Loop (37 page)

“I’ve got to get to a phone.” He laid me in a patio chair, then banged on the back door, rattled the windows, checking whether they were locked. The house was empty. “As long as that thing is in your head, they can keep dragging you back to the future. You won’t be safe until it’s out of you. We have to find my dad.”

“And what’s your dad going to do?”

“He’s a surgeon. He’ll … I don’t know, cut it out.”

“Finn.” My voice cracked, as I realized what his idea of a microchip was. Something to find lost pets or track a runner’s progress. “It’s buried in the deepest section of my brain. Removal is an intricate surgery and so rarely done, even in my time. People have chips implanted. Not taken out.

“This is what we need to focus on with the time that we have.” I held up the defunct reverter. “I have to get this working. They’re going to suck me back to my time no matter what. This is the only thing that can fix the damage ICE is doing to the past. If I don’t get this operational before Bergin goes back and saves his wife, I might forget everything. I might lose everything, all my memories and experiences leading me here. I might lose…”

I couldn’t bring myself to say “you.” But Finn wasn’t listening to me anyway. He’d backed up to the edge of the deck and squared off his shoulders to make a run at the sliding glass door.

“Wait!” I stumbled up and limped over to block his path.

There was no stopping his determination to get in the house. Shifters learn early on to either get scars or get smarts on our missions. I’d chosen smarts after my first (and only) stint in a nineteenth-century jail for indecent public dressing. If I could pick the lock of the New York Macy’s circa 1889, I could get into Finn’s house.

There was no way John and Georgie managed to land in the house every time they got back from one of their Shifts. Charlotte would go bonks at the thought of them shivering outside in the night. She’d have hidden a key. Inconspicuous, yet accessible and …

A ring of dirt lined an oversized flowerpot next to the deck’s top step. I dug my nails around the edge of the soil.

“Voilà.” I held up a mud-caked key.

I scraped as much dirt off the key as I could, but it wouldn’t turn in the lock. There was a scratching noise on the deck steps. I whirled around, but it was only Slug the dog. He came up and licked my hand. His pudge rolls swung from side to side in a full body wag.

“Good dog,” I said, patting and pushing him away at the same time. “Now, go away.”

I plucked the key from the lock and looked for something I could use to gouge more grunge out of it. The only thing I had was the reverter. It really did resemble a thick writing pen, a little wider in diameter than my pinky. I examined the triangle-shaped notch cut out of the end. It almost looked like it was missing a part. And then I remembered Bergin’s comment about how it wasn’t operational because it didn’t have all the components.

Real brilliant there, Future Bree. Make me risk my life for a gadget that doesn’t even work yet.

I scraped at the mud, as good as it was going to get. Slug came back and nudged his nose between my hand and the door.

“Get out of the way, Slug. I can’t get the key in.”

I leaned back toward the lock but dropped the key with a gasp.

“The key—Finn, we’re missing the key!”

“It’s right there.” He pointed at the ground.

“No. For the reverter. There’s a piece missing. It would fit here, in this notch. It must be some kind of key to operate it.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I have no idea. Aigh.” I doubled over. My pain had ramped to fork-rammed-in-my-eye-socket.

“Maybe—” Finn picked up the mud-covered house key and jammed it in the end of the reverter. Nothing happened. He ran down the deck stairs in a panic and started grabbing things at random, shells and rocks.

I stumbled down the stairs after him and placed my hand over his as he tried to jam a tiny fish bone in. “This isn’t working.”

“No.” His voice broke. “I’m not going to fail.”

Fail.

When all else fails, you have to break my heart.

My heart.

I grabbed the reverter from him. It could work.

“Finn, it will fit perfectly if we break it.”

“What will?”

“My heart.”

“Your…?”

“My heart locket!”

Finn whipped me up in his arms and swung me around. When he put me down, he reached into his pocket at the same moment that I clasped my bare wrist.

