No one talked to Levi. He left after high school graduation while I was getting my PhD and told us all to fuck off. Even me, because he truly thought the divorce was my fault.
Why Rosalind had been against him being gay when she came from this world was beyond me.
“You actually used math to get to another world. That’s amazing. That’s how you didn’t die in the fire at your work, right? You escaped to this world?” Abel asked.
“Abel, how is Rosalind not dead? How the fuck did you get here? And why does she want to talk to me?” I snapped. I really didn’t want to do this.
What I wanted was answers. Well, that, ice cream, and my guys.
“Wow, such language. Um, how is she not your mom and Dad not your dad?” he pressed.
“She’s my aunt. My mom is her twin. My bio-dad is from here. Um, do you know it could be dangerous for you here?” I asked.
“I think I’m okay. That’s why they brought me in. Solomon wasn’t supposed to come, but you know him.” Abel shrugged. “Mom got mad, but he’s a control freak. Did she really expect him not to want to help me?”
“Answer my question,” I prodded. Yeah, I could see Solomon being a sigma.
“Geez, you don’t have to be mean,” he pouted. “Um, okay. So, I don’t know a lot. I was really just brought in to get you. Um, yeah, Mom came to our world from this one to help people. But something happened, and she needed to leave, so we thought she was dead. Then Solomon said we needed to get you, because now people were after Mom, and you needed to tell them it wasn’t her,” Abel replied.
“Rosalind wanted to help people?” I blinked. Altruistic Rosalind always had a motive.
“Um…” Abel’s brows furrowed. “She had instructions from here that she took. Those refugees we used to help at Church? They were from other worlds. Some stayed, some went elsewhere.”
“Did they pay her or something?” What was even happening here? Rosalind helping otherworldly refugees? Though I remember the church adopting people who’d come seeking asylum.
“It’s her side hustle. Solomon’s been helping her,” he told me, nonchalant like she sold essential oils or something.
“Instructions?” Was Abel trying to tell me that what she stole from a federal vault were instructions for parallel world travel?
“Um…” He frowned. “She thought it was stupid that people didn’t want to help those like her. So, she stole the information, and came to our world, which was neutral, and helped other people establish a network of neutral worlds to get around the gate-keeping assholes.”
My belly sank. Shit.
Rosalind was casually running a smuggling ring among worlds that didn’t have designations. At least that’s what I guessedneutralmeant.
It also didn’t sound like she was working alone.
This felt well-planned. How did information like this get into a federal vault in the first place?
No. I knew how. People were curious. Someone discovered something, something happened, someone got freaked out and locked it up. Scientists had friends, so someone probably knew where it was and didn’t have the same scruples and hired some thieves to get it for them.
Yeah, I hadn’t sometimes laid awake at night considering the actual ramifications and implications of reliable travel between worlds.
I sucked in a breath. If she had had access to some sort of technology to smuggle people, that meant she might have been able to send me to Wes.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She didn’t have to get rid of my omega so that I wasn’t a biological problem. Rosalind didn’t need to tell me that my soulmate was imaginary. She didn’t have a genuine reason to keep me away from my theories.
All she had to do was send me back to this world. She could have sent me to her mom or fucked some shit up by sending me to the professor, or even just dropped me off at some Omega Center and told me that they’d help me find Wes.
So much anger and hatred coursed through me. They better keep me from her, or I might end up in jail.
Tears ran down my face.
“Hey. Don’t cry. She was helping people. Mom’s not mad at you, she just needs you to clear some things up,” he remarked.
