff malfunctioned after that skip. All my data was lost. Her version of the tech was far less advanced than my own. I assume she couldn’t find me again, either. I didn’t skip again for a year and a half. I’ve always wondered about them. I hope they’re happy.”

  “They’re not.” I said it low, under my breath and not really intending her to hear, but she did.

  “Not happy?”

  “Well, I mean they were. I suppose are, in most ways. Noah didn’t grow up without Karl, but Kori grew up without Noah.”

  She was totally confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “Noah. That Noah. He was never born. She lost him. He died.”

  “How could you know that…?”

  I swallowed, and it took several tries to get the words out. “She’s gone, too.”

  “She’s—that Karl, that Cora, it was your—”

  “My mother. He told me about it right before I left my world with Cade and Noah. He remembered seeing you that night. Standing over his bed… He knew you weren’t her. That you’d come from someplace else to save his life.”

  She was off the chair and throwing her arms around me before I could blink. I returned the embrace, clinging to her as though she was the only thing anchoring me to this world. She wasn’t my Cora Anderson, but she was right—she was still my mother. Mom would have been happy I was here. She’d be thrilled that this particular version of Cora Anderson was now in my life. She’d find it poetic. Cosmic. Mom would swear that it was fate.

  That it was living my life in vivid color…

  Acknowledgments

  On one hand, I’m so excited to have been able to give these characters their happy ending. They went through a lot and deserve it! On the other, I’m sad that the journey is over. This series was a blast and I’ll miss it. Thank you to my editor, Liz Pelletier, and my agent, Nicole Resciniti, for believing in these books and helping me share them with the world. I’m grateful and blessed to have you guys in my corner.

  A huge thank you to everyone who helped get this little book into the world. Stacy Abrams, Rosemary Clement, Melissa Montovani, Lisa Knapp, and to L.J. Anderson and Toni Kerr for making both the inside and outside of the book look so awesome!

  Big thanks to Gia Mallory and Baker Hartford for the multiple read-throughs. Without you two, G’s shirt probably would have changed color in every chapter. For all the midnight plotting sessions and encouragement—you guys rock my socks and this book is as awesome as it is because of you!

  To all the readers who took this journey with me, thank you. Without you, there wouldn’t be a series. Without you, I wouldn’t get to live my dream. I am grateful to each and every one of you!

  As always, eternal thanks to my family, especially my husband. My rock, my sanity, and occasionally, the housekeeper/dog walker/chef/chauffer/everything else needed to function. You are my heart and soul.

  Finally, my mom. When this series started, she was battling cancer. Now, as the series ends, she’s fighting again. Words cannot express the love and respect I have for this woman. She is the definition of determination, of standing tall, and continues to be a source of true inspiration.

  Thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to fight.

  About the Author

  Jus Accardo spent her childhood reading and learning to cook. Determined to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps as a chef, she applied and was accepted to the Culinary Institute of America. But at the last minute, she realized her true path lay with fiction, not food. A native New Yorker, she lives
in the middle of nowhere with her husband, three dogs, and sometimes guard bear, Oswald.

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