Twist (14 page)

“Uhh, nothing, Jaf.” He smiled at her.

Jaf
? I mouthed.

He ignored me.

“Come back to the table,” she said. “Wyck's telling the most hilarious story about the time he got caught sleeping in his gravbelt at the top of the gym. Come, come.”

She made a little grabby hand at Finn. Before I had a chance to tell Jaf exactly where she could shove that hand, Wyck rounded the corner.

“Hey!” he said. “Looks like a party. Did my invitation get lost?”

“No!” I practically shouted.

“Oh.” Wyck took a step back. “I, uhh, I was just kidding.”

“I know,” I said. “What I mean is, I think I'm ready for a proper celebration of your Shift clearance.” I walked my fingers up his chest until my left hand rested on his shoulder. If making this look natural was difficult before, doing it in front of Finn crossed into torture territory. “You and I should take this party somewhere more private.”

“I like that idea.” Wyck waggled his eyebrows. He drew me in for a kiss, and I had no choice but to comply. I could feel my cheeks flare. When he pulled away, he brushed his hand against my face.

“You're all flushed. You really are ready to go celebrate, aren't you?”

Fake Bree lapped it up. Real Bree threw up in her mouth a little bit.

When I turned to bid Finn and Jafney farewell, he'd already swung a loose but possessive arm around her. She reeled him in for a smooch, and when she released him, he had a starry-eyed grin on his face. The knife dug deeper.

“Go home,” I mouthed to Finn when Jafney and Wyck had their attention turned away.

He pulled Jafney in closer. The message was clear. He wasn't going anywhere.

As I nestled into Wyck's grip, I'd never hated Future Bree more than now.

*   *   *

I had Wyck take me back to my house rather than the Institute. I gave him the excuse that Mom and I had plans that evening, but it was really because of its closer proximity. As soon as we reached my front stoop, I—wouldn't you know it—exploded into a coughing fit.

“Sorry.”
Hack, hack, wheeze
. “I'd kiss you goodnight, but I don't want to get you sick.”

Or touch your lips again.

I wished Future Bree had told me how far up the timeline she was from because I didn't see how I'd be able to pull off this charade for two more hours, much less two more weeks. Or months. Or …

No. Couldn't go there.

Wyck squeezed my upper arm affectionately.

Then … not so affectionately.

I pulled away slightly, but enough to make the message clear. Let go. The corner of Wyck's mouth ticked up, like we were playing a game. A little tug-of-war. I jerked back. He grasped tighter, then the smirk disappeared. He stared down at his hand as if it were detached from his body. He yanked it away, gripping his wrist with his other hand.

“I want to…” He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. “I don't want to…”

Wyck's eyes popped open and immediately he looked horrified with himself. “I have to go,” he said, his voice low and urgent.

I couldn't believe it, but a wave of compassion swept over me. Bizarre as it seemed, Wyck didn't know what was happening to him. He was experiencing a flash of another timeline.

Once, in Finn's time, I ordered us a pizza using his cellular phone. There was a weird echo thing every time I spoke. Finn called it feedback and said I should hang up and try again. It drove me utterly bonks for the couple minutes I experienced it.

Sometimes, I wondered if that's what Neos' flashes were like. Feedback from a timeline they'd tried to change, an echo from a future that didn't exist.

Wyck dug his hands into his pockets and backed away.

“Wait,” I said. It wasn't fair. So many people were using him as a pawn. Including, now, me. The fact was, he wasn't Evil Wyck, not yet. And I didn't even know if that was his fate now, with this change to the timeline.

Wyck didn't wait, though. The sun hugged the horizon, and he disappeared into its weak orange rays. He had enough sense to run from his demons. And at least for the moment, I had enough sense not to follow him.

 

chapter 12

“MOM?” HER BED
was unmade, but she wasn't home.

I settled in at my desk and pulled up everything I could find on ICE's Medical Director. Dr. Jenxa Lafferty. Twin sister of Xander Lafferty. Charles' and Xenthia's only children. I scanned the booklist for my Quantum Bio class, and sure enough, the author of my textbook had changed to someone else. I tried to think back to the last time that I had noticed the cover of the textbook, and it had been over a year.

