Loop (35 page)

“We have to get out of here,” I whispered to Finn.

He nodded.

“Okay. Now.” I took off running east in the direction of the Capitol. Commuters would head in that direction and might be able to see us from the road. And if we were lucky, we’d lose the Wycks in the blinding sunrise. Finn trailed close behind me. The Wycks kept pace across the Reflecting Pool.

When we reached the end of the water, I made for the outer edge of the World War II Memorial. One of the Wycks, Evil One, went the long way around and followed me. The other cut through the center of the pavilion. Finn ran toward Evil Wyck, but when it became apparent Real Wyck planned to ambush on far side Finn veered off and ran toward him, fists clenched.

There was a loud splash behind me. The smack of flesh hitting flesh. I glanced over my shoulder. Finn and Real Wyck had come to blows. As they wrestled each other in the memorial’s shallow fountain, every bit of me ached to fly to Finn and help him. But Evil Wyck who still pursued me was gaining ground.

I ran down the path approaching the Washington Monument. I hadn’t been up in the monument since my mom had dragged me kicking and screaming to the top at the age of nine.

It hadn’t gotten any shorter.

Now it was draped in metal scaffold-like netting for renovation work. It was as if a hive of giant bees had built a honeycomb over the towering obelisk.

Evil Wyck gained a few more feet on me. A stitch caught in my side, and I wheezed. I’d already run so much the last hour. So much. The Mall stretched on and on. I couldn’t go another step. And I didn’t want Finn out of earshot.

Evil Wyck slowed, as if he sensed my exhaustion and was working out a way to use it to his advantage. I backed against the scaffold net. The frigid alloy stung my arms. Evil Wyck coughed up a coarse snarl of a laugh. I curled my fingers around the metal scaffolding. There was nowhere to run. I gulped and looked up the looming pillar.

Forget all the Rules of Shifting. First rule of classic horror movies: Every idiot who climbs one inch above normal human height is a goner.

Evil Wyck bared his teeth and prowled closer. I’d never beaten Wyck in a single sparring match in Gym. And whatever had happened to him, he didn’t look like he’d lost his fighting instinct. I looked up at the monument. I was going to have to be that idiot climber. I said a quick prayer and hiked my foot up on the net. There was no other choice but to take my chances with the beehive.

Noiselessly I climbed as the hardened version of Wyck circled beneath me, shaking the metal links when he passed them. I clenched my way higher and higher. From my perch I could see Real Wyck and Finn battle it out in the World War II fountain. Finn landed a heavy punch and in the pause turned and ran toward me.

“Come down, come down, wherever you are.” The Wyck below me jostled the scaffolding. “I just want to talk.”

One of my feet slipped behind the net. I had to hook my elbow around the links to yank the boot free with my other hand.

Oh, blark, I was almost thirty feet up.
Okay, stay calm.
Evil Wyck moved back toward the base of the monument for another shake. I grabbed the flashlight from my pocket and chucked it at his head. It ricocheted off the ground several feet from him, splintering one of the stones. His features changed from taunting to ticked.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I never wanted to hurt you, Bree. Never.”

“Then don’t. Walk away.”

He laughed. It was a hollow thing. “You Shifters think you’re so high above the rest of us. You don’t deserve that gene.” His voice turned shrill and mocking: “
Can’t you get me closer to the target, Wyck? Why did that fade hurt so much?
I haven’t complained once. And all of you whine, whine, whine about your Buzz. The pain is a pittance.”

He winced as he said it. Finn had crept silently up the path to the monument’s base. I had to keep this demented Wyck distracted.

“Looks like more than a pittance to me,” I said.

“They’re working out the kinks.”

“So you’re one of their test subjects?” It made even more sense, why Bergin hadn’t already gone to alter his own past. He wanted to make sure they took care of any unforeseen risks. And from the look of Wyck’s future self, there were plenty of them. “I can’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“That’s because you can’t see beyond that pastling,” he spit, pointing back toward the arches of the World War II Memorial. At least he didn’t realize Finn was behind us. “I can offer you a real life, a real future. Bree…” His voice trailed off and something softened in his eyes. But it passed as soon as it came. “He can’t offer you anything on that pony-infested island of his in the past.”

“How did you know he’s from—?”

