Who did this to her? I’ll kill them. Whoever it is, they’re dead.
“Somebody help!” I shouted again. A red emergency button on the wall caught my eye. I lifted my foot, scooting sideways, and kicked it with full force. A bell rang through the room and suddenly a crowd of doctors and nurses rushed in as the door was finally flung open.
“What the hell happened in here?” one of them shouted, taking in the broken glass and exposed window.
I held Holly’s legs tight as the dresser was slid over and a doctor stood on top, releasing Holly’s neck from the confines of the string. She fell into my arms, her eyes rolling into the back of her head, her face a mixture of dark red and blue.
“Put her on the bed.”
I laid her down on the white sheets and stood beside the bed, frozen, as half a dozen people crowded around, jumping into action.
“Who left her with shoelaces?”
“Airways clear. She’s breathing, but irregularly.”
“At least we’re not cleaning up a pool of blood this time.”
“Sedate her again until we can consult her family again. I don’t care how opposed they are to restraints, she’s just going to keep doing this over and over again. One of these times we’ll be too late.”
One of Holly’s arms was flipped over, a needle inserted into it. My eyes traveled the length of her biceps down to her elbow and then I gasped, seeing the streaks of red scabs, scars two to three inches long, covering her forearms. Cuts. Slit wrists.
Slowly, I backed away from the bed. My chest was caving in. I’m dying. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t see this anymore.
“Jackson! Jackson!” I barely registered Emily, still trapped in the doorway, blocked by the crowd of people. “You can’t change this. It’s just a half-jump!”
My feet started to move in her direction, my hand reaching out until I grasped her fingers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DAY 2: 2009
I knew that Emily had pulled us right back to Holly’s room in 2009. I knew that my body hadn’t really left and the horror I’d seen seconds ago was only a mirror image of reality, but I still couldn’t gather a single thought or a word.
My legs shook and I told myself to sit down, only to realize that I was already seated on Holly’s bed. I’d never gotten up.
“Why … how…?” I managed to sputter before adding, “When?”
Emily’s voice wavered as she spoke and her hand landed on my arm, gripping me tight. “It’s the virus, Jackson, it’s spreading. That’s why I had to leave 2522. I woke up one morning and everything had changed. Lonnie was gone. The destruction happens much earlier now.”
I should probably have been crying after what I’d just seen. But the shock, the panic was too great for tears. “When did that happen?” I emphasized that so I wouldn’t have to say the words out loud.
“A year from now,” she whispered.
One year. One year and the world would be a horrible place. Not a hundred or two hundred. We’d all need a bucket list at this rate. It wasn’t crumbled buildings and piles of remains. It was the fall of sanity. The one thing we were allowed to keep no matter how bad the environment became around us.
“One year,” I repeated aloud, resting my head in my shaking hands.
“I went to see Eileen,” Emily said, quickly brushing a few tears from her cheeks.
I lifted my head to look at her. “That’s right, you did go to see Eileen because she knew about … about Courtney…”
“There might be a way to fix this. A theory she had.”
Already, based on Emily’s reluctant tone, I could tell this plan was either very unlikely to work or very dangerous. Or both.
“We have to get her notes,” Emily said. “And then figure the rest of it out.”
“Does that mean you’re staying here with me?” It was selfish to want her here when I knew that she’d had a better life with Lonnie in 2522, but I couldn’t help it. Emily had become such an important part of my life.
“Yes, I’m staying.”
There was a finality in her tone that scared me, but suddenly all I could think about was Holly in the other room. I got up and opened the bedroom door, gesturing for Emily to follow. The TV blared, playing an early-morning repeat of some Food Network show. Holly had her feet up on the coffee table, a knitted blanket with frayed edges thrown over her and her head falling sideways as she slept.
All it took to wake her were a few creaks as the wood floor groaned beneath our weight. Holly’s eyes bounced from me to Emily then she rubbed the sleep from them before looking again.
The blanket was tossed aside. “Okay, Emily, right? But not the same Emily…”
“Same version, just older.” Emily emerged fully from behind me and rushed over to Holly, plopping down and hugging her.
Holly hugged her back and glanced up at me, her eyes full of questions. “Just tell me if we’re leaving again? Like, leaving this year or this timeline or whatever. That’s all I want to know.”
“No one’s leaving,” I said finally.
Holly sighed with relief and Emily stood up again, moving toward the kitchen. “I’m going to get some water.”
I took Emily’s spot beside Holly and turned my head to face her. “Couldn’t sleep?”
She shrugged. “I did sleep for a little while and then I just wanted to walk around my house and look at everything else and then I wanted to watch TV. It just seemed so…”
“Normal,” I finished.
“Yeah, normal.” She eyed me carefully then lifted a hand to rest it on my cheek. “Oh boy. Those are some big, big secrets you’re wearing, Jackson Meyer.”
I leaned in, resting my lips against her forehead, and closed my eyes. “I’m just now beginning to realize that my life resembles a very difficult game of chess. Keep this piece, sacrifice this one. Move this way and twenty moves from now … checkmate.”