So what change to the timeline had turned Xander from a respected Quantum Biologist to a not-so-glorified errand boy?

As I read up on him, I circled my pinky around my wrist absentmindedly. One of the things that had been driving me crazy these last few days was not being able to wear my heart bracelet that Finn had given me. Since the bracelet had been given to me out of this timeline loop, I thought it would still exist, but I hadn't found it yet.

A news article on Xander Lafferty popped up from around the time of his parents' deaths. He had been on track to following in his parents' footsteps and becoming one of the youngest Quantum Bio specialists in the country … experimental research on tendril activity in vitro. So basically, how tendrils act outside the human body.

I looked down. I'd scratched a spot on my wrist, right where the heart locket should have been.

Focus, Bree
.

So, according to this article, right after his parents' death in a sub-Atlantic commuter train crash—I grimaced as I remembered seeing pictures from that gruesome accident in one of my history classes—Xander was accused of stealing research results … from his parents.

Oh, how horrible.

I kept reading. Someone had turned him in anonymously, shown proof that he had taken his parents' research journals. He claimed that his parents had entrusted the journals to him for safekeeping, that they had feared that in the wrong hands the results of their research could have grave consequences, that he'd been studying their work but had no intentions of claiming credit for it. Or even of making it public. But by that point, his reputation as a researcher had been destroyed. His career was over before it had ever begun.

I scanned through a few more articles, to see what had become of the journals, but they'd never been recovered, except for the few pages that someone had turned in to discredit him.

I had more than a sneaking suspicion exactly who had taken those journals. But I couldn't find any solid proof against his sister. That could easily be what she had changed in the timeline.

Clutching my pillow to my chest, I curled up on my bed. Something hard pressed into my chin. I dug around in the pillowcase.

My locket.

I slipped it on but then took it back off. I couldn't risk Wyck seeing it and asking questions. Not that Finn would even want me to wear it now.

I put it back in the pillow and opened more news articles. Back to work.

Oh, who was I kidding?

Screw it. I pulled the bracelet back out and clasped it around my wrist. I didn't care if Wyck did ask questions. I wasn't going to lose it again.

I closed the articles. Until I got some answers of a more personal nature, there was no way I'd be able to concentrate on ICE. So I pulled on a sweater and headed to the lair of the eel-faced lamprey who had stolen the (apparently ex) love of my life.

Jafney had set up a sunspot on her back patio. Its beams warmed and brightened a twenty-foot radius, fighting off the chill of early spring. She wore what appeared to be a swimsuit sewn for a six-year-old. Her legs, which were so long they warranted their own Zip Code, stretched out over the side of a hammock hanging between two floating orbs. Finn lay in a hammock next to her, his old Yankees cap pulled low over his eyes.

There was one more person on the patio, scrunched up in a chaise in the corner. And her presence didn't make me happy one bit. Jafney had brought Finn's sassmouth sister along for the ride. Georgie was camped out under a tent of a hat, nose-deep in a book.

I'd been observing—not stalking, mind you, observing—them for a solid hour. From the top of a tree. Across the street. With omnoculars.

Fine. I was Stalky McStalkerson. But it was for good reasons.

Jafney tossed her arms up in the air and laughed at some unheard joke that Finn must have told. Georgie didn't even look up from her book. When Jafney brought her hand down, it landed at an awkward angle on—was that?—did she just? Get your hand off his knee, you spider-limbed Angel of Lovedeath! I shifted my weight forward in the tree to get a better view, and the branch I was perched on bent down precariously and let out an ominous
crack
. Georgie looked up from her book.

Blark.

Through the omnoculars, I could see Georgie's eyes narrow. She'd seen me. Dang it. I shimmied down the trunk, my hair snagging on a chunk of bark ten feet up in my haste. Oww. I paused to try to work it free. Georgie swiveled around to see if her companions had noticed. Jafney had turned to her side and began rubbing oil all over her chest. Finn's eyes were still closed. Georgie hopped up, and I lip-read her make some excuse to go inside.

