FORTY-FOUR

I woke up with the taste of blood in my mouth, which even a few years ago would have been horrifying. And I felt loads better. I could think again! More or less.

"Welcome back." Ancient Me was peering down at me, and I was sucking on her-

-her-

"Aw, man!" I scrambled away from her and lunged to my feet. She looked resigned, examined her cut wrist, then stood and put pressure on the wound she'd doubtless inflicted on herself when the world went bye-bye for me. "What would you call that?"

"An act of kindness and generosity?"

"Is it cannibalism, or more like, you know, masturbation?" Had I ever been so horrified yet fascinated to hear an answer? Ugh. There was something wrong with me. "And now that I feel better, time is a fucking wheel? So bogus!"

"Bogus. Does it bother you that you, a woman in your thirties-"

"In my thirty! I'm a woman in my thirty. I'm still just thirty. Thirty forever." Not depressing at all.

"-has the vocabulary and syntax of a teenager?"

"Nope. Not once. And that's enough out of you; now I've got questions. You probably have answers. So start talking."

"Don't be tiresome," Ancient Me yawned.

"Time is a wheel? Really?"

"Oh. He finally remembered. I've been waiting." She had the nerve to sound disapproving. She had the gall to make that last sound like Marc was the one to do something that let her down.

"He always remembered, he's just had kind of a hard time lately what with dying and all, you heartless twat!"

"Everyone does it sooner or later," Bitchy Me shrugged. "And dying isn't the end of the world. It's not even that interesting."

"You know what this means, right? This wheel crap, this you-wrote-the-Book bullshit? That we're not the vampire queen, among other things."

"What?" Got her ... she actually sounded startled. Uneasy, even.

"Dumbass! They're not prophesies, the Book of the Dead doesn't tell our future. They're memories. Your memories. Writing down something that happened to you isn't a prophecy, don't you get it? It's a blog, and with all the lameness that entails."

"I wrote about things that happened to you." No, she didn't like my analogy one bit. Damn, what a rush. Even if I was wrong, it was almost worth it just to rattle that chilly bitch. "We both did what we could as best we could, whatever way we could. And I will tell you one more truth, infant: when I leave here, I don't know what I'm going back to."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"Why'd you help me?" I asked, deeply suspicious.

"Which time?"

"The time when I woke up with your blood in my mouth. And if I didn't make it clear before, yerrrggh."

"I wanted to finish our conversation."

"Why?"

"I was curious."

"Why?"

"Will it be worth it, do you think?"

I didn't say anything. Just looked at her. I didn't owe her shit. In fact, I was sort of hoping that when she left hell, she'd cease to exist. I also hoped when she left hell, I'd never see her again. Was that so much to ask? To not ever see myself again? I'd changed the timeline again ... hers, this time. What was she going back to? And why did I still care?

Finally, when it was clear she was ancient and crotchety enough to outwait a dead frog, I gave her what she thought she wanted to hear.

"Yeah, Me Who Should Cease Pretty Soon. It was worth it to save Sinclair and me-"

"Us."

"-and Marc and the future. I sacrificed my sister's happiness and freedom for my husband's life."

"Uh-huh. And tell me, how long have you been working on this plan? Or was there no actual plan? Did you have another lightning flash of pure dumb luck and decide on the spur of the moment to act and then found to your amazement that half-assing it actually worked?"

"I'll have you know I painstakingly and with considerable foresight-"

"Pulled it right out of your ass."

"Well, yes. And I decided to do it when the devil was bitching about my queen blog. Is that what you wanted?"

"No."

"Then here comes the part you'll like: I'm not sorry. And I know I should be."

Choose, she'd said. Show me your worst and choose!

And I had. Sinclair, of course. I'd sworn to save him. And then I did.

"I never promised to save the Antichrist," I told my other self. "Not in this timeline, or any other. I think I'm more like Garrett these days than anyone else. He's sneakier in this timeline. He tricked me into pulling Antonia out of hell; he wouldn't have done that in the old timeline. And there are things-there's stuff I wouldn't have done, once upon a time, that I can do now."

"So?"

"So. In the end, I just did what I'd always set out to do. And succeeded in spite of myself."

"That," she said. "That's what I wanted. The thing you did. And then the thing you didn't do."

"Well, great. Can you get me home? Or do I have to hang out in hell and hope Laura doesn't make me cool my heels here for a few decades?"

"Oh, I can get you home. You can get you home, probably. But that's a topic for another century. You've transcended the feeble limitations of your own mind long enough for one day."

"Thanks."

"That wasn't a-never mind."

"If you're so smug, do you know about the wish?"

"Of course I do."

"What is it?"

"You doubt me?"

"What is it?"

"Why don't you tell me?"

"You don't, Decrepit Me!" I nearly shrieked my relief. "You don't know about the wish! Ha! I think things really are changed! I think we really pulled it off!"

"Why are you screaming? I'm standing three feet in front of you."

"You don't know," I whispered. "So blow."

She frowned, but her curiosity was too much for her. "What wish? What do you mean?"

Yes! One! For what you'll do! The devil's last gift ... or curse. Because maybe there wasn't going to be an HEA for the king and I. This wasn't a fairy tale. In which case the thing I wanted more than anything would ultimately doom us both.

Yuck. Those kinds of boo-hoo thoughts weren't like me. Ancient Me was harshing my buzz.

"If you could wish for any one thing, what would you ask for? Second chances? To never be a vampire? To not write the Book?"

"All those," she decided, thinking. "And none of those."

"Yeah, okay, thanks, Yoda. Me? The world's full of things I want." Have Christian Louboutin's parents meet and breed in this timeline. Have the Ant leave me alone forever. Produce my father because it's weird that I haven't seen him since he died. Let Jessica love me even after she has a baby to love more. Find out what the dealio is with her weird pregnancy. Keep a closer eye on Garrett. Wish my mother's marriage had never imploded. Wish that Aztek had never run me over ... no. Even after everything, that was something I'd never wish for. I had to die to figure out what to live for, why is it like that sometimes?

"But this is getting boring," I decided. "And if I'm bored, you've got to be damn near petrified."

"Damn near," she agreed.

"So send me home. Then we don't have to look at each other anymore and maybe not even think of each other anymore."

"Infant."

"Crone."

"Ingrate."

"Psycho."

She was getting smaller. Or I was. No, she was. Wait. What was happening, exactly? This wasn't like traveling through portals with Laura. That was startling, even jarring. This was more like the world was fading away and making everything teeny before it

"Dupe!"

disappeared.