“Then what are we waiting for?” Dylan snapped. He was still staring at Sera, who was trying to avoid noticing. She kept inching closer and closer to G, who was shooting Dylan challenging glares.
“Can’t use the elevator. Once security leaves it, it’s disabled to prevent any intruders from traveling through the building easily.”
“Stairs?” Kori said.
“Doors automatically close and lock once the alarms go off.”
“Then it looks like we’re climbing.” There was a mischievous gleam in Noah’s eyes as he tugged me toward the elevator. The doors were frozen open and all the lights on the control panel were flashing red. “Cade?”
Cade followed him, then dropped to his knee in the car. Cupping his hands, he boosted Noah up to where he pushed out the ceiling panel and hauled himself through the opening. One by one Cade hoisted and Noah hefted. Once everyone was safely on top, he replaced the ceiling panel.
“There.” Cade turned Kori toward the small foothold that led to a narrow metal ladder. “Follow me up. Quick but careful.” One by one we climbed to the floor above, Cade in the lead with Phil directly behind him and Noah bringing up the rear.
It took a minute, but Cade managed to pry the doors apart. He hoisted himself onto the floor and ushered Phil up. “Hurry. Get the door open before—”
“Don’t move,” someone shouted as I pulled myself over the edge.
“Before that happens?” Noah finished with a snort. He pushed past me and lunged at the guard while Phil dove for a door a few feet away.
It was a single guard, but more would be flooding the hallways soon. Phil insisted the cameras were off and I didn’t doubt him, but by now Cora would realize the only person in the building who had the skill to dupe her was him and they’d be coming, full force.
“Hurry! Get inside.” Phil stood aside and waved his arms frantically as we filed through the doorway. Once it was secured, we sprinted for his lab. He had the door opened and was ushering us all inside. All except for Noah, who he grabbed and held back. I saw him lean in and whisper something. He reached into his pocket and pulled a small sheet of paper out, gripping it tightly in his fist.
Now wasn’t the time to hang out and chat! “Are you—”
“Ash!” Cade shouted from the lab. I ducked inside to find him waving a nasty looking needle in the air. “Hurry. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“I—”
I went to turn back to the door, but Phil was there, pushing me aside and snatching the needle from Cade’s hands. He motioned for Kori to come forward. She didn’t look thrilled, but complied.
“So what do you say?” Noah leaned in close, warm breath fanning against my cheek. I caught a flash of white as he slipped something into his pocket. “Want to ride with us?”
I did—but only long enough to ride off this rock. There was someplace I wanted to be. People I needed to see. “I—Cora told me—”
Phil tapped the edge of his weird needle-like instrument against the desk, then snapped the fingers of his free hand in front of my face. “If you’re gonna do this, it’s gotta be now.”
“Doing it,” I said without hesitation. We could hash out the specifics later. I stepped up to the table and held out my arm. “Go for—”
“No,” Dylan roared. We all whirled around and found that he had G in a choke hold with a long screwdriver poised at his throat.
“Don’t!” Sera started forward but Kori grabbed her before she made it two steps.
“Easy,” G said. He didn’t look concerned. “I’m okay.”
“This is how it’s gonna work. Ava and I are going to leave. Whatever the hell you idiots do after that is fine with me. Once we’re gone, you won’t be able to follow—I’ll finally be free of you. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t come with me.”
“Not going to happen,” Cade said. He moved to stand beside Noah, who’d stepped up to the front of the small group.
In response to their move, Dylan pushed the screwdriver into G’s skin. It didn’t break through, but it wouldn’t take much more pressure to make that happen. His gaze fell to Sera. “Your choice, Ava. I know it seems harsh, but trust me. You’ll realize this was right. We are right.”
There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that Dylan believed every single word he was saying—or that he was insane. And it should have been obvious from the way Sera kept looking at G what her choice would be.
“Okay,” she said, slowly moving toward the table. “You have to promise we’ll leave without hurting them. Leave G and Ash and her friends alone and I’ll go with you. Deal?”
