Loop (36 page)

“We’ll get the device another way.” Real Wyck strained to hold his future self back from lunging onto the netting.

Evil Wyck pulled a QuantCom out of his pocket and tapped it against Real Wyck. Instantly Real Wyck morphed into a floating statue, his eyes wide with terror. His future self turned to face Finn and me. Evil Wyck smirked. Using his stunned past self as some sort of bizarre hovercraft, he drifted toward us. He held up the QuantCom and fiddled with the controls.

“Do you like it?” He held it up as if I wanted to admire it. “I built it myself. A custom design. Had Wyck steal the parts for it from the Launch Room that first Family Night that Finn showed up. I’ve improved on the current models. The stunner conducts through metal. Funny how I knew that feature might come in handy right … about … now.”

“Let us go. I’m begging you,” I said.

Wyck ignored me.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this?” He paused, and when Finn and I didn’t answer he roared, “Do you?”

Prominent veins popped from his neck. He trembled head to toe.

Finn turned to me and dropped his voice to a hush: “You asked me to protect you. Now I know how.”

“It’s too late.” I gulped. “He’s going to change the story. He’s going to win.”

“Not this time.” In Finn’s whisper, the rest of the world disappeared. “Do you trust me?”

Yes.

I didn’t get a chance to say it aloud. Evil Wyck thrust the stunner against the netting, his face more beast than human. But Finn had already wrapped his arms around me tighter than he ever had before.

And jumped.

chapter 33

I ONCE READ
that people falling from tall heights die of a heart attack before hitting the ground.

Not true.

Apparently, they drown first.

There was a vague sense of a splash. My boots sank into gloppy sand. It sucked the soles down, trapping me underwater. I flailed and opened my mouth in a shriek. Salt water poured in. I kicked and kicked to escape the suction. The movement tore into my ripped-up knee.

I gritted my teeth to keep from gasping in pain. I had no idea how far away the surface was. I reached up, but there was only more water. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I was going to drown. My arms thrashed around for a handhold in vain.

With one final kick, I shoved off in the direction that felt the most like up. My head broke the surface. I coughed out the briny seawater and gulped in a mouthful of air. I stretched the foot of my good leg down, but it was no use. I couldn’t touch. Judging by the salt that stung my eyes, I was in the ocean. But I had no idea how.

The moon hung low on the endless horizon. Water everywhere.

Stay. Calm.

I must have Shifted somehow. It was the only explanation that made sense. It had been so fast, I’d barely felt it. And I had no idea how I’d done it. I swung my head around to get my bearings. Finn’s lifeless body floated a few feet away.

“Finn!” I screamed.

No response.

I screamed again, for anyone this time, before the waves sucked me under. My cries were useless, and I knew it. I managed to pop up once more and drink in another lungful of precious oxygen. The spot where Finn had been was nothing but bubbles. My head whipped around. The last plunge had disoriented me. He was gone.

I took a deep breath and put my face under the surface, looking for him. It was no use. The salt battered my eyes, and I could barely keep my own body afloat as it was. My shoulders slumped in defeat, and the relaxation buoyed me for a moment before the panic set back in and I was pulled down again.

No. Not pulled down. Pulled forward.

Finn broke through the surface of the water. He shook his hair out like Triton returned from a refreshing midnight dip. He tugged me toward him, held me hard against his chest as he paddled through the water at the same time.

“I can’t touch the bottom,” I gasped. Water shot up my nose and choked me.

He stood to full height, his head above the water. “I know. But I can.”

Land was visible. This would have calmed me if it weren’t a hundred yards away.

I wrapped my legs around his waist to free up both his arms. “We’re going to drown.”

“We’re not going to drown. But I am sorry.” He dipped his now-free hand in the water and slicked his hair back. “I thought a beach landing would be romantic.”

“Landing? What are you talking about?”

“We’re home.” He grinned. “Tide’s low. I could navigate these sandbars in my sleep. Although it would be easier if you could,
ouch
”—he pried my frantic nails out of his chest and swung me around to his back—“
ahh,
that’s better.”

“Home?” I paused to spit some oh-so-tasty flora from my mouth. “As in Chincoteague Island?”