She pulled away from me and lifted my arm around her shoulders, then curled up against my chest. The emotional walls between us had clearly been knocked down in the past twelve or so hours and I couldn’t think of either a better or worse time for this to happen. Instead of thinking, I sank farther into the couch and pulled her a little tighter into my arms and just tried to breathe … in … and out.
Emily eventually returned and stood in front of us, waiting for someone to make a decision. Holly yawned, and mumbled, “A few more hours of ignorance, please? We shouldn’t go anywhere in the middle of the night, right?”
Emily took the spot on the couch beside me and we all sat in silence watching episode after episode of Iron Chef until the sun began to rise and drift through the space between the blinds in Holly’s living room.
Around six-thirty in the morning, after both Holly and Emily had drifted off, the doorknob to the front door twisted. My senses were immediately alert, but I relaxed after watching the intruder’s obviously noisy and amateur method of entering the house. It wasn’t anyone who shouldn’t be here.
Katherine Flynn stumbled through the door, tugging a rolling, carry-on-sized suitcase. She froze the second her eyes landed on me. “What—?”
Her voice must have pulled Holly from her sleep because she jerked awake and was on her feet so suddenly it startled me and Emily. I figured she’d rush into an explanation about why I was here while her mom was out of town. Once, with the original Holly, we’d been caught in a more-than-compromising position when her mom had been out for the day and returned about five hours early to find us asleep in Holly’s bed, clothing spread out all over the floor and the awful casserole we’d concocted for lunch, and then forgotten about, literally on fire in the oven, smoke filling every room.
But today, Holly didn’t start explaining or even mention me at all. She just fell into her mom’s arms, hugging her like she hadn’t seen her for weeks, which honestly was about right. Katherine looked extremely startled but squeezed her back anyway.
“What’s going on, Holly? What
happened?”
My chest ached and my throat tightened. This was too hard to watch. Seeing Holly’s future a year from now had nearly killed me and this? This show of emotion was like stomping on a soldier who had already fallen to the ground.
“Nothing,” Holly mumbled, her voice shaking as she sniffled. “I just … I mean…”
I cleared my throat. “There was a security breach at work yesterday. It was pretty scary and Holly didn’t want to come home alone.” I glanced at Emily, who nodded her encouragement. “And I’m taking care of my cousin. So we just thought we’d hang out here with her until you got back.”
“You work together?” Katherine said over Holly’s shoulder. After I nodded my answer, she pulled back and got a good look at her daughter for the first time. I braced myself for the reaction. “Did you … did you cut your hair?”
Holly laughed and quickly brushed away a few tears. “Yeah, I cut my hair. It was just too long.”
“You look thinner. Did you forget to eat all week or something?” Katherine turned Holly around and guided her toward the kitchen. “You’re eating every bite of breakfast that I make you and taking every single vitamin I set in front of you, understood?”
Katherine shook her head, sighing, but I could tell she didn’t mind taking care of her daughter, maybe even enjoyed the opportunity. “I knew you should have gone to Indiana with me. Grandpa insisted you were old enough to stay on your own. Shows how much he knows, right?”
Emily and I followed them into the kitchen and sat at the small round table with Holly as her mother shuffled around, quickly putting a meal together for her allergy-ridden, vegetarian daughter.
After the basic introductions, with Katherine’s back to us as she cooked, we answered casual questions as best as we could.
“How old are you, Emily?”
“Twelve,” Emily said.
Katherine spun around to look her over carefully. “Older than I would have guessed. Reminds me of someone else I knew at that age…” She tossed a grin in Holly’s direction.
A plate of cut-up melon, apples, pineapple, and strawberries was placed in the center of the table. Both Holly and I looked at it, wide-eyed, before diving in. Emily reached slowly for a piece of fruit, obviously not reacting like it was foreign as the two of us were.
The fruit was followed by piles of scrambled eggs, orange juice, toast, and fake sausage that tasted much better than I’d anticipated. Holly was given more vitamins than I knew existed but she swallowed each one without complaint.
Katherine sat down with us, taking only small portions of everything. Holly shoveled the food in as fast as I had but she never took her eyes off her mom. Like maybe she wanted to memorize every movement, every characteristic just in case they ended up apart again.
“Is this what’s going to happen when you live in the dorms this fall?” Katherine said to Holly. “You have to be responsible. You have to take care of yourself.”
Holly set her fork down, letting it clank against her plate. “You’re right. I’m probably not ready for that. I want to live at home.”
This was the most bizarre conversation I could possibly imagine at the moment, but luckily we were interrupted five minutes into Holly and Katherine’s verbal list of the pros and cons of her living in the dorms at NYU in the coming fall.
The doorbell rang at around eight in the morning and Katherine rushed to answer it, Holly quickly on her heels. A few seconds later, Adam and Stewart stood in the kitchen, trying to hide that they were clearly pissed off at us, how shocked they were to see a twelve-year-old Emily, and the relief that we were still alive.
“How’s it going?” I said to Adam. “You guys still freaked out about that whole security thing at camp yesterday?”
Adam’s eyebrows lifted. “Right … yeah … that was … man…”
“Insane,” Stewart filled in for him.
Holly’s mom stuck her hand out to Stewart. “Katherine Flynn, and you are?”
