Twist (20 page)

I waited until the last possible second to follow her to give her a head start. I'd guessed right. It was the Cryostorage Room.

The door clipped my pants as it shut, and I had to yank them free then skitter up the curved wall like a spider. Lafferty must have heard the sound because she whirled around. I held my breath. I was directly above her now, but she didn't look up. She shrugged it off, and when she turned back around, I kicked off toward the highest point of the dome and curled into a tight ball at the center. A bird's-eye view of everything.

The room was unchanged in the fifty years my last visit. Or almost. Along the sidewall, several more of the bubbles were lit up and active. I counted. Nearly a fourth of the cryostorage units had now been filled. Lafferty stood directly below me in front of the giant tank. I could have spit on the top of her head if I'd wanted to. Well … I did want to. I should say, if I'd gone temporarily crazy.

“Foxtrot-Juliet-Mike-20-1-6. Access code L5N21KRA983FJ.”

I fumbled to activate the sound recorder on my Com and managed to get the last set of numbers and letters of the code as she rattled them off. The movement rustled my shirt. Lafferty froze and looked around. I could tell she was vaguely aware of something off, but again thankfully she didn't look straight up.

I craned my neck to try to see what was going on in the tank below, but the fluid in it had turned smoky and dark. The contents—no, not contents, I reminded myself,
person
—was nothing but a hazy outline in the mire.

“Deterioration rate stable at .02 percent,” said a pert voice from above me. It startled me so much my Com slipped from my fingers. I managed to snatch up the very end of the chain before it clattered to the floor below.

“Compatibility rate continues to exceed minimal requirements.” The voice droned on with more numbers that didn't mean anything to me, and I realized that it was only the computer. Deterioration … compatibility. I'd heard Lafferty discussing the same topics with Raspy during Wyck's prep visit. The same sour sensation returned to my stomach as before.

The person in the tank started thrashing around. I still couldn't see distinct arms and legs through the haze, but I could tell they were in pain.

“Hang tight.” Lafferty patted the edge of the tank jovially, like she was slapping the haunches of a skittish horse. “Almost done.”

The woman who had delivered Wyck's IcePick to the Launch Room walked in.

“Ahh,” said Lafferty. “Everything going well with Mr. Malone and that transporter student?”

“Mr. Malone is already back,” said the woman, tying her hair up into a knot. “Didn't surprise me. Witnessing the French Revolution sounds downright morbid to me.”

“To each his own.” Lafferty adjusted some of the controls on the tank.

“I'm still not sure if it was a good plan approving the kid,” said the woman. “He could be trouble.”

“He could also be useful.”

“It still makes me nervous, him Shifting back within his own lifetime.”

“He probably just got skittish,” said Lafferty. “Besides, what would he change? It's not like a seventeen-year-old has a lifetime of regrets.”

“I still don't like it. Then again, I suppose it doesn't matter. Even if he did change something, it's not like we would even know.”

“I would,” said Lafferty. “My source keeps me well-informed.”

“Your source.” The woman snorted. “You're trusting the word of an unchipped Shifter. Not the most reliable source, if you ask me.”

“I didn't ask you,” said Lafferty.

The woman went quiet. She tapped the edge of the tank.

“A productive session, I'd say.”

Something along the wall at the far end of the room grabbed my attention. Lafferty and the woman were oblivious, their view blocked by the tank in the middle. There it was again—a movement—behind the metal screen where I'd hidden the last time I was here.

I squinted. It was a person.

So help me. If my future self had come here to screw things up again.…

But no.

It was …

A sharp lump snagged in my throat.

It was Finn.

 

chapter 16

FINN RAISED HIS HEAD
above the screen like a gopher peeking out of its hole.

