The tunnels seemed to wind on forever. So far, Jo had followed behind Christian without questioning where they were going or why, but she was beginning to wonder if maybe he was just leading them around in circles, trying to see exactly how long they would follow.Time was different inside of the portal. That was something Jo had been told for years. She didn’t quite understand what that meant until she was inside of the tunnel herself. It was impossible to keep track of how long they had been traveling. In some respects, it felt like only a few minutes. But in other ways, she thought it might’ve been hours. Maybe even a full day or more.“Where are we going?” Cassidy finally asked. It wasn’t a surprise to Jo that she was the one who asked first.Christian paused to shoot a monster. So

There’d been a few times in Jo’s life when she would’ve been quite happy with having no sense of time. If she could've sped up some of her classes in school, or slowed down some of her vacations, that would’ve been nice. A longer time on the beach with her parents… that roller coaster she loved so much lasting for an hour instead of a few minutes… sitting atop a mountainside looking out at the valley below next to her dad…. Those were all experiences that she would’ve liked to slow down.Walking around in this tunnel with a crazy Guardian who was whistling some song she thought had to do with pirates on repeat was not an experience Jo wanted to hold onto for the rest of her life.“What are you even humming?” Jo finally asked Christian, hoping the annoyance in her voice wasn’t as obvious to him

“It’s her,” Jo said quietly, her eyes still closed. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her mom’s IAC was working. Not well--but it was detectable. She’d been waiting over ten years to see that light in her mind, so seeing it now was almost impossible to believe.But it was there nevertheless.“What did you say, Jo?” Zane asked, his voice gentle as he touched her on the arm lightly.Jo’s eyes opened and she turned to look at him. “It’s her. My mom. I can see her IAC.”Zane’s expression seemed frozen for a few moments before he asked, “You can?”She nodded. “Yeah. I can.” Even with her eyes open, it was still there in he

Putting pressure on Zane’s wounds didn’t seem to be doing anything but showing Jo how easy it was to get blood to spurt through her fingers. Scott was allegedly on the way, but with every passing second, Zane was getting paler and paler as the blood that was supposed to be in his face was leaking out all over the floor of the tunnel.“Jo,” he said, through gritted teeth. “I need to tell you something.”“No, you don’t,” she said dismissively. “You need to save all of your energy until Scott gets here. He’ll be able to fix you right up as soon as he gets his ass over here.”“Jo….” He tried again, and part of her thought maybe it would be a good idea to let him say whatever it was he felt compelled to get out. But she also knew that letting him tell her some mushy stuff about how he’d always loved her or how he wished nothing but the best for her would also give him no more r

The light at the end of the tunnel looked unattainable. Jo wasn’t sure how she would get down below the ground where the light seemed to be coming from. She wasn’t quite there yet, but the closer she got, the brighter the light was. It still didn’t look like an opening, though.At the edge of the light, Jo stopped and looked down at the ground. It looked just like the rest of the tunnel. The ground was black, sharp, rock, just like everything else around her, but it was also glowing.It didn’t make any sense. Lifting her foot, Jo kicked the black rock. It didn’t budge. It felt the same as the ground she was standing on. She thought maybe there was some particular place she could step that would cause the ground to open up. She moved forward, pressing her feet around the edge and t