“I don’t know what she needs to do to get it set to the right year,” Heath mutters. “They need to hurry.”
“No kidding.” I focus on the house. A woman steps onto the porch, leaving the front door open behind her. She gazes at the rift in absolute awe.
“Heath—” My voice is drowned out by a terrible scream. The woman clutches her chest, looks into the house, and lets loose another wail.
Price
CASCADE’S WORDS ECHO IN MY HEAD. I’m leaving, Price.
“Wait. What?” I say when I get my voice to work. My fingers automatically tighten around hers.
“Not for long, not permanently, but I have to make sure Saige gets home. And I need a couple of days to figure some things out.” Her words rush over each other, and I’ve never heard her sound so unsure.
“My dad agreed to everything, all my demands,” I say. “Cooper will go through the rift, he’ll play the Black Hat somewhere else. Dad said he’s going to stop using the rift for a while. You don’t have to go. We have time—”
“I need more time, Price.”
“I’m not ready,” I say. “My backpack is upstairs.”
“I’m just going to make sure Saige gets home,” Cascade says, and I hear: I don’t want you to come.
“Oh, okay.” Our eyes lock.
She looks more scared than I’ve ever seen her. Her mouth opens, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she leans toward me and kisses me like she wants me to come with her.
She pulls away and takes a deep breath. “Just a couple of days,” she says. “Three, tops.”
“I’ll check on your grandfather,” I offer.
“If you want,” she says. “But Soda will take care of him until I get back.”
A woman’s scream interrupts my next question: What do you need three days to do? Instantly, I’m on my feet. “My mom,” I say, disentangling myself from Cascade’s arms and scooting to the edge of the shed.
The house is backlit by the rift. A dozen different scenarios run through my mind. Did someone come through the rift? From another time, or from another dimension? Cold fear squeezes my stomach. Has Mom simply discovered the rift? Is she hurt? Why is she even here?
I step from behind the shed and watch as the rift emerges from the back of the house, pulsing with wide bands of magenta light. It’s huge.
Cascade seems mesmerized by the change in the rift. I yell, “You can’t go into that! It’s unstable.”
She doesn’t seem to hear me, but drops to a crouch as my mom screams again. In my mind, I see the footage my dad shot in the alternate dimension. I watch the Neapolitan man’s black coat fluttering in the wind. I hear the gunshot. I have no idea if the person he killed was a man or a woman, but in my mind, the scenario plays out with my mom crumpling to the porch.
I’m halfway across the backyard when the world goes silent and the rift flashes once. It’s eerie and makes me pause mid-step.
“Price,” Cascade hisses from the corner of the house, her face brightly lit by the rift as it stabilizes.
I pause, listening to the sss sound in my name. Cascade looks desperate and wild. Finally, she sprints into my front yard. I don’t hear anything. No screaming. No breathing. No hissed names. Dad said he’d have his security on-site, and I can only hope that’s true.
One moment, I’m standing in utter darkness waiting for any indication of danger. The next, I get hurled backward, and everything is simultaneously bright and dark.
Price
MY BODY SLAMS INTO THE SHED. The pain is immediate and sharp, spreading through my back and into my legs and shoulders. The breath leaves my body, and I smell the pungent odor of smoke.
I cough in an attempt to get a decent breath, but I can’t. Smoke fills the air around me, and I know I’m in real trouble. I get to my feet, but my muscles don’t want to work and I stumble to my knees. The sharp popping sound of flames makes me turn back to the house.
It’s on fire.
Blue fire.
I blink, and my house isn’t burning anymore. The air is clear, smokeless. The shed is whole, and staring at me as if Cascade will peek around the corner at any moment, hissing my name. The night breathes darkness over everything, and I have the strangest feeling that this is all wrong.
I sprint across the lawn, yelling for my mom. The wind is still; everything lies in pools of moonlight, cold and flat.
