My addition to the main cast made it an odd-numbered group and a problematic two months to come.

I messed with Cole to pass the time and taught him the truth about real love. He, in turn, treated Evie better, but she continuously cries whenever she sees me. Morgan constantly picked fights with me, but she was as fun to mess with as ignoring her. Nobody ended up caring about her words. Who doesn't love free food?

Oddly enough, I became friends with Hayate. He reminded me of Lucas. He was just a guy who had his niche and kept to it while the world around him fell into chaos. Sitting next to him was strangely comforting while he sharpened his blades or crafted the tools the slowly thriving Green's Mountain needed.

Rex remained reticent, and Mateo always showed up when I started to get something out of him. It was enough to draw out my ire for the genteel man with a charming air.

That wasn't the only thing growing. My belly and desperation to leave were expanding by the day.

I'd already gone through the jar Mordecai recommended and was disappointed it tasted like the strangest combination of earthy herbs and roast pork.

The seeds were literal duds. There were four of them, and each varied in size, shape, and color.

The strangest one was the size of my palm. There were straw-like roots wrapped around a purple bud. The plant resolutely ignored my attempts to connect with it with the matching indifference of its gifter.

Two of the four seeds looked almost identical, but the caveat was that one was pure white, and the other was stark black. They were little dots that I had to store in a jar for fear of losing them.

The final seed, if one could even call it that now, had sprouted while I ignored it. It went from an amber rock to a knee-length plant full of gold, orange, and red leaves. I potted it in my walk-in closet into a green ceramic pot. The plant wasn't communicative with me, but I could feel its personality growing as each new leaf unfurled.

And with that, I'd gone through everything in the basket Mordecai had gifted me but one thing. The egg. He said not to eat it, but I couldn't find it. The quill was gone, the box had changed, the nutrients had been eaten, the seeds were mean, and the egg was missing.

I tried hard to find it but couldn't locate it anywhere. There was one place it could be, though, so I had snuck away while everyone was sleeping back to Alcom's Cove. Although Rex was in the middle of revitalizing Green's Mountain, everyone in his group stayed together. Few homes were empty given the small town nature, but Sumire took her son and ran at the first sign of trouble. Their house was given to Rex, and everyone stayed there. Rex was the only one with his own room…well it would have been his alone had he not stuck me in there as well.

He was barely in it, which meant I enjoyed the master bedroom all to myself. Rex was a tireless powerhouse that was constantly doing something. He assumed control with only the grace granted to the world's protagonist.

I hadn't been idle and had slowly gotten a handle on my baby's ability. I was able to go wherever I pictured in my head. I started with short distances and kept at it until I could finally imagine Rex's room at his uncle's house in Alcom's Cove. I could see the wallpaper, feel the silky sheets, and smell that which was Adam. It was vivid in my head, and finally, I could teleport to it.

His room looked the same as before. It was untouched by time and the apocalyptic world. I didn't waste time looking around, and my gaze went straight to the bed.

The last time I saw the egg was before I tossed the basket onto Rex's bed. That action may have led to the egg slipping out. I dove for the covers, rooting for a different reason this time.

It wasn't here. That growing gnawing fear had taken root in my heart and grew as my search led to nothing but the destruction of the neat bed. Covers, pillows, and sheets were taken from their rightful, neat placement as I tore them apart.

I flopped on the bed and looked out the window. The dark black sky greeted me. I stared at it as my thoughts swirled and tears of desperation threatened to grow.

How did everything get so screwed up? Could I have avoided all of this if I had been less greedy? My desire to monopolize Adam while sticking my head in the sand about my suspicions created this mess. All my selfish thoughts of never letting him go, yet here I was, unable to touch him.

Where exactly did everything go wrong? What If I had asked more questions and pinned down his elusive brain? Would it have mattered if I asked the right ones? Adam's elusivity seemed perfectly catered to lead us to this moment in time.

But we're not together. Second timeline Rex is cold, distant, and not the man I fell in love with. I need to return to the correct timeline, no matter the cost.

As much as I hate to admit, Rex and Adam are the same person. Technically, they are different versions with lives but the same stock. And here I was in their bedroom alone with no one to intrude on whatever I did...