Dylan seemed to relax a little. “Deal.” He turned to Phil and said, “Now activate my chip.”
Phil didn’t move.
“I swear,” Dylan said. He pressed the screwdriver harder into G’s throat. He hissed as a small trickle of blood rolled down his neck. “If you don’t move your ass to that computer and activate my chip, I’ll kill him. And then, I’ll kill your mother.”
He hesitated a moment longer before his shoulders slumped. He moved slowly, making his way to the computer across the room and punching in a series of codes. His fingers flew across the keyboard, frantic, as numbers and symbols flashed on the screen.
“Well?”
“It’s not as simple as pushing a button,” Phil snapped. “This is complex technology.”
I could hear voices outside. Right on the other side of the lab door. They’d started banging. “How long before they get in?”
“We have some time. They’ll get through eventually, though, so let’s not take all day. Done,” he said, turning back to us. “All the chips are now activated.”
Dylan released G and shoved him away, then grabbed Sera and dragged her close. He fumbled with the inside of his forearm, then threaded his fingers through hers. With several jabs at his left forearm, he flashed Noah one last, smug grin, and disappeared.
But not before lunging forward and plunging the screwdriver into Phil’s chest.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Noah
G let out a horrible wail and fell forward, swiping furiously at the air where Ava and Dylan had just been. Cade cursed and dropped to the floor beside Rabbit, shrugging out of his hoodie and pressing it into the wound to try to stop the bleeding.
“How bad is it?” Kori glanced at me, then fell her knees beside him and gingerly lifted Rabbit’s head into her lap.
“I dunno,” Cade said, panicked. “I dunno. If I pull it out… Noah?”
I ignored him and tapped the inside of my forearm twice to wake up the chip. The others were huddled over a bleeding Rabbit. I didn’t need a decade of med school to tell me how it would end. I knew Cade was waiting for me to help—but there was nothing I could do. At least not for Rabbit. I could, however, go after Dylan. It had to be now, though. Any longer and I risked losing him—and that wasn’t something that could happen. Not again.
Cade and Kori were still trying to stop the bleeding while G just stood there, staring at the place Sera had been. I fished into my pocket and yanked out the paper Rabbit had given me before coming into the lab. I skimmed the section I needed—the one detailing that he’d programmed Dylan’s frequency into all of the cuffs without his knowledge, then stuffed the paper back into my pocket for safekeeping.
I put his frequency in the chips. No time to go over everything. It’s all in here…
Rabbit coughed and sputtered and Kori gasped. “Noah!”
Rabbit had told Dylan the truth. The chips weren’t linked together. But even he’d seen the danger in letting a guy like Cade’s brother roam free through the multiverse. “I’m going after him. Come find me when you can.”
Cade looked up, eyes wide. He opened his mouth and I saw his lips moving frantically—no doubt to call me something colorful and tell me what an ass I was being—but I couldn’t hear him. His outline grew blurry, then disappeared. One minute I was standing in the lab, the next I was standing in a cafeteria.
&nbs
p; I scanned the room. The place was packed, but no Dylan. Maybe the damn thing wasn’t working? Or maybe I’d missed something…
I tucked myself into a corner and skimmed the note again.
—programmed all chips with list of safe PATHS from Infinity database.
—coded their home frequency. Since Cade, Dylan, and Noah share the same home world, that frequency acts like a magnet. Every earth has their own base frequency, tinted with each person’s own, subtle frequency. That small difference makes it possible for you to skip to Dylan specifically.
—it could land you anywhere from one foot to half a mile away.
Well, shit. That was going to be more than mildly inconfuckingvenient. I stared down at Rabbit’s rushed scribble again.
—only be used four times in the span of twenty-four hours. Any more than that and they fry
Good. Once they were forced to skip because of Cora’s guards, they could find me by going to my PATH line—hopefully landing closer to a foot than half a mile. I took one last look at the note.
