Reid shakes his head. “I put my hand through one night when I opened a portal by myself, and nothing happened. I didn’t get burned up. The three of us can go through them fine.”
Elijah looks at Ben, who nods.
But I don’t care about this part. “What happened with my dad?”
“He figured it out,” Reid says. “Not the portals, but he figured out I was involved. I talked to him when the portal took out the house. They were my neighbors, and he was questioning everyone, but he kept asking me the same questions again and again.”
My eyes sting. My dad could almost always tell when someone was lying—he’d obviously known Reid had more to say.
“And then he must have followed me out here. He couldn’t figure out what I was doing, but he knew I was involved somehow.”
I’m so proud of my dad, my heart feels like it might burst. That he could have realized Reid had something to do with this after one conversation. I put a hand to my chest and shake my head. “So how did you accidentally end up shooting him?”
Ben gives Reid a kick. “Tell her.”
“I started carrying my foster father’s gun around when I was opening the portals in case something came through that wasn’t dead.”
“Shit,” Elijah mutters.
“He surprised me. I was in the middle of trying to get a portal open, and he just walked in like he owned the place,” Reid says. “The portal opened, and I couldn’t let him see it. So I pulled the gun and I shot him. I didn’t know it was your dad until later!”
I feel sick. Because that doesn’t sound accidental at all.
“And then you just kept right on going?” Ben asks. “Even after the earthquakes and when we were chasing Eric Brandt around.”
“You fucking got me shot for no reason,” Elijah adds.
I hold out a hand to steady myself and hear Alex say, “It’s okay, I got him,” and then Ben is there, steadying me, as I lean over and vomit into the dirt.
It’s while I’m bent over, puking up the food I ate today with Ben holding my hair, that I hear the electronic sound a TV makes when you turn it on or off in a quiet room. A cool rush of air hits the back of my neck, and my body shivers.
Elijah says, “Holy fucking shit,” Alex grunts, and for a minute I don’t see it. It’s dark and it’s hard to see too far in the distance. But to my left there’s a perfect circle of landscape that seems to be missing. In its place is a nothingness, a black hole. I see it because it ripples like it’s liquid—and because Barclay and Eric Brandt in full tactical gear are coming through. They both have guns trained on us, and Eric Brandt shouts, “Get on the ground, hands behind your head!”
Elijah steps toward him and Barclay yells, “Right now!”
Then I hear the gunshot.
And I turn in time to see that Reid and Alex both have their hands on my father’s gun, and blood is pouring from a hole in Alex’s neck.
I
throw myself at Alex.
My hands go to the hole in his neck, and I press down to try to stop the bleeding. They’re coated in his blood within half a second. I’m screaming for someone to help me, but Eric has his gun on Elijah and Ben, and Barclay has his on Reid.
“It’s Reid!” I scream, because I can’t deal with Ben getting shot too.
Reid looks at me, then raises his gun toward Barclay.
And there isn’t even a split second of hesitation.
Barclay shoots him in the head.
Eric has Elijah and Ben on the ground with their hands over their heads. Underneath my own hands, I can feel Alex choking on the blood in his throat. I look over my shoulder and see Barclay checking Reid’s vitals.
“He’s dead!” I scream to Barclay. “Help me!”
Blood comes out of Alex’s mouth, and I try to look him in the eyes and will him to stay with me, but they’re already glassy and unfocused.
“Please, Alex, I need you!”
I can tell the exact moment he’s gone, though. I just know.
Barclay is kneeling next to me, adding his hands to mine, trying to apply pressure to the wound. And I’m suddenly so cold, my whole body is shaking.
But I refuse to give up.
“Ben! Barclay, please, I need Ben!”
Barclay turns and shouts something to Eric. Something about Reid.
“It was Reid opening the portals!” I shout. I need Ben to help me. “Please, Barclay!”
I can’t breathe. I can’t believe this is happening. After everything. How could I be so stupid as to let Alex come with us? I should never have let him run around and play FBI with me in the first place.
Ben scrambles in next to me, and I grab his hands and thrust them into the blood where the bullet went. “Heal him, please.” I’m crying.
