Twist (25 page)

But it was pointless to debate. That wasn't my Mimi.

I contacted the correctional facility where my mom was being held, but a guard informed me that visiting hours were done for the day. I walked back to the entrance and pulled up the student directory, scrolling through the names until I found mine. My profile picture smiled back at me. It was like looking at a ghost. I had no idea who that girl was.

Back to watching someone hobble around on my phantom limb. Only now it was a phantom life.

I pulled my shirtsleeve to my nose, hoping for one more whiff of Finn's shampoo or my mom's perfume to linger on the threads. Again, I had the haunting thought from earlier: How did it come to this? I'd watched a man die in a ditch before my very eyes less than an hour ago. Whatever had happened to him, I was almost positive it was a result of NeoShifting. Leto had been one of ICE's most frequent customers, at least judging by the number of reversions I'd had to do on him. That had to have taken its toll.

And then there was the fact that Leto somehow recognized me. Not only recognized me, but he had feelings for me. And he knew things that only Finn and I knew. Then there was that comment Leto had made about the clue—what was that about? I hadn't told anyone but Mom and Quigley about the clue, and I hadn't given it much thought in the meantime. Finn was the one who had been so set on figuring the clue out since the moment we'd found it.

How and why would Leto Malone of all people have insight into it? The only person who could answer that was dead.

I looked back up to the directory. Room 752. Only two doors down from where I'd just come. Made sense, I guess. Room 752 was Pennedy's room on my timeline. I slowed as I approached the door, unsure of who or what I'd find behind it. It might be a casual acquaintance or an insta-bestie. Either way, I didn't really care. Whoever it was, I kind of disliked her already for her non-Miminess.

And when I opened the door, I realized I had a whole other set of reasons to dislike her.

Because my roommate on this timeline was Jafney.

*   *   *

Whenever I used to whine about someone growing up, my grandpa would look me square in the eyes and say, “You never know someone until you've flown a mile in their jetpack.”

Which … sure. That was helpful when that one kid bit me in kindergarten. But Grandpa's philosophy failed to take a key thing into consideration.

What if it's someone you wish with every fiber of your being you'd never met?

“Are you blarking kidding me?” I was the first to speak after we'd sat there for a full minute eating eyefuls of each other. “We're
roommates
?”

“Looks like it,” Jafney said. She picked up a frame off my desk that contained a picture of Wyck and me stratodiving. She chucked it into the waste chute. “Oops.”

“What is your problem?” I asked.

“You are.”

“I'm … what?” Un-blarking-lievable. “I tried to help you by turning off your chip. After you
asked
me to. And you can't blame me for this. I warned you that your reality could change.”

“Yeah, well, you failed to mention you were going to steal the love of my life in the process,” said Jafney.

“Steal the—? You should never have brought Finn to this century. He could have been Anchored!” I yelled.

“You forced my hand!” she yelled back.

“I know he kissed you, but Finn's not the love of your life!”

“Of course he isn't!”

“He's—what? Now I'm very confused!” And still yelling!

“You thought I was in love with Finn?”

“Oh, let's see.” I tapped my chin. “You've been snogging his face off every time I've seen you. You made up the most atrociously sickeningly sweet pet names for him that I have ever heard. Basically, you've all but sent out engraved wedding invitations. So yeah. Silly me. I thought you were in love with Finn.”

“Really?” She looked.… The only word for it was ecstatic. “Did it make you jealous?”

“Do pegamoos poop on the street? You were kissing my boyfriend.”

“Uhh”—haughty came back—“you were kissing my boyfriend first. Well, I mean, he should be my boyfriend.”

“I thought we just cleared this up. Finn was and is
my
boyfriend. Never yours.” This didn't seem like it should even be a conversation.

“I'm not talking about Finn.”

“Who else have I been—?” Oh. Holy Blark. “You're in love with Wyck?”

“Since we were First Years here at the Institute.”

“So this whole time with Finn, you were trying to make
Wyck
jealous?”

“And you, too. I thought if I brought Finn here, maybe you'd remember that you had feelings for him.”

I laughed—couldn't help it. “You think that's something I could ever forget?”

I stared at Jafney, trying to figure her out. I had to hand it to her, she was mad plinky at underhanded plotting. Hmm … on second thought, she and Wyck might be perfect for each other.

“So here we are, roomie,” she said. “Both in love with the same guy.”

“We are
not
both in love with the same guy. I love Finn. You apparently love Wyck.” For some unfathomable reason.

“But you—”

“I was kissing Wyck to convince him that I'm his girlfriend so I could spy on ICE. That's all.”

“You were using him?”

“Are you really in a position to judge? 'Cause last I checked, Finn wasn't delivered to the twenty-third century by trained unicorns.”

“Fair enough.” Her eyes started to cloud over. “I don't understand how it didn't work.”

“What are you talking about? That was literally the worst plan
ever
.”

“But my future self said that turning off my chip was the way I could be with Wyck.”

“Don't get me started on future selves,” I said.

We relapsed into a simmering silence.

Jafney crossed her arms but uncrossed them quickly. She pulled a small nodule—just like the one Mimi had—from the crook of her elbow.

“What is this?” she asked.

“I'm not sure. It seems to be some kind of medicine pump.”

“Hmm.” Jafney took a small tool out from her desk and started to disassemble the pump.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Figuring out how it works.”

“How do you know how to do that?”

“I had planned to study Chronotechnology at the Institute. Looks like I was able to on this timeline.” She gestured to an award on her desk. “I like gadgets and stuff.”

Sure enough, with deft fingers, she'd taken apart the whole apparatus within a minute.

“Looks like this last change to the timeline actually worked out pretty well for you then.”

Jafney shrugged. “I'm still not with Wyck.”

