Mend (Rift Walkers #2)

  “Trying to fix it.”

  I spin back to him. “It’s not fixed? How did Cascade’s message get through?”

  “We can send small items, nothing more. It won’t support a person.” He speaks through a tight jaw.

  “Dad, why are you trying to fix it?”

  He blinks a couple of times before he regains his composure. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Good, because I don’t. Do you want your alternate persona to slit your throat in the middle of the night?”

  “Don’t be a child,” he lectures. “The rift is much more stable than that. It’s not opening by itself anymore.”

  “It shouldn’t be opening at all!”

  “I’m not using it for the same thing I did previously.”

  “Right.” Because I believe everything my dad tells me. I roll my eyes as the punctuation to my statement.

  “I’m not. I’ve built a research lab in the room around the corner, and four scientists work here each day, studying the rift and it’s properties. We’re tying to figure out why it exploded, and what causes such things.”

  “So you can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Dad sighs, his shoulders sagging. “No, Price. I’m done with the rift-walking business.”

  “Right. That’s why you were planning to go back and get Cascade.”

  His gaze sharpens. “She can’t be allowed to live in the past. It’s as much for her safety as for mine.”

  “She has two years left on her contract.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you’re not doing the rift-walking business…” I squint at him, trying to figure out what he is doing.

  He’s not like Monroe. I can’t read him at all.

  “Dad—”

  “Stay out of the forums. I’ve erased Owen Kaufman.” He shoots me a daggered look that pierces any hope I might have had about doing things without my dad finding out. “Send your vitals in. Keep your end of the bargain.”

  His tone dismisses me, and I storm back upstairs. I don’t dare search the Circuit to find evidence to corroborate or refute what he’s said. I can’t hail Heath. Dad’s made it impossible for me to do anything.

  And so the anger, the frustration, the need to jam writhes under my skin, growing hotter by the moment. I have nothing to relieve it. Nothing to extinguish it. Nothing to do but watch, and wait, and pray Cascade can come back. Maybe we can still have our future together, no matter what year it is. I fall asleep with that fantasy filling my mind.

  I don’t know where I am when I wake up. My first thought is that it’s weird I didn’t get up and surf the Link for a few hours in the middle of the night.

  The second thought is that there’s too much light coming in my window. The third is that my mattress has become incredibly lumpy.

  I roll over and fall right off the bed. Only then do I realize I wasn’t on a bed, but a couch. The couch in our downtown apartment, where I slept for three months while the house was being rebuilt.

  “What the—?”

  “Hurry up, Price,” Mom says, bustling into the kitchen. “You’ll be late for your outdoor practice.”

  I don’t have practice in the morning , I almost say. I hold it back, because something major is off here. Only those who don’t have educational clearance to register for their own classes are forced to schedule their outdoor practice first thing in the morning.

  The Receiver in my palm glows its normal, steady blue. I can access the Circuit just fine.

  “Dad?” I chat as soon as I get my inbox open.

  “Price?” comes over the speaker in my ear. “Where are you?”

  “The living room?” It comes out as a question, because I don’t understand why I woke up here when we haven’t been living in the downtown apartment since September.

  “Is Mom there?”

  She’s wiping the counter, as per her usual OCD tendencies to eradicate all germs. “Yeah.”

  “Does she seem freaked out?”

  “No, but I am. What’s going on, Dad?”

  “Alternate time line,” he says, his voice soft and far away.

  “Alternate time line?” My voice is squeaky and shrill. “What does that mean?”

  “It means someone altered something in our time line. We don’t own the house in the suburbs anymore.”

  I can’t process his words fast enough. Who could alter our time line? Does that reset everyone’s time line? Will Heath know me if I chat him?

  “My feed says I’m a data engineer at The Global Initiative,” Dad says. “And I’m going to be late for work if I don’t leave in the next ten minutes.”

  “A data engineer? Isn’t that how you started your career?” And I don’t even know what The Global Initiative is.

  “Yes,” he says, his tone clipped and angry now.

  “So what do we do?” I flip through the messages in my inbox. They’re all for assignments, homework, and social time reminders. Nothing from Heath. No flag for not sending in my vitals within the hour, as instructed.

  “I don’t know,” Dad says. “I don’t know.”

  Cascade

  I WAKE THE NEXT MORNING WITH Dad on my mind. I’d tried to save him at least a half dozen times. I’d watched him die while I hid behind a cabinet in Mom’s lab. That rift had been clear blue, absolutely cerulean. It shouldn’t have exploded.

  I stayed until the building quieted—not that Mom had called anyone. No ambulances. No security. She hadn’t needed to. There wasn’t a body. I’d looked through her notes and realized she’d used the wrong laser, one with too much power. And too much hydro-2, a chemical that allows molecules to separate.

  In another instance, I’d intercepted them before the experiment began. Dad died in a car accident on the way home—a car accident caused by the rift blaring to life in a busy intersection, blinding a delivery truck driver, who plowed into Dad’s vehicle.

  I’d tried everything I could think of. Nothing worked. Dad always died. I’d stopped trying to figure out why I couldn’t save him. As I lie in bed, I contemplate the idea of God. Maybe I should just let Dad go, the way Mom has.