“I will,” he says.
And I feel Ben’s hands start to warm up and heat underneath mine, and that heat seeps into Alex’s skin, and then Elijah is kneeling down across from us, lending his hands to Alex’s neck too, and I pull back since my hands aren’t going to do anything but get in the way.
Before my eyes, the skin reknits itself together until there is no bullet hole.
But Alex doesn’t wake up.
“What’s wrong? Why isn’t it working?”
“He’s lost too much blood!” Elijah says.
“Here,” Ben says as he pushes me out of his way and puts his hand on Alex’s chest. He pours whatever he can into Alex’s chest—to restart his heart. Alex’s body jerks, and then Ben and Elijah are doing CPR.
“Please, please, Alex,” I plead over and over again. But nothing happens. He doesn’t open his eyes or take a breath.
Until Barclay is pulling me back.
“Tenner, he’s already long gone,” he says, and then he shakes my shoulders. “Janelle, they can’t bring him back.”
I look up into Barclay’s blue eyes, and I must be delusional because I think he’s actually trying to be nice to me. “People aren’t supposed to have those kinds of powers,” he says. “We’re not supposed to be able to bring people back from the dead. You have to let him go.”
“I’m supposed to be dead,” I say.
Barclay at least doesn’t lie to me. “But you’re not.”
“But why?” I whisper.
“Maybe you weren’t ready to let go, maybe Ben didn’t get to Alex in time,” Barclay says. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
And then someone is pushing Barclay out of the way and pulling me into their arms. “I’m so sorry, baby. I fixed what I could, but it was too late.” I sag into Ben, breathing in his smell and letting him take my weight as my legs give out beneath me.
Until we’re on the ground, holding on to each other, sticky with Alex’s blood, and Elijah puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Janelle. I fucking liked him.”
T
he IA finally has enough of my hysteria, and Barclay pulls me to my feet. Then he turns to Ben. “I’m not kidding about your abilities,” he says. “Besides the fact that every time you use them, you fuck around with your body’s chemical makeup, there are people out there who think no one should have that kind of power, and you’d be smart to not advertise, if you know what I mean.”
I don’t really know what that means, other than the fact that Barclay thinks Ben might be putting himself in danger.
“Got it.” Ben stands and pulls me into him again.
“And no more opening portals,” Barclay says, lowering his voice and glancing at Brandt. “At all. If anyone in IA finds out you were involved more than you let on…”
Ben nods.
“Once we’re home, I have no reason to ever fucking leave,” Elijah adds.
“Taylor, get the body,” Brandt says before he approaches us. And he looks specifically at me. “Earth 19402 will be closed to interverse travel for at least six months after we leave to allow it to restabilize in its new position. But after that, as long as there’s no unauthorized travel or unstable portal openings, you should gradually but steadily move away from Wave Function Collapse.”
“And you’re not going to release the Oppenheimer on us?” I ask.
“No, I’ll disable it. As long as no one else opens any more portals, your universe should restabilize on its own,” he says, and then he looks at Ben and Elijah. “This will get you home. It’ll be open for four minutes exactly, and then it’ll shut forever. Within the next few days, someone from IA will come by to debrief you on exactly what happened here, for the report.”
And he points a quantum charger at open space, and a portal opens.
Then he turns, and without another word, he goes back through the portal he and Barclay appeared from.
I turn to Barclay. “You’re taking the Oppenheimer with you, right?” Because I don’t want that thing stuck here.
He nods.
“How did you find us?” I ask.
“There’s a tracking device in every quantum charger,” he says. “It took me a while to figure out how to turn it on.” He doesn’t say they made it in time, because Alex is dead, but he grabs Reid’s body, looks at Ben, and says, “Don’t fuck this up. Get through the portal. It’s your only chance to get home.”
Then he looks at me. “Take care of yourself,” he says, and then right before he steps through his portal, he adds, “And good job.”
Then he’s gone, and the portal closes behind him.
And the countdown is over.
