Undone

“Someone was following me. I’m pretty sure I lost them,” I said, looking around.

  Eli rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you did.”

  I pulled out my phone. “Check the pictures,” I said.

  He reluctantly took the phone from me. “What, you’ve taken pictures of Derek’s apartment? That’s great,” he said as he scrolled through the gallery.

  “No, I—”

  “You look like perverts,” Derek said, coming up around the jungle gym to the bench we were sitting on.

  “Good job losing Derek,” Eli said.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked my brother.

  “Checking up on you. Obviously.”

  “How’d you know we were here?”

  “You left a note, dummy. I’m serious,” Derek added. “It’s almost five a.m. and you’re checking out a kiddie playground. You look like perverts.”

  “There aren’t any kids here,” I said, turning back to the phone. I scrolled through the pictures. “I’ve been taking pictures of everything in the apartment before we leave for work, and then I check it when we come back. See how stuff has moved?”

  Eli looked at the phone. “Maybe you’re taking them from a different angle.”

  “Thank you,” Derek said. “He’s been agonizing over this all week.”

  “I think it’s IA,” I said. It was the only thing that made sense.

  “Who’s IA?” Derek asked.

  I swallowed and looked at Eli for permission. If it was IA, I’d need to tell Derek what happened.

  “Go ahead,” Eli said.

  “We didn’t tell you everything about how we got back here,” I said.

  “No shit.” Derek leaned against the metal jungle gym, clearly waiting for the real story.

  “It’s long.”

  “Let’s get breakfast,” he said. “On me.”

  We ended up at another diner, in a booth near the back. We got eggs and toast.

  “Ready now?” Derek asked. We had all been silent on the way here.

  I told an abbreviated version but a complete one. I didn’t leave anything out.

  “Okay, so why would this Interverse Agency be following you if you’re back home now? Have you been opening any more portals?” he asked when I finished.

  “No, of course not,” I said.

  “So what would they want with you? Maybe they’re just trying to keep an eye on you, make sure you don’t.”

  Eli shifted a little but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell if he agreed with Derek or not.

  “I’m going to go back,” Eli said suddenly.

  Derek started coughing. “Back?”

  Eli nodded and looked at me. I knew he wanted me to tell Derek now, but I couldn’t. “It doesn’t feel like we fit here,” I said.

  “So you’d go back? After everything?” Derek pushed back from the table. “I can’t even believe you’re considering that.”

  “If we did, it wouldn’t be like before,” I said. “You’d know where we were. We could figure out some way to come and visit.”

  Eli’s look told me he thought that was a ridiculous thing to say. And I knew it wasn’t exactly possible right now, but we’d figure it out.

  Maybe I could ask IA.

  “You’re serious, then?” he asked. “You’re considering going back?”

  “Not right now,” I said. “Maybe someday.”

  “I’m going back,” Eli said. “Not someday. I’m going back soon.”

  I didn’t say anything else. I focused on my food. Eli had never been easy to argue with, and who was I to say he wasn’t right? No matter where he was, he’d need to start over and build a life. Maybe that would be easier for him if it wasn’t here.

  We’d spent the last seven years of our lives in another world. The majority of our memories were from there. As hard as it was to admit now, it was that world that had shaped who we were.

  Derek paid the check without a word, and we headed outside. The tan sedan was waiting for us.

  Eli saw it when I did. “Let’s go see who it is.”

  “You’re just going to walk up and ask if they’re IA?” Derek said with a laugh. The windows were tinted and we couldn’t see inside. “It’s probably just parked.”

  Eli shrugged. “Beats wondering if it really is IA.”

  The three of us walked toward the car.

  As we got closer, Derek started to laugh harder. “I feel like we should have some kind of ominous soundtrack.”

  “What if it’s two old people making out?” Elijah added.

  I was the only one who didn’t think this was some kind of joke. I’d have loved to say that they were right, that I must be paranoid, but too many bad things had happened to people I cared about. If this was IA, I couldn’t just leave and go back to Janelle.

  Derek swung an arm around my neck. “I’ve missed you, brother.”

  I’d missed him, too. That was why it was so hard to admit I didn’t belong here.

  When we were only a few feet away, the car flared to life.

  We stopped.

  With a speed that was too excessive to be casual, the car peeled backward, turning 180 degrees. Then the brakes squealed and the car lurched as the driver threw it from reverse into drive and sped out of the parking lot.

  We stood there and watched it disappear down the street.

  “See?” I said.

  “See what?” Derek said.

  I caught Eli looking at me. The humor was gone from his face, and I knew he believed me now. “They weren’t just parked. I told you.”

  “All that proves is that they drove away,” Derek said, but I heard the false confidence in his voice.

  He was trying to convince himself as much as me.

  We didn’t bring it up again. Not until later that night.

  After work we went to have dinner with my mother. She’d made roasted chicken, fried rice, and spinach, and the three of us sat around the dining room table, like we did most nights, trying not to acknowledge my father’s absence.

  “Ben, have you thought about what you might want to do?” my mother asked.