“Jenni Stewart,” she said, shaking hands and then nodding toward Adam. “Adam’s girlfriend.”
“So you work at the camp, too?” Katherine asked, her eyes bouncing between Adam and Stewart as if just looking at them several times would help her figure out how this unlikely pair had become a couple.
Adam looked nervous as he awkwardly tossed an arm around Stewart’s shoulders. “Yep, she’s a counselor, too.”
Stewart turned her head and grinned up at Adam. “That’s right. I just love little children.”
Adam coughed back a laugh. “She has amazing patience. And tolerance.”
“Are you guys hungry? I’ve got plenty of eggs left,” Katherine said, gesturing toward the table filled with plates of fruit, toast, and eggs.
Pretending everything was okay and that I hadn’t seen the worst event possible take place just hours ago was making me feel caged and claustrophobic. I stood up and grabbed Emily’s hand, pulling her to her feet beside me. “We’ve actually got to get back to the city. They came to pick us up.”
My eyes locked with Holly’s and I waited for her to speak. “I’m staying here,” she said.
I hated leaving her but I knew there was no changing her mind. She just wanted to sink into her old life and I wanted her to be able to do that. More than anything.
Despite the fact that Holly hadn’t established any relationship with me from Katherine’s point of view, I still leaned in to kiss Holly’s cheek before leaving.
“I’ll call you later, okay?” I whispered into her ear.
She gripped the front of my shirt, holding me in place. “Do I even have a phone number? Do you?”
Adam overheard her and nodded, indicating that he’d taken care of this already. Maybe he’d retrieved his own phone and already had Holly’s number programmed in it? Did that mean that he didn’t have the duplicate-self issue either? Or worse—the I’m supposed to be dead so I can’t show my face at home issue. He looked too happy at the moment to have encountered any problems with going home so everything must be okay on that front.
Holly met my eyes again and then gave me a quick kiss on the mouth, even with her mom watching and Adam and Stewart watching. “Thanks for staying over last night.”
“Sure.” I stepped away from her and headed toward the door with Emily. “I’ll see you later, Holly.”
The second we were out the door and down the block, Adam and Stewart both dropped their facade and turned to me, looking royally pissed off.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Stewart snapped. “Do you know how worried your dad and Courtney were?”
I stared at the sidewalk ahead of us, and muttered, “Sorry.”
“What’s the deal with the kid?” Adam nodded toward Emily.
Emily’s hand landed in my palm as she walked beside me, matching my stride perfectly. I couldn’t say it out loud. Couldn’t speak the words that would explain why she came back and what we had seen. All I could do was keep walking, heading toward the station and the train that would get us back to the city and force us to make the next move as the clock ticked on this horrible game of chess.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DAY 2: 2009. MIDMORNING
After standing in silence while Dad chewed me out for leaving, while looking way more relieved to see me than angry, I snuck away from the group and sat on the floor in the room Holly had occupied the previous night.
Finally, I allowed myself to absorb what I’d seen and within seconds my entire body was shaking, my stomach in knots. My chest tightened with that familiar panicky feeling, but this time the dread was a whole notch higher. Sweat trickled down my neck and back.
When the door flew open, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Courtney stepped inside, slamming the door behind her.
“Do you have any idea how much I hate you right now?” She had her arms folded over her chest, foot tapping with more than the average annoyed-with-my-brother body language. Her eyes met mine and all the anger dropped from her face. “Oh my God, wh
at’s wrong?”
She sat in front of me, resting her hands on my knees. I drew in a shaky breath and then allowed a few tears to fall out of the corners of my eyes before pressing the heels of my hands to my face, covering them. “Holly … Holly’s…”
My composure was completely gone and losing my shit like this wasn’t exactly a regular occurrence for me. Courtney had to have been shocked but she hid it well, scooting closer to wrap her arms around me, her head leaning in close to mine.
“What happened to Holly, Jackson?”
I shook my head, sucking in a breath and finally pulling my voice to the surface. “Not yet … nothing yet but next year … she’s going to try and kill herself … over and over again.”
My eyes stayed hidden behind my hands as I relayed everything Emily and I had seen to Courtney. She was eerily quiet and still as a statue, her hands frozen on my back.
“I don’t know if I can keep fighting this battle,” I mumbled. “It keeps getting bigger and more hopeless.”
“Jackson…”
I lifted my head, wiping my eyes on the T-shirt Holly had loaned me. “I want to stop trying. I want to spend time with you, with Dad, Holly, and Adam, and Emily. I don’t want to take it for granted that we’re together right now. I want to be selfish and not think about the rest of the world anymore. I’m not ready to start missing you again.”
“Or Holly,” Courtney choked out through her own tears. “You stayed with her last night? Like all night?”
Despite the emotions still flowing freely in my head and my heart, I managed to roll my eyes. “Like you’d ever give me the details of your secret makeout sessions with Mason.”
I had meant that to be a joke so it caught me off guard when Courtney rested her own face against her knees and started crying really hard. I stretched out my legs and put my arms around her. “What happened with Mason? You can tell me. I won’t say anything to him or Dad.”