W
hen Barclay is gone, Ben hugs me to him and tells me again he’s sorry about Alex. He’s crying too—his whole body shakes as he wraps it around mine. I swallow down the lump in my throat and wipe the burning tears from my eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” I say, even though it hurts. Because it’s not his fault—and I know that—but I still don’t understand why he could bring
me
back from the dead and not Alex.
“Guys, are you fucking seeing this?” Elijah says.
But I don’t need to see the portal.
I feel it
. The air changes, the temperature drops a fraction of a degree, a breeze that seems to say
storm
picks up, a shot of electricity moves through the ground under my feet, and I can smell it—wet, never-ending, open.
I shiver.
Not just because it’s cold.
I’m afraid to look at Ben, so I look at Elijah first. His mouth ajar, his eyes wide, he’s leaning toward the portal. The front of his body has an eerie glow to it, as if the portal itself is reflecting off him, beckoning him to come forward, like it’s waiting to reclaim him.
He turns, his eyes looking past me as if I’m not even here, a slow smile spreading wide. “We did it,” he whispers. “We really fucking did it!”
And Elijah suddenly throws his head back and his arms out to the sides, and a laugh between elation and hysteria peals from his mouth, swallowing up the eerie silence.
And my throat constricts. My eyes burn. I try to swallow back the rising tide of emotions. I’m alive when I should be dead. My father is dead. Alex is dead. We just prevented the end of the world. We stalled Wave Function Collapse. We opened the portal they need to get them back home. It’s all too much—and I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.
It doesn’t matter that I knew this part was coming—I
hoped
for it, for Ben. I can’t swallow. Instead I fight the urge to gag.
I turn to Ben. Only he’s not looking at the portal, and he’s not looking at Elijah. He’s looking right at me.
Those deep-set eyes that look like they could tell stories for days, and that wavy brown hair that feels soft between my fingers. I try to memorize the angles of his jaw and the lines of his lips, because I know.
I know this might be the last time I ever see him.
Breath fills my lungs, my throat relaxes, and I can’t help but smile. Because I can see what he’s thinking as clearly as if he had spoken.
He doesn’t want to leave—he doesn’t want to go home.
He’s going to choose me instead.
Ben lifts his hand toward me, and as my heart flutters, Elijah catapults himself in front of me, throwing his arms around Ben and tackling him to the ground.
“We’re going home!” Elijah laughs. “We’re finally fucking going home. My parents—your brother! I’ve imagined what they’ll say when they see us every fucking day we’ve been gone.”
The reminder hits me like a punch to the gut. Seven years Ben’s been away from his family. Seven years he’s been in and out of foster homes. What kind of person would I be if I asked him to stay here?
If I let him stay.
I would never leave Jared—or even Struz—behind. What kind of regrets will Ben have if he chooses me over his family—his former life? How much resentment will he have toward me if I let him?
Elijah jumps up again and pulls Ben to his feet. “Ready?” he says, and I never thought I’d look at Elijah Palma and see an unbridled enthusiasm and a lightness in his step that reminds me of my brother.
“Eli,” Ben whispers, a finality in his voice.
And despite the fact that my heart is hammering uncontrollably in my body, I know I need to take care of this.
“I’m not—”
I cut in. “Yes, you are.”
Ben’s eyes pivot to mine, and Elijah looks back at me, remembering my existence with surprise.
“Janelle…”
“Don’t.” My voice breaks, even though I’m desperately trying to hold it together. “You said it yourself. You don’t belong here,” I add, squeezing the words through the tightness in my throat. “You need to go home.”
But my traitorous heart comes to life enough to scream that it still loves him. Because no matter what those other parts of me think, the part that decided that it loved Ben Michaels still does. And it doesn’t want to let him go without some kind of fight.
Ben pushes past Elijah and pulls me into his arms in a motion so swift that I can’t follow it—not through the tears clouding my vision. But as his body curls around me, the irony that we just
fit
so perfectly together, like the contours of our bodies have molded together to maximize the points of connection, is hardly lost on me. He squeezes me against him—hard. Almost to the point that it hurts.
When he presses his mouth to my ear and his breath whispers into my hair, for a minute I’m delusional.
“I belong with you.”
I want him to say it so badly that I imagine he does.