Twist (4 page)

“I haven't seen you since you got kicked out of school,” I said.

“I didn't get kicked out.” She twirled a strand of wooden beads between her fingers and glanced up and down the street nervously. “My family pulled me out.”

“Oh. Sorry. I assumed you were expelled.” No use sugar-coating it. The entire student body had assumed the same thing. “What did you do to get yourself force faded?”

She bit her lip.

“Sorry,” I said again. “I'm being nosy.”

“No, it's not that,” she said. “It's … I didn't just happen to be walking by. I've been hoping to meet you.”

“Meet me?”

“Yes, I've”—she bit her lip again—“I've kind of been following you.”

“What?” I stiffened. Finn scooted into a defensive posture between Jafney and me. I squeezed his hand. He was here. I was safe.

“I can explain.” She handed me a tattered photograph. It was a close-up shot of a younger version of Jafney standing next to a man in his early forties. He had his arm around her shoulder and wore the same beaded necklace that Jafney now wore. That wasn't the exceptional part, though. The photo was on compufilm, which was modern. The setting was clearly not. 1960s or '70s, if I had to guess, some kind of hippy commune. I handed it back to her.

“That's my father.” She tucked the photo away. “I took it myself while I was at the Institute. Three missions in a row I snuck off to see him. They finally caught on by the third trip.”

Apparently, we had more in common than a penchant for disobeying orders at the Institute. She was a child of two different eras, like me. We were both genetically linked to two times, our quantum tendrils clinging to both. Which meant she also had the unique ability, like me, to Shift people to our time. But that didn't calm my nerves or answer any questions as to why she was tailing me or telling me any of this.

“Why were you following me?” I asked.

“Because you're going to help me,” she said.

“Says who?”

Finn nudged me under the table and shot me a
Be nice
look, but I ignored it. I was in constant danger of being found out as a secret unchipped Shifter, not to mention the reverter I toted around with me everywhere. ICE had already proved to what lengths they'd go to get it. I didn't need to get caught helping this girl on top of everything else.

“Says my future self,” said Jafney with a new muster of confidence in her voice.

“I barely trust my own future self. Why would I trust yours?”

“Because there's…” Jafney squinched up her nose and pronounced her next words precisely, like she was rehearsing a password to get into a Prohibition bar. “There's no time like the past.”

That got my attention. It was part of the clue my own future self had left me on the midterm when I first met Finn.

“How did you know—?” Finn started to ask, but I cut him off.

“If your future self really told you I'd help you, then she also would have mentioned I don't personally have the ability to do that.”

“Well, not you. She said you'd take me to someone named John and he'd disable my chip.”

“He's my dad,” said Finn. “There's an injection that helps your body fight off the chip like a vaccine. He does the procedure back in the twenty-first century. Just to keep it on the down-low.”

It was my turn to kick him under the table. He made it sound like we were running a home for time-traveling invalids, turning chips off left and right. Four. Finn's dad had disabled four chips. Mine, Mom's, Quigley's, and Nurse Granderson's. Besides, I hadn't decided if I even wanted to help this girl. Except … chicken-blarking-egg. Apparently, I would whether I wanted to or not.

“Fine,” I said.

“You'll do it?” Jafney twisted one of those perfect, bouncy curls behind her ear.

“Yeah.” I dug a fork into my omelet.

“Can we go now?” she said.

A pushy thing, wasn't she?

“Feel any urge to synch?” I asked Finn.

It wasn't like I could just Shift at will. My quantum tendrils still had to pull me somewhere. And they weren't budging.

“Nope,” said Finn.

“Sorry,” I said to Jafney. Her face plummeted.

“Look,” I said, “are you sure you really want to do this? I don't know what all your future self told you, but there are consequences to turning off your chip.”

“You mean the Madness?” said Jafney.

“Yes.” I glanced around. It made me nervous having this conversation in public. “Only the Madness isn't real. Unchipped Shifters aren't insane. They're just the only ones who are able to perceive changes in the timeline.”

