
# LIMINAL BOY

THE OPPOSITION: BOOK TWO

Stefani Chaney

Smudge Nose Books
Copyright © 2019 by Stefani Chaney

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transferred in any form without the written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author at the website below.

Stefani Chaney/Smudge Nose Books

www.stefanichaney.com/smudgenosebooks

Author's Note: This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and historical events are a result of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real people, businesses, locations, historical events, and institutions is coincidental.

Book design by Jenn and Graeme Gott

Cover design by Deanne Designs

Liminal Boy: The Opposition / Stefani Chaney. – 1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-7338285-0-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-7338285-3-6 (ebook)

# CONTENTS

  1. Lallo
  2. Late-Night Snack
  3. Will
  4. Dog with A Job
  5. The Day Midnight Died
  6. A Leak
  7. Don't Refuse Jo
  8. Change of Plans
  9. Star Sustenance
  10. Promises
  11. Full Service
  12. Rebirth
  13. The Clinic
  14. Unease in the Ranks
  15. Last Christmas
  16. Almost Like the Flu
  17. The Mirror World
  18. Back to the Real World
  19. Crushed
  20. Bath Time
  21. Harding Hotel #4
  22. Shoreline Dream
  23. Starting Over
  24. Follower Count
  25. Meeting Adjourned
  26. Jamie's Gift
  27. Searching
  28. Another Year
  29. Laika
  30. The Weird Section
  31. The Las Cruces Experiments
  32. China Doll
  33. Revelations
  34. The End of the World
  35. Trading Shifts
  36. Heartwarming
  37. In Memory
  38. A Lecture
  39. Look What the Dogs Dragged In
  40. The Liminal Boy
  41. Angel
  42. The Start of It All

For Laika

#  LALLO

Midnight had long since passed yet the sun shined brightly through the windows bordering the hallway. Purple and blue swirls patterned the walls. Pencil crayon drawings were tacked at eye level. The alphabet repeated along the space where the walls met the ceiling like a literary trim. Highlighted calendars of lunch specials and events were posted on the office door beside me.

I had no idea where I was.

My hand went to my head. Long white strands fell over my fingers as I tried to recall how I had come to this place. This school didn't look like one I had been to before, but I knew there was only one reason I would have gone there. Only, I never went alone.

Ben always went to enroll me in the next year of special education. Maybe, at seventeen, he thought I could do it on my own. Or maybe he was angry at me. Did I choose to come here on my own without telling him? My last memory struggled to the surface: Theo sleeping on the braided rug in my bedroom at the home on Marigold Court.

Heels rapped against the speckled floor, pulling me out of my head. A woman appeared around a corner at the other end of the hall. She clutched a wide black purse. Large sunglasses rested on top of her head. Her face was almost as composed as her outfit. High cheeks, flushed pink, curved to a smooth jaw and bright red lips. The tap of her dark red heels echoed along the walls, long dress billowing behind her legs.

I stepped back, against the wall, to let her pass. She didn't glance my way in her haste to reach the door with the calendars. Highlighted chestnut hair fell to the middle of her back in gentle waves. A faint perfume lingered in the air even after she pushed through the door into the other room.

I squinted at the letters on the plaque.

Principal.

I could get directions there, find out where to go to enroll myself in another year. Most people my age would be ready to graduate but my life didn't work like most people's. My timeline was wrong. I had started my first day of education at eleven years old. Ever since then I had been playing catch-up—Ben said I would catch up—but it was a losing game. I was too slow.

I stepped in and waited behind the woman for my turn at the desk.

The office looked as unfamiliar and odd as the hallway. The outdated computer and rumbling printer on the desk looked older than me. A calendar tacked to the wall said May, though September was halfway over. Even the ring of the phone next to the secretary sounded wrong.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm here for—" the woman began.

A sniff from the far side of the room caught her attention. A row of brightly colored plastic chairs stood lined along a wall. There, a small dark-haired boy curled into an orange chair, tears streaming down his cheeks.

The woman dropped into the green plastic chair beside him and gathered the weeping boy into her lap. He clutched her silk dress, sobbing the loud heart-wrenching sob that only very young children seem capable of making. As though their world were ending.

"Lallo," she whispered into the boy's dark hair as he buried his face in her chest. "Lallo, shush. It's ok. Stop crying. You're going to make yourself sick."

A dull ache filled my lungs as I watched the woman cradle her son, rubbing comforting circles on his back. I had a mother once. The years I spent around her never amounted to an ounce of the compassion this one gave her son in the span of the past minute.

The boy continued to cry so strongly his sobs turned into racking coughs. The secretary shook her head and shuffled papers as the printer noisily spat more onto her desk.

"You can't keep doing this to me," the woman whispered. "You have to go to school."

Between sobs, he choked out a single word. "Go."

"You're not going home. You have to go to school." Her accent sounded familiar, American—but I couldn't place the region.

"Go."

"You promised me you wouldn't do this again. What's your father going to think about this? Huh? You know he's going to be angry when he finds out you missed class again."

Lallo's sobs increased violently, his world truly ending. The woman rocked him with fevered shushing. She rested her chin on the top of his head, her eyelids closed.

Behind the secretary, a door opened. Another, yet much older, woman, stepped out of the adjacent room. She shook her head, gray wispy hair sneaking out of a tight bun. "Three for three this week, Winona."

Winona did not cease rocking, merely nodding her head as she continued to comfort her son. Her long nails stroked his untidy hair. His sobs eased gradually.

"He tried to slip into the girls' quarters before nine." The principal leaned down to Lallo's level even though his face was still buried in his mother's chest. "A little lady killer, aren't you? You better stop crying or the girls will think you're one of them."

Winona cracked her eyes open and flashed a deadly look at the old woman.

The principal continued anyway. "I've never seen such a severe case of separation anxiety in my forty years at this school, but he'll man up. They always do. You just got to break the bond first." Wrinkled spotted hands mimed breaking a stick in half. "Make them understand how the world works. You can't stay at home with mommy forever."

Winona's eyes narrowed on the principal's weathered hands. The corners of her red lips turned down. She snatched her black purse from the floor, slipped it over her shoulder, and stood up, taking Lallo with her.

"No one's breaking my son." She adjusted the boy slipping over her hip. He clutched her tightly. Her thick hair fell over him like a shroud. "This school isn't working for us. I'll find a better one."

More gray hair escaped from the knot as the principal crossed her arms. "You're going to ruin that boy, the way you spoil him. He'll never amount to anything."

"A co-ed school. Not one that sticks to archaic beliefs like yours," Winona snapped. She glanced at the manual clock on the wall. It was almost noon. Lallo nearly lasted the morning.

The principal scoffed as Winona swept out of the room, Lallo's arms wrapped firmly around her neck. The old woman's eyes slipped over me. She exchanged a look with the secretary and returned to her office, shutting the door. The secretary went back to typing on the old computer. The printer hummed loudly right before the sound of crunching paper ripped through the office.

I stepped forward, waiting for her to look up. She didn't.

"Pardon?"

She spun around in the chair and smacked the printer. It continued to crunch.

My hands went to unconsciously twist Theo's leash. With a sickening dip of my stomach, a drop like a missed step, I realized I wasn't holding it. _Hadn't_ been holding it since before the hallway. Turning in a circle, I looked around the room for him then ducked to peer under a table holding dusty awards.

"Theo?"

He always stayed beside me, even when I wasn't holding his leash. Always.

The secretary did not look up from the printer as I called for him. Not even when I threw the door open and it slammed back against the wall.

There was no sign of him in the hallway.

Where was he? Did I lose him on the bus? On the metro? Outside the building? Was he back at home? Where was he? An elevator! I could have lost him in a crowded elevator. _Did I take an elevator?_

Panic choked my throat. My heart pounded in my ears as the piercing ring of a bell signaled the new hour. Everything was moving too fast. I sank down to the floor. My runners and palms were glued to the speckled tile, tacky from some cleaning solution. Where was he? Why did I even come here? The thunder of excited young children talking and stampeding out of classrooms added to the storm in my head.

Get up.

Ask for help.

Move.

_Move_.

My brain wasn't working again. Panic stifled the orders. It was like trying to move in a dream—one of those awful dreams where you're half-awake and fully aware that you're lying in bed while your brain is wading through its own world. Mind and body disconnected from each other. Only I couldn't find the part of me that was dreaming. All I knew was that my bones were filled with lead. It took every ounce of strength to crawl a few paces across the floor, searching for my brain and my dog.

Get up.

Ask to use the phone.

Call Dan.

Move.

Move.

_Move_.

"What are you doing here?"

I blinked away the panic obscuring my vision. In the corner, an eager young face took shape against the swirling purple and blue walls. The figure crouched like a spider in the corner. Clear blue eyes peered at me from under a sparkling purple scarf that was wrapped around a mass of yellow curls.

"Are you going to spy with me?" They crawled on bare hands and knees. Eyes, with irises as blue as clear water, lit up with excitement.

Steps thundered above, surrounding us.

"You can help me observe." Blue eyes glimmered like a lake on a sunny day, glinting like the sequins in their scarf. "I'm looking for weaknesses. Who would have thought Angel was such a cry-baby?"

"Weaknesses?"

"How did you know to find me?" They peered at my hands. My nails dug into the tacky floor. "Oh. It's you again. Don't worry. I'll send you back to your right time then get back to spying." The purple scarf slipped down. They pushed it back into place with pale hands then reached for mine. I pressed against the wall, gaining as much distance as I could. But there was no feeling, no connection to tell my limbs to get up and run away from the static energy surrounding the stranger. Cold hands closed over mine. "Tell Midnight I said thanks."

"For what?"

The hallway flickered. A power surge. The world gone in a flash then suddenly clear before me.

"For her verve." They grinned, squeezing my hand tightly. I was wrong. Their skin wasn't cold. It was hot. Their touch burned like a fire. A shooting pain ran up my arm. "I'll see you soon, Liminal Boy."

#  LATE-NIGHT SNACK

The sheets tangled around my legs as I rolled out of bed and fell onto the rug. A cold layer of sweat coated the back of my neck. More pooled around my eyes. I blinked it away as my brain struggled to recall why I was panicking. A dream. I was in danger. Something was missing. No—someone was missing.

Theo whined from the braided rug that took up the center of my bedroom. The blue hue of the rug was transformed into a sickly gray under the dim streetlight seeping past the curtains.

I exhaled, relief stifling the waves of fear rising in my blood. Theo thumped his tail then walked closer, one unsteady step at a time. His movements were slow and stiff but determined. I sat up, chucking the sheets onto the mattress above. Theo put a paw on my leg and gazed at me. A thin crooked line of white ran from just above his eyes down to the tip of his black nose. Sometimes, black strands of hair on either side would ruffle and break the line. When I was young, I would spend ages fixing and breaking the line over and over again. He would let me run a finger up and down his nose for as long as I needed. Black-brown eyes questioned if I needed to do it now.

"I'm fine."

The border collie was deaf so the words meant even less to him. Streetlight muted the shine of his black coat as he tilted his head. A scratch behind his left ear set him at ease.

In a few hours, the sun would rise and normal people would wake up to face their day. But this time, these weird hours where the night sky washed from the deepest blue to the pale gray that foretold the rising sun, this was mine.

The stairs creaked as we made our way down. Unfiltered streetlight shone brightly through the first-floor windows. It fell onto the floorboards of the dusty hallway as I set Theo down on the ground. The herd of Ben's porcelain elephants watched as I passed by the small table and coat rack. Their shadows turned to watch as I snuck into the kitchen. The dishwasher churned loudly in the sleeping house. Water dripped from the bottom and trickled along the floor.

My head throbbed. A deep bruise along one side of my skull felt tender. My fingers prodded the scalp hidden underneath my hair. I must have hit it when I fell. I had spent hours staring at the ceiling, wishing sleep was a button I could just press. I couldn't remember when I had finally dozed off. Two middle fingers aligned as they prodded the tender spot. Something hard, as small as a grain of rice, shifted between them. All I could recall before the dream was thinking about how stupid I had been to get caught up in this mess. Weeks had passed since I returned to the house on Marigold Court. No matter how hard we tried to pretend nothing had happened, the deadly implant waiting in my hand said otherwise.

A bottle of whiskey was in the _not-quite-hidden_ hiding spot above the refrigerator, next to a margarita mix that had been in the house almost as long as we had lived there.

Sterner parents would have taken me to rehab and left me there, returned me to the group home, or at least threatened me with some other sort of punishment. Sterner parents would never even consider keeping a bottle of alcohol in the same house as me.

I didn't have sterner parents.

I didn't even have parents.

I had two men who put too much faith in a lost cause.

My hand caught the top of a cracked vinyl kitchen chair as I passed. I dragged it away from the table, released it against the counter, and shoved a stack of mail to the side. It would lay forgotten for a few more hours, until sunrise, when Ben would wake up and read it like the local paper as he drank his coffee. It was his ritual.

Ben was normal. He had a point A to point B life. Even my presence hadn't messed his plan up as much as it should have. He slept at night and woke in the morning. He went to work and stayed there for the entire day and never cried or forgot to shower or stumbled over answers to questions. He drank whiskey only if he felt like it, which wasn't very often or in large amounts.

The clock on the microwave cast a faint green light into the dark kitchen. Shadows towered along the walls. Behind me, the attic door was cracked open. Warm mildewy air crept into the kitchen as I climbed on the chair.

A normal person would be asleep at four in the morning. A normal person wouldn't have spent the last six hours staring at a ceiling, thinking about their dead brother and wishing that the tree in the neighbor's yard would grow taller, hoping that a gust of wind would knock it over, and kill them in their bed.

The tree would spare Theo, of course. He had never done anything wrong. And Ben and Dan as well. I would be the only loss, me and the corner of my room that held the twin bed. Both smashed so badly under the weight of the massive trunk that nothing could be recovered. Nothing left to remember me by. It would be as if I never existed, the only solution that could possibly begin to make up for my existence.

I climbed onto the counter. The cold of the marbled countertop soaked through my pajama pants and leached into my knees. I reached up into the dark corner to grasp the top of the refrigerator but my fingers met the hard knob of the cabinet door instead. It swung open as I pull myself up to my feet and I faltered. Mail scattered onto the floor in a hushed avalanche. A can sprung out from the cabinet and clattered to the ground less quietly than the mail, hitting the counter and bouncing across the floor. It rolled past the envelopes and flyers, ending in a slow curving halt near the garage door. A stampede of paws rushed from all corners of the house.

Misty, a fat chow chow, appeared. Her black eyes bright even in the darkness, tongue lolling out of her mouth. Behind her, Buddy the German shepherd stepped through the doorway, eyeing the scene. Upon seeing that I wasn't an intruder, he turned and slowly walked back down the hallway, disappointed. Pepper, some sort of terrier, popped through Misty's black legs, curious.

I paused and listened as Shiloh appeared last. The beagle always slept like he was dead.

Neither Ben nor Dan came to stop me. The only sound was a faint wailing calling through the hushed night. Misty tilted her head as I snatched the can of black olives from the floor. I returned it and grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the top cabinet, setting it on the table.

Faint wailing called again, closer.

Misty stared up at me, waiting to see what I would do next. Theo followed me outside. Misty pawed at the door as we walked down the steps and around the corner to the gate. A light dew clung to the grass. It wetted the soles of my feet and dampened the bottom of my pajamas. Theo slogged through the grass. He huffed as I wiggled the lock on the gate then gratefully followed me down the dry driveway.

"Guuuuus!"

The elderly neighbor who lived at the end of the block and once had the unfortunate experience of babysitting eleven-year-old me stood at the edge of our sidewalk, craning her head up and lightly patting the side of a short oak tree.

"Gus! Come on, honey!" Leaves rustle from above and she paused. Silence. " _Oh, you little_ —Lanny! My goodness, how are you? It's so nice to see you!"

"Hi, Miss Margret," I mumbled, crossing my arms tightly over my chest as she pulled me into a hug. Theo weaseled between our legs and she quickly released me. She turned her attention back to a low tree branch.

"Did I wake you, darling? I'm sorry. Gus got scared when I decided to do some late-night vacuuming and ran out the door. Now, I can't get him down." She turned her gaze away from the branch and squinted at me through the faint streetlight. "How have you been? It's been . . . what? Two years? You look so much older. Oh, your hair is lighter, too. Ah, I miss the red but it's still so curly. That was the style back in my day, you know, but I never could get mine to hold."

I eased back a step as she reached out to touch my hair. "I can get him down for you."

The bark was rough against my palms. It scratched the skin on the bottom of my feet. Margret called out concerns as I reached the first branch. Gus, a boney, ancient gray cat, glared at me with yellow eyes. He growled, the pitch rising and rumbling as he moved up. I snatched him as he started to climb along the trunk to higher branches. An ear-splitting yowl pierced the air. The sound hurt my ears, but it was nothing compared to his claws. By the time my feet touched the ground again, blood welled and trickled from the pinpoint holes he left on my wrists and arms.

"Oh, my little baby." She took the cat and tucked the wiggling mass like a football under one arm. Gus grumbled, slanted eyes narrowing on Theo. Margret stroked Gus' ear with her free hand. "Thank you, Lanny. You always were such a sweet little boy. You were so cute with that dog following you everywhere. I remember how you used to rake the leaves in my yard every fall and he'd sit there in his little outfit watching you like a guard dog."

" _Hmmph_ ," I replied. A heavy pause wafted in the air until I admitted, "He's protective."

"What we protect says a lot about ourselves." She continued as a cool breeze blew, "A sweet dog for a sweet boy. He knows you're a nice human. Even back when you were little and shouting at everything. Oh, you had such an appetite, that was the only payment you'd take for—Gus, hush!—the help. Stop by my house tomorrow and I'll bake you some cookies like I used to."

"You don't have to."

"I'm sure Ben is so happy to have you back. I'm surprised those two didn't adopt you. They were so upset after you left. I didn't see them for ages after—"

"I should get back inside." I backtracked up the driveway to the gate.

"Remember, tomorrow! I want to know all about where you've been. Don't be shy." She pointed at me, oblivious to Gus, who slipped a paw free and swiped at her finger. Claws glinted in the streetlight.

I waved once then shoved the latch on the gate back into place.

Theo rushed through the wet grass and up the steps. He ran inside as soon as I opened the screen door, shaking his coat even though only his paws had gotten damp. Misty stepped on my foot, huffing with excitement over the possibility of a late-night snack. I ignored her.

The bottle on the table had vanished.

A creak from the attic steps startled me. Light from the attic flooded the dark kitchen. I tried to slip into the shadows before I was spotted.

"Hand me the packing tape, would you?" Dan sniffed. Something heavy hit the floor.

Head down, I grabbed the tape from the rack above the dryer. Dan's eyes narrowed as he took it from my hand. He knelt and pulled a strip of wide clear tape off the roll.

"Care to explain why you're stabbing me in the back?" He sealed two cardboard boxes as he crouched beside the attic entrance.

"I was just helping Margret get her cat."

He nodded to something behind me. I had forgotten about the chair pulled up to the counter and the open cabinets.

"It's bad enough that my own husband's hiding food from me, but now you're sneaking it in the middle of the night and don't even think to share?"

I shrugged, the headache diminishing as I caught the opportunity given to me.

"Whatever it is, I want half." He ripped another stretch of tape off.

I found what Ben had hidden from Dan behind the can of black olives and a box of granola. There was never a shortage of food here. There never had been. It was something I might take for granted if I wasn't careful. Yet, for some reason, Ben had taken up the habit of hiding certain foods behind boxes of things neither Dan nor I would ever go for. I turned around to face Dan, clutching a bag of miniature white donuts from the bakery as though they had been my goal the entire time. Once you've starved, really starved, food is never just a consolation prize. Sometimes, it was almost a fix as good as alcohol.

Dan stacked a second box on top of the other. His face hidden in the shadows. Ben would never let me off the hook. He wouldn't have given me an escape route. He would have lectured me and tried to get me to talk about my feelings or threatened to call Olivia.

"How many are left?" Dan stood up and squinted through the faint light.

I shook the bag and fumbled with the top. The paper was still sealed.

"He'll know if we open it."

At my feet, Misty wriggled with excitement as I handed the donuts to him.

"Or we could eat the entire thing and hope he'll forget buying it in the first place." Dan pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. I dragged the incriminating chair back to its spot, opposite him. Dan ripped the bag open and offered it to me. I took a handful of small white donuts out. Icing sugar sprinkled the table, leaving trails from the bag to our chairs.

"If you choke, I'm not doing the Heimlich on you." Dan took a bite. "More for me."

I handed one to Misty, who swallowed it in one gulp.

"I don't know who eats faster, you or her."

I swallowed hard. My voice came out quiet, half choking from the icing sugar, half still wary of being reprimanded. "What are you doing?"

We never asked each other why we were awake. We didn't have to. The question was always what we were doing with our time spent out of the loop of the natural state of the world. Dan had been point A to point B. After reaching B, he stalled. Still, stalled was better than getting lost before you began.

"Just getting more of that junk up to the attic."

Three days earlier, a noise like a firecracker ripped through the still house and jolted the eight of us into a frenzy. It took about ten minutes of searching before Dan realized the springs of the garage door had finally snapped. They had agreed fixing the door was fruitless. Ever since, Dan had spent every free minute clearing out the garage, storing keepsakes in the attic. He was possessed with the idea of transforming the room.

Dan's final word hovered in the silence that followed, like the echo of those snapping springs. The attic. The place where Ben had invited people to stay and get better. They would be cured in a matter of days and venture back into the world. Now that I was here, Ben didn't do that anymore. He turned them away every time. Dan didn't tell him to do it. He did it automatically, probably recalling how I would react to strangers in the house when I was younger.

I had seen a few of them since I came back, those strangers who arrived at random hours. I watched them from the nook at the top of the staircase where I could observe unseen. Ben would speak softly to them through a crack in the front door, rerouting them to a legitimate shelter with an apologetic but firm tone. They only needed a couple of days to recover from whatever it was that was bothering them. Meanwhile, years spent in this house still hadn't managed to fix me.

"I'll help."

Dan shook his head, biting into another donut. Misty didn't bother begging from him. She knew who the weakest link was. I slipped her a large piece that had crumbled onto the table after a bite.

"There's no hurry. It's not like we can pull the vehicles in. After I wall it off," Dan mused, "we could turn it into another living room."

Dan's truck and Ben's car were both too wide to slip through the old garage doors. Metal posts blocked any possible reconstruction to widen the gap. A lack of money also didn't help get the project off the ground. Money that they would have more of were it not for me and all the expenses being my foster parents entailed.

"Or a bigger kitchen."

My gaze turned to the rows of shelves repeating around the walls. Stacks of serviettes, cleaning supplies, and gallons of water filled every available space.

"Maybe a lounge." His eyes fell on the shoeboxes stacked in the corner that held tax forms and licenses. "Or an office for Ben."

I took another donut out of the bag and bit half of it off, giving the other half to Misty.

Dan snapped his fingers, startling me. "A music room."

After everything, I could never be a normal teenager. I couldn't find it in me to tease or ask or demand. I couldn't be disrespectful. Not after everything Dan had done for me. But those three words, at four in the morning, over stolen donuts . . .

I rolled my eyes.

He laughed. "No, that's it. We're building you a music room. You've got to start somewhere. You can record your demo out there. Make millions. I could retire." His fingers prodded the flecks of icing sugar on the table. "What about you? What are you up to? Donuts?"

"Donuts." My thumbnail hit a callous on the tip of my index finger.

Dan swept the sugar off the table. Misty snuffled along the floor. "If you get tired of hanging out here tomorrow, you should suit up Theo and take him for a walk down to the shop." The mechanic shop where he worked was only a few blocks down the road. As fun as it would have been to go there, the confines of the small garage were too much for me and he knew it. "Or the bookstore."

I almost rolled my eyes again. Dan did not do subtlety.

"Look, he's going to say something, so beat him to it. Get out of the house for an hour and he'll leave you alone. Go see one of your friends. That girl, Jane, stopped by to ask about you this morning."

A piece of donut stuck in my throat and I couldn't correct him. Her name was Darcy. I swallowed several times, wishing I had the whiskey to force it down. "They're not my friends."

He knew they weren't, just like he knew I didn't want to go to Ben's store.

Three donuts remained. Dan leaned back in his chair as I finished them. Misty hacked from somewhere under the table and he scowled at the thick table top.

"Ben got a message today—" He paused as the hacking sound continued.

"From the school?" Word of my meltdown had found me. My head throbbed. No. I frowned. Did that happen or was that part of some dream? Phantom sticky floor tiles tugged at my palms.

"School? No, from Jo Harding. You remember Jo." He met my look with an acknowledgment, casting his eyes to the ceiling. It was a stupid statement. No one could forget Jo. The first time we met, she tackled me in the middle of a gas station and knocked me unconscious, almost killing a dozen people when her verve overpowered mine. "She's headed back here in a few days. Maybe you could hang out with her sometime. You liked Jo, didn't you?"

I shrugged even though I did like Jo. She was the closest I had to a friend other than Dan, if foster parents even counted as friends.

Not much time had passed since everyone suckered into Morgan's fake medical clinic had gathered in this room. Jo's twin brother had bought two tickets on the first flight back to New York. There was no way they were coming back, at least not for good. New York wasn't a place you left.

#  WILL

"You have no one to blame but yourself, Langdon." Morgan wiped the blood off his hands. The motion barely registered in my field of vision.

The death on Will's face filled the entire room. Old burn marks on his arms had healed, but the scars still shone boldly against his paling skin. His eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling. I placed my hand over them and realized a second too late that would be the last time I ever saw them open. Blue. _Blue_. Remember blue eyes.

"I can't believe I am stuck with you," Morgan continued. "How is it that the only survivor out of all of the experiments is the worthless piece of trash I found in the park? William deserved so much more than this. You failed him. You should have known this would happen after you let your mother die."

Rage blinded me, flooding my veins. I was across the room before I could think, grabbing fistfuls of his jacket, pulling the doctor down to my level. Joints in my fingers popped as he broke my hold on him. He shoved and I stumbled back into the table. Will's hand fell off his shiny metal death bed, dangling.

Black veins spread up his hand, extending from the failed implant. The lines moved across his stark white skin, creeping and twisting, connecting to another inky spot blossoming just below his shoulder. The black moved like molten metal under his skin. Even in death, without a heartbeat to move it, Morgan's poison continued its mission.

I stood frozen, mesmerized by my brother's face, watching it wither before my eyes. I had nothing else to lose.

"Why did it break before it reached the heart?" Morgan muttered to himself. He moved beside me with a scalpel.

It hovered above the spot by Will's shoulder. I stared at the blade, distantly wondering when this nightmare would end. The horror of this moment seemed to roll into one long day that started when I was nine.

"The same gene pool . . . It should have taken." He raised his eyes from the black spot to meet mine. I vaguely wondered if he saw the absence of life in my own face, if it mirrored Will's between us. "Do you have any other family? Your mother only had you and William. Perhaps your father got around? Or perhaps not. He always preferred the little ones, didn't he?"

The smirk on his thin mouth snapped something inside me, replacing the deadened feeling. I reached across to snatch the scalpel. He would never lay another hand on Will.

Morgan slapped me with the back of his hand as I tried to rip the scalpel out of his grip.

"You didn't care about William, just as you didn't care about her." He pointed the scalpel at me as I fell to the ground. Spatters of Will's blood, still wet, greeted me. "You wanted this to happen. You wanted to be back on your own, to have your real family gone. You knew that fake family of yours would never have taken him in and now you don't have to choose between your brother or your fathers."

I winced as the scalpel bounced off the floor beside my head. Morgan picked up Will. His body sagged, limp. The fluid movement, the droop of Will's lifeless body in Morgan's arms was obscene.

"Don't take him!" My legs struggled to stand. "Put him down!"

"He's dead," Morgan stated. "You can't play the hero when there's no one to save. Get out of my way."

"You're not burning him." I stepped in front of him and pried my brother from his arms. Morgan relinquished his hold.

Blinking tears, I slid down to the floor far away from him, clutching Will. So much heavier in death. His head hung limp over my arm in a way it never had all the other times I carried him. I cradled his head, lifting it up, until his cheek rested against my shoulder. Until it looked like he was sleeping.

"Get a grip on what mental health you have left." Morgan picked at a fleck of blood on his wrist. "Are you going to hold him like a baby doll until his skin rots off? I know you lived in shit before, but allow your brother some respect."

"You're not burning him!"

"You didn't have a problem with your mother going to the incinerator," he reminded me.

"He gets a grave. A real burial," I demanded. I had never asked for anything from him before. He had taken everything from me. I could have this one thing. For Will. He had been burned enough while he was alive, a human ashtray for our mother's cigarettes. I wouldn't allow it in his death.

"No."

"He gets a real burial or I won't help you."

"Do you think you have a choice?" He stepped forward. "Look around! You are _my_ patient. You are in _my_ clinic. You are under _my_ rules. Do you really think you can fight me off? You've never been able to win once in your entire life."

I swallowed. I really had nothing else to lose. "Will gets a real burial and I won't struggle. You can do whatever you want with me, but only if he gets a real burial."

Morgan studied me, arms crossed, considering. A beep from his phone interrupted him. He looked at it and sighed. "Fine. We'll bury him. But if you pull this stunt on me again, I will hurt you worse than you have ever been hurt in your life. You are not the only one who can survive the REV. There are others out there. I will find them. And when I do, you won't get your way so easily."

He walked toward the door hidden in an alcove above a flight of steps. The shadows led out of the lab, to the first floor, where the facade of a real house waited. Halfway up, he paused, sidetracked by the phone in his hands.

Will's eyelids cracked open, white slits hinting at the death within. His fingers were stiff as I entwined them in mine. The body in my arms didn't feel like Will. Didn't smell like him. It smelled like the chemicals in the vial that Morgan kept sticking me with every week. Like copper and electricity and something _wrong_.

This was it. After everything, _everything_ , I knew this was the worst I could ever hurt. Nothing before had matched the pain of holding him in my arms, knowing that his death was my fault. I wasn't there to protect him when Morgan gave him the shot with the REV. I wasn't there when he started to seize, dying like our mother had, choking on the blood that stained Morgan's hands. Blood that was now smearing onto his phone's screen.

Salt from dried tears crusted Will's cheeks and the corners of his eyes. My fingers shook as I tried to brush the flakes off.

"Look at you, rocking him like some toy. You are absolutely pathetic. Disgusting." Morgan pocketed the phone and continued his path up the shadows. The door opened with a screech. He called down, "I suppose your only consolation is that your brother never lived long enough to find out the truth about you."

#  DOG WITH A JOB

The phone in the kitchen downstairs would not stop ringing. It had woken me with an echo of a headache late the following afternoon. I gave up on getting any more sleep when the shrill noise pierced through the pillow over my head and picked up Theo to carry him down the stairs. I set him on the kitchen floor before ripping the phone off the receiver.

"What?"

"Did you just wake up?"

"No."

"I need you to come to the store and set up chairs for the signing tonight," Ben spoke as I brushed away the hair tumbling into my eyes and mouth.

"Why?"

"I'm short on staff right now. Just do it, Lan. I'll pay you."

I groaned.

"What, did you have plans? You can use the money to buy food. _Donuts_ ," he intoned. "How about that?"

Theo's face blurred. I blinked away the tiredness creeping into my vision. "Now?"

"At five."

I glanced at the clock then mumbled, "Fine."

"Thank you," Ben said bitterly. "Oh, and Lan?" His voice sunk into a low snarl. "Put the vest on or I'll send you back to get it."

I lowered the phone from my face.

"—one more thing."

I raised it back to my ear. "What?"

"For God's sake—for everyone's sake—please, take a shower."

I hung up. Theo stood at the screen door along with the other four dogs. Rain roared, pattering against the wood planks of the deck. It sprayed onto the tile under my feet as I opened the door. Only three dogs, Buddy, Pepper, and Shiloh, were brave enough to go outside. Theo cowered at the spray while Misty danced in a circle around us. I pushed Theo out the door. Her dance only stopped after I braced my knees on the floor and shoved her out after him. All five were back in a minute, staring through the screen door until I let them in, dripping and sliding all over the floor.

The water from the shower amplified the sound of the rain pouring outside. This water was less irritating because I could turn it to a boiling temperature. Theo sat outside the washroom door, half suspicious he was going to get a bath, half ready to make sure no harm came to me as I pulled on fresh clothes.

The reflection that I thought would never change returned to stare back at me from the mirror above the sink. Wide eyes, dusty freckles, and a baby face. The only thing that was different was my hair, but that wasn't necessarily a change for the better. Morgan's implant in my hand activated some sort of strange reaction, and my hair grew bizarrely fast, straight, in a bleached white hue that became more pronounced with every use of my verve.

It had been over a month since the last time I slipped out of time or space or whatever my verve did and rushed Jo to Mercy Saint Mary's hospital before she could bleed out from the stab wound. In the time since, my freckles had returned as my hair continued to grow. Only this time, it grew back in its original color and texture. In the last week, its growth rate had slowed down and with each passing day the white became the minority as my natural dirty blond took over. Just a few bleached centimeters were left. I was eager to get rid of it and pretend these last two years never happened.

The spatial distance between reality and my reflection in the mirror confused me. The shears slipped over the hair pulled taut between my thumb and fingers. My vision doubled as I turned my eyes as far to the side as they would go. At last, I snipped the final pieces of white off. The remainder coiled into a curl, freed from the dead weight. I rubbed my blurry eyes and took a good look at what I had done.

At least the curls hid the mistakes. Even though I had plenty of practice of cutting my hair ever since the REV started to effect things, I hadn't done a good job. Nothing was even, except for the line across my forehead. My scissors snipped at the straight line randomly as I tried to remove the bowl cut I had given myself. I settled for brushing the strands back with my fingers to fix the problem.

Rain pattered loudly against the roof. Wind blew it against the walls and windows in torrents. Outside, the limbs on the tree in the back yard swayed frantically. My day had started two hours ago, but the afternoon was well underway. Angry storm clouds turned the sky as dark as night.

Pepper's ears perked up as I tapped my fingers against the walls while I walked. The air had chilled to the point that I had picked a jacket off the coat rack. Some years, fall didn't arrive—it was passed over for winter. The way this weather was going, winter would start tomorrow and last until June.

Theo sat down in the middle of the living room. I took a seat on the piano bench. The phone rang. With a sip, I turned around and sat the mug on the top of the piano then lifted the fallboard to reveal the black and white keys underneath. I waited, a finger hovering over minor C, for the ringing to stop. When it did, I started to play. Theo eased to a spot near my feet. The other dogs wandered around.

The piano was always mine alone. There had been a worn guitar in the garage, stored below the steps in a black cover. I found it the first year I lived with them and played with it in secret, late at night when no one was around. When Ben caught me one evening, he winced, not only from the sound I was making but for another reason. He pleaded with me to put it down.

"You can't play with that." Ben was always telling me to stop doing things I wanted to do and to do things I didn't want to do. "Lan, I'm serious. Give it to me. That's Dan's. He won't be happy if you break that."

I never would do anything Ben told me to do, and he knew it, which was why he would always throw Dan's name in an argument.

Dan came home late in those early days, always tired. The mechanic shop paid little and money was dearly needed more then, before the bookstore.

"I heard you were messing with my things." His voice low as he had leaned past my open bedroom door. "You know the rules, kid. You don't mess with other people's stuff."

Behind Theo, the only dog we had at that point, I cowered further under the blankets. Neither of them ever hurt me, but I assumed that every person was always one moment away from lashing out. I never could figure out what I had done in that first house, with my birth-parents, to deserve the pain, but in this house, when I knew, when I touched things I wasn't supposed to or broke things, their anger never came. Still, I figured it was only a matter of time before it did.

"Here. It's yours." He had held the guitar out toward me then leaned it against the wall by my bed when I wouldn't take it. "It's too big for you. We'll get you a smaller one, someday. Until then you can play with it. Just do me a favor and play with it when I'm not around. I don't like the noise. And don't drive Ben up the wall with it, ok?"

Later, Dan had showed me the few chords he knew. Ben didn't make me stick with the professional lessons, not after I stopped practicing. When I finally got out of meeting a stranger once a week, stuck in a small room, I had been relieved enough to start playing again. Then Ben came home with books. Wide, thin books that weren't filled with words, but with pictures of dots and hands. They were the only books I liked and the only ones he couldn't read.

The guitar had belonged to someone they both once knew. But the piano was new. When it was delivered, I had watched from the top of the stairs with Theo, only coming to investigate once the delivery men were gone. It was almost taller than me, but that didn't mean much. Lots of things were taller than me. The wood gleamed and the white keys made the same notes as the guitar when I pressed them down.

Ben didn't say anything about signing me up for lessons for this instrument. Instead, all he said was, "You'll figure it out."

The next time I touched my cup of coffee it was ice cold and the rain had slightly lightened to a steady drizzle against the world.

* * *

Theo's red and black vest hung on the coat rack beside the back door. Dan put it there one day, without saying a word but with a meaningful look. Jo was still staying in the attic at the time, but she didn't notice. She was too busy to look up from the pot of coffee she was downing, standing in the middle of the kitchen, wearing a scuffed pair of boots and a navy leather jacket.

Theo had stayed behind when I left to save Will, years ago. It wasn't fair and it wasn't safe for him. Then, with Jo, impossibly brave and loud, it was embarrassing to bring him along.

But, now, I had no one to try to impress.

I slipped the vest off the hook and gave a short whistle. All five dogs sat up. Theo was the last to follow suit, copying their actions. When he saw the red and black vest in my hands, he took to all four paws with a determined air.

It had been nearly two years since he last wore it, but the furiously wagging tail gave him away. The buckles snapped under his chest and around his neck. I straightened the vest so it didn't slide to one side then latched the leash over a clip. The other dogs stared at him with jealousy. The vest meant he could go to places they couldn't. The vest also meant I had a better chance of not running away from those places. Having a service dog beside me meant I attracted attention when all I wanted was to be ignored, but without him I wouldn't last on my own.

I had only survived my time at the clinic without him because Morgan kept me locked away. The first time I was out on my own, after the others arrived for the "treatment" and he loosened his reign, had been surreal. A car had clipped me as I crossed a street in Old Port. A few hours were lost in a park near the border of Laval, fear forcing me to stay on a bench until I could find the strength to move again.

Theo's excitement to be back on the job was short-lived. He cowered away from the brisk air slipping through the screen door. His wagging tail slowed. The gray sky scattered chilled mist across my face. He followed my hand signal and crept toward me. I unzipped my jacket, picked him up, and wrapped it firmly around him as I stepped out of the house.

Theo bounced begrudgingly in my arms as I rushed down the alley through the downpour. He wouldn't feel so slighted if he were feeling the icy pelts on his fur as I was feeling them on my cheeks. My hands were already growing numb. Puddles soaked into my socks, slowing my steps.

The East Rivers Center was everything I wanted to remember about my past. My life had restarted here. The other business owners and veteran staff knew me by sight. It was only because of the embarrassing effects of my verve that I had been able to slip in one day and wait for Midnight to appear. Even though I knew Ben was in that store, I had never expected to see him with her. I never expected I would be able to go home again.

Home.

The alley walls gave way to an opening and gravel morphed to cracked black asphalt. Lights from the stores shone through the haze of rain as I slipped around people smart enough to carry umbrellas and wear waterproof jackets. Business boomed at Marc's Café, the pharmacy, and the Chinese restaurant. Bright lights shone from the windows, illuminating the crowds inside. They were what Ben called 'the washouts,' the people who took shelter in the nearest store as they waited out the downpour.

Summers' Reads sat in the middle of it all. The lights of Ben's bookstore were still on, yet the sign on one of the double doors had been flipped to a cursive ' _Sorry, We're Closed_.' An eavestrough above the entrance was broken. It hung loose, swaying and creaking in the wind. Water gushed to the concrete, pooling against the outer walls. The racks of clearance books that typically stood by the entrance were gone, probably quickly bussed to the back room. Despite the sign, the door opened when I pushed.

"Lan?" Ben's Scottish accent pronounced my nickname as though he was saying 'lad.' Years in North America, yet the three letters still rolled off as though he was on a different continent. He stood before the main window, watching the rain form a lake near the entrance.

"Why are you closed?"

Theo wriggled under the jacket. Ben swore, lunging for the sign. Theo struggled until I set him on the carpet. He shook and the clasps on his vest clanged against his ribs.

"That explains why we've had no business."

"Doggy!" A high-pitched voice squealed. Colleen, Ben's newest and, at this point, most reliable employee, walked around the counter. Her face dropped when she saw the vest and she withdrew her hand. She cleared her throat and politely turned away from me. Ben pointed to the sign on the door. Her face dropped in horror.

"That's the third time," Ben began in a tense voice.

"I'm sorry."

He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Lan, go set up the chairs."

If I was a sweet boy with a dog to Margret, and the smelly unwanted burden to Ben, I had no idea where I fell in Colleen's eyes. All I knew is that I was constantly in them.

Like everyone else who ever worked in the bookstore, Colleen existed in a dream state. Words stumbled from her mouth, tripping over whatever obstacles lay in the path from her head to her tongue. She laughed at her own awkwardness and spent a lot of time staring into the aisles. Her gaze caught me as I shoved the folding chairs open with a foot. The task was easy: grab one from the wall, kick the rung, open, drop, repeat.

"Lan, Lan." Ben appeared with a wooden stand and a sign. "That's enough. You can stop now."

"Ben, Mr. Kilmar is here," Jill announced as she rushed around the end of an aisle.

I looked at the thirty chairs, scattered across the small clearing near the comics section, then at the old man talking to Colleen. I could have stopped at five.

"Damn it, he's early." Ben slipped a bill from his wallet.

I reached for it, eager to leave. I had plans for this money.

"Hold up." He held out another bill. He lowered his voice. "Run by Marc's and grab me a drink. It's going to be a long night. I used to work with him at the university. These scholars love to hear themselves talk." I took it as Ben moved past me, his voice rising, "Nick, it's good to see you again. How's the family?"

Rain poured as we slipped out. Theo picked his way around the puddles as we walked across the lot to Marc's. I hadn't been in it since that day Jo and I met Jude outside. Judas. Morgan. Whoever he was. The person who tricked us into taking the implants had as many names as he had clones.

Coffee from the big franchise stores were better, cheaper, but Ben preferred to support the local places. Theo was happy to walk somewhere close by, while I was happy my task of making an appearance outside of the house on Marigold Court was almost over.

Rain streamed down the umbrellas over the tables. Chairs knocked askew. Inside, the small café was packed with washouts. People huddled before the windows and against the walls, sipping coffees and hot chocolates. All the tables were filled.

Grinders whirred. Ovens beeped. Customers and baristas spoke loudly over the drum of the rain. Theo leaned against my leg, the way he always did when he wanted to ground me. It starts out with the touch then the pawing and, finally, the jumping. Anything to stop me from panicking or doing something dumb. A few heads turned to look at us as we entered. Hands raised then dropped like Colleen's at the sight of Theo's vest.

"Bonjour. Hello," the barista greeted.

"Hello," I replied firmly. French was more than I was capable of today. "Can I have—?"

"Hey! How are you doing?" Marc, the rarely seen owner of the café, stood next to the register, greeting customers and offering refills. He leaned over the counter. "Langdon, look at you! How's your dad? Vince, this is Summers' kid." Marc patted the barista's shoulder. "Give him the family discount."

The family discount meant the two coffees I asked for were free. Marc gave Theo a shallow bowl of whipped cream before moving on to talk to the people near the window.

I waited with my back against the last vacant spot by a wall, watching as Vince fixed the orders before mine. Theo stared at the whipped cream in his dish. He snorted and sat down on my foot.

Rain pelted harder. The café became nearly unbearable as dozens of conversations elevated to a greater pitch, each jostling to be heard above the rest. Theo pawed at my leg. I patted his head. He jerked away from my hand, sniffing the air. He whined then turned and sniffed again, nose searching for something.

Theo had supposedly been a great service dog until he lost his hearing. He was trained to do some things for me, but most of his training had been to assist an elderly veteran who suffered from seizures. After his first owner's death, and the hearing loss, Theo was given to me. A mostly operable service dog for a mostly inoperable human. He didn't get distracted by food or other dogs when he had the vest on. This sniffing was unsettling.

Theo pulled on his leash, leading me toward the center of the café. There was nothing dangerous to be afraid of, but he was adamant. I allowed him to lead me a few steps forward to a display of stoneware mugs and bags of pre-ground blends then stopped. He persisted, trying to usher me past the display and into the seating area. He whined, tugging to get around the display to the tables.

"Dog!"

My shoulders tensed, wondering what the result would be. A child, unaware of the rules. Some girl on her phone, too distracted to read the "Do Not Pet ‒ Service Dog" sign on his vest. Someone who wanted to argue, " _But you don't look disabled . . ."_

A familiar voice responded clearly over the roar of the storm, "Go pet it."

"I can't," the first voice sighed. "Dog with a job."

Brooklyn accents in the middle of Montreal could only mean one thing: the Hardings were back.

Theo watched as I leaned on my toes. On the other side of the French presses, Jo Harding sat at a table for two, sipping a frothy hot chocolate. Her attention was focused on the phone in her hand. She tapped her thumb on the screen, big lips frowning. If it hadn't been for the person sitting across from her, I wouldn't have recognized her as easily as Theo had.

The REV had affected Jo's appearance more than mine. More than anyone's. I hadn't seen Jo since the day she left Montreal to return home to New York. She had changed. This wasn't the obscenely tall girl in red boots and a motorcycle helmet who snuck into hospitals and scaled fences.

Purple painted nails sparkled under the florescent lights as she set the hot chocolate down in favor of distractedly cupping the curved handle of a black cane. Thick cat-eyed glasses framed big brown eyes. Her face was covered in makeup, her lips a deep pink and her eyes lined in charcoal. Short black hair had been layered and styled into a messy bob. The knit cream-colored sweater, hugging her shoulders and brushing the legs of her chair, looked as expensive as it did soft. Jo leaned her cane against the table then reached for the brownie on the paper plate.

Theo pawed at my leg.

Jo's twin sat across from her. Other than the skin tone and bone structure, they didn't share many similarities. Jamie Harding ran a hand through his thick hair, freeing the long locks from the collar of his black coat. Copper, silver, and gold rings lined every finger. His glossy black hair shined like satin against his sun-kissed hand. The sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones cut the softness of his full lips and large brown eyes. Long legs escaped from under the confines of their small table. Jamie had a face that stood out like a dream in a sleepless night, some beautiful and unattainable desire.

The first time I saw that face had been in a drunken stupor, when Darcy introduced us in the clinic. I don't think I even said anything to him. During our time at the clinic, Jamie had moved like a ray of sunshine, slipping in and somehow making our hell a little bit easier. He appeared in small moments, offering kindness and wisdom whenever someone was in need, before disappearing into his room for days. Consoling Lupe. Listening to Stan. Lighting a smile on Kiko's face. He even helped those who didn't deserve it, once placing himself between me and Morgan when the doctor's threats drew Jamie's attention. Those long fingers hadn't been decorated with rings as he held the doctor back while I scrambled out of the basement.

"The hotel we stayed at last time is available." Jo turned her phone around to show him the screen. "But only for a few nights and all they have is a king-sized bed."

Jamie waved his free hand as he took a sip of his coffee. He glanced back to Theo, who had lain down on the floor in protest. The leash stretched as far as it could go around the display. "Our old apartment is—"

"We are not moving back into that place!"

A couple of students at the nearest table jumped. One thing about Jo had not changed. Her voice was as loud as I remembered. It cut through the roar of the café like a knife.

"Jo," Jamie hushed.

"Miller didn't tell the police anything when they asked about me."

"Jo."

"We are not moving back there. We will find a new place to live."

Jamie groaned. His shoulders curved in defeat as he slumped over the table.

"I'm booking the hotel for a week."

"Book it," Jamie replied, his voice muffled by his arm.

"I'm booking it," she repeated, drawing out the verb. "Stop me now if you don't want to share a bed with me for a week."

"We shared a womb for nine months. I can handle a week." Jamie lifted his head and rubbed his cheeks. "Are you sure you want to move here?"

"Just for a few months," Jo lowered her voice. Kind of. "We have unfinished business. We'll find a place, sign a lease for a few months and, once everything is taken care of, we'll figure out where to go from there."

"Langdon!" Vince called from behind the counter.

"Langdon?" Jo and Jamie asked each other at the same time.

I pulled Theo after me as I rushed to get the coffee. Maybe Theo and I could dash out before they spotted me. Sometimes being small had an advantage. And Langdon couldn't be that uncommon of a name. Hopefully.

I squeezed past people by the counter.

"Sorry, forgot to ask. Do you want any sugar or cream?"

I shook my head.

"Give me a minute and I'll have those out for you."

I turned around as Jo rose from their table, scanning the crowd. Her gaze passed over me then jumped back. She frowned. Thick eyebrows burrowed down as she studied me, as though they were conferring behind her glasses until she reached a verdict. It didn't take her long.

"PEANUT!"

Half of the washouts jumped.

She closed the distance between us haltingly, yet quickly. Her cane rapped the floor twice before she reached the counter. I tore my eyes away from it as her arm wrapped around my shoulders. Sticky lipstick met my cheek. Past the short strands of hair, I saw Jamie stealing a chair from another table. Below, Theo's paws brushed against my legs as he struggled to get Jo's attention.

I waited for worry to build up, bursting inside me, but the panic that filled me when people invaded my space never came. It helped that Jo was an open book. Her motives always clear and honest. The first time I met her, she admitted her ineptitude at controlling her own verve. If Jo had any resentment toward me, everyone, including Theo, would have known. Instead, she greeted me in a way that only Jo could.

"It's so fluffy. And blond," she said as a greeting, stepping back and plucking at my hair, lifting it up before her glasses. "And fluffy. You got your freckles back!"

"You're short," I greeted her in return. I had assumed pre-REV Jo was as tall as her twin. Jamie towered over everyone like a long thin shadow at sunrise. Now, standing with her arm around my shoulders, Jo was only a little bit taller than me.

"Not as short as you. Come sit with us!" Jo grabbed my hand and pulled me after her. She directed me to the stolen chair between her and Jamie then retook her seat. No, this was still Jo even if she didn't look like the one I knew. Her voice gave her away.

"Hi, Langdon."

I nodded at Jamie, turning away quickly. Jo leaned over, ruffling Theo's floppy ears. Already in the middle of a conversation.

"—just got here. The rain was a pain to drive in, otherwise we would have gotten here hours ago. The bookstore is closed so we went to your house but no one answered the door. Buddy barked at us. Where have you been? How have you been? Have you seen Darcy?"

"Jo," Jamie intoned.

"What?" She looked up, hands still on Theo's head. Something passed between the twins' gazes and Jo looked down at Theo, frowning. Her hands slipped from his head. She straightened his vest. "Service dog? Since when is Theo a service dog? Why do you have a service dog?"

"Jo," Jamie chided her again.

"Do you have seizures?"

I shook my head. As much as I liked Jo, her curiosity and ability to cling to something obsessively wasn't a part I missed.

"Diabetes?"

"Jo," Jamie lowered his voice.

She released Theo's vest and turned her frown to me.

I struggled to come up with anything to say, until finally the question "How's New York?" fell out in a jumble.

"Oh." Jo picked at the brownie crumbs on the paper plate. "The usual. Hot. Smelly." Her gaze returned to me. "You're so cute! I can't get over this hair, it's so pretty and fluffy." Her fingers prodded the top of my head again. It had been drenched in the rain after a bad do-it-yourself haircut. Pretty couldn't be the right word. "Look at how cute he is, Jamie."

"Very cute," Jamie replied in the resigned voice of someone who had spent more than enough time with Jo's nonstop chatter. "How are your dads?"

I couldn't quite make my eyes meet any part of Jamie. Instead, I focused on the French press behind his head to avoid the sight of the perfect face before me.

"Langdon!" Vince called out again.

I jumped up to get the coffee. Theo trailed after me. Jo, too.

"Is Benny at the store? Is that where you're going? Can you get us in?"

Behind her, Jamie tossed the paper plate away and offered their table to an elderly couple standing by the window.

I nodded and slipped Theo's leash over my wrist. Thunder rattled the window panes. Theo stepped closer to me. This time, it was to comfort himself.

"Do you want some help?" Jo picked up the cups.

I couldn't stop myself from glancing at the cane looped over her wrist.

"I can totally walk," she scoffed, raising the arm with the cane. "Come on, I missed you guys."

In peaceful moments, often at night, I heard it spoken in soft voices how they missed Jo. They missed her dumb jokes, or her blinding optimism. In louder voices during the day, the remarks would turn sarcastic: how nice it was to have a quiet house, to not always be on the verge of running out of coffee. Their fondness still there, hidden under the bitterness.

"Ok." I bent down and picked up Theo as another rumble of thunder shook the café.

Her eyes gleamed behind the glasses.

Jamie approached. "Are we going to the hotel?"

"We are going to the bookstore." Jo shoved both coffees at her twin then flicked the cane off her wrist and caught it in her hand. Jamie's expression brightened. Jo switched the cane to her other hand. "To say hi and _only_ to say hi."

Jamie huffed. He followed Jo, who was blindly following me. Her head ducked as she walked, digging around in a giant lime green messenger bag. It was covered in a dozen buttons. Rain hit my face as I stepped out.

Jamie gazed at the low ceiling of clouds. "Why did we move _north_?"

Jo pulled out an umbrella, shook it open, and raised it over her and her twin.

"Would hate to mess up your hair." She grinned. Jamie narrowed his eyes.

Despite the cane and the rain, Jo made good time across the parking lot. Jamie stuck close by her side nonetheless. Under the protective cover of the awning, I sat Theo down on the welcome mat next to the puddle still gushing from the broken eavestrough. Jo caught me as I snuck another glance at her cane.

"Balance," she said abruptly as I looked away, pretending to straighten Theo's vest. Her cane tapped the sidewalk, splashing water onto her blue runners. Jamie leaned the umbrella against the store wall. "I lose my balance easily. And this—" she pointed the dripping cane to her right foot "—never wants to work when I need it. Plus, it's handy at getting people out of my way."

"She hits people with it," Jamie rephrased.

"I nudge people."

Jamie mouthed "hits" as Jo waited for me to respond. She probably thought being honest about her problem would trick me into sharing mine. Her thick sweater had slipped down and a small pink scar below her collarbone peeked out from under her shirt.

"How's your—?" I stopped as a sudden gust of rain chilled my blood. Bringing up the day she almost died, the last time I used my verve, the gift that could kill me and almost killed her, felt wrong. I pushed the question to the back of my tongue. "Trip?"

#  THE DAY MIDNIGHT DIED

The trick to triggering my verve was something I was good at. The best, actually. A lifetime that left me with nerves ruined from frenzied, paralyzing, better-left-forgotten years had turned me into a natural human reactor. No one else in the world could meltdown as quickly or as fluidly as I could.

In my verve, a second would stretch as far as my fears did. The first time it happened, after Morgan injected the REV in my hand, one moment had lasted hours. One second, of Will, upstairs, clutching a blanket to his face, of my mother, on the floor of her room, with a needle pressed to her arm, of Morgan, in the basement, with a pen in the middle of writing a word, lasted for an eternity. Time only resumed after I passed out from exhaustion.

Then it happened again, when Morgan shouted, demanding to know where I had been for twelve hours. Time stolen would always be stolen back. The minutes, hours, I used in the verve were reclaimed when least expected.

I couldn't stop my verve from being triggered. It fed off fears buried in my blood. A raised voice, a well-meaning hand that caught me by surprise, a nightmare that came from my own mind. I hated that weird state, the silent, gravity-less, frozen world. It hurt even more now, with the knowledge that this was the only thing I was good at. Stan's inner strength. Darcy's intuition. Everyone else had good traits. But me? I was the scared little boy with the power to run away.

There had only ever been one time that I wanted to use my verve on purpose. The sight of Jo, covered in blood, stabbed with a knife I had stolen from the clinic's kitchen, was far more than I ever needed to be able to slip out of real time. Jo's verve allowed her to stay with me in my odd state. When she faded out, dying and pleading only for Jamie's safety, fear powered my verve far enough to get her into the middle of an empty operating room at Mercy.

My panic never stopped along with real time. It continued, raising the pulse in my veins and twisting my stomach with an iron grip. That particular moment didn't stop until I had Jo on a table, surrounded by the doctors and nurses I pulled from a break room. They awoke in the following second, confused and shouting questions to each other that were forgotten as soon as they saw Jo, bleeding out on the table before them. My pride was short lived as the burning memory of Morgan's grip and the fight miles away stopped the world for the second time in a minute. And so, the runaway returned to the clinic.

To the others, it had only been a handful of seconds. Jamie would not be comforted, though Darcy and Lupe tried. He shouted, using his verve. Jamie could command everyone to do as he said. He never used it on purpose. Until that moment. The girls retracted their consoling hands, jumping away. I already had the blood of three clones on my hands but the rage emanating from him as he approached was more terrifying than anything I had witnessed that day.

"Where is she?"

It was the first time he had ever used his verve on me. Darcy was wrong. Jamie's verve didn't feel like a push; it felt like a riptide. You had no choice but to let it take you where it wanted.

"Mercy." An answer and a plea.

"You're taking me to her. _Now_."

Jamie's hands shook as he tried to unlock the door to one of the clinic's vans.

"Jamie," Ben began.

"Shut up!"

Ben took a step back, his mouth clamping shut. Dan moved forward, putting a hand out to block me from following Jamie.

"Either get in the car and shut up, or leave us alone," Jamie snapped before Dan could speak.

The van unlocked with a beep and a flash of headlights. Jamie pointed at me to climb into the passenger seat. The van sped down the highway, missing the exit. It was only when I pointed at the next exit that his ragged breathing dipped into painful, suppressed gasps. His eyes flickered from the road to the rearview mirror and the two silent men in the backseat behind us. The hailstorm's metallic thumps against the racing vehicle drowned out everything, except the unspoken frenzy building inside. Jamie's hands, smeared with Jo's blood, trembled as they whipped the steering wheel and shoved the gear shift into park, stopping directly in front of the emergency room entrance.

Jamie didn't wait for me to show him. He pushed past people queuing up and ordered the nurse behind the counter to take him to his sister. She complied with a furrowed brow, leading us down a hallway deep into the heart of the first floor and up a flight of steps to a small dark room. It held half a dozen chairs scattered before a wide viewing window. In front of the glass, Jamie's rage disappeared, leaving behind something else. Before that hour, I had never seen him angry and I had never seen him scared. I wasn't sure which was more unnerving.

Behind us, footsteps caught up to where we stood, watching as a dozen people moved around a gurney. Jo was hidden behind the crowd of medical staff, but the glimpses of redden sheets and buckets of pink gauze were not.

"What the hell is your power? Being a librarian and shushing people?" Ben accused him. His anger fell short as he looked through the glass. " _Jesus_."

"Jo?" Jamie's voice broke. He pressed his red hands to the glass, staring longingly, helplessly, at the scene beyond it. "What is going on?"

Dan answered, not because of Jamie's verve, but because he knew the story. He told Jamie a story I had only heard pieces of: how Jo showed up at their house three months earlier, with no memory of where she had been. Of how she had not stopped trying to reach him ever since.

Jamie sunk into a chair and pressed his hands to his mouth. He closed his eyes, whispering some sort of prayer over and over. Imprints of his hands remained on the glass, still reaching for his sister.

"Jamie, you shouldn't watch this. Let's wait in the hall."

Outside the awful viewing room, bright lights burned black spots into my eyes. I blinked them away as Jamie dropped into another chair against the wall, still muttering his inaudible prayer. His lips moved quietly, continuously, around the hushed words and his fingertips.

"Is that the one who came to our house?" Dan whispered to Ben as Jude appeared around the corner, followed by the same nurse from before. She was breathing heavily, tying a surgeon's gown behind his back as they rushed past.

