Chapter 9: A Photograph and a Fucking
The photograph wouldn't stop staring at her.
Calista held Beth's camera in both hands, her thumbs trembling against the casing, and she couldn't look away from the image on the screen. The cracked mirror. The vaulted chamber. And there, in the reflection, a version of herself that hadn't happened yet.
Diego's arm around her waist. His hand resting on her hip with the casual ownership of long familiarity. And in front of them, a girl—maybe sixteen, maybe seventeen—with silver hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and ears that came to delicate points. Her golden eyes were mid-roll, her expression the kind of theatrical exasperation that only teenagers could achieve.
"Mom," the girl's face seemed to say. "You're so embarrassing."
Calista's heart cracked open.
Not broke. Cracked. Like an eggshell splitting to let something new breathe through. She felt it in her chest—a physical sensation, sharp and warm and terrifying.
"That's—" Beth started.
"I know what it is." Calista's voice came out strange. Thin. Like it was being squeezed through a tube. "I know what it fucking is."
She handed the camera back to Beth without looking away from the screen. Then she pulled her sister into a hug so fierce that Beth made a small oof sound against her shoulder.
"Thank you," Calista whispered. "Thank you for showing me."
Beth's arms came up around her. "You're welcome. I thought—I mean, I didn't know if you'd want to see—"
"I needed to see it." Calista pulled back, her golden eyes wet but not spilling over. "I didn't know I needed to, but I did."
They stood in the hallway for a long moment, the camera hanging between them. The house was quiet—the kind of quiet that came after a storm, heavy and exhausted. Somewhere upstairs, water ran. Someone was taking a shower. Life was resuming its normal rhythms.
"Go back to him," Beth said softly. "I've got Rachel."
Calista nodded. She touched Beth's cheek once, a gesture their mother had passed down to all of them, and then she slipped back into the guest room.
Diego was still asleep.
He lay on his stomach, one arm flung across the empty space where she'd been, his face half-buried in the pillow. The sheet had slipped down to his waist, exposing the broad planes of his back, the old scars that crisscrossed his shoulder blades like a map of every bad decision he'd ever made.
Calista stood in the doorway and watched him breathe.
She thought about the photograph. She thought about the girl with the rolling eyes and the pointed ears. She thought about the impossible, stupid, terrifying future that somewhere in the vast machinery of time was already waiting for her.
She pulled her tank top over her head and let it fall.
Her underwear followed. Then she crossed the room on silent feet and climbed onto the bed behind him.
The mattress dipped under her weight. Diego stirred but didn't wake. Calista pressed herself against his back, her naked body molding to his—her breasts flattening against his shoulder blades, her thighs sliding between his, her arm draping over his side.
Her nipples hardened instantly against his warm skin.
Diego made a sound in his sleep. Something low and content. He shifted, pushing back against her without waking, and Calista felt his ass press against her hips.
She kissed his shoulder.
"Drew," she whispered.
He stirred again. This time, his eyes flickered open—just barely, just enough to register her presence in the gray dawn light.
"Cal?" His voice was rough with sleep.
"I want you inside me again."
The words came out simple. Matter-of-fact. But her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.
Diego rolled over.
He moved with a fluidity that surprised her—one moment he was on his stomach, the next he was above her, his body covering hers, his weight pressing her into the mattress. His eyes were fully open now, dark and intent, and the sleep was gone from his face.
"Again?" he asked.
"Again."
He didn't ask why. He didn't ask if she was sure. He just kissed her—soft at first, then harder, his tongue sliding against hers with a hunger that made her toes curl.
His hand moved down her body. Over her breasts, over her stomach, between her legs. He found her already wet, already ready, and he made a sound of satisfaction against her mouth.
"You're soaked," he said.
"I've been thinking about you."
"All night?"
"Since the castle." Calista grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. "Now fuck me, Diego. Slow this time. I want to feel every inch."
Diego positioned himself between her legs.
He pushed inside her with agonizing slowness—one inch, then another, then another—watching her face the whole time. Calista's lips parted. Her eyelids fluttered. Her hips lifted to meet him, and her breath came out in a long, shuddering exhale.
"There," she said. "Right there. Don't stop."
Diego didn't stop.
He moved inside her with a rhythm that was almost lazy—deep strokes that hit something inside her that made sparks dance behind her eyes. His face was buried in her neck, his breath hot against her skin, and he was murmuring something she couldn't quite understand.