I left out the details about ICE, that they were allowing nonShifters to make those changes to the timeline. Instead, I made it sound like the timeline just changed itself on a whim. I didn't think Jafney bought it, but it wasn't my decision to make.

Only Haven members knew about ICE's involvement. It was up to Quigley and the others at Resthaven to decide if Jafney was trustworthy. I highly doubted they would. After all, she'd admitted to spying on me.

“Does it hurt?” asked Jafney.

“The injection?”

“No. The … changing reality?”

I couldn't really answer that one. I'd been able to revert most of the changes that had been made since my chip had been disabled. The ones I hadn't caught in time either didn't affect me personally or, in the case of Headmaster Bergin, worked in my favor.

“Not painful, but confusing.” I wiped my spoon off with my napkin and stirred my drink. “Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to go back and not know all this. Ignorance is bliss and all that.”

“Hey,” Finn said, “clearly being ostracized by your entire society is worth it so you can date me.

“Obviously.” I poked Finn in the ribs, and he tickled me.

When I looked over at Jafney, she had a wistful expression on her face. I realized how insensitive I was being, flaunting my cross-century relationship with Finn when she hadn't been able to have that connection with her dad. I understood. I'd watched my mom suffer for almost two decades, missing my father. I scooted away from Finn. He laced his fingers through mine.

“You're absolutely sure this is what you want?” I asked Jafney one last time. “There's no undoing it.”

“I'm positive,” she said and looked between Finn and me. “I want what you have.”

A tingle worked its way up my extremities as if my quantum tendrils agreed with her decision. I stood up and wrapped my arm around Jafney, but Finn laid his hand on my shoulder.

“I should probably Shift her home to Chincoteague. My pull will be stronger since it's a synch for me, and she's still chipped.”

“Good point.” I backed away so he could circle his arms around Jafney. She was only an inch or so shorter than he was. Right before they disappeared, it occurred to me that they looked like one of those Ken and Barbie fashion doll sets from his time.

The pulling sensation built and boiled within my veins. I closed my eyes, and a briny whiff of sea air bit at my nose before I opened them.

I smiled and dug my heels into a mound of sand.

Chincoteague.

 

chapter 4

“BREE!
” A WHIRL OF HAIR
and squeals came flying at me, and I didn't have time to react before I was knocked to the beach by Finn's kid sister, Georgie. She was tall, like Finn and her dad. With my visits back to Past Finn spaced out over weeks and months as they were, it was like I'd witnessed the world's fastest growth spurt in Georgie, and now we were almost the same age.

“Mom'll have kittens,” she said. “She wasn't expecting you for dinner. Where's Finn?”

“I must have gone back further than him.” Huh. That was a first. We'd always arrived at the same time before. Finn had to maintain contact with me in order to Shift into the twenty-third century, and I'd gotten into the habit of doing it every Shift we took together. “I'm sure he'll be here soon. I like the color, by the way.”

I pulled a few strands of Georgie's brown and electric pink hair—her shade du jour—out of my mouth. She plopped down next to me in the sand, and I tugged my knees up to my chest. Aside from Mimi, Georgie was one of my best friends now. She always had some kind of sixth sense about my arrival. She'd come running from a mile away or sometimes pop up out of nowhere if she'd been on a Shift herself. Bugged the crap out of Finn when we were mid-kiss.

“You don't think your mom will really mind, do you?” I asked. It still sometimes felt a little intrusive, showing up out of the blue as I did. But it wasn't like I could call ahead. And I had to remind myself, from Charlotte's perspective, my visits had been spaced out over the last few years. It was only from my point of view that I'd seen the Mastersons every few days.

“Are you kidding?” snorted Georgie. “You know Mom. The more, the merrier.”

“That's good. Because Finn's bringing Jafney.” I glanced down the beach. Where were they?

“Gesundheit!” said Georgie.

“You're such a dort.”

“Nope.” Georgie shook her head. She was also used to my mauling of the twenty-first-century vernacular. “That is, in fact, not a word. And you're the dork.”

