Twist (13 page)

Before he walked through the entrance, though, Leto looked back at me with a boyish grin on his face.

“You look great today, sweetie,” he said.

Leto shuddered and shook his head like he was thawing a brain freeze before skittering into the lobby.

Sweetie
?

First he doesn't recognize me then
sweetie
?

Well, that was weird.

I stared after him as an ICE employee greeted him like an old pal. I rolled my eyes. Looked like I'd be doing another reversion of his soon.

Wyck took my hand. “Who was that?”

“No one.”

He didn't question me, and I was thankful to get moving.

“Where do you want to eat?” he asked.

“The usual,” I said before I could stop myself. It had come out automatically, like it would have if Finn had asked the question. I had no idea where or what the usual was with Wyck. “Or on second thought, I need to run by my house. We can grab something near there.”

“Yeah. I've been wanting to try out that caf
é
around the corner from your—”

“No.”

“No?”

That place
was
the usual. Finn's and mine. It belonged to us. It was like this was the spot where I'd arbitrarily drawn a line. Wyck couldn't have this memory, too. He couldn't have chocolate chip waffles with bananas on top. He couldn't have the corner table where Ed could come munch arugula.

He couldn't have the real me.

“It's kind of skinky, don't you think? I mean, they serve breakfast for dinner. What is that? Brinner? Dreakfast?” Blark, I loved that place. I mean, breakfast for dinner? It's the greatest thing ever.

“I was going to say retro. I thought you'd like it.” The same look of confusion and hurt that I'd grown too used to over the last couple days crossed his face. “Y'know what? Maybe I should just head home.”

“Wait.” Maintain the link. I needed the next piece of the map. “That place sounds fine.”

“You're sure?”

“Absolutely.” Fake Bree would love to. But so help me, if he even looked at the chocolate chip waffles, I'd knock the table over so fast the ground wouldn't know what hit it.

When we got to the caf
é
, it was between meal crowds, practically deserted. Wyck spoke to the host and got us a spot on the street. I took a deep breath and followed him through the building.

We stepped onto the patio, and I couldn't stop from stealing a wistful glance to the corner where Finn and I usually sat, but someone was already settled there, his back to us. The periphery of my vision snatched at something in the way the guy moved as he turned his head to the side. I stumbled over the edge of a chair, and Wyck caught me, but it was like Wyck had disappeared. The chair had disappeared. Everyone and everything had disappeared but the guy in that seat.

Finn.

No. Not possible. He wasn't able to Shift here, or anywhere into his future, unless I brought him. My brain had conjured an illusion because Wyck and I had come to this place that I associated with Finn. It was someone else. With auburn curls that licked the nape of his neck. And a crevice at the top of his collarbone where you could brush your finger while he was napping, until he growled, “Stop it,” without really waking up. The guy twisted around to face the street, and any doubt of his identity disappeared when I saw his profile. It was no illusion.

It was Finn.

I lurched toward him without thinking. There was no telling how he got here, but he couldn't stay. He was a Level Five Chronofugitive. He was in danger. I had to warn him. My leg rammed into the side of a table and sent it toppling.

“Are you okay?” Wyck reached over to steady me, oblivious to the fact that the guy who some alternate version of Wyck had tried to kill only six months ago was spearing a bite of banana three feet away.

“F-fine.” Only I stumbled over the word, and it came out a bit like “Finn.”

I edged toward Finn's seat. I didn't care that it was reckless. I needed to touch him, to check he was real. He lifted his eyes to meet mine. They stared past me, all expression drained from them. His complete lack of emotion gave me pause. Then he shook his head, a hard look settling onto his face—the movement was almost imperceptible—but it stopped me in my tracks. The message was clear: don't come near me.

How was he even here? It wasn't possible. He could only come to the twenty-third century by clinging to me, to
my
quantum tendrils. It wasn't like he could hitch a ride with just any Shifter. In order to bring him here, they'd have to be like me … born in this century but conceived in anoth—

Jafney.

I heard her before I saw her.

