Twist (10 page)

“I'm positive,” I said.

“But why her?” He flipped around, and I suddenly realized how tired he looked. Pale with exhaustion. In that moment, I felt a kinship to Granderson. If there was anyone else who had poured out every iota of energy for the last six months to help his fellow Shifters, it was him. “She can't prove a threat to them. The world sees her as mentally unhinged. She hasn't left Resthaven in years.”

“Well, she's still here for now,” I said.

“Someone must take her in the future then.” Quigley's forehead scrunched, and it felt good to have someone else as confused as I was by all this. “I'll increase security here to be safe.”

Quigley was fighting a losing battle, but I didn't bother pointing it out. I'd seen Nava myself on that cold slab. ICE
would
abduct her. It was inevitable.

“Maybe we're asking the wrong question,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Granderson asked.

“Havens are a sure place to find Shifters in the past. Resthaven is a sure place to find Shifters in the present. There was nothing random about the abduction. I don't think the question is ‘why her?'” I pointed at Nava. “It's ‘why us?' Why kidnap Shifters at all?”

“Blackmail?” Quigley said. “A warning?”

“Maybe.” I didn't quite feel the ring of truth to those theories.

It wasn't illegal to disable your microchip. Frowned upon, yes, seen as self-destructive as it was a sure way to land yourself in Resthaven, which to the outside world was perceived as a loony factory. But it wasn't against the law, so that ruled out blackmailing the Haven Society.

And a warning about what? Nava was no threat to anyone. Why would ICE target her? Whatever the reason, the person in that silver suit didn't seem particularly happy about being involved in it.

“There's only one way to find out,” I said. “Wyck's signed up to Shift with ICE. I'll tag along with him and poke around their headquarters.”

“Be careful,” Granderson said.

“I always am.”

Quigley snorted, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from smarting back.

I swear. Sometimes she acted more like my mother than my mom.

“My mom!” I hadn't even stopped to think how this change might have affected her.

At the time of my mid-term, six months ago, she had been in a coma. But she had been placed in that coma by none other than Headmaster Bergin in his desperate attempt to control the use of the reverter.

I'd won (if winning you could call it), but where did that leave my mom?

I pushed my way past the Quig and Granderson. They called out after me, but I ignored them, sprinting down the steps of Resthaven, out into the street. I took off for the nearest Metro station, pinging my mother's speakeazy as I ran. No answer.

Come on, come on. You have to be there. You have to answer.

You have to be alive
.

My brain was at war with itself. One side screamed, “There's no way your future self would have allowed that change if it meant Mom getting hurt.” The other, “Can you really trust a future self who chooses Wyck over Finn? A future self who won't give you answers again?”

The ride home seemed to take twice as long as usual. With each passing minute, my imagination grew more deadly.

It was like walking in on a movie at the very end and having to guess the plot. No. Like walking in at the end and finding out you had starred in it without your knowledge.

Come on, you stupid slow train. I banged my fist against the ceiling of the cabin as it bulleted out of the station. Faster.

The moment we pulled into the Metro station, I took off toward the Publi-pods, thankful at least for efficient public transportation, and found a vacant one. I shouted my address and zoomed off. When the Pod reached my house, I jumped through the opening orb and rushed into the front foyer, straining to detect any hint of life. There was no sound but Tufty purring on the couch.

“Mom?” I clomped up the stairs two at a time. “Mom!”

Silence.

She had to be here. I couldn't have lost her again. I just … no.

“Mom?” I ran through every room, throwing open every closet, peeking behind every door.

She had to be here.

“Mom!”

I searched the last room.

She wasn't here.

It was too much. I didn't even know if she was alive. I was going to have to ask someone if my mother was clinging to life in a hospital bed or if she was … or if she was …

My shoulders began to shake. I couldn't do this again. I couldn't lose her again. And this time, I was alone. No Finn to lean on for support.

“Sugar booger?”

“Mom?” I looked up through tear-matted eyes.

