JACKIE:

  Feraz’s evil laugh reverberated as his new, snake-like body flew over the volcano.

  “Bring it on, janitor! You’re no match for me now. I’m the most powerful man in the universe!”

  “If you can still call yourself a man,” I retorted. “Now you’re just as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside.”

  “This ends now.” Firestorm pounced and strangled Feraz’s thick neck with his talons. Creature against creature, they would fight to the death.

  To ensure things went my way, I had to get out of that cage. I jolted the lock with a icy blue fireball, but it didn’t crack open. What else could I do to free myself?

  A crazy idea came to me. If I could conjure a slipstream portal, maybe I could slide in and out of this probability just long enough to manifest outside of the cage. This was a doozy, especially because the slipstream was already pulling at me. No doubt Beatrice would be advanced enough to do it, but could I? Was I a true slipstream master?

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus, but my thoughts kept racing back to the close combat happening nearby between a mutated Feraz, Firestorm, and Alpha. Two against one, it was an unfair fight. Alpha’s bullets created a symphony of violence. The guttural reactions every time someone took a hit left no room for clearing my jumbled mind. This task was impossible.

  I opened my eyes to check in and was shocked to find Firestorm’s neck squeezed between Feraz’s sharp teeth.

  “No! Feraz, let him go!”

  Instead, he bit down harder.

  Firestorm screamed out in agony. My dad needed me, but I was helpless, stuck in the cage! I shot more fireballs into the battle, but made no impact.

  A woman’s scream jolted my attention to the balcony entrance.

  “Jackie, what’s going on? That creature…” Grace’s voice wavered as she stepped onto the balcony, shocked at the horrific scene she stumbled upon. Zayne followed close behind like a trained bodyguard.

  “Grace! There you are. Please get me out of this cage.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know, but… Please.”

  My mom avoided looking at the fighting creatures. She ran to me with Zayne in tow to protect her. Grace shook the cage’s bars.

  “There’s no DNA Identifier to scan. How can I release you, Jackie? Who put you in here?”

  “Your evil boyfriend, Feraz. Who else?”

  Grace gasped. “No way! He wouldn’t do something like this.”

  “Trust me. He mutated right in front of me. That wasn’t part of his evil plan, but he’s rolling with it.”

  “What evil plan? I need details.” She was too scared to look back at what Feraz had become, a monster viciously attacking Firestorm with the help of his drone sidekick.

  “He tried to kill me yesterday. Threw me into a sewer. That’s why I stunk so bad.”

  “What? No… Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Would you have believed me?”

  Grace’s shoulders slumped. “Oh Jackie, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

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  “We’ll talk about it later. Quick. Help me escape.”

  Grace froze, in shock. “That creature… Jackie, this was in my dream. It was a nightmare, really.”

  “What dream?”

  “The vision I had in the library when we were tripping.”

  “That wasn’t a dream, Grace. That was a glimpse at the most probable future. That’s how the slipstream works. Here we are, manifesting that probability. We can change things, but we need to hurry. We don’t have much time!”

  Grace nodded and looked around the balcony.

  “Keys?” Zayne looked at me with pained eyes. He knew the hurt that comes from being someone’s prisoner.

  Grace shook her head. “I don’t know. Where are the keys, Jackie?”

  Defeat choked me. It took Grace weeks to find the right key to free Zayne in a previous probability. How would she possibly release me in time? There was no way. I’m never that lucky.

  “Go. Look.” Zayne nodded toward the complex.

  Grace froze, planted to the spot. Her lip quivered with fear.

  “Will the monsters get me?”

  We looked at the raging battle between Alpha, Firestorm, and a mutated Feraz.

  “No, they’re too busy fighting amongst themselves. Hurry. Go!” I screamed.

  Grace nodded and fled to search for the key.

  Zayne grabbed the bars of my cage. “I protect my shadow.”

  He flexed every muscle in his body, releasing the most incredible wings from the back of his arms. They draped down to the floor.

