The walk from Tiffany's sprawling, immaculate house to Jake's familiar, slightly-less-perfect home felt like an eternity. Every step was a drumbeat of escalating tension. Jake walked a few paces ahead, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He could feel Tiffany's gaze on his back, a cold, unwavering weight. She hadn't spoken since her chilling declaration, and her silence was more unnerving than her screams. He replayed her furious confession in his mind – real, you idiot! He made them real! – the words a dizzying mix of triumph and terror. He had the information. But at what cost? And what was he about to unleash by bringing her into his sanctuary?
He glanced back once. Tiffany was still there, her expression unreadable, her expensive sneakers barely scuffing the pavement. She looked less like a girl following a dork home and more like a predator stalking its prey. A cold knot tightened in Jake's stomach. He was bringing the viper into the garden.
As they turned onto his street, the familiar sight of his own house, usually a comforting beacon, now seemed to pulse with an almost foreboding aura. The front door was slightly ajar, a sign that Katy was home. His stomach lurched. He hadn't thought this far ahead. He'd been so consumed by the need to break Tiffany, to get the information, to prove his own impossible truth, that the logistical nightmare of Katy's presence had completely slipped his mind.
He pushed the door open fully, stepping inside. The cool air of the house, usually a relief from the summer heat, felt thick with unspoken tension. He heard the faint sound of music from the living room, Katy's current favorite pop song, a starkly normal backdrop to the impending chaos.
"Katy? I'm home!" Jake called out, his voice sounding unnaturally high, a nervous squeak. He tried to project a casual air, as if bringing the school's queen of mean into their house was an everyday occurrence.
The music volume dipped, and then Katy's voice, sharp and clear, cut through the air. "Hey! How was your… oh my god."
Jake heard the music cut off completely, followed by the soft padding of Katy's bare feet on the hardwood floor. He turned, bracing himself.
Katy appeared in the archway leading from the living room, her eyes wide, a half-eaten apple still clutched in her hand. Her gaze swept from Jake's pale, anxious face to Tiffany, who had just stepped inside, her arms crossed, a smirk already forming on her lips.
For a long moment, silence descended, heavy and suffocating. Katy's jaw dropped, the apple forgotten. Her eyes, usually so quick to assess, were filled with a mixture of disbelief, horror, and a dawning, furious understanding.
Tiffany, seizing the moment, let out a slow, mocking laugh. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Katy Miller. Fancy seeing you here. What, did your little brother finally decide to tell you about his… obsession?" Her voice was laced with saccharine sweetness, a thinly veiled venom.
Katy's eyes snapped to Jake, blazing with a silent, incandescent fury. "Jake! What is she doing here?!" she hissed, her voice low and dangerous, a stark contrast to Tiffany's theatricality. "I told you! I told you not to—"
"It's not what you think, Katy!" Jake blurted out, stepping between them, his hands up in a placating gesture. He felt like a referee in a fight he had single-handedly started. "She… she knows! About Old Man Henderson! She just told me! And… and I told her about my powers. About the Cubix Power. She wants proof."
Katy stared at him, her face paling. The anger was still there, but now it was tinged with a profound, almost terrified shock. "You… you told her?" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Jake, are you insane?! You told her?! Tiffany Hayes?!"
Tiffany, meanwhile, seemed to regain her composure, her eyes darting between the siblings, a calculating glint replacing the earlier fury. This was interesting. This was drama.
"Oh, so the dork has a secret, does he?" Tiffany purred, taking a step further into the hallway, her gaze fixed on Katy. "And you're in on it too, aren't you, Queen Katy? What, is it a magic club? Do you make broccoli disappear?"
Katy ignored Tiffany, her focus entirely on Jake. "Jake, this is a huge mistake! A massive, colossal mistake! You can't just tell her! This is our secret! Our impossible secret! She'll use it against us! She'll tell everyone! She'll make our lives a living hell!" Her voice rose with each word, a desperate plea.
