I need to save Cascade. Help her. Just be with her.
“You should’ve seen Cas, bro,” Heath adds. “It’s exactly like he says.”
Something like jealousy coats my mouth. Heath was there. Heath was able to help her. I wish I was him so badly. I would’ve never left the Global Verse to come back here. I would be with Cascade right now.
I swallow back the jealousy, the anger, the guilt, the worry, all of it. I look at my dad. “So you’re going to send Saige back?”
He yawns and checks his Receiver. “I suppose it can wait until morning. But all three of you are staying here tonight, where I can keep an eye on you.”
“I have to chat my mom,” Heath says.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Dad says, his voice picking up flecks of steel. “I’ll take care of letting her know where you are and when she can expect you home.” Dad stands, and we all do too.
“And, Heath, I’d hate to see your dad without his employment contract.”
I don’t know what that means, but I recognize a threat when I hear one. The way Heath tenses, half-lunges toward my father before catching himself, speaks volumes.
The cold, heartless version of my dad stands before us, tall and towering and terrifying. “Saige,” he continues. “If I ever see you again, I will use that rift and make sure your family is erased from the earth. No matter if I have to give my life to do it.”
I can’t look away from the malice on his face, but I’m vaguely aware of her nodding.
“Price—” He holds my gaze, seemingly unable to find a threat adequate enough for me. He knows I’ve already lost everything. He knows what Cascade means to me.
“She’s just a girl, son,” he says, his voice turning parental and merciful. “There will be other girls.”
I can’t force myself to nod, to speak, to do anything but stare at him in disbelief. He finally moves toward the door. “Price, you’ll be in your room. Heath, you can sleep right there on that couch. Saige, let me show you to the guest room.”
Saige and I follow my dad. I cast Heath a long glance over my shoulder before I move into the hall, and I hook my fingers around Saige’s for two heartbeats. Long enough to squeeze. Long enough for her to know I’m not giving up on finding her sister.
Heath
I STAY ON THAT STUPID COUCH in stupid Guy Ryerson’s office, awake, for an hour. Then I get up and queue up all his flatpanels, navigating to the vid surveillance. Leaving me in this room wasn’t that smart, but I’m sure he has additional screens wherever he is.
I’m not stupid enough to believe he’s not watching. Or that he’s not monitoring every chat that goes out. I just need a secure line, and luckily, I dated the smartest, hottest girl who taught me everything she knew about how to get inside a conversation without detection. Who taught me how to use the communication lines just enough to avoid registering on the Circuit.
I place my palms on Guy’s desk, wondering if I can really do it. I think of Soda’s beautiful face, the softness of her lips, the heat between us that last night before she moved to Florida.
I can do this. I can contact Price, or Saige, or Kelly. Two of them won’t rat me out, but the third…
It’s a risk I’ll have to take.
I splice into Guy’s Circuit connection, bit by bit, taking care not to go too far. Soda said the misconception was that a full line is necessary to communicate. But it’s not, and only full lines are traceable and hearable.
Static crackles over my speaker, and I stop. I’m in. I open a line to Price, who whispers, “Go,” before I’m sure the connection is established.
“Secure feed,” I say. “Guy can’t hear us.”
“Plan?”
“I need to get Soda back, bro.”
He acknowledges me immediately, something I appreciate. “Here’s an idea,” I say. “But it’s time sensitive, and well, it’ll piss off your dad. Majorly.”
“I have something too,” he says. “You go first.”
“I hail Saige and tell her to get ready to get back to her house and go through the rift. You go with her. You can cross over to Global from twenty-twenty-eight, where Cascade is. There are no rules then.”
Price’s silence means he’s thinking about it. Thinking about potential problems, hurdles he’ll need to anticipate and overcome.
“Doable?” I ask.
“I don’t know how to open the rift,” he says.
“Saige does,” I say. “And when you get to twenty-twenty-eight, find Cedar Bowman. He’s the one who sent us through rifts. He knew everything about them.”
“Cedar Bowman,” Price repeats. “That guy who’s in love with Cascade? He’ll help me?”
“He helped us.”
“He was helping Cas, bro. Not you. Not me.” He exhales heavily, and I imagine the calculating expression he wears when he wants to do something he’s unsure about. “I guess I’ll have to try.”
“While you’re doing that—before you and Saige leave through the rift actually—I’ll need to hail Kelly and make a deal for Soda’s return. It’ll have to be quick, because as soon as she learns you and Saige have gone through the rift, she won’t release Soda. I’ll never see her again.”
“So tonight,” Price says. “You think you can pull that off?”
Soda’s smile flashes through my mind. “I have to.”
“I’ll figure out how to get out of here without my dad knowing.”
“I can take care of that,” I say. “I have access to all his surveillance systems right now. I’ll create a fake loop. Give me a few minutes to talk to Saige and get everything in place. As soon as you guys get to your house, I’ll hail Kelly.”
“I’m assuming this will be a dark jam,” he says.
“Definitely dark.” I lean away from the panels, suddenly weary. “We can do this, right? What was your idea?”
“Yours is way better than mine,” he says. “And Heath, we can do this.”