Calista locked her legs around his waist.
She arched up to meet every thrust, her hands clutching at his shoulders, his back, the sheets beneath her. The bed creaked softly beneath them—a quiet counterpoint to the wet sounds of their bodies moving together.
"You feel," Diego said, "so fucking good."
"Shut up and keep going."
He laughed against her throat—a breathless, genuine laugh—and then he did exactly what she asked.
The pace changed. It wasn't slow anymore. It wasn't quite hard either. It was something in between—relentless, deep, a rhythm that built and built without ever quite letting her fall over the edge.
Calista's breathing went ragged. Her vision blurred. She was dimly aware of the sounds she was making—small, desperate sounds that she couldn't control.
Then Diego's hand found her clit.
She came almost immediately.
The orgasm rolled through her like a wave—starting in her cunt and spreading outward until her whole body was shaking with it. Her hand clamped over her own mouth, muffling the cry that tried to escape, and her legs tightened around Diego's waist hard enough to bruise.
He didn't stop.
He kept going, his thrusts shorter now, more urgent, and Calista felt him swell inside her. A moment later, he buried his face in her neck and came with a groan that vibrated through her whole body.
His cock pulsed inside her. Once. Twice. Three times.
Then he collapsed on top of her, his weight a warm and welcome burden.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. They just lay there, tangled together, breathing in the salt air and each other's sweat.
Then Calista laughed.
"I'm keeping you," she said.
Diego lifted his head. His face was flushed, his hair a disaster, and his expression was somewhere between exhaustion and bliss.
"Keeping me?"
"You heard me." She touched his cheek. "The mirror showed me. But I already knew."
"What mirror?"
"Long story." She kissed him. "I'll tell you later."
Diego opened his mouth to ask more questions, but the sound of movement in the hallway stopped him. Footsteps. Soft and quick. The front door opening and then clicking shut.
Someone had left the house.
Someone had left the house, and it was barely six in the morning, and Beth was standing in the doorway of the room Rachel should have been in, staring at an empty bed and a cracked compliance collar on the floor.
Beth's hands shook.
Rachel was gone.
She picked up the collar. The green light had died. The crack ran from one end to the other—a clean break, almost surgical, like something had squeezed it from the outside. Rachel's neck was bare. Rachel's neck was bare and Rachel was gone and—
Beth was already running.
She found them in the living room.
Mike and Casey were tangled together on the pull-out couch—Casey's head on Mike's chest, Mike's arm around her shoulders, both of them snoring with the contented rhythm of two people who had earned their rest.
The holographic TV flickered over their heads. "Quantum leaks continue to baffle research," a news anchor announced in a cheerful voice.
Beth didn't care.
She shook Casey's shoulder.
"Mom. Mom. Wake up."
Casey's eyes flew open. She was awake instantly, the way parents of young children trained themselves to be. "Bethy? What's wrong?"
"It's Rachel. She's gone."
Casey sat up. Mike was already stirring, his hand reaching for the lamp beside the couch.
"Where did she go?"
"I don't know." Beth held up the collar. "I found this on the floor. She took it off."
Casey studied the casing. The crack was dark now, the green light gone. "No, sweetheart. She didn't take it off. Look at the edges. It broke."
"Broke? How?"
"I don't know yet." Casey was already pulling on her clothes. "Where's her room?"
"This way."
They gathered in the small downstairs guest room.
Beth stopped in the doorway and felt the air leave her lungs.
The room was wrong.
The room smelled of ozone and something sweet—incense, maybe, or burning sugar. The sheets were twisted into knots. The lamp was flickering even though it wasn't plugged in.
Rachel was sitting on the floor in the corner.
She was wearing a hospital gown from somewhere. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes were open and glassy, staring at something visible only to her, and she was rocking slightly—back and forth, back and forth.
"Rachel?" Beth took a step forward. "Ray-Ray, it's me."
Rachel didn't respond. Her lips moved in a silent conversation, and the words she might have been saying were lost before they reached the air.
And then a voice—a little girl's voice, thin and impossible to place—rang through the bedroom.
"Mom said be careful."
Beth froze.
She had heard that voice before. In the astral plane. In that dream she'd carried inside her for months, the one she'd never fully unpacked. It was the voice of a child who didn't exist yet.