"What are you doing?" Jamie was on his feet before Jude could slip inside the operating room. He barely glanced at the nurse. "Leave."

"They don't know how to help her with the REV pulling in different directions. If they leave it in there, she will die from poisoning." His words came with a lisp that no one else with his face could, or would, copy. "I've seen Morgan's plans. I think I know how to save her."

"You _will_ save her," Jamie lowered his voice and stepped closer to Jude. Years younger and a little bit taller, Jamie was more intimidating to the adults than anyone my age had a right to be. "Because if she dies on that table, you are going to take that blade they pulled out of my sister and shove it into your eye."

Jude swallowed, his eyes falling to Jamie's black boots. He walked into the operating room. Ben and Dan exchanged hushed words a few steps away.

In the silence that followed, Jamie was overcome by a violent case of the lone side effect to his verve. The hiccups only aggravated his temper and interrupted his prayer. He sat, glaring at the wall with eyes that could have melted the glass in the window a flight above. His full lips set in a bitter downturn, his entire body ready to pounce on the next person to approach him.

#  A LEAK

"Oh, it was so much fun." Jo rolled her eyes, groaning as she stepped over the puddle forming before the entrance. "Seven hours in a piece of shit car with him and his music and his driving."

"Don't talk about my car like that."

Jamie's tone was cheerful even in irritation. His eyes met mine. Light, and filled with some sort of magic. I felt sorry for everyone who had ever photographed him. Jamie held a living elegance which could only be fully captured in person. I quickly looked at the water pooling around my feet. If you stared at Jamie for too long, you could go into a stupor and lose hours as quickly as though the verve had stolen them.

"He's in love," Jo said with annoyance. My head jerked up. "He bought a car right before we left Brooklyn and he will not stand to hear anyone say a bad word about it."

"There's nothing wrong with it."

"It makes a weird noise and the bumper is all dented from when Aggie backed into a fire hydrant," Jo huffed, stepping directly into the puddle to enter the store.

"There's nothing wrong with my driving either."

"You drive like a grandmother."

The bell chimed.

"You drive like a maniac."

Jo stopped a few steps into the store. She turned around and faced him. I eased out from between the twins and stood beside a journal display. To my dismay, Jo pointed at me, dragging me into their argument. "He rode on the back of the Star Bolt several times. Tell him, peanut. Tell him I don't drive like a maniac."

Memories of jumped curbs, rolling stops, and surprise U-turns flashed in my mind.

Jamie grinned as Jo fumed at my silence. He turned his smile on her. "Look, if I ever rob a bank or need a trip to the emergency room, you're my first go-to. Otherwise, you're never driving my car."

"Who would want to drive that piece of junk?" Jo sneered. She rapped the cane loudly on the floor with each step as she approached the counter.

"She does that whenever she wants to hit me with it." Jamie groaned. "She'll get her revenge later when I'm not expecting it."

Brown eyes met mine. I needed to say something. Nod. Smile. _Anything_. I didn't. It was at times like these that I wished Theo had been trained to speak for me as well.

Jamie's attention turned to the books surrounding us. Brown irises roved over the aisles and the books displayed on tables. His posture eased, his eyes brightened as though he wasn't sure where to start—but he wanted it all.

"You're so lucky." He stepped away without waiting for a response.

Theo jumped up on me, his paw catching the front of my shirt. I pushed him down while Jamie slowly retook his spot, shadowing Jo. Theo tugged after them. I let him lead, my head spinning from their sudden arrival. I didn't know how to get away. Or if I even wanted to get away. Home was comforting, but these two held something dear as well.

Theo sniffed Jo's cane and feet as Jamie set the coffee on the counter. My mouth was dry but I didn't have the nerve to ask him to pass one to me. The store was quiet even though, according to the clock behind the register, Mr. Kilmar's lecture was set to begin in a few minutes.

Ben appeared around the corner, carrying a stack of new, unpriced books. Jo threw her arms around him and he patted her back, whispering something in her ear with a smile. Books toppled from the stack onto the counter. His eyes fell to the cane around her wrist. He turned to Jamie. "About time, business has been slow without you."

"No," Jo spoke up, straightening her sweater. "No books until we have a place to live."

Jamie groaned.

Ben picked up a coffee and winked at me. I rolled Theo's leash in my hands as the three talked about the normal things my brain hadn't found when I needed something to say back at the café. The weather. Apartment hunting. The new chai-spiced chocolate drink on Marc's menu.

"I sent you a text—" Jamie began.

"No," Ben said. Jamie started to speak. Again, Ben cut him off. "No."

Jo looked smugly at Jamie. She flinched. Slowly, she removed her glasses, squinted at the ceiling, and back at her glasses. "Benny, I am neither a long-term Canadian resident nor a bookstore owner, but that's not normal, is it?"

I looked up at the sagging ceiling tiles, darkened and dripping with water.

Colleen rushed out from the aisles and said in a harried whisper, "Ben, the carpet in the romance aisle is soaking wet."

Jamie clamped his hand over Jo's mouth just as she was about to speak. Colleen noticed the twins. Jamie smiled. She withered over the counter. Her name tag jangled against the wood as her knees wobbled.

"Damn it. Did you notice any other leaks?" Ben peered at the ceiling through his glasses.

"Other what?" She didn't notice Ben's irritated look. A new distant, dreamy gaze was now focused entirely on Jamie as he released Jo's mouth. Colleen breathed, "Tu es mannequin?"

Jamie blinked, realizing after a long second that the question was directed at him. He politely shook his head, a confused look splayed on his face.

"What?" Jo's American accent was somehow amplified in the single syllable.

Colleen insisted, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like the guy in the Sâtieer ad? There's a big billboard on the corner down the street. You look just like him."

Jo snorted as Jamie replied, "No."

"You mean that shoe ad? That's a girl." Ben turned his gaze back to ground level, one eyebrow arched. He frowned, following her gaze to Jamie. "Colleen, would you assist the customers to their seats?"

She moved away reluctantly. Ben pulled his phone out of his pocket. Jo mouthed 'girl' at Jamie and followed it with a silent laugh. Jamie rolled his eyes.

"I'm just going to browse." Jamie eased away from us, heading in the opposite direction of Colleen. Ben scowled at his retreating figure as he described the amount of water to Dan.

"Ok, you're killing me." Jo turned toward me, wiping another droplet off her glasses. "Tell me about the service dog thing."

I wavered. She waited. I sighed. "He only has the vest on because Ben gets mad. He doesn't want people to think they can bring their dogs into the store." It was mostly true.

"So, he's not a service dog?"

I shifted my feet and gripped Theo's leash tightly. Jo waited for a response. My answer was as audible as the water dripping from the ceiling. "He's a service dog."

Jo squinted at Theo's vest as she wiped her glasses. Theo stood up, wagging his tail. She put them back on and patted his head.

"Tell me the truth," she lowered her voice. A light flickered in her eyes mischievously. "You use him to pick up chicks, don't you?"

"You tell me."

Jo snorted. She turned and looked at the end of the aisle Jamie had vanished down. "I'm never seeing him again. Getting him out of the mansion would be easier."

Ben shoved his phone back into a pocket and called out, "Jo, do you want your old job back? I need someone who doesn't accidentally close my store every afternoon."

"No, thanks. Though I do appreciate the vote of confidence. I'm too busy for another job right now. But I'll give you some free advice to boost your sales: Dogs."

"What?"

"Dogs and bookstores. You've got dogs." She held out one palm. "You've got a bookstore." She held out her other palm in the same manner. Jo looked meaningfully at Ben as she folded one hand over the other. "It's perfect."

Ben shook his head and directed his gaze to the few customers mingling near the chairs. I should have stopped at setting up five. "I wouldn't call it perfect."

"What would you call it?"

"Heaven," Jamie replied from somewhere unseen.

Ben shook his head as Jamie appeared with a book in each hand. "I can't have dogs in my store."

" _My store_ ," Jo copied Ben's accent. She flicked water off the sign of Mr. Kilmar, looking at the picture with disdain. "He's so narcissistic he named the store after himself. Dogs are a good idea. What is that?"

Jamie held out one book.

"That looks like a romance."

"I like romance."

"I don't."

The twins glared at each other.

"Summers is Dan's last name," I began to break up the tension. "Ben's was M—"

"Langdon!" Ben made a cutting motion at his neck.

Jo and Jamie's glares dipped into frowns. They were twins yet, seeing them together, the word didn't fit. They were mirrors, each reflecting a different tone. Where Jo was loud, Jamie was quiet. Even their expressions, frowning in unison, were mirrored versions of the other. Jo's ready to demand an answer. Jamie's politely unfocused.

"Are you here for the lecture?" Ben addressed a customer and quickly directed her to the chairs.

Jo poked the picture in the eye. "What's this old man an expert on?"

"He taught alongside me at the university. He's the leading expert in Celtic mythology."

"Dragons?"

"Somewhat." Mr. Kilmar appeared, brushing lint off his suit. "Other myths more so."

"Like?" Jo interrogated.

"Witches and fae. The Ulster Cycle." He gestured to the buttons on Jo's bag. "That's where all your superheroes and fantasy stories come from, the original stories of strength and unpredictable situations. You young people don't know the true history that inspired your tales."

Jo's eyes darkened. "Oh, please, tell me more about history."

Mr. Kilmar didn't catch Jo's sarcasm. He turned to me. "Langdon, long time. You haven't grown much. Though you remind me of one of those legends. The greatest fighter there ever was. He was said to be small and boyish with hair like—" His soliloquy stopped when Jo snorted. "Young lady, why do you have a cane?"

"Shark attack," she replied flatly. "My Olympic dreams are ruined."

Ben hung his head in his hand.

Mr. Kilmar, already distracted again, noticed Jamie, who was leaning over the counter reading the back of another book. "Aren't you that model? You are! The one with the videos. My kids—speaking of youth—they love them. They think you're hilarious."

Ben and I stared at the scholar. Jamie was a lot of things. Hilarious wasn't one of them.

"That's all her," Jamie said, gesturing toward Jo.

"Is that so?"

Jo's cane squelched against the damp carpet as she stood to her full height. Mr. Kilmar would have been more intimidated had she still been on Midnight's level.

"I hate to interrupt, Nick, but those three need to hurry. To make it to _that thing_ on time." He glanced at the ceiling before he subtly steered Mr. Kilmar away from the leak. "Lan, I'll see you back at home later. Dan is going to stop by here and help me, uh, clean up the store." His eyes flickered meaningfully at the ceiling again.

"We'll have him back by curfew, Benny. What is it? Five a.m. or four?"

Mr. Kilmar stopped. "Benny?" He looked back at Ben. "I like that. It suits you. Benny."

Ben glared at Jo as he led the scholar to the podium.

Jamie set the books neatly on the counter and stood up straight. Keys already out of his pocket and swinging above a ring on his index finger. He held the front door open. Jo adjusted the strap of her heavy bag. A small figure by the entrance stepped aside quickly, face hidden by a scarf.

"Oh, I like that scarf. I should get a scarf before it gets cold," Jo muttered to herself.

Jamie turned to look at the glittering purple sequins. The scarf-wearer vanished down the cards and games aisle. Jo's cane collided with Jamie's shin. He bit back a swear and rubbed the spot on his leg.

The rain eased as they walked to Marc's. I looked back, twisting Theo's leash around my hand. A purple scarf. It seemed familiar.

"PEANUT."

I blinked the déjà vu away and stepped outside.

"What are you dragging your feet for? Let's go. Double-date. You and me. Jamie and Theo."

"I should help—" Excuses escaped my lips as my gaze fell on Jamie's back. Maybe I could keep my calm, but could he? Would he order me to stab myself with a knife because of what I had done? I couldn't blame him. I hadn't told him about Jo. I led her to the clinic that day. I failed to make things right before she got hurt.

"I need to—" Check on the house. The dogs. What if there was a leak there as well?

"Shit, you are slower than me," Jo called back.

Theo and I hurried. We met them at a car. A green hatchback, parked in one of the first spots outside of Marc's entrance, appeared to be the subject of Jo's wrath.

"I'm really sorry if you die today," Jo introduced me to Jamie's car. It was small, at least fifteen years old, and had a dent in the back bumper.

"There's nothing wrong with my car!"

"The AC doesn't work."

"Other than that, there's nothing wrong with my car."

"You bought a used car in Queens for five hundred dollars from your ex-girlfriend. There's nothing right with it."

"She was tired of paying for a parking spot at her apartment."

"She wanted your number."

A muffled beep came from Jamie's black jeans. His face impassive as he insisted, "And she was tired of paying for parking."

"It makes this noise every time he drives it." Jo made a grating high-pitched squeal as she opened the passenger door.

"I haven't noticed. It's almost like I'm used to loud things." Jamie yanked the driver's door open. With a large amount of dread, I climbed in the backseat after letting Theo jump in first.

Jamie pulled out of the parking lot. There was no squealing, but it was hard to be certain over Jo's continued conversation.

"All right. I want something with potatoes and cheese curds." Jo pulled out a shiny widescreen pink phone. "Are you feeling me?"

"No," Jamie retorted, easing pressure onto the gas. "You just ate a brownie. The doctor said—"

"Oh, my God! No!" Jo shrieked. Theo braced himself on the faded leather seats as Jamie slammed on the breaks. She turned her phone's screen to her twin, adding with disbelief, "I'm number thirteen!"

"Jesus _fucking_ Christ, Jo." Jamie glared, easing on the gas again. "You've been dead for six months. Be grateful you're not lower."

"I'm not even in the top ten."

"We'll do something stupid later."

"Promise?"

Jamie nodded.

Jo exhaled. "Fine. Let's get the misfits together to catch up on everyone's progress. I'll send out an alert and they can meet us." From the backseat, I watched as Jo rapidly typed out a long text in a group chat. "By the way, I can't find you anywhere. It's Moore with an E, right?"

I stared at the back of her head. Her short black hair was intricately layered.

"Online." She turned around. "I can't find your profile on any account."

"I don't have one."

"Off the grid, huh? What do you do on a computer then?"

"I don't have one."

Her mouth dropped. It took her a moment to recover. She waved the phone that was lighting up with responses. "What's your phone number?"

"I don't have a phone."

Jo sat very still then whispered with a hushed terror, "He doesn't have a phone."

"What are we going to do after dinner?" Jamie looked in the rearview mirror at the bookstore hopefully.

"Blackmail."

Jamie took this answer without any follow-up. He twisted a dial. Rap music played quietly through the speakers.

"Who are you blackmailing?"

"We're going to the police station to see if they've found out anything on Judas Morgan."

The car eased out onto Maple Avenue as Jo read directions off her phone. I stared at the door handle. The only thing stopping me from throwing myself out the moving car was the knowledge that Theo would jump out after me.

#  DON'T REFUSE JO

My hometown was loud, crowded, filled with bad roads, unending construction, stupid politics, and stupid people. Ice was the primary landscape for most of the year.

But it had food.

Sushi, cheeseburgers, pasta, cookies, steak, whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it, you could find it somewhere in Montreal. Especially coffee. Independent cafés and chain shops dotted every street. The bakeries were my favorite. Nothing could compete with the scent of freshly baked croissants stopping you in your tracks as you passed by a small shop.

I had never set foot outside Montreal. I had no idea how it compared to New York, to know if the Hardings were impressed or bored with the selections. If they were bored with me.

The restaurant Jo picked was one I'd never entered before. The dread from the sudden change of plans was still lingering, so I couldn't be certain whether or not that was the reason why I felt apprehensive following the twins inside. One look at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, the crisp uniforms of the servers, and the pristine handwritten menu on the chalkboard wall told me it wasn't just leftover anxiety. The exasperated look the hostess gave Theo settled it as well.

"Your dog can't come in."

I halted at her words, my stomach sinking as the charade I'd heard a hundred times began again. Theo stopped in unison.

"He's a service dog," Jo replied curtly then took another step toward the tables.

"I'm sorry," the hostess insisted, "but the dog can't come in."

The curve of Jo's shoulders transformed into a hard line as she slowly turned around. Her eyes flashed with a familiar gleam, one I hadn't seen in weeks. Since Midnight.

"That is a _service_ dog." Her voice, always loud, was bolder with indignation. "You can't turn away someone because they have a service dog."

"We have rules—"

Jo inhaled sharply. I tugged on a cream-colored sleeve.

"It's fine. I'll catch up with you later."

"No," Jo said to me. Then to the hostess, "No, this is not fine. I want to speak to your manager."

"Jo," I whimpered, watching as the hostess begrudgingly waved a hand for assistance. A tall man in a black vest crossed the floor. "It's fine, it happens all the time."

"It shouldn't," Jo replied in a low voice. "What about the next person who comes here with a service dog?" She stood up to her full height as the manager walked over. His brow wrinkled over what must have looked like three teenagers making a scene.

A sickening rush of adrenaline filled me when his gaze fell on me and Theo. The high ceiling wasn't high enough and the chalkboard walls too close. I could hear the words before they were spoken. The argument had already been written. I couldn't listen to it again.

Jamie lifted his hand to catch Jo's attention as I brushed past him. He followed me out into the brisk air. Warm sidewalks sizzled the rain off their smooth surfaces. The residual mist chilled as the sun lowered, calming the heat building in my cheeks. Above, the first leaves were already turning. A hint of orange tinged the tree branches hanging over the pavement. Theo tagged along obediently, completely unaware that he was the cause of the commotion.

A light wind blew Jamie's hair into his face. He brushed it away from his lips. "I'll wait out here with you."

"Tell Jo she doesn't have to—"

He laughed once, pulling his phone from his coat pocket as it beeped. "Like I can tell Jo to do anything."

With Jamie's attention devoted to his phone, I snuck a peek at him. Tall and thin, his figure took up space by drawing the eye to the lines of his jaw, his cheeks, his arms and legs. His black coat draped over his shoulders like the branches above, loose and shifting at the slightest breeze. Golden skin contrasted his black-as-night hair. Rings on every finger glittered under the sunlight as he tapped on the screen. But it was those eyes that tugged at me, large and brown and . . . looking at me.

"Why would someone graffiti a giant old man?" The finger with a small burnished silver ring pointed at something behind me.

I turned to see the towering figure peeking over the other smaller buildings. "You don't know who that is?"

Jamie shook his head.

"He's a musician. The most famous one from Montreal."

"Oh."

Silence hung between us, broken only by the passing of a car and voices echoing from neighboring streets. Theo sat down on my foot. My brain searched for something to say. A question about New York. The weather. A fact about Leonard Cohen. _Anything_. But it didn't matter—Jamie seemed completely at ease with the silence, his gaze now directed at the cranes towering above a distant construction site.

It was those eyes. They could start a fire and melt ice. And that warm earthen brown could drown you in the aftermath.

Jamie laughed and pointed to the window.

Inside, Jo had attracted two more employees. They stood before her with a mixture of dour and worried faces as she showed them her phone.

Jamie's full lips broke into a grin as I frowned. "She's pulling the 'don't you know how many followers I have?' stunt."

A couple left the store, oblivious to Jo's argument. Her voice wafted out as they opened the door. "You know what you can do?"

"You can suck my dick," Jamie muttered under his breath.

"YOU CAN SUCK MY DICK," Jo shouted as the door fell back on its hinges.

Jamie shook his head, amusement dancing in his eyes and slipping out from the lines around his lips.

"Followers?"

"She's popular on Posey."

"What's that?"

"Ah, it's better if you don't know." He grimaced then eyed me curiously. "You really don't know what that is?" I shook my head. "It's an app. She has half a million followers on it."

Our conversation lulled. The only sound became the rushing wind and Theo's whines as he tried to lick my hand. I pushed him back down gently. Jamie still seemed fine with silence, his attention now held by the strangers walking past. He fought the wind, pushing his hair out of his face. One lock flipped over the part in his hair, standing out. His fingers missed it as he combed his hair back. My hand twitched with an urge to reach out and fix it myself.

The door behind me chimed.

"Well." Jo emerged with a broad grin on her face. "They have made a grave mistake."

"Are you posting it?" Jamie asked around another strand plastered to his lips.

"No. I got an apology and a free meal but it was too little too late." She winked at me. "They clearly have no idea how much I can eat in one sitting. They just lost their best customer. Tell the others to meet us—"

"They're not coming."

"But—"

"Too short notice, Jolene."

Jo inhaled the crisp air deeply, her eyes shining as she stood up straight, her head held high. It was the closest she looked to Midnight since the day she lost her REV. "All right then, we'll—"

"How about this?" Jamie held his phone out to Jo. She craned her neck forward to look at the screen, pulling the sweater tightly over her chest.

"Sounds healthy. I hate it." She leaned down to adjust her sock. "Pick again."

I twisted Theo's leash as Jo stood up. "I'm sorry."

Her top lip snarled with confusion. "For what?"

I shrugged and the grin returned to her big mouth. Her gaze moved over my face and hair. "This look is much better suited to you than that bleached hippie thing you had going on. You're so freaking cute with these freckles."

Jamie glanced left and right. "What street are we on?"

"Fourth." I didn't have to look up to see the cross signs. Montreal was home. I knew it better than the pattern of freckles on my hand or the line of white between Theo's eyes.

"Do you know where this is?"

The phone he offered me was warm from his grip. It was the same brand as Jo's, but older. The map on the screen highlighted one blue pinpoint.

"The convention center?" I'd been there a hundred times. A thousand. But not once in the past two years. Memories of it confused me more than this entire day. Like a dream brought out into harsh reality.

"What kind of food is it?" Jo asked.

"It's the rainbow place we saw driving in."

"You were supposed to be looking for food." Jo sighed, pulling out her phone.

#  CHANGE OF PLANS

It was hard to recall exactly what went down in those final days. Only individual moments were clear, standing out from the jumble of memories:

Dan, standing in the bright hospital hallway, counting something on his fingers as his eyes stared unblinkingly into the distance. Ben biting his thumb as the two conspired near a vending machine. The pair turning to the clinic's hostages and announcing, "This is what we are going to tell the police."

Darcy, Lupe, Kiko, and Stan listening to their story made of half-truths, which would clear us of any crimes and committing it to memory. All of my fellow experiments eager and relieved at the sight of real adults who meant no harm.

Jamie, a strange, striking figure finally freed from the prison of his room, half-present as he agreed to their story, his gaze glued to the door of Jo's recovery room.

Dan, crouching down to meet my eyes as I sat on the cold hard floor in a corner of the hallway, firmly but apologetically asking, "You said there was an incinerator. Where exactly in the clinic is it?"

The relief that I wasn't asked to go with him to do the job they were setting in motion.

The guilt that weighted my head as Darcy and Stan went instead.

The wax on the rim of the water cup that Ben forced on me as the shaking in my legs took over the rest of my body.

Sleep.

Catching up on two years' worth of sleep.

Sleep so deep the night terrors couldn't break through to torment me.

Sleep, woken up only by a gentle pat on my head by one of them bringing me food. Or to just confirm that I was there. That I was back.

That I was home.

Maybe it was that first night at the hospital, maybe it was the next day, or days later when Jo finally woke up, that they all went to the station to tell their story for the police report.

All but me.

The constable remembered me. They sent the same one from years before to our house. I couldn't look at his face without recalling with perfect clarity the questions I had been asked the last time I saw him at nine years old. He only asked a few questions this time, just enough for everyone's stories to be confirmed.

* * *

The rain stopped sometime during our meal of poutine (Jo and me) and an acai smoothie (Jamie). The knot in my stomach didn't lessen. Jo and Jamie had no problem with the change in restaurants, but embarrassment wouldn't release its grip. When the new server had glanced at Theo as she led us to a booth in a back corner, I had wanted to throw up. Even though she didn't say anything, my muscles remained tensed throughout the meal, ready for the next attack. Jo ate the fries left on my plate as Jamie silently sat with his smoothie, a paperback hiding his face.

Gray clouds thinned over the courtyard in front of the police station. Jo and Jamie walked up the steps toward the glass doors etched with the police logo.

"Peanut, hurry up," Jo called out over her shoulder. The twins paused on the same step when I didn't rush to join them. "Peanut?"

I shook my head, studying the cracks in the sidewalk, rolling the leash in my hand. I could have blamed it on Theo's joints, but he'd been enough of a problem to them today. The truth was that the thought of walking into that building closed the airways in my throat, pushed my stomach to my mouth, and pricked the back of my eyes with a thousand needles. A heavy pause hovered between where they stood at the top of the steps and where I was rooted at the bottom.

"Wait for us." Jo waved cheerily, as if this had been the plan all along. She disappeared through the door Jamie held open. He followed her inside.

I collapsed in the middle of the sidewalk.

The tension that had built up was free to erupt now that they weren't there to bear witness. Theo whined, nuzzling his wet nose into my burning eyes as I fell to my knees and gripped his leash, my lifeline, in my hands. I couldn't go in. I would never be able to go in there. So many places I couldn't go. Wasn't brave enough to go. Too stupid to go. So many things I couldn't do, wouldn't do. I couldn't be a person, couldn't be like everyone else, no matter how hard I tried. I was always going to be the scared boy clinging to his dog, unable to take care of himself. There was no place for me.

"Are you ok?"

A wrinkled hand touched my shoulder. I recoiled away. Not everyone wanted to hurt me. I knew that now. But when a hand reaches there is only a fraction of a second between when contact is made and motive is revealed. To hold me down or to comfort me. The horror of the first was enough to justify fearing all touch, even if it meant I never got to experience the latter.

"Watch out!" The stranger called after me.

Theo tried to anchor himself to the sidewalk as I jumped away. I stumbled past two cars parked on meters and into the road. Theo bit at the ends of my jeans and tugged me back, toward the sidewalk. I fell, landing on my hands as a car swerved, and crawled in the direction Theo tugged. The world was closing in, blurring into a tirade of colors. A prickly rubber tire of one of the metered cars steadied me as I leaned against it. A horn blared as the oncoming car passed and continued down the street.

The stranger asked me if I was ok again. Theo whined, pacing between us. My heart was in my stomach and my stomach was in my throat.

It was going to happen. My stupid anxiety would trigger the verve. I would die. Or, if I didn't, my hair would turn white again, and everyone would know and be disappointed, and I would—

"Hey, lady, back away from my friend."

Jo's voice echoed across the courtyard, bouncing against the metal of the cars and the trunks of the trees. The stranger backed away. I closed my eyes as the rap of Jo's cane struck the pavement, moving closer.

"Can't you see the vest? Service. Dog. Give the guy some space."

The stranger moved away, grumbling.

"You ok there, Lan?"

It was the forced unnatural way my name fell out of her mouth that gave her away. She had seen. She was playing it cool. She was worried.

"Are your hands ok?"

My eyes opened. New-found sunlight peeked through the clouds, blinding, unbearably bright for a dying evening. I splayed my fingers, palms up. Gravel had scraped away skin and stuck in a few crevices. Small specks of pink blood slowly rose to the surface.

"Your left one looked . . . Don't worry. I got you covered. Literally." She cracked a wide-mouth grin and sat abruptly on the edge of the sidewalk, closer to the other car to give me space. The large green messenger bag rattled as she pulled it into her lap. She flipped the flap and dug around inside. Jamie's weathered paperback, a phone charger, and a rainbow wallet surfaced then disappeared like surfers on rolling waves as she searched, eventually fishing out a small first-aid kit. Jo slipped out each item she needed and placed them in a neat line.

Theo sat between us, panting. I stroked the line along his nose with the tip of an unharmed finger. Jo clasped the kit shut and dropped it back into the ocean that was her purse, where it floated on top of a bottle of over-the-counter pain relievers. She held out her hand.

"Unless you want to do it."

I offered her my right hand.

She removed the tiny pieces of gravel, flicking them out with a long glittery nail, and held my palm up to the first of the streetlamp's glow, analyzing the skin over the rim of her glasses for more slivers. Her hands were warm and soft. The smell of cotton and lavender hovered, thicker in the humid evening.

She pried open a small packet and plucked out a damp wipe to gently clean the cuts and scrapes. The alcohol in the threaded cotton sheet burned my palm. I looked away, wishing I had a drink to burn my throat instead. Birds fluttered overhead, cooing. Theo stood up, sat down, and stood up. Anxious that we were still so close to traffic, confused that Jo was allowing me to sit between two cars on the road. He snorted. Jo smeared a thin layer of cold ointment on my hand.

"I'm still technically dead," she broke the silence. "There was no point in me going in there. My signature means nothing, so I left it all up to him. The receptionist was checking him out so, hopefully, we can get some info. Then again, Jamie's a dumbass who never notices when someone's checking him out."

I swallowed, speaking low in case my voice was as shaken as my head, "Maybe that's because everyone checks him out. He can't tell the difference."

"That's absolutely plausible." Jo raised her thick eyebrows as she took my left hand. "I can wrap it with some gauze or you can let the ointment sink in before you touch anything. Whichever. It's not too bad, but, like, road burn. You don't want that to get infected. You could lose a hand."

Filthy. I was filthy. Disgusting. Diseased.

_Shut up_.

"I hate that place," Jo continued in the same tone, gathering the used tissues with one hand. She reached up to toss them into the garbage can behind her. "I hope that lady gets fired. It's probably for the best that I'm out here, can't be causing a scene. Again. That wouldn't go well."

I thought about how I had caused a scene of my own. Unprovoked in everyone else's eyes. They had no idea how broken I was, how easily I could slip out of pretending to be fine.

"What number am I?" she mumbled to herself, slipping out her phone.

Sunshine caught her black hair as easily as the glitter on the nails stroking it away from her face. Jo had the same glowing skin as Jamie, except she hid hers under make-up. I couldn't figure out why. Jamie didn't have any freckles or faint blue veins. No acne or scars or red marks. Their perfect complexion was the complete opposite of mine.

"Why are you staring at me?" Jo didn't look up from the screen.

"You're really pretty."

She looked up at that.

"I mean, your skin is really pretty. Are you, um," I floundered, "First Nation?"

"Am I what?"

"First Nation."

Jo stared at me as though I was speaking another language. I must have been way off.

"Italian? French? Never mind." I pulled my feet up and wrapped my arms around my knees.

She buried her forehead against her palm. "The body tag. Why didn't it say First Nation?" She groaned loudly. "I can't _think_!"

"Jo?" I had said something wrong. I shouldn't have asked.

"I can't do anything," Jo's voice dripped with frustration. The statement appeared to hurt her as much as the pain that made her carry a cane. "I needed my verve to get things done. I'm useless without it. If Judas comes back, I won't be able to defend myself. I hate being sick. If I had a body that worked, I'd climb up that terrace, break in and steal the information. I'd kick his ass the moment he showed back up. I'd find him before he could surprise us."

Jo was not Jo. Or rather, she was not Midnight. She was smaller, in more ways than one, flicking the cane from one hand to the next. A weary, irritated weight rested in her eyes. A wince permanently etched in the set of her lips.

"I'll do it." I stood up so quickly my head spun. Jo's wince deepened then eased as she pulled herself to her feet. Theo was pleased, leading us away from the cars and onto the sidewalk. I put a sticky palm out to shield my eyes from the sunset as I scanned the police building.

"You'll break in?" Jo sounded skeptical. She paused, turning from me to the building. "No."

"I'll do the physical stuff and you'll be the smart one. Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

She was tempted, then—"No, at least not yet. Not while it's still office hours." Jo nodded toward the entrance. "Let's see if dumbass has any news."

Jamie glided down several steps at a time. Walking at his own pace, without either of us to slow him down, he moved in long strides. His head high, posture perfect. Everywhere was a runway, a photoshoot just waiting to happen. Glowing skin, angled cheekbones, and flowing hair aside, Jamie's face held a perfectly arched degree of intelligence. Only Jo could get away with calling Jamie a dumbass, just as only Jo could get away with calling the man with two Master's degrees and a self-made business Benny.

Jamie alighted down the final three steps and approached us. His gaze fixed on Jo. Her face asked without saying a word. Jamie opened his black coat and slipped a yellow envelope out. Jo glanced at the security cameras on the corners as she took the envelope and dropped it into her messenger bag under the guise of passing it over for Jamie to carry.

"How?" She slipped the strap over his head.

"I asked nicely."

Jo frowned. She smacked her cane on the ground. "Jamie!"

"What?"

"You used your verve?"

"I asked nicely," he repeated in a harsh whisper. "I got what you wanted!"

Jo turned on her heel and spun in a circle, flashing a furious face to the empty space behind her before turning back to him. She poked a finger at his bare collarbone. "You could die if you use it!"

"Everyone else has had a REV longer than I have and they've used theirs more than me. No one's died yet!"

"So, you're fine with being the guinea pig? Because I'm not!"

"I'm stable. I haven't used it much."

"I don't care how stable you think you are. You're not. You're a china shop with a bull inside." Jo leaned up, her face close to his. "Every second you are one step closer to waking that—"

A dark scowl overpowered Jamie's lips. Jo fell silent. Her shoulders drooped. She exhaled and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm sorry."

Jamie hugged her with one arm, cutting his eyes to where I tried to disappear under the shadows of an oak tree.

"I'm not going to die. We'll figure it out."

"I know. I'm sorry. _Shit_ , I've been in Canada too long. I'm apologizing as much as him." Jo rubbed her nose and waved her cane in my direction. "Let's go."

Jamie let Jo set the pace as she walked back to where his car was parked. Theo and I followed, watching as he shortened his strides to match Jo's. He only moved ahead when a group of distracted people stumbling out of a pub moved recklessly onto the sidewalk. I tilted my head as he placed himself between his sister and the uncaring crowd.

Jo didn't notice.

But I did.

He wasn't hiccupping as he gently protected her from the crowd.

Maybe Jamie wasn't a dumbass after all.

#  STAR SUSTENANCE

"Leaks don't just happen overnight. They start slow. That one's been building up for a long time from the looks of it. Too much stress on the foundation, too many cracks, and the water got in." Dan spooned rice from the take-out carton onto his plate. "Rotted half the crawl space. So, how was the spitfire and her shadow?"

"I diverted a crisis." Ben pointed a finger blindly in my direction. "Jo can never find out what my last name was before I got married, you got it?"

A sliver of moon and spattering of stars hung in the late-night sky outside. They peeked through the window as we ate through the late hour. Ben's glasses lay on the kitchen table next to his plate. Ben and Dan were exhausted from the rushed attempt to stem the leak in the store's roof. A slight smile slipped onto Dan's face. Ben didn't need his glasses to see it.

"So help me, Dan, I will tell her your rank in the army."

His smile faded quickly as he picked at the last of the rice, tossing a strand of snow peas to Misty. She caught it then spat it back onto the floor and stared at it.

"Jo's back to using a cane again."

Dan didn't reply.

"Again?" I asked.

"She's always had one. Except for these last few months when she was . . . away from Jamie. It was strange seeing her without either of them." Ben chewed his tongue. "Everything was strange a few months ago."

Dan threw a sliver of a carrot at Misty. "I don't think the world can handle Jo at full capacity."

A corner of Ben's mouth twitched then turned somber. "I don't know how she does it. I can't imagine being that sick with only my teenage brother to depend on. I'd be scared to death."

"Jamie's a smart kid. He's got a good head on his shoulder."

"He's still a teenage boy. That's too much responsibility," Ben replied. "Speaking of, Lan. Do you think you might want to work in the store for a little bit? Earn some money. It'd be good to get you out of the house, get you into a routine."

"Your store's too crowded for him."

"Not lately." The bitterness in Ben's tone wasn't hard to catch. "And not now, while it's closed for repairs. I could use a hand pulling up the carpet tomorrow."

"What about school?" Dan asked.

Ben waved his hand with a flourish, inviting Dan to fill the void with an answer.

The thought of school turned the rice in my stomach. I inhaled deeply. It had been so long since I used the verve. This day. Finding the twins, the leak in the roof, the restaurant, the police station. This day had taken everything I had to survive. I couldn't break my streak now, not over school. It was only classes.

A positive thought flickered in my mind and I grabbed it, shielding it until it grew into a small flame. Jo was only a few months older than I was. The flame grew, but a gust of reality set in, extinguishing it. Even if I could somehow get into a real school, even if Jo and I went to the same school, I still wouldn't be in the same grade as her. My education had started at a time when most people would be entering middle school. School for me had always consisted of one-on-one sessions with various teachers at the special education building beside a high school on the other side of town, sandwiched in between psychiatric appointments.

They told me my reading level was great, all things considered. Yet, I could barely get through the books on the shelves of the children's section at Ben's store.

Ben was the smartest person I had ever met. He had gone to university much longer than most people and even taught at the local one when we first moved into this house before he quit to open the bookstore. Ben never wanted a child and getting stuck with one as dumb as me only put more of a strain on our attempt to live with each other.

"He'll be eighteen in a month, and . . ." Ben's words trailed off. His gaze fell to a bare spot on the table. "He can continue on with the program, or he can choose not to. Lan, if you don't go back to school, you will study for the high school equivalent diploma. Do you understand me? We're not letting you drop out, but we think you might need some time to adjust back to . . ." He gave up on trying to find a word.

The worst part was always the realization. I hadn't fit in here. I hadn't saved anyone when I ran away. All I did was ruin the life they had tried so hard to create for me.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

"There's nothing to apologize for, Lanny. But he's right. You might feel better if you got into a routine. Left the house for a few hours a day. Nothing much. Look at how happy Theo is to be back on the job."

Theo stared at Misty as she sniffed the carrot. I would have to take him every day to the bookstore. People would ask about him. Special education was starting to look more appealing. Even if we weren't in the same year, sometimes the classes were held inside the high school. Maybe I could run into Jo on certain days . . . But the thought of having to explain to her why I was in special education made the take-out climb up my throat.

"What do you think?" Ben asked. "Can you stand to leave the house for a couple of hours?"

"Ok."

"Ok?" Ben looked at Dan. "Is that Langdon for, 'Yes, that's a good idea, Ben' or what?"

"Yes, that's a good idea."

Dan snorted. I stared at the only take out box that still had anything left in it. My stomach was knotted but I reached for it anyway. By the time I was done eating, Ben and Dan had moved to the other room, speaking in hushed tones.

"What are you doing?"

"We need to keep an eye on him."

"He—"

"We don't know how much this REV thing is going to mess up his life," Ben murmured. "He might have to testify in court if they ever catch that bastard. Who knows how long the surgery to remove it will take, how long he'll have to recover. Jo's took eight hours but part of that was for the— _the_ _wound_."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

* * *

The weather was changing. The mood of this long wet day settled it. Summer was fading fast. It would fly by before anyone had a chance to fully appreciate it. A cool air blew through the branches of the twisted oak tree at the end of the yard. The movement hid the stars above, making them twinkle like holiday lights. My cheeks were warm despite the caress of the cool air. The heat buried in my face, tingling.

I spent a lot of time stargazing. Sometimes, if I looked long enough, it would feel like I was being pulled up into the black expanse, falling into the sky, where the stars waited to devour me. On bad nights, truly bad nights, I stared for ages, hoping they would.

But not tonight. I was grateful for the branches above that would catch me were I to fall. Even though the day had been trying, even though I had messed up, something about seeing Jo again gave me a spark of hope.

A snort to my right brought me back to earth. I snapped my fingers as Misty rolled in the grass. She didn't stop and I didn't try any further. The bark of the tree was rough against the back of my head. I exhaled. Pale smoke drifted up to the branches, toward the stars.

"Lanny." Dan crunched through the dying grass. I scooted around the tree. The crunching stopped. "Are you serious, kid? Give me that. _Now_."

His dry, rough hand appeared around the trunk. I passed him the cigarette.

"When did you start that up?"

I shrugged. Cigarettes never had that much appeal. They smelled too strongly of nightmares. But the ones Dan carried around in his pocket had a sweeter scent. So far, it hadn't done anything to ease the tension lingering from the day.

"Langdon." He shook his head and put it in his mouth. "You can't smoke. Look at me. Once you start, it's impossible to quit. I'm going to die of lung cancer because of this stuff. I'll be damned if you do too."

"It's just one."

"That's how it starts." Dan sat down on the wet grass next to me. He snapped his fingers at Misty. This time, she stopped. Bits of grass flew off her coat as she stood up and shook. "That's how I started. Promise me you won't smoke another cigarette."

" _Hmnph_."

"That wasn't a promise." He blew out a puff of smoke and rubbed his forehead. "Where is it?"

"I only took one."

"You smell like a bar at last call and your cheeks are red." He held out his other hand. "Hand it over."

With an apologetic noise, I passed him the bottle of whiskey. I had bought it in a nearby neighborhood after the twins finally let me go. The darkly-lit store didn't care about regulations or selling to someone a few months under the drinking age, even when he looked five years under it. Dan shook the bottle and held it up to the moonlight to gauge how much I had drank. "Kid, you are going to be the death of me."

"I'm sorry." I wished he would hit me, shout at me, anything other than look let down. "I won't do it again. I just wanted to sleep."

"I heard you last night. You were having another one of your night terrors, weren't you?" Dan tightened the cap and set the bottle behind him. Jo had done the same thing once. It felt like yesterday. I'd rather see Jo's disappointed face than his. "Was it about your brother or your—?"

"Don't."

He didn't respond. My eyes felt as warm as my cheeks in the cool air.

"I'm sorry."

"I don't even know where to start with listing all of your problems. Is this about something from the last couple of years or is this what you've always been dealing with?"

He waited for a reply I couldn't give.

"Kind of an all of the above thing?"

I nodded.

Dan took another drag. He crushed the butt on the sole of his worn brown work boot. "Lanny, I know you're dealing with things that Ben and I have no experience with. I won't pretend to know how you feel or what you're thinking, but this stuff is not going to help you. If you can't sleep, if the nightmares are still there, then you need to tell us so we can help you. If you don't want to talk to us, you could talk to Olivia. You may need to see her again."

"I don't need to see her. I'll try harder."

"You don't have to try harder, Lanny," Dan said. "You can't force yourself to be fine. The shit that happened to you these past two years alone is enough to put anyone into therapy."

My fingers twitched, itching for the glass neck of the bottle behind him.

"She could write you a prescription for something to help you sleep."

"How is that any different from a couple of drinks?"

"It's different because it's regulated. You're not going to become an alcoholic at seventeen, Langdon."

The grasshoppers chirped loudly now that Misty wasn't disturbing their home. I almost laughed. I could have been called an alcoholic even when I was only thirteen.

"Do you want me to go to therapy?"

"I want you to do what you want to do. If you want to start seeing her again, then you should. If you think you can handle things on your own, then we'll support that choice so long as we're not taking you to the emergency room again."

I tore up pieces of dry grass. Why did he have to bring that up? I blinked hard, looking up toward the stars. The leaves danced under their light.

"Is this it?" Dan gestured to the bottle and cigarette butt. "Are you doing anything else? No? You didn't start doing anything else while you were gone?"

I shook my head vigorously.

"Ben said you can help pull up the carpet tomorrow." He picked up the bottle and turned it over in his hands. "But only if you want to. You always want to help and it's not good to stay cooped up in the house all day. Maybe you could go hang out with some of your friends sometime. Like Jane. And Jo likes you. I know it's not the same, but she's been through stuff too. She's got that disease thing." He sniffed. "And Jamie's a nice kid—"

"Jamie's not my friend." I paused. " _You_ don't have any friends."

"Exactly. I don't want you to end up like me, friendless and dying of lung cancer."

I looked over at him, almost uncertain if he was joking or not.

He laughed.

"It's cold." Dan patted my knee. "You should get in. One of these days I'm going to be too old to carry you in. You've got to stop falling asleep out here. You'll be down to nine toes if you're not careful."

I nodded, wiping my face quickly, as I stood up to leave. Theo struggled up on his paws.

"Langdon." Dan's hand grazed my arm as I started to walk back inside. I stopped. "If you need to talk to someone, you know you can always come to me about anything."

#  PROMISES

"Jesus Christ, Lanny." Dan's work boot nudged my shoulder. "Get inside the house, kid. I don't have time for this, I'm late for work. Come on. Get a move on."

I rolled onto my back, face itching from where grass had served as my pillow. The sun was up, fully illuminating the morning sky.

"I'm going."

"Go," he called back. The gate clinked shut. "I'm going to call as soon as I get to the shop and you better be inside the house."

I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep. A distant ringing snuck into my dreams. Wet noses touched my cheek. I flipped the guitar over and rested it against my face to block out the dogs and sunlight before falling back into blissful, easy, quiet sleep.

Squealing woke me. I sat up quickly, guitar strings thrumming as they hit the earth. I ran to the gate and looked around. Jamie's car pulled up along the sidewalk, bass thumping almost as loud as the screeching engine. Buddy and Shiloh shook their heads, ears flapping. The noise cut off after Jamie killed the engine. The twins emerged, arguing over something. Or talking loudly. It was hard to tell with Jo.

It had been three days since I saw them. Three days, not nearly enough time to recover from the events of their return. Jo tripped over the grass as she stepped off the driveway. Jamie, the large messenger bag over one shoulder and a small pink box in one hand, caught her by the elbow. She gripped his arm and righted herself, muttering.

"What's going on? What's wrong?"

"What makes you think something's wrong?"

"Why are you here?"

"I wanted to see my favorite person."

"Oh." I uncrossed my arms. "Ben's at the store."

Ben and I had pulled up the carpet while Dan determined the extent of the leak's damage to the ceiling. The repairs would require a professional's help, something the two were bitter about resorting to, so Ben stayed at the store to oversee their work.

" _You_ are my favorite person, you dull little," Jo pressed a hand to her side, wincing, "peanut. Why is your face red? Were you sleeping outside again?" Jo climbed the steps slowly. "As I recall there's a bathroom in here so, excuse me."

Theo slipped through the door along with her, whining. Without his vest, Theo acted like a normal dog. He played or slept or did whatever he felt like. Yet, even without his vest, he stuck close to my side. A pang of betrayal hit me as he followed Jo down the hallway, only to be replaced by a feeling of unease when I realized that Jamie and I were alone on the porch.

Well, as alone as you could be in this place.

"I love you." Jamie patted Misty's head. "You're so fat. I love you. And you, and you."

Four tails wagged with excitement over his attention. Misty's more over the pink box she was eagerly sniffing. Jamie raised it above his head. His long hair was tied into two thick braids, black as the night sky. Sunlight tangled in his hair, where it glimmered like stars.

"Is it ok that we're here?" Jamie whispered, standing up. "Jo tends to invite herself in unannounced. She's tired of staying in a hotel room, but we can go to a coffee shop if you had plans."

I don't have plans.

You're welcome to stay.

I'm sorry I never told you Jo was alive while we were at the clinic.

" _Hgnm_." I shrugged, hurrying into the house.

Jamie followed me and set the pink box in the middle of the table, beside the stack of bills and left-over serviettes from take-out several nights earlier.

Thinner than Ben, almost taller than Dan, and a shade darker than Jo, Jamie looked like an artist's sketch come to life. His black sleeveless top was loose, its flowing shape more than enough to make up for how tightly his jeans hugged him. The black shirt hung low, shifting with each movement, revealing his neck, his chest, his shoulders. One small section of the hem had been tucked into the waist of his jeans as if a designer had prepared the outfit for a photoshoot, belying the probable reality of Jamie having dressed himself carelessly in the morning. Thick black boots, their scuffed, dulled leather, finished his styled air with a heartbreakingly casual flair. I swallowed, refusing to look in Jamie's direction as he plucked the black pea coat out of Jo's bag, covering his toned, tanned arms.

At the end of the hall, Theo gave up on waiting outside the washroom door and slowly crept back toward me, pretending as though he hadn't abandoned me.

Pepper's nails scratched against the floor around Jamie's boots. Jo had unnerved me, with her thick makeup and nice clothes. She had proved my concerns wrong with her kindness. But Jamie. Jamie couldn't remove his face. Jamie couldn't separate himself from the way he looked.

"Just some advice," Jamie moved closer, a closed-lipped smile drawing my eyes, "if you don't want her to show up tomorrow, hint that you have plans. Otherwise, she'll just keep making herself at home."

He flicked the collar into place. My fingers twitched. I busied them, dumping the last of the cold coffee into a mug.

"This is a really nice home."

I looked past the hair blocking my sight to see if he was being sarcastic. With designer clothes and a life in New York, the house on Marigold Court must have been horrible to him, even though it was a dream for me. Jamie peered into the next room at Ben's floor-to-ceiling stacks of books. His collection had expanded since I left. The fireplace in the corner was entirely invisible now.

"Why did you carry him?" Jamie turned around, his eyes meeting mine. So much richer than Jo's. Wider. Vulnerable. "Theo? Outside the café. Is he scared of storms?"

"He's old." The two syllables mashed together for an answer. I forced the coffee down my throat then tried for a more audible response. "He falls on steps and wet roads."

"That's sweet." Jamie's wide smile was still on his lips. It wrinkled his nose and made me want to die. His nose wrinkled further as he rolled his shoulders, pulling the sleeves of his coat over his wrists. "It's cute. He's as big as you are."

Theo huffed under my feet. I looked down the hallway, wishing Jo would hurry back. The last thing I wanted was short jokes from Jamie.

"Do you like dogs?"

My words fell out slowly, "I have five, so . . ."

Jamie shook his head. The wide smile permanently carved into his lips. Only his fingers were visible under the cuffs as he gestured to the other room. "Are any of those books yours? I bet you have a lot because of the . . ." Fingertips gestured toward the back yard and the bookstore on the other side.

"I don't like books."

His smile faltered. "You don't like books?"

"I hate reading."

"Everything?" His smile faded more as he nervously tugged the cuff over his left hand. "But your dad owns a bookstore?"

"Ben's not my dad." My response came too harsh. Shock flashed on Jamie's face before he pushed it behind the dying smile. He blinked at the cuffs hiding his hands and tugged them back into place. I changed the subject quickly. Jamie and I had never spoken much, it was possible he was as nosey as Jo. "I can read short things."

Poetry was easy to get through. I could finish a book of poetry in a week if I had nothing else to do. Ben had pushed them on me, hoping to find a common ground, but then he would turn the scholar and talk about metaphors and meanings so I quit.

"I like short things." Jamie's fingers slipped to adjust a purple gemstone on his hand.

"Did, uh." The start of a sentence was out of my mouth before I knew what the topic was. I grasped at anything to change the subject. I pointed to the braids framing his face. "Did Jo do that to your hair?"

She had been adamant about braiding mine when the verve made it grow impossibly fast.

Jamie's eyes widened. Panicked words tumbled out, "Do what? What did she do?"

He lunged to check his reflection in the mirror beside the coat rack, running his hands over his hair. Jo moved past him, mouthing four words with a smirk. He rounded on her. "What did you do to me?"

"Did someone rearrange the kitchen? Where's the tea?"

"Jo!"

"Tea, Jamie." She nodded as I pointed to the cabinet containing the boxes. "I need tea. I'll deal with your crisis in a minute."

Jo moved around the kitchen with confidence and fixed a cup. Unlike Jamie, her confidence did not come from a steady gait and a head held high. Jo clomped from counter to counter, her head ducked as she read a message on her phone, spilling the tea she prepared from Dan's personal stash. The chipped red mug dripped as she set it on a placemat at the table and settled into the chair Ben typically used. Within a minute, she had made an office from the contents of the giant messenger bag. With a laptop open, a journal to her right, tea and the pink box to her left, Jo looked more at home than I ever had a right to be. Jamie, however, looked as awkwardly out of place as Margret's cat. He hovered near the mirror, still frowning.

"Jamie!" Jo called out as she clicked the trackpad. "I need the power chord. Peanut, what do you do all day? No computer, no phone, and now you don't read?"

Jamie pulled out a rattling bottle of pills from a pharmacy sack buried deep in the messenger bag and set it before Jo. She gave it an angry glare as he crossed the floor and disappeared outside. Theo sat at attention beside her. She rubbed her face. Whatever was wrong with Jo wasn't something he was trained for, but he seemed determined to help.

"Don't you have school?"

"School?" Jo asked. "No, we graduated early. Before we moved here."

"Oh." I looked down at Theo. "Where have you been?"

"Apartment hunting. God, I'm sick of hotels. Then Mercy Saint Mary's."

The hospital. Jo had something, I wasn't sure what, but anything involving a hospital sounded serious. "Are you ok?"

"Almost got arrested, but I'm good. Jamie sweet-talked the cops out of it."

"What were you doing?"

"Looking for Jude—Morgan— _Shit_ ," she sputtered. "Judas. He worked there, or one of him did, at least. The last place anyone saw him was the hospital. I thought we could look at the security footage or payroll or something. We didn't get anywhere. People here do not live up to their stereotype." She looked at my questioning face and explained, "No one's helpful."

"Sorry?"

She cackled. Misty's head popped up, sniffing the table. "We have some business to attend to tomorrow. Me and—" Jo waved to the door, "—that idiot looking for the charger I hid in the backseat. I was thinking of breaking into Judas' apartment to see what the police left behind. There's nothing about it in the file Jamie took from them, so they're clearly skimping out on the evidence search."

"Was there anything useful in the file?"

Jo heaved an exasperated sigh before plucking a pill out of the bottle and popping it into her mouth. "They contacted that woman he told us about—You know, his old lab partner?—and got a brief interview with her over the phone. She lives in Italy. Get this shit: she swears Judas died years ago."

I groaned.

"Exactly." Jo took a sip from a metal water bottle that had floated to the top of her bag. "That bastard's like a cockroach. Anyway, do you want to hear the best part?" She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. "They were married. Judas and Antonia. Married research partners. I don't trust it. She knows something and she's not telling."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I am going to destroy one of these. Look at these beauties." She flipped the pink box's lid up and turned it toward me. A dozen assorted cookies lay lined inside. "You can help me eat these. Jamie certainly isn't going to."

Jo nibbled on one as I made a fresh pot of coffee, avoiding the question that was bound to come up. I didn't want to help. I did. But, I _didn't_. The coffee maker percolated loudly.

"Do you want some?"

"No, I wish. It messes with my medicine. It's herbal tea from now on."

Coffee brewed, clacking and gurgling.

"Darcy's got some weird evidence on Jude—I mean, Judas. She didn't tell the police because, one, she didn't know how to explain the way she found it and, two, it is most likely some more weird verve stuff which would, two, section A, come back to bite us in the ass. We'll all check it out as soon as we can get the rest of the mansion gang back together. Darcy says hi, by the way."

I scratched my neck. "What do you mean back together?"

When I last saw Stan, he told me that he and Lupe were living with Darcy at her house.

"Darcy started college and Kiko flew back to Jersey to visit her family. Every time I write her, she's all like, 'I have important business to take care of here. You wouldn't understand.' At least Lupe and Stan are ready whenever. We might not wait until Kiko gets back. I want to see this with my own eyes. Besides, time is short. The sooner we get the REVs out of everyone, the better." Jo paused, the steam from the tea fogging her glasses. "I've been in Brooklyn, why do I know more about their whereabouts than you? Haven't you seen them?"

"What did she find?" I avoided the question.

"Darcy says there's a hidden chamber down in Morgan's—I mean, Jude's— _shit_ —in Judas' lair. It's—"

"Behind the brick wall."

"—far from the main quarters."

Jo's brown eyes were wide. I tapped a finger against the rim of the mug I had filled while she stumbled over the names.

"I've been there. He . . . They . . ." I recalled the number of clones. Some of which were dead because of me. "It's hidden by a false front. Judas kept everyone out of it, but when it was just me . . . I went in there a few times. To look. You kind of broke it when you threw Stan into it."

"I did? When?"

"When I took you to the basement."

"Oh, yeah. Huh. So, what's in it?"

"More of the same." I swirled the coffee around in my cup. Jo would probably get mad if she saw me pour a shot of whiskey in it, but the soured feeling inside me was nearly willing to accept the challenge. Unfortunately, Mr. Kilmar had it now. Dan must have poured out the one I bought because I couldn't find it anywhere. "It's three times the size of the other room. There's lots of cabinets. Operating table. That sort of stuff."

"Do you know what's in the cabinets? Files? Documents? Maybe there's a blueprint for removing the REV!" Jo's voice rose as she stood up from her chair. She moved to look out the window, excited.

"I don't know, I—" I can barely read. I didn't bother to look. "I couldn't figure out how to open them. They were strange cabinets, built into the walls." The incinerator was down there as well, in a long dark hallway that stretched underneath the wide-open grounds above.

Jo wasn't listening. She scanned the empty yard, thinking.

"Why did you hide the charger from Jamie?"

She didn't move a muscle but her eyes narrowed. A deep breath, and Jo turned to me with a composed, polite expression that looked completely obscene on her busy face. "How are you?"

"Fine." I paused. "I haven't triggered the verve in a month."

"No, I mean." Jo chewed her bottom lip. She closed her eyes, the composure slipping. "How are you?"

I took a long sip of my coffee.

"Langdon, when I was in Jude's apartment—"

"Judas'."

"—I saw your file."

The mug slipped out of my grip. Not at first, not immediately. But the shock of her words, what they meant, numbed me. A file about me. The tally of horrible facts and figures flashed in my mind, as did an image of what Jo's horrified face would have looked like as she read about my life. The mug slipped and coffee spilled over the edge.

Jo righted it with both hands. I blinked, reclaiming my grip on the mug. She looked past our hands, at the splatter on her thick boots. Coffee stained the new leather. She looked up from her shoes, pity seeping past the frames around her big brown eyes. "I'm really sorry."

I shoved the mug onto the counter, but Jo's hands were still gripping one of mine. Her grasp fell far short of Midnight's strong hold. Theo stood below us, whining. Unwilling to break away from her weak grip, I remained still.

"Langdon, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have looked at your file. It was awful of me," Jo apologized. Lavender-scented air moved as her arm went around my shoulder. She either ignored or didn't notice that I tensed. "I just want to know if you're ok. I don't want to lose you. None of us do."

Theo calmed his efforts, taking a step back to allow Jo to help.

"Please don't ever do that again," she begged. "If you feel like you're in a bad state, tell me. I don't care what time it is, I'll come to you. And if you don't want to talk about it, I'll still be there. I'll . . . I'll bring milkshakes and sit with you until you can talk. I don't know what to say, but I'll find a way to help. You won't be alone."

Her words weren't adding up. She wasn't saying the things that Dan or Ben said whenever it had to be discussed. I heard my own voice distantly as it asked, "What did you find in my file?"

Jo hesitated. "The suicide attempt."

Oh. That. She hadn't seen the worst of it. Anxiety fought to filter in but the numbness slowed its invasion.

"Which one?"

"Both of them."

Both? Boxes in my brain were brought out of hiding, dusted, and flickered through. Both.

I recalled the security cameras in the clinic basement. The week after Will's death. No matter how determined I had been, I couldn't get it done right. Not before Morgan could stop me.

"Our dad killed himself. Looking back, I was such an idiot to not see the signs. I'm not losing anyone else. Not you."

"I'm fine."

"You're a terrible liar." Jo squeezed me tighter. "I hid the charger before Jamie and I left so I could talk to you alone—"

"Jo," I said firmly enough for her to stop. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

"So, you're not going to kill yourself? You promise?" The love that she wore so boldly in those brown irises pierced, bringing back the guilt I felt at thirteen when two others had asked me for the very same promise in this room.

"I promise." Again, like at thirteen, it was only conditional. Any promise from me was doomed to be broken one way or the other.

Jo searched my face then released me. "Let me tell you from experience, I am currently dead and it is no fun. I'd much rather be alive."

"You don't look dead."

"According to the government, I am. It's a bitch trying to bring me back. I can't even get health insurance until the paperwork goes through."

"Are you still sick?" After discussing suicide, it suddenly felt like there was no barrier to asking Jo the question at the front of my mind every time I saw her cane.

"I'm always sick. But I always get by. Nothing's killed me yet," Jo said, with an understandable amount of confidence. Yet, it diminished as she continued. "I've got some new pains, but it's nothing I can't handle, and I definitely don't need a surgery."

"Who said you did?"

"Some idiot doctor back in New York." Jo scoffed. "I'll just eat like Jamie, that will fix everything. After I finished those cookies, of course."