That was also, of course, the moment that my head burst into a fireball. “Son of a—”

Finn threw me over his shoulder. “Beach.”

chapter 35

THE COVE LOOKED LIKE
we’d let a rabid mole loose on it. Piles pocked the sand in a haphazard pattern. No rhyme. No reason. We’d been at it for almost five minutes with no sign of the bracelet. Slug ran circles around us on the beach. Finn kept throwing rocks into the grass to get him out of the way, but he’d retrieve them, prancing back for more. He must have thought it was a game.

This game had no winner.

And I wasn’t much help in our search. The pain of the forced fade had grown almost unbearable. Finn, ever positive, pointed out how thankful he was my nosebleed had stopped. I, however, was thankful that the dim moonlight hid the blood that had started trickling from my ears.

I kept a moderate distance from Finn as we continued the pointless hunt. I’d made up my mind the moment I realized I loved him. He belonged here, safe in his present with his family. Not hovering on the edge of disaster in mine.

But knowing Finn was out there somewhere, healthy and happy, that would be enough. That had to be enough.

“I’ve got it!” He lifted a silver object up in a triumphant fist, then lowered it. “No. Another bottle cap.”

His third one.

“Finn.” I broke my distance rule to walk over and rest my hand on his shoulder. He refused to abandon his sifting even for a moment. “Finn, there’s something I need to say before … There’s something I need to say now.”

“No. It can wait until I find it. I’m not going to lose you.”

With those words, both our lives spread before me. A depressing and dangerous game of tug-of-war neither of us could win. He would never have more than a too-short past with me. I would never have more than a too-short future with him. And when Bergin succeeded in yanking me back to my present, even that might be taken away from us.

“Finn, you will always have my heart.” I lifted his face toward mine, but he refused to look into my eyes. “But we both know your great-grandchildren will be long dead before I’m so much as a glimmer in my father’s eye. Actually, that’s reversed, but that’s my point. Look at my mom and dad. I don’t want that for us. You have to let me go.

“They can do whatever they want up here.” I pointed at my head. “They can never touch this.” I moved his hand to my heart and took a step forward, lifting my lips to meet his. But as I did so, Slug jumped up on our clasped arms and sent both of us sprawling onto the beach.

“Seriously?” I let out a joyless laugh and stared up at the heavens. “I’m beginning to think God doesn’t want this kiss to happen.”

I rolled off of Finn. His red-rimmed eyes reflected a glimmer of moon. The time I had left with him could be measured in moments. I wanted to savor every one of them. I leaned over and kissed each of his eyelids, then his forehead, his right cheek, his left—

Slug jumped back on top of us, growling and dipping his head for Finn to throw the rock again.

“I swear.” I reached into Slug’s slobbery mouth for the rock so we could have some peace. “If you don’t leave us alone, I’m going to—”

The rock wasn’t a rock.

“Yeeeee!” I threw my arms around Slug. “Finn, look!”

I held out the locket for him to see. He grabbed my fist and kissed it.

The hinge was tight with age, but when I bent it back as far as it would go it snapped cleanly in two. The smaller piece fit perfectly into the end of the extractor. Like a key slipping into a lock. With the heart in place, the device whirred and glowed the same green hue as a Haven Beacon.

“Nice touch,” said Finn.

We both stood there staring at it with goofy smiles on our faces. Mine was the first to disappear. The reverter stopped whirring. The light dimmed into an intermittent green blink.

“That’s it?” I clicked the end in and out. Nothing.

This had all been pointless. There was no forever for us. Only this blip in time. And whatever stolen moments I could grab with his past. But now the thought of that depressed me, to go back and see him knowing we had no future.

If I even had that.

Agony tore through my body. I hunched over. All hope, all energy, evaporated. I had failed. At least here in Chincoteague, Finn would be immune to ICE’s crazy-making changes. Bergin had said nonShifters could only change events within their own personal time line, which for me would be well after Finn’s time. I clutched the reverter and ran my finger over the heart lodged in the end.

When all else fails, break my heart.

I sat up. I had
always
failed. Future Bree knew that and still chose this path, this heartbreak. Why?

I blinked at Finn. Here in Chincoteague, he was immune to the time-line changes. They couldn’t steal the Truth from him like they could from me. This was never about my future. It was about his.

I could only see one way.

“You didn’t break my heart,” I whispered.