—Tinkered with the chip so that whenever Dylan activates a PATH, there will be a quick, electrical pulse through the others.
I wadded the paper up and deposited it in my pocket, then woke the chip and scrolled to Dylan’s line once again and crossed my fingers. The cafeteria faded, and a moment later I was standing in the center of a snow-covered street. A horn blared and behind me a chorus of angry barks filled the air. I jumped and stumbled backward as a bright blue…sled…pulled by a handful of huskies nearly plowed me over.
I wrapped my arms around myself and tried not to shiver. We’d never skipped into a place where the weather was so drastically different. The day, the year—the season—had always been in line.
I scanned the horizon for Dylan, but it was impossible to see. The snow was falling too heavily, making visibility cripplingly limited. I gave up trying to pick him out and started walking. My best guess was that he’d try to find someplace quiet to take Ava in order to convince her that he wasn’t one of the bad guys. He was the victim in all this. The wronged party. He’d sit her down and try to justify all the crappy things he’d done.
We’d seen it before. He’d find an Ava, tell her everything, and inform her that he was the great love of her life and that she needed to come with him. It didn’t matter if she already had a Dylan. It made no difference if she’d never met any version of him before that moment. One of the Avas a few months back, right before we found Kori, had even been in a relationship with a girl named Claire and still Dylan insisted. He’d only given up when drowning Claire hadn’t made Ava run to him, instead destroying her completely.
She was his weak spot. The thing that tripped him up on each and every world. And on the ones she didn’t exist? Those were the ones where he was most dangerous. Lashing out at random and creating chaos wherever he went.
Speaking of chaos—had I done the right thing? Leaving Ash and the others behind? Cade had been chipped. Rabbit was a goner. Could Cade grab Kori and still skip out. Sure, he’d try to take Ash, too, but Cora wouldn’t let her go so easily. If they got into that lab…
“Hey!” a familiar voice called. I froze, not quite sure how he’d managed to backtrack to jump me. I turned and found not Dylan like I’d thought, but the darker haired, flannel-wearing, scruffier version of him trotting through the snow. G wore the same scowl I’d seen for years on Dylan, and moved with the same kind of world-is-ending determination. “Where is she?”
“What are you doing here?”
“That science guy crammed a chip under my skin as he was coughing up his insides. Your friend told me to come find you.”
“And you obeyed?” I didn’t dare ask how Rabbit was. There was a huge pocket of guilt waiting for me for leaving him—even though I knew there was nothing I could do. It would come back to bite me in the ass later. I’d obsess over it and do something stupid to drown the memory, but right now there were other things to deal with.
The scowl grew bigger. “I don’t obey anyone. I came to find Sera.”
“Ava.”
“What?”
“Her name is Ava, not Sera. Your name is Dylan—not the letter G.”
“I don’t care if one of us is named Frick and the other Frack. Where did that asshole take her?”
I inclined my head in the direction I’d hoped they’d gone. Really, there was no damn way to tell. The best solution would have been to skip to his PATH line again and hope it dropped me closer, but with a limited amount of skips available, I decided against it. “Let’s see if we can find them.”
We walked in silence for a while. Well, silence if you excluded the sound of our chattering teeth. When this was done and over with, we were going home. I was going to see my family and reclaim my life. I’d enroll in med school—but not before taking Ash and skipping off someplace warm. Whatever there was between us, I wanted the chance to explore it. To figure it—and her—out. I wanted to learn all the things that made her tick, and uncover her secrets, little by little. I was looking forward to showing her how the world could be. Places that had no class system or evil Anderson family. After that, I would bring her home to meet the real Cora Anderson.
We passed a long row of stores, all closed despite the early afternoon hour, and had ventured into the park. “You don’t remember anything? From before you landed in Cora’s cell?”
“Nope.”
One word answer. Such an annoyingly Dylan thing. “What about Ava—Sera? You guys from the same world? Is that why you’re so crazy to find her?”