I turned my attention back to my predicament. It wasn't like I could yank my hair out and leave it there. Ripping a single strand out would be agony, one of the downsides of genetically modified shed-free hair. Besides, it was my secure form of identification. One by one, I worked the follicles free. Finally, I dropped to the ground.

“Hey, there, Double-O-Seven.” Georgie was already waiting in the shadow of an adjacent tree, arms crossed.

I wiped a splotch of sap off my cheek as I pulled her into an alley.

“Georgie, why are you here?”

“Just a little temporal sightseeing.”

“Finn's in danger. He won't listen to reason. I need you to get a message to him for me,” I said. “Can you do that?”

“Shoot.”

“Shoot what?”

“That means, ‘tell me.'”

“Oh. Here's the message: Go the blark home. And that message goes for you, too.”

“I'm staying as long as he is, and he's not straying from Jafney's side anytime soon. Seriously, they're like an amorphous blob. He won't be apart from her for more than two minutes.”

Georgie might as well have slapped me full across the check. Finn and I always made fun of those couples. I thought he didn't want that. He just didn't want it with me.

“George? Where are you?” Finn stood at the edge of the shaded alley.

The air felt like it dropped ten degrees. I pulled my sweater tight around my shoulders, but shivers still tickled my spine. Goose bumps prickled the hairs on my arm, and I couldn't help but think of the contrast with Jafney's perfectly smooth, perfectly mocha, perfectly perfect skin.

Finn leaned the top of his body against the red brick, worn almost as smooth as stucco by time. He dug his hands in his pockets, which to the casual observer might appear relaxed, but I knew him well enough not to trust it. His posture was stiff. And he wouldn't look straight at me.

Every urge I'd ever felt toward him crashed over me at once.

Kiss him.

Yell at him.

Hug him.

Shake him and demand how he could do this to me. How could he brush me aside so quickly and move on—was I really that forgettable?

I reserved the more violent inclinations for my future self. And Wyck, for making the change. Well, and I wouldn't mind taking a swipe at Jafney.

Finn spoke just above a whisper. “You shouldn't have come here right now.” He peered back at Jafney's house.

“You shouldn't have come here, period,” I said.

“Can you give us a minute, Georgie?” he said.

“Are you sure you don't need me to chaperone?” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “I don't think you need to worry about Bree and me.”

Georgie wandered off.

“Why are you with Jafney?” I said.

“What did you expect me to do?” It came out in a growl of frustration.

Wait for me. Trust me. Not hop over to the first floozy who tickled your tendrils.

“I don't know what I expected, but not this.” Not with her. I gestured back to the patio, where Jafney was presumably getting restless after the three angst-filled minutes he'd been out of her presence. “Have you considered the danger you're putting Jafney in?”

If he wouldn't leave for my sake, maybe he'd leave for hers.

“I'm not going to let anything happen to her,” he said.

“You're a chronofugitive, Finn. That's a serious charge. And she brought you here.”

“I hadn't thought of that.” A tone of real panic filled his voice. Of course it did. Anything to protect precious Jaf.

“But I could always just Shift away, right?” he said. “They can't arrest me if they can't catch me.”

“You can't think of any way they could keep you here?”

Blank stare.

“Any way at all?”

More blank stare.

“Any device … say, an implant … or, I don't know, a
microchip
?”

“They'd chip me?” His cheeks blanched as I nodded.

Must not have thought of that with his hormones all revved up.

“I still don't understand how they could accuse me of a crime I haven't committed yet. It's like a sci-fi movie. Wait.” He put his hand over his mouth. “It
is
a sci-fi movie! I saw it a couple years ago. I think the guy got killed at the end.”

“Finn…”

“Or he killed someone? Someone got killed.”

“Finn.”

“Oh, my gosh. I'm a walking sci-fi movie.”

“Finn!” I waved in his face.