He’d been staring out at the ocean. He turned to face me. “What?”

“Future Bree told you, ‘When all else fails, you have to break my heart.’ That’s what she said. But
I
was the one who broke the locket.
I
broke my heart.”

“So?”

“Take this.” I handed him the reverter. “Hide it or put it in your safe. Something. You have to get it to Quigley the next time she visits you. Explain everything to her if she doesn’t already know by then.”

“Aunt Lisa?”

“Or it may be some other Shifter from the future. Someone your dad meets. Someone he trusts.” I didn’t try to hide the defeat in my voice.

Finn shook his head and tried to give it back to me.

“You give it to her,” he said. “You can hide it again. You’re going to be okay.”

I shook my head. “It was too easy, Finn.”

“What?”

“Getting away from Bergin. Don’t you see? He could have had a hundred of his henchmen waiting outside his office door to stop me. He could have sent Future Wyck back armed with a weapon beyond our worst imagining. You heard him.” I held up the reverter. “This can’t be destroyed until it has all its parts. He let us get away. Bergins
wants
this thing operational. You have to take it.”

“No.”

“It has to be this way.”

“No. You’re going to come back.”

“Do it!” I screamed.

He clutched the reverter to his chest, looking as if I’d zapped him with the stunner again. He hung his head for a moment. When he looked up, his expression had turned to flint.

“Fight it.” He pursed his lips.

And vanished.

“Finn?” I reached out to where he had stood. He was gone. He was really gone.

It was so fast.

Without even a good-bye. The selfish part of me wanted him to stay with me to the end, but he was right. It was better this way. Alone. I collapsed onto my side.

A fresh volley fired throughout my skull. I rolled into a ball. A tang of fresh blood gurgled into my throat. The sound of the pounding waves gave me something to concentrate on other than the pain. With each crash, the pull grew stronger and stronger. How easy it would be to give in to it. The pain percolated down to my teeth, gritted in agony. All the tension would release if I gave in to the pull. I’d land facedown somewhere on a soft lawn in the twenty-third century.

I drank in one last view of this little island I’d grown to love; then my eyesight dimmed. Would Bergin strip me of this memory as soon as I got home or would he let me keep it awhile? Torture me with it awhile?

The important thing was Finn and the reverter were out of ICE’s reach now. He would hold on to the Truth even as it was stripped from me.

My body began to relax and surrender to the pull. Only a few more seconds and I’d be …

No.

I’d fight it. I’d promised Finn.

I’d fight
them.

For as long as I could.

They might control where I went. They might control
when
I went. They’d never control who I was. But then the pain ratcheted up. I couldn’t … I couldn’t …

Everything faded.

chapter 36

COOL PINK LIGHT TRICKLED
through the edges of my vision and tickled the backs of my eyelids. I didn’t need to open them to know which century I was in. The jagged spasms of the forced fade had subsided. The all-too-familiar dull ache of the Buzz remained.

I had lost him.

I forced my eyes open. A ceiling fan paddled around in lazy circles, just fast enough so I couldn’t tell if there were four or five blades. If I stared at the center too long, the fan appeared to go backward. But it was an optical illusion.

Going backward wasn’t an option. They’d already found me. Only my own bleak future stretched out before me. I’d live a new fresh hell every time I snuck away to visit Finn—wondering if it would be the last time. That was if I managed even one visit before ICE changed something that stripped me of my memories.

Starched cotton sheets rustled against my still-achy bare leg as I turned to the side. The scent of fresh wisteria wafted in through an open window. At least my captors had sprung for a nice hospital room. I pushed myself up on my elbow to look for a call button.

“Don’t let my mom see you do that. She’ll have a conniption.”

I flipped around so fast I bumped the glass of ice water balanced on the edge of the nightstand. It knocked over some action figures and splattered across the speaker’s shirt. His glorious overpriced designer shirt.

“Finn?” I said. “How did you…? Where did you…? When did you…?”

I had shimmied to the side of the bed, propelled by my stammered half questions, and was about to take a flying leap at him when he hopped up from the chair in which he’d been lounging. He pushed me back down on the pillows but curled next to me.