We grinned.

"Jo!" Jamie shouted from the middle of the back yard.

She turned to look out the window. "WHAT?"

I flinched, hearing gone in one ear. Perhaps not every part of Jo was gentle; I had forgotten about the natural volume of her voice. Jamie raised a middle finger then pointed with it in the direction of the driveway and a questioning look.

"Guess I hid it too well," she muttered. With a sigh, "Will you go get it?"

#  FULL SERVICE

Jamie knelt on one knee in the backseat, rummaging through the console. His other long leg was outstretched behind him, large scuffed boot flat on the driveway. His black coat lay discarded on the passenger seat, probably thanks to the oppressive humidity. The waist of his black jeans slipped down as he crawled over small pieces of luggage, food wrappers, and empty water bottles. While he searched, the oversized tank shifted, exposing more of his amber back.

"Jo said it's in the back pocket of the driver's seat, wrapped in a blue bag."

"Is that all she said?"

I paused then added, "Dumbass."

"Dumbass for losing her charger," he grumbled. "Aha!"

Jamie slipped out from the backseat, clutching a long white chord. He frowned, holding it up to the sunlight, and blew into the port. Multi-colored gems in his assortment of rings caught the light and cast it around the summer afternoon. Their glimmers dulled in comparison to the glow of Jamie's natural radiance.

"Um," I began, clearing my throat, and pointed to the engine. "That noise your car makes? It's because the belt is loose. If you pop the hood, I can fix it."

Jamie's large brown eyes struggled as he focused on getting the question from his head to his mouth. Braids moved against his shoulders, frazzling. One hand wrapped the chord around the other. "How?"

"It's easy. I've done it before. Dan has the tools in the garage. I just need to tighten it."

"No," Jamie said, a hint of embarrassment flushing his cheeks. "How do I pop the hood?"

* * *

The twins never stopped bickering. Not even while they listened to the call I placed to Dan's work.

"I told you the car was a death trap."

"You're a death trap," Jamie retorted weakly, shifting his weight from one boot to another.

"It wasn't enough for Aggie to use you; she's got to kill you as well."

"If she has a reason to kill anyone, it's you. You cut off her hair."

"She deserved it."

I popped a chip in my mouth and turned around with the home phone pressed to one ear, waiting while Dan checked to see if the shop had a replacement belt in stock. The one in Jamie's engine was frayed beyond safety.

"She deserved it," Jo repeated to me. "It was only a few inches."

Jamie shrugged, conceding.

"She can't prove it was me," Jo's voice argued in my right ear as Dan's voice came through the phone in my left. "I thought no one was allowed to touch your car?"

"If it makes you shut up about the noise, he can."

I hung up the phone. "He'll bring it when he gets off work. I'll change the oil until he gets here. It's really low."

"Or you could let it die with what dignity it has left. It's run its natural course."

"It's a good car. It just needs a little work.

"Told you," Jamie sneered. He leaned close to me. "What are you eating?"

I paused, mid-crunch, and held out my bag of ketchup chips to him.

"Jamie doesn't eat chips."

"I do, too. Is this organic?" He stuck a slender hand in and pulled a heavily seasoned chip out. The chip barely touched his tongue before he promptly spat it back into his hand. Eyes, wide with horror, watched as I shoved another handful in my mouth. "What is wrong with you?"

"Let me try. Jamie doesn't understand the finery of processed food," Jo joked, reaching toward me. "It smells like—oh, _God_. What flavor is that? BBQ? Sugar and vinegar? _Shit_. Oh, it burns. It burns!"

"Why is it _purple_?"

"Stop wasting them," I spoke around a mouthful. "I don't make fun of your foods."

"Probably because you don't have any taste buds left."

Shiloh walked past with a braided toy rope in his mouth. Jamie followed him into the other room, gulping a bottle of water.

"I need you to work with me here." Jo whispered, "Let the car die. For me."

I reached into the bag for another handful. "What did she do to you?"

"Who?"

"Jamie's ex-girlfriend."

Jo clicked on the trackpad then shut her laptop. Chipped nails drummed on the surface. The wide angle of her mouth shrunk. "Nothing. Why?"

"Just want to make sure I don't do anything to get on your bad side."

Jo's eyes darkened. "Don't take advantage of my brother and you'll be fine."

"That car is worth a lot more than five hundred."

She shrugged. Her nails pattered out nonsensical notes.

I stepped into the garage and shut the door behind me, wondering what else Jo had done in the name of justice aside from murdered a clone of Judas' or two and cut an ex-girlfriend's hair. I touched my own, the ends curling below my ears. Jo would shave my head if she knew how I had watched Jamie search for the charger.

Dan's obsessive overhaul of the garage hadn't reached everything. The crates of oils and fluids were still in their spot under the few stairs that lead down from the house's foundation. I pulled a crate out and carried it back through the rooms, out to where Jamie's car waited.

The sun hurried toward the horizon as I dropped the crate by a front tire. Its light hovered at an angle, blinding me until I lifted the hood. I shoved a metal pan under the engine. The wrench slipped from my grip on the first turn. On my second try, the cap unscrewed and old oil began to leak out into the pan below. Oil changes weren't difficult; they just had more steps to follow. The rest of the fluids were easier to replenish.

Although the sun was low in the sky, the late summer heat didn't seem to be going anywhere. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I crawled under the car and back onto my feet to check the oil stick. Footsteps crunched on the grass and a grease-stained hand appeared beside mine as I reached over to grab the cap. Cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air.

"Full service, huh?" Dan peered into the engine. He ripped the packaging off and handed me the new belt. I stepped off the bumper, unwinding it. "Whose car is this? Oh, hey, Jamie. Where's your sister?"

I spun around. Jamie sat on the driveway, long legs stretched out before him. He leaned back on his palms, the last of the light catching the exposed skin of his neck and collarbones. "She's inside, drinking all your tea. I'll buy you some replacement."

Dan waved a hand, turning back to the engine.

I stared at Jamie, wondering how long he had been watching me.

Dan looked at the old belt. "Did you drive here in this?"

Jamie nodded. He stood up, brushing flecks of dead grass from his tight pants, and approached us.

"It's impressive it didn't snap. You're lucky."

Jamie frowned as Dan showed him the difference between the old one and the new one in my hands. Dan tapped my shoulder. "I'll check it over when you're done."

" _Mmphf_."

Dan walked up the driveway. I had changed a dozen belts before. It was the first repair I learned, not because it was the easiest, but because my hands could fit into the tight nooks of an engine better than Dan's could. Irritation bristled.

"Did he teach you how to do this?" Jamie showed no sign of backing away. His braids fell forward. A calming scent overpowered the humidity and leftover cigarette smoke in the air. Cinnamon, and coffee, and something sweet. Like a flower or sugar. Those little yellow flowers. Jasmine.

"Who the hell let you in here?" Dan's voice wafted through the door, bouncing off the walls, to where we stood by the car. Jo's squeal was even louder. Buddy's bark echoed.

Jamie stared at the windows of the house as I wrapped the belt into place, looping it around and over. He studied the green and pink houses on the other side of the street, short trees blocking out the low sun. "She really likes it here. I can see why."

I tightened the last bit. When he didn't continue, I looked up. "Why?"

He broke into a grin as wide as Jo's, wider than in the kitchen. His smile stole the air from my lungs. This wasn't his polite, closed-lipped smile. This wasn't even a model's smile. It was an honest smile, with parted lips baring perfect, straight, white teeth. His eyes squinted as his nose wrinkled in delight.

It hurt to look at him. Hurt in some sort of overwhelming way, like when the sunset blinded my eyes or the starry sky blanketing the night reached out to me. His fingers caught the bottom of my jaw and turned my face back to him. The metal of his rings cold against my chin.

"You have something all over your face," Jamie's voice grew softer. His lips twitched back to a conscious smile. Sunlight reflected on a purple gemstone as he gently touched my temple then drew back to show me the black oil stuck to his fingertips.

My gaze switched from his fingers to the bare skin of his neck. A buried memory of warmth surfaced. A hug, many weeks ago. I wanted that again, to feel the murmur of his voice against my ear as he thanked me for helping Jo. How easy it had been for my arms to reach around his thin frame.

His eyelids lowered, gaze trailing down my face. "Do you—?"

"Jamie!" Ben's voice called out from a distance. "Back up. You don't want to ruin those nice clothes."

Jamie's face switched quickly, flickering into the middle of bright laughter. He held up the black tips of his fingers with amusement.

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, cursing Ben's memory. Theo still pushed people away as well. Younger, years ago, I couldn't stand anyone to get close to me. A part of me still didn't. But Jamie's presence, his low voice and wide eyes. That was the closest I would ever get to him. I willed my brain to memorize his smell, the exact angle of his jaw, the lone light freckle under his left eye, before opening my eyes.

Ben stood, hands in his pockets, and observed Jamie with a grim expression. Lines set heavily around Ben's brow. Dark circles under his eyes weathered his face. He looked at the top of Jamie's head and stood up straighter, not quite closing the difference.

Jamie stepped back. "I think Langdon's got the worst of it."

"Find a place to live yet?"

"No, we're still searching for one. There's a few apartments we're looking at tomorrow."

"That's good." Ben squinted at the house. Something in his voice sounded off and I sunk down by a tire as I gently put the wrench back into the tool box. "Jamie, come in for a moment and wash that off."

The gate squeaked open. Dan muttered a question to Ben as he passed them. Ben shook his head and replied curtly, "Later."

Jamie tapped Jo's ribs with his elbow as he passed her. She yanked a braid without breaking her stride.

"What the hell happened here?" Jo nudged the garage door with a coffee-stained boot. The metal door was smashed flush against the driveway, wedged at an angle. Her gaze fell to me and she cackled. "Your face! You look so stupid."

Dan peered inside the engine. He tested the tension of the belt with a hand.

"Did the garage door finally die?" Jo tapped the garage door again. "How are you going to fix that?"

"He's renovating it." I edged away from Dan, irritated by the double-check almost as much as Ben's abrupt arrival.

"Into?"

"Something different." Dan wiped his hands and smirked as he looked at me. "Kid, you need to wash your face."

"You won't buy a new dishwasher but you'll remodel the garage. Makes sense." She leaned into me as Dan slammed the hood, whispering, "Can't you tell him his car has engine cancer or something?"

"There's nothing wrong with his car."

"For me. Please?" Jo turned around with a frown. "Wait, what happened to my Star Bolt?"

"The police claimed it as evidence. Did you hear that?" Dan braced his hands on the closed hood and turned to look back at the house. Jo and I froze, listening. We didn't have to listen hard.

"You're eighteen years old, Jamie! You're an adult! Act like one!"

Jo whipped the cane off her wrist and rushed past the gate. Dan pointed at me to stay by the car before he followed her.

Like most crowded spaces, confrontations were to be avoided at all cost if I wanted to keep calm. Wind blustered through the trees as I weighed going inside. I had never heard Ben raise his voice to anyone other than me or Dan. Not even to Colleen. My foot nudged the crate away from the tire, toward the grass. I didn't have friends. Maybe Stan was once, but Ben had already made sure he wasn't going to return. He couldn't do this to the twins as well.

The back door creaked open and I slipped into a spot near the pile of dirty laundry. Jamie and Ben stood at opposite ends of the living room, arguing. Pepper and Buddy stared at the two, confused by the concept of shouting.

"These things will haunt you. You'll get a reputation, posing like you're a porn star."

"It's not like I was nude."

Ben crossed his arms. His Scottish accent broke through the more he raised his voice. "Is that the image you want to put out there for the world to see? What about when you're old? Or married with kids? How will you feel when they find those photos?"

Jo stepped forward, her cane rapping the floor as she moved to stand beside Jamie. I wondered briefly if she was going to hit Ben. "It's his call. Not anyone else's. Not yours."

"What do you think about it? You can't tell me you're ok with it."

"This is between us," Jamie snapped, cutting off her response. Indignation fumed, boiling in his brown irises. Rage hugged the corners of his full lips, tugging them down. Jo's hand touched his back and some of the anger retreated from his face. Somehow, she was grounding him.

"Attention isn't everything, Jamie."

"I didn't do it for attention."

"Then why?"

Jamie cut his eyes at Jo. He admitted, "They paid me fifty thousand for the entire shoot."

"So, you whored yourself out for money? Money? Really? I thought you had a brain. You have to think about your future."

Jamie's tongue pressed against his bottom lip. The fury was shoved further down. His expression guarded. Then the wall broke. "I made more in one day than you do with your bookstore in a year.

Ben chewed his bottom lip. He inhaled slowly, looking around the room for someone to back him up. Finally, in an annoyingly rational tone, "You're setting a bad example for others."

"I'm not a role model," Jamie hissed. "Apparently, I'm a porn star."

Jo's fingers tapped his back. He leaned down and she whispered into his ear. Jamie's furious gaze dropped. He avoided eye contact with everyone as he left the room. As he passed by me, his face was impossibly blank. How could he turn off his emotions so well?

The back door clattered shut behind him. Jo stepped past Dan, into the kitchen, and picked up the messenger bag beside the table. Theo licked my hand. She gathered the notebook and laptop, shoving them in haphazardly.

Ben strolled toward her, one hand to his brow. "Jo, don't—"

"You took me in when I needed help." She trembled from the rage barely contained within her, slipping the heavy bag over her shoulder. "I won't forget it. But if you ever talk to my brother like that again, I will not forgive you."

Her cane rapped two steps toward the door. She stopped, turning her head slightly, and added, "Jamie didn't do it on a whim. Sâtieer's been after him for a while. He took his time to think it over."

Dan followed her and helped her down the steps.

Ben looked at me.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because that boy needs some guidance."

His voice was back to his normal level. However, all the anger, anger which Jamie could so easily disregard, swam to my surface. I wanted Ben to yell at me. To treat me like he would anyone else.

"They're my friends!"

"I thought you didn't have any friends."

"I don't now! I won't ever thanks to you. They hate me because of you." I pushed Theo down as he stood up on his hind legs to lick my face. "You have to ruin everything!"

"Lan."

"You made Stan leave. You did it on purpose and now you're pushing them away too! Why are you doing this to me? It's because you hate me, isn't it?"

"Lan," Ben warned, voice rising.

"Stop." The screen door slammed. Dan pointed a finger, first at Ben then at me.

"I didn't do anything!"

"Lanny," Dan said sternly.

"He—"

"I know, son."

"But—"

"I'll handle it."

"Handle what?" Ben asked ruefully. "Are you siding with him?"

Dan pointed at Ben again and glared meaningfully at him. He turned back to me. "Lanny, take Theo. Go to your room."

"No."

"Then go outside."

They waited as I scooped Theo up and carried him out the back door.

Dan called after me as the screen door banged shut, "And stay there! Don't wander off!"

#  REBIRTH

Dan always had my back. Even when it came down between me and Ben. Like it had once before.

It was only a month, but that month was a lifetime where I was reborn. _This was a good life_ , I thought repeatedly to myself in those early days, but I didn't know that it wasn't a normal life. Not really. I knew I had gotten lucky. For the first time ever, there was someone in it that didn't hurt me and, miraculously, understood me.

Dan didn't make me learn things like the teachers. He didn't make me talk. Ben did. After Ben left, the days fell out of any imposed structure.

Dan and I slept the sunlit hours away because I didn't like to sleep when it was dark. At night, he distracted me from the fear of things I didn't know would never come again. The McDonald's, a klick from our house, was open twenty-four hours a day, but the play area was locked up after nine. I didn't know what it was. Fun wasn't a thing in my first life. On our third visit, the manager unlocked the doors. I had full control of the playground.

Theo couldn't come in. He lay on the patterned floor under the booth at Dan's feet, drinking out of the paper cup a cashier had left for him. Dan would read the papers or stare out the windows at the headlights of the occasional car driving past. The roads were never busy in those late hours of the night.

"Dan!" I called out, my voice echoing loudly in the empty Plexiglas chamber. He looked up from a newspaper. "Birds!"

Outside, a flock of geese flew in a V-shaped formation. They were our birds, the ones we visited in the park every morning after I was tired of the slide and full of fast food. The geese woke as the sun rose and we fed them a breakfast of seeds from the bag Dan kept under the seat in his truck. Theo would whine and hide under our legs, terrified of their snapping beaks, afraid he was next to be eaten. After they had their breakfast, they would return one by one to the pond's edge, ruffle their feathers, and pluck the loose pieces out. Only then we would go home. Me, falling asleep in the passenger seat, my head on Theo's back. I would wake sometime in the afternoon in my bed. It was heaven.

I had clambered down the rubber steps and burst out the door of the play area to ask why they were leaving.

"They do that when the weather changes," Dan said, looking out the window. "It's getting too cold for them. They're going to America, where it's warm. They'll come back when it's spring."

"Where?" There was still a little bit of pop left in the paper cup. "Texas?"

It was the place where Dan was from. It was the reason why his words were spoken slow and different.

"Maybe." We watched the bellies of the geese, fat from our morning feedings, fly over before they disappeared into the distance. "They'll probably stop in New York for a while then, when it gets cold there, they'll fly down to Texas."

"Can we go to New York?"

"No," he said, then added to cushion the shock of hearing him say no for the first time, "New York is far away. We'd have to spend all day in the truck to get there."

Dan never said no. He let me do anything I wanted, from taking me to the airport to watch the planes leave at dusk, to waiting as I jumped from the red and yellow shadows cast by the rainbow windows of the Palais Des Congrès de Montréal, or dashing to look at the flames surrounding the nearby fountain.

"Can we go to Texas?"

He thought for a minute before answering. "Maybe. Maybe we will."

We didn't. There was a knock on the front door the next day. It woke me, but Dan was already up. His boots thudded against the hallway floor as he went to answer. Theo squirmed as I held him still. We sat on the edge of the staircase, peering around the railing. It could be the police again, coming to take me away. They weren't taking me away from this house. I liked it here. I would hide.

It was Ben.

"I told you to call me before you came for your shit." Dan sounded angry. He never got angry, never raised his voice. This tone scared me, reminding me of the anger at the other place. Theo whined.

Ben's reply was quiet. I could barely hear his words as he apologized. Ben had been there the first few weeks after I came to live with Dan. Then he wasn't.

They stood in the doorway for what felt like an hour, whispering. Dan put his hand on the back of Ben's neck and pulled him forward, kissing him on the lips. The floor under me squeaked and I leaned back in case they heard and looked up. I had never seen two men kiss before. I'd seen lots of things, but never that. If my father ever kissed my mother, it wasn't gently like that. She would beg him to go away. That is, if she was conscious.

Every other kid in the group home always left with two people. Always a man and a woman. The women were the ones who showed up the most for visits, always trying to hug their chosen child. For reasons I wouldn't understand until later, no one ever chose me. Except for Dan.

It was in that moment I understood. When I had left the group home with Dan, I was really leaving with two men. Ben just hadn't been there in the beginning. Now he was.

"I was going to buy him a stuffed animal or something, but I honestly don't know if he'd like it. I don't know what he likes."

"He likes food." Dan's voice wasn't angry anymore. He was nearly laughing. "He likes food and his dog. That's it."

* * *

Every day following Ben's fight with Jamie I told myself that they were busy looking at apartments. After a week, I had no story to comfort myself with. Desperate for something to do, I pulled the dishwasher out and took it apart so completely that I had to spend the entire evening putting it back together. The boxes Dan stored in the attic were rearranged to make room for more. The remains of the garage were ransacked. I organized everything into piles so he could sort through them faster when he was off work. I passed out with a bottle of rum stolen from the office in Ben's store. It had been a gift from a visiting author. I couldn't fix anything, and I couldn't keep anyone.

"—then we'll make him. We're the adults for God's sake."

"Only for a few more weeks. He'll be eighteen soon."

"All the more reason to make him go now."

Floorboards creaked over my head as they walked around the house. Another argument over the leaking dishwasher turned into more disagreements. Dan and Ben had been fighting nonstop ever since Ben came home to find me in the back yard with the rum. At long last, their argument had come back around to me. I was always going to be a problem, like a broken dishwasher or garage door.

"It's been weeks since he came back and he's only managed to get worse."

"He was fine until you scared off the only friends he has."

"You thought the agoraphobia and drinking was fine?"

"He would have gotten better, he just needed more time."

"—and he has friends aside from Jo. What about that blonde girl that showed up? Mary? And Stan?"

"Sure, of course, Stan—"

"Don't—"

"The kid you scared away."

"I was trying to help him."

"Like you were trying to help Jamie?"

"Lan doesn't need to be around Jamie."

"He's not an idiot."

"You didn't see them. Jamie was _this_ close to him. Lan doesn't—"

"Lanny can make his own goddamn decisions, Ben."

"Oh, so, now you're fine with him living his life? Because the last I checked, you were all for coddling the boy, letting him hole up in this house like some sort of hermit."

"You don't understand. You haven't—"

"No. I don't understand what he's going through, but I can understand that he's in pain." Ben snapped. Something fragile rattled in the sink above. "What do you think is going to happen if we let him hang around Jamie? Jamie is . . . worldly. Mature. Lan has spent his entire life locked away. It'll blow up in our faces, you know it will, and then he'll hurt even more, and it will be even harder to get him normal."

"There is no normal," Dan said hoarsely.

Misty snorted on the other side of the small lattice door. I shooed her away. She wagged her tail.

"You know I meant better. _Healthy_."

"What's so bad about Jamie? Is it because of the money? He was just trying to thank us for taking care of Jo."

"Have you seen that ad he did? No, don't wave me off. It's that billboard on the corner. Look at this." Footsteps moved. "Look at this then tell me that's someone you want your impressionable boy hanging around."

The wind howled. Theo sniffed the air.

"Well," Dan said with a heavy dose of resignation. "That's a lot more of Jamie than I ever needed to see. What is this even for?"

"It's for shoes."

"How is this for shoes?"

"Sex sells. Do you want that— _that_ —around Lan?"

"Ok, fine. But you didn't have to go off the rails at him. Not in front of Jo and Lanny, at least. You can't kick Jamie out and expect Jo to hang around. Lanny likes Jo. She's the only friend he has right now and, without her, he's struggling even more."

"He needs to go back to therapy. Get him back on his medication. Get him to start talking, my God. Where did he go for two years? What happened?"

"He'll tell us when he's ready."

Ben countered, "When is that? When he's twenty-five? When he's back at Mercy for drinking so much it's labeled as a suicide attempt again?"

"I have to get to work." The door slammed above my head. Dan walked to the gate and stopped. He backtracked a few steps and peered down under the deck. "Jesus Christ, kid. You never change, do you?"

"Thanks for nothing," I muttered to the dogs huddled outside the lattice, giving away my location.

"How much of that did you hear?" He squinted through the shadows to where I sat, my back against the foundation. "Come on, get out from under there." He sighed deeply when I didn't move. "Look, I'm going to be late for work." He looked behind him at the dark sky. "It's going to rain in an hour, so you better get inside by then. Theo will get mud caked in his hair if you don't."

"Ok."

He patted the board above his head twice and stood up. The heels of his work boots sunk into the muddy ground. He knelt back down. "Lanny, we're not going to force you to do something you don't want to do, but Ben's right. It would be better if you started seeing Olivia again. Just think about it, ok?"

"Ok."

He stood up and then knelt again. "Kid, if you are drinking under there—"

"It's just coffee."

I rubbed the fuzz on Theo's ear as Dan continued to work. A few minutes later, Ben walked over me and down the yard to go to his store.

Several claps of thunder rumbled, yet no rain fell. Inside, the home phone rang five times before it fell silent. Theo whined, smelling the oncoming storm with a twitching black nose. Another job at the bookstore might be waiting for me, but I didn't care. I didn't like being there and Ben didn't like me there either. And he certainly wasn't going to pay me after I bought alcohol with the money last time.

Wind gusted through the yard. The oak leaves, with the first hint of brown already creeping into the green, rustled. The phone started to ring again. Another five rings then everything fell silent except for Theo's breath.

I wondered what Jo was doing, if she had gotten anywhere with the police or the hospital. Maybe she and Jamie were in the middle of Judas' old apartment, questioning the manager. Or perhaps they found a place to live. Perhaps they moved back to New York.

The phone started to ring for the third time. With a groan, I crawled out from under the deck. A nagging voice told me to answer it. It could be Dan, calling to make sure I had come inside.

The dogs and I went inside. My thumb punched the button on the fourth ring. "Hello?"

"The magazine is under Jamie's favorite book," said a small voice.

"What?"

"The magazine Jo wants. It's under Jamie's favorite book," the voice whispered into the line.

"Who is this?"

"You don't know my name yet? Try to remember my advice, then."

The line fell silent. I stared at the phone in my hand. Slowly, I set it back in its place. A second later, the phone rang again.

"Who is this?" I demanded, ripping it off the receiver.

"Well, _damn_ , peanut." Jo's brassy voice was a relief to my ears, even though her tone reeked of offense. "Is that how you answer all calls? No wonder you don't have a cell phone."

"Jo?" I breathed out. "Hi. Sorry."

"Hi. So—"

"I'm really sorry about Ben."

"Ah," she groaned. "It's not your fault."

"Are you mad at me?"

"Why would I be mad?"

"You haven't come back."

"Peanut." Jo sounded like she was fighting a laugh. "We really need to talk about this off the grid nonsense. If you ever went on my Posey, you'd know I've been in Paris."

"What?"

"Fashion week. Jamie had a thing to do. It's in his contract and I wasn't going to pass up the chance to get fresh macaroons."

"Oh." I frowned. What kind of world did these two live in? Did becoming the experiments of a mad scientist even affect them or was it another stepping stone in their life?

"Do you still want to help me on my quest for revenge and answers?"

I peered around the corner, into the living room. Misty and Pepper were snuggled on the couch. Buddy and Shiloh stared out the windows. "Yes."

"Meet us at the mansion in an hour. If we don't get arrested, we'll all go out for pancakes after. Jamie's treat. And, uh, ditch the foster dads, ok?"

I looked at the clock. The next bus would leave in ten minutes.

Theo tilted his head.

I could do one better.

#  THE CLINIC

The iron gate to the clinic was propped open by a very large rock. My skin had crawled during each bus ride and transfer. Now, so close to the destination, peeling it all off seemed more appealing. Each step was heavier than the last. Air stifled as it passed through my lungs. I stopped, gasping for breath a few steps up the path.

Jo was up there. She wasn't scared or nervous. She wanted to do this, and she wanted my help. I couldn't disappoint her. It was just a building after all. Judas and his clones were gone. This would be fine. Nothing bad was going to happen.

But my feet were glued to the ground. I closed my eyes and breathed in, pushing away the memories floating to the surface, of the first time I walked through the gates. Morgan, in his stupid ugly shoes, pretending to be good. Then _her_ , dead. Her body discovered not far from where I was now. Will, refusing to sneak through the fence without me, too scared to run away on his own. He was too young. All I could do was watch him every second of the day. And then, I made the fatal mistake: I fell asleep.

Sometimes, I could squash the panic. I could see it coming and stop it from taking over my mind. Sometimes, it snuck up on me. Sometimes, like now, I walked into it—a game of chicken, the victor never predetermined.

Sounds filtered in. Leaves rustled and the wind howled. The rumble of thunder grew as a storm moved. Eventually, my feet listened to me and I was back to walking up the driveway, not sure who won this time, but aware that a rematch would be soon. With each step, my brain settled back into my head and I was human again. Not some vague stream of consciousness drifting through the clouds.

Perhaps that was where my verve originated from, my constant battle with dissociation.

I avoided looking directly at the tall structure coming into view, ignoring its barred windows and bare lawns, and focused on the ground under my runners. Figures became clearer each time my eyes flickered up. It wasn't just the twins I was meeting.

Darcy stood with her arms crossed over her chest. She stared at the police tape over the front entrance to the clinic. Her blonde wig blew gently in the breeze, copying the same fluttering motion as her white dress. Beside her, Stan hovered, watching as Jo enlisted Lupe's help to peer into all the windows. The thick velvet curtains were drawn, blocking out any hope of catching a glimpse of the inside. Unlike Jo, I wasn't disappointed. I had seen too much of the clinic in the past two years.

Jamie was the first to notice me. He leaned against the trunk of his green car, parked beside Darcy's mom's light blue van. The soles of his large black boots sunk into the grass next to the driveway. Long black hair reflected the sun like the windows Jo was still pressing her face against. Bare arms flexed as he pushed away from the car. His skin enviously, unbelievably smooth like molten gold.

Brown eyes glanced at both sides of my runners. "Where's Theo?"

My nerves were raw but it didn't sway me from my decision to leave Theo behind. Even though there were too many triggers, too much inside those walls that could set me off, I didn't want the two worlds to cross over. It had been hard enough to know I brought Dan and Ben here. There was also, undeniably, a small part of me that hoped they would think Theo was a one-time thing. That they wouldn't think any differently of me.

"How-how's the car? Is it still running ok?"

Jamie's arms stretched to either side, palms sliding over the doors. A conscious smile crept over closed lips. It was nothing compared to his real, nose-wrinkling smile. "Perfect. You did a great job. I owe you."

His soft voice sounded nothing like the one full of ragged anger held within as Ben ridiculed him. I shook my head, glad Jamie wasn't holding any anger toward me for Ben's stupidity.

"What's Jo's plan?"

Jamie turned back to face the clinic. He raised his shoulders, collarbones boldly shifting under his skin. "No idea. I've learned my only option is to go along with what she says and hope nothing catches on fire." Jamie craned his head up to gaze at the second-floor windows. "But I wouldn't mind if she burned this hellhole to the ground."

I made a vague noise of agreement before stepping around him to where Jo stood on the walkway. She stared at two blood stains on the pavement. The smaller blotch near her thick sneakers had belonged to her. The sight recalled the sticky texture of her blood on my hands that horrible day. Warm, surprisingly thick, with a strong smell of warped copper. A few steps away from her mark was the stain from when she stabbed one of Morgan's clones. That sight gave me no pause as I stepped over it.

"Do you ever feel bad that we murdered someone?" She rolled the cane in her hands. The neckline of her thin blue shirt scooped low enough to show off her small pink scar. "I know I should but . . . I don't know. Jamie told me not to worry about it."

"I—" Did I feel bad? Or was not feeling bad another mark to the tally of horrible facts about me? "I'm not sure they were real. They weren't really human, were they?"

"Oh, peanut," Jo sighed, tapping her stain with the end of her cane. She inhaled deeply. "That's really going to bring down the market on this place. Maybe they can sell it as a haunted house."

"The back entrances are locked up as well. Bars on every window." Lupe jogged up behind us. "Hi, Langdon!"

Jo's cane kept time with her steps back to the rest of the group. She wasn't leaning on it as heavily as she had been the last time I saw her. After a glance from Jo, Jamie turned around to open the passenger door he had been leaning against.

"There is a way to get the REVs out," Jo began. "We know this because I am back to being my less agile but still genial self."

Jamie exhaled a poorly hidden laugh as he passed Jo her large green messenger bag. She took it and continued explaining as she dug, "There's got to be a blueprint for it. Some sort of manual that can tell us how to replicate the removal. If it's going to be anywhere, it's going to be in there. Most likely in the place Darcy mentioned."

The clinic didn't look _that_ intimidating in the daylight, especially not without an army of clones around. Still, I wasn't going to set foot in there unless I absolutely had to. Judging from the faces of everyone else, all but Jo shared the same hesitation.

"Seriously?" Jo took a flat knife out and dropped the heavy bag to her sneakers. "Are you really going to let your best chance for saving your lives slip by because you're scared? Morgan— _shit_ , I mean, Judas is not here. He's too smart to come back when the police are all over the radar."

"How are we going to get in?" Lupe asked. Sun glinted off the iron bars locking every window. They had been installed after Midnight's first break-in. The doctor had been furious no one noticed her until it was too late. Or so he thought. I had heard her moving in the walls and followed the sounds as she crawled through the ventilation system. Darcy and Lupe had heard as well. I told them it was just echoes from the hailstorm.

The new barriers on the doors must have been put in place by the police after everything was brought to their attention.

Jo's big eyes scanned the police tape flapping in the gentle breeze. "There's no cameras. No security system. No guards. No one's going to know. Besides, if there is information about the REV and what it can do inside, do you really want to let them find it so they can turn you into some science experiment all over again?"

Darcy eyed the flat knife in Jo's hand. "Who are you stabbing this time?"

Jo waggled it, grinning broadly, then passed it to Jamie. "You can do the honors, since you're so fond of stabbing."

"That was one time." Jamie took the knife from her.

"And how many times have I stabbed you?" Jo called after him as he approached a window.

"Metaphorically?" He whipped his head back to respond, long black hair swinging round and crashing into his lips.

"I don't think Jamie can break those off with a dull knife." Darcy stepped in line beside Jo. She raised her thin, drawn-on eyebrows. "Jamie can't do everything."

"If the police put as much effort into boarding this place up as they did into trying to find Judas, Jamie can get us in." Jo sniffed, then called out, "Try the small window on the end!"

Stan exhaled loudly.

"No verves," Jo reminded.

Stan and I locked eyes. His verve let him win in any fight, allowed him to overpower anything in terms of strength. It had taken him a while to figure out how to channel it. His verve never came from any place of anger or rage. It seemed to come from some deep grasp of righteousness inside him. Stan was as stubborn as Jo, but he didn't enjoy being challenged. Something that Ben didn't understand.

We listened while Darcy and Jo discussed the plan in low murmurs. Without Theo's leash, my hands had nothing to wring. Nails dug into my palms as it became obvious we weren't getting out of here without doing something drastic. The girls moved away and our silence was more pronounced.

"So," Stan began. "How's it going?"

I shrugged. "How about you?"

"Alright, I guess." He scuffed his runners into the grass. He hesitated then said in a rush, "I saw your dad at the bookstore. The Scottish one."

"He's not my dad."

"Is the other one your dad?"

"What does it matter?"

"It doesn't."

Jamie's bare arms flexed as he worked under the glaring sun. He tried to crack the panel around the bolts. Jo stood behind him, suggesting what to do. Jamie's arms were thin but, as he worked, his muscles flexed. Maybe it was the hair or the gentle voice, but I had never thought of Jamie as someone who could really do damage. The tension in his biceps and the pop of a wood panel said differently.

A loud laugh broke my thoughts. Darcy was beside us, shaking her head. She nudged Stan, grinning. "I wouldn't do that while Jamie's still holding a knife."

Stan grimaced. I did as well, but remembered the silver ring on my finger and touched it gratefully. It was the only thing that prevented Darcy from hearing my thoughts. Darcy's verve had changed her personality the most. When she first arrived, Darcy had been excited to become a part of the group. Once her verve set in, and she was bombarded with everyone's thoughts, she withdrew. Became frazzled and overwhelmed. It didn't take her long to realize there was something wrong with me. She must have voiced her concern to Morgan. In less than a day, he had crafted a ring to block her verve and gave it to me.

Morgan and his clones had hinted to everyone that I was a pathological liar. Maybe he was concerned that Darcy would hear the truth in my head and see what he really was. Or maybe not. I had warned the first to arrive. When Stan didn't listen, I didn't bother trying to save the rest.

"No one can resist the siren call of the Harding Ass." Darcy snorted. "Or that's how Kiko would put it."

Kiko had vanished faster than I had after everything went down. The small, thin girl had missed her family more than anyone else trapped in the clinic. I had stumbled across her once in the middle of the night, crying and struggling to open a bottle of pills to stop a seizure before it started. Drunk, I still managed to get it open in time. She thanked me by making egg fried rice several nights later. Her verve was as uncontrollable as her health. She could move any object without touching it.

"How is she?"

"I'm not sure." Darcy's grin faded. "She's not answering any of my texts and she's not posting anything online. But I can't blame her for wanting to get far away from this mess."

"She's probably just happy to be back with her family." Stan swallowed his words. "Can you hear Jamie now?"

"Some." She turned to look back at the twins. "He's audible at times, but his mind fades in and out. He's like a different person. Motivated." She watched as the twins studied the crack in the window frame. "He'll do anything for her."

"What's Jo's mind like?"

Darcy hadn't been able to read Jamie's mind. She believed it had fallen quiet because of his depression. But Jo's mind had been blocked from Darcy because Jo's verve copied everything that attacked her, so Darcy's mind was the one being read in return.

A knowing grin crept onto Darcy's face as she watched Jo study the window. "Loud. Very very loud. And always going. That girl doesn't know the meaning of the word quit. You better be careful around her."

Stan floundered, "I'm not—She's—Forget it."

My laugh died as Stan glared at me. Darcy crossed her arms, her eyes bouncing between our faces. "Why are you two acting weird?"

"We're not," we said in unison.

Darcy glanced at the ring on my finger then turned her attention to Stan.

"It's nothing."

"You think Jo likes Langdon?"

A surprised noise slipped out of me. _That's why?_ It wasn't because Ben cornered him about letting his parents know he was alive? It wasn't because I wouldn't give him the blocker ring to protect his mind while he lived at Darcy's house?

"She's always talking about him." Stan grew flustered, gesturing wildly. One eye on the twins, the other on Darcy. "And so what? I don't care. It's not like anything was going to happen. Jo's . . . _crazy_. She's too crazy for me."

Darcy turned an exasperated face to me. Wide-eyed and still reeling, all I could do was shrug in response.

"Listen, I try not to mind-read and tell, but the both of you are just plain stupid. Jo does not think about romance at all. She does, however, think of Lanny as her best friend." My heart swelled with pride, only to be immediately deflated when Darcy added, "And as for _his_ feelings, I don't have to be a psychic to know you two weren't checking out the same Harding just now." Darcy turned on her heels, muttering, "Annoying, stupid little idiots. Always, me, me, me."

I avoided making eye contact with Stan. Darcy joined the twins and Lupe near the small window. Jamie braced one foot against the wall as he tried to loosen the barricade. There was a snort to my left.

"Shut up."

"No, it's cool. I get it." Stan tried to hide another laugh. "Have you seen that Sâtieer ad he did?"

I shook my head.

"You need to check it out. You'll like it."

"I don't like Jamie!" I snapped. Four heads turned at once to look back at me. "—'s plan," I added at the same volume. "Those bars aren't going to come off. We need to find another way in. This is taking too long."

Darcy covered her mouth, shoulders shaking.

Jamie's foot dropped from the wall as we approached. "He's right."

"There are no other ways in," Jo argued. "Every entrance is locked solid."

"Oh, if only—" Stan stepped forward, brushing past Lupe.

"Don't you dare!"

Stan closed his fingers around a bar and tugged. It broke free from the frame, leaving a small gap. He looked at it with disappointment and reached for the rest.

"Don't!" Jo put a hand out to block him. "You can't use your verve. None of you can. It's too risky. No one is going to die looking for a cure."

Jamie and Lupe peered at the gap Stan had created then at each other. Jo stopped mid-argument, as though she were hearing Jamie's thoughts. She squinted at Lupe. Then me.

All eyes turned toward me. Jo held out her hands to measure my shoulders. She turned with her hands held at the same width and placed them against the gap.

"No." I stepped back as Jo quickly moved toward the grass. "What about the—?"

A shattering of glass interrupted me. Jamie held his head in his hands, exasperated.

Jo wiped the dirt off her hands. "Be a dear, peanut. I need someone tiny to go in there and retrieve my new favorite rock. Also, unlock the front door while you're at it."

Everyone looked at me expectantly. I should have brought Theo. No one would ask someone with a service dog to do stuff like that, just like no one asked Jo and her cane to crawl into the clinic. Though, Jo wasn't exactly tiny. She might not have been Midnight's height anymore, but the curve of her hips hadn't diminished. I turned to Lupe, the only person of our group who was shorter than me.

"Uh-uh." She shook her head. The curves of her hips and chest were greater than Jo's.

I really was the smallest.

"Bet you wish Kiko was here," Stan muttered.

Jamie offered to give me a foot up. A dark look on my end made him back away. The last thing I needed was someone crowding me while I climbed through the shattered glass.

"Aw, this reminds me of how we met." Jo beamed, using her cane to clear away the remaining shards.

I gave her the same look I had given her twin.

"Jamie will buy you a huge cup of coffee when we're done here."

"I want a croissant." I pulled myself up along the other bars, finding footing on the narrow ledge. "And you're buying it."

Unlike the time I followed a clone and Kiko to a medical facility and broke in through the window, I couldn't use my verve to get inside. The velvet curtains came tumbling down along with me, letting light into the dark clinic.

Sunlight poured into the shadows, stretching faintly, reaching to the halls. The mess from our final day, blood stains, twisted rugs, and a shattered coffee table, threw a hoard of buried memories at me. I stumbled back against the wall.

Breathe.

Move.

All I had to do was unlock the door. It was only a few steps away.

I had no courage to summon, but that never stopped me before. Broken glass scratched the floor under my feet. An eerie silence pressed against my ears. The dusty smell of an abandoned building tickled. I pushed through the terror that started to lock my legs in place and rushed through the archway to the front entrance. A large orange deadbolt was latched to the doorknob, curling around from the outside. I pulled and shook, but nothing would make it give.

"What's the hold up?" Jo's voice called from the other side.

I walked back to the window, picking up the rock on the way. I held it out to Jo and she grinned.

"This is why you're my favorite."

"I can't get it off. I can't even find a lock on it to pick."

"Shit." Jo stepped away from the wall and looked up, scouring for another way in.

"Stan could—"

"No," Jo retorted. "No verves. No one's risking anything. We're doing this the old-fashioned way." She turned around. Behind her, Jamie leaned against the porch railing. "What do you think?"

"He shouldn't go in there alone." Darcy frowned.

Jo gestured to the small gap, welcoming her to try and fit through.

Cool air brushed against my neck and I turned around as bickering ensued. The only thing visible was the sight of one of my murders. A smashed table from where one of Judas' clones fell when my verve gave out. Blood from where the knife that would later almost kill Jo had dropped to the floor. I could still feel it, the metal handle slipping through my fingers, as though it had just happened. That feeling would be burned onto my skin's memory, just like so many others.

My neck tensed with the sensation that something was behind me, something beyond just ghosts.

Maybe I wasn't the only murderer of the group, but it felt as though I were; Jo's murder of the other clones was owed to me. She had been using my verve. I was a sickness, distorting everyone who got too close. As many times as I tried to change, do things right, the evil seemed to seep through the facade. Maybe this would be different. I had to try, one more time.

"LANGDON."

Jo stuck her head in. Her short black hair fell into her eyes as she turned her head left and right, looking for me through the darkness.

"Are you ok? Do you need to come back out?"

"I'm fine."

Jo appraised me then asked, "Do you think you can try to open the back door?"

A potato peeler. I'd rather take a potato peeler to my body and bathe in lemon juice.

"You don't have to—Maybe Jamie can—Wait!" Jo's voice echoed after me, but I was already on my way, going further into the shadows.

* * *

It's unfair that happy memories aren't as vivid as the ones we'd rather forget. Why couldn't I recall being eleven and chasing Theo in the park better than the nights I spent at the apartment hiding? My time at the clinic came back to me, some parts clearer than the others.

Back in the clinic's hallway, light faded as I ventured deeper into the rooms.

Morgan never entered through the front door. He slipped in from underground like a worm, appearing only when necessary to torment or stab me with a needle. After Will's death, Morgan's false pretenses fell away. There was no kindness to be found under his roof. It was almost as it had been before, in my first life at the apartment.

I paused in the kitchen. The last time I was in here, I had rushed around in search of a weapon. Now, the drawer of knives was closed. Who closed it while cleaning up the scene? Dan or Darcy? Maybe Stan. Stan.

_"It's not safe here," I had said to the first surviving experiment aside from me to walk through these halls._

_Stan's bitter eyes had flashed to where I stood. "It's not safe out there, either."_

Behind me, the air shifted.

"What do you want?"

The darkness did not reply.

If there were ghosts, if there was anything, it wouldn't be in the halls or the kitchen or the office. It would be below ground, where pain was birthed and raised. I swallowed the bile climbing up my throat, twisted up from the knots tangling my insides, as I began my descent into the lab.

Don't think about Will. Don't think about how he looked, what he went through in that final hour.

My feet touched the basement floor before I expected. One hand went to the wall to turn the light switch on. I fumbled around blindly then stopped, my palm flat against the wall. There was no power above, but the basement, and the basement alone, was hooked to a generator. Dim floodlights flickered as my footsteps kicked up dust. The light switch did nothing as I flicked it up and down. A heavy sigh filled the dead air. I would have to go all the way back to the window and ask Jo for her phone to use as a flashlight. I closed my eyes, hanging my head in my hand. Warmth trickled under my shirt, holding me uncomfortably tight. I had made the journey once. But twice?

Hot breath brushed against my neck and I tensed. It wasn't just the heat and confined air wrapping its arms around me.

"Don't struggle."

_"I won't struggle," I bargained with Morgan._

Hands grabbed me from behind. Terror ran cold and hot, fogging my brain. A sharp stab pinched the fingers on my left hand. The pinch clamped down harder as I fought to get free. Shouts, cries I realized were my own, echoed in the vast hollow basement. An arm wrapped around my neck, choking me.

Bright sunlight blinded me as Morgan slammed my head into the hood of a car. The metal scalded my cheek. Tears welled in my eyes from the pain as he twisted my arm behind my back. Phantoms stabs from between two fingers on my left hand echoed. This wasn't a memory of an awful day long ago. This was now.

The clone's weight trapped me. Fingers dug into my scalp, grabbing my white hair and turning my head to face the fight between Midnight and another clone. "You sad, pathetic little boy. You are never going to be able to save anyone. Look at them all. Do you think they're your friends? What do you think they'll say when they find out the truth about you? No one who truly knows you will ever want you around."

The sunlight vanished, leaving me back in the darkness of the basement. My legs fell limp under the weight of the attacker, crumpling to the dusty floor. Floodlights scattered shadows of a person. A gauzy scrap of fabric scratched my face. The pinch finally released my hand.

"LANGDON!"

Jo's voice called out from above. A small light bounced down the stairs, moving across the walls. Lavender and cotton pushed away the dead air. I inhaled the life from it.

"Langdon? What is it?" Jo knelt beside me, one hand holding her phone aloft, the other touching my back. Rivets of pain flickered through my chest, none of which held a candle to the ache reverberating from my left hand. "What happened? Are you ok? Come on, say something."

My lungs constricted in pain, the hard basement floor pressing against my chest. My voice lost in the confusion. Was _this_ now?

"Jamie!" Jo rubbed my shoulders, calling up the steps, then turned back to me. "What happened?"

"My hand."

Her light shone onto my hands. They both looked normal.

"What happened?"

"There was someone," I said hoarsely. A row of low floodlights hummed. Jo turned her phone's light around the room, breaking up the shadows. Had there been someone? Or was it just a panic attack, a really bad hallucination, and I was making a fool of myself?

"I don't see anyone."

"How did you get in?"

"Jamie climbed in and opened the door."

"How?" I rolled over. The light of her phone cast strange shadows across her face.

"He's flexible. I think it's all that yoga," she explained, standing up. Her cane was nowhere in sight. "He got the bar off the door by breaking the door hinges. The bar came right off, but, then again, the door was also on the floor at that point so it didn't matter." She held a hand down to me. "He thinks outside the box."

I ignored her offer and stood up on my own. My head spun. Air still wasn't flowing easily into my lungs.

"Where's Theo?" she asked with a gasp, shining the light at knee-level.

"Where's your cane?"

"At the top of the steps. I dropped it when I heard you shout." The phone's light bounced to the stairs. "Theo?"

"I left him at home."

"Is he ok?"

"I don't need him all the time," I argued weakly, the lie never more apparent. "Where's Jamie?"

"Searching the office with Stan." Her lips turned down bitterly. "There is unease in the ranks."

"What do you mean?"

Her light bounced to the other side of the room. Everything looked the same, except for the desk. Usually a wreck, it was now cleared of stacks of papers and notebooks.

Jo tapped the filing cabinets with her foot. She sneered. "There's nothing in these. Where's this secret underground section I helped everyone discover? Is that the brick wall you were talking about?"

The brick wall to our left was lined with shelves and cupboards. A small section of the wall bore nothing, no decorations or instruments. The growing tension in my head fogged my thoughts. It took a minute of searching for my brain to recall where the handle was camouflaged in the bricks. Part of the wall submitted to my touch and I pushed on it. It broke away from the rest and slid into a pocket between the rooms.

"Well," Jo said faintly. "Shit. I wasn't actually expecting a secret door."

I shrugged.

"What's in there again?" She took a step forward.

The last place Will saw before he died.

"Filing cabinets. Medical stuff."

Jo entered first, stopping a few steps in to survey the room. It was a close mirror of the one behind us. A large, much larger than the other, operating table stood in the middle under a much larger spotlight. Filing cabinets embedded in the opposite wall were visible only by the outline of the drawers and handles.

Jo frowned and stepped around the table. "Is this where he kept me? What about the tunnels? That day in Jude's—or whoever's—apartment, I saw a map of tunnels."

I pointed to a door behind her. "That's the only tunnel I know of. It leads to the incinerator."

"Why would he have an incinerator in his evil lair? What did he burn?"

I chewed my bottom lip as Jo disappeared into the next room. He told me once it was to fuse the materials in the REVs. But that wasn't its only purpose. My mother was the final failed experiment it took. I never cared about her fate or mine. I only demanded that Will be given a proper burial. Then Dan, Stan, and Darcy had taken the murdered clones and tossed them in before the police were alerted.

Jo came back into the room with the same puzzled face. "How? Those things have to be vented. I don't understand this. Where are the other tunnels? There were other tunnels on the map Jude showed me on his computer."

I shrugged.

"Probably another lie too. Where are the filing cabinets?"

I pointed to the wall.

Her light scanned the handles flushed against the wall. "I don't think those are filing cabinets."

"Yes, they are." I stepped forward, determined to prove myself useful at least once in my lifetime. I picked the handle closest to me and pulled.

"Oh, my God," Jo gasped. "It's not—Don't open that!"

I don't know why I thought they were filing cabinets. I thought that when the door was unlocked, a row of paper files would slide out. Nothing came out when I opened it. But there was something inside. Under a sheet.

"Shit, _shit_. Langdon, get away from there. That's a cold chamber!"

"A what?"

"It's where you store dead bodies."

My eyes jerked back to the sheet, barely visible in the dim light.

Jo rushed forward. "Jesus. Is anyone in there?" She looked at the sheet and turned to the other chambers. There were five. Jo yanked one open, then another. Then two more.

"Nothing in these, thank God," she breathed at the last one.

I hadn't moved from where I stood, staring at the lump under the sheet.

_Don't burn him._

"What are you doing?"

It was his own brand of revenge. Instead of burning Will, he left him to rot.

I slid the tray out. Screeching wheels stopped halfway out of the chamber, stiff from disuse. The gray sheet was cold under my fingers as I lifted it to reveal my little brother's face. Will's eyes were caved in, his cheekbones and nose prominent from the tissue rotted away. Powder dusted all over his mottled skin. His lips were shrunken, curled back. I never noticed that he had the same gap between his two front teeth like me.

"Langdon?" Jo's voice was soft, unsure.

I couldn't distinguish the cold wafting past my brother's final resting place from my own numb body. Everything was blurring. Will's distorted corpse rose up and out of my view as my knees hit the floor. The last thing I heard was Jo screaming Jamie's name.

#  UNEASE IN THE RANKS

Luminescent light filled the corridor. Pure white rays contrasted the dull painted white of the surrounding walls. The light moved and gathered into two pillars, clinging to the lone tall figure standing in the middle of it all. Wings formed and stretched up to the ceiling, brushing the walls. All around, people hurried, oblivious small figures of blurring blues, grays, and greens. They scurried and ducked their heads as they moved, stepping around the radiance as though nothing were in their path.

"Angel's arrived," the spy's voice broke as they whispered. "We failed."

Wings rustled, expanding as Angel turned around. Light blinding and growing, blocking out, erasing everything. White gold raced out from the wings, reaching my feet, never stopping until—

* * *

I awoke to the evening sunset in my eyes. Voices argued across the open lawn as I blinked away the white spots burned into my eyelids. Cool grass touched my back and an icy spot froze my temple. I knocked Lupe's hand away, sitting up.

"Hey, Lanny." Lupe set the water bottle down beside her. "How do you feel?"

Behind us, the clinic towered, menacing and evil. Before us, the scene was chaos.

Darcy glared at Jo as Jamie and Stan argued. I could only wonder what sort of stuff Darcy was hearing in Jo's head. Her blonde wig slipped as she whipped her head toward Jamie, a hand jumped to hold it in place. "We are not calling the police!"

"There was a body," Jamie insisted.

"And tell them what? We broke in, found a dead body, and lost it?"

Lupe hovered as I stumbled to my feet.

"You want to tell them we broke in here? Are you crazy?" Stan shouted.

"There's a freaking storage room for dead bodies in the basement that they missed! Maybe they'll start seriously looking for Jude—Judas when they realize how messed up he is!"

"How is that going to help us? We're still stuck with this thing inside us. You said it first: we don't need the police poking around again."

The sunlight was a welcome sight, even though it hurt my head. Even though I wanted to run back into that hellhole and tear apart every wall and floorboard until I found Will's body.

Jo saw him. I hadn't hallucinated the sight. But then, where did he go?

I looked down at my hand. The ring that blocked Darcy's verve shifted as I flexed my fingers. A small drop of blood, the size of a pinprick, appeared as the band moved. I pushed the ring up, careful to not take it off completely. The last thing I needed was Darcy inside my head again. The blood spot hovered above the implant.

"Then what do you suggest?"

Grass crunched under Darcy's sandals. "I'm suggesting that you quit acting like you're in charge. Both of you. If you want to go to the police and tell them that you broke in and found stuff they missed, go for it. But you're leaving us out of the story."

"We're all a part of this."

"Are we? Because I don't think we are. I think you and Jo and Langdon are on your own side. You're the ones the police should be questioning."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Darcy argued. "I couldn't read either of your minds for months. I can't read Langdon's mind at all. Why did Morgan give him a ring and no one else? Why did your verve magically block me? And now that Jamie's suddenly audible, he's all for following your lead. And we're supposed to go along like there's nothing suspicious about that?"

"There _is_ nothing suspicious about that!"

"Then where is your file?"

"I was a failed experiment, he probably got rid of it."

"That was Jude, not Judas, talking. It was an act. Every good scientist keeps records, even of failed experiments. Your file should be in here."

"Clearly, he wasn't a good scientist."

Jo leaned over a big sheet of paper spread across the hood of Jamie's car. Small rocks held the corners down, safe from the blowing wind. A distant storm brewed not far away, yet thick white clouds rolled overhead. The fresh air helped contain the anxiety welling back up. Their fighting didn't.

Will.

A burning nudged behind my eyes. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see Theo. I wanted to see Dan. I wanted to wake up on that day two years ago, for this to never have happened. How many times had I thought those things while trapped here for nearly two years?

The fighting subsided for a moment. Jamie left the others to stand beside me.

"How are you feeling?"

I shrugged.

"Is your head ok? You have a bruise." His voice was low. His scent of jasmine and cinnamon was more grounding than the fresh air and sunshine. Jo's giant messenger bag hung across his chest, the strap pulling the neckline of his shirt down. Her bag looked more full than usual.

"Sit back down. Take a moment, please."

It wasn't his verve, but the gentle apologetic tone in his voice that made me listen to reason. Will's body was here, and then it wasn't. A breakdown had to wait. It had to. I commanded my brain to listen for once in its life. Will was more important.

"I saw him. I saw my brother's body." The wet ground underneath my runners moved like a sponge. "I don't think we were alone down there. I think there was someone else there and they took him. Why would they take him?"

"We'll find him," he promised.

I wanted to believe him, but those words would have more weight if Jo was the one saying them. Jo, I knew. Jo, I trusted to not make false promises.

She was still leaning over Jamie's car, sorting through six thick gray folders. Darcy passed one to Stan. Lupe ran to take the one held out to her. Stan paused and leaned over the paper pinned under the rocks.

"Moore!" Jo called out, raising a folder above her head.

"More what?" I asked Jamie. He seemed to be the only one who could translate Jo's random outbursts.

"I don't know who that is. Isn't your last name Summers?"

Six folders. Six experiments. My heart skipped a beat. Then two.

"What happened while I was out?"

"Stan found a stack of files hidden in a false drawer. Langdon, what's wrong?"

Adrenaline had my feet running before I could process the action. I stumbled in my haste to reach the car and ripped the folder out of Jo's hand before she could lift her gaze.

"Jesus, peanut."

"Did you look at this? Did anyone look at this?"

"No."

The others stared at me as I backed away. My attention focused entirely on the thick file in my hand.

> The Montreal Experiment:
> 
> Langdon William Moore

My heart pounded in my throat as I opened my life story. There were too many pages. I winced, blinking rapidly. The truth had to be in there. Jo was nosey. She must have lied. She probably looked at it while I was passed out on the grass. My fingers tore the pages as I turned them. The words blurred together. I inhaled, searching for the words that would give me away. The truth behind why Morgan wanted me as an experiment. The reason why I had a service dog.

"Langdon? Are you ok?" Jo called out.

My hand went to my temple. I didn't have time. Which was the worst word? The one used in all the police reports? I had seen those, the copies from the court cases that had been filed away in a shoebox in Dan and Ben's room.

My fingers flickered against my thumb. Six letters. Look for six-letter words that start with an 'I'. I flipped the folder back to the beginning. I could do this. I had to do this. I scanned the file looking for the giveaway. And there it was.

On the very first page.

All anyone had to do was open the damn folder and my secret was out.

"Langdon?"

"What is this?" I spun around to face the others gathered around Jamie's car. "Where did you get this?"

"What is that?" Stan pointed to the paper on the hood. A diagram of a human body, like those in a science textbook, showed faint outlines of organs. The difference between this one and a classroom diagram was a bold red line. The red line ran from the drawing's left hand, up its arm, between its lungs and stopped at its heart."

"That's the REV," Jo said.

"What's the line?" Lupe touched a finger to the line and traced it from the cartoon hand up to where it disappeared inside the heart.

"The REV," Jo repeated.

"It expands?" Darcy stepped forward. Her voice pitched. "It moves that far? It goes to our heart?" She spun around. "How did you know this?"

Jo cut her eyes at me. She lowered her gaze to the ground and shrugged, feigning indifference. "Jude told me."

"Why didn't you tell anyone? We deserve to know that the bomb isn't just in our hands! Oh, my God." Darcy groaned, placing a hand over her heart. "Bennett. This is what killed her. How long have you known this? Why didn't you tell me?"

Darcy's sister had died before my eyes. The memory of the little girl's crying, confused blind eyes ripped at my nerves. I hung my head, struggling to breathe.

"What else aren't you telling us?" Stan snapped his file shut.

"Guys," Jamie intoned.

Darcy whirled on him. "Did you know about this?"

Jo shook her head slowly. "Don't do this, Darcy. Ok, I'm sorry. I—"

Jamie stepped behind Jo, setting the heavy messenger bag beside a front wheel. He glanced at me. "Langdon, are you ok?"

I realized the file in my hand was shaking. I was shaking.

"Did you read this?" I lifted my file up. Something pricked behind my eyes. It burned hotter than a flame at the thought of the people around me knowing. Of Jamie knowing.

"No. No one's looked at anyone's files but their own."

My bottom lip trembled, but not as badly as my legs. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, and a pinched pressure echoed from between my fingers.

Stan considered his file. "Maybe we should."

"Should what?"

"Maybe we should look at each other's files. Secrecy isn't going to help us." He held his file out for anyone to take. "I mean, damn, you knew this bomb went all the way through us and never said anything?"

"It was kind of a busy day when I found out. Forgive me for not stopping to give everyone annotated details," Jo hissed.

"We need to know what we are dealing with and why we are here. There's a reason Morgan chose us. You know why I'm here. I have SCA and my parents think the devil lives inside me. What's your deal?"

"I have MS."

"But why are you here?"