"Did you hear that?" she whispered.
Casey was at her side in a moment, gripping her hand. "Hear what?"
"Nothing." Beth shook her head. "Just—help me get her up."
They crossed the room together. Beth knelt in front of Rachel and took her friend's hands.
"Rachel. Look at me."
Rachel's eyes stayed fixed on some far-off point.
"She's not here." Beth felt the words in her chest like a physical blow. "She's still in the Shine."
"Then we bring her back," Casey said.
"You remember last time." Beth looked up at her mother. "On the astral plane. When you—when we—"
"I remember." Casey's jaw tightened. "You think she needs the same thing?"
Beth looked at Rachel's empty eyes. She thought about the way sex had pulled her out of the astral realm after Coral Castle. The way her body had grounded her when nothing else could.
"I think," Beth said slowly, "she needs to be pulled back into her body. And I think we're the only ones here who know how."
Casey was already nodding. "Then we do it. Whatever it takes."
Beth's hands moved to her own shirt.
She pulled it over her head and dropped it on the floor.
Mike had followed them into the room. He was standing in the doorway, his hair still mussed, his shirt untucked, and he watched Beth undress with an expression of concern rather than shock.
"Lizzy," he said. "Are you sure—"
"I've seen how Jan brings people back," Beth said. "She uses what her body knows. I'm going to try."
She unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her legs. Her underwear followed. Then she stood in the middle of the room, naked in the early morning light, and crossed to the bed where Rachel had been sleeping.
She sat on the edge of the mattress and patted the sheets beside her.
"Bring her over."
Mike and Casey exchanged a glance, then they moved together—the teamwork of twenty-plus years of marriage visible in every motion. Mike got one arm under Rachel's shoulders, Casey got the other under her knees, and together they lifted her onto the bed.
Rachel's body was limp. Boneless. Her head lolled to one side, and her eyes didn't blink.
Beth stretched out beside her.
She pressed her body against Rachel's side, skin against skin. Rachel was cold—cold the way the ocean was cold in February—and Beth shuddered as she felt the chill seep into her.
Then she leaned in and kissed her.
Rachel's lips were soft. Unresponsive at first. Beth pushed harder—her tongue sliding past Rachel's teeth, her hand cupping Rachel's face, her thigh pressing between Rachel's thighs.
For a moment, nothing.
Then Rachel moaned.
It was a small sound. A broken sound. But it was something—a sign of life where there had been only silence.
"Come back to me," Beth whispered against her mouth. "Rachel. Ray-Ray. Come back."
Rachel's lips moved. Her tongue twitched against Beth's. And then she moaned again—louder this time, deeper, a sound that seemed to come from somewhere far away and very close all at once.
Beth broke the kiss and looked at her.
Rachel's eyes were still glassy. Still distant. But something had shifted behind them—a spark of presence, a flicker of recognition.
She wasn't back yet.
But she was on her way.
"It's not enough," Beth said.
She turned to look at her parents. Mike and Casey stood side by side at the foot of the bed. Their expressions were serious. Concerned. But neither of them looked away.
"She needs more," Beth said. "She needs someone who's fully here. Someone who can anchor her."
Casey and Mike exchanged another look.
"We're here," Casey said quietly.
Beth nodded. "I know. That's why I came to get you."
She sat up, letting the sheet fall away from her breasts. Her body was flushed and warm, and she could feel her heart beating strong and steady beneath her ribs.
Rachel needed that heartbeat. She needed to borrow that steadiness.
"Dad," Beth said. "Mom. Get undressed."
Mike hesitated. Casey was already moving.
"Mike," Casey said. "She's our daughter's best friend. She's twenty years old. And she's been through something that none of us can fully understand."
She pulled her shirt over her head.
"We're not here to hurt her. We're here to bring her home."
Mike's expression shifted. Not from reluctance to enthusiasm—but from quiet confusion to quiet understanding. The way their family had always operated.
He unbuckled his belt.
Beth turned back to Rachel.
She leaned down and kissed her again—slow this time, tender, her lips moving softly against Rachel's unresponsive mouth. She felt a hitch in Rachel's breathing, a twitch of her tongue, and she pressed her advantage.
Come on, she thought. Come back to us.
Rachel moaned.
Beth pulled back and looked at Casey. "Hold her hand."