From the stunned expression on his face, it was clear that he was as shocked to find himself in his current predicament as I was. I looked around but didn't see Jafney or Georgie with him. He must have Shifted here from the near future. Natural-born Shifter that he was, he immediately lowered into a crouch to assess his surroundings, which included the ceiling. He spied me a moment later, stood up, and opened his mouth to say something. I put my finger against my lips then pointed at Lafferty and motioned for him to hide again. He nodded and ducked back down.

Lafferty finished gathering whatever data readings she was after. She and the other woman marched toward the exit without a backward glance. The door they took was the same one my future self had used fifty years ago. After counting to ten, I tapped the descent button on my anti-grav belt and rushed over to Finn. Even after the way things had crumbled, my first instinct was still to throw my arms around him, but I refrained.

“What are you doing here?” I was getting tired of asking him that.

“Bree, I have no idea where ‘here' even is. Last thing I knew, I was in the middle of dinner with Jafney, then, bam, I couldn't fight this overwhelming urge to Shift. Where are we?”

“ICE's headquarters,” I said. “Their Cryostorage.”

“Storage? What are they storing?”

“Kidnapped Shifters.”

“Oh, good. At least it's not anything unsavory.” He moved out into the center of the room, gazing at all the equipment. “So how far into the future are you from?”

“Future?”

“When you Shifted here?” He gave me an inquisitive look. “Just now?”

“Oh, I … ummm.”

“You did Shift here, didn't you?”

“Funny story.”

“Wait a minute.” His eyes narrowed then flew wide. “Wyck had his Shift scheduled for today. You snuck away by yourself! Bree, if they catch you—”

“They're not going to catch me. I have everything under control.”

He glanced up to the spot on the ceiling where I'd been dangling.

“You keep saying that, but kinda seems like you don't.”

“Kinda seems like it's none of your business.”

“All right.
What
is going on?”

Before I had a chance to respond, Finn dropped his voice to a hush and whispered directly into my ear. “Wait. Does he have you bugged?”

“Bugged? Who? What are you talking about?” I tried to pull away, but Finn clutched me to him and pressed his lips into a silent kiss on my forehead. At first, I melted into it, melted into him, before I came to my senses. “Save it for your lady friend.”

“Rawrr,” he growled in my ear.

“What is wrong with you?” I shoved myself away from him.

“Well, I'm pretty confused. If that's what you mean.”

“I'm not your floozy.”

“Yeahhhh. You're not helping the confusion.”

“And you're not helping your case.”

“My case? Bree, what is going on?”

“I don't know. Why don't you go ask your girlfriend?” I knew I sounded like a toddler. I didn't care.

“I … thought I just did.”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

We stood there blinking at each other like two blind cavefish dumped into a sunny stream.

“Say that again,” I said.

“Say what again?”

“The part where I'm your girlfriend.”

“In which part were you not my girlfriend?”

“But you think I'm with Wyck.”

“I think you're doing what with Wyck?”

“No.
With
Wyck.”

“I do?”

“You don't?”

More blinking. The realization bobbed there on the surface of my brain until comprehension sank down to my heart.

Finn knew I wasn't with Wyck.

I launched myself at his lips, my kisses hungry and demanding. It was like a dam had kept a roaring river held back, the pressure building and building. It crumbled the moment Finn said those words. Of course he hadn't believed I was with Wyck.

Wait.

I broke away.

“You knew I wasn't with Wyck and yet you still latched up with Jafney?”

“Okay. Back to confused.”

“Two days, Finn. You were my boyfriend, and then two days later, you were catching grapes in your mouth from Miss Mushyface.”

“Two days?”

“Two. Days.”

“Eight months,” he said.

“What?”

“Eight months in my time, Bree. You and I were at the movies. Then suddenly, I was back home in Chincoteague. Without you. And I didn't hear from you. For eight months.” Finn ran his fingers through his hair and stared off into space. “I didn't know if you were injured or captured or…”

Dead. Finn couldn't say it. His breath came out in shaky little puffs.

“Eight months, Bree. What did you expect me to do? Just wait around in Chincoteague forever?”

