JACKIE:

  I pummeled that rich-kid-turned-leviathan monster with blasts of fire, squelching his life before it began again. The power to take life away was laced with revenge. I’m not a vindictive person, so any satisfaction was quickly replaced by hatred. My heart felt black, my body drained.

  Feraz withered into a leathery half-snake/half-human pile of sticky flesh. He laid lifeless in a pool of his own bloody insides. Dead once more, and hopefully, forever.

  The dust settled under the wounded sky. The Grid tinged the world blood red. The battle was over. The timeline was saved. Alpha and Feraz had been stopped.

  A wave of relief crashed over me. I was ready to collapse, but needed to triple check my work.

  Firestorm and I inspected the bits and pieces left over from Alpha to ensure it wasn’t going to rebirth. No signs of life. Without blood from a phoenix gene carrier, one dose of pure Life Rite wasn’t enough to let the machines into the slipstream. Hallelujah!

  “We avoided the worst from this box of screws, huh?” I said.

  Firestorm congratulated me. “Well done, Jackie.”

  “Is it done for real this time? Why can’t I believe it?”

  Firestorm sighed. “Believe it. For real this time.”

  “Was the cost too high?” I looked over at Grace, dying in Mark’s arms.

  “Yes, but we don’t make the rules. It’s time to say your last goodbyes to her, Jackie.”

  “I’m not ready.”

  Firestorm wrapped me in his wings, offering me a safe space to cry my eyes out. Eventually, I had nothing left to give.

  “Okay, I’m ready to face it.”

  As we walked over to Grace, Feraz’s booger-of-a-body reached out and grabbed onto my leg!

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  “Ek! Get it off! Get it off!” I jumped around, kicking frantically to get rid of the remnants of that jerk. He was uglier than ever.

  He held on tight. “You’re coming with me, janitor.”

  I jiggled and danced across the balcony to break free from his sticky grip. The whole thing gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  “Help. Get it off, Firestorm! Yuck!”

  “Hold still, Jackie!”

  I stopped dancing long enough for Firestorm to bite Feraz’s sticky flesh and fling it away with his beak.

  Splat. It landed in a pile of Alpha’s ashes, squirting like a jello mold. He blasted it with his flamethrower.

  “Is he really dead now?” I asked Firestorm.

  He nodded. “Goodbye for good, Feraz Tal.”

  Amongst the wreckage of the battle, I spotted the Frankenstein book. The burnt pages blew in the wind, exposing the hallowed out secret compartment. The destruction left by addiction is remarkable. You never know what shadows lurk, hidden beneath the picture perfect surface.

  When I looked back up, Grace had passed. Mark sobbed over his dead daughter. Once again, he lost everything meaningful in his life because of his misguided science.

  “I’m sorry, Mark. I…” What words would suffice in a moment like this? Silence seemed more appropriate, especially since he didn’t know me in this lifetime.

  Without saying a word, Mark picked Grace up like a sleeping baby in his arms. He walked over to the balcony railing and hoisted his left leg over.

  “Mark, no!”

  He swiftly swung his other leg over and dropped into the volcano with Grace in his arms.

  “I’m coming, Beatrice.” Mark’s voice echoed inside the volcanic chamber.

  The surprise of it all caught in my throat. The Claudi family was no more. I leaned into Firestorm and sobbed once more.

  The fierce wind blew.

  Beatrice whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll catch them.”

  Firestorm and I sat in silence. We saved the global population, but destroyed my family. Once again, I lost my mother too soon.

  Sensing my inner turmoil, Firestorm tried to comfort me. “Don’t second guess yourself. You did a good job, Jackie. You saved this timeline.”

  “Healing the slipstream is harder than I thought.”

  “We can’t reverse individual consequences, but we managed to stop Life Rite from leaking out any further. Alpha never got access to the slipstream, so the redistribution program never materialized. I’d call it a success, even if it doesn’t feel like it. We did it. Mission accomplished.”

  I nodded. “Mission accomplished… I thought I’d feel happier when those words were spoken.”

  “We must choose happiness amongst the chaos of crashing worlds.”

  Could I choose happiness despite all that was lost? That sounded harder than healing the infection away. Maybe feeling despair despite the endless probabilities was part of the disease.

  I sighed. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Ready for the next adventure already?” Firestorm joked.

  I scoffed. “Geez! Can’t we take a vacation first? I heard the Maldives are quite nice…”

  A portal opened. Where would it take us next?