“I wanted to size up the competition.” Evil Wyck put his foot on the first rung of the scaffolding.

“He’s not your competition.”
Wait.
“That comment Wyck made in the Launch Room … about the wild ponies…”

“Yeah. Heh, heh.” He snickered, and for a flash it reminded me of
my
Wyck. “I told him to say that, to rattle Finn’s cage.”

Finn had been right before. He
had
seen Wyck in Chincoteague.

“So how much did you have to pay to use ICE’s little contraption?” I asked, trying to buy time.

A fierce glint in Evil Wyck’s eye made me wonder if the answer was his soul.

“Me? I got a freebie. In exchange for this errand.” The scaffolding trembled as Wyck yanked on it. “So toss down that device and nobody gets hurt.”

Finn had stealthed his way over to a few feet behind Evil Wyck, but I could see something neither of them could. The other Wyck who Finn had been fighting, Present Wyck, was headed up the path behind Finn, trembling in rage.

Couldn’t get worse.

Second rule of horror movies: Oh, yes, it could.

chapter 32

“LOOK OUT!”
yelled Real Wyck as he raced toward us.

Evil Wyck turned around and pushed a surprised Finn to the ground, then scrambled back to the scaffolding. His ascent was rapid. He made it up ten feet before I had time for any reaction at all. I threw the only other thing I had, my pocketknife, at him, but it only made him angrier. He quickened his pace. I climbed faster as well.

I zigzagged across the net trying to throw him off. Didn’t work. For every move I made, he was three countermoves ahead. Like he’d done this before, I realized with a sinking sensation. I gave up on the zigzags and concentrated on putting as many inches between us as possible. But the higher I climbed, the fewer and fewer inches there were.

“You’re snarling up the wrong tree,” I said. “I don’t have the reverter.”

“You’re a liar,” he said in a cool, calm voice that was more disconcerting than if he’d kept yelling. “And don’t forget: I’m from the future. I already know how this is going to end.”

“Then why do you look so nervous?” I smirked. Bergin knew I’d get away. Then I remembered that was probably the reason Wyck was sent here. To change that.

But my words had their intended effect. Wyck looked like I’d slapped him. He paused mid-climb. There it was again, a brokenness.

“I don’t remember everything,” he said in a quiet, fearful voice. “There are holes. But also … extra memories.”

“That means you’ve changed something in the past and it’s been restored. Bergin’s using you as a pawn. To line things up perfectly before he uses the Pick himself. He’s going to let it drive you insane trying to get the reverter back while he stays safe behind his desk.”

Wyck buried his face in his shirt. “I need your help.”

“Wyck.” My friend. He was still in there. That or he was faking. No, I
knew
him. There was no way he would do something like this if he were in his right mind. Maybe that mind could still be reached.

“Bree. Please.” His shoulders shook.

“That memory gap—it’s only going to get worse unless you stop Shifting. Stop trying to change things.”

“I … I will. But I can’t do it alone.”

If there was any way I could help him, I had to try. “You’re not alone, Wyck.” I started to climb down to him.

When I was a few feet above him, he lifted his head. His shoulders were still shaking. In laughter. He clamped his hand around my ankle. I tried in vain to kick Evil Wyck off my leg. His sinewy fingers dug in deeper. I yelped in pain. He tugged me down, and I had to loop my arm over the metal netting to keep from falling.

“Oof.” Evil Wyck’s grip loosened. I kicked him in the head and clambered up a few more yards. From there, I could see Finn had crawled up next to Evil Wyck and hit him in the side. Real Wyck was a few yards below them.

“Finn, behind you,” I said.

Evil Wyck growled and shot up the scaffolding after me. “What is it with you and that parasite?”

“Shut up!” I screamed. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“I know he’s only good at holding on to you.”

“That’s nothing on his kissing.” I lowered my head in a taunt.

Evil Wyck swore and called me a name that boiled my blood. There was nothing left to throw, except the reverter. But even if there had been, I wouldn’t have thrown it for fear of hitting Finn instead.

“He’s nothing!” yelled Wyck. “
Nothing!
Just a clueless prat who got tangled in your quantum tendrils.”

“What are you talking about? Why would
my
tendrils have anything to do with him?”