"Morgan—Judas. He found us after," Jo paused. She looked at Jamie then back to Stan. "Actually, that's none of your business."

"Lupe, why are you here?"

She cowered, mumbling something inaudible.

"Langdon." He took a step forward. "What's in your file?"

"Digging into everyone's private life won't solve anything," Jamie growled.

"Why are you here?" Stan rounded on him. "Enlighten us. You spent months locked up in that room but I don't know anything about you. Jo said Langdon has a service dog, but I don't see a service dog right now. Does anyone see a service dog?"

"Back off." Jo rapped her cane on the ground.

"I am sick and tired of everyone knowing why I'm here, but I don't know a single thing about any of you." He pointed a finger at the rest of us. He stepped forward. "You have MS? You bust onto the scene with all your crazy powers, murdering people, and now we're supposed to follow your lead?"

Jamie stepped between Stan and Jo.

Stan moved closer, his nose nearly touching Jamie's. Neither blinked.

"Why are you here? What secret do you have? Or are you three working for Morgan and this is another part of his crazy-ass plan?"

Jamie's eyes darkened. A glower flashed over his face. For a brief moment, it was almost like looking at Midnight again.

No one moved a muscle as the two stared each other down.

"Guys," Darcy warned.

Stan pushed Jamie back and raised a fist. Jamie caught Stan's punch, his ringed fingers closing around Stan's wrist. Stan tried to yank his arm back but Jamie wouldn't let go. A sinister smile spread across his full lips. Jamie's verve matched Stan's in a fight. It was mind versus body, and the mind was winning. Stan's runners sunk into the ground, kicking up dirt, as he pushed his weight into the punch.

"Stop it!" Jo screamed. "Stop it now!"

Her cry was familiar. Not the words, but the tone. The desperation. The shrill of her voice pierced my heart and everything I had been quelling since passing through the gates, since the fight between Jamie and Ben, began to boil inside me.

The loneliness. Sorrow. Guilt. Pain. Rage. Panic. Hate. Fear. Remorse. Disgust. I wanted it all to end, but the gripping fear knew I was lying. I didn't want it all to end. I just wanted things to not hurt for once. But it did hurt, and it was falling into ruin, and it was tumbling into chaos, and-then-everything-was-happening-all-at-once-and-Darcy-was-shouting-and-Jo-was-between-them-and-she-was-going-to-get-hurt-and-Will-was-dead-and-they-all-knew-about-me-and-they-knew-what-was-in-my-file-and—

The moment stopped.

"Damn it," I sighed into the silence of my verve. My pulse was beating three times the usual rate. The weightlessness, like a missed step, would last as long as this awful panic-strewn moment. Thoughts fluttered too quickly to be rational, everything I did was the first instinctual reaction.

Jo was eased onto the ground at Jamie's feet.

Stan was pulled away, placed on the other side of the car.

The clinic was searched, top to bottom, for Will's body.

I stumbled onto my knees back outside, exhaustion overpowering the panic, fear fading. Gravity grew stronger. It pulled me into the dirt and I felt every inch of my body adjust to the earth's hold. Jamie's face, frozen, etched a steadiness into my breath. The freckle under his eye, the lines of his jaw, and the small curve to the bridge of his nose. His details slowed my racing heart. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four.

"What the—LANGDON!" Jo shouted. Jamie knelt, blinking away confusion, to check on her. "You can't use your verve! What is wrong with you guys? Do you want to die?"

"She's right." Darcy watched as Stan stormed down the driveway. "Stan, chill."

"I'm out of here," Stan called over his shoulder. "Go fuck yourself, Jamie. If you're capable of even that."

Jamie didn't move a muscle, yet a wall rose behind his brown irises.

Darcy pulled the keys out of her pocket, climbed into the driver's seat of her van, and started the engine.

"Don't you dare," Jo pleaded. "Don't break this group up, Darcy. We're all we have!"

The van idled as she rolled the window down. She opened her mouth to say something then, thinking better of it, rolled the window back up. Her blue van sped down the driveway, on its way to pick up Stan.

There was silence. Not even the wind dared to breathe.

"I need to sit down," Jo exhaled, yanking the car door open. She collapsed sideways into the passenger seat of Jamie's car, legs dangling out. She closed her eyes and ran a hand along the short hair stuck to the back of her neck. Jamie folded up the diagram on the hood, stuffed it back into the accordion folder, then shoved it into the messenger bag. He walked to the far side of the car and dropped Jo's bag into the backseat. It landed with an unexpectedly loud thump.

"Jamie." Jo didn't open her eyes. "What's in the bag?"

"Morgan's laptop. I found it under a floorboard while Stan was discovering the files."

She turned to stare at him in shock.

It appeared the distrust ran both ways.

She made a grabbing motion with her hands and turned around, pulling her legs into the car. Jamie handed her the laptop. She lifted it open and grumbled, "Stupid password."

"Langdon?" Jamie came to where I bent over, feet sinking into the ground, hands pressed to my knees. He knelt beside me. His face level with mine as I tried to squash the urge to throw up. Maybe it was Jo's words, inciting paranoia in my mind, but something felt wrong inside me. Really wrong. His palm pressed against my back comfortingly, the rings cold through my shirt. He withdrew his hand quickly. I fought back an urge to heave the fear turning my stomach.

From the car, a phone rang. Jo reached into the bag and pulled out her phone. "Oh, shit."

"What?" Jamie asked.

She flashed a look at me. Her eyes narrowed as she pressed the phone to her face and answered innocently, "Hello Benny."

Jamie turned to look at something behind us. I turned around as well.

Lupe scratched an ankle with the edge of a sandal. Her voice apologetic as she asked, "Can I get a ride?"

#  LAST CHRISTMAS

The fights between Ben and Jo and Ben and Jamie ended abruptly when I threw up into the rhododendrons in the front yard. The long car ride back to Marigold Court had been spent in a silent fight with my stomach. Not throwing up in Jamie's car was the only fight I would win that day.

The twins and Ben's arguments ended in a standstill. The Hardings drove away. Ben helped me inside. The queasy unending urge to throw up again blocked out every word and action that followed. A violent shivering voided the next hours. Theo paced, nails clacking on the cold hard tiles, as I curled on the washroom floor. A deep bruise ached in my bones. My mind, so blurred and weary, couldn't remember why I was being met with stiff responses from Ben until dogs barked and Dan's voice wafted from the kitchen in a murmur before loudly calling my name.

Whatever argument he had prepared for in the moment between talking to Ben and watching me stumble down the stairs fled. Instead, a slightly calmer argument took its place.

"Are you embarrassed about Theo?" He glanced back at Ben, who was struggling to close the dishwasher. The latch hit the counter, its alignment ruined from the time I tried to fix it. "I mean, _him_ , I understand. But Theo?"

Behind Dan, Ben held out a middle finger.

"I don't need Theo." The inside of my throat felt as if I had swallowed a pin cushion, the needles working themselves up the back of my neck, into my brain.

"You don't need him?" Dan crossed his arms. "Well, please, pass on this magical cure you've discovered."

"I meant—"

"No, Lanny. Tell us the truth. Why didn't you take Theo with you?"

Ben slammed the dishwasher shut with a loud bang and a click, then leaned against the counter, crossing his arms as well.

"Because I didn't want—" Jo to ask questions? Remember I had a service dog? Theo to smell all the stuff that went down in that place? "He's old!" The words tumbled out. I felt horrible, throwing him under the bus, but it was the only excuse that would work. "I have to carry him all the time."

"Because you walk the entire perimeter of Montreal every day," Ben interrupted, stepping away from the counter. "You shouldn't pace around as much as you do. Theo's a good gauge to know when you're being too antsy. If he's tired, you should be as well."

"Why do I have to take him?"

"So you don't die!" Dan raised his voice.

"Dan," Ben intoned.

Dan exhaled and closed his eyes.

"Was this because of Jo?"

I swallowed and winced at the pain that reverberated through my raw throat. They took my pained expression for a different reason.

"A girl? Look, there are different ways to impress a girl."

"You don't get it."

"You think neither of us can understand a crush?"

"A crush?" My head throbbed. "On _Jo_?"

"Told you," Dan muttered back at Ben.

"I don't have a crush on Jo!" Something bubbled inside me. I wasn't sure if it was a laugh or another urge to vomit. Probably both. "She's _Jo_."

Ben heaved a loud sigh. "Ok. Fine. You don't have a crush on Jo. Why then?"

"I just—" A soured feeling crept through my chest. Acid turned in my stomach. "I think I'm going to throw up."

"You're not getting out of this."

My gaze strayed to the garbage bin in the corner. I inhaled deeply. "I just didn't want everyone to think I was weird."

"Langdon." Dan finally opened his eyes. "You have to take Theo with you whenever you leave this house. He keeps you safe. Ben will call the vet, see if we can get him in for a check-up. Maybe they can give him something for his joints. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to take Theo with you when you leave the house?"

My bare heel bounced against the cold floor. "Yes."

Theo whined under my chair. Guilt riddled me for calling him old. He was nine. Border collies lived an average of fourteen years. It felt like I had jinxed him.

"Alright, then." Dan drummed his fingers on the table. He turned to look back at Ben. "Was that it?"

It wasn't. Ben stepped forward. "Where did you go with Jo?"

"The clinic."

"What was that?"

"The clinic," I repeated louder.

"What happened?"

I saw my dead brother's deteriorated corpse. I was attacked by an invisible force. I used my verve.

"Everyone was arguing."

"Why?"

Ben's gaze followed mine. The file with my name on it had landed on the counter, beside a stack of books. I hadn't let it out of my sight during the journey home, but here it didn't matter. Ben plucked the file off the counter and opened it. He flipped through the pages, flicking through each page faster than the last, skimming through the information he already knew.

"What is that?"

Ben snarled at the pages in place of answering. "How? _How_ did that bastard get this information? He's a minor. All of this was redacted in the police report." He snapped the file shut and shoved it into Dan's outstretched hand.

"What's in this?"

"Everything."

A horrible shudder ruffled through me. The words tumbling out before I could stop them. "I didn't want them to find out what's wrong with me, and everyone was suspicious and—"

Their demeanor changed quickly. Ben exhaled, rolling his neck, and stared at the ceiling. Dan put a hand flat on the table before me. "There is nothing wrong with you."

"You just told me to take a service dog everywhere. Look at the words on those pages. There's something wrong with me."

"Lanny, there is _nothing_ wrong with you," Dan insisted. "You have trouble with certain things but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. _I_ have trouble with things, you know that. And _this_?" He shook the file. " _This_ , you don't ever have to tell anyone about unless you want to. This is no one's business."

"But it's nothing to be ashamed of," Ben pressed.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Dan agreed. "Got it?"

I coughed. Something that tasted like blood trickled down my throat. Wetness ran over my lips and I wiped my mouth. My hand came back streaked pink.

Dan stood up, blinking as though he were seeing me clearly for the first time. His hand moved to my forehead, pushing back the curls that hid my skin. His touch chilled. "You're burning up. Are you sick?"

"He threw up four times," Ben admitted. "I thought it was his nerves."

Dan tossed the file onto the counter and helped me stand. My legs screamed in protest. "Let's get you back to bed."

* * *

The shadows in my bedroom fell into obscurity. Slowly, their darkness took shape. Lines grew in contrast to a dim, far off light. The harsh edges of bricks bordered into walls. They curved, transforming into the tunnel surrounding me. I felt weightless, even more than when I was in the middle of my verve. Dizziness racked my brain as my thoughts floated, suspended, drifting in the upended void, blissfully calm as the world rebuilt over a matter of hours. Or seconds.

A heavy rap struck the floor in time with footsteps. One. Two. The raps gave time meaning and I was back on earth. I was following her to the restaurant. _No_. That was days ago. This was something different.

I wasn't following Jo around Montreal. I wasn't even following her. I was pulled along with her like a shadow. A fleeting fear filled me and I reached out to her. To validate that I was alive, that I was real. A validation which she, tugging gloves over her hands, refused me.

Jo, bundled in a thick dark red jacket and heavy rainbow striped rain boots, walked to the end of the tunnel. She squinted as a cold wind slapped freezing rain into our eyes and onto our cheeks. Above her, the skyline spread out. Windows glittered, full of life, against the cloudy night sky. The Empire State Building stood out like a beacon amongst the other buildings.

New York.

She looked down at the phone in her hand, checking her reflection in the camera, squinting through glasses I had never seen her wear before. Thick brown frames gleamed in the light of the skyline, hiding her eyes. Rain beaded on the lenses as she walked on, tucking her phone into a coat pocket. One long thick black braid tangled in the green scarf wrapped around her neck.

Jo turned down a busy street and stopped in front of a small restaurant. After giving a quick wave to someone inside, she continued past the storefront windows and strolled into the alley. A rat gnawed on a piece of bread beside the dumpster. Jo tapped her cane on the side. The metallic thud made it scurry away. Her cane back on the ground, she shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. The stern set of her gaze reminded me of the Jo who snuck around searching for Morgan's weaknesses. She was up to something here as well.

A tall thin boy slipped out of the side door. He wore a dingy apron, caked in flour. Flecks of white covered the tops of his black shoes.

"What's up Jo? What are you doing here?"

"I heard you can do me a favor." Jo's face had switched from Midnight's scowl in a flash. A teenaged girl's wide-grin spread innocently across her lips.

"Are you serious?" He crossed his arms. "You?"

"I just . . ." She sighed dramatically and drew a circle along the ground with her cane. "My MS is getting really debilitating and I've been reading all these articles about how a natural approach could ease the symptoms."

"Oh." His demeanor changed. His eyes flickered to her cane. "Yeah. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I can help you out, girl."

"I don't want a lot. I've never done it before," Jo said quickly. "Enough for one time. Like, I don't want to get in a _lot_ of trouble, if I were to get caught, you know."

"I get you," he said, casting a glance back at the side door. "Follow me."

He led Jo further down the alley, away from the corner and the reach of the streetlights. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small bag. "This is the mellow stuff. Just do a little bit your first time and you'll be fine. I don't want Jamie to beat my ass."

"Jamie cannot know about this. _Never_ tell him I did this."

"Damn straight," he said. "Like I said, I don't want your brother beating my ass. My cousin, on the other hand, would love if he—"

Jo's hand slipped into a coat pocket. Instead of pulling out her phone, her fingers reappeared clutching a wad of green American dollars.

"How much?"

"No." The guy shook his head. "This first time is on me. You're the only person who's ever come to me who actually needs this shit for a legit reason."

"Really?" she asked as he handed her the small bag.

"Really." He took a step back toward the light. "What are you doing later? Come by my place and I'll show you how to light a bowl."

"Nah," Jo said. "I think I can figure it out. I should get back home, anyway. We have that math test. I'm so behind after all the . . ." She sighed, for real this time.

"Yeah, no, of course." He patted her shoulder. "I'm sorry about your parents. That's rough."

Jo nodded and flicked the cane off her wrist. She tucked the weed into another pocket. Dan used the same stuff to help with his own problems. Jo never struck me as the kind of person to smoke. Maybe she was planning on putting it in a brownie or something.

She walked for several blocks, waving off any taxi that slowed down beside her. The streets grew narrower, less noisy. Shop fronts gave way to townhouses. Even street lamps became less frequent. We hadn't passed another person since turning into a neighborhood. At the base of a steep hill, in front of a coffee shop, Jo paused. She seemed to be thinking as she adjusted her jacket. Gloves brushed errant strands of hair out of her eyes, her fingers pausing as she smoothed the long braid against her shoulder. Eyes narrowed. She walked up the incline, leaning on her cane and relying on the short rough-iron fences of the houses to keep from slipping on the frost-covered ground. With each step, her eyes bounced around the darkness, studying each parked car along the sidewalk. She stopped at the end of the block and focused on a car on the other side of the crosswalk.

Leaning against a blue mailbox, she paused to catch her breath and looked at the windows of the homes above her. All of them, dark or dimmed by curtains. Jo crossed the street, hooking her cane on a wrought iron fence. She didn't pull out her phone. Or the pot.

She pulled out a knife.

Then another.

Jo rammed the thicker knife into the driver's side of the shiny gray BMW, wedging it into the door's crack. The door creaked open a few centimeters and she shoved the thinner knife into the gap. After a few minutes of fumbling, the thin knife hit the lock. She pulled the knife out, opened the door handle, and swiftly slipped into the car.

Jo pulled the door against her knees, peeked outside the window, and ducked under the steering wheel. The bag of weed was out of her pocket and in her hands. She opened the bag, took a hesitant sniff, and made a face.

Leaves crumbled under her touch. She scattered the fragments on the floor. Her hand reached around the gear shift and popped open the glove compartment. She tossed the bag in, slammed the compartment shut, and kicked the door open. One rubber rainbow rain boot touched the ground—Jamie's scuffed black boots flickered in my mind—as she knelt on one knee on the driver's seat. She felt under the steering and pushed the parking brake off, slipping the gear shift into neutral.

The BMW started to creep backward, down the steep hill, before she was even out of the driver's seat. Jo stumbled, shoved the door shut, and jumped into the shadows to retrieve her cane from the fence.

She beat her gloves together to rid them of the weed fragments and watched. A deep satisfied laugh slipped past her lips as the car rolled past the intersection toward the next car parked behind it. Her grin faltered as it turned, bypassing the row of parked vehicles, and careened into the middle of the street. A police car pulled along the bottom of the hill and parked. Two men climbed out of their vehicle and strolled toward a diner.

"Oh, shit."

The BMW picked up momentum as it rolled down the steep incline. It crashed into the police car with a loud metal screech. The officers hadn't even reached the doors of the diner. They jumped, hands flying to their guns, and froze in bewilderment at the sight of the BMW that had merged with their cruiser.

Jo spun around and walked hastily up the hill, sticking to the shadows. The panic in her eyes gave way to a wide grin on her face. Eventually, her hurry sauntered into a limp as the route took her into a different neighborhood.

Brownstones stood flush against the sidewalk. Jo turned sharply, pulling herself up the steps of one. Her keys snagged on the wrist of her gloves. She swore quietly then unlocked the door. Short steps led to an anteroom, then up to more steps and rooms. Pictures lined the walls. Bright pieces of artwork and glittering vases filled with dead and crumbling flowers lined the tables. Condolence cards had been rammed into the frame of a mirror next to holiday greeting cards, many of which contained images of lit candles and the star of David.

Despite Jo's many layers, Jamie was sunk into the worn navy couch cushions wearing only gray track pants and the same loose black tank top. A laptop sat on the coffee table before him. The table littered with half-empty water bottles and bags of chips. A melted ice pack dripped down his fingers as he hugged it to his shoulder.

"Where were you?" he demanded, sitting up.

"I was making a posey." Jo stripped off her scarf and jacket. Her boots squeaked as she yanked them off and tossed them by the staircase.

"I want to move to Montreal." Jamie wasted no time shoving his laptop into her face. She took it and eased onto the couch. Jamie reclaimed the cushion next to her and pointed with his free hand to a map on the screen.

"Are you insane?"

"Your doctor sent me this." He clicked to another tab. The website of an apartment complex near Marigold Court appeared. "It's in a pretty nice neighborhood in Montreal and it's only a few blocks away from the hospital he's transferring to."

"How much?"

"Not much. It's a lot cheaper than here." He clicked back to the map.

"Anywhere is cheaper than here. Do you really want to move?" Jo's eyes jumped from the screen to her brother's face. "Are we broke?"

"No," he promised. "It's not about money, it's—And look. It's right next to Summers' Reads."

"What's that?"

"This indie bookstore, I've heard a lot of about it. It's—"

"Jamie." Jo cut her eyes at him. His face was bright, lit up with excitement. The water from the ice pack trickled down his fingers to his forearm. Jo frowned. "Why Montreal?"

"Greta has contacts there." Jamie listed the reasons, rattling them off as though he had memorized his argument in her absence. "I can work in Montreal. This apartment is right next to a hospital that specializes in reversing pediatric diseases. Morgan can continue being your doctor and he promised to make a medical urgency claim on our application so we're real Canadian citizens. Jo, you can get better healthcare."

"We're seventeen. How are we—?"

"I called Uncle Gary. He'll go to court to speed up the emancipation process."

"Uncle Gary answered the phone? He _has_ a phone?"

"Jo," Jamie groaned. "I want to go. I hate this place. I hate it here. I hate New York."

Both glanced to the other side of the small room. Two doors stood on opposite sides of the hall. A door to one bedroom was open. The other, firmly shut.

"I do like poutine," Jo mused, the joke in her words not matching the sadness in her eyes as she looked at the shut door. "And geese."

"We need to start over where something good can finally happen."

A scoff from a third voice replied. Neither twin looked up from the computer. Jamie, muttering quietly, pointed to the screen.

"Isn't she the best?" The spy sniffed, re-tying the purple glittering scarf around their head. "So tragic. Both fighting so hard for each other. Just another thread in the story. Ah, well. Why are you here? I told you, _boy_ , I've got this. Get back to your part of the deal."

"You can see me?"

The scarf slipped down over their clear eyes. They blew air past their lips, exasperated. "Well, now I can't."

Jamie took a sip from a water bottle, oblivious. The spy laughed at their own joke and pushed the scarf above their temple.

"Where am I?"

"New York. December, 2017." They rolled their eyes as I pleaded for more. "In your verve, of course."

"This isn't my verve. My verve stops time." Neither twin so much as twitched as I raised my voice. "It doesn't turn back time or make me invisible!"

"You're not invisible. I can see you."

"They can't see us!"

"Well, of course _they_ can't. They're in their rightful places."

"Do—do we have the same verve?"

They froze, clear eyes darting over my blond hair down to my hand. "Oh, you're definitely not supposed to be here."

"What is going on?" I stepped toward their corner.

"Where are you?"

"What?"

" _When_ are you? What day did you come from? Stop, don't get too close or else the implant will send you back to—"

#  ALMOST LIKE THE FLU

Bed sheets tangled around me, holding in a fever that burned my skin. Trickles of sweat streamed down my back and chest as an uncontrollable urge to throw up choked out every other thought. Theo barked, sending a stabbing pang into my head. The sheets made a tearing sound that ripped through the stale air as I rolled off my bed and onto the floor, running, stumbling, then crawling to the washroom.

Cool air froze the sweat on my skin. The room was blissfully dark. The cold of the hard floor froze my knees. The fever was still inside, trapped, not by the sheets, but by my skin, burning inside my muscles and bones. Every chill and ache bred more tremors.

Someone was behind me by the time I finished throwing up, my fingers reaching for the handle to flush. Rough hands put a cool damp cloth against my forehead then lead me back to my bed, water dripping down my cheeks and soaking into my shirt.

There was no clock in my room. The only way to tell the passing of time was through the changing of sunlight, striding over the walls. I slept the day away, waking often, though only for seconds at a time. The smell of roses seeped into my dreams, filling them with unfamiliar laughter and warm summer days, as soft hands pushed the plastered curls away from my cheeks. Theo, stepping over my legs and turning in circles, whined while Shiloh sniffed my face.

By the time a scrap of energy returned, daylight had come and gone. Downstairs, Ben and Dan sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table. A month's worth of mail stretched between them.

Ben looked up from his laptop as I stepped in. "Still alive?"

Dan leaned back in his chair. His hand went to my forehead. "Fever's gone."

"Do you want some soup?"

I nodded. My legs quivered, an unsteady feeling creeping from my limbs toward my chest. Ben stood to warm up a bowl.

"Margret made some after she came by to ask if you would rake her leaves like you used to. I said you were sick. She was ready to come in and nurse you back to health herself. I told her you had the flu and she suddenly remembered an urgent appointment."

"Whatever you caught, keep it away from me." Dan scooted away as I took the chair next to him. The microwave beeped and a needle stabbed somewhere behind my left eye. "Do you want someone to stay with you tomorrow? Ben can close up the store if you—"

"I'm fine." My voice was raw. I scratched my head then regretted it. My scalp burned as though my nails had been razors. "I had a weird dream about Jo last night. There was a tunnel and . . . It was really vivid."

Ben lowered the bowl of clear chicken broth and rice onto the table before me. The smell of salt wafted up with the steam. Ben's words were calculated, "That's completely normal, Lan. You and Jo are close. Even if you don't like her in reality, it's natural to have dreams—"

I don't know which was louder, my feet hitting the floor to rush to the washroom or Dan's laughter echoing down the hall after me. There wasn't anything for me to throw up. Still, I sat on the floor for a long minute after another long minute, waiting for the moment I could safely make my way back to the kitchen. Their conversation trickled through the hall, reaching me only after the pipes in the wall calmed their churning.

"—not just friends. I've seen the way he acts around him."

"He told you himself. He bought that car from his ex-girlfriend."

" _I_ have an ex-girlfriend. Several, actually."

"Jamie's never shown interest in a guy. I would know, he practically lives in my store. Well, lived."

"Ben, make a note to buy yourself some new glasses," Dan argued. "The only person gayer than that boy is you."

There was a loud crash. One that sounded suspiciously like someone getting the chair kicked out from under them and taking a bowl of soup down on the way.

* * *

Jo sat at the kitchen table the following morning after my fever broke, casually re-applying her make-up. A laptop open before her, a journal filled with scribblings lay to her right, and a box of cinnamon rolls to her left. She sipped a steaming cup of tea as I slowly set Theo down. My face reddened as I realized that not only was I in my pajamas, but they were the same ones I had been wearing for several days while I recovered from the fever.

"Morning, shortcakes." Jo smirked at my bare feet then turned back to her laptop. Her attention devoted entirely to the black pencil she stroked across her eyebrows. The thick lenses in her glasses reflected the image on her screen. She was using the laptop's camera as a mirror.

"Why are you in my house?"

"I brought breakfast." She jabbed the box of cinnamon rolls with the pencil without taking her eyes off the screen. One cinnamon roll was missing.

" _How_ did you get in my house?"

"You're welcome, you ungrateful little peanut." She set her pencil down. "One of your charming guardians let me in after I promised to watch over you in your frail, fragile state."

The empty spot in the box stood out. "You gave Dan one before he went to work."

"Such a smart boy." Jo picked up the mug, Ben's favorite, and took a sip. Steam fogged her glasses, hiding her gaze.

Vivid dreams were nothing new to me. Either alcohol or prescribed pills ignited memories as I slept, but that dream about Jo wasn't any memory of mine. It felt too real to be a dream. My two-day fever must have been to blame for the oddness, but it was an oddness I would have gladly suffered again. I wasn't going to question it—I'd rather dream about other people than relive my own memories which played on a loop each night.

Jo stared at me over the mug, brown eyes appearing as the fog dissipated. I liked her glasses from the not-memory better. "You look like shit."

I bit my tongue. Her short hair hung limp, nowhere near as styled as usual. The polish on her nails was chipped and dull. Her sweater hung loose over her, like a blanket. Lines faintly etched around her lips and under her eyes locked her face in a permanently tired expression. However, the cane was resting near her chair. The sight of it stopped me from throwing her remark back at her.

Hours old coffee simmered in the pot. Somehow, it was still warm. I poured the last of it into a cup and took a seat beside her, pulling my bare feet out of sight. Jo's pencil rammed into my arm and pushed me back.

"Stay back. I can't afford to get sick."

The notepad before her was filled with large loopy handwriting. "Too busy?"

"Too busy already being sick. I can't handle a cold on top of what I've already got. If you want to breathe, go to the other room."

I sat down roughly in the chair on the other side of the table. She shooed me with a wave of her hand until I scooted across the floor to the middle of the kitchen. She nodded her approval and returned her attention to the laptop.

"Have you heard from the others? Stan?"

Jo sighed, chipped nails fidgeting with the corners of the placemat under her laptop. "No. I think we're on our own, me and my sidekick."

"I'm not your sidekick."

Jo scowled. " _You_ are not involved in this."

"Then who's your sidekick?"

Jo's pencil pointed to the screen door behind me. Outside, Jamie danced in the yard, a stick held above his shining hair. Four dogs chased him through the fading grass. Pepper and Shiloh did pirouettes in attempts to reach the stick. His bare arms caught the sunlight, sweat trickled down his skin like water from the ice pack.

"Jo, did you," I cleared my raw throat, "ever see stuff when you had your REV?"

"What kind of stuff?"

"Memories. Memories that weren't yours."

"Yeah. Just once." She raised her gaze from the screen to drop the pencil into a small rainbow striped make-up bag. "When Darcy and I got into a fight at the hospital the night Bennett . . ." Her words trailed off as we recalled the awful night Darcy's little sister died despite our attempt to save her. "Darcy accidentally touched the spot on my back where my REV was. It was as if I got into her head and she got into mine."

"Was that the only time? Did it ever happen when you were alone?"

Jo frowned. "Why are you asking me this?"

"I . . ." I hesitated. "I just—Look, I don't need Ben's permission to help." I switched the conversation back to an argument. The only thing that would keep and hold Jo's attention. "I want to help."

"This isn't about permission. You are not helping me. Just look at you," Jo snapped, and again I resisted saying the same to her. "You used your verve and suddenly you're down with the flu, if that's even what made you sick. We don't know what we're dealing with or how it's going to affect us. Even if you promise on Theo's life to never use your verve again, I can't risk it. Don't forget, I've used your verve. I know how it works, or I know how part of it works. It comes on when you're agitated. This fight is too personal." She paused. "For everyone."

"It's just the flu. I probably caught it at Ben's stupid store."

Jo ignored me. She crossed her legs, her fingers busy flipping through the pages of her journal. Her gaze alternated between the computer screen and the pages before begrudgingly returning my stare.

"I want to help."

"Do you know the password to get into Judas' computer?"

I shook my head.

"Look, if there's anything you can do, I'll let you know. But, right now, even I don't know what our next move should be. Judas' laptop is locked tight, the police report is a dead end, and we've lost over half of our team."

Outside, Jamie groaned. A thud crunched the grass loudly a second later. Faintly, winded, he called, "Give it back, cheater!"

I picked at the end of my shirt. "I'm sorry about Ben."

"What?"

"I'm sorry about Ben," I repeated louder.

"It's fine. He called Jamie last night to let him know some book was in, so I guess his silent treatment is over with." The tension in her voice said _her_ silent treatment wasn't.

"What is the Sâtieer ad anyway?"

Jo snorted. She raised her thick eyebrows. "You don't know?"

I shook my head.

"You are the only person on earth who hasn't seen it." The smile returned to her face. "It's an ad Jamie did for this clothing company to launch their designer shoe line. I don't really see what the big deal is, but I guess Ben thought it was a poor choice."

"Is it a bad company?" Ben tended to rant about corporations ruining the planet and mass media corrupting minds.

"Nah." Jo swallowed the last of her tea. "They're just really expensive, which is fine because that meant they could pay him well enough for it."

"He did it for money?"

"He's a fan of the photographer. She's some famous artist and it was an honor to work with her or something. Has anyone else in this house gotten sick?" I shook my head. She squinted suspiciously, then, "Could you make me another cup, please?" She held Ben's mug toward me. "But don't touch it! Don't breathe on it."

Jamie entered, breathless, as I reached across the table. Sweat trickling down his skin shimmered in shades of gold under the dull kitchen light. "Did you—?"

"About to," Jo growled. I plucked one of the bleached square serviettes next to the pink box to use as a germ barrier between my fingers and the ceramic handle.

"Hey, baby." Jamie knelt at my feet, one hand going to Theo's head before pausing. Large brown eyes gazed up at me. Jo caught the mug as it slipped through my grip. "I can pet him when he doesn't have the vest on, right?"

Theo rolled his black eyes, pleading.

I nodded, getting up.

He stared at me as Jamie patted his head. Theo allowed three strokes before he moved further under the table and curled under Jo's chair as she rattled a bottle of pills. Jamie crawled under the table after him. Theo padded into the other room.

"Darcy's sent a couple of messages but she's not saying much," Jo returned to an earlier topic, perhaps to throw off any further questions about Sâtieer. "This thing between us has to give at some point." She leaned back in her chair, a smirk on her tired face. "Sexual tension can't last forever."

Jamie crawled out from under the table, a puzzled look twisting his usually serious face into a mirror of what I felt. "Is that what's going on?"

I shrugged, holding the tea out to Jo.

"You two were made for each other." She rolled her eyes and popped a pill into her mouth. She swallowed then reached to take Ben's mug. "I was joking. That girl's straighter than the hair that makes up her wig. Lupe, however," she clicked her tongue twice as she pointed finger-guns at my curls.

* * *

The Hardings' hatred for hotels and inability to secure a home was hell to them but a blessing to me. It was as if they had their own key, though, knowing Jo, I wouldn't put it past her to break in each morning. Perhaps the brightly colored boxes from various bakeries were some form of payment. Offered to the one adult who hadn't shouted at them, allowing their entry in perfectly timed morning moments.

Each day I came down the steps carrying Theo. Each day, I spotted Jamie first, lounging in the living room and working his way through Ben's stacks of books, surrounded by a constant minimum of three dogs. He smiled like the sunrise I had missed each morning, glowing, as I set Theo on the floor. Jo was next, always sitting at the kitchen table, filling up her notebook and computer with facts. I quickly developed the habit of dressing before carrying Theo downstairs.

"Antonia," Jo muttered one morning as I slipped past her. She didn't look up as I flipped the box open. A dozen untouched croissants waited inside. "What are you hiding?"

Jamie crept into the kitchen, crouched low and whistling. Every day, he tried to win Theo over. Every day, he failed. Theo moved away and stared at the wall. I fought back a laugh as Jamie flashed an exasperated look at me.

"Why Italy?"

"Jo, give it up. It's over."

"It's not over! Not while everyone else still has these things planted inside them. Not while that bastard is out there running around with mine!"

"You have other things you should be focused on."

Jo tossed the notebook at Jamie. It missed him, landing in the middle of the floor.

"Ha!"

_"Do you like dogs?_ " Jo muttered thickly under her breath.

Jamie lunged from his spot on the floor. Jo grabbed a handful of his hair as he pulled her into a headlock. Jo twisted her fingers into his hair, yanking. Jamie fell against the table, dragging Jo along with him. Glasses on top rattled. Buddy raced into the room, barking.

"Let go!"

"Stop it!"

"You started it."

"You did."

"You're hurting me!"

"Stop pulling my hair!"

"I will kick your fat ass."

"Try it. Kick me with that lame foot, I dare you."

"Jamie, for real. Let go!"

"Then shut your mouth," Jamie hissed, releasing her as she relinquished her hold. Buddy wagged his tail.

Jo fell back into her chair. She smirked at me, smoothing out her rumpled sweater. "Morning, shortcakes. Didn't see you there."

Jamie glowered and slunk away.

The only force unaffected by Jamie's charm was Jo. I loved nothing more than watching them co-exist. Their bickering was built in rhythms. Structured in some unknown language of tone and glances. Jo was chaos to Jamie's order. The longer I spent around them in the mornings and afternoons, the more I understood their duality. Jo was a meteor, streaking brightly and grabbing attention, whereas Jamie was a star. Constant, glimmering, and so impossibly far away.

The Hardings' daily routine consisted of tasks that made my head spin. Being Judas' victim was just another stepping stone in their lives. Jo had her account on Posey and her job as Jamie's sometimes liaison. Jamie had his career and his role as Jo's caretaker. Both juggled a hundred things at once, sometimes tossing a problem to the other or snatching one away before the problem could hit the other in their face. Jamie stayed on top of Jo's medicines, her well-being his main concern. Jo spoke on his behalf as the firm voice when he couldn't turn his agent down.

They told each other when it was necessary for the other to take a break, though it was always more difficult for Jo to make Jamie see that he was wearing himself out than it was for him to convince her to hit the brakes. Midnight had never stopped in her mission to rescue us. Jo had to.

#  THE MIRROR WORLD

October had arrived. The weather had started to shift to cooler days as the rain became less constant. Rumbling voices below woke me earlier than usual. I came downstairs to find Jo and Jamie at the kitchen table, arguing loudly about the map on the computer screen. The overhead fluorescent lights hummed above the twins. A notepad was the victim of their debate. Its scribbled pages littered the table, soaking up hot chocolate and mocha spilled from paper cups stamped with Marc's logo. Jo scowled as Jamie wrote on a fresh sheet, his handwriting lopsided and unreadable. To me, at least.

"Three?" Jo shouted, leaning over to look at his list. "Are you kidding me?"

"We need a tie-breaker."

I slipped quickly into their personal space to peek at the map on Jo's laptop. It was zoomed to a small section of Montreal. This neighborhood, in fact. Mercy Saint Mary's sat in the middle of its radius.

"You are making this too difficult."

"Me?" Jamie slammed the pen down, sliding the list across the table to her. "You're the one with all the stupid requirements."

"Why does it have to be so close to the hospital?"

"You know why."

Jo ran through the items Jamie had listed on the notepad, marking out a few to his audible dismay. I took a seat opposite them, biting into a danish. Sweet glaze flaked off onto my fingers. Misty's black nose appeared, poking up from the other end of the table. Jamie's hand fell unconsciously to scratch her head.

"Ok, if we put this _less ridiculous_ list into the map," Jo paused, clicking angrily on the trackpad, "these are our options."

Jamie leaned in. Large brown eyes searched the screen. "Where?"

"There are no options," Jo enunciated each word bitterly.

Jamie sat back in his chair. "If you would get over your grudge—"

"It's not a grudge—"

"—then we could go back to our original place."

"—I'm just mad at him."

I blew the steam off my coffee. Jamie's voice managed to contain its soft edge even when he was frustrated, yet there was a strong degree of pleading in his tone.

"That's called a grudge!"

"You're the one that wants three dogs! In an apartment!"

"Tie-breaker," Jamie repeated.

"Wait, what?" I asked. For once, this wasn't something to do with Judas.

Jo slumped in her chair. "We're apartment hunting. Starting from scratch."

"Which of these sounds ridiculous?" Jamie picked up the notepad and read the requirements. "It must be within ten minutes of Mercy. Two bedrooms, two baths. Not above the third floor, or else there's an elevator. No pet limit lower than three—"

"The third-floor thing might be hard to find."

"I am not walking up stairs," Jo countered firmly.

I conceded to her remark. "Can I see your computer?"

Jo turned it around. I zoomed out and looked at the pin-drops on the map. "You missed a few. There's an apartment complex here and here. There's another one over here, but I think that one's more like fifteen minutes from Mercy on a good day."

Jamie sighed. Jo rolled her eyes. "It's fine. Five minutes won't make that much of a difference if I'm dying."

"Why is this one marked out?"

Jo looked at the address I pointed to. "They want a three-year lease."

I swallowed a mouthful of scalding coffee. It burned, tearing up my throat all the way down to my stomach. Of course, they weren't planning on staying in Montreal forever. But, I didn't want to know the timeframe for how quickly they would be out of my life.

"She refuses to go back to the place we used to live."

"The landlord didn't tell the police anything!" Jo slammed her hand on the table. "He could have told them you moved to the mansion!"

"Then what do you suggest we do, Jo? We can't keep living in hotels. Hotels that _you_ keep getting us kicked out of!" Jamie sunk back in his chair, and held up three fingers. Three rings, the purple gemstone, the twisted copper band, and the thin silver knot, glinted. "Three. She's got us kicked out of three hotels for noise violations."

"I was filming my poseys!" Jo insisted. "Peanut, put the vest on Theo. We're leaving in five."

"Leaving?"

"Yes, we're leaving. Five minutes."

I didn't get up as they both rose from their chairs. Jo shoved the laptop back into the green bag. Theo weaseled under the table and rested his head on my knee.

"Where?"

"Apartment hunting. We're settling this today."

"Fine by me," Jamie scoffed.

"Peanut," Jo ignored her twin's response.

"I can't."

"You can't?"

"I can't."

"What? Do you have plans all of a sudden?"

My hand went to Theo's muzzle. "I just can't."

"You haven't left this house in a week, surely you're over the flu by now. Put Theo's vest thingy on and let's go."

The knot in my stomach grew heavier, pressing into my lungs. If I left, something bad would happen. Ben or Dan would get mad that I didn't give them advanced notice. Misty would get into the garbage bin, choke on something, and die. The dishwasher was still running. It would spark into a fire. Dan might come home for lunch and, seeing that I was gone, think I had run away. If I left a note that said I was with Jo, he would think I preferred them over him. Jo and Jamie might start arguing for real and I would panic. Theo might get us kicked out of a restaurant again.

"Langdon." Jo whistled a sharp note. "Get a move on."

Theo's front paws were cold against my knee.

"I'm not helping you search for an apartment. I have other stuff to do."

"Like?"

"I have to help Ben with something."

Lies. His bookstore was still under repair, the romance aisle and self-help aisle blocked off, but he never asked for my help after the fight, and I wasn't about to offer it.

Jo groaned, exasperated, and turned to Jamie. He raised an eyebrow at her. A brief mental exchange flashed between the two pairs of big brown eyes.

"Fine." Jo grabbed her cane. "We'll catch you later."

I didn't watch them leave, couldn't get up from my chair. A deep weighted guilt trapped me in my spot. The sound of Jamie's car pulling away hovered in my ears for over an hour after they had vanished.

Theo's head rested in my lap, his black eyes staring up at me. Occasionally, he would whimper and nudge his wet nose against my hand until I stroked his back. The other dogs walked in to look at me curiously then continued to roam down the hall or around the living room.

Theo squirmed until he was completely in my lap, his head resting on my shoulder. I squeezed him tightly. He wheezed and I eased my grip. The mantra that repeated a hundred times a day, every single day since I was born, rang like a bell in my head. I had said it once out loud, but only once. And, Olivia, my old therapist, had tried to argue and turn it into some learning moment. But the words were true then and were still true now as they pressed from behind my lips. At least, Theo couldn't argue with me.

"I wish I was anyone but me."

* * *

Hours continued past and the Hardings didn't return. I needed them to come back. I called Jo's phone but she didn't answer. I paced. I was going to throw up. Something wasn't right.

It started with my reflection.

He stared back at me from above the washroom sink. He tilted his head in the opposite direction I tilted mine.

"No," I whispered into the stillness. "This isn't possible."

My reflection didn't respond. His mouth didn't move. Hands went to his long white hair. A second later, like a video lagging, my hands went to mine. Short bundles of curls met my fingertips.

His green eyes, so bold against the pale, freckle-less cheeks and brow, widened. It had been months since I saw myself like this, transformed by the verve's side effects.

"What is going on?" I asked the mirror. Below, Theo huffed and rolled onto his side, oblivious. I turned back to find my reflection had buried his face in his hands. A shadow of a gray bruise covered his left hand. The fingers swollen, skin straining under Morgan's silver ring as well as another one. A familiar-looking ring, set with a purple gemstone, cut into his index finger.

He slowly lifted his face, eyes blazing with anger, and drew back a fist. I winced, turning away just before he smashed the mirror with his uninjured hand.

I stayed still, ducked, and waited for glass to rain down. It never came. Silence hung heavy in the seconds that followed. I dropped my hands from my face. Theo looked up at me and thumped his tail.

The mirror was whole, and my face—complete with freckles and reddish blond curls—stared back at me with eyes full of fear.

Jo was right. I had to get out of this house. I was going crazy . . . er.

* * *

Buddy and Theo sniffed a patch of dead grass not far from where I stood on the sidewalk on Ash Avenue. Grass crunched under their paws as they circled. I switched Theo's leash to my right hand, twisting it into a knot around Buddy's. Sunlight fought through the thick ominous clouds above. The gray sky hovered low over the blanket of dying leaves. Bright and burnt yellows drifted from branches in small clumps, though many were still holding out hope that warmer days would come again.

Early morning stragglers strolled along the sidewalk, turning into the district to do some shopping. The Hardings hadn't appeared that morning. Agitation had built up and I clipped a leash on Theo and Buddy, hoping a walk would help. I wasn't sure if it was my fault for yesterday or because the bookstore was closed, which meant Ben was home. Next time, I would go with the twins if they asked. If I could bear to look Jamie in the eyes after this discovery, that is.

I tilted my head.

_No_.

I squinted.

There was no way.

And yet.

"How is that Jamie?"

Neither dog answered. I tilted my head the other way and squinted harder at the billboard above the corner. The advertisement took center stage against the horizon, drawing all attention away from the luminous fall foliage.

Black and white, the only splash of color in the ad belonged to the bright red stilettos. Long messy hair, ruffled and wild, fell over the model's face— _Jamie's_ face—obscuring most of his profile, except for a glimpse of perfect teeth biting into his bottom lip. Top lip twisted into a snarl. His back bare, spine and shoulder blades sharp under his taut, smooth skin. Hands braced against a wall, sans rings, as he turned to peer back through his tangle of long black hair. Aside from the red heels, the only other item of clothing was a pair of tight shorts that covered almost nothing, the thick curve of his ass and bare thighs in full view.

Buddy snorted and kicked his back legs, tossing up dead grass. He stopped with a snap of my fingers. Theo walked under Buddy's leash, glancing at his own, and tried to free himself.

"You can give me a minute. It took both of you five to smell that patch of dirt."

Jamie. Jamie, with an obsessive need to take care of his sister. Jamie, with a bigger love of books than someone who owned a bookstore. Jamie, who dropped to his knees in a heartbeat to play with a dog.

"That's not him."

But it was. Despite the alluring, seductive, submissive yet dominant pose, despite the brazenness of the image, despite all of it, that was undeniably Jamie up there, baring it all for the world to see.

My gaze fell to a crack in the sidewalk. Why would he do an ad like this? Jamie had been in . . . other things, other ads. Exactly what, I wasn't sure. But I had heard the others talk about them in the clinic. No one ever mentioned anything about him doing something this provocative. Jamie always carried a certain amount of sophistication about him, an essence of art, the impression of design. Not this objectified, lustful object to be bought.

Buddy flopped onto his side. Theo blinked slowly at the clouds, annoyed by his friend's dramatic display.

"Tee, you brought him." I tugged on Buddy's leash. "Remember this next time."

Our walk to my favorite bakery was slow. Not because of Theo's joints, but because Buddy was a normal dog. He tugged toward every tree and bush along the path. He stared at every passing stranger with a fierce glare and a low rumble in his throat.

A black car slowed down. Someone whistled. Buddy stopped to sniff a garbage can.

"They're going to sell out of chocolate croissants if you don't hurry up. They'll only have plain ones." Buddy continued to sniff an empty wrapper on the ground. "Come on."

Theo sighed as another loud whistle ripped through the street.

"Don't start with me. This is all your fault. I said we needed to leave him. How are we going to get him in the bakery? Did you even stop to think about that?"

At long last, the bakery came into view. People bustled around the store front. Inside, a high counter held a display of the freshly baked goods. The smell of yeast drifted from the store and permeated the air outside. Buddy gazed up at me, panting with a smile as I considered my options. Maybe no one would notice if I brought him in as well. I hovered outside the store, gazing through the window at the crowd inside and waiting hopefully for some of the crowd to leave. A distorted mirror image of myself stared back.

Inside, lights flickered. A dark cloud passed over the sun and the entire world fell from gray to pitch black. I blinked. Winter coats were already starting to make a comeback. The floor seemed more packed with everyone's extra layers than it would have in warmer months. Than it had even just a few seconds ago. The bell chimed as someone walked out carrying a small pink box. He paused, tugging on the black sleeves of his coat.

"I'm going to find this Angel if it's the last thing I do. Are you sure you're ready for this?"

"Jamie?"

Jamie looked exhausted, dark circles under his dim eyes. He pulled out his phone and checked the screen. His voice devoid of life as he said, "We still have time before the service if you want to go for a walk."

"What are you doing here?" I looked at the box in his hands. "Is that for Jo?"

Jamie's voice slowed, thick with confusion. "It's for the funeral."

"Funeral?"

Wide brown eyes stared at me incredulously, running over my hands. He scanned the ground behind him then turned to me. "Langdon, where's Theo?"

All questions of a funeral were pushed out of my head as I realized my hands were empty. Both leashes gone. I spun around, wildly searching the sidewalk around us.

"Theo? Buddy? Where did they go?"

"Buddy?" Jamie held a hand out to stop me from running down the street. "Buddy's at your house. Where's Theo?"

"No, I brought Buddy, too. Please, you have to help me find them." I reached for Jamie's arm. My head buzzed. A static charge built up. Jamie yanked his arm back.

"Langdon." He inhaled sharply, eyes wide. "Please, listen to me—"

"I have to find them." Worry's invisible fist seized my throat as I looked at the busy road. Cars sped past the small shops. Bright sunlight flared, reflecting off store windows. Fall's gray clouds nowhere to be seen. The sun bounced from one side of the street to the other. It blinded. I put a hand up to shield my eyes. Theo was smart, but he loved Buddy. Theo would follow him to keep him safe. "They could get hit by a car!"

"Listen, please. You're not—"

Sunlight overpowered the street. It bled through my eyelids as I squeezed them tightly. It bled white even through the hand over my eyes. A hum of electricity charged the air. The light flashed a hot white then slowly retreated, leaving the world in pure darkness. Electricity crackled, the tone morphing into the silent nothing of my verve.

I opened my eyes cautiously. Streaks of light reflected off a panel of glass, dividing the blackness. The bakery window. No. The mirror. Where was I?

Morgan, Jude, Judas: Whatever his name was, it didn't matter. There were more than enough of him to go around for every incarnation of his name. There were dozens—hundreds—of the same man staring straight at me. I turned to run. But another mirror blocked my path.

Jamie stared at me from the other side of the glass, our gaze level. The scene behind him blurred into black, unending oblivion. Only he was visible in this new infinity. Brown eyes followed my every movement as my fingers touched the cold glass. His gaze broke from mine. Long slender fingers caressed his throat, his jaw. His hands moved up to his hair, lifting it from his neck and smoothing it away from his face. Through heavy lidded eyes, he watched me, pursing his lips and tilting his head down until his hair fell over his cheeks, hiding his face like the image on the billboard. He raked it away, fingers digging into locks, leaning his head back, the tip of his tongue between his teeth. Enraptured, consumed, I couldn't speak his name. Couldn't ask what was going on.

I reached out to touch the curve of his neck. My hand moved past the glass and I knew it wasn't there. It had never been there. My fingers brushed along his neck, up to his jaw, and cupped his face in my hand. The freckles on the back of my hand shined like sores against his smooth amber skin. His eyes were nearly closed as he lowered his head, waiting. I tilted my head and leaned in.

"I hate you," he spoke softly. The words reverberating in the silence.

I opened my eyes.

He stared at me with longing. "I hate you so much."

I tried to speak but my voice was silenced.

He pulled me into his arms. His breath cold against my face. "You're disgusting. Filthy. Ugly. Stupid. Worthless. I hope you die soon. I hope you're next. We won't even throw you in the incinerator. We'll let you bloat and rot like Will."

His embrace wasn't threatening, like the tenor in his voice. His touch was the relaxed caress of a lover. I couldn't break away. Didn't want to. His fingers trailed up my back, tangled themselves in my hair, nails stroking my scalp. Brown eyes flashed to emerald green as his nails dug into my head. No sound came from my scream. Not even as blood trickled down my ears and cheeks. Not even as the pain split my thoughts and seeped down every nerve.

"You're crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy," the other me murmured as a line of blood ran between my eyes, as the pressure on my head squeezed until I thought my skull would crack. "They all know you're crazy. They're just too nice to say anything. They'll be so happy when you're finally gone."

A snap popped somewhere above my left ear. The pain grew unbearable as his fingers dug relentlessly into my head, the pressure splitting my skull.

"You couldn't save me." Blue eyes glared at me. "You know you deserve this. You can feel it inside you."

I blinked away the blood and focused on Will's blue eyes. No. Jo's brown eyes. Midnight's. Jamie's. Mine.

"No, no, no," the spy groaned. "You're too far gone from where you should be. You can't help anyone like this."

Clear eyes blazed with fury as light fractured the glass, the world slowly illuminating in the mirror's darkness. Jamie's hands were gone. It was my own, dressed as his, that dug into the flesh above my ears. Pieces of brain pulsed out of the cracks. It slipped like jelly past my hands. Sickly green and black curdles seeped out, over Jamie's rings, as my fingers moved deeper into the hole, digging. It wasn't until the colors of a violent infection changed, and clean red blood flowed, that I could make out the face I was wearing now.

The spy's small, round face glared.

"How many times do I have to tell you?" They snarled. "Don't get close to China Doll! HE," their left fingers pulled out, dripping red, "WILL," their right hand caught on a tendril as they yanked their fingers out and something burst inside my skull, "BREAK!"

#  BACK TO THE REAL WORLD

Reality returned slowly. It's hard to describe reality but, once you lose it, you can always tell when it's back. Reality is in the angles of shapes and the visibility of light and the air in your lungs. The solidity of colors. The snag of the fibers in the couch cushions. The black and brown dog hair trapped along the fabric. It was the dirty carpet under my feet as I sat up. The pounding, like a knife, above my ear. The worried voices that told me I was back in reality, far away from the blurred darkness of the mirror world.

"No, no, I didn't smell any alcohol on him. He had this blank look on his face, though, like he used to when he was younger, like he was lost in his head." Margret's whispers trickled in the air. Her voice audible, despite the distance between my spot on the couch and her place in the hallway. Her words firm, despite the wavering voice of an old woman. "He wasn't speaking or blinking. He was barely breathing. But he was holding onto the dogs' leashes so tightly. I got them to follow me and he tagged along."

"Thank you, Margret. We owe you."

"Poor little thing. Should I stay? Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No, Dan's on his way home now. We'll figure out what to do next."

There was no trigger, nothing to explain what caused such a severe episode. This wasn't entirely out of the ordinary for me. I'd seen things before, just never so vividly. My mind had been shattered years ago, and though Dan and various psychiatrists tried to put the pieces back together, the currents running through the connections were all wrong. My mind had a habit of fritzing out. It showed mirages when I least expected it. Once, it convinced me that my father was behind me in a grocery store. Another time, that Dan wasn't going to come home from work on a regular Wednesday evening. One dark time, at thirteen, it told me to drink until Ben had to take me to the emergency room. It had never given me an alternate mirror world where multiple versions of myself only wanted to dig itself out of my head. That was a first.

I looked at my left hand. I needed to stay away from reflections.

The front door clicked shut. Ben stepped into the living room and stopped, waiting to see what he was stuck dealing with until Dan arrived and took charge of the situation.

"Are you there?" he asked, searching my face.

I nodded, swallowing hard. I was, but I couldn't shake the colors from the mirror world. That infectious green and rotted black leaking over Jamie's slender fingers appeared on the back of my eyelids. My brain could see one thing correctly. It knew there was a sickness buried deep inside me.

* * *

The following morning, the only ones lounging on the couch were Shiloh and Buddy. A box of extra-large beignets left on the counter next to the back door was the only proof the Hardings had stopped by. I stared at the box then flipped the lid up and selected the fattest beignet from the bunch.

I had to stay busy. Keep my mind focused on something.

The strings on my guitar were worn. The low e had snapped one sleepless night last week. I didn't like to play anything while others were around. Their presence, their forced compliments, ruined any enjoyment. Dan's old guitar was easy enough to transport to the back yard, late at night, while everyone slept. Before the twins, I had waited until Ben and Dan were gone during the daylight hours to play my other instrument. With their presence filling each morning and afternoon, the piano had gone untouched for a while.

A leg of the piano bench pressed cold against the bare skin of my ankle as I slid to the middle of the seat. My fingers stumbled over the keys and I paused to gulp the coffee, which was growing colder by the second. Theo edged further under the bench to avoid accidently being the one to get tapped instead of the pedals. Another attempt, another stumble. I closed my eyes to focus. The notes were there, buried in my head, stored in my memory somewhere in the jumble. G. _No_. G sharp lead the transition. Another wrong note was pressed.

"Sounds good," came Dan's voice from the kitchen.

I groaned and slid to the end of the bench, cold pressing against my ankle once more, to peer around the corner. Dan stood before the medicine cabinet, his work uniform unbuttoned at the throat.

"Why aren't you at work?"

"I think I caught your flu." He coughed, reaching into the cabinet for an aspirin. "Feeling a little iffy. Work's been slow, so I took off. Haven't heard that song in ages."

" _Hmp_." I picked up the coffee mug and stood to refill it. Dan didn't get sick. He was watching me, waiting to see if another episode would appear.

"Why don't you sing when you play the piano?" He studied the beignets through the plastic screen. The box lay awkwardly on the counter by the door, not in the typical spot in the center of the table. Rushed. "You know the words."

"I don't sing."

He scoffed. "Even the neighbors heard you last week. You're really good, kid. You could make a career out of it. You just have to start playing at times other than three in the morning."

Hot blood rose to my cheeks. I chewed my tongue as I poured a cup, taking a spoon out of the drawer to stir the cream in. "Why did you make them leave?"

"What?"

"Why did you make them leave?"

Dan crossed his arms, his face impassive. "You need a break."

"From my friends? I thought you wanted me to have—"

"From Jo and her insane plans. Don't act like that isn't what she's doing here every morning. I know that girl. Don't forget, she lived in our attic for an entire summer."

"But—"

"Langdon. If you don't get a handle on whatever is going on with you, what happened yesterday will happen again, and it will be worse. We're lucky Margret found you. I'm just grateful you had Theo with you as well."

I shrugged, watching the cream swirl around the spoon.

"Don't worry, I didn't embarrass you when those two arrived. Not like this is anything to be embarrassed about, mind you. I told Jo you were sick and that she needed to stay away until we knew if it was contagious."

"You can tell her tomorrow that crazy isn't contagious."

"You're not crazy. If anyone is crazy, it's those two."

I frowned, taking another beignet from the box.

Dan watched as I shoved half of the beignet into my mouth. He shook his head. "Got a long holiday weekend coming up. I was thinking of sealing the deck before snow hits. Or taking the garage door down and putting up a new wall. Probably should do that one first."

"I'll help." I turned around, dropping the spoon onto the floor. Coffee spilled over the rim as I bent down to pick the spoon up. Liquid burned my fingers and I sat the mug down quickly on the counter. It slipped and fell to the ground, splattering everywhere.

"You're taking it easy. I'll need more hands to get this job done and you won't want to be around all the commotion. Although, Ben called Olivia a while back. She was glad to hear about you," he paused, gauging my reaction. "She said she would come here for sessions like she used to if that would make it easier on you."

"No." _If_ my friends ever came back, I needed to be better so that I didn't frighten them away. Crazy wasn't contagious but it scared people away like it was the plague. Besides, I couldn't risk them showing up and witnessing a therapy session. I mumbled around a sip, "I'll go to her."

The relief on Dan's face was obvious as he changed the subject, "I called Frank to ask if he would help me get the door down. But you can help me after he's gone. Are you up for putting up a wall?"

I nodded. It was something I did well.

"Speaking of holidays, what do you want for your birthday? Come on, you're getting a present one way or another. Don't you dare say another dog. No." He pointed a finger at me. "Don't look at me like that. No more dogs."

#  CRUSHED

On the second Tuesday of October, with the help of one of his co-workers, Dan removed the garage door. The ear-splitting banging and metal screeching, I could handle. His co-worker's son's incessant awkward conversation, I couldn't. Dan saved me with a sly, "Lanny, weren't you suppose to rake Margret's leaves?"

Theo lay on the old lady's driveway as I raked the dead leaves into a pile. I took my time, watching the low clouds roll lazily over the neighborhood. By the time the last of the metal clanging ceased from down the street, my arms were tired and Theo had seen enough of Gus, hissing and spitting at him from Margret's living room window. We left the black garbage bags by the curb and walked up the sidewalk. In the back yard, panels of the weathered, warped door lay on the dying grass. A wide gaping hole took up nearly the entire span of the wall. Alex sat on the grass beside the wood frame that would fill the gap. Dan had taken several more days off work, complaining about a flu that never took hold, and used the time to prep the site and watch me out of the corner of his eye.

"Lanny?"