“Yep.” He paddled forward in lunges.

“You
Shifted
us here?”

He nodded.

“But you’re not a Shifter. When we stuck you on the LaunchPad, it had no effect on you, except the time when you were holding on to me.”

“I didn’t feel called anywhere at that particular moment.” Finn shrugged. “And it wasn’t like I have one of your microchip doohickeys to force it.”

“You’re really a Shifter?”

He nodded again.

“You knew that and didn’t tell me?”
Unbelievable.

“It started when I was staying at your house, but it took me a while to figure out what was going on. It was like bad déjà vu. I didn’t want to bring it up in case it was nothing.” His lips contorted into a guilty twist of a smile. “Then by the time I knew for sure what was happening, while I was staying in your, umm, in your closet, I didn’t want to bring it up, period.”

“That day I came back to the room early, you weren’t talking to yourself. You were talking to
yourself
.”

“You
did
hear us.” He splashed the surface of the water. “I knew it.”

“So you decided to wait until we were a hundred feet in the air and test yourself out with a
two-hundred-year Shift
? You could have gotten us killed!”

“Oh, I think Wyck was doing a pretty good job of that.”

A sickle moon leered in the distance. On the one hand, I was so spitting mad. On the other, Finn
was
the only one who could protect me in that exact moment on the monument, a free Shifter who could pull us both to safety.

“And it wasn’t a Shift,” he said. “It was a synch. The pull’s been getting stronger and stronger. But it wasn’t an overwhelming urge until Wyck was about to kill us. In that moment, it was like everything disappeared but you. And I just … knew.” He was quiet for a moment. “I never believed Dad when he said how hard it is to control his Shifting when emotions are high. But he’s right.”

Gradually, the water receded, as did my anger. When it reached Finn’s knees, I hopped down and hobbled along beside him, clutching his arm to steady myself. In the distance the Mastersons’ house glowed, but I didn’t detect any movement inside. Dang if that boy didn’t have some natural talent. A crab scuttled over my toes in the shallows, and when my feet touched dry sand I collapsed. The warm grains clung to me but couldn’t quiet my shivers.

Even under my jeans, I could see my knee was puffed up to the size of a cantaloupe. The throbbing was so intense, I pinched the inside of my arm, the side of my neck, just to feel pain somewhere else.

Ha.
Pain somewhere else. Yet no Buzz. I couldn’t help but let out a tiny laugh.

“I really am sorry about the water,” said Finn, lying down next to me. “And for not telling you about the Shifts. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Worry me? Why would that have worried me?” I winced as I tugged off my boots and peeled down my socks. Water and grit poured out. “If I’d known you were able to Shift home on your own, it would have solved everything.”

A wave rushed up and lapped our already-sopping legs. Finn ground the sole of my boot into the sand. “Right. Everything.”

“Well, not
everything,
” I said. “I mean, there are certified henchmen chasing me and, as far as I know, my headmaster is still bent on irreparably mucking up the space-time continuum. Oh, and let’s not forget the angry smugglers. But I wouldn’t have had to worry about what to do with you and—”

“We need to get going.” Finn pushed himself up gruffly.

“Are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad.” Finn dug a trench on the beach with his heel. “I’m done.”

“What do you mean, done?”

“What do you think I mean? I’m not an idiot! We don’t have a future, Bree. I get that. Our future is in the past. All we have is the present—and that isn’t looking real hopeful. I don’t want to spend the rest of the time we have together fighting with you. And you won’t let me fight
for
you. Here”—he lifted something shiny from his pocket—“I’ve been carrying this around, waiting for the perfect time to give it back to you. It doesn’t look like that time’s coming.”

I reached out and touched the silver object. It was my heart. My sterling bracelet.

“Where did you find it?”

“In the grass outside the Pentagon. When I went back for the grappling hook.” He dumped the locket in the sand next to me and backed away. “Leave the reverter here. I’ll put it in our safe until I can figure out a better hiding spot.”

“Finn, wait.”

He turned around and ignored me.

“Wait.”

Still ignored me.

