40.

  Naomi looked around the wreckage of the small town and whistled. Whatever had hit this place had hit it hard. There was almost nothing left standing in some neighborhoods, everything torn apart to the foundation. Some buildings had lasted here or there, solitary homes that had missed the razing.

  Alan didn’t even look at them as he walked down a street of crushed cars, broken homes, and skeletons. His eyes were fixed on the cluster of houses that were looking rundown, but not broken apart like everything else. Naomi kept tight to the man. If he fell apart due to finding his son dead, she would give him a clean death. She couldn’t risk him becoming insane again like he had in the last timeline.

  Her team had fanned out through the town, looking for anything of use that could have been passed over. Their packs were growing so large that Naomi was certain they’d have to find a cache soon to store everything. Once she had the pillar back home and started establishing a network this wouldn’t be a problem.

  “Right here,” Alan said, pointing toward a house with a broken down front door. The large bay windows were shattered wrecks and there was black ichor staining the wood of the windowsill.

  Alan walked in like it was any other day, a jaunt to his step as he swept into his old house. He passed by the overturned furniture, the gashes in the wall, and the broken pictures.

  “Cameron! You here?” Alan shouted. The house was silent in return. Alan shrugged and went up and into a room. Naomi followed slowly and carefully, a hand on the hilt of her sword. The man was sitting on the edge of a bed, pulling free dresser drawers and taking the clothes out of them.

  “Alan? I thought we came to look for your son? Not clothes,” Naomi said.

  “The chances of him being here was slim. I do need clothes though. I have a habit of tearing mine up,” he smiled apologetically at her as he grabbed a rucksack from the closet and started to neatly put everything in it. Alan filled up two thirds of the rucksack and then went through another door in the bedroom, the master bath.

  He came out with a few bars of soap which he threw into the bag and a package of toothpaste and toothbrushes, all of it loaded up without hesitation. Naomi wanted to sigh. They had all of these items already, but there was a comfort of having your own things.

  “I was hoping he’d leave a not or something, but no dice. Let me check next door, Cam’s best friend lived there.” Alan slung the rucksack on his back and left the master bedroom without a single look back. Naomi couldn’t tell if the man was insane or just that confident in his son.

  She followed after and entered a house that had just as much damage as Alan’s. If not more so. The kitchen had turned into a warzone with different splashes of blood overlaying one another on the walls. The knives in the kitchen butcher block were missing and the glass oven was broken open with shards of black glass laying on the white tile.

  Alan went up a set of stairs, hollering as he did so, while Naomi stayed downstairs. She walked through the ruins of a life and took in all the pictures of what looked like a happy family. Mom, Dad, two daughters, and one son. They were always smiling in every picture.

  She stopped and looked at the boy again. His features were similar to something. She struggled to recall where she had seen the boy before. A blooming horror washed through her as her instincts screamed at her.

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  “Alan!?” She yelled up the stairs. The tread of footsteps rattled down the house as Alan came hurrying down.

  “Did you find something?”

  “No. But who’s house is this?”

  “The Silvas, Vicente and Gabriella’s. They moved in a little before my wife passed away. They were good people, helped me through losing her. Their son Santiago is Cameron’s best friend. Think Cameron had a crush on their older daughter, he’d always get flustered and tongue tied around her.” Alan laughed as he pointed at a picture she hadn’t seen yet.

  It was off Alan and, presumably, his son Cameron with the entirety of the Silva family. They were all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters while smiling like loons. Naomi felt like a lead weight had been dropped into her stomach.

  What could the odds have been?

  “Santiago Silva? Goes by Santi?”

  “Yeah. You know him or something?”

  “A friend did. That’s actually where we’re going to next. His college.”

  “Well, if Cam stuck with the Silva’s and they didn’t stay here, then Santi’s college makes sense I guess.” Alan shrugged his shoulders and spun on a heel and walked right back out the door.

  She had the urge to kill him. To strike his head from his shoulders before he knew what was happening. She could already see the disaster that was coming. How would Alan stay with her when his son was with Santiago? She should eliminate the threat before it became a threat. It was one of the reasons they had come here after all, that they had flung themselves through time to try to change everything.

  To make it better.

  That last thought was the only thing that stayed her hand. She hadn't come back to be a cold blooded killer. She wanted a world where her girls could grow up safe, where they could have a future. Where they could look up and admire her, follow her example.

  She relaxed and walked out of the house and followed behind Alan as he looked around the old neighborhood for the last time. There was a silent tear trailing down his face as he took it all in.

  “I knew he wouldn’t be here. But I hoped. I hoped I’d see my boy again,” Alan whispered. Suddenly the nonchalant attitude and the carefree display made sense. He was masking himself, hiding how much he was hurting and he had done a damn fine job of it.

  “He should be up and at the college then. It should only take us another day, two at most to reach it,” Naomi said.

  “Don’t you have to return that Pillar back home?”

  “It’ll get back home when it gets back home. Who knows, might even find another one or two of them out here while we’re at it.”

  “Thank you. I need to know. I need to know,” Alan whispered again, his eyes losing their bright sheen as despair clouded his visage.

  “Hey, we can do this. Another day or two, that’s all you need to hold on for,” Naomi said. She nudged him with her shoulder and Alan nodded back.

  Naomi just hoped that Santiago was already dead and that Duncan had been surgical rather than just slaughtering them all. She didn’t want to lose Alan, not after all the time and effort that had went into keeping the man sane.

  “Boss, just about done. This place was picked clean, nothing to find at all,” one of her people said. She had thought as much, but it was always better to check than to not check.

  “Alright. Let’s get a move on. New destination!” Naomi bellowed and a wave of affirmatives came from her small group. They had lost people, they had traveled up half the state, earned levels and collected enough rare materials it was a minor miracle. They had one more stop to do then she could head home to Marcus and the girls. As long as Alan didn’t go insane. As long as Santiago was dead. As long as her plans could continue moving forward.