Dan and Frank stood on opposing ladders inside the former garage, unscrewing the railings attached to the ceiling. Alex, who looked like a twenty-year younger version of Frank, complete with a wrinkled plaid shirt and crooked nose, looked up as Theo and I quickly snuck around him toward the ladders. Dan pushed his screwdriver into the nook between his thumb and forefinger. With his free hand, he slipped his phone out of his back pocket and held it down to me.

"Jo sent about a dozen texts to my phone directed at you."

I made the trip to my spot under the tree. Misty sat beside me. Theo circled the yard, sniffing the grass, as Buddy trailed behind, sniffing him. I tapped the green icon to open Dan's messages. There weren't many.

> Jo Harding  
> I want it to... (Read today at 2:59pm)

> Ben  
> Milk. (Read yesterday at 3:24pm)

> Que Central Mobile  
> Your monthly bill is due on... (New)

> Jamie Harding  
> Thank you for... (Read six weeks ago)

My thumb hovered above Jo's name as I stared at the preview of Jamie's message. It would be an invasion of privacy, but the message had already been opened. He wouldn't know.

> Thank you for taking care of Jo over the summer. What you and Ben did for her truly means the world to me. Jo told me she ran up a hospital bill during her stay. I want to repay you for that and for food and rent as well.

> —Jamie

Dan had never sent a reply. Of course, Jamie would try to repay them. He had money to pay them back for everything they had done for Jo. I'd never be able to pay them back for even one of the years I spent here.

"Hey." Alex swung casually around the tree. I nearly dropped Dan's phone. "I didn't catch your name. Danny?"

I looked at him then back at the phone. My fingers tapped the screen randomly as I pretended to text. "Langdon."

"What kind of a name is Langdon?"

"My mom was a crackhead," I replied, continuing to type my pretend message.

"Mine's a vegan." He laughed once. "You look familiar. Do you go to Valley? What about Mountain Ridge?"

I shook my head at each school's name. Theo rushed toward me. He stopped and glared at Alex with black eyes. Tufts of dead grass stuck to his paws. Misty stood then, seeing he had no food, went to sleep.

"I know." He snapped his fingers. "You're part of that group that hangs around the arcade on Monarch."

I shook my head again and plucked some grass off Theo's white feet.

"Where have I seen you before?"

"One of those faces. Sorry, but I kind of have stuff to do," I lied, lifting the phone up.

"Oh, yeah. Totally. My dad and I are about to head out." He leaned against the tree trunk. "It's cool that you have two dads. Dan seems like a nice guy."

I seethed as he reached down to pet Theo's head. In the short walk to Margret's, it hadn't occurred to me to put the vest on him. It probably wouldn't have mattered. Alex seemed too dumb to notice even if I had. Theo slipped away from him and stood on my other side.

Alex straightened his wrinkled yellow and green plaid shirt. "This is a sweet neighborhood. You ever go to that bowling alley down on Ash? They have laser tag as well."

I shook my head again.

"It's cool. We should go next time you're free," he drummed his fingers on the tree bark, "might be fun."

"I don't play games."

"That's cool, we could go see a movie or something if you're free. My friends and I hang out on Saturdays downtown."

"I don't watch movies."

"Yeah. My semester's been crazy. I'm sure you're slammed as well."

Theo looked up at me. I made a mental note to give him some chips if we ever got back to my room as an apology for getting stuck through this.

"I'm sorry. I'm not good at this and you're really cute," Alex's words smashed together in his haste. "Is Jo your boyfriend?"

I looked down at the phone in my hand then up at him. He bit his bottom lip, his left foot nervously raking up dead grass.

"Yes."

"Right," he groaned, turning away. "Of course."

"Sorry," I replied even though I wasn't.

"I'm going to—My dad's calling me."

He hurried, head down, up the yard and bypassed his father, who stood talking to Dan. Alex passed the gate and disappeared to where their car was parked on the street. A buzz in my hand startled me and I remembered the phone.

> Jo Harding  
> Dan, my man, why are you... (NEW)

My thumb tapped her name. I scrolled up to read all her messages in order.

> Quick question for the smol, but feel free to answer this if you know: What is his shoe size?

> Never mind. (Smol means short person, FYI)

> Scratch that. Yes I need to know. (FYI = For your info)

> Is he free tonight? (Info = information)

> And by tonight, I mean tomorrow night.

> Is he working at the store by chance?

> Never mind, I called Ben. And never mind about the shoe size.

> But I still want to know if he's free tomorrow.

> We will feed him and bring him back at a reasonable hour.

> Jamie wants to know if he needs to do something to protect his car during winter.

> Please don't respond to that.

> I want it to die.

> Dan, my man, why are you not answering me?

I pressed the call icon next to Jo's name. She picked it up after the second ring.

"My favorite American veteran, thank you for finally responding."

"It's me." I rolled my eyes up to the leaves above. The branches swayed under the low pressure as clouds rolled by. "What do you need my shoe size for?"

"Are there foster dads around?"

"No."

"Don't ask how," her voice dropped a few decibels, "but we got footage from Mercy of the night I was dumped in the morgue. It wasn't Jude or Morgan or any of the clones who put me there. It was someone who looked a lot like you."

"Do you still have the video?"

"Of course."

"Where are you? Did you get caught? Are you in jail?"

"No! We're in our hotel room."

"Which hotel? I'm coming over."

"Don't come over."

"Why not?"

"I can't really talk at the moment. Can I call you back?"

"Are you ok?"

"Not really." A sigh sent static over the line. "I swear, somedays, I think that death certificate wasn't lying. I'll talk to you later. Text me."

"I don't have a—"

The hum of a dead line cut me off.

The rest of the day passed in suspenseful agitation. An entire day cooped within the confines of my room, an entire evening worrying about Jo's discovery, an entire night trapped inside as rain hailed down in torrents. I spent the night picking on the remaining guitar strings, checking on the plastic tarp covering the hole in the garage for leaks, and staring at my bedroom ceiling. Fragments of sleep came around three am, interspersed with fleeting dreams.

Chilled air seeped through the walls and into my room. I pulled the covers over me, snuggling closer to Theo, who whined and licked my face until I pulled the sheets over my head. It was only when the sun began to rise, and the smell of Ben's morning coffee drifted up the stairs, that I finally fell into a deep sleep.

It didn't last. I awoke what felt like a second later to the sound of the front door slamming. The near constant rain had made the door frame swell. There was no choice but to use force to make it latch. Creeping anxiety returned as gray light filled my bedroom. My bed groaned under a large weight and I threw a hand out to shove Misty off the bed. As the days grew colder, she tried to sneak in to steal warmth from me and Theo. My palm was met with hairy resistance. A thump shook the house as she finally jumped down to the rug. Hazy light struggled to fight its way through the clouds and past the curtains. My head throbbed in protest as Theo's nails clicked one by one on the floor. His paws ticked slowly to the hallway and stopped.

The throbbing in my head knew it before I did; there was no more sleep to be gained.

Theo's tail wagged as I picked him up and carried him down the steps, pausing to let Misty barrel past my legs. She thudded to the first level. Theo groaned as his black feet touched the floor. He rushed to the back door, where the rest of the pack waited impatiently, as I checked to make sure the front door had latched.

At least, the coffee was still fresh. Its smell filled the damp kitchen air as rain tumbled off the roof. The back yard, leached of color, lay shrouded in mist beyond the window. So much haze hovered in the early morning gloom that my favorite spot under the oak tree was entirely hidden.

Theo pushed his way past the others, stood on his hind legs, and pawed the handle of the back door. When he was a puppy, a wife of one of the men in Dan's old troop trained him to open doors by biting and pulling on a braided rope attached to the knob. It was one of the first tasks learned in service dog school. None of our doors had a rope for him to grip. That didn't stop him from trying though, and I switched directions quickly. He would break a tooth if I made him wait while I fixed a cup of coffee.

Theo raced out, gliding over the deck steps to the muddy grass. The other four rushed after him. Misty was the last one out. She halted halfway across the deck, turned around, and began to wiggle with excitement.

"Gus!"

Margret's cat had a habit of escaping and curling up under the bushes or on the lounge chairs on the deck, ready to pounce on whatever fool who tried to coax him out. Most of the time, it was Misty. I would have to save her from another failed attempt to make friends if I didn't want to spend the rest of my day cleaning the claw marks on her muzzle.

Wind yanked the screen door from my grip as my bare feet touched the slimy deck. I grabbed the door with both hands to keep from slipping.

"Good morning. Oh! Langdon!"

I froze, my grip on the door unrelenting as Jamie held it from the other side. Ringed fingers held the frame above my head. Misty's entire body quivered, from fuzzy ears to fluffy curled tail, as she stared at the white box balanced in his left hand. I stared at him. I couldn't tell what was more startling: Jamie without Jo or what Jamie was wearing.

"You're up early. How are you feeling?" His nose wrinkled as the smile spread across his lips. The hem of his loose black track pants dragged over his sandals, soaking up the rain. A black sleeveless shirt hugged his chest. Flushed cheeks illuminated his face as the messy knot of black hair collected droplets like the grass below us. He held the box out to me.

I took it, failing to not look when his bare arms flexed as he leaned back against the railing. Water speckled the box in my hands. Pink bled to red.

Jamie's nose wrinkled further as he reached down to pet Misty. His palm came back plastered with short black hairs. He wiped his hand on his track pants once Misty remembered the urge to pee and thundered down the steps.

"Where's Jo?" Without the buffer of her never-ending conversation, talking to Jamie felt awkward. A minefield of silence and misspoken words. I should have been nicer to Alex.

Jamie's eyes went to my hair. It was either a haystack from the sleepless night or slicked to my scalp from the rain. I didn't want to know which.

"She's, uh." He looked down at his sandals and flicked the hem of his pants over his feet. "She's taking it easy for a few days."

"She stole a hospital video."

"Oh," Jamie laughed. "No, that was Lupe. She sent the video to Jo." He shifted from one sandal to the next. "Lupe yelled at Darcy and Stan for fighting with us. Jo's been talking to them online ever since."

I peeked into the box. Donuts. "Hard to imagine Lupe yelling."

Jamie nodded. His eyes wandered to the yard as four dogs roamed through the mist. Theo sat at the bottom of the steps, glaring as the rain pushed black hair into his eyes.

I shut the box. "Do you want to come in?"

It felt odd to ask. Jo let herself in every morning, but Jamie didn't look like he was going to leave the storm anytime soon. He smiled.

Inside, there was enough coffee left for each of us and a breakfast wrap, which Jamie had picked up after yoga class and left in his car, for him. Theo shook the water off his coat, his collar clanging. He huffed, looked at the piece of egg Jamie held out to him, and turned his head away.

"Bribing him with food isn't going to make him like you." I sat down in the chair across from Jamie and plucked a glazed donut out of the box.

"It worked with you." Jamie tossed the egg to Misty, who caught it mid-air.

I stopped in the middle of prying the donut into chunks. Every day, the Hardings arrived with a box. I assumed it was Jo's doing, picking up breakfast for her and us, a thanks for using our internet and drinking Dan's tea. I realized I had never seen Jo eat any of the pastries aside from that first cookie. Jamie had probably never eaten bread in his life. Slowly, I dunked a chunk into my mug. Glaze flaked off into the coffee.

"Why doesn't he like me?" Jamie's shoulders fell. "He loves Jo."

"It's probably the . . ." I pointed to Jamie's hands with another chunk of donut. Every finger was stacked with at least one ring, some as many as two. His nails had been painted, though the matte black was a stark contrast to Jo's ever-changing rainbow parade of different shades of glitter.

With two swipes, Jamie pried the dozen rings off his fingers. They clattered in a tumble of notes to the table. He held a bare hand out to Theo.

During our stay in the clinic, Jamie had been a rare sight. We had exchanged a handful of words during the few encounters we had, neither of us up for socializing. With his hair still slicked from the rain, track pants, tired eyes, and jewelry-free hand, he almost looked like the Jamie from earlier this year.

"Fuck you," Jamie hissed, dropping his hand as Theo turned his back and curled up under my chair.

I bit into the drenched bribery donut as Jamie plucked his rings from the table one by one. Scalding coffee leached onto my tongue. Jamie pursed his lips as he placed a thin gold band on the middle section of a finger. The ring with the purple stone already back in place on his third finger.

I cleared my throat. "Did Lupe use her verve to get the video?"

Jamie tilted his head, carefully re-stacking the rings in some order only he understood. "She triggered it by accident. She told Jo she figured she might as well be useful until her invisibility went away."

"What was on the video?"

"Not much." Jamie's eyes darkened. A hard, thin line formed around his lips as he sneered. "Until around the one a.m. mark, when someone dumped Jo into one of those chambers they keep corpses in."

"Dumped her? Jude—Judas—said he took her to the emergency room."

Jamie shook his head. "Someone put her in there and bolted the door. An hour later she fell out of it."

"Who?"

Something wrathful and dark moved behind his eyes. "I don't know. No one recognizes them. The footage was grainy, black and white. But we know they were small and that they have short curly hair." A chill ran up my arms as his eyes met mine. His anger caged, but still watching from behind brown irises. "I'm going to find out who did that to my sister. I'm going to find every person involved in this."

"I swear—"

"Jesus Christ, what time is it? Lanny, is that you?" Dan's voice burst through the rooms. The bottom stairs creaked, his boots echoing up the hallway. He appeared behind Jamie, frazzled. "Overslept, damn it. Hey, Jamie."

I cringed as he stopped to lace his boots, placing one on the edge of a chair. _That's_ why there was so much leftover. "I drank all the coffee."

"It's fine. Don't have time for any."

"Eat and run?" Jamie asked as Dan switched feet.

Dan pulled the laces tight and set his foot on the ground. "That, I do." He took one from the box and was out the door without another word.

"He likes me more than Ben," Jamie mused as the screen door banged shut. "But I bribed him with food, too."

Silence hung heavy between us.

"I wouldn't—"

"Do you think we have it right?" Jamie interrupted. "Our verves?"

"What?"

"I don't think we can take anything that liar said as truth." Jamie's eyes went to the empty space beside me. "We all took Morgan at his word about our verves. Do you _really think_ you stop time?"

As my brain spun from whiplash, a small part made a note of another difference between the twins. Where Jo never gave you a break to think in a conversation, Jamie's mind ran too quickly for anyone to keep pace. Not even Darcy, I would bet.

"I don't know." The mirror world. The not-memories. Ever since I stopped allowing the verve to be triggered, it seemed my powers were morphing into something new.

"What happens when you disappear?"

"I didn't put Jo in—"

"I know you didn't," Jamie apologized, eyelids fluttering shut. "That person was small, but they weren't you. I know evil when I see it and you're not a bad person."

The silence was heavier, I realized, because the rain had finally stopped pattering on the roof. Hopefully, Dan would have an easier walk—run—to work.

"Judas wasn't working alone. He wanted us to think he was, but he had his army of doppelgängers, and now we know he has someone else, someone who doesn't look like him, also involved. We don't know what we don't know."

I chewed on another chunk as I considered his words.

"This accomplice wasn't on the video," Jamie continued. He picked up the final ring and tapped the dark blue stone on the table. "And then, suddenly they were. They're smaller than you, but they carried Jo like she was nothing."

"I don't understand."

"What if this ally of his has a verve?" Jamie spoke carefully, choosing his words. "What if he has another group of experiments like us, only they're working for him like we were?"

_The Montreal Subjects_. How many other cities had a group of experiments like us? How many died? How many had verves?

"Then we're in a lot of trouble."

Jamie slipped the last ring on his thumb.

"Have you told Jo your theory?"

"No, and neither will you. I don't want to worry her, it will only make her health worse." The gems in his rings glimmered as he rubbed a weary hand over his eyes. The face underneath changed from dim exhaustion to a warm glow as he removed his hand. "I'm sorry, I only wanted to get out of that hotel room while Jo got some sleep. I didn't come over here to bother you."

Wistful sadness seeped out from the facade as his eyes trailed around the quiet room. Jo had not been well enough to leave their hotel in days. Jamie's only outing was to bring food to me when he could leave as she slept. _To me_.

Ben had told me how he met the Hardings: that Jamie frequented the store, buying more books than any other customer. That it was only ever Jamie and Jo. No one else was there for them. For him.

It wasn't only that, aside from Jo, Jamie was the closest thing I had to a friend. Aside from Jo, I was the closest thing to a friend Jamie had.

"I should go," Jamie sniffed, adjusting a band on his pinky. He stood.

The mud-spattered floor caught my attention as Buddy flopped onto his back and began to roll on the tiles.

"Jamie?" I asked. He stopped. "Do you want to help me bathe the dogs?"

#  BATH TIME

"How did you convince them to let you have five dogs?"

"I got Theo on my eleventh birthday. It was the first birthday I had after foster care sent me here. He wasn't a present, it just happened that way. Every birthday after that, I asked for a dog. I picked out Buddy on my twelfth. Dan picked out Shiloh for my thirteenth. Ben said three was enough, but then he brought Misty home from the shelter. Pepper, they found while I was . . . gone."

Jamie was far too enthusiastic about the idea of, and far too confused on the process of, bathing dogs. I shouldn't have started with Theo. He was the most well-behaved, so Jamie didn't learn he needed to use a firm grasp. Whenever I turned around to get a towel, the bottle of shampoo, or a plastic cup, his gentle pleading did nothing to stop the dogs from bolting out of the tub. A small river trailed from the washroom, down the staircase, and ended at the drenched living room rug. Jamie's track pants, weighted down from the shampoo-scented water, slipped down and inches of golden skin peeked out before he hitched them back up. His phone beeped from deep inside a pocket and he scooted back to answer the message.

In the time Jamie spent here, he never ventured far away from Jo, which meant he was only familiar with the downstairs portion of the house. His eyes roved from the phone toward Ben and Dan's closed bedroom door, the closet door that stood cracked open as fallen towels fought for freedom, and my bedroom door. The latter was wide open and I couldn't help wondering what he thought about the glimpse it offered.

Pepper shook as I rinsed her coat. Jamie snorted.

"Jo," was all he had to say in response to my questioning look.

"Do you need to leave?"

"No," he replied as he typed a response. "She's fine." His phone beeped. "She says hi." Another beep. "She wants me to bring her a milkshake when I go back." Another beep. "That was a bunch of hearts. And a knife. _She's never going to let that go_. Fuck, I don't have a signal."

I couldn't imagine how stabbing someone could become an inside joke, but the Hardings were anything but normal. Pepper started to shake again and I put a firm hand on her back as I poured another cupful over her.

Jamie jumped up from the floor and stepped into the hallway. His feet were bare, the sandals ditched by the kitchen door when he noticed the mud caked on the soles. I snuck a quick look away from Pepper to see if his toes were painted as well.

"Is this your room?" He paused outside, peering in from a safe distance. "It's huge."

I craned my head around the washroom door frame to make sure there wasn't some mysterious new room that had appeared. All I saw was my room, with bedsheets tangled, half on the floor. A rolling chair shoved under the untouched desk. Theo's worn rope toy lay in the middle of the braided rug.

"What is that?" Jamie stepped forward then back. "Sorry. Can I go into your room?"

How was he related to Jo?

I shrugged. I didn't _want_ him to go in my room, but there wasn't anything in there to embarrass me that he wouldn't already suspect: worn-out clothes, dog hair everywhere. There were no books, no tech devices, no posters or pictures. Dan and Ben—Ben, mostly—tried to give me things only to quickly realized that presents would be met with reluctance. There was nothing I wanted that could be bought.

"It's so big." His impressed voice drifted back to me.

I frowned.

"Jo and I shared a room our entire life. It must be nice to have a room all to yourself."

Jamie's disappearance continued for longer than I expected. Paranoia got me on my feet. I pointed sternly at Pepper to stay then left. Jamie stood in the middle of the braided rug, bare feet next to Theo's rope, reading the screen on his phone. My relief that he was sidetracked by another message from Jo was short lived.

"New Spirit Award." Jamie smirked, pointing to the dusty award propped up on the shelf above my desk, and flashed the search results on his phone. I had forgotten all about the award, shoved up there sometime after my fifteenth birthday. "What did you do to win?"

"Just showed up," I lied. "It's nothing. It's a stupid participation award."

"You beat out a hundred other performers." Jamie waved the phone. "Do you sing?"

"No."

"This video says otherwise." He clucked, holding a finger above the screen.

"Don't!" I lunged for the phone. He leapt back, laughing, as I ripped it from his hand. There was no video, only a headline about the event from three years ago where I was named the winner in the young composer group. I shoved the phone at his chest, fuming. _That's_ how he was related to Jo.

"What do you play? Can you play the piano downstairs?"

"No."

"Guitar? Bass? Violin?"

"No."

"Do you really write your own songs?"

Pepper was still waiting in the bath. She cut her eyes at me as I knelt to finish rinsing her coat.

"Are you in a band?" Jamie teased, leaning against the door frame.

The water splashed. Jamie's phone buzzed. He swiped his thumb across the screen and pressed it to his face, his smirk unfaltering in response to my glare.

"What is it?" he answered, then dutifully held out his phone.

I wiped my right hand on a dry towel and took it. His phone was warm against my cheek.

"I'm going to punch Jamie in the face." If he could answer Jo's call casually, so would I.

"Again? Look, I don't have time for your stuff. What am I supposed to do?" A voice that was definitely not Jo said.

"What?"

"She's dead! What am I supposed to do? Your plan didn't work!"

"Who is this?" I asked both the voice on the line and Jamie.

He blinked. "Isn't it Jo?"

"Who's dead?"

"Who else? Goddamn it, I—Oh, no. No. What year is it? When am I calling you? Damn it, damn it. It's leaking, isn't it? This is what happens, isn't it? No, I need more time!"

"Who is it?" Jamie stepped forward, his eyes wide with concern.

I mouthed 'I don't know' and looked at the screen. It was blank. The voice was still talking on the other end. I held it back to my ear.

"When am I calling you, Summers?"

"My name isn't Summers."

Silence.

"What do you want?"

"Quit playing around and put Jude on."

"Jude?" I asked.

Jamie knelt beside me and put his ear close to the other side of the phone. Cinnamon and coffee caressed my cheek. I swallowed. "Judas? Do you know where he is?"

A deep sigh. The line went dead.

Jamie and I sat on the soapy floor, our heads together, in silence. I couldn't be positive that it was the same voice from the odd call the day I went to the clinic. That voice had been whispering. This person was almost shouting.

Icy fingers touched my hand. Jamie slipped the phone back. He tapped on the screen. The lines around his lips grew deeper with each tap.

"There's no number, nothing. It's not even showing there was a call one minute ago."

He showed me his incoming call history. His last call came from someone named Greta, two nights ago at four in the afternoon. Before that, it was a series of one-minute-long calls from Jo.

"Who's Greta?" I asked before I could swallow the question. I knew what the answer would be and I didn't want to know. Jamie was straight. He was attractive. He was Jo's brother.

"Agent."

"Oh." I was wrong. But still, any other screen on his phone, texts, voicemails, contact lists, would give me the answer I had expected.

Jamie leapt to his feet and looked out the window at the empty street below. He shoved the window open. Jamie's drenched pants clung to his thighs as he leaned out. I turned away quickly. Pepper stared at me. I plucked her out of the bath and took a towel to her as Jamie studied the view outside.

"How did the caller know I was with you?"

"Maybe you shouldn't lean out the window." It was getting harder to avoid looking at him. "Are you being followed? Am I?"

Jamie slammed the window shut and bolted it. Tension sharpened his features. The happy awful dog bather was gone. Something close to Midnight took his place.

"That had to be one of the other groups."

"What if the caller is watching all of us?"

He stepped around me.

"What do they want? Jamie?" Something close to panic was welling up. We were being followed. Danger was close and it was real. It wasn't something I could push away, categorize it as a figment of my messed-up brain. Jamie was already halfway down the hall, but he whirled around at the sound of his name. He came back and put his hands on my shoulders.

"It's fine." His voice was a sedative. "Nothing is going to happen. We're going to tidy up this mess and then we're going to check on Jo."

"We?"

"I'm not leaving you here alone."

#  HARDING HOTEL #4

It wasn't how I planned on leaving the house but, like his sister, Jamie wasn't someone you argued with. After a quick change out of my drenched dog hair-covered clothes while Jamie wrestled Theo into the vest, we were on our way to the gridlocked roads. Jamie's rap music blurred into one extremely long, angry, expletive-filled rant. It grated on my nerves as we sat in the middle of the highway. The stone walls of the overpass rose higher and higher with every centimeter Jamie's car nudged forward. On the other side of the divide, the cars headed north were also stopped. We were trapped in a sea of impatience.

Theo didn't take his eyes off Jamie as I held him. Ordinarily, he would be in the backseat but, with the unknown person following us, I needed him close.

The rap music dimmed each time Jamie called Jo's phone. No lines appeared on his face as she failed to answer for the third time in ten minutes. Calm composure belied Jamie's age. He had already mastered the adult trick of hiding his emotions. I wanted him to teach me.

Even though Jamie was, foremost, a calming presence, he was still intimidating. There was no other word to describe the vibe he exuded, sitting behind the steering wheel, rap music flowing, fingers gleaming with rings raking through his long thick hair, tugging up the hem of his shirt's unusually low neckline as it slipped over his shoulder. His skin embossed with the gold of the afternoon sun as it hovered over the row of cars before us, perfect white teeth biting into his full bottom lip.

A desire that went beyond the shallow urge to know the touch of his lips distracted me. I wanted to know what it felt like to be him, to wake up and have the world at my feet. To be able to not just merely exist, but to _live_.

Brown eyes flickered away from the red brake lights of the blue car in front as he wrote his fifth text message to Jo. The black nail polish flaked as he tapped the send icon then set the phone in the cup holder below the gear shift. One hand curled under his chin as he gazed at the stretch of cars before us, the other lightly tapping in time with the music on the steering wheel.

"We should warn the others," he pondered out loud, easing the car forward.

We fell in line with a black, dented two door ride on the left. Two guys inside, both wearing the Habs' red and blue, stared menacingly. Two of Jamie's fingers slipped out from under his chin and splayed on either side of his lips. I watched as his reflection in the side mirror turned his head to the window. He met their stares with his tongue thrust between two ringed fingers, eyebrows arched. The two looked away quickly and Jamie smirked as their car eased forward. He turned back to me. The seducer gone, replaced by a wide-mouth grin and wrinkled nose.

"How are you doing over there?"

Theo's nails dug into my legs as I tried to ignore the thought that whoever was calling me would go after the dogs back at the house. Morgan had hurt Lupe's cat, to what purpose I didn't know. Dan would be at work for several hours. Ben too, unless he came home for lunch. With every passing second, I grew closer to opening the door and running back to Marigold Court.

"Everything's going to be fine," Jamie insisted. "Whoever called doesn't know what they're doing, they might even think we're on the same side if they were asking for Judas. Nothing's going to happen."

The chrome on the door handle was rusted. "Can you turn that down?"

He turned the dial all the way to the left. The speakers became silent. Jamie adjusted a braided gold band on his thumb, eyes focused on the dashboard before me, and reached over. His long fingers rested on top of my fist and gently pried my clenched fingers away from my palm. He slipped his hand into mine and squeezed. His skin was ice cold, but the solidity of his touch, his calm words, was almost as grounding as Theo. Jamie's hand may have been as chilly as his rings, but his grip was as soft as his voice.

"Langdon," Jamie said in a low voice. "Everything is fine."

I nodded.

"My apologies." The tone that reminded me so much of Jo slipped back into his voice as he dropped my hand. "After all, you're the professional musician, you should be in charge of the music."

"I'm not—" My argument was cut short by the phone offered to me. He grinned as I took it and begrudgingly tapped through the music app. I thought of the towering figure on the building looming over the city, the same one Jamie had pointed out weeks earlier, and picked a song.

Jamie's brow wrinkled. His gaze moved across the dashboard, finally cutting over to me. A three-word question, mouthed silently, made me genuinely smile.

His top lip curled up in defiance. The slight to my music didn't bother me. Music, like all art, was subjective. Jamie rolled his shoulders and I could feel him tuning my music out. Dark skin under his eyes caught my attention again.

"Are you ok?"

Jamie turned his gaze from the brake lights, searching for the words somewhere on the floorboard. With a model's smile, "I'm always ok."

"You look tired."

He rolled his shoulders again. The song faded into another.

"I know this one," Jamie thought. "Or I know another version of it."

"It's been covered a lot."

Jamie leaned over the gear shift. A Jo-like smile on his face flickered and I braced myself for another jab. _Did you do a cover of this for the award?_ His brown eyes bright. "Are you—?"

The song dimmed as a robotic melody filled the speakers. Jamie snatched his phone.

"Jo, where are you?"

"It's Darcy." Her voice came through the speakers. "Is something wrong with Jo?"

"Did you get a weird call too?"

"Weird call? No, I got a feeling."

"A what?"

"I don't know how to explain it. I've been getting these feelings like something's going on and—Look, I was just trying to finish this stupid essay for this stupid class and a little voice in my head was whispering "Jamie is next to Langdon and they're freaking out." You don't have to tell me that I sound crazy. I know how stupid I sound. But the last time this happened, I followed Stan around all day and he kept saying he was fine but then I had to take him to Mercy to get an iron infusion. So, what's wrong with you two?"

"I got a phone call from someone who asked to speak to Langdon and then asked him to speak to Jude."

She hummed. "And you think you're being followed?"

"Are you reading my mind over the phone?"

"Hold on, let me listen," Darcy hushed. Jamie looked around the car incredulously. "Jo's fine. She's asleep."

Jamie opened his mouth but no response came.

"Can you tell if anyone's following me? Us?" I leaned over the console to speak into the phone dangling in Jamie's limp hand.

"No. I think I can only read people from this distance if I already know them. If I haven't met your caller that might be why I can't hear him."

"Tell the others." Jamie lifted the phone and held it level with his full lips. "If someone knows about us we need to be careful."

"We'll keep an eye out. But Jo's right; we need to have a meeting."

"Are you sensing something else?" Jamie passed me the phone as traffic began to move. I held it awkwardly between us.

"Yeah, but I can't quite place it. It's not bad, but it's not good. It's everywhere." She hummed again. "Or it will be everywhere."

"What does that mean?"

"It's like . . . I don't know . . . it's like something's changing." She paused. "I can't pin it down."

"Well, can you use your psychic ability to tell me why we were stopped in traffic for twenty minutes?" Jamie picked up speed and checked the rearview mirror, flicking the blinker. Traffic dissipated as cars began to move at a normal speed once again.

"Oh, yeah, that's easy. It's Montreal during lunch time. I'll talk to you later. If my verve gets any stranger, I might not even use the phone to call you next time."

Jamie's eyes widened, horrified, as she ended the call.

* * *

"Where's my milkshake?"

I had never been in a hotel in my life, but I didn't need experience to know that the one the Hardings were living out of was far nicer than the kind most people stayed in. The large room was comprised mostly of two wide beds, covered in thick white pillows and layers of crisp sheets. It was the sort of environment I would have felt immediately uncomfortable in if it hadn't been for one factor: their room was trashed.

A long oak dresser had been turned into a makeshift kitchen area. Boxes of protein bars, cases of bottled mineral water, and liters of ginger ale covered the top of the dresser and towered around a widescreen television. Mountains of clothes were heaped along the walls, sorted into unknown categories. Garbage cans next to their night stands overflowed with wrappers and takeout containers. Both beds were unmade. A pillow lay in the small section of floor between their beds, waiting to trip someone. Jo's cane was hooked around a light fixture. Her large messenger bag lay strewn open. It took up an entire armchair.

"Peanut! _Where's my milkshake?"_ Jo demanded from her spot in the middle of a bed. Her skin dewy under the soft glow of the lamp on the table beside her. Oily black hair stuck, flattened, against her neck. An electric heating pad slipped down the pillows behind her as she sat up. As if her appearance hadn't been enough, the row of pill bottles from the pharmacy on Ash Avenue said it all.

"Milkshakes are bad for you." Jamie threw his keys into her green bag and started riffling through one of the piles of clothes.

"Milkshakes are good for my soul." Jo winked then patted the mattress.

Theo leapt up onto her bed and whined. He buried his face against Jo. I had missed her more in the past few days than during the entire time she had been in New York. Seeing her, ill and trapped in this room, made me feel even worse. Why hadn't I left my house to check on her? The same hand that had minutes earlier been comforted by her twin's reached out to untangle the heating pad's chord beside her.

"Are you still sick?"

I shook my head, averting my eyes. She grinned a bad imitation of Jamie's natural, nose-wrinkling smile and squeezed my arm. The weakness of her grip fell far short of the firm one that had knocked me unconscious only months ago.

"Is the world ending?" Jo asked as I leaned down to hug her. "Oh, God, who died?"

"No one died," Jamie replied from a corner.

"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU GET ME A MILKSHAKE?"

"We were busy." He snatched a pair of pants from another pile. "Someone called _my_ phone, looking for _your_ arch-nemesis."

Jo's unintelligible shriek split my eardrums. I jumped away from her embrace as though I had been shocked. Theo shook his head and flopped onto the sheets with a snort. She sputtered a collection of vowels and held out a palm to Jamie, the only person on the planet who could decipher Jo's intonations.

"I didn't hear much," Jamie answered from behind me. "He was the one who did all the talking."

Jo directed her gaze to me as I sat on the edge of her bed. It was the only empty spot in the room. I turned around to give Jamie a look for throwing me under the bus. Hot blood rose quickly and flushed my cheeks.

Jamie didn't notice. He was busy, changing into fresh clothes. He balanced easily on one foot outside the washroom door, tugging on a pair of black jeans over tight black underwear that hugged every curve of his ass. Long hair pulled up into a mess on the top of his head exposed the sharp angles of his shoulder blades and spine. It was the Sâtieer ad brought to life.

"What did the caller say?"

There wasn't a safe place for me to look. The mirrors on the walls reflected the sight. Jamie showed no need for privacy. The small room was filled with too many intimate views. Laundry soaked in the sink. Wet shirts hung from wooden hangers and draped over towel racks. A large lace bra dripped onto the carpet. Quickly, my brain decided the ceiling was the safest place.

"I don't—I'm not sure—The caller didn't make sense. When they didn't get any answers from me, they asked to speak to Jude."

"Jude or Judas?" Jo plucked out the notebook buried under the folds of her white sheets.

"Jude." I tilted my head to look at the splatter above us. "What is that?"

"Jo fell while she was pacing and eating dinner."

I didn't take my eyes off the spot on the ceiling just in case he was still changing.

"I was plotting not pacing," she retorted. I looked down at her notebook. "Jude. Not Judas or Morgan. But why you and why is help needed?"

"Why _my_ phone?"

Jo snapped her fingers and pointed at Jamie in agreement. Jamie was finally dressed and running his fingers through his hair to calm the mess before he attempted to retie it. The blocker ring on my finger caught on shirts and clinked against glasses. I only wore it because it was better than having Darcy in my head. I couldn't understand what compelled him to wear so many. Or to wear pants that tight.

While Jo mused over the mystery caller, I looked around the room again. Jamie's side possessed some semblance of order. Books were lined against the wall beside his bed. Pamphlets advertising rentals and apartments tumbled out of the garbage bin. Barefoot, Jamie squeezed past me and sat on his bed, crossing his legs under him. He waved to get Theo's attention and whistled.

Theo circled three times, curled up, and rested his head on Jo's knee.

"Is he really deaf or does he only pretend to be around me?"

"He can't hear anything as far as I can tell." I ruffled his ears, flopping them back and forth. "I think he can hear Jo."

"Everyone can hear Jo. That's why this is our fourth hotel."

Jo ignored us, petting Theo's rump absentmindedly as she rifled through the pages of her notebook. The thin cream sheets were filled with her large loopy notes. Her fingers stopped on a page that contained only a few scrawled lines. Jamie handed her a pen before she could ask. She jolted down another line, along with the date and time.

"Are you documenting it?"

"I'm documenting _everything_ that has happened, and not just to us." She gestured with the pen between her and her twin. "It took a while to get all the dates sorted. After that, I incorporated everything useful from the police file and the video Lupe stole."

"Jamie told me about it."

"We know it's not you." Jo tapped the pen against her mouth. "If we really thought it was, you'd be tied up right now. Don't worry."

"Then why did you want my shoe size?"

The pen froze against her lip. "No reason."

Jamie snorted.

"Have you found anything useful from the clinic's laptop?" I picked up the notebook. She didn't stop me or looked concerned so I assumed she hadn't written anything about me in it.

Jo shook her head. "I can't crack the password. Nothing, no program, will let me in. I need that password."

Jamie flicked the sheets on his bed.

"Stan's good with computers." I recalled the programs he used to create cartoons and animated shorts. It wasn't hacking, but it was more than I knew how to do.

She narrowed her eyes. "If I can't get into that computer, no one can."

"Just because you're a Poser that doesn't mean you're a tech expert." Jamie rested his head on a fluffy pillow, his knees drawn to his chest as he lay on his side. Somehow, it was more alluring than the sight from minutes earlier.

"Big words from someone who can't figure out how to edit his own damn website. God, everything is so stupid. I'd murder whoever's doing this but I don't have the energy. Oh." Jo pulled handfuls of my curls close to her face. "You smell like coffee."

"Let him go."

I stared at Jamie. His eyes were closed, his voice thick with exhaustion.

"It's a twin thing," she whispered, releasing me.

"It's a we-have-lived-in-the-same-room-nearly-our-entire-life thing."

"You love sharing a bedroom with me." Jo pulled her laptop from under the top sheet. "You can't sleep unless I'm next to you."

"Stop sounding so incestuous."

Theo's head perked up as tension stiffened my shoulders and neck.

"You love it," Jo replied. "Creep."

"You're the creep."

"No, you are."

"No, you are."

Their bantering continued as Jo searched through a file on her laptop. Jamie's _'No, you are'_ slowed with each round until they ceased all together. I moved up the edge of the bed and pretended to watch Jo work but my eyes kept straying to where Jamie lay. His breathing grew shallow as he drifted into sleep. A thick lock of hair slipped out of the knot and covered his ear. He brushed it away and curled his hands under his chin.

Theo rolled onto his back between Jo and me. Her lengthy, bulleted file on the screen was gone. Jo had switched to a social media site and started a conversation with a small picture of Darcy. The chaos on Jo's screen seemed like a deluge of too much unimportant information. Still, I wondered if I created one who would accept me as a friend. Jo most likely would and Jamie probably would as well. Stan or Kiko? Probably not. The only two I could absolutely count on were too old to use any of those sites, though I thought Ben had some accounts to promote his bookstore. It was the biggest side effect of agoraphobia: never leaving the house meant never making friends.

The number of Jo's friend list was a thousand times higher than the one I had in my mind for my theoretical account. How she made so many friends when she was too ill to leave a hotel room was beyond my imagination. Perhaps she made them all before she got sick.

Jamie rolled over.

The screen changed again. Now, her conversation with Darcy took over the entire screen instead of just a small corner of it. Lupe, Darcy, and Stan's names appeared in bold letters with each incoming message, all of them talking over each other too rapidly for me to even try to read.

Theo sunk into the mattress as I scratched his white belly.

"Tomorrow. Darcy's house at two. We're having a meeting to figure out what we should do," Jo told Jamie. A slight shrug of his shoulder was the only indication he heard her. She turned to me. "Does that work for you?"

I shrugged. She rolled her eyes and sent a one word response back to the group message before closing the laptop. A series of texts illuminated the screen on her phone.

"How did you get so many friends?"

"Posey," Jo said flatly. "School. Almost none of them are real friends though, and most of them only talk to me because they want to date my brother."

Across the room, Jamie mumbled, "No, you are."

#  SHORELINE DREAM

Salt strewn air blew across my lips. The heavy air filled my lungs. Dark blue water stretched into infinity around me under a crystal blue sky. Seagulls cried out from the beyond. My face itched with heat, burning under the cloudless sky. Sand shifted under my toes, gravity slipping. Waves roared and crashed into me, pushing me under the ocean's surface. Cool water slipped under my clothes, stinging and caressing every part of my body. Fine grains of sand floated up as the current pushed me against the ocean floor. Water eked past my lips and salt bit at my tongue with furor as I struggled to find the surface.

Bubbles sloshed past my ears. A dark hand reached down and grabbed my arm, pulling me up to the surface.

"Dude, I was kidding. Don't tell me you can't swim either." Stan gripped my arm as another wave crashed over us. "Come on, she's waiting."

He turned me around and pointed me in the direction of the shoreline. I wasn't alone in infinity. Seagulls lined electrical polls above the coast. People in swimsuits lounged on brightly colored towels on the shore. A few took shelter under the shade of umbrellas.

Jo stood at the edge of the water in a sunflower patterned dress, which danced along the breeze. One hand clamped to a wide brim straw hat. A long pink ribbon, tied around the crown, had come undone and fluttered violently, streaming behind her. In her other hand, Theo's leash dangled. "Come on! It's almost noon!"

"Where am I?" Sunlight poured through the tall fronds. I shielded my eyes. "Is that a palm tree?"

Stan trudged up the sandy shore, wringing the water out of his red shirt. I stopped, breathless, beside him and Jo. Ocean water ran down my face and burned my eyes. Heat returned quickly to my cheeks. Red, angry skin covered my arms. I held them up and stared at the sunburns with wonder.

"We're never going to find this Angel," Jo fumed, stepping back as the water lapped dangerously close to her sandals. "Dammit. That's it. I'm done with this game. God, I hate California. Stupid, stupid sun. I can't believe I miss Canada."

"What are we doing?" I asked as they walked toward the boardwalk. Rows upon rows of brightly colored tourist shops and restaurants bordered the west. Beyond, the broad ocean stretched across the planes of the earth. Waves crashed like clouds on the shore.

"We're going to war," she snarled.

"War? War with who?"

"We're going to war with France!" she shouted over her shoulder. A gull squawked. Theo whined, cowering as the giant bird dove dangerously close to him. Jo halted dead in her tracks. She turned around. "Oh, _shit_! The shore! We're in a—"

#  STARTING OVER

"Why did you leave?"

Olivia looked almost like she had the last time I visited her two years ago. Same deep wrinkles still set in the corners of her eyes. However, her hair had turned entirely gray. The psychiatrist's office was in a new location but her methods were the same. A yellow notepad rested on her knee. Every time she uncrossed and crossed her legs it slipped and I would get glimpses of doodles and random letters. She had her own code to prevent patients from knowing what was being noted about them.

"You keep looking at the clock. Do you have somewhere to be?"

I shook my head.

"Your foster father, Ben, told me what happened, but I want to hear it from you. Why did you run away?"

"I saw her." I swallowed hard as the memory resurfaced. The chattering and hum of a busy cold day, cigarette smoke drifting along the wind. She put it out on the bricks under her tattered shoe and yanked him by the arm, pulling him inside. "On the street, waiting outside a homeless shelter."

"How did she react to seeing you after so many years?"

She had looked normal, polite even, as she followed the line to collect food. Nothing like the vacant evil I remembered. But something behind my mother's eyes had shattered when she looked up from the hot plate before her and saw me, as if she was seeing the devil lay her sins before her. A fork clattered on the floor. The little boy with the same face as me had winced at the noise.

I shrugged. "She didn't really say anything."

"And she had another child? Your brother?"

"Will."

"Will?" Olivia watched me carefully. "How do you feel about her giving him your middle name? Do you think she was attempting a do-over?"

I nodded. Theo lay under my feet, his breath warm on the spot where my jeans exposed my ankle. Ben had crafted a story for Olivia. Built on a foundation of truth, the details had been swapped out for something safer. She didn't know about the verves and murdered clones. The version she heard had been created on the support beams of a more plausible, realistic tale.

"Did you get to know him before the car crash?"

I nodded.

"What was he like?"

"Quiet."

"Like you?"

"Like me." I weighed my words. "In that first year."

"Scared?"

I nodded.

"How long were you with them? Eight months? Did you bond with them at all in that time?"

"I don't know." I paused. "Not with her, she ignored me. She—she was angry. But Will . . . He didn't talk much. I think there was something wrong with him. Or maybe he was like me and he needed help. I tried to help him, but he . . ." I inhaled. "But then they were gone."

"The man driving the car, Morgan, he was supposed to be helping your mother get clean but he took both of them from you. Are you angry with him?"

"He's dead." Well, most of him are.

"He crashed the car on purpose. Surely, you feel like you've had something taken away from you. Your mother was taken away from you when you were put in foster care, and then taken away again with her death."

"I didn't runaway to be with her. I don't care about her. I didn't leave for her. I never cared about her."

Theo looked up and I took a breath. It didn't help.

"I hate her." I could still see the shiny scars on Will's arms. "She was as bad as he was. I don't mean, she didn't . . . She was mean. I'm glad I never have to see her again. But, Will didn't deserve to die."

"Why did it take you so long to return to your foster parents after their deaths?"

"I was afraid they wouldn't . . . That they would be angry I had left."

And then Jo fell out of an air vent during a storm. Darcy cried in the kitchen over strawberry ice cream. I wanted to help them. To save Bennett.

"Do you feel better now that you're back with Ben and Dan? Like you belong? Or do you think about leaving?"

"I only left to save Will." The air was thick. It burned against my skin. "I couldn't leave him with her. He was too young." I blinked rapidly. "He couldn't protect himself."

"How did you protect him?"

"I didn't! Do you see him? He's dead. I messed up!"

She ignored my outburst. "Tell me about the day he died."

"It's really hot in here. Can I open a window?"

"I'll open a window while you tell me about Will's death." She set her pen on the table and went to the window. Her wrinkled hand turned the lock. It slid open easily. The air that gusted in was warmer than the air in the room. "Where were you when you found out?"

"I woke up and I . . . I knew he was gone. He wasn't supposed to leave our room. I made him promise to never leave my sight." Warm air choked me and my voice became uneven. "He never left the room. He listened to me. So, I know that someone forced him, that Morgan took him down . . . to the car. I was asleep. We should have left before then. I should have made Will sneak away and go to a shelter or the police, but he was too scared to go by himself. I didn't save him. I killed him."

"That man killed him, Langdon. Will's death is not your fault."

"Yes, it is," I snapped. "I was the only one who cared about him and I failed him. He's dead because of me. Because I was too stupid. I didn't know what to do before, and—"

"Before?"

"Before in the apartment with . . . him. I didn't learn anything. I didn't know what to do to save Will."

"You said Will was too young to seek safety on his own? How old was he?"

"Eight, I think."

"Eight. Almost the same age you were when your father started abusing you." She waited for the comparison to hit me. "Don't you find it hypocritical to expect more of yourself? You weren't too stupid to protect yourself then: you were young and scared. Just like Will was too young and scared. I know you won't understand this right now, but I want you to remember what I'm going to say in the years to come. When you're thirty or forty, you're going to look back and say the same thing about yourself at this age that you said about Will. You're too young. You are seventeen years old. You were even younger when Will died. You were much younger when the abuse started. What happened in both situations was not your fault. Remember that."

The clock's small hand moved over the number two.

"I want to come back to this topic later when you feel like you can talk about it more. Right now, the reason you're here is because your foster fathers think it would be best if you went back on the medication you were on before you left. They told me you've become reclusive and agitated. That you even had an episode."

"I didn't have an episode."

The mirror world left a stronger impression than any panic attack or dissociation ever had. Stronger than the not-memories, whose details faded like a dream upon waking back in reality. But an ache deep inside my left arm echoed every time I reflected upon the mirror world and the people within it. I couldn't explain it to Olivia, or to anyone who knew the actual truth—not without worrying them. What I had seen in the mirror wasn't attributed to any mental disorder. It had something to do with the REV.

"Your neighbor found you unresponsive."

"I just didn't want to talk to her."

Olivia suppressed a sigh. "Langdon—"

"I don't like taking medicine. I'm not me when I'm on it. I'm fake. My life is fake. It sugarcoats the world."

"Or maybe the pills provide serotonin to show you what the world really looks like," she countered. "What _you're_ really like. Langdon, a person cannot see the world as it is through a fog of anxiety and depression. Your mind is so consumed with worry and negative thoughts that you can't fully live in the moment."

Big clear crystals in the shape of flowers balanced on top of her flat shoes. She pulled her feet under her. The side of the armrest pressed against the top of a foot.

"You were doing well on it before. You were active, participating in life. You entered that contest, remember?" She waited. "Are you concerned that your friends will judge you for being on medication?"

I shook my head, wondering when, or even why, Ben told her I had friends. Maybe because it was such a miracle.

"One of them goes to the doctor a lot. She has a disease, so it's not like—" I paused. I had seen Jo cry, get upset, shout, hug. Emotions and healthy expressions came naturally to her. Did physical illnesses outweigh mental ones to Jo? Was she bitter that I had an unappreciated functioning immune system? Refusing to leave the house when she _couldn't_. "I don't know."

"Do you like her?"

"Yeah, she's great."

"But," she leaned forward, "how would your friend's life be if she didn't take medicine?"

"She needs to take it. She's sick. Without it, she'd probably be too sick to get out of bed."

"And how is that any different from you?" Olivia sat back. "Imbalances in your head make you feel bad, just like imbalances in your friend's body makes her feel bad. Both issues can be resolved with the right medication. Both are nothing to be ashamed of. Just because one is invisible it doesn't mean it's any less valid." A low groan escaped me and she smiled. "Tell me about this girl. Your foster father told me she visits you nearly every day."

"Yeah."

"Is she nice?"

"I'm not sure that's the first word I would use to describe her."

"Then how would you describe her?"

"Loud. Funny." Olivia rolled her wrist, motioning for me to continue. "I mean, she's great. I don't like her like that. She's a good friend. It's not like that. I'm not worried that her finding out I'm crazy is going to ruin my chance at a date, if that's what you're getting at."

I had no idea why adults kept thinking I was interested in Jo.

"You're not crazy. You struggle with some things but that does not mean you're crazy."

"You sound like my d—foster dad."

"I'll take it as a compliment." She smiled. "I won't make you take medication. No one will make you do anything you don't want to do. All I'm asking is that you give it a try, one more time. I think you'll see the positive difference a balanced mind can have."

Theo rolled onto my shoe. It wasn't the medicine. I actually didn't mind taking it and only stopped because I didn't remember to take it with me when I ran away. I didn't take anything that night. Instead, I had kissed each dog on their head, Theo twice, and slipped into the unknown. I checked every park bench in the city until I found them. Her, I didn't care about. But Will? He needed me. He would never have been safe with her.

"I thought it would be better by now." I blinked. Why hadn't I taken him from that park bench and run back to Marigold Court? Why did I listen to Morgan when he approached us a week later, promising help?

"You thought what would be better?"

"Everything." I swallowed and stared at the bright light until the burning in my eyes vanished. She waited patiently until I continued. "I thought that when I was thirteen and drank so much I almost died that was it. That I would be better, that I hit the bottom. But things keep getting worse. When does it get better? Does it ever get better?"

No matter what, this was always how I was going to be.

No matter what, this was always _where_ I was going to be.

Bouncing off the lowest point.

Olivia slipped her glasses off and set them on top of her yellow notepad. "A life isn't saved in one moment, Langdon, but by many small ones. There's no grand gesture that fixes everything. There isn't one big turning point. It's in our choices. Even if someone pulled you off a bridge, the debt isn't owed entirely to them. It's still your actions, to not jump right back on the ledge five minutes or five days or five years later, that saves you as well. The choices we make to continue living aren't always easy and they aren't always obvious. Not until you're looking back at how far you've come."

#  FOLLOWER COUNT

Marc's Café was deserted. The aggressive wind and ominous clouds kept all the customers away, except for Theo and me. Inside, heat stifled the small café. Marvin gave me a cup of coffee for no charge. He said it was because it was the last of the batch made hours before, but I think it was because he wanted to get back to his phone. A movie had been paused on the small screen as he filled a large paper cup. His earbuds were back in before I even sat down at the table in the corner.

Safe from the oncoming storm, and isolated in solitude, the café would have been a nice place to wait out the next few hours as I pretended to be with Jo. But this was too close to home. Either Ben or Dan would stumble upon me, or Marvin would let it slip that I had spent several hours sitting here by myself the next time Ben came in. I needed to move.

My appointment with Olivia had been at the same time as the meeting at Darcy's house. Even though I lied and told Ben we were going to see a movie, I couldn't get him to agree to reschedule the appointment. He had told me to ask Jo to pick another showing. I almost called her before I realized something.

They would be crammed into a single room in Darcy's house and I would panic.

They would want to get lunch somewhere and Theo and I would get kicked out.

They would accuse me of working with Judas or lying about Will's body.

They would demand to know what was wrong with me, why did I have to go to therapy.

I had told Dan that I called Jo and that we planned to meet at the café after my appointment to go do normal things. I had told Jo nothing. She had the entire group to contend with. I wouldn't be missed.

The light of Ben's bookstore reached across the gray parking lot toward my window, where I sat, sipping the bitter coffee. Theo whined and I reached down to pat his head.

I almost liked being depressed. It's intimate. I could feel every corner of my mind. Like the texture of my bedroom walls, every bump, every crack, every curve—I knew it all. Was I going to change after the medicine wound itself into my bloodstream? Was it even possible for me to change?

Wind howled through the café as a small figure struggled to get past the door. Their curly hair caught the gust and flew wildly. Their thin arms were filled with an overflowing paper sack that hindered their entrance. Blue eyes lit up as they spotted me, door slamming shut. They bounced to my table and dumped the sack onto it, nearly knocking my coffee over in their haste.

"You were right!" They exclaimed, "Food is amazing!"

Behind the counter, Marvin continued to look at his phone.

"How do you know if you're allergic to some food? Because I ate all the muffins you gave me and threw up. Does that mean I'm allergic to muffins? I don't want to throw up again. It was not an experience I want to repeat."

Tiny hands pulled out a family-sized bag of chips and ripped it open. Salt and fragments of chips splattered across the table.

"Ok, so I did more research on Angel and—" They shoved a fistful of chips into their small mouth. "Why are you looking at me like that? Am I early?"

"It's you."

"Yes. I mean, I would hope I'm me."

The spy from my dream about the school. The figure in the Hardings' New York home. Those clear blue eyes were the same ones that saved me from the horrible mirror world.

"Who are you?"

"Me, I hope." They popped another handful of chips into their mouth and plucked out a package of gummy worms. "Don't worry, I won't feed this to the loud things again."

"What's your name?"

"I still haven't decided. I was thinking something cool and smooth. Like maybe Infinity." They pursed their pale lips in thought, tilting the chair back. "It's hard naming yourself."

"Who _are_ you?"

"Ok, fine," they conceded. "Eternity. I really like Eternity. No, wait. Oh, I don't know. Names are such anchors."

Theo didn't raise his head as crumbs fell onto the floor before him.

This spy was nearly impossible to decipher. Somethings were obvious. Most were not. Younger than me? Yes. Smaller than me? Definitely. Boy? Maybe? Girl? Maybe that, too? A round face as pale as mine stared back across the table. Thick cheeks that didn't match their thin figure chewed as bright clear eyes gazed at me with anticipation. A loose white shirt draped over their body like a sheet. Thin curling hair hung lank. I almost didn't recognize them without the scarf.

"You."

"You're really freaking me out." They gulped. "Am I not me?"

"You put Jo in the morgue."

They shoved another clump of gummy worms in their mouth and nodded. Words muffled around the mouthful of candy.

"What?"

"I was following orders."

"Who's orders?"

"Yours."

"No, you weren't. Why would I ever tell someone to do that?"

"Because those dominoes were going to throw her in the incinerator. This isn't relevant." They frowned, muttering as they pried the melted clump into single worms, "Ok, so Angel can't be that far away. I—"

"Angel?" The name echoed like a dream stored in the back of my mind. Angel. A little boy sobbing into his mother's chest. "Who's Angel?"

They pulled my cup of coffee toward them and took a sip, squinting at my hand. "Oh, no. This is the wrong time. What time is it? Is this spring? Is spring when the trees die?"

"Who are you?"

"Why are you never in the right place?" They stood and knocked the sack over, its contents spilling across the table.

"How do you know me?"

"You'll find out." They snatched a bag of small white donuts and shoved it back in the sack.

"Are you one of us? Which clinic are you from?"

"The first one." Spidery fingers snatched a small carton of chocolates and dropped it in the sack.

"What do I call you? What are you?"

"A plot point."

"A _what_?"

"I am," they huffed, "an amalgamation of all the thoughts and experiences I have been exposed to, both those I am aware of and those I am not."

"I meant," I sputtered as they hovered. One foot forward, ready to dash. "Are you a boy or a girl?"

"No."

"But—"

"Listen, _boy_." They leaned forward. The sack crinkled in their pale arms. "You can take comfort in your arbitrary definitions. It's all some people have. But don't put them on me. I'm running my own story, all right? Or I'm trying to, at least."

"You stole Jo's REV."

"I did not."

"You have it. You told me at the school."

"What school? When were we at a school?"

I couldn't find an answer. When were we at the school?

"Look, someone at this table stole Jo's REV, but it wasn't me." A dirty hand gestured to the sleeping border collie. "And while Theo is a smart dog, I don't think he's _that_ smart. Now, if you will excuse me, I'll be right back once I figure out when this is and why I'm here." They rushed quickly to the entrance. One small foot touched the threshold and they were gone. Not merely outside. Gone.

My chair crashed to the floor as I ran through the door after them. Clouds, thick with impending rain, greeted me. Strong wind howled and rattled the chairs against the outside tables. Striped umbrellas bellowed and flapped. I spun around, looking up and down the walkway.

"Oh, this is early in your story," the same small voice spoke behind me. They lounged in a chair that had been vacant a moment earlier. Sack full of food gone. The sequined scarf was back, fluttering fiercely in the breeze.

"Who are you?"

"You'll figure it out." Their chair leaned back dangerously on two legs. "That's not important. I am not important in your story right now."

"Story?"

"You don't appreciate them, do you?" The sequined purple scarf held their curls down as the wind blew mine into my eyes. "You don't appreciate the stories. You have so many at your fingertips, right in your own back yard, but you don't even care about them. You're only focused on your own. I guess I can't fault you for that. I was really focused on mine for a while." Their eyes grew distant, glazing over the bookstore behind me before jumping back to my face. "But I like your story."

"What do you mean my story?" I walked cautiously toward their table, afraid they would vanish again. "I'm not a story. I'm a person."

"What are stories made of except for people? What are people made of except for hope?" A fresh bruise on their cheek caught my eye. "Every story is the same. You know one, you know them all. But your story is one of my favorites."

"Glad it's someone's."

"You don't even know your story."

"I know it better than anyone else."

"Do you? Do you know how it ends?" They tilted their head. "How does it begin? Have you figured that out yet? I can give you a hint."

"I can guess how it ends. It's not a long one." I reached for Theo's leash. My hands met air. I turned around. He stood on his hind legs inside the café, pawing desperately at the glass door. Behind the counter, Marvin looked up in bewilderment.

"But it is. I've seen it. It's a very long story." They grinned. "You're just confused. Beginnings often feel like endings."

"What?"

"Just some nonlinear nonsense. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it. Once you get out of your own way, that is."

I stopped halfway to Theo. Frustration building in my chest. I pointed at them. "No, it's going to end soon. This, whatever this is, is going to end."

"So fixated on finality. Why do you think it will stop at the end? What about the middle? The beginning?"

"I've had a lot of beginnings, but there's only one ending."

"Asked me when."

"What?"

"Ask me when." They leaned forward, whispering, "Ask me when your story begins."

"I'm not playing your game." I yanked the café door open and Theo ran out, whining and dragging his leash. "Fine. When does my story start?"

"Midnight." A giggle built in their chest and erupted into full laughter. "Don't you see? The end and the beginning? Everything is a circle. Every story just goes around and around. Even yours. And you're taking shortcuts that no one else gets."

"What do you want from me? Who are you?"

They leaned back in the chair with a resigned sigh. Thunder rumbled. "Just think of me as your saving grace. Your deus ex machina."

"My French isn't that good."

They snorted. "I'm offering you my help."

"Why would you help me?"