“We’re not from the same world. I don’t remember anything, but I know I’d never met her before being thrown into that…place. And I’m not crazy to find her. We went through a lot together. Just wanna make sure she gets someplace safe. That an issue for you, man?”
I threw up my hands in surrender. It was more than that but I wasn’t interested in arguing. As it was, it was taking every ounce of control I had not to pummel him. He might not personally be a murderer, but he was wearing the face of one. The one that took my sister. Kind of a hard thing to work around. Cade had made a mistake sending him of all people. “Cool it, jackass. Just trying to figure this thing out. You and her—all of us—have a pretty twisted up history. Looking at you right now is kind of making me sick.”
“You’re no prize, either,” he grumbled. A moment later he perked up. “There!”
I grabbed out to try and stop him but all I got was air. “G— Shit. Wait!”
He slipped in the slick snow as he took off at a dead run, completely oblivious to my shouts. I followed. Hoping to reach him in time—but it was too late. He called out and Dylan turned. He saw G first, then our eyes met. The satisfaction of his shock, his rage, was short lived, though, because he grabbed Ava and disappeared.
I didn’t slow. In fact, my feet pumped faster. I jabbed at my forearm, woke the chip, and followed him off the tundra world. If G figured it out, then great for him. If not, he wasn’t my priority. Truthfully, the more distance between us the better I could think. Simply looking at him made me want to start swinging. I wasn’t letting Dylan get away to babysit some newbie.
The scenery changed. My feet kept going, only now instead of slipping and sliding in a fruitless attempt to find purchase in the slush and snow, they slopped and squished in wet grass. We’d skipped into the middle of a downpour. Except it wasn’t like any rain I’d seen. The puddles on the ground and the drops hitting my face weren’t clear—they were translucent red.
“Yeah. That’s not fucked up or anything,” I huffed to myself. I didn’t see Dylan, but I felt another zap and woke the chip. Off I went again, this time landing a few feet away from them. It would have been perfect. All I would have had to do was swing once, floor the bastard, and drag him back.
Not that it really mattered. At least not to the four massive wolves snarling in front of us. “Don’t move,” I said to them in my calmest voice. A quick scan of my surroundings and I realized we were in a
n alternate version of Clifton Park. There were wild wolves in Clifton Park. That was a first—and hopefully a last.
“You kidnapped me and now you’re going to get me eaten by wolves?” Ava let out a nervous laugh. “Have I mentioned just how much I hate you?”
“Several times,” came Dylan’s response. He was slowly lifting his arm.
“You know I won’t stop following you, right?”
“And how exactly are you doing that?” He spoke a little too loudly and one of the wolves, the biggest of the bunch, snapped at the air in his direction. He froze for a moment, then continued to lift his arm slowly. “The chips aren’t linked—unless Rabbit lied.”
“He didn’t lie. He was nice enough to program your frequency in though.” I snickered. “There’s no place you can go on any world, in any universe, that Cade and I won’t find you. You know that, right?”
He smiled. “I know that. But if you’re not physically able to follow me…” With several careful jabs at his arm, hand linked with Ava, he skipped. Or, at least he tried. Nothing happened. He poked at his forearm again, more violently this time. “What—what the hell did you do?”
“Me?” I kept my voice low and my posture relaxed. He’d run out his allotted number of skips. He was stranded here for twenty-four hours. “I’m standing right in front of you. What could I have done?”
“You—”
A shot rang out and one of the wolves to my left yelped. It convulsed and hit the ground, followed by another shot, and another dog down. Dylan used the distraction and bolted for the trees, dragging Ava behind as the third went down.
The remaining wolf didn’t take it well. It let out a series of snarls, then lunged. I threw up my arms to protect my face and collapsed beneath the weight of it, biting back a roar as its teeth sank into my arm. I managed to hold the beast at bay, but with every passing second, its teeth got closer and closer to my throat…
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ash