Twist (39 page)

“Yes.”

“Well, you were wrong. I was wrong. When you're faced with a grave and terrible choice, when you're forced to sacrifice everything, hope isn't the most dangerous thing to lose. Hope is the most dangerous thing to
have
. I knew if I had any sliver of happiness left, I wouldn't be able to do what I have to do right now. You saw how they've kept Granderson dangling on the end of their hook with a tiny shred of hope. They can't do that to me.”

Wyck coughed, and when he pulled his hand away, flecks of blood stained his palm.

“We're not here to revert the timeline.” Bree lifted up the two additional reverters she'd just created, both of them now glowing green. “We're here to destroy it. Restoring Finn's memories won't protect him. Not from ICE. It's like all those timeline reversions I went on. Pruning, pruning, pruning. A snip here, a snip there, all the while watching ICE's vines choke out reality. The last fifty years have to be pulled up at the root.”

“We're at Point Zero,” I said.

I didn't need to restore Finn's memories to normal. I needed to restore the space-time continuum to normal. If we could do that, there would be no more chips. No more Madness. No more …

No more Finn.

Except that wasn't true. Finn would exist. If this whole crazy loop of an existence hadn't started, I never would have had a reason to go to Chincoteague in the first place. Quigley never would have given him that clue about the enigmatic grin. I never would have asked him to protect me. Even the Haven wouldn't exist. None of it. None of it would have happened. All of this began within this closed loop of the last fifty years. If this first NeoShift never happened, in theory, it would return Finn, whole and unscathed, to where he belonged. To Chincoteague. To a worrywart mother who cherished him and a drama-queen sister who secretly adored him and a father who desperately needed another chance to connect with his son. To cheesy movies and action figures and a dog who could stand to lose ten pounds.

Finn would still exist. He just wouldn't exist for me.

And ICE didn't think I could live with that. They believed that, like Granderson, I'd continue pruning, pruning, pruning, hoping that I could keep the vine just far enough away from Finn for him to survive.

“To save his, destroy yours.” I stared at my future self, a shell of who I was. That clue was never about saving Finn's memories. It was about saving his life.

“But if we do this,” I whispered, “I'll never see Finn again. We never would have met on the real timeline. I'll lose him forever.”

“You've already lost him,” she said. “This is your chance to save him. And Wyck. And every other Shifter and Neo and Non.”

It was true. But I wouldn't simply be giving up Finn. I'd be giving up the awareness that my soul mate ever even existed.

“The code's entered,” Wyck said.

“The code?”

“The last transport code,” he said. “It's a big ol' reset button.”

I looked back at my reverter, still glowing green, but the whirring had slowed a bit.

“Wyck has to man that console to enter the code?” I asked.

She nodded.

“So three reverters but still only two of us.”

Future Bree pulled out her QuantCom and checked the time. “She's late.”

“She'll be here,” said Wyck.

“She was having second thoughts this morning,” said Future Bree.

“She'll be here.”

“If she doesn't come—”

“I said I'd be here.” Jafney had popped up next to Wyck. She wrapped both her arms around his waist, and he kissed her lightly before lifting his eyebrows in an I-told-you-so at Future Me.

“You're going to help us destroy the timeline?” I asked Jafney.

She bobbed her head.

“Why?” I asked her. “There's nothing to stop you and Wyck from being together now.”

She didn't address me but instead turned to my future self. “We don't have time for this. Did you not explain things to her already?”

“I can't do this,” I said. “This is all going too fast. I can't let him go like this. This is so horked up.”

“
You're
horked up,” said Wyck with a snarl.

Whoa. There was Evil Wyck.

“Hey.” Jafney squeezed his arm but stayed calm. “Come back to me.”

Wyck shook his head. Blood had started to ooze down his face in a steady trickle. “Did I hurt anyone?”

“No. We're fine.” Jafney tilted her head toward his. “But you've gotta stay with me, okay?”

I looked around and realized the room had grown lighter. Brighter. The blue had crept fully down the walls and was almost to the reservoirs.

Future Me handed the third reverter over to Jafney.