“Anyway.” I tossed a handful of sand at her. “Jafney's a Shifter. She's here to—”

Splash

A giant fish broke through the water about fifty feet out in the ocean then sank back down. The ripples danced across the surface in hypnotic circles. Finn's head popped out of the water, then Jafney's did, too. They both let out a yelp before they went back under.

I stared out at the water. Were they caught in some kind of rip tide? We had to do something to help them.

“Come on, Georgie!” I kicked off my shoes as I ran toward the water.

“What are you doing?” Georgie took a few steps after me. “Bree, you can't swim.”

“I can swim.” Okay, not really. Finn had been teaching me a little bit, in their pool. I could still barely propel myself forward, much less drag a girl almost a foot taller than me through the high tide. But I dashed out into the surf anyway. Before I went farther in than my knees, though, Finn and Jafney popped up yet again, this time much closer to the shore. Jafney flipped over onto her back and spouted a mouthful of saltwater into the air.

The smooth strokes of her long limbs were nothing like my floundering dog paddle. She and Finn took turns imitating each other. Finn let out a whoop of fun as he did a backflip thing into a little wave that cropped up.

“Hey, Bree,” Jafney said, splashing through the lapping waves to give me a sopping hug. She trudged up the sand and gazed around in awe like she'd never been out of the twenty-third century.

“Hey.” I looked down at my soaked pants. Finn noticed them, too, and cocked one of his eyebrows up in a what-the-heck-are-you-doing look.

I pretended I didn't see it. He'd freak out if he knew I had rushed out into the ocean without him there to make sure I didn't drown. I bent down and picked up a shell instead. It probably didn't fool him for a second. But he let it drop.

“Welcome to Chincoteague,” he said to Jafney.

“Yeeee!” She jumped up and down, shrieking and clapping her hands.

Georgie, who was standing a mere foot away, put her fingers in her ears and mouthed,
What the blark?
at me.

“Jafney's here about her chip,” I said. “Is your dad around?”

“No,” said Georgie, “but I'm sure he'll be back soon if that's the reason she's here.”

I still didn't understand it, how unchipped Shifters were naturally called to where they were supposed to be. Finn called it fate. Charlotte called it providence. Whatever it was, I didn't like to overanalyze it.

Talking about time with a Shifter is a bit like discussing water with a fish. It's so woven into our being that it's simultaneously everything and nothing to us.

“This is just soooooo amazing. I can't believe I'm really doing this.” Jafney let out another squeak as she pulled her shirt up around her chest to wring some of the water out, revealing a taut tummy and curvy hips. She stretched her arms in a catlike pose above her head, tugging the shirt even higher, before smoothing it back down.

I wrapped my arms around my own torso. Charlotte's scrumptious cooking and my mom's renewed love language of Rocky Road brownies had packed on their share of a few extra pounds. Oh, and those Girl Scout cookies that Georgie kept stashed in her closet weren't doing my butt any favors either. (How have those gone extinct and we still have kelp nuggets?) Finn claimed that he liked me with some meat on my bones, especially since I'd been confined to such a restrictive diet at the Institute for so long. I liked my body, but that didn't stop me from feeling self-conscious next to this Grecian goddess.

Jafney dawdled back and forth through the sand as we headed up the beach. The way she zigzagged, she looked like she was in a drunken stupor or sleepwalking.

“What a Fruit Loop,” whispered Georgie in my ear.

“Cut her some slack,” I said.

It sounded like Jafney's life had been anything but easy so far. I could relate to that. And for all I knew, we'd become close. It's not like there were a lot of unchipped Shifters my age running around. I could use all the friendly faces I could get.

We made our way up to the house. It was about five times the size of my own and filled with pricey furniture. They could afford it—Finn's dad had had uncommonly lucky hunches in all his investments over the years. Their Haven beacon glimmered green in the foyer, casting its light on the Mastersons' art collection that crossed the line from pricey to priceless. The Beacon was an old tradition to welcome Shifters into the safety of their home. The Mastersons, however, chose to stretch the purpose of the Haven Society to open their doors to anyone in need.