“So what was your next step?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“In your brilliant plan to make Wyck jealous. What were you going to do next?”

“I hadn't thought that far ahead. I was waiting for my future self to come back and give me more advice.”

“And she hasn't?”

“No.” Jafney gave me a look that let me know that she didn't want to talk about it.

She held up a pointy part on the device she'd dismantled. It looked like it had been bent to the side. “Injection mechanism has been jammed on this unit, but yeah. It's a medicine pump all right.”

I handed her mine, and she was even faster now that she knew what she was doing.

“Yours, too. Nonfunctional. Looks like you and I just wear them for show.”

She took out the tube of medicine and handed it to me.

“Same active ingredient as in Buzztabs,” I said, reading the label. I calculated the concentration and whistled. “Except this stuff is over ten times more potent.”

I had been right. The Buzz was getting worse.

Jafney reassembled the pump and handed it back.

“I guess we should maintain appearances,” I said.

Jafney nodded and put hers back on.

As she put up her tool, I noticed that she had a lot of candid snapshots of other students. Every one of them featured Wyck in some way.

That girl had it bad, no matter what timeline she was on.

I stuck my pump back in place and squeezed my arm to make sure it was affixed tightly. As I pressed my thumb into my flesh, it gave me a flashback to when Wyck had squeezed the same spot.

“Jafney,” I said, “there's something you need to know about Wyck.”

“What?”

I looked back over at the pictures. In all of them, Wyck looked like his normal slightly cocky, secretly caring self. I highly doubted she had crossed paths with the Wyck who was haunted and hunted by glimpses of multiple timelines.

“He's … conflicted,” I said.

“So?”

“No, I mean, he's not the Wyck you remember. He's not the Wyck
I
remember. Well, that's not entirely true. He's that Wyck some of the time. But there's another side of him now, too.”

“He's just misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood?”

I yanked my sleeve up to show her the bruises he had left before I remembered they had been erased on this timeline. Nothing could erase them from my memory, though.

“Look, you have to believe me,” I said. “He's not himself. All the changes have … scrambled him. I'm not saying the real Wyck isn't in there, but—”

“You don't know anything,” she said.

Okay, so that horked me off. “I don't know anything? What do you think I've been doing for the last six months of my life? Traipsing off to have fun little adventures? My life has been shredded. All for what? It doesn't matter how many times I stitch this blarking timeline back together. The Neos keep tearing it back open. Neos like Wyck.”

“Neos are changing the timeline?” she said.

I'd forgotten I'd left that part out before. Oh, well. It didn't matter now.

“Yes,” I said and held up the reverter. “This is the only thing that can stop their changes.”

“But it's not like he's trying to hurt anyone,” she said.

“He put my mom in jail. And on another timeline, he tried to kill me!” This was ridiculous.

“Why am I even defending myself?” I said. “
He
was the one who changed the past to be with
me,
not the other way around.”

“What?

Her face crumpled. This was the arrow that bit through her armor.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I know that must hurt.” It was the truth, though.

“Shut up!” she screamed. “Just shut u—”

Gone.

I can't say I was surprised she'd Shifted right out from under my nose. (Well, above my nose—dang, that girl was tall.) The emotional tension in the room was so thick, it would be difficult to slit it with a lightsaber. I looked around and sighed. Staying at the Institute was pointless. Trying to find answers here was like stumbling upon a shed snakeskin, and from that, trying to figure out what the snake had eaten for lunch the week before.

Even if I could glean some answers about my current situation at the Institute, it wasn't safe to stay here.

I scanned my newsfeed while packing a bag, hoping that I'd find Leto's death was confined to the previous timeline. But no. Leto was still dead. My mother's incarceration was in there, too.

“Oh, Mom.” My heart plummeted. On this timeline, she'd shown up to work acting oddly, and they tested her there then searched the house for the drug stash. Again, they mentioned that the amounts in her bloodstream were approaching dangerous overdose levels.

I flipped through a stack of unopened messages and discovered Quigley and Granderson were still at Resthaven. It was like Grandpa had said. There's nothing as inevitable as inevitability.

The best place for me now was Resthaven, too.

I was back at square one, only to find out it had been a circle the whole time.

I took the Metro to save time. I needed to talk to Quigley. Badly. She and Granderson were the only ones left who could help me hash things out.

I hiked my bag up on my shoulder as I hopped off the train and ran down the steps, eager to catch a glimpse of the Haven's familiar green lights. But as I rounded the corner toward the building, a flood of flashing red and blue greeted me instead.

 

chapter 20

“WHAT'S GOING ON
?
”
I barged through a cluster of chronoinvestigators in order to reach Quigley on the opposite side of the common room.

She lifted her gaze momentarily from her Com to look at my bag. “I take it you'll be staying.”

I dropped the bag and repeated my question.

“It's happened,” said Quigley with a sigh. “Nava's been taken.”

“How do you know she was taken and didn't just Shift somewhere?”

Quigley handed me her Com. A soligram note hovered above it:
You know what we want. You know who to come to
.

“Umm, no and no,” I said, handing the Com back.

“That's not entirely true.” She tucked it in her pocket. “We may not know what they want, but we do know it was ICE who took her, thanks to you and your Future Self.”

“Yes, but knowing who took her doesn't do us much good unless we can figure out what they want.” I suppressed a shiver, picturing the already frail woman, now on a frozen slab. She wouldn't survive long in such a state.

I looked over at a group of Shifters huddled on a nearby couch. One of the younger women was crying, her shoulders shaking with each sob. Tressie. Nava had been teaching her to knit. An older man—Sam, I think his name was—patted her on the back then pulled away. A glimmer of hope lit his face. He walked into the hallway, out of eyeshot of the chronoinvestigators, and Shifted.