So I did the one thing that should have occurred to my sly butt, I snooped. I rooted through Rex's room like a raccoon on a scavenger hunt. The papers he was reading through weren't at his desk. In fact, there wasn't anything on his desk or in the drawers. Not even a pen cap was left behind or dust.

I made a face as I spun around to look at the room.

Speaking of dust, there was no dust anywhere. How was that possible? We hadn't been here for two months! One possible explanation would be that Rex was sneaking back here to sleep, but how could he port back and forth when his people needed him? And they needed him 24/7, which is why he rarely rested.

Weird. I shook off this strange inconsistency.

Rex's room was among the few places I felt safe in this world. That might have to do with how often I woke up in his bed after a scene redo. I spent a lot of time resting here while losing my mind between those scenes.

My fingers swiped the bookcase shelf, and it came away dust-free. My lips thinned as I perused the books lining the shelves. I sadly discovered that they were decoratively devoid of human personality. They looked nice and had decent coverings but were basic study books Rex had no doubt finished years ago.

"There is no hint of his personality or character. It's all just uselessly expensive shit." I muttered this out loud as I looked around, concerned. How empty this room turned out to be. There was a bed, a desk, and even bookcases. The room wasn't small but lacked anything that defined someone's characteristics. The canvases on the wall looked nice, but they seemed rather basic. If Rex used this room, then Adam did, too.

I wanted to hug Adam now, but maybe a little pinch too. This man needed some color and life in his world. A door I hadn't noticed before caught my attention.

I ran to the door to open it, forgetting my mission to find the egg. I wanted to delve into Rex and see what made him tick. I swung the door open and found out it was a walk-in closet. I did a double-take on the amount of clothing, shoes, watches, and other frippery. It looked like my walk-in closet, but the colors were off, and the placement of the islands was opposite mine.

"More useless, expensive things with no personality or color," I said with a shake of my head. All the suits were black, and the cufflinks and watches were one or a combination of three colors, gold, silver, or black.

What seemed like endless rows of expensive silk, fine leather shoes, and sparkly watches and cufflinks laid before me. Their dazzle was blinding, but I flew towards my undoing like a moth to a flame.

That undoing happened to be a suit cast to the side, but unlike the others, it was like a full-scale mannequin. The hanger made it feel like he could be standing there. I gravitated towards it before I could stop myself. The black suit looked strangely foreign to my Adam's colors but smelled like him. I squeezed it to my chest as if he were filling it, and I let loose the torrent of tears I'd been fighting.

It took some time, but I recovered enough to leave. I didn't bother going deeper into the walk-in closet. I could tell from a glance that it was spotless and, thanks to all the frippery, it shone like a mini star.

The one thing I cared about in this room was the soaking silk I still had in my arms. So, like a sneaky raccoon, I slipped it into my space and left the room. Any moment of calm I could have had was gone when I saw that I was no longer alone.

Steel blue eyes stared at me with mocking pleasure. I met them as my heart jumped into my throat.

"Wyatt!" I shouted and jumped half a foot into the air. He held out his hand to help steady me, and I grabbed it before I could stop myself.

Was this Wyatt the same and able to read minds, eh Attarib? I shot that thought like a bullet as I met his gaze. There wasn't a flicker of acknowledgment in his orbs, and a wave of disappointment rocked me. Is this yet another thing I would get wrong?

I pulled away and made a face at him. "What are you doing here?" I said this with suspicious eyes.

"I could say the same to you." He said with a quirk of his shoulder. "Here I am, minding my own business, when I hear someone breaking into this empty house. So naturally, I've come to protect against intruders."

No matter the timeline, Wyatt was full of shit. I thought as I squinched my nose at him and made a face. Instead of calling him out on his bullshit, I shut the door behind me. "I'm not breaking into this place. I was looking for something."

"Aren't you far from your group's base?" Wyatt said, tilting his head with a grin.

"Aren't you supposed to be minding your own business?" I retorted hotly back at him.

He chuckled darkly as he said, "What if I said my business is your business." While he spoke, he reached out to fondle one of my curls, which had fallen out of my bun during my hysterics.