“That's it?” I said. “We just stick the reverters into the reservoirs?”

“You make it sound like any of this has been easy,” said Jafney.

“It's okay.” Future Me stood between us. “Everything's going to be okay.”

“Just tell her to lay off,” said Jafney.

“What is your deal?” I asked. “You got your happy ending.”

I gestured at Wyck, but when I stopped to really look at him, I could tell something was wrong. Really wrong. Jafney noticed, too. She rushed back over to him.

“Hey.” She clasped his hand. “You've gotta focus, sweetie.”

“What are we doing here?” He looked around, muddled. “Have I been here before?”

Then Wyck noticed his unconscious self on the ground, and he really started to freak out. He tried to jerk his hand away from Jafney, but she held tight.

“Shhh,” she whispered in his ear. “It's going to be okay.”

“Don't touch me.” He snatched his hand away from her with another snarl. As soon as he was free from her grip, though, he seemed to come back to his senses. He pulled her into a hug, “I'm so sorry, Jaf.”

“It's not you,” she said. “This isn't you.”

She looked over his shoulder at me. “You're not the only one who's lost everything.”

“I'm back,” Wyck said. He pulled Jafney in for one more tight hug before he kissed her gently on the forehead. I could almost feel Finn's lips on the same spot. I avoided my Future Self's gaze, knowing how keenly she'd felt the same knife. Wyck and Jafney must have already said their good-byes in private, because she retreated to one of the reservoirs in silence.

“All right,” Future Me said. “The moment the blue matter touches the tank, we activate the reverters. And, Wyck, you entered the code, but give us your mark. We have to do it in perfect synchronization. Like we practiced.”

“Uhh, I didn't practice,” I said.

“You're me. You'll be fine,” she said. Rather than the blue matter, she stared at me.

The blue matter was inches from the reservoirs. Still Future Bree watched me. What was she waiting for?

That's when I felt it. The pull on my tendrils grew until it was a frenzied throb that blurred the edges of my vision. If Finn could just be here.… His presence would strengthen me, push my fear away.

I closed my eyes, and when I let them drift open, I knew exactly where I was even before my tendrils had stopped tingling. I stood on the top plank of Finn's dock in Chincoteague. He sat on the end. His legs dangled off the edge with his toes dipped in the water. The steps creaked beneath me as I walked toward him, tears splashing the wood in my wake.

I'd dreaded this moment, avoided it, and now all I wanted to do was run down the dock and smother myself in his scent. I wanted to hear him say, one more time, that everything was going to be okay, even though he suspected it might be a lie, and I knew for certain that it was.

Finn turned slowly. When he saw it was me, he smiled that devious grin of his and stood up. My pace quickened. My heart quickened. I practically leapt into his arms.
For the last time,
my vicious inner voice hectored. I ignored it. It was for
this
time. That was all that mattered now.

Finn pulled back when he saw my streaked cheeks. “What's wrong?”

My world was about to end.

I didn't answer. My lie wouldn't fool him anyway.

“Hey.” He brushed his thumb across my face, dragging away the tears. “What's going on?”

“I need you to do something for me,” I said. “But you can't tell anyone about it. Not even me.”

“Bree, what's—?”

“Promise me.”

“I don't—”

“Promise me!”

“Anything.”

“I need you to protect me.” A lie. I was the one who was going to protect him—from ever meeting me.

“Protect you?” He looked up to the spot on the stairs where I'd Shifted like some monster would materialize then and there. “From what?”

“I can't explain.” I cupped my palms around his face. “I really want to remember this.”

In that moment, I knew exactly why ICE had insisted that Finn be the first Shifter kidnapped. Not because there was anything special about his tendrils.

Because they knew how special he was to me.

They thought I was like Nurse Granderson with his mother. They thought I wouldn't give Finn up, no matter the cost.

They'd called my next move before I even knew there was one. They thought I'd keep running and searching, keep scrambling up ladders two rungs at a time to try to restore him.

But ICE didn't realize what I did. That it came to this simple question: did I love Finn enough to let him go?