Actually, not true. I smelled her before I heard her before I saw her. Eau de I'm-Gonna-Kill-Her.

“Bree-ee?” Jafney stretched the word out like a wisp of saltwater taffy.

Every one of my body parts begged to betray my fury as I turned slowly to face her. We had the same time-crossed parentage, her tendrils as sticky as mine. She reached around me and wiped a squirt of syrup off Finn's chin with her finger then blarking licked it.

Looked like her tendrils weren't the only things that were sticky.

How could she? The danger she was putting Finn in by bringing him here, not to mention the danger she was putting me in. All of us, every member of the Haven.

And that's when I got Tufty-hissing-spitting-mad.

I ticked off the days it had been since the timeline had changed. Two. Two days. As in, forty-eight hours. Had Jafney just stayed in Chincoteague this whole time and thrown herself at Finn the moment he'd left the theater?

Jafney jostled past me and tossed a grape into Finn's mouth with a giggle. He chomped on it with an open-mouth smile, and I knew Charlotte would swipe him in the face with a napkin if she saw him do that. He lifted his eyebrows at Jafney in that flirty way that was supposed to be reserved for me. I held back a grimace. At least I was faking my attraction to Wyck.

Wyck.

I turned around, worried that he'd finally seen Finn and was ready to cause a scene. I mean, he'd tried to kill Finn six months ago (again, on a different timeline, but it still seemed like something that might nestle in your noggin). Quite the opposite of rankled, Wyck was oblivious, poring over the menu.

“I'm so glad we ran into you, Bree.” Jafney leaned over and squeezed my hand. I yanked it away like she'd smeared something nasty on it. “How long has it been?”

Was she serious?

“Two days. It's been two days.”

“Has it really?” She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “I've kind of lost track of time. A lot can happen in two days.”

Obviously.

A river of lava bubbled and brewed on the tip of my tongue, waiting for the tiniest provocation to erupt.

“Were you going to introduce us?” She pointed at Wyck.

No. No, I was not.

“Umm…” Before I could stop myself, I turned to Finn for guidance, for some indication how he thought I should handle this. But apparently, he didn't have a pegamoo at this party.

“Hi, I'm Finn.” He half-stood and took Wyck's hand warmly in his own. Unlike the last time they met, there was nothing aggressive in the action. Nothing forced or artificial.

This was Finn, wasn't it?

Jafney leaned forward. “And I'm—”

“Jafney,” said Wyck. “I'm afraid I don't recall your last name. I remember you were Pennedy's roommate our first year at the Institute, though.”

She clutched her cheek in a show of faux humility. “I can't believe you remember that.”

It's not like you had a face transplant, sweetheart.

Okay. I had to get my emotions under control or I'd blow this thing. My main objective was still to remain Wyck's devoted girlfriend so I could stop ICE from doing whatever heinous thing they were doing. And now, I also needed to get Finn the heck out of Dodge.

“Not sure if you remember me,” said Wyck to Jafney. “Wyck O'Banion. I'm in the transporter program.”

He then turned to Finn and wrapped a possessive arm around my shoulders. “And how do you know Bree?”

I looked to Finn to gauge his reaction.

Fine, I kind of wanted him to blast out of his chair in a jealous rage.

Nothing. He just sat there.

“Oh, Finn and Bree are friends from ages and ages ago,” said Jafney in an annoyingly chipper voice. “Aren't you now?”

Finn nodded without any show of emotion. I bobbed my neck and backed away. Forget ICE. Jafney's blabbermouth was currently my greatest threat.

“We should check if our table is ready,” I said to Wyck.

“Oh, no, join us.” Jafney yanked a chair next to hers and gestured to it.

“We wouldn't want to intrude,” I said.

“Pish. No intrusion.” Jafney patted the seat, and I fought an overwhelming urge to rip her arm out of its socket.

“I always love to meet your friends, sweetie. You know that.” Wyck made to rub his nose against mine, and I dropped to the seat simply to avoid contact.

“Looks like we're joining you,” I said.