Casey climbed onto the bed—her body still beautiful at forty-eight, softer than it had been at twenty-five but no less desirable. She lay down on Rachel's other side and took her hand. She pressed Rachel's knuckles to her own chest.
"Feel that?" Casey whispered. "Feel my heartbeat? That's real. That's here. Come back to here."
Mike was on the bed now too. He lay down beside Beth and leaned over Rachel's face, and his lips found her neck.
Rachel shivered.
Her whole body trembled—from her shoulders to her hips—and the glassiness in her eyes cracked into something more human. She blinked. Her lips moved around a word that might have been a name.
Beth slipped her hand between Rachel's legs.
She was dry at first—dry and cold and still—but Beth was patient. Gentle. She traced small circles around Rachel's clit, feeling the soft flesh respond to her touch, and she kissed Rachel's shoulder while Casey murmured encouragement on the other side.
Mike kissed Rachel's neck.
He moved down—over her collarbone, over the hollow of her throat, over the shell of her ear. His hands found her breasts, and her nipples hardened under his palms.
Rachel's breathing changed.
It got faster. Deeper. She arched her back—just a little, just enough—and her hips tilted up to meet Beth's hand.
"That's it," Casey whispered. "That's it, sweetheart. Come back to us."
Beth pushed two fingers inside her.
Rachel gasped.
The sound was sharp and sudden—the first truly alive noise she'd made since she'd arrived—and her eyes flew open, wide and aware and here.
"Beth?" Rachel's voice cracked on the single word.
"I'm here." Beth leaned down and pressed her forehead against Rachel's. "I'm here. You're here. You're safe."
Rachel's hand closed around Casey's.
She looked around the room—at Beth above her, at Casey holding her hand, at Mike propped on his elbow with his hand still on her breast—and confusion passed over her face.
"What—" She licked her lips. "What's happening?"
"You got lost," Beth said. "We came to find you."
Recognition flooded Rachel's eyes. And then, against all odds, she laughed. It was wet and shaky and the most beautiful sound Beth had ever heard. Rachel tilted her head and kissed Beth. Hard. Her mouth opened under Beth's and her tongue pressed deep, tasting and claiming and thanking her all at once.
When she pulled back, her eyes were wet.
"Thank you."
She turned and kissed Casey next. Softer than Beth—more tentative—but genuine. Casey cupped her face and kissed her back with the kind of tenderness that made Beth's chest ache.
Then Rachel looked at Mike.
"I—" She stopped. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," Mike said. "If you're sure."
Rachel nodded.
She closed the distance between them and kissed him. Her hand slipped around the back of his neck, and she pulled him closer, and something in the room shifted—the air got warmer, the light got softer, and the four of them moved together like they'd been doing this forever.
Rachel's fingers found Beth's hand, still between her legs. She pushed them deeper.
"Don't stop," she said against Mike's mouth. "Please, don't stop."
Beth didn't stop.
She finger-fucked Rachel fast and hard while Mike kissed a trail down Rachel's throat. Casey watched with a smile on her face, her thumb stroking circles on the back of Rachel's hand. She leaned over and kissed Beth—soft at first, then deeper—and Beth felt something unfurl in her chest.
The four of them moved in a tangle of limbs.
Beth rolled onto her back, pulling Rachel with her. Rachel straddled her hips, her red hair spilling over her shoulders, her green eyes bright and alive. She was smiling. Smiling—like she hadn't just spent a year trapped in some magical void.
"You're so beautiful," Rachel said.
"So are you."
Rachel leaned down and kissed her again.
Behind Rachel, Casey and Mike were kissing. Casey's hand was between Mike's legs now, stroking his cock with the kind of practiced ease that came from twenty years of marriage. Mike was groaning against her mouth.
"I want—" Rachel started. "I mean, can I—"
She gestured vaguely between Beth's legs.
Beth laughed. "Absolutely."
Rachel slid down between her thighs.
She kissed the inside of Beth's knee—slow and deliberate—and then moved higher. Her tongue was warm and wet, and she licked up Beth's slit with the kind of enthusiasm that made Beth see stars.
Behind them, Casey had straddled Mike's face.
He was eating her out with a devotion that made Beth's cheeks burn. Casey's head was thrown back, her silver-streaked hair falling over her shoulders, and she was moaning—loud and unashamed.
The room filled with the sounds of sex.