I crash through the garage entrance, only to be greeted by sunshine streaming through the open door. My mind buzzes, trying to catch up to the situation. I stride down the driveway, casting a glance to the front yard, where I expect to see the wreckage of my house, or my mom, or something.
I only see the front porch with the rain gutter leading to my closed window. Nothing looks out of place—except the sunshine.
Something is absolutely wrong with the events in my life. They don’t match up, like the timeline has been broken, split.
I think of the flick Cascade showed me, how she said the results of a rift collapse can affect different timelines in different ways. I wish she were here so she could tell me what’s happened. I can only hope the timeline she’s escaping to won’t be destroyed.
The sunshine shimmers, being masked by darkness for a blink of a moment. “It’s flickering,” I say to the sky, as it continues to pulse from night to day, day to night.
Finally, night wins, and the sky stays black. My house flickers with those blue flames, but I know it’s not true fire. Sparkly light bounces off the house next door, which also appears to be burning. I’m back in the timeline where Cascade said she was leaving and my mom was screaming. I feel dizzy, and my stomach swoops with nausea.
The smoke hovers heavy in the air, choking my every breath. “Cascade,” I manage, but she’s nowhere to be found. “Mom.”
I want to search every timeline for Cascade to make sure she’s somewhere safe. I want to make sure my mother is okay. Torn, I turn in a circle. A hot fist squeezes my chest as I stumble toward the house I should be running from.
Inside, images flicker in and out of existence. Mom’s standing at the fridge, then sitting at the breakfast bar. Dad’s buttering his toast, then walking toward his office. I eat breakfast, then shimmer to the sink to wash my hands.
I hightail it out of the kitchen and away from the damaged timeline as it trembles, showing images of the past. In the living room, the three of us sit on the couch, looking at the wall of flatpanels. They remain dormant, but we look like we’re really enjoying whatever they’re showing. Even as I realize I’m still living in a broken, unstable timeline, my family disappears from the couch.
“The time rift has collapsed,” I say out loud to myself. I don’t know what that means. Is it permanently open? The idea turns my insides to ice. If it’s open, anyone can come through at any time, from anywhere—including through the portal that links my house to the alternate universe.
Equally disturbing is the thought that the rift is ruined for good. Cascade needs to return to 2073. My throat feels too narrow to swallow, and I have a lump rising through my chest that hurts. She has to come home.
I turn toward the stairs and see Cascade tiptoeing across the carpet. I whisper her name, but she ignores me. She must exist in another timeline. She’s an echo, an imprint on the timeline, but not present at this moment. I follow her upstairs. She slips into my room, and I watch my own face light up from simply seeing her.
Suddenly I know how I truly feel about her. Does she recognize it too?
Everything is warped, like the first time I saw Saige rising from my body. That feels like it happened six years ago instead of just six days.
I need to stabilize my timeline—need to find my parents and Cascade—but I don’t know how.
Saige
AFTER THE WOMAN SCREAMED, Heath leaned in close and said, “You better get through that rift if you’re going to go.”
Panic races through me. Chloe still hasn’t appeared from the backyard, though she had to have heard that s
cream. I take a moment to say, “Thank you, Heath,” before I sprint across the street toward Price’s house.
The woman screams again, the sound piercing the night and chilling my blood. My step falters. I don’t even know if I can enter the rift from outside. The rift is huge, light bouncing and gyrating almost to the sidewalk.
Chloe emerges from the backyard, and the rift illuminates her face. She looks terrified, yet fierce—exactly how I hope I look.
“Let’s go!” She grabs my hand just as I make it to the sidewalk. She tows me toward the gaping mouth of light piercing the sky. Before we meet it, she pauses, searching for something I could never find.
“Going somewhere?” a man asks.
My heart flips. I turn and size up the Ryerson in front of me. His bright blue eyes are very, very cold. He’s tall, and muscular, and I wouldn’t mess with him in any time period. My sister glares at him, and I see the person she’s become while we’ve been apart. She truly is Cascade Kaufman now.