Jafney beamed, and now I wanted to rip the lips right off her face.

Wyck and I ordered.

“I hear the waffles here are killer,” he said.

“Yeah.” Finn looked over the edge of his fork at me. “Killer.”

Oh, this was a bad idea.

The atmosphere at the table thickened with silence. At one point, I twirled a knife in front of me in lazy circles to see if I could slice some of the tension, but all I did was almost cut off my thumb.

Wyck jumped at the wound with the edge of his shirt, even though it was nothing more than a nick.

“You're always injuring yourself,” he said in a mock-chiding voice.

Finn almost fell off his chair in a massive choke-cough. I reached a glass of water out to him, but he brushed it aside. He took a sip from the one Jafney offered him instead.

“Where's the restroom?” Finn asked.

It would take all my fingers to count the number of times he'd taken a pee in this establishment, but he made a good show of letting Jafney point the way, and then walked down the wrong hall at first.

Once he disappeared, I counted slowly to twenty then excused myself as well. I caught him coming out of the bathroom and pulled him into the shadows so we were out of eyeshot.

“What the blark do you think you're doing here?” I kept my voice low but forceful.

“Keep your voice down.” He peeked over my shoulder.

“What the—?” The volcano was back. He actually had the nerve to give me cheek over what could very well be the most perilous thing he'd ever done. And I knew for a fact he'd helped his dad dress wounds in a Siberian gulag. But I dropped my volume to be safe. “Seriously. Why are you here?”

“Let's see.” He peered outside again. Jafney and Wyck were small-talking, but she kept craning her neck to look toward the hallway. “From where I'm standing, it looks like I was eating waffles with my girlfriend.”

His answer cut straight to the quick. I realized in that moment I'd held out hope that this was all a misunderstanding, but it crashed down around my ears. He wasn't just here with Jafney. He was
with
Jafney.

“Well, mission accomplished,” I said through gritted teeth. “But you need to get out of here. Now.”

“Here, this hallway? Or here, this century?”

“Both.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

Erg! Bree-smash-space-time-continuum.

“You don't understand. You're in danger. I was trying to tell you in the theater. Leto told me your identity has been unlocked and—”

“Is that why I got sucked back to Chincoteague?”

“No, that was a change on the timeline.”

“Who changed it?”

It was my turn to take a quick looksee at the table. No way was I discussing Wyck's change with him sitting so close.

“We're not talking about this right now. Just get home.”

“Why would someone go to the trouble of unlocking my identity?”

“Clearly not to send you a Christmas card.”

“But Quigley erased all my files.”

“Somebody un-erased them.”

“So she can re-erase them.”

“No, she can't.” I stomped my foot. “Shut up and listen. When she erased them, you were some blip in history, a nobody who hadn't done anything notable.”

“Wow. You really know how to charm a guy.”

“Let me finish. You are now a Level Five Chronofugitive. You're in every high order government database in the world.”

“I'm a what? Oh … this is not good.” He clenched his hair. At least I'd gotten a reaction.

“You think?”

“Blark.” He bit his fist and looked back out at the dining area. “Don't let Jafney know.”

Seriously? That was what he was worried about? Jafney's reaction? I just told him he's wanted by law enforcement, and he's worried about what Jafney will think?

“What am I accused of doing?” he asked.

“That information can't be entered until the crime has actually been committed. One of those chicken-egg things.”

“Wait. So I'm accused of something I haven't even done yet?” He shook his head. “The future is so screwed up.”

I couldn't argue with him on that point.

“Chronofugitive status is reserved for Shifters who violate laws outside of their own time. The crime could be anything. But the fact that it's Level Five means it's … bad.”

“How bad?”

“Bad like murder, arson, or kidnapping bad.”

“Okay, that's bad.”

“What's bad?” Jafney popped her head around the corner of the hallway and caused both Finn and me to jump.

Neither of us answered.

“What's bad, Finny Finn?” She wiggled her fingers at him.

Yet another appendage I wanted to yank out by its roots.