Rachel's tongue on Beth's clit. Casey's moans. Mike's muffled groans beneath her. The wet slap of skin on skin as Casey rode his face.
Beth came first.
It rolled through her in a wave—hot and sharp and overwhelming—and she clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Rachel kept licking her through it, gentle now, until Beth had to push her away.
"Too much," Beth gasped. "Too sensitive."
Rachel lifted her head and grinned—the old Rachel, the one Beth remembered from middle school—and then she crawled up Beth's body and kissed her.
"Thank you," Rachel said. "For everything."
Beth kissed her back. When they broke apart, both were breathing hard. Beth turned to see Mike and Casey, still tangled, watching them with matching expressions of wry satisfaction.
"Well," Casey said. "That was one way to start the morning."
Rachel laughed.
The four of them lay tangled in the sheets. The sun was fully up now—a golden light spilling through the curtains—and somewhere in the house, someone was making coffee.
"Where's Mandy?" Rachel asked eventually. "And the others?"
"Probably sleeping," Beth said. "You're at the beach house. Judy's place."
"Oh." Rachel closed her eyes. "Good. That's—that's good."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she opened her eyes and looked at Casey.
"You have a daughter who can bring people back from the dead," she said. "That's kind of amazing."
"She also makes a mean cup of coffee," Casey said. "Want some?"
Rachel nodded.
Casey climbed off the bed and started pulling on her clothes. Mike did the same. Beth stayed where she was—warm and satisfied and too comfortable to move.
Rachel rolled over and looked at her.
"Can I stay here?" she asked. "For a while? I don't—I don't think I'm ready to go back to normal yet."
Beth smiled.
"You can stay as long as you need to."
They lay in silence for a while, tangled in sheets that smelled of salt and sweat and something new. Then Rachel spoke again.
"I saw things," she said quietly. "In there. Places. People."
"What kind of people?"
"You. Mandy. Mai. Felicity." Rachel closed her eyes. "And a girl with silver hair and pointy ears. She said—she said I had to come back. She said I had to be here for something."
Beth's blood ran cold.
"What did she look like?"
Rachel frowned. "Young. Sixteen, maybe. She had this expression like she was bored with everything, but she kept smiling at me. She said her name was—"
She stopped.
"What?"
"I don't remember." Rachel's face twisted with frustration. "I remember everything else. I remember the void. I remember the things that lived there. But I can't remember her name."
Beth thought about the photograph on her camera. The girl with the rolling eyes and the pointed ears. The girl who didn't exist yet.
"Maybe you're not supposed to remember," Beth said. "Maybe you're just supposed to trust that she was real."
Rachel looked at her.
"You know her, don't you?"
"I know of her." Beth sat up and reached for her shirt. "Come on. Let's get coffee. I have something to show you."
Half an hour later, Beth stood in the living room with her camera in her hands.
Mike and Casey were in the kitchen. Diego and Calista were still… somewhere. Mai had come down to start her livestream—"Good morning, deep divers!"—and Felicity was sitting on the couch with her head in her hands, still fighting off the remnants of the lust bomb.
Rachel sat on the floor in front of Beth.
"Okay," Beth said. "Look at this."
She played the photograph.
Rachel stared at it for a long time. Then she looked up, and her eyes were wet.
"That's her," she said. "That's the girl."
Beth showed the image to Calista and Diego when they emerged from the bedroom an hour later. Calista looked at the girl with the pointed ears, and then at Diego, and she smiled.
"Future," she said, and left it at that.
The photo was passed around. It got reactions of surprise and suspicion and quiet wonder. But no one put it away. No one treated it lightly.
It was proof of something.
A promise that hadn't been made yet.
And in the basement workshop, tucked away where no one else could see, Mandy printed out a second copy. She pinned it to the corkboard above her desk and looked at the family that hadn't happened yet. Her eyes traced the lines of the girl's pointed ears and the sleepy weight of Diego's arm around Calista's waist.
Mom said be careful.
Mandy heard the words in her mind—the same voice she had heard in her dream at Christmas. The same girl. The same future.
She turned away from the photo and got back to work. There was a lot to be done before the Consortium found them again. There were repairs to make and plans to lay and a war to win. Jan was still in the hospital. Marissa Vane was still out there, nursing her grudge.
But the future existed. It was real. And some part of Mandy—the part that still believed in happy endings—was determined to protect it.