Page 203 of Victorious

“Not exactly a warm welcome.” His fingers twitched on the gun. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

“Oh, I do. And we will. When you’re in a less … combative state. In the meantime, one of my patients wanted to say hello.”

“I’ve already met a few of them,” said Victor, turning toward the door as it opened.

And Eli Ever stepped inside.

VNOW. THEN.

SYDNEY didn’t remember watching the film, but time must have skipped, because the picture was gone, replaced by tinny music, and an old-fashioned card that read The End.

She felt sleepy, and warm, and incredibly cozy.

A small voice inside her head told her to sit up, but when she started to, Mitch patted her feet and said, “What do you think, Syd? Want to make it a double feature?”

Just like that, she heard fresh popcorn popping in the microwave. Smelled butter on the air. Knew she could curl up and stay here—stay safe—forever.

She also knew it wasn’t real.

The scene was looping on itself. Not a memory, but a dream.

Which meant Serena was here.

As if on cue, a snowflake curled across the air in front of Sydney’s face. A cold breeze that made her want to crawl beneath the blankets. Burrow deep.

Instead, she forced herself to sit up.

“I have to go,” she declared, heading for the door.

Victor sat forward in his chair. “Where are you going, Syd?”

She didn’t trust herself to answer, knew that if she turned to look at him, she’d lose her nerve. She’d want to stay. And she couldn’t.

There was a real world out there, with real people, people she cared about, and people she was scared of, and people she needed to face.

Dol didn’t get up when she did, didn’t follow her across the room, and that made it easier. Another sign that he wasn’t her Dol, this wasn’t her life, as nice as it felt to pretend.

As she neared the door, her breath began to fog.

As she pushed it open, and started down the hall, frost began to climb the walls. Cold scraped against her skin and made her shiver. The world went paler with every step until the apartment building disappeared, the world so white that for a moment, Sydney thought she must be nowhere, a blank canvas, an empty in-between.

But then her shoes slipped a little, and she understood exactly where she was.

On the lake.

Sydney looked down and held her breath. The pane of ice beneath her feet was thin enough to see the spring-warmed water through. It cracked with every step, as if about to break. When she looked up again, she saw Serena standing there, blond hair loose and blowing in the breeze, her back to Sydney as she stared through the fog, across the frozen lake, their house a small, dark speck on the distant bank.

Sydney took a cautious step toward her, and Serena turned, and smiled, the way she always did when she was getting exactly what she wanted. Her sister. Her shadow.

“There you are,” she said, holding out her hand for Syd. “Come on, let’s go home.”

VINOW. THEN.

“HELLO, Victor.”

He stared across the room at his old friend—and foe—once again, in the flesh.

Not a phantom, or a dream, but flesh and blood, and looking at him now, Victor should have known, back when he saw Eli glaring at the edge of the road, dressed in combat fatigues, that it wasn’t a hallucination.