I slapped his hand away and narrowed my eyes at him. Wyatt, as always, was dangerous. Like Adam, he was nearly impossible to read. How often had I wondered what was going on behind his eyes? Was he genuinely unaware of everything?

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I thinned my lips and scowled at him. "You're always full of it, Wyatt. You never show your true thoughts, and I think you've lied to me since you first saw me." I said.

"I know you're full of vigor and fire, unlike the last time I saw you," Wyatt said with a smile as he pulled away, ideally giving me space. "And you've been cooking something in the oven as well. Who's the father? The man from last time?"

I thought of the last time I'd seen him. It was right before my complete breakdown. There was another time he could be referencing. That thought tickled my mind before I could stop it. I desperately wanted to connect this timeline to the one before I met Adam.

If it wasn't, the implications would be dire. I could have undone everything if I had left the Unruly Forest and Adam entirely. The magic meant to protect my entrance to this world could be the one to undo everything…

"Your mind left this world for a moment, Miss Evans." Wyatt's voice came to me on the wind, and my mouth popped open in shock as my eyes shot up to him. Did he even open his mouth to deliver those words?!

"I didn't tell you my last name," I said. "And I certainly didn't tell you where my base is." That little slip-up of his hadn't escaped me.

Wyatt's upper lip curled into a smirk, and he rocked back on his heels. "I must have heard it in the wind." He said with a mystic wiggle of his fingers.

I've barely seen the scope of his wind ability, so how was I supposed to know? It might seem exaggerated to anyone else, but it was likely valid with Wyatt. Could that be another hint he was giving to me? No, why wouldn't he just say it outright? Wyatt liked to play games, but this was cruel even for him. If he could read my mind and still did this to me…maybe we were never really friends.

"Go away already," I said, darting past Wyatt. I fixed the bed, ignoring him and trying not to flinch at the damage my rampage had created. I really tore through Rex's room.

I wasn't surprised that by the time I fixed the bed, Wyatt hadn't left. He was watching me with morbid curiosity leaking from his all-too-seeing blue orbs.

"Why haven't you left?" I all but shouted at him when I saw him sitting at Rex's desk.

"Why do I have to go?" He said as he blinked slowly at me. He pointed at me. "You're the intruder." He then pointed at himself and said, "I'm the good citizen making sure you don't steal anything."

"I'm not the intruder. This is Rex's room." Though he hadn't exactly given me permission to go in, and I had stolen two things from his room by this point. He had never brought up the pillow before, and I didn't plan on returning it. And I just took the suit just a bit ago. Something in my face must have shown my guilt because Wyatt pounced on it.

"See, your intentions are wicked."

"They are not! I lost something, and I'm looking for it here." My voice rose as I protested my innocence. My eyes darted to the bed, and I twisted my lips in thought. Who could have nabbed it if I didn't grab the egg? I turned on Wyatt and looked at him. He was the most suspicious at this moment and the likely culprit.

"You could have been the one to take it," I said. Before I could stop myself, I patted down Wyatt. He sat, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter as I looked for the egg.

"What are you looking for exactly?" Wyatt's voice tickled the top of my head, and I scowled at him. He knew. Wyatt always knew more than he let on, and right now, he looked like the Cheshire cat as he grinned down at me.

Yet even as I was digging my nails into his arm and shooting all the thoughts I could into him, he didn't so much as blink. Either Wyatt had the most self-control in this realm, or he had yet to gain the power to read thoughts by this point. The latter was clearly the best option.

I couldn't let go of the fact that he knew something. What other reason did he have for messing with me this way? This was reminiscent of our childhood together and a completely different attitude from when we met near the Wishing Tree.

I stepped away and jabbed a finger into his chest, "I'm onto you. Stay away from me."

"I shudder to think how else you might abuse me for my next list of perceived crimes," Wyatt said with a shake of his head. He opened his mouth to say more, but I blipped away before hearing it. Just like that, something triggered my teleportation, and I was back in the master bedroom of the Sakura Haven.

I barely had a moment to orient myself before there was a knock at the door. I glanced out the window and saw that the sun was slowly rising. Why would someone be knocking on my door this early?

I opened it and shouldn't have been surprised to see Cole standing anxiously. Whenever he had that look in his eye, it had to do with one person and one person only.