"She already thinks I'm obsessed with her, Katy! The rumors are already flying!" Jake shot back, his own desperation rising. "She was so angry, so fed up, she confessed everything about her grandpa! He had the powers, Katy! He made things real! Just like me! She was desperate, and I just… I told her! It was the only way to get her to talk!"
Tiffany scoffed. "Oh, please. Don't flatter yourself, Miller. I was fed up with you, not with any 'secret.' And I'm still not convinced you're not just a pathological liar trying to get me into your bedroom." Her eyes, however, held a flicker of genuine curiosity, a hunger for the impossible truth Jake was dangling.
Katy took a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes still wide with disbelief and fear. She looked at Jake, then at Tiffany, then back at Jake, as if trying to reconcile the impossible situation. "Jake," she said, her voice dropping to a fierce whisper, "do you understand what you're doing? This isn't just about school rumors anymore. This is about our lives. Our sanity. If she tells anyone, if she even hints at it, we're done. We're freaks. We're going to be ostracized, ridiculed, maybe even worse! People don't react well to the impossible, Jake! You know that!"
"But she has to see!" Jake insisted, his voice cracking with frustration. "She has to understand! Her grandpa had it too! This isn't just me! This is… this is bigger than us, Katy! This is about the Cubix Power! This is about finding others!"
"And you think Tiffany Hayes is the person to bring into this?!" Katy exclaimed, gesturing wildly at Tiffany, who was now watching their argument with a detached, almost amused expression. "The girl who tried to make my life miserable over a broccoli stick?! The girl who lives to tear people down?! She's not going to understand, Jake! She's going to exploit! She's going to destroy!"
"I don't have a choice!" Jake yelled, his voice cracking. "She won't believe me otherwise! She followed me home! I have to show her!"
Tiffany, who had been enjoying the sibling spat, finally interjected, her voice cutting and cold. "Oh, so now you're fighting over me, are you? How touching. Look, dork, I'm not here for your family drama. You made a claim. A very, very insane claim. You said you have 'Cubix Powers' and you can 'create worlds' in your room. I'm here for proof. Show me, or I walk. And if you don't, I promise you, the rumors about you will be the least of your worries." Her eyes glittered with a chilling promise.
Katy's face crumpled. She looked at Jake, her eyes pleading, desperate. "Jake, please. Don't do this. Think about it. Think about the consequences. This is a line you can't uncross."
Jake looked from Katy's terrified, pleading face to Tiffany's cold, demanding stare. He was caught between a rock and a hard place, a human dilemma that felt infinitely more complex than any cosmic problem Aethelred might face. He knew Katy was right. The risk was monumental. But the lure of validation, the desperate need for Tiffany to believe him, to understand that he wasn't just a dork, that her grandpa wasn't just a freak, was too strong. And he had already gone too far to back out now. He had made his bed, and now he had to lie in it, with Tiffany Hayes as an uninvited witness.
He took a deep, shaky breath. "Come on," he said, his voice quiet, directed at Tiffany. "It's upstairs. My room."
Katy gasped, a small, choked sound. "Jake, no!"
But Jake didn't look back. He started walking towards the stairs, his legs feeling heavy, each step a deliberate act of defiance against Katy's warnings, against his own fear. Tiffany, a shadow of cold resolve, followed him, her eyes fixed on his back.
Katy watched them go, her heart pounding. Her brother, her dorky, impossible brother, was about to expose their greatest secret to their worst enemy. The silence of the house, broken only by the soft creak of the stairs, felt deafening. She knew, with a chilling certainty, that nothing would ever be the same after this. The summer, already complicated, was about to become irrevocably, terrifyingly, impossible. She had to stop him. She had to. But how? She felt a surge of desperate energy, a frantic need to intervene. She had to protect her brother, even from himself.
She hurried after them, her bare feet silent on the stairs, her mind racing. The tension in the house was a palpable thing, a suffocating weight. The air seemed to crackle with the unspoken history between the two girls, and the terrifying, impossible future Jake was about to unleash. This wasn't just a mistake; it was a precipice.