And the simple answer to that simple question that somehow broke my heart and knit it back together again was … yes.

I did.

“You're freaking me out here, Bree,” said Finn.

“I need to go,” I said. “What did you promise to do?”

“To protect you.” His grip grew tighter on my waist. “Stay here. Whatever it is, it can't get you here.”

In his arms, that promise almost felt true. Almost. My tendrils began to tingle once again, though, drawing me back to reality.

“I can't stay.”

“When are you going to be back?” he asked.

“I'm—” I shook my head. “We're not going to see each other again.”

“Bree, that's—no. Why are you saying that?”

The pull ramped up, and a jolt ran up and down my spine. My eyelid twitched as I fought the Shift off for a few more priceless moments. I could see the suspicion on his face. He thought I was lying. He thought that twitch was my tell. Only it wasn't my tell, not right now. It was just a twitch. A twitch of false hope.

I leaned up and planted a kiss in the cleft of his chin. He pulled me to him and kissed me deeply. I wove my fingertips tightly into his hair. If I could only keep this one sweet memory. But I had to let it go with all the rest.

“I love you.” I let my lips linger on his. I felt like a traveler trapped in the desert, lapping up the last bit of water in her canteen. When I couldn't fight the fade any longer, I stepped away and whispered, “Until the end.”

I kept my eyes open as he disappeared before me, drinking in every last drop.

The sweltering reservoir room came back into focus in scratchy blinks. The blue glow had only moved a millimeter in my absence. I must have Shifted back to nearly the instant I'd left.

Bree took a deep breath. “It's done?”

I nodded, sweat trickling down my collarbone.

“Ready?” she said.

I nodded again.

Jafney nodded.

Wyck's neck shook like he was having a muscle spasm.

Future Bree and Jafney shot each other a panicked look. This wasn't part of the plan. Wyck was having another flash, an episode, a whatever you wanted to call it.

“Stay with me!” yelled Jafney.

“Come on, Wyck,” I said. “You have to focus.”

“Stop talking,” Future Bree hissed at me. “You make it worse when he's like this.”

“Oh, can this get worse?” I pointed to the blue matter, now two inches from the console.

“You did this to me!” he shouted at Future Me. She didn't even flinch.

Jafney dropped her reverter on the floor. It rolled toward me as she rushed over to his side. She gripped his face in her hands. “This isn't you!”

His whole body shook now. Blood poured from his nose and ears. He was trying to fight off the flash, but it was beating him.

“All you have to do is hit the button, and the pain will end.” Tears coursed down Jafney's cheeks, tributaries of her own grief.

“This is our only chance,” said Future Bree in a small, pleading voice.

“Please,” I added, helplessly.

He squeezed his eyelids shut and clenched the edges of the console.

When Wyck opened his eyes, they were clear and fresh. He looked at my Future Self and me in turn.

“I love you,” he said. “From the beginning.”

Finn.

“I love you,” I said.

Future Me reached her hand out toward him. “Until the end.”

Wyck crumpled over in pain again. When he stood back up, he was panting but in control of himself. My friend was back.

Jafney gave him a final, fierce kiss. “Let's end this.”

He nodded.

“Hurry.” I stooped to grab Jafney's reverter and tossed it to her. She ran back to the reservoir.

“Ready?” asked Future Me again.

All nods this time.

The blue matter was millimeters from the reservoirs. Future Bree looked to Wyck.

“Now,” he said.

There was one loud click as we all three activated our reverters. At first nothing happened—the only thing I felt was terror that it hadn't worked—until the blue matter turned a murky shade of navy. Then black. And then I felt it deep in my marrow, deeper than the normal sensation of a Shift building. Not a tingling. A burning. My instinct was to yank my hand away from the console, but Bree screamed, “Hold on! Keep it activated!”

The reverter warmed in my hand until it grew unbearably hot. The metal seared my flesh, but I held my grip. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the others were enduring. Jafney had fallen to her knees but kept the reverter in contact with the aperture. Whatever was happening affected Wyck as well. He knotted his free hand around a clump of hair, no doubt still waging battle with a legion of demons.