  In the reality I lived as a ten-year-old, I remember her not coming home for four days. She’d called that night and said we needed to watch Shep, and in the morning our neighbor came and helped us get ready for school. When we got home in the afternoon, Grandma was there.

  We didn’t see Mom until the funeral—closed casket, of course—four days later. Though I could squeeze a few hours out of most of my rift walks, I couldn’t take four days to follow Mom. Guy would’ve known, would’ve asked too many questions. Questions I didn’t have answers to anyway.

  I still have those questions, no answers, and lots of time. Saige slides out of her bed, and I lean up on my elbows. “Want to skip school today?”

  She pauses in the mouth of the bathroom. “What for?”

  “Want to investigate Dad’s death.”

  Her face pales and then her eyes take on an angry edge. “I just want to go to school.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll do it myself.”

  She proceeds into the bathroom, but I don’t make it out of bed before she returns. “Fine, I’ll go. But Mom can’t know. And if she finds out, you take all the blame.” She cocks her hip and glares.

  I contain my smile. “Deal.”

  She sighs, her fake frustration fading. “Do we have to go through the rift?”

  I think of the supplements I need to take twice a day, and my stomach twists. “No, we’ll just go to Mom’s lab.”

  Saige’s eyebrows pinch together. “Won’t Mom be there?”

  “You really don’t listen to anything she says.” I’d thought Saige was just pretending at how annoyed Mom made her. When she keeps staring at me, I say, “Mom has a fundraiser downtown today. She won’t be in the lab.”

  “A fundraiser?”

  “She lost her funding from the Ryerson’s,” I say. “She had a few little donations t
hat have kept her going for a couple of years, but her money’s about to run out.”

  “What happens if she can’t find a donor?”

  “Do you think Mom will really give up?”

  Saige pulls on a pair of leggings. “Seems like a great way to get this rift out of our lives.”

  I don’t tell her I want the rift to stay, that I need it to get back to Price. No need in angering her before our quest. The thought crosses my mind that I should go to Mom’s lab alone, step through the rift, and figure out how to get to Price from whatever time I land in.

  That plan has heaps of problems, though. Number one, depending on who sponsors Mom’s research, the future could be radically different. Maybe I need to send another note to Guy, get him to let his grandfather know that being in bed with the devil might be better than letting her sleep with someone else.

  My life hadn’t changed that much in the five years I lived in the future. But Mom was just trying to recreate the results I’d taken with me. Now, she’s achieved that. Now, she’s moving into unchartered territory. Now, we won’t know who she’s working with or what she’s discovering. And that makes the future completely unknown.

  The way it should be , I think. I pull on some jeans, my futuristic boots, and a black hoodie. Still, I can’t shake the nagging feeling that I need to get this issue with Dad worked out.

  I grab a protein bar as Saige collects her keys from the hook next to the door. I meet her in the garage, and she backs into the street. “I don’t exactly know where Mom’s lab is.”

  Surprise shoots through me. “She works at NovaRad. It’s in the business park on the east side of the city.”

  She types it into her phone and sets off down the street. I watch her drive, the subtle movement of her eyes to the mirrors, the tiny shifts on the wheel. I’d never learned to drive, as only the rich have cars in the future. I’ve never thought it would be that hard, especially because Saige makes it look so easy.

  The half hour to NovaRad is filled with tension and silence. Though I’ve apologized for stepping through the rift without a good-bye or an explanation, it doesn’t seem to be enough for my sister.

  “She works in the horology department on the eleventh floor,” I say after Saige parks. We both peer at the building, with its huge silver sign proclaiming to the world that NovaRad is the premier scientific firm in the world. In just a few years, I know Hyperion Labs will buy out NovaRad and they’ll become the world-wide leader in space-time research.

  At that point, Mom will lose her job—unless she can get a different financial backer and switch companies. In the future reality I lived, Mom had lost her job with the foundation of Hyperion Labs, stopped her research of time rifts, and moved into culinary school.

  With so many unknowns, I have no idea what will happen now.

  “Let’s go.” I get out of the car and stride across the parking lot. The building has sliding doors that allow us to enter without any credentials. The elevator also doesn’t require a code, an ID card, nothing. I’m not sure why I’m surprised. It’s not like we’re breaking into the Time Bureau, and if I’m being honest, a snick of disappointment slides through me.

  This is too easy, and it’s not very exciting.

  When we step onto the eleventh floor, an empty desk greets us. A single door waits beyond it, the rest of the floor curtained behind that. I’ve been inside before, many times, but this instance feels different.

  I step around the desk and try the door. Locked. I pull my mom’s ID card—well, a replica—out of my back pocket and swipe it on the card-reader stuck to the filing cabinet under the desk.

  A loud click fills the space, and we turn to find the door drifting open. I cut a look at Saige before stepping into Mom’s lab. It hasn’t changed much in the five years since I’ve been gone. The long, stainless steel counters remain. Several stations with tall stools, though I know no one works here but Mom.

  A dozen canisters are stacked against the back counter, and my heart constricts away from them. They hold the hydro-2 Mom needs to open the rift.