“I’m taking my sister home,” she says. “I’m coming back.”
“Be sure you do,” Daddy Ryerson says. “I will be forced to take safety precautions if you don’t.”
Cascade doesn’t answer, and by the daggered look she’s giving Price’s father, I’m thinking she’d like to never come back. She sidesteps, dragging me with her as she continues to examine the rift.
“Okay, here.” Cascade disappears in front of me. I step into the rift only a few feet behind her, with Price’s dad watching. I expect my foot to hit the grass in my own front yard—no angry time lord, no screaming, no chaos. But I don’t. There is no sky. No walls. No color.
I take another step, surprised when my foot meets the resistance of a floor I can’t see. I reach forward, hoping to find Cascade, but this nothingness has swallowed her whole.
I pace in one direction, then back in the next. My heart sprints as I realize I’m trapped. I feel someone’s hand on my arm, and I jerk away only to find I’m still alone. My name is whispered, and I spin toward the sound. No one’s there.
How am I going to get out of here?
As soon as I think it, an unseen force slams into me from behind, sending me spiraling through the white space of the time rift. I can’t tell which way is up or down or left or right. My stomach swoops from side to side from the violent motion.
I don’t know how long it goes on. Too long. My muscles feel stretched too thin and like they’ll snap at any moment.
Finally, I see the idea of a cold, blue sky above me. Still flying forward, I land on my hands and knees in the dirt and under the piercing chill of winter.
Price
I WANDER THROUGH ALL THE previously forbidden areas of the house, including my parents’ bedroom. I find nothing there but a stark work space for my mom and file upon file on her flatpanels. She has four, each labeled with a different area of her job, and one labeled “personal” for our family finances and other legal documents.
I enter Dad’s office and see him sitting at the head of the table, his eyes cutting toward a businessman who’s speaking. I yell and flap my arms, and the meeting continues as if I’m not there.
Dad slides his depositor across the table, and the man—I recognize him as the mayor of Castle Pines—loads money onto it before passing it back. A screen set into the table is signed by the mayor, and he stands to shake Dad’s hand.
I sneak a peek at his files and find that the mayor just hired Dad to go back twenty-six years into the past and make sure he doesn’t go out with a particular girl in college—one who, nine months later, has a son who has recently come asking for money.
He paid three hundred thousand dollars to erase a past mistake. Not only that, but a person’s life. Someone who exists in my reality now, but who won’t after Cascade Kaufman completes the job.
The disgust I felt when Cas admitted to this particular rift-walk creeps up on me again. I scan the additional files on Dad’s tabletop panel and find dozens of equally disturbing jobs, several from high-ranking politicians.
Forty-two years in the past to fix a medical entrance exam.
Fifteen years in the past to modify test results.
Four years in the past to switch identities before getting caught.
Sixty years to start a fire and buy a house.
Dad’s got every politician in town in his pocket, every law enforcement agent, everyone important and influential. Each job comes with a different price tag, and each one’s been assigned a walker. I notice that Cas does quite a few of the most unsavory ones. I don’t care. I’ve already imagined every horrible scenario she could’ve found herself in, and I still love her.
I witness a meeting Dad held with his committee at the Bureau. The snaps of his alter ego are passed back and forth. Dad shows the flick I watched in Sector O. Several more snaps and flicks are shared, and they talk in silent voices about the VersB identities. I can’t tell how long ago this happened, but everyone looks grim when the meeting ends.
In the room where I first found Cascade’s notebook, I watch as Dad’s rift-walkers sort through piles of clothing. I realize they’re changing into era-appropriate clothing, based on which job they’ve been assigned. After all, they can’t go into the past wearing the wrong thing. I suddenly understand why the room was cleared—Dad didn’t want the Hoods to discover his stash of time travel paraphernalia.