“I said,
wait
.” I lurched forward and grabbed him by his ankles. He face-planted into the sand next to me. “Don’t do this. Please. I was wrong. I mean I will be wrong.”

“Don’t do what?” He spit sand out of his mouth.

“Don’t leave. I’ve already lost my mom. And Mimi. I can’t lose you, too. I don’t want it to end like this.” Then it hit me. I didn’t want it to end. Ever. “I know Future Me told you to break my heart, but not now. Not like this.”

Finn’s expression softened, and he drew me close. “Shh … I’m not going anywhere.” He rested his chin on top of my head and took deep, sure breaths that calmed me. His stubble tickled as I leaned my head back so I could look at him. But he was gazing out at the ocean.

“Penny for your thoughts,” I said.

“You still have those in the future?”

“No. But my mom collects them.”

He laughed. “I was just thinking, if you’re asking me not to break your heart, wouldn’t that mean”—he looked into my eyes and brushed his thumb down my cheek—“I have it already?”

Hmm.
That was what it would mean.

“Ehh.” I leaned away and brushed the sand from his chest. “You knew it was coming.”

He pushed himself up and helped me stand. “Did not.”

“Did so.”

“Okay.” He stood up to his full height in mock defiance. “When?”

“When what?”

“When did you fall for me?”

“Some point after the past but not quite the future.” I scrunched my nose. “I think it was your love for talking frogs that did it.”

Exultation flashed in Finn’s eyes. He grabbed me around the waist and spun me in dizzy circles. His hands fit perfectly in the small of my back, like they were designed for that very purpose—to hold me. I stood on my tippy-toes as he lowered me to the ground. A few grains of sand clung to his cheek, and I brushed them off. Every last stone around my heart crumbled. He bent his mouth to my ear. I waited for a snarky comment, but instead he grazed his lower lip against my earlobe. A shiver slid down my spine that had nothing to do with my sopping clothes.

“I’m so sorry for how I treated you.” I ran my hand along his jaw. “I—”

“No.” He rested his forehead against mine. “I owe
you
an apology. I should have let you know about the Shifting before. When you dragged me to the Launch Room, I should have told you then. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I was where I was meant to be. But now, I’ve brought you here and I thought I was protecting you, but what if…?”

“Stop. This is where
I’m
meant to be. With you.”

Finn ran his finger along my microchip scar. “They’re going to know right where to look. Maybe I should try to Shift us somewhere else.”

“Do you think you can?”

“I don’t feel a pull.” He closed his eyes so tight, it almost looked like he was praying, but he shook his head in frustration. “Nothing. Are you at least comfortable?”

“Not even the slightest Buzz.” I tried to give him a reassuring smile even though I felt anything but.
Huh.
I thought back over the last week. Whenever Finn wasn’t with me, I’d had a Buzz-like headache. But whenever he was … I didn’t.

“I think I know why I don’t have it here,” I said. “Chip or no chip, I’m where I belong. With you.”

Microchips didn’t cure the Buzz, as we’d been lied to all these years. But I wasn’t sure the chips caused it directly either. Maybe the Buzz was a result of not Shifting to where we were naturally called. That was why these nonShifters who had traveled to the past suffered so much with it. They weren’t where they belonged. I thought of that picture with my mom, so happy and carefree with my dad. She was where she was supposed to be.

Well, I was right where I was supposed to be now.

I leaned forward. Finn’s lips traced a path to the edge of mine. My lips parted. Each shallow, ragged breath invited contact. Every nerve in my body sparked. It was almost painful.

No, it
was
painful.

“Unhh.” I groaned.

Finn flung himself away from me. “Is it your leg? Was I holding you too tight?”

I shook my head slowly. But shrapnels of pain pulsated down to my marrow with even so slight a movement. I swiped a smear of red from my nose.

“They found me.” I doubled over as the pain grew. “And we don’t have very long.”

chapter 34

NO SOONER HAD THE WORDS
“we don’t have very long” come out of my mouth, Finn swooped me up and ran toward his house like the beach was on fire. There was no way my sprained knee could keep up with his pace. Heck, there was no way a cheetah could keep up with his pace.

“What are you doing?” I asked as he took the deck’s steps two at a time.