I take a deep breath. “If you cross over, I won’t see you again.” The knot of emotions inside won’t untangle. Price has been like my brother for five years. I can’t imagine not jamming with him. Not getting a chat from him with only one word and knowing exactly what he means.
“Probably not, blood.” His voice sounds strained, but that could be from the reduced Circuit power on the line.
“Girls,” I say.
“Worth it?” he asks, but he’s not really asking.
“Worth it,” I confirm. I’ve gone farther with Soda than Price has with Cas, that much I know. And being with the girl you love? Definitely worth it.
“The Global Verse is nice,” I say. “At least in twenty-twenty-eight. Tell Cas hi from me.” I need to end this chat before I get too emotional and everything blows up.
“One more problem: Saige.”
“Maybe she can stay in Global too.” I don’t really have a plan for Saige.
“I don’t want her there.”
“I wouldn’t either.” I press my eyes closed. “Let me think about it. See what she says when I talk to her.”
“Let me know when to execute.”
“Will do.” I end the chat and take a deep drag of oxygen. I know Price and I are solid. Without Saige, we could execute this plan right now. I might see Soda by morning, and he’d be on his way to Global to be reunited with Cascade.
Saige is definitely a problem—especially when I realize I can’t actually hail her.
I curse under my breath and tap all the panels with surveillance footage. I’ll have to create a loop for the hallways now so I can tiptoe my way to the guest room and talk to her face to face.
Ten minutes later, I’ve spliced the loop of empty hallways into the feed and I’m standing at the door to the guest bedroom. I’ve knocked. Twice, with no response.
I can’t bang my way in, as the surveillance feed can’t conceal real-life sounds. I curse the girl from here to the Neapolitan Verse for showing up right when we don’t need her, and raise my hand to k
nock again.
Nothing.
I don’t want to touch the doorknob. Knowing Guy and his hella-advanced technology, it could alert a system I haven’t circumvented. My print could be rejected, triggering an alarm.
In the end, I don’t have a choice. Price is waiting. Soda is in another Verse, and I’m not going to let some girl from sixty years ago ruin everything.
I grip the doorknob and twist. If any alarms were set off, I don’t hear them. I duck into the room and close the door behind me. A soft light emanates from the bedside table, illuminating the sleeping form of Saige. How she can sleep is beyond me.
I hurry across the room and nudge her shoulder. “Saige,” I whisper. “Wake up, Saige. You’re going home tonight.”
Her eyes fly open, her hands coming up to protect her face.
“It’s me, Heath. And get up. You’re going home tonight.”
“Tonight?” She scrambles into a sitting position, her eyes clearing the cobwebs of sleep.
“No time like the present. Price is going with you.”
Her gaze sharpens. “I don’t want to go home. I want to find Chloe.”
“We already know where Cascade is,” I tell her. “And she’s fine, and safe, and she can’t come back anyway.” I feel like I’m trying to reason with a three-year-old.
“I need to see her.”
“Fine, whatever. You’re still going tonight. You and Price will go through the rift at your house.” I head for the door so she can’t continue to argue. Thankfully, she follows me. We make it back to Guy’s office, where I open a line with Price.
“Locked and loaded.”
“Coming.” He arrives ten seconds later, wearing a slim backpack and age-neutral clothes. A sudden ache to go with him blooms beneath my breastbone. Maybe…
No, I tell myself. I’m not leaving my parents here, and Soda can’t abandon her mom either.
“Chat me when you get to the house,” I say. “I’ll open a line with Kelly then.”
“Done.” Price looks at me, and I look at him. The weight of what we’re doing settles between us. “I’ll see you later,” he finally says.
I grab him in a hug and pound him on the back. “Later,” I confirm.
As he and Saige step into the hall, I can’t help feeling like I’m losing an important piece of my life.
Price
THE ELEVATOR RIDE TO THE LOBBY feels like it takes an hour. I don’t know what to say to Saige—well, I don’t know what to say that’s encouraging. I want to tell her where to go and when to get off, but I bite back the remarks. She’s coming, and I’ll need her on my side to get the rift open, find Cedar, and maybe a lot of other things.
An itch scuffles beneath my skin, an urgency to get off these streets, get to her house, get out of here before Dad can stop me.
We stride on in silence, each step putting needed distance between my apartment and my future. We enter the suburbs, but it’s still a couple of miles to the house. Impatience seethes, especially when Saige starts talking.
I don’t listen to what she’s saying, throwing in a “Yeah,” or a “Hmm” every few minutes. If she notices, she doesn’t call me on it. Finally, finally, the house comes into view. The porch light eliminates the front door as an entry option.
I move along the fence line and around the back of the shed. I let my memories linger on the last time I huddled back here, with a different girl, with the rift open. I shove them away and focus on the task at hand.
“I’m going to go check out the window well,” I whisper to Saige. “How did you get out of the house?”
“Garage.”
“Let’s try the window first.” I peer around the corner, and seeing no one, race toward the window I’ve used to escape before. Of course, Monroe opened it for me, an option I don’t have right now.
At first glance, the window well seems innocuous. Just a few feet down and I can jimmy the window, see if it’s open. But a buzz brushes my fingers when I reach toward the lip of the well.