  I shrugged. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked me. I knew she didn’t think working as a mechanic was enough, not for me and not for Derek, either. But I was having the same problem that I’d had back at Eastview on career day freshman year. I had a hard time picturing my future here.

  Back then I pictured myself back here with my family. Eating Sunday night dinners and going to work at the government science center, taking over my mother’s research. That was impossible, though. The science center had been shut down, her research destroyed. Because of her unlawful imprisonment, she got government aid each week, but she wasn’t allowed to go back to work.

  Now when I thought of my future, all I could see was Janelle.

  “You should think about finishing school,” my mother said. “It wouldn’t be easy to get you into university, of course, since you don’t have a track record, but I talked to a few people. With the right recommendation letters and good entrance exams, I think we could get you in.”

  “You could join the city guard,” Derek added with a laugh.

  My mother frowned.

  “Oh come on, what’s wrong with what he’s doing now?” he said. “We’re hanging out every day, and he’s good with cars, like I am.”

  “Derek, there’s nothing wrong with what you do,” she said. Her voice was calm and steady, but despite her words, I knew she didn’t really mean what she was saying. “If it makes you happy, it’s a good profession, but Ben needs to decide what’s going to make him happy.”

  She didn’t come right out with it, but clearly she was implying she thought something else was the way to go.

  “Something that involves university,” Derek said. “Something less embarrassing.”

  “I don’t know what I want to do,” I said quickly. “I have been thinking about it,” I added, looking at my mother.

  “That’s all I’m asking,” she
said.

  “I like working with you,” I said to Derek. “I like that I get to see you every day, but she’s right, I don’t love it like you do.” I paused, looked at both of them, and wondered how to say that I didn’t want to make steps for my future here because that would mean I had to stay. I wanted the right moment to tell them I was leaving.

  “Mom, is there any more rice?” Derek asked suddenly.

  She nodded. “I’ll get some.”

  When she left the dining room for the kitchen, Derek reached over and grabbed my arm. “Just don’t leave yet.” I opened my mouth to say I wouldn’t, but he shook his head. “I can see it in your face. I could before, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

  “I’m sorry, Derek,” I said. “I’ve missed you both so much, but everything here feels so foreign, it feels so different.”

  “It doesn’t matter what universe you’re in, you’ll always be my brother,” he said. “I mean, stay for a while. If you want to go back, I get it, sort of. I want you to be happy, but stay for a little while. Try for Mom and for me.”

  I nodded.

  “Hey, Mom,” Derek called. “I don’t need more rice. I’m actually full.”

  He smiled and I shook my head. “Let’s clear the dishes.”

  “That’s all you, little brother,” he said, stretching his arms over his head. “You have thousands of nights of dish duty to catch up on, and taking out the trash.”

  For a second, I almost pointed out that it was Dad who was supposed to take out the trash, but I caught myself before I said it. My mother always wanted each of us to have a job. She cooked and cleaned, my father took out the trash, and Derek and I alternated with dish duty.

  “I could have been clearing dishes for someone else while I was gone.” I stood up and started clearing them anyway.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Derek said. “Every night while you were gone I had to do it. That’s your job now, at least for the next few weeks.”

  The next few weeks. I knew what he meant by that. That’s how long he was asking me to stay. I nodded, and he stood up, grabbing the dishes I couldn’t carry.

  My mother stood at the fridge, putting the extra food away. As I moved around her, something in the living room caught my eye. I set the dishes in the sink and went back to look through the doorway.

  For as long as I’d known her, my mother had been a fastidious housekeeper. She vacuumed a certain way, so that it left a pattern on the carpet. As a family we spent time in the den, watching TV or playing board games. We ate at the dining room table; we prepared food in the kitchen. We only went into the living room when we had company over. When we were kids, she always had a baby gate up at the kitchen to keep Hope and Derek and me out of there.

  Which is why it didn’t make sense that I could see footprints marring the vacuum lines in that room.

  “Who’s been here?” I said.

  Derek came over and peered around me, careful not to step into the living room. As I had thought, she hadn’t changed the way she felt about the living room.

  “Oh, it was nothing,” she said. She didn’t look up. And she didn’t elaborate.

  “Clearly not,” Derek said with a laugh. “Someone with big feet has been all over the living room.”

  “I just haven’t had a chance to get in there and vacuum today.”

  “Why?” I asked. She didn’t work anymore. “What have you been doing today?”

  She stood up and straightened her clothing. “If you must know, I spoke to a few men who stopped by the house today. They had some questions. I answered them, and then I made dinner.”

  “Wait a minute,” Derek said. He wasn’t laughing anymore. “A few men stopped by the house with questions, and you’re just telling us now?”

  “Who were they?” I asked.

  “They didn’t say,” she said, ignoring Derek. “They just had some routine questions.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Derek said, his voice rising. “Hasn’t the city guard bothered us enough? This is how it started last time. Just some routine questions.”

  My mother didn’t respond.