I can’t stand to be in my house a moment longer. My feet carry me to Cascade’s quickly. She went through the rift, and it’s possible she won’t be able to return. The front door swings open, and I enter without knocking. I see her lounging in the living room with her grandfather. I watch them eating ice cream at the kitchen table.
My heart skips a beat when she laughs, and I can hear it. I move toward her and try to gather her into a hug, but my hands pass through her echo without making contact. I feel like I’m losing her over and over again.
I turn away from the images playing like a flick and go upstairs. Every piece of electronic equipment from the last decade fills one of the bedrooms. Some of it looks outdated and dirty. Four screens cover an entire wall, and her grandfather’s echo sits at them, Circuit radio blaring, a glazed film in his eye.
Sometimes he moves slowly through the screens and I can read what’s on them. Newspaper clippings. News reports. Every once in a while, he makes a note on his flatpanel, something that looks like a miniature because of the huge wallscreen. It looks like he’s trying to find inconsistencies, but I’m not sure.
Sometimes he flies through the reports, and I don’t know if he’s looking for events that have changed, or if he’s making sure no one crosses over from an alternate dimension. I stride to the wall and tap it with my fist, determined to find out.
Instantly, I’m thrown backward and the color and time rushes back into life.
When I open my eyes, I’m lying in the backyard. My mom’s frantic voice fills the smoky air. Blue lights flicker above me, and I realize medical personnel are on-scene.
“Price!” Mom calls again, her voice near hysteria.
“I’m here,” I cough-say. Every muscle in my body protests when I stand. I limp toward the garage when I realize—
There is no garage.
“Mom,” I call, frozen in the backyard. “I’m outside.” I feel stupid; everyone is outside. There is no house in which to seek shelter. At least there’s no rift either.
She comes stumbling over wreckage and wraps her arms around me. She holds onto me tight, the way she used to when I was little and had skinned my knees. “There you are. Why aren’t you linked-in?”
I have no idea, and when I try to activate, I can’t. Sharp thoughts pierce my mind: What if Cooper couldn’t lure the Hoods somewhere else? Why can’t I access the Circuit?
“Where’s Dad?” I ask, suddenly desperate for a drink of water.
“Out front with the med p’s.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Everyone has a lot of questions for you.”
Since our house is unusable, we
relocate to the Bureau. Dad claimed he needed to assess the damage done on the newly-registered rift at our house.
Mom huddles in the corner, her attention on her flatpanel. I catch a glimpse of her screen as I wait next to her. She’s researching the Privatize American Again movement, and what their stance on time travel is.
Dad talks to his scientists, looks at data and graphs. His eyebrows stretch into his hairline, and I wish I could hear what he’s saying. I don’t need a team of people or any fancy gadgets to know what happened. The rift collapsed. I can only hope that Cascade wasn’t in it.
I lean my head back and close my eyes. I feel so powerless, so helpless. I hate that I can’t perform a search and find out if she’s safe.
A bulky Hood comes to get me, and I follow him into one of my dad’s conference rooms where five more men are waiting. They fire questions at me, one after the other, with barely time in between to breathe. I prefer that to being beaten, but I tell them I know nothing. I’ve given up the Black Hat identity. I certainly can’t start running hacks again. The rift is gone, so Dad’s lucrative business is shot. I feel a strange satisfaction about that, but most of all, I’m relieved the rift is gone so that nobody from the anchored universe can cross over.
I got everything I wanted, even if it wasn’t the way I wanted to get it.
Price
A WEEK LATER, I SLIP out of the apartment in the city. We’ve moved into it for the time being, and the one bedroom-one bath is nowhere big enough for all of us. I’m sleeping on the couch, and the walls are paper-thin.
I get on the el-rail and head out to the suburbs. I’ve been going to Cascade’s house every day to check on her grandfather. It’s been seven days, and she still hasn’t returned. I quell the jittery feeling in my stomach by purchasing a loaf of bread for her grandfather. I know cinnamon raisin is his favorite.