“I suppose they wouldn’t if your mother hadn’t gone whoring in the past with your father. Conceived in one century, born in another—your tendrils don’t seem to belong anywhere, now do they?”

Something akin to a howl came out of my mouth. I was going to kick his blarking head blarking
off
! I scooted down a rung, ready to deliver a boot to the face.

“Ignore him,” Finn urged. “Climb.”

Blindly I obeyed Finn and dodged Evil Wyck’s outstretched hand. My mind tore through Wyck’s explanation—it made sense. My tendrils were equally drawn to two different centuries, equally connected to both. But Wyck was wrong on one point. This quiet
pull
I’d felt all my life—it didn’t mean that my tendrils didn’t belong anywhere. It meant they belonged everywhere. My parents loved each other against all odds. That kind of love doesn’t rip apart.

It knits together.

Finn’s tendrils weren’t clinging to the twenty-third century. They were clinging to mine.

I was temporal Velcro.

It wasn’t like I’d ever known another Shifter born to parents of two different times who I could ask. I’d never even heard of—

“Aighh!”

Evil Wyck slammed his fist into my knee. Splinters of pain burst around the joint. When I tried to move, it cracked and stiffened.

“What are you doing?” yelled Real Wyck from below. “You said we weren’t going to hurt her.”

Evil Wyck scaled the last few feet and curled his fingers around my throat. “I lied.”

“No!” The cry came in unison from Finn and Real Wyck, who had nearly caught up with us. When I glanced down, I realized how Real Wyck had made it up so fast. He had his gravbelt on and was merely grazing the metal links for support. Looking down was a bad idea. We were over a hundred feet high. I raised my eyes. They met Evil Wyck’s savage stare and I regretted that, too.

Finn darted the rest of the way up and slammed his fist against Evil Wyck’s jaw. But the ferocious grip on my throat didn’t loosen. Everything spun around in dizzy loops. Holding on didn’t seem as important as it had before. Air. Air was the only thing that mattered. I lifted one of my hands to pry his fingers off. Finn landed another blow, this time to Evil Wyck’s gut. I managed to wrench his hand off my throat. Coughing and gasping, I fought back a rush of vomit.

Real Wyck had drifted his way up to the fray. He planted a hand on the back of his future self’s shoulder to gain balance as he bobbed up and down.

“Just give me the device, Bree,” said Real Wyck. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Evil Wyck knocked Finn down a rung and kneed him in the head.

“Looks like you do.” I tried to reach around Evil Wyck to steady Finn.

“He’s not me. You understand that. You have to understand that.” Wyck reached out to me. “This was the only way Bergin would let me Shift. I thought no one would get hurt.”

“What about Mimi?” I asked. “Is she no one?”

“I didn’t do that.
He
did.” Wyck pointed at his future self. “It was supposed to be a warning to keep her mouth shut, only bruise her up a little. She saw him at the Institute yesterday on her way to breakfast, right before she found me with you when she came back to the room. It freaked her out. She thought he was a clone or something. But he didn’t push her hard enough to put her in a coma. That was the ICE guys. You have to believe me.”

“I do.”

It didn’t matter.

Finn doubled over as Evil Wyck drew his fist back from a blistering blow. Our attacker turned his attention back to me, snatched a clump of my hair, pulled. My already-tenuous hold on the net slipped. The left side of my body flew away from the scaffolding. I flapped like a flag in the wind, holding on by one arm and my injured leg.

“Stop!” roared Real Wyck. He catapulted himself at … himself.

With a harsh yelp, Evil Wyck leapt off the netting to meet Wyck midair. The gravbelt that now buoyed both of them sagged a few yards under the sudden addition of weight. They wrestled, but I could tell Real Wyck was holding back. Nothing like the fear of killing your future self.

Finn crawled up next to me. His right eye was swollen shut, and his nose looked broken. “We have to get off this thing,” he whispered.

I winced when he brushed up against my hurt knee. I wished there was some way to know if all this had happened in the original time line. Or if Wyck was succeeding in changing it.

“Do you still have my grappling hook?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Left it on your desk. We’ll take it slow.”

We crept down at a snail’s pace. My bum leg caught on a tool belt that workers had left on the net. It plummeted to the ground with a crash. The noise woke both Wycks from their brawl.