“Activate electronic sensors,” I hiss. My cybernetics click to life, highlighting all electronics I can see.
And I see a net of bots protecting the window well.
The couple who lives here doesn’t want anyone using this window as an entrance.
I sit back on my heels and glance around. Nothing else is carpeted with sensor bots—not even the back door leading to the garage.
Strange…
Maybe Saige deactivated them by going through already. I slink along the house to the door and run another scanning program. It comes up empty.
I twist the doorknob and give it a little push so it settles open. No alarm. No bots standing guard inside the garage. I wish with everything in me Saige had a Receiver and I could chat her to come. I gesture for her to come, hoping she’s watching from the shed.
A few seconds later, she joins me. “What’s wrong with the window?”
“Security blanket,” I whisper.
“But there’s nothing on the door?” Her surprise mirrors mine.
“I can’t detect anything.” I glance at her, and she flinches away. I don’t know what my eyes look like at night with the gridded cybernetics activated. Saige doesn’t like it though. “Let’s go.”
I lead us into the garage and then the house, pausing in the mudroom to listen. My house used to whisper secrets to me—or at least I imagined it did. But this version of the house is silent. Without an illegal rift-walking business, maybe all it conceals is a young couple. We make it through the foyer and around the corner to the large room without incident.
Saige opens the door before I can tell her to wait. I suck in a breath, every muscle in my body tight tight tight.
Nothing happens, and she doesn’t seem to notice I haven’t followed her into the room. I continue to hang back, something about the coldness of this place bothering me.
The window’s open.
It wasn’t open five minutes ago when I was perched above it.
Someone’s awake. Someone’s here.
I drop to a crouch behind a couch, wishing for the millionth time that I could alert Saige. She still doesn’t seem to know I’m not with her.
I send a chat to Heath. Unfriendlies.
He comes back with, At the house?
Yeah.
I’ve never been happier to be able to communicate through my Receiver.
You haven’t contacted Kelly yet, have you?
Nope. Waiting on you.
Give me a minute.
But I don’t know what to do. I feel pinned down, behind enemy lines, with the rift in the basement only yards away. Close enough to touch, to taste.
I hear Saige’s soft footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, her yelp of surprise is squashed, probably by someone putting their hand over her mouth. I dodge from behind the couch to the bookcase beside the stairs.
I hear a masculine voice, vaguely familiar.
Saige says, “I’m alone,” too loud to be coincidental.
At least she’s loyal, and a measure of relief makes the twist in my gut a little looser. Only a little though.
“I just want to go home,” she says.
The steps leading to the basement linger just to my left, a bookcase between me and them. I press my back into the unyielding wall as bright blue rift light bursts into the space.
My heart rate doubles, triples. What will she do when she gets home? Try to come back later? Jeopardize my goal to get to 2028 and find Cedar?
I eye the door, wondering if I can make it there before whoever’s downstairs finishes with Saige.
The blue light vanishes. My chance goes with it.
Footsteps come up the stairs, and I deactivate my Receiver, my cybernetics, everything.
“I know someone’s there,” a man says. Without the warping space can do to a voice, I recognize the timbre.
“Monroe?”
Breath hisses out of his mouth. “Damn it, Price. Why do you have to be so predictable?”
“Predictable?” I practically screech. “I used the garage entrance.”
“Only because you detected the bots over the window.”
I emerge from the shadows beside the bookcase. “If you’d had that window open five minutes sooner, I wouldn’t have had to do that.” I scan his attire. “Why are you dressed for battle?”
The thick chest plate, the long pants and sleeves, and the bicep holster screams danger!
“Your dad sent me to make sure you guys didn’t try to use the rift.”
I narrow my eyes and try to read the flat expression on his face. He might as well be made of stone for all the good it does. “You just opened it and sent Saige through.”
“And I’m going to open it and send you through too.”
“You are?” Surprise coats my words.
“Sure are.”
“Why?”
He steps closer, and his broad bulk brings a tide of discomfort. But I hold my ground.
“Because my instructions were to ruin this rift, and I’m more than happy to do that for Guy.” A twitch of a grin pulls against his lips. “And help you at the same time. Heath said something about the year twenty-twenty-eight.”
I nearly lose my balance as the relief pours through me. “You talked to Heath?”
“He may or may not have chatted about fifteen minutes ago.” Monroe hooks his gloved fingers toward the steps. “So are you really leaving?”
Through the dimness in the room, I can’t gauge his mood, but his voice sounds on the edge of uncomfortable.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m really leaving.”
Monroe clears his throat. “Well, I’ll miss you, Price.” He moves down the steps, and I follow.
“Monroe?” I ask while he taps on the panels laid into the cupboard doors.
He grunts. Doesn’t look at me.
“Why do you help me?”
His gaze swings to mine as if in slow motion. “You’re a good kid, Price.”
I accept his answer as the rift roars to life. It’s soundless and pure blue, like the sky mixed with ice. “It’s set?”
“All set.”
I hesitate, already having endured one awkward good-bye. “Thanks, Monroe.” I step forward to shake his hand. He grips my fingers tightly, and then pulls me into an embrace.