Lowering her eyes and pressing her lips together, Minji listened to the sounds of her daughters playing and her husband calling out to them. She’d fought diligently to be able to hear the joy in the voices of her family again and did not want to ever face losing them in the future. “Since you’re no one important, can you make sure the other not important people know something?”
“If it’s,” he shrugged a little, “important.”
“That night the mother spoke to me. Not in words exactly. Not even in images. It was in a way I can’t even explain, but I know she spoke to me.”
Alec nodded. “Okay. What did she say?”
“She thanked me for returning her child, and as a show of appreciation she was taking Arthur because he’d tried to hurt my child.”
“That’s not your fault,” Alec said swiftly, attempting to console her.
“I know that. I do. Arthur made some bad choices. But maybe we all did because she said one other thing. One last thing.” Minji pressed her trembling hands to her lap to steady them. “Alec, we should have destroyed the facility. We should have destroyed the equipment and everything inside.”
Clearly alarmed, Alec bent toward her, anxious to hear her words. “Minji, we both agreed on the best course of action.”
“We were wrong, Alec,” Minji rasped. “So wrong.”
“We would have died. Your family. Simone. All those people.”
Minji pressed a hand to her forehead, nodding. “I know…but…maybe it would have been better then…”
“Minji, what did she say?”
It took all her willpower not to crumble under the memory of what had transpired. Curling her hands into fists, she spoke the words she hadn’t shared with anyone. Not even her husband. “If we ever open the doorway to her world again, they will come through. They will destroy our world. There will be no mercy. Not for me. Not for my children. Not for anyone.”
Speechless, Alec sat back on the sofa, the taco forgotten on his lap.
“When we tore through the fabric of reality, we made them aware of us again. They’d forgotten us. That we exist. That we’re here. But now they remember.” Minji drew in a deep breath. “And this time...they will not forget.”