"Have you seen Evie?" He said this while trying to look past me as if she was in my room.

"Why would I have?" This was weird, even for Cole. This wasn't the first time he'd shown up like this, and by now, I'd lost count.

"She said she would ask for your help with breakfast." He said. For once, he had an almost appropriate answer. It was well known I was a morning bird, but why would Miss Cries Upon Sight of Me be looking for me?

"You didn't see her, did you?" He said with a curse. "We can't find her."

"We?" I said with far more volume than I meant. "How long has she been missing?" Was I going to witness an infamous kidnapping arc? Evie's kidnappings were frequent in the OG story.

"Two minutes," Cole said, but his voice sounded like he said two hours.

I made a sour face at him. "Cole. Either confess to her and get accepted or rejected. Or get yourself a different woman. You're Cole Covington. That's important somewhere, right? Find someone who cares about you to obsess over. Perpetuating one-sided love where she has no idea how you feel about her isn't good. You have to be a man and tell her you want her. Chasing after her constantly while being her pillow to cry on isn't working out. You look like the definition of insanity." I said with a harsh glare.

If this had been any other morning, I might have messed with him before kindly delivering these words. But I was tired, bitter, and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and crash. Yet again, Evie's antics had drawn me into the middle of something I had no place in.

Cole was so shocked by my venom that when I moved to close the door, the draft pushed him out of the way.

I wasn't out of the henhouse because I crashed right into Rex when I turned around. My heart jumped for what felt like the umpteenth time. I rubbed my nose as I glowered at him before sidestepping him entirely and falling into the bed.

"Wendy." Rex's voice drifted to my ears, and I felt it like a warm butter spread. I could never tire of that it.

I cracked open an eye and saw Rex had moved closer to talk to me. "It's been a few days, Rex," I said. He was a busy man. With no more cutscenes, I was more attuned to everything he did. He worked hard, and there were signs of toil that work was causing him. I reached out before I could stop myself to push his hair out of his face. "Have you slept at all?"

"On and off when the time arises for a break," Rex said as he grabbed my wrist and examined my fingers. "You have blood under your fingernails."

I blinked, suddenly wide awake. "How…" My voice trailed off as I recalled digging my nails into Wyatt. "Oh." I pressed into Wyatt that hard? Oops. He didn't even flinch or complain.

Rex pulled a handkerchief out of thin air. He then wet it using water from the nightstand pitcher. I watched as he methodically wiped each of my fingers clean. "How did this happen?" He said after I had a few minutes to stew in excuses.

“Well…I…” I stuttered like crazy, still unsure how the heck I was going to lie about this. Rex's eyes looked up from my fingers to connect with mine, and before I could stop myself, I was telling him everything, and I mean everything. I miraculously omitted the part about testing Wyatt's powers, but I spilled everything else. Even the suit that I wound up stealing because I cried on it, and it carried his scent.

I wanted to bury my face in the pillows, but it was always hard to look away from Rex. He was staring at me impassively, but something flickered in his eyes that seemed almost black in this lighting.

"How do you know Wyatt?" He said finally, and I blinked. He wasn't going to ask about the suit I stole? Why care about a stinky monkey boy?

I made a face, "He's another childhood friend. Adam and Wyatt became thick as thieves when we were older. Always running off to plot and whisper." I hiccuped when I realized I said that part out loud. I looked at Rex, but he was staring with concentration at me, trying to decipher if there was more to my words. "He said that we met in the second timeline, but he didn't have memories when I saw him…or so he acts."

"You were hostile to Wyatt and even drew blood from him," Rex said. "You also play with Cole like a cat does with its prey."

Wait, where was he going with this?

"I've watched you these past couple of months. You act differently with every man apart from me." He continued. The bed squeaked as Rex sat down on it. I scooted away, heart pounding. "Is it because you view me as Adam or as Rex?"

My mouth must have flopped open like a dying fish because he reached forward to close it. Wait, why is he looking at me like this? And why would he take the time to notice all of this? I was much more confident and boisterous with others, but gender didn't matter. I was plenty rude to Morgan. He took my silence as an answer and plunged on cupping my face with his palms.