She was here. She was fine.
I fell into her arms. She folded them over me, a shawl of protection.

“I couldn't find you,” I said.

“I was with your, umm, your father.”

I couldn't help it—I stiffened at the mention of him. She ignored it, if she even noticed.

“Sweetie, what's wrong?” She lifted my chin. “I thought you were going back to the Institute after your date with Finn. Is everything all right?”

Any semblance of strength melted away from me. She didn't even know about the change yet. And why should she? She had been back with my father, oblivious. There it was again, that bitterness. Sure, some ripples would spread out and hit other people in my life, but this change had been aimed squarely at me. Through coughing hiccups, I told Mom what had happened—what I knew, what I suspected, what I could only guess at.

One sunrise and three bowls of triple fudge ripple later, Mom tossed her spoon onto the floor next to my bed.

“Whoa.”

“Yep.”

After I'd recounted the whole day, we'd spent the next few hours scouring the news archives for any info we could find about, well, anything. Quigley's departure from the Institute was uneventful. Granderson's appointment as medical care coordinator at Resthaven was seen as benevolent but pointless. Mom's coma had never even happened.

“Which makes sense,” she pointed out. “If you think about it in terms of Quigley's Zero Point—”

“Point Zero,” I corrected.

“Point Zero theory. ICE may have put me in a coma a year ago, but the instigating events happened after Wyck's change.”

One good thing to come of this, I guess.

“I just don't understand why my tendrils aren't calling me back to Chincoteague,” I said. “I need to explain all this to Finn. He has to be worried sick.”

“Mmm … hmmm.” The way she said it (or rather, the way she didn't say it) made my stomach lurch.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No. What?”

“Well, I just … perhaps we need to consider the possibility—however remote—that Finn might have changed with the timeline.”

“But no one else did.”

“No one else here in these bubbles or loops or whatever Lisa calls them. But, Bree, Finn is outside of this branched timeline that ICE has created. We don't know—”

“No.” I wouldn't even let her finish that sentence, because to hear it aloud, even if I wasn't the one saying it, felt like it would make it true.

“I'm sure you're right.” She smoothed my hair down. “And your father—he didn't seem changed.”

Yippee. Still unwilling to meet his only child.

When I didn't say anything, she slid off the bed and picked up the ice cream bowls.

“Time for bed. You've lived a few lifetimes in the last twenty-four hours.”

And yet none of them had been mine.

“Do you want something to help you sleep?” she asked.

“I'm okay.”

“Are you sure? Just a little something to take the edge off.”

I laughed. “You sound like a drug pusher.”

Mom laughed, too. “I meant some warm milk. I know all these Shifts and timeline changes can mess with your inner clock.”

“No thanks.”

She was right, though. No matter what Wyck had done, no matter what my future self refused to do, no matter what the next step was, I was useless without clearing my head. I dozed off before Mom had even shut the door.

*   *   *

Hell hath no fury like a best friend kept out of the loop.

Mimi's tiny fists of fury almost hurt me as she woke me with a mock beating. I blinked into the darkness, the sun had already gone down. I'd slept the entire day away.

“Whah time izit?”

“Time to tell me about the scorcher date that you were supposed to fill me in on as soon as it was over. Nineteen hours ago.”

Mm. The date. Blurry images reeled through my mind. Fire. Sand. Ice. Kiss.

“Was good.” I yawned. “We went to the caf
é
. Saw, umm, Pennedy's … umm.” No, that wasn't right. Ugh. Blurry. My dreams had been so vivid, sleeping all day.

“What? You saw Pennedy?”

“No.” I propped myself up. “We saw—”

And that was when I remembered that there was no
we
. Nineteen hours, and I hadn't felt a single tug back to Finn. Mimi was talking about my date with Wyck. Mimi was still chipped. This Mimi had never even met Finn.

“Nothing. Sorry. I stayed up late talking to Mom, and I just woke up from a nightmare. Guess I'm a little disoriented.”

