Chapter 34 · Loopbound - Chapter 34: No Tomorrow Yet

The woman standing next to twenty-year-old Greer has my mom's face.

Not like. Not similar. It's her. Same scar through her left eyebrow. Same way she holds her shoulders when she's ready to run or fight. She's wearing a Thornwell teaching assistant coat I've only seen in one photo, the one Dad burned after the funeral that wasn't a funeral.

Greer's smiling. He looks so damn young. "Mara, this is the amplitude threshold I was telling you about. If we can anchor the temporal fold here—"

"Callum." Her voice breaks on my name.

I take a step forward. Vera grabs my wrist. "That's not now. That's twenty years ago. You touch her, you don't know what breaks."

"She said my name."

"Because she knows." Vera's grip tightens. "She's your mom. She knows."

Mom's staring at me like I'm a ghost. Which is fair. Last time she saw me I was nine and obsessed with whether Green Lantern could beat Superman. Now I'm twenty-nine, I've got Army scars, and I look like Dad.

Greer's still talking, drawing glyphs in the air with one hand, but Mom's not listening. She takes a step toward me and the whole core room flickers.

"Callum."