"I need you to view me as Rex. I'm here, not Adam." His words registered in my head, but I wasn't hearing anything because his burning gaze was searing into my soul.

This wasn't real, was it? I was dreaming, right? I pinched my thigh and could feel the sharp pain of reality. "I don't know if I can." I finally managed to say. There was a flash of pain in his eyes, and I felt my own contort in response. "I'm sorry. I know you're Rex, not Adam, but your scent, voice, and mannerisms make me miss Adam. I love Adam; it's impossible to not see the similarities." The longer Rex was in my presence, the more I was softening to him. Which is why I have to fight their similarities with everything I have.

"There's still time to change that," Rex said as he pulled away, and I watched as the brief vulnerability in his eyes was smoothed out of existence.

I then wet my lips nervously as I looked away, "I'm going back to Adam, though. I will figure my way around the anchor and make it back."

A faint smile graced his lips as he said. "I see what draws him to you."

I turned to shoot him a look. It was like he wasn't listening to me. "Rex, are you attempting to seduce me?" I asked him, knowing that I had to be imagining the depths of this conversation. Briefly, I thought of the scenes we jumped around in. Better yet…how much had I forgotten? What went on between those moments with us?

"Yes." He said. It was a simple word, but it dropped like a bomb as my face flushed with burning red.

"I..I...I don't understand."

"You do." He said, watching me with amusement in his eyes.

I snapped my mouth shut as I opened it to deny it yet again. "Then why now?" I said instead.

Did Rex fall for me? That seemed unlikely. When would it have started? He was so distant and always working. How would I miss all the signs if he was into me?

My stomach gurgled, and I rubbed it absently before a thought struck me quickly and painlessly. Rex had though. He knew this kid wasn't his, and although he didn't outright claim it, he took responsibility. That, more than anything, should have shown his interest. I originally had a moment where I read too much into it. But then nothing happened for two months, so I figured he was just being nice…things clearly weren't as simple as that, and I was a damn fool.

"I was giving you time to adjust to this world, but I clearly gave you too much space," Rex said. "My rivals have grown in my absence, so I decided to man up and tell you how I feel."

"Rivals?" I said with a sour face. No one was into me. Also, wait, was he using my own words against me? That meant he heard the conversation I just had with Cole.

Rex said nothing and simply stared at me. I stared back, confused about where he was going with this.

"You really don't know?" He said this with wonder in his voice.

"It's impossible," I said. All the guys I was around were either in his entourage or one of Evie's suitors. None of them would look twice at me with her sweet, cheerful appearance. I was a gremlin with a growing belly and an attitude to match.

"What about Wyatt?" Rex said, and I made a face.

My verbal vomit struck again, and I spilled my thoughts out loud. "Wyatt's not into me," I said. I will forever stand by this fact. "He's more like a big brother than anything else." Which was strangely pleasant to realize, but of course, here and in this timeline, he was just a pain in my ass.

"Not with how he was looking at you," Rex said.

I jerked my head as the impact of those words hit me. "You've only seen him once; what do you mean by that? And during that time, he looked at me like I was five seconds away from a mental break, which he was correct." I stubbornly said.

"And just now," Rex said. He seemed rather persistent in the idea that Wyatt's feelings for me were deep.

What was more troubling was, "How did you know how Wyatt was looking at me?" I asked.

Rex said nothing as he stared at me. His previous words clicked into my brain, and I gasped as realization dawned.

"You don't need to port around to spy on me, do you?" I said around a suddenly dry mouth. Rex may be way more powerful than I ever imagined. "Because of your dimension power?" Could that be how he can teleport and go to different timelines? There's so much he can do with such a power, and why he'd be aware something was wrong with his world as it was being written.

Rex said nothing to confirm it, but his silence spoke volumes. I had blindly accepted him recognizing his spawn in my stomach, but what if there was more to it? How often was an anchor mentioned before it was finally said my kid was the anchor to this world? Then there's the fact that Mordecai couldn't shove me back into this world without me using the baby's powers…What if…

I found the strength to ask him one crucial question through numb lips. "Did you bind me to this world with my baby?"

"Wendy, I told you that leaving was impossible." He said. I watched that strange light grow in his eyes, confirming that Rex was indeed batshit crazy.