"Not just you. All of you. I love Midnight. She's hilarious. Such a fighter. Do you know she nearly killed me once? That was fun. Were you there? I have a hard time keeping things in order." They held a palm out to catch the first raindrop. "Jude was so mad. _You can't risk getting that close to them, blah, blah, blah._ I was just trying to help. Like I am now."

"I took help from a stranger before. I'm not doing it again." I tied Theo's leash to a chair, just in case things got physical. I approached them. "You want to help? You're going to give Jo back what's hers."

"Don't get too close! You still have the—" Their face vanished.

Wind howled through the chair where they had been sitting. Theo barked. His anchor screeching across the concrete patio as he struggled towards me. I stepped back and slipped his leash from the knot.

"We have to get out of here."

* * *

One long metro ride later, I ducked between two trees at one of the busiest tourist spots in Old Port. The space was loud, filled with families and children. It was the worst place to go if I wanted to stay calm. Which was exactly why I chose it. This spy had been watching us. It was never Jamie they were after that day they called his phone. It was me.

And if they had been following me, they would have figured out I stayed away from crowded places.

Theo crawled under the bench. His cold nose pressed against my ankle.

"I need a phone, Tee," I muttered. "I need to call Jo."

A groan slipped out as I realized it didn't matter if I could get to a phone. I didn't know her number. It was scrawled in Dan's handwriting, taped to the wall beside the home phone. The only numbers I had memorized were Ben's, Dan's, and their workplaces'. There was no way I was going to call them and drag them into danger.

I needed help. Think, you stupid idiot. What would Jo do? I shook my head. She would have grabbed the spy before they vanished. She would have run to the store and asked Ben for help.

No. Jo's logic wouldn't work. What would Jamie do? He knew to run that day, to draw attention away from home. But I didn't know how to drive, much less have a car I could speed away in.

"Darcy," I whispered, then a bit louder, "Darcy, can you hear me?"

A little girl shrieked for a balloon. I closed my eyes.

"Darcy, can you hear me? Someone is following me. Please. I need help." Panic welled in my lungs, fluttering, as desperation settled in like a fever. My voice cracked, "I'm by the clock tower. Tell Jamie to come get me."

I opened my eyes and looked up at the ticking black hands far above. If they were still at Darcy's house, and if Darcy got my message, and if Jamie left now before there was any real traffic . . .

"Thirty minutes. We're leaving in thirty minutes," I told Theo.

"Where are we going?" The spy sat down beside me and gazed onto the Saint Lawrence River. "Oh, ocean!"

"Why are you following me?" I jumped up. A few tourists turned to look at us. "What do you want?"

"I'm trying to make a point."

"Then you can make your point when my friend gets here."

"Is it Midnight?" Their eyes, the same color as the river, glittered with excitement.

"It's Jamie."

They rolled their eyes.

"Jamie's the strongest—"

They scoffed.

"You'll wish you had run when he gets here."

"You think I'm scared?" they retorted. "Morgan had over a hundred experiments, but only one subject succeeded. Midnight's verve was good but unstable. She was nowhere near becoming the full potential. Angel is the one who does. We have to stop him. For everyone's sake."

"Good luck with that." I started to back away.

"You want to help me, _boy_. I know you do."

"If you want help, you need to talk to Jo and Darcy. They—"

"No, I only work with you. This is all my fault. I will fix it."

"It is not your fault. I—"

"—was the first to survive the implant. I know. But this is not on you." Clear irises gazed at me, electric with anger. "We are the only ones who can stop this mess, so stop trying to get rid of me. I can't save everyone alone. Not like this. Not with only one verve."

I looked at the crowd walking around us. Jamie had to be on his way. If I could stall, gather information . . .

"You're collecting them?"

I had thought Jo was collecting REVs when I first met her. I was wrong. But now, the idea came back.

"I need the strongest verves to challenge Angel. I need yours."

"Why would I give you mine?" I backed away, tugging on Theo's leash. "Why would you want it? It's stupid."

"Don't you know?" Pale eyebrows furrowed as they rose from the bench. "Haven't you figured it out? You're the Liminal Boy. Aside from me and Angel, you're the strongest!"

"No, you're wrong." I shook my head and backed up the pathway, leading them away from a group of schoolchildren. "Do you know where Judas is?"

"Judas? He's dead."

"What?"

"He's been dead a long time."

"How did he die?"

"Um, what was it called? A brain thingy." A short index finger jabbed the scarf against their scalp. "He died in his sleep."

An unknown weight lifted from my chest. Judas was dead? Did that mean we were safe? All of us?

"Do you think it's better to know when you're going to die or should it be a surprise? I don't think I should have told her. I think it made her sad." Their eyes fell to the ground. "Did she look sad to you?"

The phone call as I sat on the wet washroom floor. Jamie outside the bakery, so broken on the day of a funeral.

"How does Jo die?" I stepped forward, the weight falling back heavier than ever.

"Jo?" They opened their mouth and paused. "No, I probably shouldn't tell you that. It will make you sad too—"

"Tell me!"

"—and you're sad enough as it is."

"I can save her!"

"You need to put your mask on first, Liminal Boy."

"What does that even mean? What's liminal?"

"We don't have much time. Angel is getting stronger. I need you to step up and fulfill your part. Everything is doomed without you."

"You're asking the wrong person. I can't help you. I can barely take care of myself."

"Exactly," they pleaded. Blue eyes stared at me with anticipation. "It's going to happen one way or the other and when you reach that point this entire story will depend on you. You have to be ready to make the right choice."

"I haven't made the right choice once in my entire life. Find someone else to be your hero."

"But you're the only one in the whole world who can do it. Please, _boy_. You promised."

"I don't keep promises."

"But—"

"The last promise I ever made was to my brother. Do you know where he is?"

"Yes." They nodded eagerly. "In the nice place. I put him there."

"What?"

"I'm sorry I scared you in the clinic, by the way. I think we have it figured out now."

"Stop, just stop! What do you mean he's in a nice place? How do you know about Will?"

"I know that what Morgan did was cruel. I tried to fix it. I put him in a better place. A nice place like you wanted."

"Where is he? Where did you put him?"

They stumbled back as I stormed toward them. "Don't touch me!"

* * *

Theo's chest rose and fell as he rested between the legs of my chair. We had jogged away from the clock tower after the spy vanished, circled around the courthouse, slowing down only when we reached Old Port again. We had ducked into a corner table in a café with a clear view of the road that lead up to the clock tower. If Darcy received my message, Jamie would arrive at any second. Theo snorted.

"Five minutes and we're out of here, Tee."

"You might want to carry him the next time you take off. He looks tired."

I groaned as they took the empty chair opposite me. A porcelain cup filled with tea clinked gently against the saucer.

"Hibiscus green tea?" They made a face as they peered into the light green liquid. "It smells good."

"Why?"

"It bothers you that I know where to find you, doesn't it?" They picked up the tiny white cup with two hands. A chipped nail was broken far back on their left thumb. "You learned the skill early, didn't you?

"Shut up." I wrapped Theo's leash around my hand.

"You learned to hide in plain sight, the spot where everyone looks last. You mastered that skill early because of him."

A wide delivery truck had stalled on the road, blocking my view of where Jamie would pull up.

"You're so different in this time."

I looked back as they blew on their tea, fuming. They took a sip then screwed up their lips. "This is awful. Why did you tell me to get this?"

"What do you want from me?" I leaned forward, lowering my voice. "You want my verve? Guess what? I don't know how to give it to you even if I wanted to! Go ahead and kill me. You still couldn't get it out without breaking it."

They sat the cup down with a clink. "I'm not going to take it from you. You're going to give me your REV so I can challenge Angel."

The truck still hadn't budged. I leaned back in my chair but my view was still blocked. "Why don't I save you the trouble and fight Angel myself? Will you leave me alone then?"

They let out a high-pitched giggle. "You can't fight Angel. You _won't_ fight Angel. That's the problem. None of you will. Not even Midnight and she picks a fight with everyone. Have I told you she almost killed me once?"

"So, why—?"

"I need as many of the highest calibrated implants I can get in this short amount of time we have been allowed. You are the only one who can help me because you know the truth."

"Which is?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why?"

"Because you wouldn't believe me." They took another sip and grimaced. "Here's your ultimatum, _boy_. One day, you are going to take a step. When that day comes, you need to have chosen which direction. Ultimatum! I should have gone with Ultimatum. That's so much cooler. I mean, who wants to challenge someone named Ultimatum? No one."

"Why are you so obsessed with names?"

"You tell me, Lanny-Lan-Langdon." My names rolled off their tongue. "You know all about the different faces a person can have."

"How do I find the truth?"

"You're already finding it. The not-memories."

"How do you know about that? I haven't told anyone about those."

"I know about the not-memories the same way I knew you would go from Marc's Café to the clock tower to here."

Silence hovered around us as my mind churned, searching for answers.

"You have Midnight's verve."

"Oh, _boy_." They groaned, slumping over the table. "How many times do I have to answer this? I thought we covered this already."

"Time is stopped." The truck blocking my view of Jamie's arrival wasn't stalled. Time was. Gravity was still present, but weaker. It had taken me too long to notice. "She was the only one who could be in this weird state with me."

"Liminal. It's a liminal space. Every REV is programed by the host, which results in the verve. Even when an implant is removed it is still tuned to that host, so it retains the verve. But not for long. Just like this moment. This is awful, I'm ordering something else." They stood up with the tea and saucer. "You'll see me in a bit."

Noise resumed in the café and the truck continued down the road.

* * *

A few blocks over was a park with a wide bridge that stayed dry underneath. We could reach it before the storm and figure out where to go next. A low roar rumbled overhead. Even Theo looked up at the plane as its vibrations shook the ground.

"Have you ever been on a plane?"

I groaned, turning around to face the spy. They sat in the middle of a dark brown picnic table, shuffling a brightly colored deck of cards.

"There are these masks that drop down from the ceiling that give you oxygen." Short pale fingers mimed placing a strap over their head. "The rules say you should put your own mask on before putting them on the people around you. What do you think that says about humanity?"

I dropped the leash. Theo was frozen in place, his eyes locked on the clouds. "That people are stupid."

A thin-lipped smile spread across their face. "I think it means a lot of people need to be reminded to help themselves before they can help others."

"Are we playing a game now?"

"I'm playing. You're not."

"No," I agreed. "I'm not."

"Do you want to see where you are in the story?"

"I thought I wasn't playing."

"This is you." They picked a bright yellow card and flicked it through the air. It floated toward my face and I plucked it out of the air.

"The Fool," I read the tarot card slowly, looking at the image of a long-haired boy with a dog walking straight off a cliff. "Thanks."

"It's a good card. It stands for the beginning. And this? This is me." They flashed a card of a person in red, an assortment of items surrounding them. "But this is Angel . . . Wait, where did he go?"

"How will you stop him?"

"I don't know. But getting my hands on as many implants as possible is a start."

"Jo's is enough."

"It _was_ enough!" They slammed the deck against their leg. "Was! Until I actually saw Angel. You have no idea what he's like when he's at full potential! I had to make a choice and I chose this." They held up their left hand, thumb pressed against the usual spot the REV took root. "And I didn't steal Jo's REV. You gave it to me."

"I did not."

"You have not. But you will."

"Why would I help you?"

"We have a deal, Liminal Boy. You save me and I handle Angel."

"I'm not saving you! If you want help, you should ask Jamie. He doesn't need anyone to protect him. Jamie—"

"—thinks he can solve everything and that fallacy of logic is his downfall. It's what gives Angel his place on the top of the ladder."

"Jamie's in trouble?"

"Everyone is in trouble. Eclipsed, Daydream, you, this entire city, this continent! We already have one death that can't be undone and more are coming. Angel has to be stopped. I've seen him at the height of his power and it's not good. Aha!" Short fingers grasped another card. They held it up. The Grim Reaper looked dully out at me from the thick paper.

"Death?"

"I need you to work with me here," Jo's voice echoed in theirs. "It's symbolism. Death means change. Angel's ability to rewrite everything will roll out chaos unless you help me. Angel has to be stopped or he will destroy himself. He will destroy me. He has the power to destroy everyone."

"What do you mean change?"

"Angel can rewrite the world to his liking. He can change the past and future and make any story his own. He'll disrupt natural order and change the entire world."

"Let him. Maybe he'll do a better job of it."

"You don't understand. Haven't you seen it?" They hung their head. "Why can't you understand? Listen to me. Angel can change everything, but he can't change himself. He can't stop the laws that are already in motion inside him. Once his REV hits full potential and his verve is used nonstop—and Angel _will_ use his nonstop to constantly change the world to meet his needs—he will become a nuclear reactor. Everything and everyone around him will be affected. Think Hiroshima, only the bomb is a human heart."

"You know when he's going to die, right? You've seen it all. Just isolate him."

"Angel will still die."

"Why should I care? People die every day!" I wanted to take back the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Sobs from a buried memory in my head echoed. _Go, go._ Another scared little boy desperate for a safe place.

"Everyone will be affected," they repeated softly. "Think. I know you've seen this. You can find the answers. Find me and I will show you."

"I don't want to!" I snapped. "Every time I've seen you the world is messed up. It's awful."

"What have you found?"

I buried my eyes in my hands. "Mirrors. In the mirror world. You said Jamie, China Doll, would break."

"He's starting to crack. Eventually, he will."

"Do I break him? Do I do something to Jamie?"

It would be just like me to ruin the most beautiful soul on earth.

"Angel ruins everything. Not you. Remember this. What will happen is not your fault. It's all Angel's."

"Is this why you don't want to ask Jo for help?"

"Midnight's role has already been played."

"Leave me out of this. Let someone else handle it. Ask Darcy. She's smart. She'll know what to do. She'll protect Jamie."

Clear blue eyes pleaded. "Please. I promised you."

"Fine! Just tell me what you want me to do? Do you want me to fight Angel?"

"No."

"You want me to save Jamie? Jo?"

"No."

"Do you want me to rip this thing out of my hand and give it to you?"

"No."

"Then what do you want from me?"

"I want you to get ready."

"For what?"

"You will help me now or you will help me later, but you will help me. I made a promise that I intend to keep."

"I'm not doing this. I'm done. I'm not playing." I tossed the card back at them. "I'm leaving and you better not follow me."

"Yes and no." They tilted their head. "I won't follow you from here. But I am going to that café by the clock tower."

"I just—" I stopped. "We just came from there."

"You just came from there. But I haven't. Do they have tea? I want to try tea."

"Get the hibiscus green. You'll love it." The clouds above stayed still as frustration rolled inside me. "Tell me who you are."

"I have a few names." They shuffled Angel's card back into the deck. "I don't like any of them."

"Will you give me one?"

They inhaled slowly, considering. Pale blue eyes met mine. "You call me Continuum."

They were gone again. Trees rustled sound back into my ears. Clouds drifted in the wind and gravity anchored. The normal hum of the universe was restored to gentle background noise. Theo looked away from the sky and wagged his tail.

#  MEETING ADJOURNED

"Lanny!"

Darcy's dark blue eyes grew wide with relief as she opened the front door of her home. Her blonde wig was gone, white scalp shining under the porch light. Her house was five times the size of the one on Marigold Court. Behind me, a for-sale sign stood like a sentinel near the mailbox.

"Oh, my God! What's going on?" She pulled me over the threshold. I yanked my arm back. Theo stepped between us. "What happened?"

"I asked you for help, that's what happened!"

"What?"

"I told you I was in Old Port. I asked you for help!"

"Old Port?"

"The spy found me." I shut the door behind me, locked the deadbolt, then bent down to hook Theo's leash around his vest. "The one who called Jamie's phone."

Darcy didn't hear me. Her attention devoted entirely to Theo.

"Can my service dog come in?" I asked bitterly.

"Yeah." She blinked. "Sorry, it's just . . . uh. Lupe's cat."

"He's a service dog. He's trained to leave cats alone."

Jamie's black coat hung from a hook on the nearly empty coat stand beside the door. A large grandfather clock chimed at the other end of the hall. Jo's voice rang throughout the house.

"WHO IS IT?"

"It's Lanny!" Darcy paused. "I think. I don't know. This one has the dog."

"His name is Theo. What do you mean _this one_?"

Footsteps clattered through the house and Jo appeared. Her hands braced on either side of the doorway. "Is he normal?"

"He's bitchy," Darcy replied.

"Theo! The same old ugly shirt!" Jo rushed forward and pulled me into a hug. "This one's definitely him."

"What are you talking about?" My words were muffled by Jo's chest. Her thick heeled boots and embrace made our height difference a straight man's dream.

"This one's him!" Jo called out and lead the way up the hallway into a sitting room.

Stan rushed forward to squint at me. Lupe, curled on the couch, pulled her cat closer. I hadn't seen Keira since the clinic. A roll of fat jiggled on the cat's stomach as she bristled, arching her back at Theo.

Jamie sat on the floor. His face flushed as he looked at me. "Do you want me to ask him?"

"No, this is definitely the real one. He has Theo."

"Jamie should still ask. We can't take any—" Stan began.

"Shut up!" I shouted. The room fell into a tense, apprehensive silence. Jamie eased into a crouch, dark eyes focused on me suspiciously. "Did any of you even notice I was missing? I asked you," I pointed to Darcy, "for help. What is wrong with all of you? We're in danger and all you can do is talk about my dog!"

"We know." Jo sneered. "We didn't know you were missing. We thought you were late! But then you showed up, acting all crazy. Jamie, maybe you _should_ ask him."

Jamie rose.

"What do you mean I showed up? I've spent the last seven hours in Old Port!"

Jamie stepped between me and the others. "Are you a clone?"

"No." The word tripped over my tongue in its haste to reply. I did a double-take at him, a pang of betrayal in my chest. He had used his verve. On purpose. I lowered my voice, looking around the room, "Why do you think I'm a clone?"

"You showed up. But you were—"

"Weird," Lupe finished.

"Angry," Stan corrected. "You kept shouting at us. Like you are now."

"I have been playing hide and seek with someone named Continuum all around Montreal for seven hours! I wanted to go home. But I didn't. I came here to warn you that we're not the only experiments in this city. I even asked for help, but I guess I'm not good enough for you to listen for."

"And how do you expect me to hear you when you have this?" She grabbed my left hand and held it up to my face. The silver blocker ring caught the light and I wanted to punch myself for being so stupid.

"I told you," Stan muttered. Darcy glared at him.

I ripped my hand out of hers and rubbed away the tingling static hovering above my hand. Theo growled. I stared at her then turned to the others. "So, that's it? Does everyone in this room think I'm bad?"

"No," Jamie lied.

"You do! That's why you asked about my shoe size. You don't trust me!"

"I didn't—" Jo began.

"You're lying!"

"I am not. I wanted to get you new clothes as a birthday present because you always wear the same thing every day like a goddamn cartoon character. The person who put me in the morgue and filled out my body tag had no idea what race to mark me as. You straight up called me First Nation. We know it's not you."

Theo's growl turned into a hack. My rage faded as I realized how long we had been on the run. My stomach was in knots from tension and hunger. My head hung, heavy and pounding, as I looked at my worn and dirty runners.

"I'm sorry. Can he have some water?" I mumbled.

"Sure," Darcy replied.

"This other you showed up an hour after the meeting should have started. We were waiting for you. Then he came in and started shouting at us for being unmotivated, and how I was going to war with France."

I held my buzzing head. Darcy set a small bowl, decorated in pink fishes, on the floor before Theo. My back hit the wall as I groaned. Their voices continued like waves, bouncing between couples and trading topics.

"Jude said Morgan couldn't clone anyone other than himself."

"It was a lie."

"What if he made a clone out of all of us? How can we be certain we're the originals?"

"There's no other explanation."

"Lanny?" Darcy's voice moved closer. "Are you ok? Can I get you something? Water?"

I shook my head. "I could go for something stronger."

"There's a whole bottle of rum in there." Darcy pointed to a liquor cabinet in the corner. "And some other stuff. My parents used to entertain guests in this room. Hang on. I'll get the key."

"What would even be the point of making clones of us?" Lupe ruffled Kiera's back hair. The Bengal cat hadn't taken her eyes off Theo once as he lapped water out of her bowl.

Darcy slipped a key from behind a picture frame and unlocked the cabinet. "Help yourself. It's less I have to pack up when I move."

"Why are you moving? Do your parents want to get away from this mess?"

Darcy's parents travelled a lot, writing books or travel guides or something. Being left in charge of a younger sibling must have been what gave Darcy her mature persona. I picked up the decanter, filled to the brim with rum, and lifted it to my nose. Its aroma was filled with promises of relief and silence and numbness.

"They're dead." She set a tumbler on the dark wood before me.

I frowned as I poured, recalling what little I knew of Darcy.

"Our parents died a few months after Bennett's diagnosis, in a boating accident," she admitted. "I told her they were away studying sharks. I was going to tell her the truth once she got better."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged, sniffing. "I want out of this house. The three of us might go in on an apartment. It's funny. All I wanted was to go back home to South Carolina. Now that I can," she sighed. "I think it'll be easier to stay here instead of listening to my grandmother wail. I enrolled in college. I'm studying photography, but I have to take the boring basic classes first. I thought about dropping out, but I like it. It's a nice distraction even if I am failing all my classes."

"Darcy," the room felt warm enough for me to finally ask, "where's your wig?"

She smiled shyly. "Jo said I would look badass without it."

"You do."

"Thanks. I'm not sure I'm ready to walk out of the house without it. Not yet."

I picked up the decanter to top off my drink as the rumble of the other conversations heightened.

"Nothing is adding up and—" Jo stopped. She glared at the glass in my hand then turned accusingly to Darcy.

Darcy stared back at Jo as though she were listening to a breaking news segment. Her cheeks paled. Three fingers on her right hand fluttered off her thigh. It could have been a harmless gesture. A tic. But I knew what they were doing.

"What was the point of this meeting?" I took another shot. "To talk about how screwed we are?"

"Actually," Jo pulled Morgan's laptop out of the green bag, "I thought maybe someone else should try a crack at this."

Jo opened the laptop and set it on the coffee table before her. A dark gray screen illuminated, awaiting the password.

"Have you tried Montreal?" Lupe asked.

"I've tried every word and date combination I can think of."

I threw back another shot and casually poured the next.

"Lanny," Darcy said in a sweet, motherly tone, "Maybe you should slow it down."

"Je ne suis sas paouel."

"You're not what?"

"I'm not drunk." I downed a shot and slammed the glass on the table.

"No one said you were."

"You're looking at me like I am." I put the lid on the decanter to prove that I was done. The room had fallen uncomfortably quiet.

Jo broke the silence. "This laptop might be another dead end. I think the clones relied on paper files more than electronic ones. Darcy fried her phone last week and Stan electrified his nurse when she tried to test his blood pressure."

Stan muttered something under his breath and rolled his sleeve up to show the charred skin.

"If these implants are short-circuiting electronics, the clones wouldn't rely on this."

"Let me try." Lupe leaned forward, reaching. "I'm good at guessing."

Keira growled, her eyes on Theo, as Lupe moved. She grumbled, extending her nails into Lupe's thighs, and yowled. The spotted cat leapt through the air and landed heavily on the keyboard before rushing out of the room, hissing.

No one moved. An automatic welcome melody jingled and the screen flashed to life. Jo looked like she was going to scream. Or laugh. Lupe, like she was going to throw up.

The two girls leaned over the screen as Stan rushed up behind them. Jo's finger moved across the trackpad. Stan leaned over the couch to watch as Jo searched through the laptop resting on the coffee table.

"What's on it?" Jamie asked.

Lupe's lips moved as she counted, her finger touching the screen seven times.

"These are all of our personal files."

"Anything else?" Darcy asked hopefully.

"Let me look," Jo breathed. I held my breath as she clicked. Stan shook his head. "That's all. There's nothing. No information about the REV. Just seven folders with our names on it."

Silence hovered, thick with apprehension. My hand itched to grab the computer and delete my file before anyone could read it.

"Seven." Darcy stepped closer, eyeing the machine. "So, you have one?"

"Yes." Jo turned it around to show the rest of us. Seven small icons dotted the desktop. Nothing else. "I guess mine wasn't worth being printed out because I wasn't 'active' at the end of my trial."

"This is a trap. This is part of his game." Jamie stepped toward the table. All eyes turned to his lanky figure. "Knowing the reason why he thought we were weak isn't going to help any of us. It's only going to hurt us. Looking at everyone's history only proves we can't trust each other."

"Easy for you to say." Stan stepped forward. He turned to the rest of the room. "Whoever wants to read my file can. On the condition, I get to read theirs."

Darcy crossed her arms and shifted from foot to foot. A hand went absently to her head. Fear encroached her blue eyes when she realized her wig wasn't there. She gulped.

"You can read my file," Jo said flatly. "There's nothing in there I'm trying to hide."

Lupe chewed her bottom lip, her hand curling around her face. Tears brimmed in her eyes.

Theo whined, pawing my feet.

"Mine too," Darcy added reluctantly, hand falling away. "I have nothing to hide."

Stan faced Lupe and me. "What do you two say?"

Lupe's hand trembled against her cheek. Her eyes red, staring into the rug. A shudder shook through her chest as she slowly nodded once in agreement.

Everyone turned to me.

"No."

"Langdon," Darcy began softly. "It's ok. I—"

"I said no."

"That's why." Stan pointed at me and turned to the others. "That's why we can't trust him. He was the first. He has a clone running around. He has the ring. He's a spy!"

Jamie shook his head and raked the long hair away from his face.

"You don't believe me? You're on his side?"

Jamie's eyes flashed darkly at him. "You want to know why I'm here? Look at me. I have an eating disorder. I'm a cliché." He glanced at Jo then back to Stan. "Does that make you feel better? Does knowing that help anyone in this room?"

Jamie snatched the laptop from the table and threw it onto the floor. It shattered into a dozen pieces. His large black boot came down on the hard drive, crushing it into oblivion.

"Jamie!"

"This isn't going to help anyone," he raised his voice. Not with his verve, but with frustration. "This isn't about hiding anything. This is about trust. Don't you get it? This is still Judas' game. This is a trap and he's trying to divide us. He probably planted this, knowing that he would get caught, knowing the police wouldn't find it—but we would. I'm not playing along and I'm not going to make someone tell me why they think they're here. Judas picked the people he thought were weak. We are not what is in those files. We are not our diagnosis. We are not our circumstances." Jamie ground his heel into the last big piece of the hard drive. His flushed face turned toward mine. "We are not defined by what happened to us."

Darcy's hand went to her mouth as she stared at the fragments under Jamie's boots. "I really hope Jo was right when she said there wasn't anything else on there."

Stan stormed out of the room. Footsteps pounding to a sudden halt halfway down the hall then returning. He rushed back into the room, pointing at Jamie. "Why do you have to be like this? Acting like you're so perfect. This little show you're putting on is for your own ego. You do this stuff to make everyone like you. But you don't have the guts to do what needs to be done. We need to know what we're dealing with, not make friends!"

"Shut up." Lupe stood, fresh tears brimming in her eyes. Her voice shook, "Thank you, Jamie."

Stan spun around, shock splayed across his face.

She glowered at him. "Not everyone is like you, Stan. Not everyone is ready to talk about the things that hurt. I get what you're trying to do. You're trying to protect us, but you're doing it all wrong. Just like your parents did."

Uneasy silence filled the air.

"Speaking of my parents." Stan turned to me. "They went to the police. Someone dug up my grave again."

"What?" Jo piped up, lifting her gaze from the laptop fragments.

"It was in the newspaper. Security cameras got a clear view of a person who looks a lot like you walking through the main entrance with a shovel at three in the morning." He lowered his voice to a growl, "I guess you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

_I put him in a better place. A nice place like you wanted._

"No," I breathed.

He stepped closer. The sweat on his forehead winked in the low light. "What are you hiding from us?"

I took a long sip straight from the decanter. Theo weaseled between our legs.

Stan stepped away and shook his head as he walked to the archway. He stopped and looked back. "Lupe, I'm sorry."

"It's ok."

He paused and turned again. "Langdon, you need to get that hand checked out."

I looked down at my hands, confused. They looked normal. I shrugged and took another drink.

"That's enough, Langdon," Darcy groaned. "Stop it!"

"This isn't my fault!" I whined. Everyone's eyes turned to me. I looked at Theo, the wood grain under his paws curving and spinning like a kaleidoscope, then back at them. "Is it?"

"Jo, come on." Jamie picked up her green bag.

His twin stared at the broken laptop for a long moment. "No."

The two gazed into each other's eyes, holding a brief silent conversation that took only a second.

Jamie dropped her bag on the floor. "Langdon, let's go. I'll take you home."

#  JAMIE'S GIFT

"What's the name of that place you like? The one with the hamburgers you keep talking about?" Jamie turned the vent in the dashboard toward my face. Cold air blew my hair and tickled my forehead.

"The Orange—" I inhaled deeply, stifling a wave of nausea. "You drive fast."

"Not as fast as Jo."

"She drives _really_ fast. And cuts in front of cars."

A grin snuck across his face.

"Is Jo mad at you?"

"No." Passing cars illuminated his face in shades of golds and reds. "She's doing damage control. She'll smooth things over."

'Thank you' rolled up my throat and pressed against my lips. Lupe had said thanks. For some reason, it didn't seem like a simple thanks was enough for what he had saved me from revealing. It had been hard enough to hear Continuum throw my past out there so casually. The old cinema flew past the window.

"I thought we were going home."

"I am not returning you in this state. Ben already hates me enough." Red brake lights danced across his face as the car before us slowed. His strong jaw line cut through the shadows of the interior.

"Welcome to the club," I replied thickly as the car turned into a parking spot before a giant orange dome. My finger tapped the window. "Look, it's the Orange—Wait, are we getting food?"

Jamie laughed once as excitement filled me. I hadn't been this hungry in months and greasy hamburgers sounded more beautiful than anything in the entire world. Almost anything.

"You're so handsome." I reached out to touch the sharp line of his jaw. "I know you get that all the time, but you're _really_ handsome. Your skin is so smooth and you have the kindest eyes."

"Come on, Theo." Jamie rolled his eyes as he unbuckled his seat belt. "We can put aside our differences for one night. You'll need the backup."

Even at the late hour, we weren't the only ones inside the restaurant. A few students laughed from a booth while a handful of loners were spread out at individual tables, staring at their phones or listening to their headphones.

Jamie ordered while I laid across the seat of a booth by a window, reaching down to pet Theo, who had hidden himself below. Jamie appeared with a full tray and placed it before me. He slipped into the other side.

Grease burned my fingers and salt stung my lips as I shoved a handful of fries into my mouth. Jamie rolled a bottle of water between his hands, gazing out the window, as I took a bite of the cheeseburger.

"Sorry about the wait." A tall girl in an orange shirt placed a sundae before Jamie. She smiled at him, glancing back to our booth a few times as she returned to the counter.

Jamie pushed it toward me.

"This is a lot of food."

"You drank a lot."

"I did not."

"You drank half a bottle in less than twenty minutes."

"So?"

Jamie rolled his eyes and turned back to the window. Only a handful of cars waited in the parking lot beyond the glass.

"You don't have an eating disorder."

"What?"

"You don't have an eating disorder. I've met people with eating disorders and you're not one."

Group therapy as a child had exposed me to people with different struggles. There were so many broken people in this world it hurt to think about them all. The girls who starved themselves so they could feel beautiful or the girls who cut themselves so they could feel anything. The boys who hit things or stole. The ones who didn't say anything bothered me the most. Perhaps because I was one of them.

"If you did, you'd be staring at the menu or this." I gestured with a fry to the plates before me. "You lied."

A corner of Jamie's lips quirked. He put the bottle aside, crossed his arms, and leaned forward. "You got me."

"Then why—?"

"Jo blames herself. She thinks she led Morgan to me. So, I came up with something she would believe."

"There's nothing wrong with you."

"There's a lot of things wrong with me. Only there's no word for whatever I am."

My chin rested in my hand as I stared into his eyes. The urge to throw up had vanished with the presence of food. But something else was fighting in me. A weak reflection of us shone in the window, imprinted over the bold white lines of the parking spaces. I wanted to sleep but I was too tired. I wanted to hit Jamie for being perfect and for lying about being perfect. I wanted to quit everything.

"I really need to quit drinking," I told my reflection.

Jamie didn't make a sound until I turned my gaze away from the window. "If you need someone to help you, I'll do it. Call me the next time you want to drink. I'll stay with you."

"It's usually at some ungodly hour. Don't you have something better to do? Like sleep?"

"I think that helping you would be the better thing."

The look in his eyes promised me that he would be there no matter what. That he really cared. I wasn't sure why it terrified me.

"You always know what to say. That's why you have that verve."

"I don't."

"Yes, you do. You always know what to do and how to fix things." I shoved a handful of fries into my mouth. "It _was_ Jo, wasn't it? That's how you got caught up in Morgan's web."

"No. Not really. After she died," he put the word in quotes with two curled fingers, "in the fire, one of the clones came to me and convinced me to join the experiment in her honor. I said no but then . . ." Something dark passed behind his eyes. He blinked and his tone dropped a degree. "I couldn't stop thinking about Jo and our mom and how maybe he was right. That my genetics would hold some key to stop the disease from being passed on. I don't know. I knew it was stupid and it didn't make sense, but I was desperate for something to cling to. Like maybe it hadn't all been for nothing. That I could fix things somehow."

"You're always trying to fix things, aren't you?"

The spy's words from hours ago resurfaced in my mind, _"—thinks he can solve everything and that fallacy of logic is his downfall."_

"Only for the people I care about." He forced a smile back on his lips. Dark brown eyes filled with sadness. He continued as though he could hear my thoughts, "I know my limits. I'm only human, I can't fix everything. I learned that a long time ago when my last relationship went to hell."

"Aggie." I nodded sagely then took a sip from the Styrofoam cup. An ice-cold powdery mixture of orange and milk hit my tongue. The last thing I wanted was to hear about his past relationship.

"Michael."

I choked on my drink. Jamie frowned, watching as I coughed violently for a solid minute.

"Throat freeze," I apologized, clearing my throat. "Sorry, you were saying something?"

Jamie shrugged and picked up his water bottle. "He didn't like some things about me that I can't change. I tried to help him with his stuff. He had some personal issues." He sighed, turning something over in his mouth, and admitted, "He dislocated my shoulder and that was it."

"Oh," I said, stunned. I cleared my throat again. "I bet Jo did more than cut his hair off."

_His_. I blinked, biting off a corner of a fry. The revelation falling short as my mind turned over the thought of someone hurting Jamie. On purpose. Someone he trusted. I crushed the fry between my fingers.

"I told her to drop it. She kept telling me to go to the cops." Jamie rolled the bottle back and forth. "Our parents had just died. The whole thing was a big mistake. I was sad and wanted a distraction. He wanted . . ." Jamie shook his head. "Anyway, we moved here a couple of weeks after. I heard he was arrested for possession so I suppose karma got him."

Or Jo and an unlocked parking brake.

The group of students laughed loudly from the center of the room. Jamie turned around to look. I pulled the sundae toward me and scooped a spoonful of melted vanilla ice cream. A polite smile was plastered on his face when he looked back. "Are you feeling better?"

I shrugged.

He checked his phone.

"You know, if you're ever interested in trying to find someone, there's always the waitress back there. Or Darcy. Or Kiko. Or the entirety of Montreal."

Jamie laughed. "No, I'm done. People think I'm one thing and then they're disappointed when they realize what I really am. It's fine, though. I have a job to do. I have Jo to take care of."

"You have books to read."

"I have books to read," he agreed, delighted, nose wrinkling.

* * *

"But why?"

"I'm not good. It's a hobby," I insisted as the car turned onto Ash.

"How do you know you're not good if you don't ever let anyone hear you?"

"I'm not singing for you."

"Please?" He dragged out the vowel. "Please? I'm asking you nicely. You can put that god-awful music back on and sing to that. I'll take another lap around the block."

I bit back a grin, my cheeks warming, grateful for the dark night. It was nearly three in the morning by the time Marigold Court came into view. Jamie's phone had flashed as we crossed the bridge. It had been Jo, letting him know she was back at their hotel in Old Port.

Jamie pulled to a stop along the sidewalk, hiding the car behind the tree I had climbed to retrieve Gus from weeks ago. Jamie pushed the gear into park. Rings caught the dull streetlight as his fingers fluttered over the gear shift.

"I wish I was still drunk."

Lights lit up every window of the home. An ever-changing gray of a TV screen flickered across the curtains on the first floor. Theo walked across the backseat, ready to trade the confines of Jamie's car for fresh air and grass.

I wasn't. A sadness at the thought of leaving the cozy car, filled with the scent of jasmine and his comforting voice, stopped me from getting out more so than the anticipation of whatever was waiting for me inside the home. Having a moment alone with Jamie was so rare, I didn't want it to end.

"Langdon," he began.

"It's fine. I've already gotten every speech a teenager can possibly get."

Jamie pinched a finger and slipped a ring off. "Here."

"What?"

"Take this." He held the purple ring out. "It's amethyst. It's supposed to help."

"With what?"

"Bad dreams. Bad feelings." He paused. "Sobriety."

Our fingers brushed as I took it. The silver was still warm from his skin. My fingertip grazed the rough edge of the gemstone.

Jamie was a song I wanted to learn. To memorize every line, every pause, every tone. To have each lift and fall, each breath buried so deeply inside me that, no matter the time that passed or the events that occurred, I would always be able to recall his very essence. His tone. Him.

To reach that point would take time, moments I would have to fight my way into, but it would all be worth it to truly know Jamie and have a glimpse of the minutia that composed his soul.

"Why do you wear all these rings?" I slipped his gift on a finger, then another, searching for one that would fit. It found a home on my index finger.

"I like them." He shrugged, gripping the steering wheel.

"Thanks." My hand went to open the door and hesitated. "Thanks for . . . the food. And-and for the . . . lift."

Jamie nodded, brown eyes staring at the dashboard. His forehead creased. Shadows played across his face as I cracked the door open.

"Langdon," he said, his voice shifting into a heavy tone.

I pulled the door shut quickly. "I won't tell Jo that you lied."

He turned to me. "I need to tell you something."

"No, I need to tell you something. Thank you for breaking the laptop. There are things in my file I don't want anyone to know. I'm not bad. I'm not working for Judas, I swear on Theo's life. But there are somethings—things that if people know, they treat you differently. They look at you weird. And you just know that it's all they see when they look at you and—"

"Langdon—"

"You don't have to explain why you broke—"

"I know."

My heart stuttered, tripping out of rhythm as Jamie rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Know what?"

"I know," he spoke through his fingers. "I figured out the password a while ago. I read everyone's files. I read yours. I'm sorry."

Rage bubbled up, boiling from every corner of my mind. I couldn't find the words to throw at him, everything choking inside me. I kicked the door open. Theo tumbled out a second before I slammed it shut. The grass was spongey under my runners as I walked up the yard. I was going to throw up. I was going to scream. Run.

_No_. I rubbed my face, shakily taking a deep breath. Not verve. I can't verve out. Not when he can see how much it hurt.

Dan opened the front door and stepped out. "How nice of you to finally show up, Lanny."

Jamie's hand caught my arm. I spun around.

"I'm sorry." He pleaded, "I had to know there wasn't a spy and you were the first person at the clinic. There's nothing in my file, but you can read it. I promise. I'll tell you anything you want to know about me. Every horrible secret, I'll—"

"What do you have that's worse than mine?" I shouted into the night. Jamie winced as my voice bounced off the sleeping trees and houses. "What could you possibly have that's worse than what's in my file? Nothing! You're so perfect you had to invent an eating disorder. Did you have a pedophile for a father? Did you live in a crack den? Did your father come after you when you were nine and he was strung out on drugs? Did your mother yell at you to be quiet when you were begging her to make him stop? What, Jamie? What could you possibly tell me that's worse than my own life?"

"I'm sorry," Jamie said hoarsely, invisible tears choking his voice. "Langdon, I'm so sorry."

"You're _what_? You're sorry that happened to me? You get to walk away, Jamie. But this is me. This is my life. I can't! Do you know what it's like to have that stuck in your mind? Do you know how hard it is to _live_? You have your perfect little world, where everything is nice and happy, and everyone loves you. But you're fake. You're not real. Stan was right about you."

This entire time. Tonight, while he was buying my cheeseburger. Standing up for me at Darcy's house. When did he find out? Did he know while he was helping bathe the dogs? All those mornings as they hung out with me? Is that why he told me about his ex?

"You're a liar." I shoved him. He stumbled back along the wet grass. "Don't come near me. I don't want your pity. I don't ever want to see you or Jo again. Don't come back here. Leave me alone!"

I pushed past Dan. Theo ran inside the house after me, but gravity was already slipping away.

#  SEARCHING

A woman was crying. I could feel her sorrow in my chest even though I couldn't see anything in the pitch black nothing.

"Darling, it will be ok," Judas' voice shifted the anguish I felt from her cries into my own personal fear.

"She was our last hope, Jay. You can't fix this. No one can."

_What is this?_

"Lallo, watch where you're going!" Winona sat alone on a bench, watching with concern as Lallo ran across the yellowed grass to a swing set. "Oh, for heaven's sake. Be careful!"

_Why does this keep happening?_

"Whatever you want, just ask for it," Jamie promised. "Your verve will show you."

_I don't understand._

"You'll get use to the liminality of it all," they told me, lips and teeth stained red from their candy. Icy, blinding pain burned my skin. "It's fun seeing all the answers, isn't it? Standing at the center of everything. There's so much to know you can't possibly hold it all at once. Wait. Which one are you now? Are you past?"

_Always strangers._

"For fuck's sake, Dan. You're ruining all the progress you've made," Ben shouted, slamming a hand on the table. "Forget about the boy. Let social services take care of him. You've done enough. They'll find him a home, eventually. It's not up to you."

_Help me._

A knock on a door in a country far away.

"Antonia Morgan? We understand you're a very busy woman but we'd like to ask you a few questions about your deceased husband."

_Focus, you idiot._

Silence. Nothing but silence.

_Continuum said I could find the answers. Angel. Show me Angel._

Blinding white light filled the void. Wings extended, lifting high. Light burned brighter than a star.

_How do I find him?_

"This isn't working!" Continuum moaned, scrubbing angrily at China Doll's name on a wall. Fine dust flew into the air. It sparkled in the sunlight that filtered through the window. Beyond the glass, Montreal spread out its winding streets. "Why can't we do anything right?"

#  ANOTHER YEAR

"You don't have to look so confused." Ben ripped an arm's length of plastic wrap from the roll and pressed it on top of a casserole dish. "It's a phone. You know, so you can send and receive messages."

"I think he was holding out for another dog." Dan reached for a second slice of red velvet cake. "Five's the max, kid. We're not taking in any more. If you want another, you have to get a job to feed it."

I turned the box over in my hand and pried it apart. Inside was a black replica of Jo's phone. The metal felt thin and sleek under my fingers, but I had seen Jo drop hers at least a dozen times and come away unscratched.

"No, I—" Presents were always the worst part of any event. "Thanks. Thank you."

"Eighteen," Dan contemplated.

I said nothing. Eighteen was a terrifying number.

"There is a GPS tracker on it, just in case you were wondering _why_." Ben fitted more plastic over the dish. "Get the list on the wall and put everyone's number in. You can start by texting that girl and letting her know we bought more tea."

"Where are they?" Dan pretended to be ignorant as he forked a chunk of frosting and raked it over the edge of his plate. "I figured she'd be the type to make a fuss over birthdays. Balloons and everything."

"She said _something_ ," Ben kicked the dishwasher to make it open, "about how their mother grew up on a reservation and the evils of Thanksgiving, and how dare I invite them—then Colleen shorted a customer on change at the register so I missed most of what she was saying. I told her Thanksgiving was several weeks ago and it was Lan's birthday—not genocide—that we were celebrating then hung up before Colleen started crying. I thought she said they would come. They've showed up every damn day without invitation, why wouldn't they show up the one day I tell them to come?"

Out of the corner of my eye, Dan watched me over his cake. I kept my gaze on the plastic I was peeling off the screen and lied, "She's probably sick."

"She's always sick," Ben huffed. "She can be sick here."

"Why does it matter?"

"Because I've got a stack of orders with Jamie's name on it taking up half of the counter at my store." Something clattered to the floor. "Oh, for fuck's sake. No one get up to help me, please. Obviously, I'm the only one in this house that likes to eat off clean dishes."

It had been well over a week since that night and I hadn't heard a word from anyone. Which only validated what I suspected: Jamie had told everyone. Panic still gripped me at odd times as the fact prodded my mind. He knows. She knows. Everyone knows. Langdon Moore: the incest boy.

Those first few days were spent in an uneasy haze, not fueled by any drink, but by the constant balancing act, tossing my emotions from one extreme to the next. Half of me wanted to burst into whatever hotel they were living in and demand a better apology from Jamie. The other half wanted to apologize for shoving him. A small hopeful fraction wanted them to show up with a box of bagels and continue like nothing had happened.

But that was never going to happen. I would have to be the one to do something. Since I couldn't trust myself to make the right decision, I did nothing.

_It's nothing to be ashamed of._

Positive statements, the things everyone tells me, repeated on a loop.

_It's not your fault. It's in the past. You don't have to hide it._

But they don't understand. What happened to me happened. When others find out, everything changes. There's always a look. Pity. Questions. I knew what they were thinking behind those positive statements. _Poor little boy, how terrible_.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready for the holiday rush?" Dan asked.

A rap on the front door made me jump. Outside, the dogs barked. Dan leaned around the corner and looked. Picking up his pack of cigarettes, he quickly slipped out the back door. "Not it."

"Lan, get that." Ben crouched down to determine why the dishwasher wouldn't close.

My head spun, vertigo rising, as the knocking moved closer, tapping along the walls. Taps tumbled down the hallway and came to a rest beside me. They paused. The knocking came from the garage door behind me.

"Langdon? Open the damn door."

I stood up, world tilting and fading into darkness. The door swung open to reveal the kitchen, the table I was just sitting at cleared of all plates and food. Jamie, sweating and slender, gray pants slipping over his hips, struggled with a large box. It slid down. He used his knee to push it up and get a better grip.

"Took you long enough." Jamie pushed past me. Something stiff caught my back and my hand went down to it. A thin metal rail had been installed by the steps that lead down from the house to the concrete floor.

"What is that?" I asked as he dropped the box beside another.

"I don't know," Jamie huffed, shaking the neckline of his shirt to cool himself. He looked around the room. Boxes upon boxes filled the floor. A new light fixture hung in the center of the ceiling, illuminating the scene. "Probably all of Jo's vibrators. Would you help me with the bookcases? They're not heavy, just awkward to carry."

"What's going on? Why are you here?"

Jamie's brown eyes roamed over my face, sliding down to my hands. He exhaled, "It's you. I can see you."

"What's going on?" I looked around the room. "Why is everything different? What's happening to me?"

"Langdon." Jamie stepped forward, a hand reaching tentatively toward me. Pain etched his face, crumpling his features into someone much younger. "Something's going to—I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. Langdon, can you hear me? I need you to listen to me."

"My head," I replied, squeezing my eyes shut. A hum rose to excruciating levels, drowning, pushing everything out of existence. "I can't—"

"Langdon!"

With a gasp of air violently filling my lungs, I opened my eyes. Dan's half-eaten plate of cake lay to my right, Ben stood fighting the dishwasher to my left.

"Are your legs broken? Get the door."

I stumbled out of the chair, tripping in my haste, and rushed down the hall. Margret's wrinkled face lit up as I opened the front door.

"There's that pretty little boy. Oh, your hair is so blond now!" Margret stood on the welcome mat, holding a small covered glass dish. I leaned against the doorframe, head spinning. "I thought it was red."

Jamie.

Boxes.

The spy's voice echoed in my head, ' _When am I?_ '

"Oh, you don't look so good, sugar." A warm grounding hand touched my shoulder. "Are you ill?"

"He's fine," Ben called from down the hallway. The dishwasher slammed loudly. "He just ate too many rolls. Do you want to come in?"

"No, thank you, I can't stay long. I'm off to visit Sage and her family in Toronto. Oh, dear, you look so pale. I swear your hair is changing each time I look at you. It's so light."

"He's been out in the sun too much, but it will darken." Ben's voice moved closer, coming to a stop beside me. "Even his freckles are fading now that it's almost winter."

"Shush, don't even say that. It's not even November yet. They said this year is going to be a record breaker. I can't wait for the whole mess to be over and done with."

Ben cut his eyes meaningfully at me. Margret's house had been decked out with Christmas lights since last week.

"Nanaimo bars." Margret pushed the dish into my hands. "Happy birthday."

* * *

True suffering always comes when you're alone. When there's no buffer, no distraction. Old memories play on repeat in the shower, in the dark of night, in morning solitude. They cycle on endless loops you don't even realize are playing, like an echo of a song stuck in your head. Alone was something I was a lot of in the first week of being eighteen.

I sat at the piano or on the rug with the dog hair and my guitar trying to do something to calm the waves crashing against my skull, knocking me off balance as I walked through the empty rooms. The house hovered with an uncomfortable silence in the days that followed my birthday. Without Jo's constant chatter to fill the air, every single click of a dog's nail against the floor, every creak in the walls, every patter of rain against the window panes, drilled against my ears. The silence rubbed my nerves until they were raw, until I was yearning for the clamor to come back and breathe life into my waking hours as I had none of my own to fill it.

Buddy huffed as he leapt down the steps and rushed to the back door. _Tic-tic-tic_.

I rubbed my eyes, fighting the headache that was building from his tiny noise in the silence. The muted thump of the back door falling against the swollen frame was a welcome relief. I rolled to my knees and peered around the wall, that small hope still nudging me.

"Why are you on the floor?" Dan frowned.

"Why are you home?"

"Slow day." He shrugged out of his jacket. "Didn't get much sleep last night."

I crawled back to my warm spot on the rug and flipped the guitar back into my lap before Pepper could jump on me for attention.

Dan stepped around Misty and took a seat on the couch. "I'm going to take a nap. Do you want to help me sand the sheetrock later?"

"I already did that."

"Did you do the ceiling as well?"

"Yeah."

"I'll pick up some paint in a bit." Dan cracked an eye open. "Unless you already went to the store and painted the entire room."

I shook my head.

He was fast asleep by the time I carried my guitar up the stairs. I paused on the fifth step, waiting for Theo to pass me. He had been moving better ever since a vet prescribed some chicken-flavored vitamins for his joints. Theo took the medicine with no complaints every morning as I took mine. The real problem was making sure he ate them before Misty did. The few she had stolen hadn't done anything for her, though I'm sure her joints needed all the help they could get with her girth.

Theo settled down on the braided rug as I collapsed on my bed. The phone on my bedside table caught my attention. I picked it up. Theo rolled on his back as I stared at the bright red app on the screen. My phone had come with some default apps. I added one in a moment of loneliness but hadn't found the nerve to open it.

Until now.

My thumb touched the red flower icon. It opened, blooming and extending thorny vines across the black screen.

> Welcome to Posey.  
> The #1 social video sharing platform on earth.  
> Please create an account to get started.

* * *

"Lan. It's been days. You have to get out of bed." Ben flipped the light switch. He froze, eyes taking in the mess. "How many bags of chips have you eaten?"

Jo's videos were extremely short but abundant. Posey was chaos. Posey was made for Jo. She filled up the videos with bursts of her own humor and laughter. Jo had a knack of pulling whatever was around her and making it interesting, whether it was the local weatherman (who's reports she muted and dubbed over) or her obsession with stealing her high school's flag.

Jamie's role in her videos began as her punching bag, the sole victim of her early pranks, before later moving up to her accomplice. Jo, herself, was almost never seen on camera. In the rare times she was, a navy hoodie, pulled tight, and sunglasses hid her face.

It had taken me several days and sleepless nights to watch everything. I didn't watch her videos straight through. Occasionally, I had paused to create an account on various other social platforms to track down the source of her jokes and outcomes of her pranks. Jo didn't merely reign on Posey. She had real estate everywhere online.

Each video offered a glimpse into a life that everyone wanted, a life that only existed in fiction. They snuck out of their New York brownstone to get tacos at three a.m. and got locked out when the window fell shut behind them. Jamie took bets to prove he could do anything, like taking a running jump onto unsuspecting members of the football team's backs in the middle of a crowded hallway.

The twins ran amok in New York. Until the videos suddenly stopped last winter. I scrolled through the comments, as confused as her other fans, before it occurred to me: Morgan happened.

Her other accounts told the same story. The story of a Jo who lived an eventful life. Sometimes, she would tag a fellow classmate. Yet, as her health worsened, her posts became less frequent. She began commenting back and forth with Jamie, and only Jamie, over mundane things until finally her posts, like her videos, stopped cold for months. A few comments from her mutual followers appeared in the interval, begging for an update on her wellbeing and sending condolences over their parents' death.

Several weeks ago, she returned with no explanation to her thousands of followers. Only one thing had changed. In the past few weeks, Jo had started speaking to accounts that clearly belonged to Darcy and Lupe. Jo was finally talking to someone other than Jamie again. A small tremor ran through my hand every time his username appeared.

"Lan." Ben flicked the light switch up and down until I rolled out from under the pile of blankets. "You have to get out of bed. For God's sake, go take a shower. Come downstairs. Get out of this room."

I groaned all the way to the washroom. Hot water melted the dazed film coating my skin and warmed my bones. Hour after hour spent lying in bed, watching Jo's videos, reading her posts, filled me with that same unmistakable longing to be normal. Ashamed, I knew that I would give anything to restructure my life so that I had been born in New York, attended the same school as them, sat with them at lunch, and visited their home in Brooklyn. To have a slice of that life would have been heaven. They had no idea how lucky they were.

Water danced off my wrist. My hand cramped from the hours spent holding the phone. It was worse than when I had learned to play guitar. Before Ben intruded, I had spent the last few hours leaning over the screen as it lay on the mattress. If my hand hadn't given out, I probably would have fought him.

My hair dripped onto the kitchen floor as I shoved a stale cookie into my mouth. Dan flicked a lock of it over to the other side of my head.

"Kid, you need a haircut."

I made a noise through the cookie, gesturing to my mop of curls. They would shrink when they dried.

"Ready to help?" He shook a can of paint. It sloshed loudly. He stopped as I reached out to touched the label.

"Green?"

"Don't give me that attitude either. If you two are such interior designers, you should have picked it out yourself."

I shrugged. My heart stuttered as pitch black covered my eyes. A second later, it passed.

"Eggshell. _Pfft_. What's the matter with your hand?"

"Phone." I stopped flexing my right fingers. "I can still hold a paintbrush."

Dan frowned, nodding to my left hand. He squinted at the fixture above then looked back at my hand. "Must be the light. Your hand looked bruised for a moment there."

Ben walked in, glaring at us through suspicious eyes over his coffee. "What's wrong? Lan?"

I blinked. "Nothing."

" _Lan_."

"I'm fine. Just sort of dizzy."

"Go lay down."

"He's been lying down enough. Go outside before the sun vanishes for eight months." Ben looked down at his mug. "What the hell is wrong with this coffee? Dan, what did you do now?"

"J—" Dan stopped short. "One of the guys brought some coffee to the shop. I think that one was maple vanilla-something flavored."

Ben began to tip his mug into the sink as he studied the small bag of coffee grounds. I made a noise and reached out. Ben stopped pouring the coffee out and let me take the mug from his hand. "You really don't want to drink that."

"It tastes like pancakes." I took another sip. The heat of the mug relaxed the cramp in my hand. "I can help paint."

"No," Dan interjected. "He's right. Go get some air. Take the dogs for a walk."

"But—"

"If you're light-headed, you don't need to be trapped in a room with paint fumes."

Ben scowled. "You're not painting that room."

Dan nodded. "Listen to him."

"I'm talking to you." Ben snatched another mug from the cabinet. "You are not painting that room the color of baby's shit."

Dan put a hand to his chest, feigning hurt. "I picked this color because it reminds me of you."

Their arguing faded into background noise as surreal light reached through the window. Hues of pink and red filled the room. Sunrise? No, that didn't make sense. Sunset. But it was noon?

"Lanny." Dan's voice boomed. I blinked away the colorful hues and was met with a view of two floors. The deck under one sneaker, the kitchen floor under the other. "Are you forgetting something?"

Theo's leash was gripped tightly in my right hand.

"Your phone." He tucked it into my jacket pocket. When did I put a jacket on? "Call us if you're going to be longer than a walk around the block."

The door slammed shut behind me. My battery was on ten percent but I wasn't going to wait for it to charge.

#  LAIKA

Just because the cold was familiar, it didn't mean I liked it.

As November moved in, sunlit hours grew shorter, the wind more bitter. It was only a matter of days before the weather broke and Montreal became inhospitable to all living things. Theo and I made the most of it, taking a walk around the block before the snow hit. He liked it when we stuck close to home. I let him lead and we ended up at a coffee shop three blocks away. His joints might be deteriorating but his brain and nose were not. Theo knew to take me somewhere I would like. The barista glanced at him and smiled with poorly hidden pity as he handed me the coffee.

"What's wrong with you?" He nodded to Theo. "Do you have seizures or something?"

"There's nothing wrong with me."

"Dude, you have a service dog."

I snatched the cup. "The only thing wrong with me is that I have to deal with people like you."

The bell chimed and the door fell shut behind us.

"We can't ever order from there again," I told Theo as we walked. He led me around a pile of garbage overflowing into the middle of the sidewalk. "Where are we going?"

Theo led the way carefully, stopping and sniffing the air before choosing a direction at each corner. He picked up speed and I pulled my eyes away from the billboard of Jamie.

"Tee?"

He led me up Ash, bypassing the turn onto Marigold. His black shaggy tail wagged.

"I already have coffee. We don't need to go to Marc's. Tee. _Tee_." I rolled my eyes as he walked past the entrance to the East Rivers Center. Leash taut as he pulled me onward. "I'm going to stop giving you those joint pills if this is what you do. Where are you taking me?"

Short black nails scratched the ground as he tugged. He stopped at a crossing and waited.

"This better be good."

I pulled out my phone after it beeped.

> johardorgohome posted a new Posey. Press to view.

Another beep. This time, the signal to cross. I let him continue, curious to find out what he thought was so important. Theo lead me across the street, black nose lifted high as he walked north, past cafés and restaurants. The park was south.

"We need to turn back." I shook the leash gently. Theo spun in a circle, sniffing, then stopped before the entrance to a café's patio. He looked up at me, panting happily.

The freshly painted walls were hard to miss. It was new, catering to the university students and young business people. A list of expensive vegan snacks and drinks were written in neat chalk on a signpost before the entrance. People dotted the small fenced-in seating area. Most on their phones or laptops. Except for one, busy scribbling into a small notebook. Sunlight danced off the glossy black hair that fell like a curtain around his face.

"Jamie?"

Jamie didn't look up. His pen flowed across the pages quickly, spilling ink. I inhaled deeply, looking around and taking stock of my surroundings. Sunlight was warm on my skin. Theo turned his head. But still . . .

"Pardon," I stopped a woman in a thick coat passing by, "peux tu me voir?"

She cut her eyes at me and skirted around, shaking her head. "Je suis pressé."

"Merci."

So, my verve hadn't decided to take me for another trip.

"What do you want me to do?" I whispered angrily at Theo. He looked at the entrance to the patio. Jamie's attention was still devoted entirely to his notebook. Three delicate cups on saucers, a plate holding crumbs, and an array of pens littered his small table. Seeing him, real and present, was disconcerting after days spent watching him on a small screen.

I turned, looking down the street that would take me back to Marigold Court. He had lied. He had lied to everyone. Sunlight beat through my eyelids as I breathed in deeply. Theo pawed my leg. I took a deep breath and followed him to Jamie's table.

Jamie didn't look up when I sat across from him. Ink filled the pages, warping them into round curves. His pen slowed as large brown eyes rose from the page. Jamie closed the notebook and leaned back. Neither of us spoke. The table was too small for Theo to hide under. He settled for leaning against the legs of my chair.