  I glance up, finding the ceiling covered with vents and ducts, either to blast this place with the cooled air she needs to regulate the temperature or to siphon away the waste produced from activating the rift.

  A laptop sleeps on the desk to my left, and Saige steps toward it. “That’s a decoy,” I say. “Mom won’t have anything important on it.” I nod to the locked cabinet standing next to the door behind the desk. “She keeps the data in there. Or at least she used to.”

  Saige busies herself with finding the key for the cabinet, but I open the steel door and step into what used to be Mom’s panic room. It’s still lined with metal walls, and several TV screens sit above the door. It’s narrow, and long, and several cabinets hold supplies like granola bars, bottled water, and toiletries. Next to that, a table with two chairs is piled with folders and papers.

  I head toward the back wall, which has a new addition since the last time I was here: A sleek picture frame hangs at eye-height, the metallic surface rippling from side to side.

  “Sa-aige,” I call, fear flowing through me at this unknown substance.

  “What?” She appears at my side, panic evident in her voice.

  I point at the frame, which is tall, almost reaching the floor like a full-length mirror.

  “What is that?” Her voice etches up in pitch.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  I take a step toward it, every cell in my body screaming for me to go the other way, and fast. A chill skates down my spine, causing goose bumps to erupt on my arms and the back of my neck.

  We approach, step by step, breath by breath, side by side.

  “Chloe, I don’t—” Saige stops as the surface of the mirror begins to undulate and change color.

  I suck in a breath and step back, my fingers closing around Saige’s arm to take her with me.

  “Do you see that?” she cries.

  “I see it,” I whisper. “Be quiet.”

  The metallic waves turn blue—the same bright turquoise color as a time rift. But this is no ordinary time rift. This is something completely different.

  Next to me, Saige practically hyperventilates. I take a few steps away from her, toward the rolling energy.

  “Chloe. Don’t!”

  I ignore my sister, my need to understand stronger than my need to stay safe. Price would call me insane, but the thought of seeing him again spurs me forward. I need to know what this is, need to know what Mom’s discovered, as it impacts my possibility to return to the future.

  The energy in the frame spurts out, almost like a splash that doesn’t quite fall to the floor because the liquid is too thick. Saige yelps, but I simply stare as the liquid forms into a hand, an arm, a torso, two legs.

  A fully formed figure steps out of the frame and begins to darken. A sucking sound soars through the space as the rift energy squelches back into the frame, leaving a man standing in front of me.

  A man with light brown hair and piercing green eyes. Piercing green eyes I haven’t seen in eight years.

  “Dad?” I ask.

  Cascade

  “CHLOE,” DAD BREATHES, MOVING FORWARD and enveloping me in a hug. I sink into his embrace, confused beyond belief but willing to set that aside for a few minutes.

  He lifts one arm and waves to my sister. “Saige.”

  She joins the reunion, sobbing loudly against Dad’s chest.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “How—? What—? You’re alive?”

  He strokes my hair and smiles down on me and my sister. “I’m alive, girls.” He glances back to the frame. “I’m trapped in an alternate dimension.”

  Saige’s eyebrows pucker. “But you just came here.”

  “I can’t stay. If I stay, I’ll die within twenty-four hours.” He delivers the bad news with an even tone, his face stoic and strong.

  “So, what? You’ve just been living in a, in a…” Sa
ige trails off, apparently unable to say alternate dimension. I’ll admit, I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around the concept, and I’ve had way more practice accepting such things.

  “How long can you stay?” I ask.

  “After about an hour, I start to feel sick.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Your mother said you were back. It’s so good to see you.”

  My chest tightens. “She’s been here, talking to you, telling you everything?” I glance at Saige, see the absolute fury on her face.

  “From time to time,” he says.

  “Dad—” I start, and he steps back, lifting his hands in acquiescence.

  “Don’t be angry, girls. We didn’t tell you to protect you.”

  “That’s so great,” Saige clips out. “I feel so protected right now.” A tear slips down her check and she swipes it away with a jerky movement. “So tell us. What’s your life like through that portal?” She stabs toward the frame, where the liquid has returned to its metallic, swirling quality.

  His shoulders lower like he’s suddenly carrying a heavy weight. “It’s…different. I don’t come through the rift very often, because I never know what universe I’m going to return to.”

  “What?” Saige asks at the same time I bark, “Explain.”

  I wonder if moving to a new dimension has the same health hazards as stepping through time. Dad looks five years older, not fifty. He seems healthy enough at first glance. I don’t want Saige to know of my medical condition, so I press my lips together as Dad takes a seat at the table next to the built-in cabinets.

  “When the rift exploded, I didn’t die. I was sucked into an alternate dimension.” He closes his eyes, as if reliving the nightmare. “It was a horrible place. This building was abandoned, so I stayed for the first night. There were so many gunshots…” He takes a deep breath. “I was stuck there for months before the rift sprang to life again. I stepped through and scared your mom half to death. I told her everything, and she started taking notes and exploring alternate universes. We labeled that universe the Neapolitan Verse, because there’s a gang there that controls everything called the Neapolitan Crew.”