“But you waited for me. Before.” A hot tear stung the corner of my eye. Technically, I hadn't taken the last visit to Past Finn yet, the one where I asked him to protect me then lied to him and said that I'd never see him again. But in Finn's experience, there had been a year-long gap between that visit and when I showed back up at his house six months ago. He'd waited a year for me then. Why not now?

“Then Jafney of all people shows up one day.” He marched straight on in his rant like he hadn't even heard me. “Jafney. All flirty and hair-flippy. Who I hadn't seen since the last day I saw you. Does that sound like coincidence to you?”

Again, he didn't seem to expect an answer.

“And Jafney has a picture of you kissing Wyck. Wearing the clothes I left you in at the theater. Coincidence?”

“Umm, I…”

“It was obvious that Wyck had changed something in the past to force you to pretend to be in a relationship with him.”

“It was?” Finn got it. Without me having to explain a word. He'd known this whole time. “I mean, yeah. It was.”

“So,” he went on, “after I kissed Jafney—”

“That…” Mmmm. “That is not the response I personally think you should have chosen.”

“Really?” He had the gall to look genuinely shocked. “I thought it was a stroke of brilliance.”

“It was a stroke of something, all right.”

“It was the most direct route.”

“What are you talking about? Route to what?”

“To you.”

“To me?”

“I just told you, Bree. There was no freaking way I was going to wait around in Chincoteague. Not with Wyck O'Banion's paws all over you. Her tendrils are like yours, sticky or whatever you call it. Her dad was born in the 1940s. It was the only way I could think of to get here to your time. I was … hitching a ride.”

“But you said she's your girlfriend.”

“When did I say that?”

“At the caf
é
. You told me you were having breakfast with your girlfriend. And outside her house.” I strained to recall his exact words. “You said, ‘Remember I have a girlfriend. An amazing one.'”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “You. I was having breakfast with you. And you were acting weird in the alley, so I was just like, ‘Hey. No matter what happens, remember you're my girl.'”

The last few days tumbled upside down, a snow globe of misunderstanding. It was like rewatching a movie with a massive twist at the end. Every clue in every scene stuck out like a throbbing thumb.

“But then why have you been so standoffish this whole time?”

“We've been around Wyck or Jafney this whole time. We almost got caught the two times I nearly gave in and kissed you. In the alley and—”

“The cave,” I said. “So this whole time that I've thought you moved on…”

“You thought I'd give up on us after only eight months? Good gracious, woman. It would take at least nine.”

I lunged to kind of wrestle-kiss-strangle him.

“Poor Jafney,” I said as I came up for air. I couldn't believe those words were coming out of my mouth.

“So now it's
poor Jafney
?”

“You were using her.”

“To get to you. Because I thought you were in trouble.” He waved his arms around at the cryostorage units. “Which you are.”

“Why didn't you sneak off to tell me all this the moment you got here?”

“My pull to Jafney isn't as strong as it is to you. I've had to stay in close proximity to her because I worried that if I didn't I'd accidentally synch. And then when I've been around you in public, I've been scared she or Wyck could overhear us. Besides, I thought you knew.”

“So you've been kissing her this whole time?” I knew I didn't have a lot of space to judge, but still. The thought of his lips on anyone else's, but especially Jafney's. The very thought of it made my innards churn.

“That's the weird thing,” he said. “After that first time, she hasn't really been affectionate except in public. You've actually seen the extent of our kissing.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I've been around you, well, you've seen her. She's all over me. That was the reason I brought Georgie along. To kind of chaperone and help me deflect if Jafney got too handsy, but it hasn't even been an issue. In private, she's friendly and all, but she hasn't tried anything.”

“Are you saying Jafney thinks you're a bad kisser?” I asked.

Finn raised an eyebrow. He scooped me up with one arm and laid into my lips smooth and slow until my toes tingled and my knees went weak.

“Not to be braggy,” he said while I was still a pile of mush in his arms, “but you've trained me well.”