"I thought you didn't want to see me ever again," Jamie's voice was soft.

I shrugged. Theo looked up smugly at me.

Jamie bit his bottom lip. He leaned forward and opened his mouth. No words came out.

"Did you tell them?"

He shook his head.

"Did you tell Jo?"

He shook his head. "Langdon, I'm sorry I read your file without asking. I'm so sorry. Please, forgive me."

"Why should I?"

"Because you're a better person than me." Jamie's shoulders drooped. The black sleeveless top exposed his toned arms. Which one had been dislocated? The left? "I meant what I said. I'll tell you anything, do anything, to make it up to you."

My heart was beating hard. Not scared. Not panicking. Hurt. "I'm not ashamed of what—" I choked on my words. I swallowed hard, my voice coming out quieter than I planned, "I am ashamed. And I don't want people to know. Because they look at you differently when they know. They talk to you differently. I don't want to be the incest boy. The victim. I just want to be normal."

"You're not the incest boy," Jamie promised. "You're Langdon. You're the guy who saved my sister. Who can eat an entire bag of ketchup chips in one sitting. You're my best friend."

His words rolled off me. "It was in the file that they starved me. You know that. Is that why you brought me food every day? How long have you known?"

"No," Jamie swore. "Jo likes you and I—I'm not good at making friends. It was her idea to bring you breakfast. It was the only way I could get you to talk to me."

"And? How long?"

"I figured out the password when Jo was talking about Antonia. She was his wife. It was the first time I tried to get into the computer, I swear. Jo was asleep in the hotel. I typed in his wife's initials and it worked." Jamie lowered his gaze, voice faltering, "I told Jo you were mad at me. I swear I didn't tell her about you, but she knows I got into the laptop so she—" He inhaled sharply. "Please, Langdon. You're my best friend. I'll do anything. I'll tell you anything. Listen. Jo used to make fun of me. She said I was the unplanned one. One time, she—"

"Are you good at keeping promises?"

He nodded.

"Don't ask me why, just do it. If you ever meet someone named Angel, run."

Full lips turned down as a question filled his eyes.

"Promise me."

"I promise."

A car alarm blared down the street. Jamie shifted. His voice a whisper, "Are we good?"

"Eh."

He rolled the pen across the pages. Voice still wary, "How was your birthday?"

I shrugged.

"Did you get another dog?"

I slipped the phone out, waving it. "I'm still mad at you. You owe me."

"I'll tell you anything, I swear." He leaned forward. "You can blackmail me or tell everyone—"

"I don't want your secrets. I want your help."

"Help?" He frowned.

I took a sharp breath and leaned forward. "I need to use that brain of yours."

* * *

Jamie stared at the pages of his notebook, waiting for the ink to dry. His infamous black coat lay over the back of his chair even though people at surrounding tables shivered in theirs. Without the coat, Jamie's glossy hair and sun-kissed skin stood out against the bleak, gray landscape. The only vivid beacon in a monotone dream. Pages rustled as the wind blew. He had filled up at least five with his small, illegible handwriting as I told him almost everything. I finished the last of my almond-milk caramel coffee. It wasn't terrible.

"And what happened on your birthday?" He flipped to a blank page.

"How do you know something happened then?"

"You're the Liminal Boy and it was your birthday: something was bound to happen."

"What does liminal even mean?"

"In between." Jamie's tone had eased with each passing moment. Any wariness had been hidden under the pretense of our resumed friendship. "A transitional state. Neither here nor there. Like in limbo."

"What does a birthday have to do with that?"

"Not quite seventeen, not quite eighteen."

A car sped down the street. Horns blared. Theo sighed, rolling onto his side.

"I saw you. In our garage. Or what used to be the garage." I shivered as a brisk wind blew through my thin jacket. "You were moving all these boxes to store them. You saw me. No one ever sees me. But you did."

"But so did Jo and Stan, remember? On the beach." He removed the cap and scribbled a few lines. "What kind of boxes?"

"Moving boxes. Bookcases." I folded my arms tightly over my chest.

He reached back and handed his coat to me. I shook my head. He tossed it into my lap anyway.

"Thanks," I muttered, pulling it on. A strong scent of cinnamon and jasmine embraced me, the aroma so strong it slipped into my mouth.

"Strange." Jamie tapped the pen to his bottom lip. "We were just looking for somewhere to put all our stuff in storage. The place we rent now is closing."

"When are you going to stop hotel-hopping?"

Jamie exhaled. "Jo won't settle on a location. We had an appointment to sign for a place near Westmount but then she . . . We had to go to Mercy and they gave the spot to someone else."

"Is Jo getting worse?"

A wall rose behind Jamie's brown eyes as he stared at his notebook. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed.

"She'll be fine. I have a plan."

"Is that plan to pose mostly nude for money again to cover all the expenses?"

Jamie slowly raised his gaze to meet mine, a mixture of cautiousness and guilt brimming.

"Jo told me she doesn't have healthcare because she's still classified as dead. And I'm sure living in a hotel until you find a place to stay isn't cheap."

Jamie leaned back. Big lips pursed as if he were tasting something bitter. "I know you said you didn't want my secrets. But I'll tell you the worst thing about me. Something that no one ever figures out: I am never who you think I am. I am not some saint taking care of his sister. I am not some perfect guy. I am not some sexual fantasy. I am not a nice person," his voice cracked, "but I'm _trying_ to make things right."

Our gaze broke when two distinct beeps broke the silence at our table. I pulled the phone out of my pocket to read the message from Ben. The battery icon flashed red.

"I should get back."

There was still so much I needed to tell Jamie. It had taken so much time to explain some of the not-memories and the spy's sudden appearances that I didn't even touched the surface of Angel and his role in this game. If anyone could fit the pieces of this puzzle together, Jamie was the one. But the spy's words about Jo's death and how Angel would break China Doll? I couldn't put that on his already heavy shoulders. There had to be a way I could stop it from happening on my own. Everything I was seeing had a reason. A clue.

"Do you want a ride back home? Langdon?"

On the other side of the fence, the spy sat bundled in a big blue coat. A small brown envelope lay across their lap. They waved, face lighting up when our eyes met.

"Jamie," I lowered my voice. "Can you see me?"

"Yes," he answered in a mirror of my apprehensive tone.

"Can you see _them_?"

He turned his head slightly, squinting into the sunset.

"Blue coat. That's them. The one who has Jo's REV."

Continuum's hand froze mid-wave as Jamie turned around. A squeak split the air and they rolled off their perch to the ground. Their purple hat and sequined scarf floated quickly down the street, vanishing in the early dinner crowd.

"Here." I pushed Theo's leash into Jamie's hand, rising. "Don't let him follow me."

"No." Jamie gripped my arm, locking me in place as I turned to run.

"They're getting away!"

"I'm faster." He tossed the leash back at me and jumped the fence in one fluid movement.

I grabbed Jamie's notebook, looped Theo's leash over my wrist, and rushed into the street, scanning the crowd for a hint of purple. The street grew more crowded as I moved north.

"Tee, stop." Theo pulled his leash taut in the opposite direction, nails clawing at the sidewalk. He whined, desperately trying to pull me back to the café. I tucked Jamie's notebook under my arm so I could make the follow signal clearly.

He lay flat in the middle of the sidewalk. People stepped around him.

"Can you control your dog?" A woman looking at her phone nearly tripped over him.

"Can you control your face?" I snapped.

She scoffed, hurrying away.

"Why are you doing this?" I repeated the sign. "Heal!"

Theo jumped up, snatched the leash with his mouth, and tugged. I stumbled forward.

" _Boy_?" A small voice spoke behind me. Large blue eyes looked up at me. Papery thin skin stretched over their face. Their big blue coat was gone.

Theo growled, tugging me back with more force.

I blinked, confused by their ragged appearance. Anger faded fast at the sight of their pale face. "Why are you spying on us? Why did you run?"

"I'm sorry I'm late. I'm not good with dates." They held a thick brown envelope out.

The envelope was heavy for its size, plain, with only the letter L written in shaky green pencil crayon. "What is this?"

"Happy birthday."

It was sealed tightly. My fingers struggled to pry the tape off the paper. Finally, it ripped. Glossy paper met my fingers. I turned the envelope upside down. A stack of a dozen photos fell into my awaiting palm. I flipped the protective paper off and looked at the top one. My heart stopped. Fingers trembling, I flipped to the next one. Then the next. A dozen photos of Will peered up at me. Picture after picture of Will and I during the early days of the clinic, sitting in the wide lawn on a snow-filled day. I had taken him outside to make snow angels. We almost looked normal.

"How did you—?" I looked up.

They were gone.

* * *

People milled around a clearing near a fountain, stepping aside at the last minute to avoid Theo as I wandered, dazed.

"Langdon!" Jamie's voice called from the crowd. I couldn't see him through the throng. Which was something, because he was a head taller than everyone else. I climbed onto the fountain's ledge and looked over the sea of heads.

"La—!" The shout was cut off by a roar of people laughing. I looked down.

The clearing wasn't due to people trying to avoid the splash of the fountain. A small perimeter composed of flimsy interlocking white plastic fencing contained at least two dozen dogs. Under the shade of a large umbrella sat two lounge chairs and a sign.

Dog adoptions.

Theo whined, one paw on the fountain's edge. He couldn't decide if he needed to pull me away or join me. Two dogs inside the adoption area were more than happy to join me. They stood on hind legs, front paws pressing on the flimsy fencing. A woman inside the space rushed forward and yanked them away.

"Will you take your dog and do that somewhere else?"

One dog walked away to steal pets from a university-aged girl, sitting in the middle of the space, surrounded by three other dogs. The one that remained wobbled on three legs. She gazed happily up at me with one black eye. Sparse tufts of hair stood up on her forehead, as if trying to make up for the large bald spots on her back. Pigmented pink and black skin showed through the thin bristles.

"Do I know you?" Theo's leash in my hand anchored me as I looked away from the ugly dog to the woman's face. Nothing about her sun-burned cheeks, the floral handkerchief tied around her cropped hair, looked familiar. "You said my name."

"I'm here every month." Her voice bounced as she moved, lifting her feet and stepping over the smaller dogs who came to see what was going on. "Laika! Down!"

"Laika?"

She hefted the ugly dog into her arms and set her down. Laika probably weighed as much as Theo, but the shelter volunteer seemed familiar with carrying dogs around.

"Langdon!" Jamie appeared, breathing heavily. "I lost—So many dogs!"

He dropped to his knees and reached in to pet the small dachshund that wiggled on the other side of the fencing. With a small jump, I left the fountain's ledge. Theo snorted in relief. Jamie reached his other hand through the fence to pet Laika's backside.

"I lost them." His breath came in gasps. Sweat ran down the back of his neck and shoulders. Black hair darkened and pressed to his skin.

"I did too." I pushed the sleeves of his coat up.

I stuck my hand into Jamie's coat. His cell phone, a black hair tie, and a worn paperback filled one deep pocket while the envelope and Jamie's notebook filled the other. I held Jamie's phone out to him. The screen flashed with notifications from Jo.

He glanced at the screen, pulled a face, and tucked the phone into his back pocket. Laika turned at Jamie's touch, excited for attention, and wobbled closer to him. The dachshund scampered away and Jamie devoted both hands to her.

"That's Laika," the woman's voice took on a pleasanter tone as she spoke to Jamie. "She's been at our shelter the longest. Police found her locked in a storage shed near Old Port. She nearly died of heat exhaustion."

"So, you named her Laika?" Jamie stared at the woman. Laika wiggled and huffed until he patted her again.

The woman shrugged. She looked at the dozens of dogs, barking and rolling around the enclosure. "When you have this many, you run out of names. Besides, it's an easy way to remember her. You're welcome to come in and meet her." She glared at me. "You and your dog have to wait outside."

She left.

Jamie pet Laika, showing no hesitation over her bald spots. "I'd take you home if I had one myself. Poor girl, you deserve a nicer name."

"What does Laika mean?" I asked, assuming it meant tripod in French or something along those lines.

He turned back to face me, squinting into the sunlight. "Laika was a stray dog. Scientists put her on Sputnik. The first dog in space." He looked down at the three-legged dog smiling at him and ran a finger along her brown muzzle. "She died hours into the journey. It became too hot in the spacecraft as it left earth's orbit."

"Why would they do that?"

Jamie shook his head sadly. "It wasn't safe for humans, so they used a dog instead."

"Did they know she would die?"

"Probably."

Theo whined. I blinked. I blinked again. The strong shampoo of the shelter dogs buried its scent in my nose. I dropped my head. The collar of Jamie's coat met my face and I breathed in.

"Langdon, I—"

"Do you have any money?" I switched Theo's leash into my other hand and reached into my pocket. "I don't know how much the adoption fee is."

"What?"

"Pardon?" I called out to the woman. She was talking to the university girl now. "I want this dog. _Pardon? Je veux ce chien_."

"You can't get another dog," Jamie whispered. "Dan said—"

"I don't do what other people tell me to do," I retorted. He and Theo followed me to the entrance. "I'm getting this dog. No one else will adopt a dog that's different. That has issues. I'm not going to let her stay here where it's noisy and crowded and no one cares about her."

"Langdon." He reached out. I jerked my arm away before he could make contact.

"Don't 'Langdon' me. I'm getting her." I leaned on my toes, trying to catch the woman's attention. "Why are there no other volunteers? Is it just her?"

"Lan—" Jamie stepped back, his hands raised in defeat as I shot him a look. "Ok."

"Get her attention."

He barely raised his voice. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

She appeared by our section of the wall.

"My friend would like to adopt Laika."

She looked at me suspiciously. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"Do you have a job?"

I shook my head.

"She's a special needs case. She requires daily treatment. I can't give her to someone who can't provide for her."

"But—"

"I'm sorry, it's the rescue's policy. I can't adopt any dog out to someone unless they meet the requirements."

Theo whined as I twisted his leash around my hand. "No, I want her. I'll give her the treatment. I'll sign a form or whatever you want."

"I'm sorry. Rules are rules. If you want to take a dog home today, you could ask your parents—"

"Jamie, make her give me the dog," I said in a low voice.

"Langdon."

"Make her give me the dog."

He shook his head. "Someone else will eventually take her."

"You heard her. No one wants her." I rounded on him. "Make her give me the dog. You know I'll take care of her."

"Langdon." Jamie cast his eyes at the woman behind me. She had stopped talking. "I—"

" _Please_."

Jamie closed his eyes. He inhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose, then looked at the woman with a perfectly composed face.

#  THE WEIRD SECTION

A stream of smoke slipped past Dan's lips as he squinted at Laika. "Remind me to tell that boy he picks out dogs like he picks out cars."

Pepper approached Laika's blind side and she toppled over in surprise. It only took a few minutes before the newest member had made herself at home on Marigold Court. The others grew oblivious to her differences over the next few days. All except for Theo. He followed her around as if she were his new best friend, even allowing her to sleep at the coveted spot on the foot of my bed—so long as I let him curl up behind my back.

"You're breaking the rule."

Dan took another drag in response. He blew out a slow stream of smoke, tapping the ashes over the garbage bin. "And you're turning into the third Harding."

"What do you mean?" I pushed the long black sleeves up, over my hands, and froze. Jamie had never asked for his coat back that day. Any other stray coat would have found its way to the coat rack in the hallway. But his worn, soft black coat hid in a corner of my room. Every night, I slipped it on and fell asleep to the smell of jasmine and coffee and sun-filled days. Stupidly, I had forgotten to take it off before coming downstairs that morning. "I just threw it on before I let Pepper out. He's the one that forgot it."

I shook it off, flushing as the sheer size of the coat and how it draped over me must look, and threw it on the closest chair.

Dan's gaze fell to the amethyst ring, lips smirking as he took a final drag. I shoved my hand into my pocket.

Dry prescription dog food rattled in the metal bowl. I nudged Misty away with my foot as Laika ate her specialty food. I had never realized how easy it was to wait for Theo to swallow his pill in one bite.

"What's the hurry?"

"No hurry." My sock sunk deep into the black hair as I nudged Misty further back. "Why aren't you at work?"

"Work, eh?" Dan crushed the cigarette against his plate. "Who are you to talk about going to work?"

"I'll get a job— _Misty, stop_."

"I'm messing with you." Dan stood. "You don't need to rush out and get a job. But if you really want one, you can have mine." He stopped beside the counter and picked up a bottle of antacids, shaking out a couple. "I'll see you tonight."

Dan left as Laika finished the last of her food. I rushed to get dressed and put Theo in his vest. He waited on the deck as I doubled-checked that the door had locked.

A light frost clung to the dead grass and shrubbery outside the bookstore. The sun was bright. It wouldn't last long.

_Ding_.

I stopped, one step over the threshold, and scanned the scene. The inside of the bookstore was wrong. Shelves and aisles had changed places, the layout resurfaced like a newly paved road.

"Hi, Langdon!"

Spotted.

"What happened to the store?" I led Theo past the display of new releases to where Colleen stood behind the counter. A small wave of relief hit me as I moved naturally across the floor. No verve this time.

"We rearranged it. Doesn't this flow better? It's so—"

The sun was almost at its zenith. My eyelids were heavy from a sleepless night that left me with a headache and two new ideas. I didn't have time to talk. "Where's the weird section now?"

"The what?"

"The weird section."

"I don't . . ." Colleen's face fell.

"He means the New Age section," Ben's voice drifted up from the floor, behind the counter.

"He's re-installing the computer," Colleen explained.

Caught. I had hoped he would be in the back office. I leaned over the counter to find him in a tangle of wires. "Where's the weird section now?"

"Where the comics used to be," Ben replied. I stepped around a caution sign that blocked the exposed subfloor. His head popped up above the counter, glasses pushed to the top of his head. "What are you doing?"

"I need books about lucid dreaming."

"What do you need books about lucid dreaming for?"

"It's for," I searched for an answer he would take without further questioning, "Jamie."

Ben accepted the half-lie and pointed to a stack of books at the end of the counter. "About damn time. Take those, would you? They've been sitting there for ages."

The New Age section held dusty expensive books about colors, chakras, and auras, as well as flimsy shiny books about how to change the colors of your chakras and auras. It was one of the least frequented sections of the store. Customers most likely too embarrassed to be seen browsing the spines of the aisle. Moving it out of the main path, into a secluded corner, made sense.

"Is Jamie your boyfriend?" Colleen stood close beside me, smoothing the hem of her shirt.

"Uh, yeah," I lied again, setting Jamie's stack of books on the floor. My fingers ran along the smooth spines of blue and gray books. A thick teal book caught my eye and I slipped it off the row. "Is this one?"

"That's about tarot. Some kid came in a few weeks ago, interested in the cards. Ben ordered some books to have on hand." Colleen took it from me and put it back on the shelf. She crouched on her heels and looked at the rows below. "Is Jamie the really handsome one that's been in here before? The one that looks like the Sâtieer model? With the hair and the rings?"

"Yes."

"Of course," she murmured, plucking three thin books from the shelf. "Here. Congrats."

"On what?"

"Your boyfriend."

"Thanks," I took the three books from her, "I guess."

"If things don't work out . . . um . . . I . . ." Her shoulders sagged. In a defeated tone, "There's always that other guy. The one that came in here asking about you last week."

"Who asked about me?" Tension snapped my tired brain to attention. Who else knows about me? This store—Ben's name was on it—it was too conspicuous. "Did you get a name?"

"Alex _something_. I can't remember his last name. He was kind of a jerk to be honest."

I exhaled. Not that I wanted to see him, but Alex was less of a concern than Lallo suddenly appearing in a halo of light.

"He wanted to know when your next shift was. I told him you don't work here. You don't, do you? I never see your name on the schedule."

"I don't believe in schedules." I lifted the books up as I stepped around her. "Thanks for the help."

The journey back home was more awkward thanks to the heavy box filled with Jamie's orders. Theo waited as I pulled my phone out. He waited again while I adjusted the box as we walked through the alley and up the back yard. I had forgotten Jo's tea on the counter and I would need it for my plan to work.

My plans never worked, but this one was the only reasonable idea I had yet. There were a few possible snags—including the likelihood that Jamie had told Jo everything. It had been weeks since they last visited. She must have wondered what had happened. Dread crept up my stomach and I pushed it down. Holding all the anxiety in just created another ticking time bomb inside of me, but it was my only option at this point.

Jamie answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

"I need you to do something for me." I wedged the box between my chest and the doorframe as I fumbled with the key. "Which hotel are you at now?"

My brain started pulling up maps, holding each potential bus route with baited breath as I waited for his response, ready to configure the quickest path to their location.

"We're not in a hotel right now, we're—"

I yanked the screen door open and nearly dropped the box. The inner door was wide open.

"—in your house."

I pointed at the twins sitting at the table. "How? _How_? The door was locked!"

"Adorable. You think a lock can stop me." Jo sniffed. She didn't raise her eyes from her laptop as she applied a thick line of pink lipstick to her bottom lip. A box sat to her left. _Please, be bagels_.

I looked at Jamie, who offered no explanation.

"I hear you've been keeping a secret." Jo twisted her lipstick back into its container.

"What's it to you?" I dropped the box of books into Jamie's lap. He winced.

Jo snarled, "The thief? You know what happened to my REV? It's something to me."

Jamie hid behind his hair, easing the box on the ground. He had told Jo about the spy, but he didn't tell Jo about me. Which meant Jo didn't know the entire truth about Jamie and Judas' laptop.

"You think I'm too weak to handle this thief?"

"No," I retorted, then paused. "Yeah."

Jo mouthed an irritated 'wow' with bright pink lips. "I'm not weak. I'm just not super-powered anymore. I can still take care of this disaster. It's not like either of you are doing anything to stop it."

"I am." I picked up the books on top of Jamie's orders and held them out to him. "Will you read these and tell me what they say?"

"Dreams?" Jo snatched a book from her twin. She thumbed through the pages. "What's this about?"

I knelt and undid the buckles on Theo's vest since it looked like I wasn't going anywhere. Physically.

"Every time I've seen things, or slipped into liminal space or liminal time or whatever it is, it's almost always when I'm about to fall asleep. I think if I can figure out how to control my dreams, I can control my verve."

"But why do you need me to read these?"

"Because you can read faster than anyone."

He opened his mouth then thought better of it, setting the three books in a stack on the placemat before him.

"Are you sure this is safe?"

"Is it safe for him to not know where or when he's going to land?"

It wasn't just Continuum I was looking for. It was Angel as well. Whatever he may be, the spy found him terrifying and they didn't seem like the type who was easily unnerved. If Angel truly was bad, the spy may very well be on our side.

"Enjoy your reading." Jo smirked.

"I need you to do something for me too."

Jo raised her eyebrows. "Speak wisely, peanut. I don't take orders."

I picked up Dan's new box of tea and tossed it to her. "Bribes?"

"I'm listening."

I ran through the plan in my mind one last time. It was an awful idea and, whether it worked or not, once Jo heard it there would be no stopping her.

Twin sets of eyes stared at me.

"I need you to make a Posey."

Jo's pink lips spread into a wide grin.

* * *

Hours later, Jo was back in her spot at the table working on a few final edits. The last of the smoke wafted slowly out the open windows. At least Ben wouldn't know Dan had broken the 'no-smoking in the house' rule this morning. After Jamie did his part for the video, he spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon reading the three thin books. My confidence sank as he summarized what he had discovered.

"I have to recognize that I'm dreaming, and then make myself go where I want to go?" I repeated, holding my phone up to Laika. "But I don't _know_ where I'm supposed to go. This was a stupid idea."

"But you haven't ever gone into your verve knowing it was going to happen. It always surprises you. Maybe you can't switch locations once it starts. You have to decide what game to play before it begins."

"It won't work. I'm sorry I made you waste your time on a stupid idea."

"It's not stupid. Whatever you want, just ask for it," Jamie promised, rolling to his feet. "Your verve will show you."

I frowned, my finger hovering over the screen. I blinked hard. " _Ugh_."

"What's wrong?"

"Déjà vu." I shook my head.

"The lighting is wrong." Jamie pushed the curtains further back. Gray clouds hovering outside, threatening a batch of snow, didn't help our predicament.

"The lamp?" I pointed to the dusty one standing in a corner.

"Oh, my God," Jo groaned from the kitchen. "Will you two please shut up?"

"Just post it, Jolene." Jamie clicked the switch hidden under the glass shade. "No amount of editing can un-do the fact you were down to number eight last night.

I bit my lip, trying to quiet my laugh. Jamie winked as Jo shouted at him.

"Is it still out?" Jamie slipped into a crouch behind me.

"Yes." I held my phone steady, waiting for the lens to focus under the new light, and tapped the shutter. "Got it."

Jamie crawled forward, stretching along the rug, onto his stomach. He slipped his phone out of his back pocket and pointed it at Laika. She stared at us. Jamie stuck the tip of his tongue out.

The front door squealed open, suction breaking loudly. Jamie and Laika turned their heads to watch, both tongues out, as Dan entered. Freezing air wafted inside. Dan shoved the door back into place and prodded the swollen frame. He turned around.

"What the hell are you two doing?"

Jamie's tongue slipped back into his mouth. "Nothing."

Dan shook his head. He pulled his coat off as he walked into the kitchen. "Hey, Jo."

"Is it illegal to call 911 for something that hasn't happened yet?"

"Goodbye, Jo." Dan reappeared in the living room.

"Why are you home early?"

"Slow day." He coughed. "Why does the house smell like something burnt?"

"Jo accidentally set a dishcloth on fire while trying to bake a cake."

"How?"

"She had her hoodie pulled over her eyes."

Dan looked back at the kitchen with a pained expression. "I'm going to take a nap. Jo, keep it down, would you?"

Jo sputtered from the other room as Dan climbed the stairs. A moment later, her chair creaked and she appeared beside the couch, holding her laptop. "Posted."

"You don't post it from your phone?"

"Do I look like an amateur to you?" Jo snapped her laptop shut. "Now, we wait. I can't believe you finally watched my poseys. Which one was your favorite?"

"The," my attention flickered to Jamie, hitching up his pants as he stood, "the ones at the bodega."

"She's still banned from entering that one in Queens."

"Only at that location!" Jo pulled out her phone. "Mr. Hue enjoyed the publicity at his." Her thumb swiped repeatedly across the screen. "The comments have started. Let's see if your plan worked."

I took a seat next to her and watched as she scrolled through the onslaught of comments.

" _Funny. Nice going, Jo. That cake looks like a disaster. Is Jamie single? Is Jamie single? Is Jamie single?_ " She paused. " _Jamie looks particularly hot today. Must be the kitchen fire._ I'm going to let that one slide. It was, at least, original. _I missed 'Cooking with Jo,' those are my favorites_. Aw." She tapped a small red heart onto the last comment.

Theo and Jamie followed me out of the room. A gust of cool air blew past as I reached up to get a mug.

Jamie leaned in. "Give it time. Someone will see. It was a good idea."

"No, it wasn't." I slammed the cabinet door shut. "It's like the lucid dreaming. All my ideas are stupid. I can't do anything right."

"Maybe we were too subtle. We can try again."

"Jo said she had an appointment with Morgan Rockwell for special treatment. How is that too subtle?"

"Guys," Jo called from the other room. "I just got a request for a direct message. It begins ' _Jo, do not trust Morgan Rockwell. He's_ . . .' Hang on, I have to accept the request to finish reading it."

Jamie and I locked eyes. Neither daring to move.

"Peanut, you're a genius," Jo continued. We rushed back into the living room. "We found other experiments! She's from Ottawa but she and another are doing some holiday shopping in town. They want to meet us. Today."

"The cross!" I interjected then quietly amended, "The cross on Mount Royal."

Jo typed, eyebrows raised, as she obliged.

The last time Jo had arranged to meet someone she had picked _Marc's,_ of all places. I wasn't about to let her bring another group of experiments so close to home. The tourist destination on top of Mount Royal was far away and typically crowded.

"She said that works." Jo's eyebrows dipped behind her glasses as she read. "But she wants to meet us by the angel instead."

#  THE LAS CRUCES EXPERIMENTS

"I've received twenty-seven messages from other experiments since I posted that posey." Jo's cane struck the sidewalk before the monument. She shouted into her phone, "Legit messages from people who know about the doppelgängers and have verves! Messages from Israel and Texas and France. Judas' experiment reached all over the world. Twenty-seven in less than four hours! Who knows how many more are out there? Ones who haven't seen the video yet or ones who don't go on Posey. We can put together an army. We're not alone."

"You can't even get all of the Montreal Experiment to work with you. What makes you think you can get someone from Israel to help us?" Darcy's voice shrilled from Jo's phone.

Things were moving faster than I had planned. A sudden drop in the temperature outside didn't helped my mood. I scowled at the fog rolling across the skyline, hiding the giant steel cross on the horizon. At least Jo and I weren't alone for this meeting. Jamie craned his head up to study the lions bookending the monument before us, the black pea coat back in his possession.

I tore my eyes away from the curve of Jamie's neck as her words hit me. "Did you say France?"

"Yeah, there's six teenagers in Lyon. They think theirs was the first clinic to open." Jo walked to an empty bench and sat down. I followed, hovering, as Jamie reached up to touch a lion's paw. "One of them can fly."

"France?" I squeezed my eyes shut, head pounding against my skull as the image of Jo on a boardwalk surfaced on the back of my eyelids. _We're going to war with France!_

The George-Étienne Cartier monument towered behind present-day Jo. At its peak, an angel surveyed the city below. Wings extended into the fog, a palm held out in warning, as she balanced precariously on one foot.

"It's only a couple of feet off the ground but still—"

"Are there clones at these other clinics?" Darcy interrupted.

"No, they're long gone. From what I've gathered, the ones hanging around us were the last of them. Everyone else caught on to the doppelgänger thing long before we did."

"What have these other experiments been doing all this time?"

_Beep_. Jo checked her notifications as she talked. "Dying. Dying or trying to get the REVs out of their hands and then dying. A couple have exploded, like _literally_ exploded, but most of them just die. Poisoned slowly from the implant when it breaks down."

I sat abruptly beside Jo on the bench and buried my face in my hand. Theo tried to weasel into my lap. I pulled him up, pretending I merely wanted the comfort of his warmth.

"Every single one of those twenty-seven messages told the same story. Just like us. Judas' M.O. is picking teens who are different in some way then making sure they either _can't_ or _won't_ return home. Two of the Las Cruces experiments who wrote me are from Ottawa but they returned home a couple of months ago after the last clone bit the dust. They're driving up now to meet us."

"Now?" Darcy yelped. "Jo, you can't—"

"Don't give me that whole 'you can't meet people you met online' shtick because I've heard it all before. This isn't my first rodeo. We're in a crowded public spot. We're at . . ." Jo turned to me.

"Parc."

She rolled her wrist.

"The base of Mount Royal."

_"This is not a mountain."_

"Jo," Darcy's voice brought Jo back to their argument.

"Jamie's with me. If they try anything, he can use his verve to protect us and get our answers."

"And me." I sat up, putting Theo back down. The throbbing in my head moved into my eyes, tinting the fog in a muted shade of red. "I can protect you."

"Langdon." Jo rolled her eyes. "You look like you're going to pass out."

"This was my idea!"

"But we're the professionals. You're hanging back."

"Jo," Jamie reprimanded.

I whirled around in my seat. "You don't have to defend me."

Jamie chewed his tongue. He leaned down and hissed, "I wanted to."

A tight grip on my throat hindered any snide comeback. I pulled my phone out and pretended to check it. Ben was at work. Dan was probably still asleep and hadn't seen the note Jo left about a sightseeing trip.

Jamie passed between the lions. He circled slowly, observing the statues anchored to the angel's pillar. He paused before the group of maidens and tilted his head.

"Look, I know it sounds risky but the two from Las Cruces seem to check out. Maybe they have a piece of the puzzle, something that can help. Go back to studying arithmetic or whatever it is you do now."

"History. My professor is a dick and I'm close to failing his course because everyone's thinking different answers during the exams."

"Good luck." Jo jabbed a thumb on the screen and ended the call. She rubbed her cheeks. "I should have eaten lunch. Maybe we have time before—" She narrowed her eyes on something behind me. "Targets sighted."

"How can you tell?" I turned around. "Oh."

The Las Cruces experiments stood out from the cookie-cutter abled-bodies crossing Parc. Tourists stepped aside as the girl's motorized wheelchair navigated through the crowd. Beside her, a gangly boy kept pace. He walked with a limp, head ducked to speak to her, eyes scanning the small crowd. A look of recognition flashed on their faces as they spotted Jo.

"Rachelle?" Jo stood, cane gripped firmly in two hands. "I'm Jo. This is Langdon. It's nice to meet you."

"Thanks for meeting us here. The disability ramp to get up to the cross is a bitch," Rachelle told Jo before frowning at me with a perplexed face.

"Louis." He held out his left hand. The last of the sunlight peeked through the thinning fog and I realized it was his only one. His right sleeve was empty, pinned against his shoulder.

"You made that video on purpose," Louis stated. "You're searching for others, aren't you?"

"I'm trying to organize all the experiments. Judas and his clones may be gone but this isn't over."

"Judas?"

"We should probably sit down." Jo grimaced. "Well, _I_ will."

Rachelle grinned as Jo returned to the bench.

"I thought," Rachelle pressed a button and her wheelchair turned slightly to the right, "I thought that maybe . . . Isn't . . . ?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. He must have wandered off." Jo pulled her cream sweater tightly around her chest. "JAMIE!"

Jamie appeared at her command, sauntering down the steps, a polite smile etched into the corners of his lips.

"Where did you go?" Jo bristled.

"Purple scarf," Jamie's voice was low in my ear as he slipped to sit between us. He held his hand out to the newcomers. "Hi, I'm Jamie."

"I'm Louis." He snatched Jamie's hand. "And this is _my girlfriend_ , Rachelle."

"Hi. _Wow_. You're even more handsome in real life," Rachelle introduced herself. Louis glowered and gripped Jamie's hand harder. "Sorry, did I say that out loud?"

"Peanut," Jo whispered as I stood. "Where are you going?"

"You said you didn't need my help," I reminded her. A glimpse of purple glided around the base of the monument. I followed it up the path to the trees.

The crowd thinned as the night grew darker, colder. It took a minute of searching before I caught up to them, sitting on the rail, slowly eating a croissant. Bare hands picked at the flaky layers, peeling a chunk off and placing it lightly on their tongue.

"Where have you been?"

"He's getting stronger." They didn't look up.

"Why did you give me those pictures?"

"I want to be a nice person. No." They thought, lowering the croissant. "That's not right. I want to be a _likable_ person."

"You can start by not running around like a criminal. Stealing verves, talking about all this like it's some game or story. If you really want to stop Angel then you—"

They shook their head. "I'm tired of trying to stop him, but I made a promise to help you save Angel. Because you're a nice person and a likable person. You do the right things."

"You really don't know me."

"Maybe not the you right now, but I know another you. And I owe him."

"What's wrong? Why are you so different? Where's all your riddles and jokes?"

"Angel's becoming more powerful. Death is coming. I can't stop any of it. I've tried. So many times."

"Whose death? Who's dying?" I stepped forward. "Is it Jo? How does Jo die?"

Pale fingers picked at the flakes. With a small sigh, they placed it gently on the ground before Theo.

"I wish you were here." They exhaled, blue eyes welling. They touched the silver ring on my left hand.

* * *

"She's dead." Darcy stared at the skyline beyond the window. "Lanny. Paulo. Jamie's as good as dead. This thief can't do anything to stop him, even with all their stolen weapons. No matter what we do, we can't get an advantage over Angel's verve."

A strangely familiar woman's voice spoke with authority, "We will find another way."

"You saw him. He won't stop for anything. He won't listen to anyone. This is it. There's nothing anyone can do to stop him. I saw this coming but I never thought—" Darcy turned around, her eyes widened at me. A glass slipped out of her hand, shattering on the wood floor, as she backed away. "Oh, God, it's the ghost! Why can I see him? What do you want from me?"

* * *

A stiff breeze rolled fog across the dead grass below the monument. Streetlights flickered into the night. I found the four still near the benches, deep in conversation.

"No, I have a really good relationship with my parents. But I—I mean, how do I explain this to them? We decided not to tell anyone. We haven't talked about it to anyone outside of our clinic, actually."

"How many clones were at your clinic?" Louis asked Jo as I approached. Theo trotted, happily carrying the croissant that had magically appeared before him in his mouth. "Where are they now?"

The Hardings shifted slightly. Jo tilting her head, Jamie raising his chin.

"I kind of," Jo mumbled, "I kind of killed three of him."

"Not bad." Rachelle nodded approvingly.

"I got one." Louis jerked his thumb in her direction. "She nailed eight."

A grin broke out on Jo's face. "What are your verves?"

"I can locate where things are or where they are supposed to be. That curly haired guy that was just here." Rachelle lowered her voice, "He's not right."

"Tell me something I don't already know." I slipped into the group and sat beside Jamie. He raised his eyebrows and I shook my head. He exhaled.

Louis looked at Theo as he dropped the magic croissant on the ground. Theo looked up at Louis. Neither blinked. Theo yipped and launched into a playful stance.

"Tee," I shushed him, gently tapping his back. The two continued their staring contest. Theo's tail wagged, beating against the ground and tossing up dead grass.

"I used to be able to mirror anyone else's verve. Jamie can order people around. We're still trying to figure this one's out. Peanut is sort of—"

"Used to? What do you mean used to?"

"Mine, um, broke." She flashed a look at Jamie. "He—we think it was the original, not a clone—took it out of me and then ran off with it. God only knows what his plans were."

"He took it out of you? How?"

"He removed it when it broke and someone stole it from him. We think this thief is stalking other experiments and trying to steal theirs."

"A thief?"

"Peanut, tell them."

"They're small. Pale—" I began.

"Purple scarf and an affinity for candy." Louis looked away from Theo. He nodded knowingly as the three of us leaned in. "Yeah. We've met them. Continuum. They're a weird one, but they helped us get out of our clinic."

"Why did they help you?"

"I don't know. They showed up one afternoon, asking questions about Maria, then told us how to get out."

"Maria?"

"She was the strongest of our group. We called her Reverie. At first, she was just a psychic. She could predict small things that would happen the following day. Like one time, she had a dream that George was eating fish—George was allergic to shellfish so there's no way that could come true, right? The next day, she had one of those allergy shots on hand when he accidentally ate some pasta that had been cross-contaminated. Her verve kept getting stronger and changing. By the end, she could move objects and sort of influence other people's emotions."

"By the end?" Jamie asked.

"She didn't make it. No one did. We're the only ones of our group left."

"Poor Maria." Rachelle bit her lip. "Her family's still looking for her. The reward is up to fifty thousand now."

"Was Maria one of those that . . . ?" Jo hesitated.

Rachelle nodded solemnly. "There wasn't anything left."

Louis shifted uneasily. "It's like the stronger you get, the faster you die. Once your verve starts shifting into something else, you're pretty much doomed. Ours have stayed the same. Lucky, I guess."

"What's yours?" Jo asked.

"Oh." He flushed. "It's kind of dumb and useless. I can talk to animals."

" _What_?" Jamie leaned forward. "Why couldn't I get that one?"

"Like all animals or just the big ones? Are you a vegetarian now?"

"Mice don't really say anything and birds are too distracted to talk but, yeah, all animals." He nodded and turned to me. "He wants me to tell you he's sorry."

"Theo? What is he sorry for?"

"For not following you when you left. He said you were gone for a long time but he won't leave your side again. He'll do better."

Theo whined.

"Tell—" I cleared my throat. "Tell him that it's not—not his—"

Begrudgingly, Louis turned to Jamie. "He likes you a lot. He wants you to hang around more often."

"Your verve doesn't work." Jamie tossed the hair stuck against his lips. "His dog hates me. He never comes near me."

"He said you don't need him. Everyone else needs him. But he likes you because," Louis turned to Theo and looked quizzically at him, "because you help."

Jamie regarded Theo with raised eyebrows.

"Look, it's the freak convention!"

"Oh, no." Rachelle's cheeks paled. Louis tensed, ducking his head. "Why is he _here_?"

"Who is that?" Jo cut her eyes.

"This asshole who goes to our school. He won't leave me alone."

"Woah, sold out crowd for tonight's show. Hi, _Rachelle_. Are you going to pop a wheelie? I—Oh. Hey, Langdon! What are you doing with these losers?" Alex's face lit up. "Guys, this is Langdon. He's cool."

Three guys behind him nodded. The Hardings frowned. Rachelle and Louis looked at me apprehensively.

"We're headed down to the arcade for a round. Do you want to come? Oh, nice, you brought your dog."

"No."

"Allons-y. C'est samedi."

"He's busy." Jo turned around. " _Non_."

"Did I say something to you? Shut your mouth, you fucking native."

My breath hitched, nails digging into my palms. Jamie stood up, irises turning dark faster than an eclipse.

" _Merde_ , I can't tell which one's the bitch," Alex joked to his friends though his unease was apparent. Jamie rose to his full height, towering over him. "I guess they both are."

"Leave my friends alone." My voice caught in my throat.

"I'm only telling you once." Jamie stepped forward, placing himself between Alex's gang and ours. "You need to leave."

"My bad. I didn't realize we were interrupting your little pow-wow. Oh, what's this?" Alex bent down and picked up a long white goose feather. He held it up to Jamie's impassive face. "Looks like you dropped something."

I handed Theo's leash to Louis. "Tell my dog to stay out of this."

"Why don't you—" Alex didn't get a chance to finish.

" _Ferme ta gueule!"_ I knocked the feather out of his hand, anger raging inside me. His grin morphed into a frown a split-second before I punched him. Alex stumbled back, clutching his nose. Jamie put a hand to my chest, holding me back. I shouted, "Don't talk to my friends like that. _Connard_."

Alex wiped his sleeve across his face. Blood smeared across one cheek. Behind him, his friends flexed their fingers and cracked their necks. One took off his jacket and tossed it to the ground.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, son," a familiar voice spoke. Jo's face fell with gratitude. She let out a breath and whispered to Rachelle and Louis as grass crunched behind me.

Dan squeezed my shoulder. He pulled me back and muttered, "I got it from here. Step back."

"He—"

"I saw." Dan paused and glanced at my hand. "Did you keep your thumb down? Good, kid."

"What are you going to do, old man?" Alex sneered, egged on by jeers from his friends. " _Tell my dad_?"

"Oh," Dan laughed coldly, stepping closer. "Oh, no, son. You're going to _wish_ that's all I did."

Dan gripped Alex's shoulder tightly and whispered something into his ear. Alex's face fell.

I turned around. Louis stood beside Rachelle, holding out Theo's leash. Jamie's big lips pursed bitterly. Beside Jo, Stan stood with his arms crossed and a smug look on his face.

"What are you doing here?"

"Saw Jo's posey. Figured you three were doing something stupid, so I went to your house and woke your dad up. He found the note about sightseeing."

"Who are you?" Rachelle asked.

"He's another one of us," Jo replied, taking Stan's arm. "We should get out of here. Stanley, lead the way. Please, tell me we can stop for dinner on the way back."

I took Theo's leash and followed them. Jamie tapped my shoulder. We fell behind.

Jamie's voice was low, but his anger was high. "You don't have to defend me."

"I know." I hesitated. "But I wanted to."

* * *

Rachelle's uncle owned a nearby restaurant, which meant that her wheelchair and Theo were easily welcomed. Staff allotted us a spacious table in the center of the room. Dan sat between Stan and I, silent and frowning at every detail the Montreal and the Las Cruces experiments traded.

"You think Continuum wants all the implants for themselves?"

"They said they were collecting them."

"What for? Are they trying to become the ultimate weapon?"

"Wait," Stan interjected. "If they want all the REVs, why haven't they contacted Jo after her Posey went out to the entire world?"

"Maybe they can't use any phones or laptops?" Rachelle mused. "Maria couldn't get within a few steps of any technology without making it combust."

"But surely they've seen it? Especially if they're on the lookout for verves to collect."

Dan leaned over and whispered behind a handful of corn chips, "Are you following any of this?"

Stan leaned over and whispered, "Thief wants to steal all the devices in our hands to become invincible."

Dan nodded and interjected with a large amount of confidence, "So, if these thieves—"

"One thief," Stan corrected quietly.

"So, if this thief," Dan paused, waiting. He continued, "wants all the power. The real question is: are— _is_ the thief working alone?"

"Who would even be helping them?" Jo frowned. I shifted, reaching for a handful of chips.

"Judas. Wasn't it his plan to make one of you into a weapon? He found his prime candidate and is now helping this thief get to the—What was it called?—the full potential. He's probably hiding out somewhere, telling your thief where to find the best people to steal from. You need to get together and go to the police to report this."

Eyes rolled around the table, bouncing off each other, and landed with a dulled collective stare at Dan.

He looked around. "What?"

"Sure," Jamie replied with ill-hidden venom, picking up his glass of water. "Let's tell the police we're being stalked by a thief no one can touch, who wants to steal the magical weapons buried in our hands. I'm sure they would love to help out a group comprised of disabled, gay, black, _native_ teenagers."

"No one would help me when all I wanted was to find Jamie," Jo recalled, shaking her head. "No one's going to help us now. We have to protect ourselves."

* * *

The dispute between Dan and Jamie over who would pay ended with a twist. Rachelle's family had footed the bill, subtly hinting that Jo was welcome to return and record a Posey there. Jo and Jamie stood close to the Las Cruces experiments under the parking lot's lamp posts. Jo and Rachelle traded contact information. Jamie pretended to not notice Louis' hostile stare.

Stan stepped aside, hands in his pockets. "Why didn't you verve out back there when that guy was starting a fight?"

I glanced back. Dan stood by his truck, responding to a message on his phone under the dim lighting.

"Because my implant is breaking," I admitted. "It doesn't work the way it used to. I'll verve out later when I'm not expecting it and I'll end up in someone else's past or future. That me you saw, that day at Darcy's house, I think that was me in the future."

"Do they know?" Stan cut his eyes at the Hardings.

"What can they do about it? Worry? I thought that maybe it was because I'm on medication, but it wasn't working even before that. I think something happens in the future and it's breaking down in the past. Now."

Stan groaned. "There's got to be something we can do."

"There is." I twisted Theo's leash around my hand and lowered my voice, "I need your help. I think I know where Continuum is hiding."

"Where?"

"Will you help me?"

Stan wavered. He nodded once.

"Thanks. I'll ask Jamie. He'll—"

"No." Stan stomped his foot. "I'm not going if Mr. Perfect is involved. I don't trust him."

"You don't trust me."

"I don't. And I do. Look, Jamie's different." He folded his arms. "You were the first friend I made when I finally got to be myself and you can't fake that. You might be weird, but you're good. Jamie is a giant keener, ok? He's a pretty boy who's had everything handed to him. I'm not going to let him boss me around."

"He's not—"

"He broke the one piece of evidence we had!" Stan argued, "He's got to have all the attention. He's always got to be in control. He won't listen to anyone else's ideas."

"Leave Jamie alone."

"Why?"

"Because he broke the laptop for me," I snapped. "Because he knew I didn't want everyone to find out that my dad—That I was—I didn't want it out there for everyone to know that I have to go to therapy, that I have panic attacks and a service dog, all because my dad did things to me that no one should ever do to a nine-year-old, ok?"

Stan's face was unreadable in the low light. He was silent, immobile. Then, "Which one? Is it that one?" He pointed to Dan. "I'll rip him from limb to limb, right now."

"Stan." I grabbed his arm as he stormed toward the truck. My feet tripped over each other as I tried to make him halt. "Biological. _Biological_ father. He's been dead for years."

Stan spun around, chewing his tongue. He frowned, struggling to find something to say in the silence.

"STAN! DO YOU WANT A RIDE BACK TO DARCY'S?"

He held a thumb up to Jo and turned back to me.

"So, you'll help?"

He nodded. He tagged my arm and headed to her. Jo pulled out her phone and showed him the screen, a wide grin spreading across her face.

"Jamie." I caught his attention with a wave.

He slunk slowly toward me, glancing back at Jo and Stan.

I stepped closer and lowered my voice, "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

Jamie ducked his head, hair falling forward, and shrugged.

"Do you want to—" I nodded as Dan pointed to the watch on his wrist. My words fell out in a jumble. "Can we meet up tomorrow night?"

"JAMIE!"

Jamie curled a lip as he thought. "Jo's planning on filming a live Posey."

"No. No Jo. Just you."

Jamie blinked. Behind him, Jo honked the horn in his car. Stan tried fruitlessly to stop her. Jamie held out a middle finger before tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. His nose wrinkled as he smiled. "Yeah, sure."

"Great. See you at eight?"

"Yeah, sure." Jamie turned, taking a few steps. He stopped and spun around. "Did you say eight?"

"Yes." I glared at Jo.

"Cool. Yeah. I'll see you at eight." A flush of pale pink glowed on his cheeks. His lips twitched as if he wanted to say something else. The horn blared again and he shook his head, a smile belying any annoyance at his sister.

Dan watched me as I walk to his truck and climbed into the passenger seat. We drove back in total silence. Dan, with a smirk. He cut his eyes at me throughout the ride home, glancing in my direction at every stop sign and red light. He spoke only after the truck pulled to a stop outside the former garage.

"Smooth."

#  CHINA DOLL

"You picked a terrible night for your date." Dan rattled a bottle of antacids. He popped two in his mouth and crunched. Snow had begun piling up on the sidewalks and streets not long after we arrived home last night. The sun had appeared briefly in the morning and melted most of it, only for it to refreeze into thick sheets of ice as more snow fell. Of all the nights to organize a break-in, I had picked the worst one.

"It's not a date," I grumbled for the fifth time as I practically sat on Theo. He hated wearing boots but there was a good chance people had already started to salt the snow.

Dan had overheard part of my conversation with Jamie last night. Fortunately, he didn't catch onto what I was planning. Unfortunately, he wouldn't relent on what he thought was happening.

The clock ticked over to the new hour. I had overslept, gotten lost in the warmth of the shower, and miscalculated the amount of time it would take to get all my winter layers on. Jamie would arrive at any minute.

"Misty, go!"

Her black muzzle worked its way into my palm as I tightened the last boot on Theo. He stood up, ready to run. I snagged him by his hips and yanked the sweater over. A boot fell off as I slipped his leg through the arm hole.

Ben stumbled inside with a rush of snow. He peeled his gloves off. "Where are you going? I thought you two were painting the garage something other than green?"

"He's got a date."

"A date? _Who_?"

"Jamie."

I sighed. "It's not—"

"Are you getting dinner?"

"Probably," I lied as I tied the boot back on. I loosened the clasps on Theo's vest to allow extra room for the sweater. The more they thought we were planning, the better. I had no idea how long this would take.

"A movie?"

"Sure."

"Mistletoe?"

"Ye—" I glared up at the two through the hair falling into my eyes. "It's not a date! He's my friend!"

" _Friend_ ," Dan turned around to whisper loudly at Ben, who fought a smirk.

"Odd. That's how I referred to my first boyfriend, too." Ben shook the ice from his gloves. "So, about your _friend_ —"

"No, no." Dan reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. "We're going to cut him some slack. It's the first one."

He held a few bills down to where I sat.

"What's this for?"

"You pay for dinner." Dan sniffed, slipping his wallet back into his pocket. "Or at least your half. What movie are you going to see?"

"The, uh," I struggled to recall what was playing, "the one about the dog."

Dan quirked an eyebrow. "You don't want to see that one. Those movies never end well."

"Right. Thanks." I took the money and shoved it into my pocket, rolling to my feet. "Theo, come on."

His boots slid on the slick floor as I clipped the leash on his vest. Headlights flashed, scanning the walls.

"Be back by midnight!" Ben called out as I ran out the front door.

Theo lifted his paws from the snow that had drifted onto the steps. We waited for Jamie's car to spin over a patch of ice and up the last few feet of the driveway.

"Ridiculous," I muttered to Theo as we watched the tires spin. "No way anyone—much less _Jamie_ —would ever agree to a date with me. You're the least embarrassing thing about me. No offense."

Jamie opened his door and stepped out. Black boots slipped over the icy driveway. His ringed fingers clutched the door to stop his fall.

"Where's your coat?" I walked carefully, pulling the passenger door open.

Theo jumped in and climbed over the front seats, curling up on Jamie's black coat in the back.

Jamie pinched the lapel of the smart thin black suit jacket he had traded for his usual pea coat. It ended just below the waist of his jeans. The low neckline of his shirt exposed his neck and chest to the freezing air. Even his hair was up, half of it pulled up into a knot, the rest curling against his neck and bare collarbones.

"Didn't you bring anything else?"

Jamie gestured to the coat that was now Theo's bed.

"Stay." I rolled my eyes and slowly picked my way back to the front door. "Dan?"

"—stop eating all those fucking cheeseburgers," Ben grumbled from somewhere unseen.

"What is it?" Dan's voice echoed down the hall.

"Are you going anywhere?"

"In this mess?" He appeared around the corner, rattling the bottle of antacids. "Not a chance in hell."

"I'm borrowing your coat for Jamie." I plucked it off the coat rack.

"Hey, come here." He waved at me, glancing back to make sure Ben wasn't listening.

"I need to—"

"You can give me a minute," he lowered his voice and pointed to the front door. "I want you to promise me something."

"I'm not going to drink. I'll be back by—"

"Kid, just let me speak. I know you and Jamie are close. I know he probably looks like he's got everything. But I want you to promise me that you will remember Jamie has nothing on you. You understand that? You don't need to impress him or do every little thing he says so he'll like you. He's the lucky one for getting to spend time with you. I mean, the boy doesn't even know to bring a damn coat in the middle of winter. You got it?"

I folded the coat over my arm. "I thought you liked Jamie."

"Jamie is something else. I can't explain it, but sometimes when I look at that kid," he inhaled sharply, "he scares the hell out of me. No one his age should have that much composure."

I shrugged.

"All right. Have fun on your—"

"Not a date."

"Not a date," he mocked, shutting the door behind me.

Jamie frowned as I slipped into the passenger seat and slammed the door. "What's wrong with my jacket?"

"You will freeze to death in an hour." I tossed the coat into his lap. "Gloves are in the pocket. Let's go."

Jamie slowly dropped Dan's coat and scarf on the backseat beside Theo. He turned the ignition. The song I had selected as we drove to the hotel that afternoon spent bathing dogs played for a solid second. He turned the volume off.

"So." Jamie tugged the thin silky sleeve of his suit jacket over the bracelets on his wrist. A brightness filled his brown eyes. "I found this new sushi restaurant in Old Port. But, if you had something else you wanted to—"

"Old Port? We don't have time." Outside, wind blew snow in droves against the windshield. I swallowed. Hopefully, Jamie knew how to drive in cold weather even if he didn't know how to dress for it.

"We don't?"

"Judas' apartment. It could take hours to go through and this storm is only going to get worse."

"Judas' apartment?"

"You know how to get there, right?"

"Yeah." Jamie watched the snow falling onto the hood. "I know how to get there. It's west."

"Good, let's go."

His hands didn't move from where they rested on his lap.

"Jamie?"

"Yeah? Sorry." He blinked hard, shaking his head. Jamie moved to put the car in reverse. His hand hovered above the shift. "I just thought we were . . ."

"Continuum is staying there. Maybe not right now, but at some point, they will be. I saw it in one of the not-memories. There's a good chance we'll find something there we can use, something that will help us figure out where Judas is or was or what they are up to."

"Right," Jamie breathed out. His hands slid through his hair, ruffling the loose ends around his neck. He rubbed his face. A weary look dimmed the brightness of his eyes until they were the same dark of the sky. "Right."

My phone beeped in my pocket.

> johardorgohome started a live Posey. Swipe to join the viewing party.

> Stan Burton  
> Metro's delayed. I'll take the red line and be there as fast as I can.

I flicked my phone to silent mode.

Jamie didn't turn the volume back up as he drove carefully through the streets. Snow piled up, centimeters increasing by the second. Roads were closed quickly, signs blocking our path. He nodded each time I pointed out which street to take.

Theo tumbled out of the passenger seat, standing awkwardly on the unblazed sidewalk. Sleet cut my cheeks as I waited for Jamie to slip Dan's tan coat on. He zipped it up and ignored the white gloves, shoving his hands in the pockets.

I scanned the back of the apartment building. A winding fire escape clung to the brick walls, ice building in layers on the rails.

"Took you long enough," Stan called out from the shadows.

Jamie exhaled loudly. Snowflakes mixed into the black of his hair and melted.

"What?"

"Who else is coming?"

"Just him."

"Great." He flipped the hood over his head. "Let's get this over with."

"Jo said it was on the fourth floor, number fourteen. If we climb the fire escape—"

"How are you going to climb the fire escape?" Jamie asked flatly.

I raised my gloves, showing off the nonslip rubber palms. "The ice hasn't settled yet."

"I meant, how is _Theo_ going to climb the fire escape?"

I blanked. Barely a minute in and my plan was going to hell.

"We can't leave him in the car. He'll freeze." Stan frowned. "Lanny can stay behind. There's a Timmy's on the corner. Wait there."

"I'm not staying behind."

Jamie stretched onto the tips of his boots and yanked the bottom rung of the ladder. It fell to the ground with a crash and splintering of ice. "Both of you stay here. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"No way," Stan exclaimed. He shot a _told-you-so_ look at me and mouthed ' _Keener._ ' "I'll do it. You two go get coffee. I'll text Lanny if I find anything."

Jamie stepped aside as Stan climbed up the ladder. He watched Stan's ascent.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Ok, so I didn't think the plan entirely through," I apologized. "Maybe we can get in another way."

Jamie turned sharply and walked up the alley. Snow stuck to the trunks of the oak trees lining the sidewalk. Large golden snowflake-shaped decorations hung from their branches, blowing in the wind. Pedestrians had churned the new snow into dirty slush before the entrance. A bicycle, long-forgotten by its owner, stood frozen. Icicles hung from its handles.

"Walk like you have the key," Jamie muttered, pulling the door open.

A security guard narrowed his eyes as Jamie and I walked past his desk to the elevators. Jamie and I exchanged a glance as the doors shut.

"Too easy," I whispered. "What did that mean?"

"Something someone told me once. To fake confidence and get through life: walk like you have the key."

"To what?"

"Everyone's worst secrets. Their happiness." Jamie's eyes flickered to the camera in the corner.

"Is it Jo?"

"What?"

"Is Jo getting worse? Why are you acting weird?"

"I'm not acting weird. She's fine," Jamie huffed. "She's watching the music awards with the volume muted so she can do announcer voice-overs on a live feed."

The elevator doors parted upon a still, dark floor. Jamie stepped out first and walked ahead. A nerve tightened behind my left eye as I failed to catch up to him with each step. We stopped outside number fourteen.

"I didn't bring you to protect me."

"I'm not protecting you." Jamie turned the doorknob. Locked. "I'm getting answers."

" _We're_ getting answers."

Jamie sneered at my correction. He stepped back from the door, looking up and down the hallway. "Do you think anyone else lives on this floor?"

There were no welcome mats or holiday wreaths on the other three doors. "Probably not. They would have picked somewhere quiet and—"

Jamie's boot crashed into the door directly above the handle. He kicked it again. The wood buckled at the second impact, splintering away around the handle. Jamie pressed his shoulder against the door and pulled on the handle until the lock slipped out of the frame. The door swung open. He straightened Dan's coat and looked at me.

Jamie swept his arm out with a bow. "After you."

Theo's ears perked up as he sniffed the stale air. I gripped the leash tightly, ready to pull him back if needed. Jamie followed, shutting the door after him as best he could. He took out his phone and hit the light function.

"There's no one here."

"How can you be sure?" I hushed.

"For starters, they would have come to see who just kicked in their front door or escaped through the only window in the apartment." He pointed his light at the wide bay window. It was the same window from the not-memory I had right before my birthday. The view outside was identical, except now it was obscured by falling snow.