  “Beautiful,” I whispered.

  Zayne valiantly flapped his wings and flew up to join the battle. He kicked Feraz in one of his bulging eyes. The leviathan recoiled and dropped Firestorm from his grip.

  Feraz swiped at Zayne, giving Firestorm an opening to whip him with his tail.

  Feraz roared as Firestorm lashed him repeatedly. An angry fire danced in his mutated eyes. He wouldn’t give up easily. Victory was within his grasp.

  Zayne grabbed Feraz’s tail and strained to pull him away from Firestorm. He spun the leviathan around in a circle and threw him against the wall of the castle tower. The abandoned building crumbled and fell, brick by brick.

  Feraz crash landed on the balcony, causing the ground to shake beneath me. If the fighting continued to rage, the balcony might break. If my cage fell into the volcano, would I rebirth back into this timeline? Nothing felt certain anymore, other than defeat.

  Firestorm shot at Feraz, but he rolled out of the way and attacked back. They chased each other in the sky above the volcano, blowing fire at each other. Their fiery breath entangled, canceling each other out.

  Alpha’s bullets added to the fray. Firestorm took another hit.

  “My shadow!” Zayne grabbed Feraz’s snout and threw him onto the balcony. The ground beneath me shook once more.

  Zayne faced off against Alpha as Firestorm swooped in to keep Feraz pinned down. He pecked at his skin with his beak, drawing blood. Death by a thousand cuts.

  Grace screamed at the sight as she stepped back onto the balcony. She bravely tiptoed around the fighting creatures on her way over to me.

  “Jackie, what the heck is that? I’ve seen Bennu birds, but that’s next level! It’s truly a nightmare.”

  “Grace, that’s Feraz! He revised the serum recipe and… You should have seen it.”

  “No, I don’t believe you. That can’t be him. Not my handsome fiancé!”

  I shrugged, too tired to convince her. “Did you find the key?”

  “Maybe!” She held a large ring of keys, ready to try them all.

  “Good. Go one at a time.”

  Grace screamed again as the monstrous Feraz pushed Firestorm near us. He hovered over Firestorm, ready to attack. The vicious fight between creatures continued to rage behind us.

  “Jackie, I’m terrified,” Grace cried. “Make it stop.” She covered her eyes.

  “Look at me, mom. Stay focused.”

  That got Grace’s attention. She lowered her hands, revealing tears in her eyes.

  “Yes, you are my mom. Do you see now? Everything I’ve said is true… I really enjoyed spending time with you. We don’t get much time together in many probabilities…”

  “All I know is… I’ve made a mess of things, Jackie. How can I fix it?”

  “I’m here to help, but first, you need to release me from this cage. Don’t worry about what’s going on over there. Take it one key at a time.”

  Grace nodded through her tears. “I wasn’t strong enough to save you in my slipstream nightmare, but I’ll try my best now.”

  Her hands shook as she tried to line up the first key to the lock.

  “Nice and slow,” I reminded her, silently praying the right key was on that ring. What were the chances? Ironically, Alpha would know…

  Grace missed the key hole on the first two tries, but then her hand steadied. She turned the key, but it wasn’t a match.

  “Oh no…”

  “That’s okay. Try the next one.”

  My mom cried as she moved to the next key. Also not a match. Nor was the next one, or the one after that.

  The roar of the leviathan shook Grace, and she dropped the key ring on the ground.

  “It’s okay. They’ve got him cornered.”

  “They?” Grace turned around and noticed Zayne in the fight. His majestic wings were impressive.

  “Oh geez, he’s mutated too? That’s it. I’m swearing off dating for good.”

  “There’s no telling what you’d look like if you kept taking Life Rite, so don’t judge. Try the next key,” I urged as Alpha and Feraz attacked Firestorm together.

  Zayne growled as her pulled Feraz off his shadow.

  Grace got back to the task at hand and tried to open the lock, but none of the keys were a match. Would I be stuck in a cage forever, unable to protect the ones I love?