“Well, Wyck's dropped by the room three times since noon to check on you. He said you weren't feeling good last night. But you were fine before you left for the movie. So what's going on?” She cocked her head to the side.

This was why free Shifters moved to Resthaven. I wasn't 100 percent sure who the president was at the moment. And now I needed to convince a girl who knew me better than almost anyone else in the world that everything was normal even though I had zero percent certainty what normal had been for the last six months.

I dodged.

“I was embarrassed.” I lowered my voice. “Tummy troubles.”

“Ahh.” She sat down next to me. “Better now?”

I nodded.

“Probably just nervous about tomorrow,” she said. “I'm sure that's why Wyck keeps swinging by.”

“Nervous?”

“Well, I mean, nervous for him obviously.”

“Obviously.” I had to keep her talking. Mimi could catch me up on Wyck. “This has all happened so fast.”

“Fast?”

Okay. Apparently not fast.

“I meant it's seemed fast at times, but in reality, so … slooow.”

“It's definitely been a process.” She squeezed my hand. “One thing's for sure. He never would have made it this far in the training without you. ICE should be paying you a salary.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Oh, come on. You've been his biggest cheerleader. Every time he's wavered or doubted, there you are with the Top Ten list of why Wyck will be the best Neo ever.”

“Neo?”

“NeoShifter?” She laughed. “You really did just wake up, didn't you?”

“Yeah.” The ironic part was that, for the first time since I'd found my lips locked on Wyck's, I felt alert and alive. It was like I lived on a desert island, and I'd found a map in a bottle that had washed to shore. But not the whole map.

My future self had torn off a tiny edge and left me that. Enough to take one step forward. But it was a big enough piece to know that that step led toward ICE. The sooner I figured out what ICE was doing and stopped it, the sooner I got my life back. The sooner I could get off this island. And Wyck held the rest of that map.

After Mom made us a late dinner, I went back to the Institute with Mimi even though it felt like landing on a foreign planet. My side of the room was mine. But … not. No pictures of Finn. The wall was plastered with shots of Wyck and me doing all kinds of extreme sports. I stared at them, searching for clues as to who this Fake Bree was. Apparently, I liked to stay busy with him. In the few shots with his arms around me, a careful observer—someone who really knew me—could see the strain in my smile. It was subtle, but it was there.

Somehow, this made me feel better.

Meems went into the bathroom to put her pajamas on. She had a French Revolution paper to write and was settling in for the night. When she came out of the bathroom, she was clutching the sides of her head.

“Do you have any extra Buzztabs?” she asked.

I hadn't had a single use for a Buzztab in six months, but I had continued to request my weekly allotment so as not to raise any red flags that my chip was nonfunctional. I pulled a full bottle out and tossed it to Mimi.

“Thanks,” she said. “It's been a bad couple days for the Buzz for some reason.”

The Buzz was a result of not being able to Shift to where you were naturally called. I guess it was the body's way of protesting the chip's intrusive control. That didn't explain why Mimi's Buzz was especially bad right now. But I still felt for her. The memory of that throbbing pain was all too fresh for me.

“Mimi, there's something you should know about—” No. I couldn't. I'd started to tell her the truth about her microchip more times than I could count, but I couldn't risk it. Things were already so screwed up. And Mimi was such a worrywart. If she turned me in—even with the best and most loving intentions in her heart—it would muss things even worse.

“What is it?” she said.

“Umm, something you should know about revolutionary France.”

“Revolutionary France?”

“Yes. For your paper. Mom went there on a work trip … recently … and it was really, umm … scary.”

“Yeah.” Mimi stared at me like I'd sprouted a third ear. “I was actually about to start writing a section on the Reign of Terror, so that's really helpful.”

“Well, you could quote her,” I said.

“‘Scary'? Yeah. I mean, that's insightful.” Mimi fiddled with the edge of her compufilm. “Do you need to lie down again?”