  The city guard hadn’t bothered my family for quite some time, and they didn’t have reason to now. Unless the reason was me.

  But it wasn’t the city guard who was following me. Today I had approached that car, and now someone had come to my mother’s home and questioned her. They were upping their game.

  The doorbell rang. “Derek, could you get that, please?” my mother said.

  He swore under his breath, but he left. He started to head out through the den like we always would have, but then he turned around and went through the living room as some immature act of defiance.

  “Were they city guard?” I asked.

  She shook her head, but she didn’t look at me.

  “Their questions. They were about me?”

  “They asked about everything, but yes, they asked a lot about you,” she said. Then she turned, and I saw in her eyes that she was worried.

  “What did they want to know?”

  “Everything,” she said. “If you were clearer about your future intentions, I think it would help.”

  She thought they were from the government, then. Someone from this universe. I just didn’t think anyone here had reason to be interested in me.

  I thought back to my last night with Janelle. The night Alex and Reid died. The night we got back here. Taylor Barclay pulled Janelle to her feet and turned to me. I didn’t like the way he held on to her, so I didn’t really digest his words when he spoke them. I just waited for him to finish and pulled her back into my arms.

  Thinking back now, though, I remember his words clearly.

  There are people out there who think no one should have that kind of power, and you’d be smart not to advertise.

  I didn’t have time to think too hard about it, though. My brother came back into the kitchen with Eli.

  I saw the lines on his forehead and the way his eyes said whatever he came here for was serious. Then Eli said, “I need you to come with me.”

  “Now?” I asked.

  He nodded. His face was flushed and he seemed out of breath. “There’s something you’ve gotta see.”

  I followed Eli outside and got into his car.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I think you’re right,” he said, starting up the car. I braced myself on the dashboard as he peeled out of the driveway. “IA is following you.”

  “They spoke to my mother today. Questioned her about me,” I said.

  “I saw them today too, a trio of douche bags with their commando boots. It’s definitely IA,” he said. “They came to my house, spoke to my stepfather. They didn’t give a shit who he was.”

  “What did they want to know?”

  He shook his head. “It’s my fault, Ben.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. He was never quick to admit he was wrong. If he was admitting it, he knew it was true, and he knew it was bad.

  He pulled the car into a park and threw the parking brake up. The car lurched to a halt. “Get out,” he said.

  I followed him.

  “You know I hate it here, right?” he said, leading me down a trail.

  “I do.” Out of the three of us, Eli was always the most desperate to get home. Being thrown into a different world was the hardest on him. He’d had everything here, and his first set of foster parents weren’t people I would wish on anyone. But now we were back, and he’d lost more than I had. No matter how different things were for me, no matter how much I felt like I didn’t fit here, I still had my mother. I still had Derek.

  He looked at me. “I haven’t just been hiding away in my room.”

  He held a hand out in front of him, and before it happened, I knew what he was going to do.

  The air shifted, the wind kicked up, everything around us seemed to hush in anticipation, and I saw the blackness spread from Eli’s hand. A portal sprang open in front of him.

 
“What are you doing?” I said, reaching for him. I didn’t have time to be surprised at what he’d done by himself. There were more important things to worry about. He couldn’t possibly have forgotten what had happened before. “That’s unstable. Who knows what damage it could be doing?”

  “Then we’d better be quick,” he said, and he stepped through it.

  I ran a hand through my hair and swore under my breath, but I followed him.

  Heat moved through me. My fingers and toes tingled with the sensation, and then I was pulling myself up off the ground. Eli stood next to me. The portal was gone.

  “Before you flip out,” he said, “our biggest problem before was that all of our portals were open too long, and we were usually trying to go to the same place.”

  “It’s still dangerous. Even if you’re trying to be careful! If you’re leaving from our world every time—”

  “I’m not,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m world-hopping. I’m gone for days at a time, just moving to different worlds.” He shrugged. “I try not to open a portal here unless there are a few days in between the last time.”

  “Eli,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You could still be putting our world in danger.”

  “I know, I fucking know,” he said. “This morning I realized maybe they were following you because of what I was doing.”

  “You mean this?” I asked. “You’ve really been opening portals?” He nodded. “How many?”

  “A lot,” he said. “Off the top of my head . . . I don’t have an exact count.”

  I turned around. I couldn’t believe he’d been this careless. Not just with our lives, but with everyone’s. It made it hard to look at him without wanting to punch him, and that wasn’t going to solve anything.

  “But I’ve been keeping track,” he said. “Writing down details about all the worlds.”

  I turned around. “‘All the worlds’? Do you hear yourself?”

  “It’s easier to control than we thought,” he said. “I can open a portal by thinking of where I want to go. This one I found by thinking that I needed someplace completely deserted, where IA wouldn’t find us.”

  I looked around for the first time. We were in some kind of suburb. There was a strip mall to the right and a row of apartment buildings behind it. But something didn’t feel quite right about this place. It wasn’t just that there was no one walking around or that the leaves were missing or that the grass was brown and dried up. There was no sound. No life here.