"They could be hiding."

Jamie shook his head and held his phone up to the light switch. A flicking noise echoed. "No power. No one's living here."

"Jo said there were computers here." I found the light function on my phone.

"Judas must have packed up everything while he was pretending to be on our side. There's nothing."

We moved around the small studio flat. I pointed to the closet door. Theo sniffed. He showed no interest and I knew it was safe to open. Jamie opened the refrigerator. Something rattled. "Ew."

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

We jumped. Stan shivered on the fire escape as Jamie undid the lock and forced the window up.

"Took you long enough," Jamie quipped.

"Freaking ice. I slipped five times. I didn't want to break the window in case there was an alarm." He stepped in, brushing snow off his short hair. "Find anything?"

"Only if you're in the market for some rancid milk."

"Pass." Stan tilted his head. "Lanny. Move your phone back like you had it. Is that . . . ? Holy—"

"Fuck," Jamie breathed.

I turned around.

Hundreds of neatly printed words in cracked faded ink stretched across the wall behind me. There was no logic to their design. Every word scrawled seemingly at random. Words dotted, some stood alone, some in groups. A dozen clustered in the center, surrounded by a bold red circle.

Stan snapped pictures, light flashing, as Jamie scoured the words. His thumb went to his mouth, brown eyes studying each handwritten letter. Moonlight dyed his hair an electric blue. His spine curved as he crouched to read the words written by a lunatic in a broken-into apartment. Something no one who saw the Sâtieer ad would have ever anticipated the model doing on a Sunday night.

I stepped forward as Stan moved back to capture the full scope. Theo turned his head. I stared at the words jumping out at me. Phone lights danced around the room.

Reverie. Mirage. Dove.

"Midnight." I touched Jo's name, etched inside the red circle. A thin black line marked her name out. A title we had given her. These weren't words. These were names. People. "We're being tallied."

"No." Jamie stood, tracing the circle with a finger. "We're being ranked."

"Ranked for what?"

Jamie's eyes flickered over the names inside the circle. "Power."

"How can you tell?"

"Look at how this was arranged." He touched the strokes that formed Angel. Even in the dim light of our phones, the anger of the chart maker was apparent. The ink was darker, pressed harder. Each letter blurred and overlapped. Repeated. Rewritten. "You said that Continuum told you Angel is the most powerful experiment. Angel is written at the top."

"That— _no_." My name was too high on the chart for this to be true. Liminal Boy was directly underneath Continuum and Midnight.

"They scratched out Jo because she doesn't have a verve anymore," Jamie raised his voice, touching her name. "The people in this circle are the strongest. If Continuum can eliminate everyone in this circle, gain control of their verves, then they are the most powerful out of all of us."

"All so they can challenge this Angel?" Stan asked.

Jamie shook his head, eyes unblinking. "We could all work together against Angel. Against Judas. They have something else planned."

Many of the names outside the circle were left in their original state. Many names inside the circle had been altered. I looked closer, trying to discern the other scratched out names. Someone named Tantrum had been scrawled over, hidden under a different color ink. The bold black of the original letters shining through the blue that tried to hide it. Two words beside Midnight had been almost completely removed. Erased.

I lowered my light. A check mark sat innocently next to Liminal Boy.

"If the ones in the circle are the most powerful then these are their next targets." Stan held his phone up and snapped another picture. "But who is who? And how do we warn them?"

"What happened to this one?" Jamie touched the erased name by Midnight. "Why erased instead of marked out?"

Stan squinted at it. "Ch . . . Ch . . . ? What do you think that said?"

"China Doll," I said.

Jamie's fingers froze against his name. Fear encroached his eyes.

Stan looked at me. "What poor idiot got stuck with _China Doll_ of all names?"

I wavered, but judging from the pallor on his face as his fingers traced the smeared lines, he already knew. "That's Jamie."

"Is that why your name is next to Jo's? Did they think you have twin verves?"

Jamie squared his shoulders as the hurt moved behind his irises. "Why did they erase me?"

"Because you don't have Jo's verve?" Stan guessed.

"Because," I hesitated, "you try to stop Angel in the future. You fail."

"I don't fail," Jamie spun around, pointing an ink-stained finger at me, "at anything."

"Whatever Angel is, he's powerful. Too powerful for one person to take on their own."

"Continuum seems to think they can."

"They're stealing every verve they can get their hands on so they _can_ challenge Angel."

"What does Angel do?" Stan moved his light.

"Continuum said 'he can rewrite the world,' whatever that means."

"Well, it doesn't sound _good_." Stan shuddered and knelt before the wall to study the lower names. "Where am I? Who am I? I don't have a name, do I?"

"They're wrong." Jamie shook his head, stepping back. "I can tell Angel to stop whatever he's planning and he'll have to listen to me. I can make him stop."

"But what if that's what happens?" I pressed. "What if your verve can't handle that command and it breaks?"

"Then I die. But Angel will still be forced to stop."

I whispered, "You promised."

"No," Stan stood. "You're not going to sacrifice yourself. Wait— _shush_. Did you hear that?"

"Why the sudden concern about my wellbeing?"

"Because you're not going to do it. No one is taking on Angel alone." I stepped closer, Theo taking a step a delayed moment later. "There has to be another way. We already know that you aren't the one who stops Angel, so you have to stay out of his way when he—"

"I AM NOT FRAGILE!" Jamie's voice surpassed even Jo's loudest volume.

Ringing silence hovered in the seconds following his outburst. Stan and I looked at each other, immobilized, as Jamie crumpled. He fell back into himself, embarrassment and guilt flashing on his face.

A shuffling outside the front door shook us from our frozen stances. Stan was out the window first, helping me get Theo onto the fire escape. I quickly followed. Jamie stumbled out last and shoved the stiff window back into place. The four of us huddled, smushed on top of each other, in a small nook on the icy, freezing fire escape, hiding from view.

Light from a flashlight bounced out the window. Static crunched and a beep chirped.

"I don't see anything, Greg," a security guard spoke into his transceiver. "But I definitely heard something. The entrance is broken. You better call for back up. I'll check the studio on the other side."

Light moved away, disappearing. We let out a collective sigh of relief as footsteps finally faded away.

#  REVELATIONS

Ever since seeing the names scrawled on a wall, Jamie's demeanor had only grown worse. The dead of the world outside his car amplified the tension. Snowfall had stalled temporarily. Most of what had found its way to the road had melted into slush under the crunch of wheels. Yet, the sidewalks remained untouched, blanketed under a thick layer of white. Sparkling snow coated the trees and sidewalks. Everything muted, all colors washed away, except for the stark black of a few light posts and iron fences.

Whoever this Continuum was, they knew more than anyone. There were hundreds of names on that wall.

The start of the engine startled me out of my thoughts.

"I'll take you home." Jamie reached for his seat belt. "Unless you have any more errands you need me to run."

"Errands?" Jamie didn't reply, fiddling with the music. I thought. "The snow's almost stopped. Do you want to go to that sushi place you were talking about?"

Jamie shook his head, long hair hiding his face.

"There's a really good deli a few blocks over."

"I'm not hungry."

His voice was unbearably flat under the growl of the engine. There was no harshness, no anger, but still, it rattled me.

"Are you mad at me?"

Hair bounced as he shook his head again. He cleared his throat and stroked the locks out of his face. Rap music began to trickle quietly as he dropped his phone into the cup holder between us. "It's been a long day." He exhaled loudly. His head fell back against the headrest and rolled to look at me. "Home?"

"Sure. I guess."

Theo nestled into Dan's jacket in the backseat. Jamie pulled away from the curb and drove east. Rap music hummed so quietly I could barely pick up the lyrics over the roar of the earth rushing underneath the tires. Jamie's mood stayed on my mind. Something thicker than ice hovered in the air inside the car, pulling at me. Jamie stared longingly at the red light.

The names were starting to make sense. Midnight signaled a new day and Jo was the girl who started things. Liminal Boy, the only name for the fool without a place or certainty in his life. What name had been given to Stan, who had opted to take the Metro back to Darcy's. And what about her?

I cut my eyes at Jamie's silent figure. The question in my mind pounded to be let out. It turned in my mouth until I could word it carefully.

"You knew. You knew your name was China Doll. What does it mean?"

"I've had a lot of nicknames." Jamie refused to take his eyes off the light. "Not all of them are nice."

"Who called you China Doll?"

"Michael."

"Do you think he's—?"

"There's no way he's involved in this."

"Oh." I chewed my lip. "Was it like a pet name?"

Jamie shook his head again, pressing a hand against his mouth. The engine hummed as it idled, steam puffing out of the hood into the night. Jamie offered no further explanation.

" _Jamie_."

"I'm ace." He snapped through the rings pressed against his mouth.

"You're what?"

"I'm asexual."

"A sexual what?"

A half-sob, half-laugh broke through his lips and he lowered his hand. "It means I'm not interested in sex."

I hesitated before asking, "That's a thing?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

I nodded, letting the conversation die, my question unanswered. The car moved forward slowly along the thick ice. It idled at the next red light two streets down from the first.

"Did something happen to you?"

"Nothing happened to me," Jamie snapped. "It's how I am."

The light turned green and Jamie eased carefully into the intersection.

"I'm sorry." I flipped my phone over nervously. "It's just that—Someone told me—I used to think I was gay because of . . . That I was gay because of what happened."

Jamie frowned. He cut his eyes at me as the car slowed to a stop at the next light. "That's not how it works, Langdon. You aren't turned into anything. It's who you are."

"I know." I added hurriedly, "I know. _Now_."

When Jamie finally spoke, his voice was quiet. "China Doll is what my ex-boyfriend called me when we broke up. He said I was a pretty thing, high up on a shelf. Not meant to be played with." Jamie looked out the window at the empty street. His voice barely audible. "Breakable."

My hand hovered beside his on the steering wheel then fell. "You're not."

"No, but I am fake," Jamie argued. "You're right. You had it right. I'm false advertising." He pushed the long hair out of his face and inhaled deeply. "No one wants to be with me after they've gotten to know me, after they realize what I am. I can't blame them. I'm not a person. That's my power, my verve: I'm not real."

"That's not true." My words fell short.

"My ex-girlfriend broke my heart. My ex-boyfriend broke my arm. Now, Aggie, I did sleep with," Jamie continued, his tone lifting, his words tumbling out too quickly to be lighthearted. "She wanted to be a model and I was simply a way to give her connections to the industry. I didn't figure that out until after."

Jo's frustration suddenly made sense.

"Sex is really boring." Jamie laughed once. It sounded forced. His ability to hide true emotion had slipped away in the safe dark confines of the car. I got the sense that he was losing control as he continued, "I don't get why everyone's obsessed with it and I can't make myself pretend to be someone I'm not. I mean, for the camera, sure. But not for real life. I can't be fake in a relationship. I can't. I guess that's why no one wants to go out with me."

"That's not—"

"Or maybe it's because of the million other things wrong with me." Jamie's words tumbled together. "It's certainly why Michael broke up with me. God, Jo was so pissed when I called her. I was freaking out. I'd never broken anything before and it hurt like hell. I didn't even really like him, he was an ass. But, I mean, my parents had just died. That's why I went out with Michael in the first place. I was just so . . ." Jamie's fingers flexed against the wheel. His breath ragged. He swallowed and flicked the hair over his face. It fell like a sheet. "Lonely. The pathetic thing is I was still lonely even when he was around."

The word hung in the air, reminding me of all the times I had felt like the hurt in his voice. Where I put hope in alcohol being the solution, Jamie turned to people. Somehow, his approached seemed more dangerous.

"Take a left."

"There's no road block."

"Take a left."

He flicked the blinker from right to left.

"Left, again," I directed him. "Right. Park in that spot or the next one. The parking spots are always full over here."

"Where are we going now?" Jamie's questioning was cut off as I slammed the door shut. He tried again, leaning back to ask as soon as I opened the back door to let Theo out, "What are we doing?"

"Put the coat back on."

Jamie followed me up the street, grumbling and shivering, as he pulled Dan's coat on. Theo and I stopped as he fumbled with numb fingers over the zipper. Hands falling to his side as I reached out and tugged the zipper up. Our breath visible in the air between us. I straightened the scarf over his neck, protecting his exposed skin.

"It's not far."

"What are we breaking into now?"

I ignored him. Theo plodded through the snow drifts until he grew tired and trailed behind me, following in the path I cleared.

"Where are we?" Jamie squinted up at the errant snowflakes fluttering down. Towering metal cranes swayed far above the city. Wind had blown the earlier snow into the street signs but I knew exactly where to go. I could find our destination blindfolded. "Langdon?"

"Not much further." I turned the corner and stopped. Jamie frowned at me over Dan's white scarf. He blinked as cold air blew into our faces, then ducked his head.

"Dan used to take me here a lot when I was young. I always liked the way the windows looked. Especially at this time of year, when everything else is so gray."

"What is it called?"

"Palais Des Congrès de Montréal," I put on the best French pronunciation I could muster.

The multi-color window panes glowed from the lights inside. They dyed the white snow on the ground below into a kaleidoscope of vibrant hues. Before it, the fountain churned, spouting water inside a ring of inextinguishable fire.

Jamie shifted his weight. A slight smile returning to his lips as he translated, "The rainbow place."

* * *

Marigold Court was untouched by footprints or snowplows. Golden streetlight gleamed blearily through the thick haze of snow swirling through the air. Music played nearly inaudibly, muffled by the wind howling against Jamie's car as he drove cautiously across the white road.

During the day, the convention center's rainbow panels cast their colors inside the building, highlighting the walls and escalators. At night, the view inside wasn't as great, but the detour brightened Jamie's mood nonetheless. Seeing the smile return to his face even a little lifted my own spirits by an exponential amount. We had grabbed coffees from the lower level before heading back to the car. Theo had relented, allowing Jamie to carry him through the snow.

Warmth radiated inside the small car as Jamie slowed, squinting at the houses. "I can't tell which one is yours."

"That one."

He turned, almost missing the driveway, easing to a stop on the ice behind Dan's truck and Ben's car. I peered through the snowfall at the dark windows. It was well past curfew, but, then again, they knew I was with the Harding that didn't have a habit of setting things on fire.

"Why didn't you tell me the truth about Angel?"

Wind howled, rocking the car. Leaving the comfort of it felt obscene. Out there was the world, frozen and slumbering, yes, but a world of uncertainty. Inside was Jamie, moody and elusive, yet somehow the only person I ever felt secure around.

"I was trying to protect you. You _can't_ challenge Angel. Continuum doesn't make a lot of sense, but they really believe that something bad happens to you when you meet him."

"I'm surprised you even warned me. I thought you hated me."

"I don't hate you. I understand why you went through my file."

"No, before the laptop. Before Jo came back. You always acted like you hated me. Even after, during these past few months, I couldn't be certain. You barely talked to me whenever we came over, you stared at me like I was some intruder. As soon as we were alone you always asked where Jo was—"

"What did you want me to say?"

"I don't know."

"Do you really want more compliments?"

"No, I just," he groaned. "Forget it."

"I don't hate you." I lowered my voice, admitting quietly, "I don't feel alone when you're around."

Jamie's lips quirked. A hint of sadness clinging to his eyelashes. "That's a compliment."

"It's like no matter how badly I mess up explaining myself you always understand me."

"No, I don't." He inhaled deeply. "I thought you had asked me out on a date tonight. I'm sorry if I was snappy at you earlier. I guess I got my hopes up."

"Why would you—but you—?"

"It's fine. I was just being stupid. Forget it." Jamie shook his head. His hand went to the gear shift. He nodded at the door. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah. Yeah, later." I slowly stepped out, easing the door shut so I didn't wake anyone inside the house. Not like anyone could hear anything over the howling wind. My boots failed to grasp the ground as my mind struggled to grasp the concept.

He thought it was going to be a date.

He showed up, thinking it was going to be a date.

He was excited about being on a date.

_With me._

I turned back, feet sliding along the ice, and grabbed the driver's side mirror. Jamie rolled the window down.

"Did you forget something?" Jamie pointed at Theo, who had climbed into the passenger seat beside him. Snowflakes blustered past, melting on the warm dashboard, dying in the blanketed night that was Jamie's black hair.

The rough edge of the door cut through the layers of my coat, into my stomach, as I leaned inside. Beautiful brown eyes closed as I tilted his face up to mine. Jamie tasted like coffee and certainty and sunlight on the first day of spring. I melted under his fingertips as they brushed along my cheeks. The world hummed. No cold, no wind, nothing touched me as I sunk further into the softness of his lips, warmth thrilling through my veins. There was no unease. No second-guessing. No worry. Only him. For the first time in my life, I knew where I was supposed to be.

#  THE END OF THE WORLD

We sunk down, hiding from anyone who might bump into the car in the middle of the snowstorm to discover two boys kissing as though the world was ending. The world was on our side. An onslaught of snow buried us in privacy. It blew against the windows and froze in a thick sheet of frost.

Jamie stretched across the backseat, nuzzling into me. His long legs bent in the small open space between the driver and passenger seat. Each breath brushed against my cheek, a feeling undeniably real. As real as the heat of his body next to mine. As real as his fingers twisted in my hair. His temple was warm under my lips. I lingered, wondering if I could ever find a way to erase every frown and worry that had weighed there. My lips met the slight curve of his nose, the hollow of his throat, the freckle below his left eye. He turned, rubbing his face against my shoulder, and returned my kiss. The amethyst ring on my finger glinted as I brushed the smooth skin of his cheeks, tracing the sharp angle of his jaw.

Jamie laughed, the sound low and muted through lips pressed against mine.

"What?"

"He must really hate me now." Jamie twisted his mouth as he fought to quell the laugh.

Theo whined from the front. He stood, paws on the steering wheel, staring as windshield wipers tossed the flurries off the glass.

"No, he likes you, remember? He's just remembering how he failed driver's ed at service dog school." I turned Jamie's face back to mine. Jamie's snicker tumbled, landing somewhere in my chest. It grew like a seed until we were both laughing too much, too giddy to continue.

A tap on the glass above startled us both.

"Fuck!" Jamie held his breath. I sat up to peer out the window. "Which one?"

I swallowed hard and replied quietly, "Both."

Jamie silently repeated his swear, wincing. He sunk into the folds of the seats as though he could disappear through the cracks. Pale streetlight wafted weakly through the sheet of frost on the window. His face was flushed, lips swollen, eyes wild. Long black hair stuck up at odd angles from where my fingers had combed through it.

"I'm messing with you. It's just Misty."

A big black mass pressed against the window. Her paws and nose cleared three spots on the glass. Theo moved to the other side and pawed at the window, whining.

Jamie glared at me for a long second before slowly breaking into a smile as our lips met again. Our shift in position had created a thrilling new pressure against my hips and Jamie buried his fingers in my shoulders. The soft sigh that escaped Jamie's lips did nothing to alleviate the situation. He pulled back from the kiss, catching my bottom lip between his teeth. It was as though he had invented something more intimate than sex.

"Wait," he breathed, pausing until I pulled my attention away from his neck. "How did she get out of the back yard?"

I blinked down at him. I looked back at the nose print on the window.

The car door flew open, signaling an ungraceful end to our time together. I rolled out from the backseat and fell onto the slick ice coating the driveway. Misty danced around me as I slid down the pavement. My fingers looped around her collar and I caught traction, using her massive form as an anchor. I scanned the dark front yard. No other dogs were outside. Buddy stood before the wide-open front door, guarding the entrance. Snow piled high on the threshold.

"Why is the door open?" Jamie stepped carefully out, gripping the car for support. Fear clenched my throat. I pushed Misty's collar into his hand. Theo flew past, plowing a trail from the car to the front door. Jamie stood at a sharp angle, leaning down to hold Misty's collar. "Maybe they didn't lock it because they were waiting for you and the wind blew it open."

I shook my head, a horrible sensation burning into my chest.

He was back.

Continuum had lied.

Judas was back. And he started with my home.

I rushed to the front steps and stopped before the snow drift melting on the threshold. Buddy slunk back, wagging his tail. Behind him, Shiloh, Pepper and Laika cowered in the corner near the staircase. Theo stared at me. This wasn't the first time I had been afraid to enter a building. I had help then and I had it now.

"Go." I pointed.

Theo slipped past the others and disappeared. Wind howled, covering the faint _tic_ of his nails as he roamed from room to room.

Jamie's brow furrowed.

"A lot of service dogs are trained to enter before their owner. They search the house and bark if they find someone." My hands shook. "I was really afraid when I was young that . . . that he would be there waiting for me, just out of sight."

Jamie nodded once, silent. I slipped Misty's collar away from him and held it firmly to steady my hand.

Theo reappeared and wagged his tail. Jamie looked at me and I nodded. The floor creaked as we entered. Each room silent, dark. Jamie shut the door. Snow raked along the floor.

"Dan?" I called into the silence. "Ben?"

No response.

"Maybe they went out?"

"The truck and car are here."

Jamie moved down the hallway to check the back of the house as I climbed the stairs.

"Ben?" I called out at the top, flipping the light switch. Their bedroom door was open. Bed empty. "Dan?"

My room, empty.

"Ben? Dan?" I called again, rushing back down the steps, praying Jamie had found them working on the garage. At one in the morning.

Jamie met me at the bottom of the steps. He shook his head, worry etched in deep lines around his lips.

"Ben!" I pushed past him and ran into the kitchen. "Dad!"

Empty. The garage, empty. The back deck, empty. I spun around to run back to the front of the house. Jamie placed his hands on my shoulders.

"We'll find them. There's got to be an explanation. They might be at the bookstore fixing another leak."

"Continuum took them. Or Judas came here. They've done something to get back at me!"

"You don't know that."

I stepped out of his grip. The world was fading, blurring, my verve starting to kick in.

"Langdon, just breathe." Jamie pulled out his phone. "Let me see if Jo heard anything."

"Phone!"

Jamie looked up as I reached into my pocket. My phone was still on silent mode. There was a missed call notification from Ben from hours before. And a text message.

"What is it?" Jamie asked.

I read the words over and over.

"Langdon?"

My heart tripped, falling from rapid beats into a deathly stillness. All verve quieted by the message on the screen.

"They're at Mercy." My voice sounded far away. Childish. "Dan had a heart attack."

Wind howled, pressing against the house. Snow drummed in torrents along the walls.

"Ok," Jamie said in a calm tone. "It's going to be fine."

"No, it's not!" Rage flared up, desperate to squash his composure. "It's not ok! He's going to die!"

"Calm down. You won't know anything until you call Ben."

"He's dead. It's my fault. I shouldn't have left tonight."

"Langdon—"

"I did it. All the stress. When I ran away—"

"Lan—"

"He's dead. Ben's going to put me back in foster care."

"You're too old for foster care." Jamie's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"He's going to kick me out on the streets."

"Listen to me," Jamie demanded. "Panicking isn't going to help you or him. We're going to act rationally, call Ben, and figure out what to do from there."

"I can't." Something inside my chest broke. "I can't."

Jamie slipped the phone out of my hand and tapped the screen. He held it against his ear, waiting, watching as I sunk to the floor. Six dogs clamored to be the first to lick my face.

. . .

The art museum was littered with people. Groups of young and old stood in clusters before the large watercolors hanging in thick gilded frames. They gathered around small delicate busts on pedestals.

"Mom? Mom?" Lallo ran through the crowd. Tears streaked his cheeks. "Mom?"

"Lallo!" Winona pushed roughly between people observing a statue and dropped to her knees. "I'm right here."

. . .

"Langdon." Jamie's voice was firm and so was his grip on my arm. Darkness blurred in the window behind him. "You cannot verve out right now. You are going to stay here with me and you're not going to leave. Dan needs you to be here."

. . .

The looming darkness behind him pulled me inside. Candles flickered in a dark cathedral, casting a shadow on the lone figure's face.

"Oh, my God, what am I going to do?" Winona cried into her clasped hands. The diamond in her wedding ring spun around her thin finger as she prayed. "Please, someone—something—help me."

. . .

"Langdon, are you listening to me?" Jamie's face, sharp against the blurred interior of the home ruffled the veil and brought me back.

. . .

"My angel." Winona dropped to her knees on the dirty cracked sidewalk before the school and held her arms open. A big smile illuminated her face as Lallo ran to her. Papers, clenched in his small fist, crunched as he threw his arms around her. "What have you made for me today?"

. . .

"Langdon," Jamie's voice was like a bell tolling the hour, ripping through the schoolyard, "stay here!"

#  TRADING SHIFTS

It took five days to finish painting the garage by myself. On the other side of the new wall, the snowstorm raged, died, and was born again. Inside, the concrete floor stubbornly refused to soak in the heat filling the rest of the home.

"Lan." Ben cracked the door open as I pushed on the lid firmly and resealed the paint can. "Got a few minutes?"

I sighed, rolling to my feet and joining him in the main part of the house.

"There's a box of children's books behind the counter." He untied his gray scarf from the knot around his neck. "Can you set it up on the empty table between the aisles?"

"I don't need a babysitter," Dan complained from the couch.

"Until someone trains Misty to dial for an ambulance," Ben huffed, "you do." Frozen slush slipped off Ben's waterproof coat, piling on the floor around his boots like a small weather-related crime scene.

"I'm fine. The doctor said it was minor."

"We're not arguing about this." Ben ripped the scarf off and started undoing the buttons on his coat. "You're not supposed to be left alone. I don't care if you die or not, I'm not going back to Mercy in this weather."

I walked to the hallway and plucked my coat off the rack.

"Lanny," Dan whispered as Ben continued to grumble from the other room. "How's that boyfriend of yours? I haven't seen him in a while."

"I don't have a boyfriend."

Whatever attraction Jamie had to me died instead of Dan that night. It was possible Jamie realized he was walking into another trap set by his own loneliness. It was more likely that Jamie wanted nothing to do with me after I had a breakdown. I had begged him to take me to the hospital even though Ben ordered us to stay put because of the road conditions, then begged him to stay because I didn't want to be alone. Or maybe Jamie made up his mind after I blurted out every detail, as we sat in the dark living room, telling him the story of how Dan and I had met. How he had found me wandering the apartment complex. How he had figured out what my father was and hit him so hard that Dan's fist ruptured his eye socket. How he had visited me every day at the group home until he was qualified to become a foster parent.

I hadn't seen Jamie since.

"Make the next move. Call him up and ask if he's busy. You two could go to Orange Julep and hang out."

"You just want me to bring you back a cheeseburger."

"I am dying over here, Lanny. I've only had green things in the past two weeks. For me."

"You'll literally die if you eat a cheeseburger," I reminded him.

He waved me off. I zipped my coat up to my chin and flipped the hood up. Theo groaned as I picked him up. I cut my eyes past the stiff collar of my coat and he stopped. He hated the rain boots. But it was boots or be carried. The only thing more noticeable than a service dog was one who tracked mud and snow throughout a bookstore, and the new carpet to replace the damaged section from the leak had finally been installed.

Freezing December rain cut through the layers of my coat as I rushed down the yard and up the alley to the bookstore. Although I had never been out of the city limits, I was certain that winter in Montreal was crueler than anywhere else. Chill cut through fabric and skin in seconds. Theo groaned as I adjusted my grip on him. A harsh streak of water poured from the eavestrough and drenched us as I rushed under the cover of the awning and burst through the front door of Summers' Reads.

Colleen waved with a bright smile as I sat Theo down and unzipped the bulky coat strangling my throat. I threw it behind the counter and adjusted Theo's vest, looping the leash into place so he could follow me freely. Colleen finished ringing up the queue of washouts. Relief filled her face as the last one ventured into the storm. Across the lot, Marc's looked like a party.

"Hi, Langdon."

"Ben's on lunch." I picked up the box resting on a shelf behind the counter. "He'll be back at one."

"I know." She stepped back as Theo snuck between us. Her eyes fell to the box. "Thanks for taking care of that. Ben asked me to do it, but I'm not strong enough to pick it up. It's so heavy."

I made a noise in response. Theo and I slipped out from behind the counter. Each section of the store seemed to run together. Fiction, non-fiction, clearance, comics, journals. But the brightly decorated children's section stood out. The paperbacks on the low shelves were always small and thin.

"I bet carrying him around made you so strong." Colleen followed me to the bare table that stood in between two aisles. "Do you want some help setting up the display?"

I shook my head. She hovered, watching as I cracked the box open. The bell chimed. Theo laid down beside me. I stuck my hand in the box and grabbed a few copies of the paperbacks inside.

"Aren't you going to . . . ?" I nodded to the front of the store.

Colleen returned to her station.

I returned to the task before me. Theo stood and dug at the new carpet to fluff it up. I nudged him with my elbow and he stopped, settling down with an annoyed exhale. I couldn't blame him. The new fibers were stiff under my knees.

"Look, it's you." I held a book next to his face. He blinked dully back at me. The cover showed a smiling cartoon dog on rocky terrain, standing before the backdrop of a starry dark blue sky. The dog on the cover had the same half-up, half-floppy ears. Same thin white streak between the eyes and down the nose. The cartoon dog even wore a vest.

I rolled off my knees and read the title. A strange hum filled me. Like I was being watched. Not by a person, necessarily. But by something.

"Laika's Journey," I read out loud to Theo. I flipped to the back cover. "Laika was just a stray dog with big dreams. She wanted to visit the stars and explore space . . ."

My voice trailed into silence as I read the rest of the cheesy summary then flipped through the book. One hundred and twelve pages, many of them filled with more drawings of the dog. This didn't sound like Jamie's version of the story. I glanced around the aisles. None of the washouts had ventured to the children's section. Pushing the unpacked box aside, I squeezed into a shadowy corner between an aisle and a wall. I didn't want anyone to see me struggling to read a book meant for someone ten years younger. To my dog.

Theo rested his head on my knee as I opened the book to the first page.

The bell chimed and clanged. Voices muttered. Beeps from the scanner broke through the pattering of sleet as purchases were made. The store phone rang and Colleen's voice mumbled from the front of the store.

I turned the pages.

"Langdon?" Colleen called out. Her voice drifted up and down the aisles like a banshee. "Langdon?"

It wasn't until her blue flats walked past us, and Theo lifted his head, that I looked up. Now I understood why Jamie always looked so dazed when his reading was interrupted.

"There you are!" Her smile grew as I rolled away from my nook. "It's nearly two. Ben called to ask what was taking you so long." She looked down at the book still in my hand, my fingers holding the place where I had stopped.

"I, uh." I looked at the box, still unpacked.

She raised one shoulder with a knowing smile. "I like children's books, too. Some of them are better than the adults'. What's that one about?"

"Laika." I was reluctant to put the book down, but I needed to get the display done.

"The space dog? They made a children's book about that? I bet they sugar-coated the hell out of it." Colleen took a handful of the paperbacks and stacked them on the table. "If you want the real story, I can send you some articles about her."

"Did they know?" I placed the copy I was reading to the side and grabbed a few from the box. "Did the scientists know she would die?"

Colleen nodded as she took the books from my hand and aligned the spines neatly in a row. "They knew they couldn't bring her back home, so they sent her up with some poisoned food that was supposed to kill her on the seventh day. I mean, that's what they _said_ they were going to do but the whole thing was so rushed that they figured there would be some sort of malfunction with the ship. Which there was. She died in total agony, burning up alive, as it left the earth's atmosphere."

"Why?" I looked at Theo, who was sitting at attention, curious that there was now an additional person on his level.

"To make a point. To have proof that sending a living creature into space could be done." Colleen accepted another handful of books. "I mean, yeah, sending a dog up helped further space exploration, but it could have been handled differently. They didn't have to rush. They could have made it safer, found a way to bring her back home."

"But they didn't?"

"She was just another stray dog from the streets. I guess they didn't see it as a big loss in the grand scheme of things." She paused, a finger smoothing the spines. "They said she lasted a week, but she actually died a few hours in. Her heart rate kept rising and rising until it stopped. Then they knew she was dead. They covered it all up immediately, of course. I mean, some of the scientists had cared about her. One of them took her home the day before she was sent into space. He let his children play with her. He gave her one nice day. I think they cared, but they didn't care enough to stop it, you know? And they didn't own up to what really happened until decades later."

"How could they know when she died?"

"They put some device in her to monitor her heart rate and stuff." Colleen held out her hand for more books. She looked at me then in the empty box. "Is that all of them?"

She noticed my copy on the floor behind me. I picked it up and handed it to her. "Don't you want to know how the happy version ends?"

I shook my head, fighting back the awful feeling growing inside me. Laika didn't get to know her happy ending. Why should I?

Colleen cupped her hands over the books, obsessively aligning the spines so none were so much as a centimeter off from the whole. "You should probably get back home."

"Tell Ben I'll be there in a few minutes."

She returned to the counter. Theo followed me through the aisles as I carried the empty box to the back room. I emerged, heart sinking as something buzzed loudly inside me. Hand tingling.

"Sorry, Ben's not here. But, um," Colleen gazed up at the tall customer in a thick dark green coat, "Langdon is."

I halted in my tracks as Jamie turned around. "Hi."

"Hi." He flushed.

"New coat?"

"Figured I needed something warmer."

"It's nice. Um, if you're waiting on something, Ben will be back in a few minutes."

"How's Dan?"

"Fine." I blinked hard, wringing the leash. "Trying to bribe me to buy him a cheeseburger."

Jamie's lips parted into a serene smile. Even though it had been almost two weeks, I could still recall with absolute clarity how they felt against mine.

"Jo?" I winced. Hadn't he said it was my habit to ask about her? A tell that I was nervous around him.

"She's ok." Jamie's smile faded.

"Just ok?"

"She'll get through it." Jamie scuffed his boots against the floor. "She's on this new medication for her stomach, so she sleeps all the time. We heard Darcy and Lupe figured out how to set up the hot tub in their back yard and she's hoping to go over there one day soon."

Behind him, Colleen leaned over the counter, watching intently. I tagged his new coat and nodded to the nearest aisle. I led him away, taking a firm stance between F and G in the fiction section.

"I'm sor—"

"I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?"

"I wanted to give you some time to be with your family after what happened. But you never responded to any of my messages, so I didn't know if I—Look, if you changed your mind, that's fine. I'd rather you realized you didn't want to go out with someone like me before I—"

Jamie fell silent, relaxing into my kiss.

"My phone broke." I pulled away. "I plugged it in to charge when there was a power surge and it won't come back on. It's at a repair store."

"So, you weren't ignoring me?"

I shook my head, leaning in to kiss him again.

"Maybe," he began. Eyes fluttered shut and he cringed. "Maybe don't read any of your messages when your phone starts working again."

I grinned, hooking two fingers through the belt loops of his jeans and pulled him forward. Jamie braced his hands against the bookshelf behind me. I loosened his scarf and press my lips to his chilled skin. He sunk down until his lips met mine. There wasn't a part of him I didn't want to kiss. His lips, his neck, the bridge of his nose, the hollow between his collarbones. My hands slipped under his new coat to the small of his back as I checked off everything on my list.

Jamie's hands found their way into my hair and a thrill ran the length of my spine, dashing along my legs and arms, as his fingers combed through my curls. Moments with him were the opposite of surreal. They were as bold as blood. As caffeine. As a push. Moments with Jamie magnified every beautiful and strange aspect of being alive.

He inhaled sharply as I leaned into him, pulling him closer until our lips bruised. Instead of shying away from life, I wanted every inch of it. I wanted it to drown me, electrify me, do anything except stop.

A flash of pain stabbed my skull.

"Sorry," he apologized, pulling away. "One of my rings got caught."

He untangled the lock and placed his hands on my shoulders, an embarrassed smile on his lips. My gaze hovered on them. The only thing I wanted on his lips were mine. Jamie curled into me, tongue slipping into my mouth. The stab from where his ring had yanked my hair echoed through my brain. I shoved it away, obsessing over the proximity of his mouth and how to possibly get closer when we were already touching. I had spent so long putting distance between myself and others. To discover that bare skin on bare skin wasn't enough was a predicament I never could have foreseen.

My lips trailed from his neck, up to his mouth for one last kiss. His tongue touched mine and for a long moment I contemplated my decision to stop. But my hand was burning, the stabbing in my head growing stronger, as the urge to kiss him _harder_ warned me to take a break. I leaned back against the bookcase and smiled up at him. His face was flushed, his eyes bright.

"You like me."

"What makes you think I like you?" Jamie lifted his chin high.

"You're looking at me and not the books behind my head."

He wrinkled his nose and dropped his head onto my shoulder, wrapping his arms around my waist. I closed my eyes. Humming. Every inch of me, including the air around me, was humming as I held him. As I held him in the store behind my home. The home where I was safe. Where I would go to find the people who loved me. Who cared about me. People I loved.

This.

This was what happiness felt like. This was the moment I wanted to live in forever.

The buzzing from earlier blended in with the humming, blending until it overpowered. It rang in my ears and I couldn't hear Jamie's breath against my ear. Buzzing morphed into a pressure that raged against my temple. I opened my eyes, blinking away the blinding light.

Near the end of the aisle, my mirror image stood. His face was tinged blue, blood running down from his lips, cradling his arm. Sickening black lines crept fluidly up the veins of his left hand.

This wasn't a clone. This was me. My future had come back to my past. My heart dropped as I realized why, bloodied and poisoned from the inside, my future self would come back to the happiest moment he could.

He pointed to the ceiling with his blackened hand. Above us, faint water stains from the leak stood out like an eyesore.

I was going to die.

#  HEARTWARMING

"The liquor cabinet is locked and Lupe hid the key," Stan greeted. "S'up Theo. Nice boots."

"He hates them." I bit the fingertips of my gloves and pulled them off, stepping over the threshold.

"I meant you. Is that what Jo bought you for your birthday?"

"Yeah." I plucked at the all black ensemble that had arrived weeks ago in the mail. I felt like a pathetic imitation of Jamie. Or the male version of Stevie Nicks. "She keeps asking me why I haven't worn it. I figured I should. It would make her happy."

Stan blew steam away from his coffee. A hint of caramel wafted around it. "You could have called. I could have given you a lift. Darcy lets me borrow her van."

I shrugged off my coat. "Why? There's nothing more fun than taking the metro in the winter."

"You're forgetting taking it in the summer." He lifted his mug.

"Please tell me there's more of that. I can't feel my fingers."

"You're getting hot cocoa and _only_ hot cocoa."

Darcy's kitchen was not ready for any house-showing. Bowls of sugar, packets of sprinkles, jugs with milk, and hot cocoa mixes flooded every inch of countertop that wasn't already packed with more food. I picked up a cold piece of pizza from the open box and inhaled it. If Dan couldn't eat it, it wasn't allowed in the house. I hadn't realized how much I loved salt until it was banished from every meal.

"How's your uh—Dan?" Stan snagged the giant coffee pot and poured some into a red cup covered with cartoon snowmen.

"Fine." My words struggled past the pizza, "Where is everyone?"

He rolled his eyes. "In the stupid hot tub."

"Why?"

" _Americans_."

I nodded.

"It's put Kiko in a decent mood for once. She's been a grump ever since she got back."

"Why did she come back now? Wouldn't she want to spend the holidays with her family?"

Stan shrugged. "I don't know. She showed up with no warning and a lot of griping. She didn't cheer up until the twins turned up with all of this and Jo demanded we turn the hot tub on."

I looked at the food surrounding us. Jamie was trying to buy favor yet again.

"Jo in a swimsuit though." Stan whistled low.

" _Gross_." I reached for a handful of marshmallows to drop in my coffee.

"What?"

"It's _Jo_."

"What if I said Jamie was in one?"

"He's upstairs with Keira, isn't he?"

"He is," Stan admitted. "Went straight after the cat as soon as he got here. Haven't seen him since."

I snorted, reaching for another cold slice.

"Listen, um, about, um." He chewed on his bottom lip. "Look, I'm sorry about everything before."

"Forget it."

"No. You see, the thing is, I can't."

"Don't—"

"How much did she know?" Stan leaned over the counter. His fingers caught the bowl of sprinkles and he spun it around.

"Jo?"

"Darcy. She knew about it, didn't she? And instead of doing anything, she asked Morgan to make that ring so she could pretend it wasn't her problem."

"It's not her problem."

"No, but she could have—"

"I don't want anyone's pity."

"Helped," Stan insisted. "You could have used some help then and you can use some now."

"I don't want anyone's help. I don't _need_ anyone's help. It's in the past. Can we stop talking about it? This is why I didn't want anyone to know."

"I'm sorry." Stan spun the bowl faster. "I thought you were weird. I thought you were a drunk and a loner. I didn't try to understand why someone would be embarrassed about their file around a room full of other mess-ups. I'm—"

"Stubborn."

He nodded slowly.

"There's something I haven't told you. Continuum," I handed Theo the pizza crust, "they told me that they put Will's body in your grave."

"Is that what happened?"

"Yeah, I think so." I swallowed. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Honestly."

"But—"

"Maybe we can eventually put his name on the headstone."

"You're not mad?"

"I think," Stan picked at the sprinkles, "I think Ben was right. I can't do this forever. I was so afraid they would send me back but I'm almost eighteen. I read that the conversion place was shut down because they filed police reports. _My parents_ are the reason it was shut down. I don't know. It's not going to be easy but I've gotten this far. Maybe things will be different. I'm not saying we're going to have Christmas together but maybe we can someday get a coffee or something and no one will start shouting."

"Small steps."

He hung his head. "God, we're so messed up."

"We're not messed up." I reached down to fix Theo's hair, ruffled from the vest. "Morgan—Judas—he picked people he thought wouldn't be missed. Wouldn't fight back. He picked wrong. You're not strong because you survived that conversion place and your parents. You're determined. You can't be swayed away from what you believe in. Remember outside the clinic when you took a swing at Jamie? If you were just strong, you could have knocked him down. But you're stoic. Jamie couldn't move you like he could anyone else."

"You've put a lot of thought into this."

"I don't know what my verve is. But I know it goes beyond time. It's space and something else."

"Our verve isn't what's wrong with us. It's really what we're good at?"

A loud shriek pierced the air. Laughter flooded the air, slipping past the walls to where we stood.

I shrugged and took a sip of coffee. "Is this caramel?"

"Lupe bought it. Throw one of these in it, it's good." He tossed a hot cocoa packet at me and followed the sound of the laughter.

Another slice of pizza found its way to my mouth. It was gone by the time I reached the top of the stairs. Theo sniffed the air and walked down a stretch of hallway, stopping before an open door.

"Help," Jamie whined as I stepped into Lupe's room. I tripped over a cat carrier. "I can't feel my legs."

"How long have you been like this?"

"Twenty minutes?" His long fingers stroked Kiera's neck. The Bengal cat smiled, curled into a tight ball on his lap. "Two hours?"

Jamie leaned forward for a kiss and Kiera dashed away, hissing. She probably wasn't pleased that Theo was a step behind me, either.

We had told no one about us. An unspoken agreement to avoid Jo's teasing and any adult's well-intentioned, but invasive, questions.

Jamie wobbled as he stood. Rings glimmered as he rubbed life back into his legs.

"Darcy?" I whispered as he leaned in for another kiss.

"What about her?" he replied in like.

"Can't she hear you? Us?" I lifted the ring on my hand. The silver band rested two fingers over from the purple ring Jamie had given me months ago.

"I don't know. She said I'm hard to hear. I think it's because I don't want her to hear me." His lips met mine, briefly.

Downstairs, laughter had faded, traded for the rumble of another burst of air in the hot tub. Water bubbled as three girls cowered in its heat, sunk down all the way up to their chins. Kiko ignored my wave, turning her back to me. Darcy, sans wig, returned a wave that splashed water into Jo's eyes.

"Yes! You wore it! Now take it off!" Jo sat up, blinking hard. "Don't tell me you're lame too. Get in here!"

"It's minus two."

"Lame. Theo!" Jo reached out. Steam rose from her skin in the freezing air. "Theo get in here!"

He barked and ran around the tub. The girls created a whirlpool, swirling around to catch him. Gray sunlight reflected on Jo's metallic bikini top. Thin shiny scars on either side of her spine drew my attention.

"I thought she was _gross_ ," Stan's voice was low but the level of mockery was high. He swallowed as Jamie stepped past the sliding glass doors, holding a fresh cup of coffee.

"How did Jo get those scars?"

Jamie's gaze darkened. "That's where he put her REV in."

Our corner fell silent, though the girls' chorus of kissing noises filled the void. Jo's shoulder blades flexed under her marred skin, shifting the scars. Jo was so close to being the one. The strongest. Was it possible that's how Angel's power started? Or was starting?

"We need to find all the other experiments who have a REV in places other than their hands."

* * *

Jo's laptop battery was drained. We gathered around an outlet as it charged. Jamie, of course, knew her password. He also knew the name of the file she had created to store the information of those who contacted her through Posey.

"One hundred and thirty-seven!" Stan pulled the screen closer. "How has he gotten away with this? Why hasn't anyone done something?"

"No one believes anyone who reports him." Jamie took the laptop back and scrolled to a column of the spreadsheet. "It doesn't look like she made a note of where their REVs are located."

"What about illnesses? How many have NS?"

"MS," Jamie corrected as he typed into the search bar. His eyes flickered across the columns. "I don't see anyone."

"What about other incurable illnesses?" Stan asked.

"Those are the names in blue."

"That's a lot of blue."

"And even more white. Those are the ones who didn't answer why Judas was interested in them. Plus, there are probably more who haven't contacted her. Like Continuum."

I sat back roughly.

"It's still a good start."

"We should be past the starting line," I seethed. "We're losing. Angel is strong. Continuum is strong. They want something and we have to stop them, or something awful is going to happen."

"Nothing bad is going to happen," Stan promised. "Darcy would have seen it coming."

The sliding door slammed open. Theo ran in, tail between his legs, and disappeared into the other room. Lupe ran past, dripping and clutching a towel, shrieking in Spanish.

"There's something weird about Theo," Jo stated as Darcy followed her inside, shivering. "What are you doing on my laptop?"

"Leaving 'Jo is stupid' comments on all of your poseys."

"Cool. We're going to get potatoes. Who wants to come with? Kiko's staying behind. We can't get her out of the tub."

"What do you need potatoes for?"

"Homemade poutine."

"Jo," Jamie groaned.

"No, we can make it healthy! We found a gluten-free recipe online." Darcy shuddered. Her lace swimsuit dripped onto the white carpet. "A little dairy and gravy isn't going to make her any worse."

Jamie and Jo looked at her. She shrunk back, retreating into the other room, muttering about changing clothes.

Jo turned to Jamie. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

Jo shook her head and left as well.

"What's wrong with Jo?"

Jamie pursed his lips and scrolled through the spreadsheet.

"What's wrong with her?" I pressed. Continuum's voice echoed, _She's dead._

"She's fine. She will be fine," Jamie said firmly. "She needs a surgery. But she won't do it. At least, not until we have a place to live where she can recover."

"What kind of surgery?"

"It's called an ostomy. It's complicated. She's fine, only—" Jamie tossed her laptop roughly onto the table. "Keep looking for anomalies. I'm making some more coffee."

Neither Stan nor I moved. Minutes later, car doors slammed in the garage. A minute after that Darcy's blue van rolled down the street, past the window.

While Stan studied Jo's file, I fished Theo out from under a table and clipped his leash on. He whined, pulling toward the front door as I lead him through the house. Kiera must have upset him somehow. I took him outside.

Small and alone, on the edge of the hot tub, Kiko sat. She huddled in a thick pink housecoat, gazing into the sky as clouds parted.

"Do you remember in the clinic when you were shit-faced and I made fried rice?"

"Yeah."

"I want you to tell people I did that. I want you to remember that until you die."

I glanced at the sky she wouldn't take her eyes off. "Maybe you should get out of the hot tub and come inside."

Her voice was meek. Quieter than a whisper. "I know."

I paused then nodded. Darcy must have overheard Stan's thoughts. It was only a matter of time before the truth spread. Kiko's approach was the easiest way anyone had ever addressed the topic.

"Who told you?"

"They did."

I nodded.

"Do you ever think about your future?"

"No," I replied a little too quickly. I added, "Honestly, I'm surprised I made it this far."

"I thought about my future all the time. I still do." Her voice broke and she finally turned away from the sun. A sadness too great for tears hung heavy in her eyes. "I wonder if I would have ended up with a house and a yard like this. A marriage." The heartbroken look did not fade as she asked, "What's it like dating the hottest guy in North America?"

"Do they know about that too?"

"They know everything. Well, almost." She turned back to the sky with a deep sigh. "Jamie's really sweet. You two are going to be great together. I'm sorry I won't get to see it. They told me all about your future. Did they tell you?"

"They?"

"Continuum."

"What?" I stepped forward. Theo dug his paws into the snow to anchor himself. "When did you see Continuum?"

"I thought you knew." She blinked. "They said you knew."

"Knew what?"

"Oh." Kiko screwed up her lips. "I thought you came to sit with me so . . . so I wouldn't have to be alone when it happens."

The look on her face spoke of something I had felt in dark hours.

"Kiko, are you ok?"

She shook her head, her gaze turning back to the sky. "I just hope it doesn't hurt."

"What doesn't hurt? Kiko?"

"You never know how much you love something until it's the last time you get to see it." Small hands reached up to the sun above. "Will you make me a promise?"

I inhaled deeply, weighing my response. "Yes."

"Will you think of me? I don't know where I'm going, but if someone can remember me, won't it be like I'm still here? In a way? Remember that night I made you hangover food, please."

"Kiko, if you're—"

"Hmm," she hummed, dropping her hands to her temple. "My head hurts."

"Stop looking at the sun. You'll get snow blindness."

"I can't. I want to look at everything one more time." She turned around as the sound of Jamie's voice echoed through the house behind us. Awe and sorrow pouring out of her at last in a stream of tears. "Remember me?"

"I promise."

There was something so familiar about her tone. The sadness. The finality. I had never touched Kiko before, but if ever anyone needed a hug it was her and it was now.

"No, it's not safe." She shrunk back. Her voice thick with envy, "You're going to be so great, Langdon."

"I'll stay with you." I stumbled back as Theo whined and pulled. "You don't have to be alone. Whatever's going on, I can help."

"Oh," she whimpered, scooting away from the hot tub's edge.

"What's wrong?"

Fear replaced the sorrow in her eyes. "It's going to hurt."

The sliding door opened. Jamie stepped out on the snow. "Hey, I—"

"There's something wrong," I whispered.

Jamie's posture straightened as he studied Kiko. I leaned inside and called for Stan as Jamie approached the hot tub. Theo clawed at the glass door, struggling to pull me inside.

"No, don't touch me," Kiko begged as Jamie stepped closer, falling to her knees. "Don't touch me. No matter what."

Jamie hovered as Kiko curled into a ball, crying softly. She trembled, from cold or fear, I couldn't tell.

Stan stepped out. "Is she having a seizure?"

"I don't think it's that."

Jamie knelt as she rolled onto her side. Her chest rising and falling violently. Steam rose where her skin met the snow. "Kiko, calm down. Breathe. This will pass."

Theo whined, straining to get as far away as his leash would allow. I pointed at him to be quiet but he persisted, nails scraping against the edge of the patio.

Kiko clutched her chest.

"It's another seizure. You got through all the others before. You can get through this."

"It's not!" she cried. "Get away! Go! Get Back!"

Stan stepped forward. I put out a hand to stop him. "Call Darcy. Call an ambulance."

"Which one?" He stepped over the threshold.

"Both."

"It's hot. It's so hot." She clutched handfuls of her dark hair. She doubled over, her forehead touching the snow. "It's moving. It's everywhere. It's in my head. It's in my heart. It's so hot. Make it stop!"

Jamie turned to look behind him. I pointed at Stan, who was running back out with his phone.

Kiko wailed. Her ear-splitting cry rang out. Theo strained, hacking as his harness choked him.

Jamie glared at Theo. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's scared," I replied, looking up at the sky. "She was staring up at—"

"Put him inside," Jamie ordered. "Stan, _call for help_."

Stan tapped his phone's screen as I slid the glass door open and dropped the leash. Theo rushed in, tail between his legs. He stopped and looked back at me, whining.

Jamie crawled another pace closer to Kiko. "It's ok. You're going to be fine. Just breathe."

"My heart." Her cheeks flushed. Sweat ran down her forehead. It pooled in the hollows of her clavicles as she sat up, rocking in discomfort.

"Where does it hurt?"

"It's burning," she whimpered. "My chest is burning. My blood is boiling. Make it stop."

"Stan?" Jamie demanded.

"It's still ringing. _Shit_!" He dropped his phone as it sparked. It landed on the ground, small flames dying in the snow.

"Mine's in the kitchen," I said quickly.

He took off running.

"I don't want to die like this." Kiko heaved.

The truth, the obvious, ugly truth of how stupid I had been hit me like a brick to the face.

"Don't touch her!" I shouted. "Jamie, get away from her!"

His hand hovered above her shoulder as he turned around, frowning.

_She's dead._

It had never been Jo who was in danger of dying. Jo didn't have a REV that could breakdown inside her.

"What are you—?"

I grabbed Jamie from behind, wrapping my arms around his waist. I dragged him back to where Stan paced by the door, my phone pressed to his ear. Jamie weighed more than I expected, but he was too surprised to fight back.

A gurgling noise erupted from Kiko. She heaved again. This time, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground. Then another. Wild, desperate eyes turned to us as I fought to keep my hold on Jamie.

Blood trickled down her nose, dripping over her lips. It ran from the corners of her eyes, out of her ears, over her plastic butterfly earrings. Her pink housecoat had turned into a dark red, drenched from the snow melting and rising in steam around her. A wet, choking rattle hung in the air as she tried to clear her lungs to make a final plea.

"Jamie," she blinked away the blood filling her eyes and reached a shaking hand toward us, "help me."

Jamie broke free from my arms. He lunged to his feet. I grabbed his left boot. He fell forward as the sound of something rupturing roared through the air. Vibrations rose, bursting into a crescendo and screeching against my ears until it fell into a piercing silence. Warm rain splattered onto my face and dotted the hand gripping Jamie's boot. I opened my eyes.

It wasn't rain. Rain wasn't dark red. I looked past Jamie's prone figure to Kiko. Steam rose from a bare, cleared spot of scorched grass. She wasn't there.

The three of us who remained didn't move, didn't breathe as the rest of her, her blood and her tears, rained down. I stared at the spot where she had been, smears of dark red spreading along the edge of the surrounding white snow.

"Where," Stan's voice broke, "where did she go?"

Static crackled in the air, glimmering like winter fireflies. The taste of iron and electricity settled on my tongue as I finally remembered to breathe again. Sparks danced around the blood on the ground. The snow that wasn't stained red swirled with glitter as sparks met the ice.

"Where did she go?" Stan's voice pitched. "Where is she?"

The astonishment in his tone matched what I should have felt in that moment. Instead, I felt nothing. I felt blank. I felt myself standing to the side, watching while the physical me crouched with one hand on Jamie's boot.

_This is your fault._

_They warned you._

Distantly, I heard Stan's feet pounding against the concrete, a few steps to the bushes, followed by the sound of vomiting.

Jamie still hadn't move. His hand was stretched out before him, fingers reaching toward the spot where Kiko had taken her final breath.

#  IN MEMORY

I don't know when my mind returned. It crept back in sometime while my body was auto-piloting through the hour that followed. It was a quiet hour. The only sound was the small beep of the house phone as Stan dialed every number he could find. My own phone, fried in the fallout of being in such an electrified space, refused to turn on.

Theo cowered, his tail down. He followed me from room to room as I searched for anything that could help. As I searched for the key. As I looked out the window in hopes that the girls would pull up in Darcy's van. As I waited in terror for that awful sound to rend the air again and Stan or Jamie would be reduced to droplets of rain. As the exact pitch of Kiko's last words remained in my ears like the blood staining the snow outside.

"I need you to come back," Stan said from the other room.

I entered the sitting room, where Stan was speaking urgently into Jamie's phone. Beyond him, Jamie perched on the edge of a chair, staring blankly at the rug.

"Are you drunk?" Stan turned the phone away from his mouth.

"Someone exploded in front of me and you're asking if I'm drunk?"

" _Langdon_."

"Yes! I'm drunk! So, what? Kiko exploded!"

A small giggle slipped out from Jamie as he sat, unmoving, in the chair. His brown eyes darted to where we stood. There was no apology in them, only a wild hysteria.

Stan and I looked at each other.

"He's freaking me out," Stan whispered and pulled the phone back to his mouth. "Jo. I'm not joking. Get back here now. Kiko is dead."

I swallowed another mouthful of the rum, set the bottle on the table, and knelt before Jamie. His brown eyes stared without seeing, shifting from the rug to my face without any adjusted focus. Red freckled his golden skin. He had more spots on his nose and chin than I naturally did.

"Jamie, you have blood on your face."

He didn't blink.

"Are you ok?" I touched the curve of his jaw. "Jamie?"

Some life fled back into his eyes from whatever crevice of his mind it had ran to for safety.

"Jamie? Say something."

"She was there. Then she wasn't. Then she was everywhere." He looked down at his hands, gripping the seat of the chair. Red flecked his fingers and rings. "She asked me to help her."

The flush in my face kept growing.

I was next.

No. I was drunk.

But, said a little voice, I was still next. Out of all the others, I was the most unstable. The least functional.

"Why doesn't he help?" Jamie's eyes focused finally. The darkness in his irises filled every feature of his face.

"Stan's—"

"Angel," Jamie growled. "Why doesn't Angel help? If he can do anything, why doesn't he rewrite the world so no one dies? What is the point of having power if you use it all for yourself?"

"Jamie, you need to calm down. Do you want a drink?"

"I'm going to stop him," Jamie snarled, ignoring the offered bottle. "I'm going to fix this. I'll order Angel to rewrite this so no one dies. He'll listen to me. I'll make him."

* * *

Kiko's last words had been spoken in anguish. The twisted agony on her face right before her death turned her into a complete stranger. The girl begging for help wasn't the same one who made suggestive comments about Jamie, who hoarded thick slippers, and who made fried rice at three in the morning for a hungover boy she barely knew.

Angel may be the most powerful experiment, but the spy had tricked me. If I hadn't been so stupid, hadn't taken them at their word, Kiko would still be alive. I had messed up again.

I walked through the rooms, determined to come up with a plan before the others returned. This was on me. Continuum was my fault. My steps echoed in the quiet house as I paced. Sitting room. Hallway. Upstairs. Downstairs. I stepped outside to get a breath of freezing air and clear my mind, losing Theo and the rum somewhere along the way.

When I re-entered, I was greeted by the murmur of voices in the living room. Jamie slammed the refrigerator door shut and leaned against it. His face cleaned of blood, at last. "Where have you been?"

"I've had it." I slammed my hand on the counter. "We're not doing this anymore."

"Doing what?"

"This. This sitting around, waiting for them to show up. We're going to war. We're going to fight them."

"Fight who?"

"France!"

"Why are we fighting a country?"

"Because they were the first. They lied!"

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." I sniffed. The room felt strange. Was I repeating myself? The air was warm. It was . . . wrong. I shook my head, rubbing the back of my hand over my eyes. Jamie's frown deepened.

"Stop looking at me like that. Jamie, please."

"What's on your face?"

"Blood. What else?"

"Langdon, are you ok?" He stepped closer.

I put my hands on his hips, pulling him toward me. Brown eyes widened. I stroked a stray lock of hair away from his face and leaned in for a kiss. He leaned back, a nervous smile plastered on his face.

"What?" I asked as he raised a shoulder and ducked his head into it. "Are you blushing?"

"No." He avoided eye contact, sinking against the stainless-steel door behind him. "Are you drunk?"

"Forget it. Where's everyone?"

Jamie pointed to the living room. An amethyst ring on his finger looked exactly like the one on my left hand. I didn't know he had replaced it.

I stepped into the next room, confusion growing. Everyone was gathered, chattering loudly. Happily.

"What the hell is wrong with all of you? Why are you _happy_?"

"Good, you're here. I was getting worried." Jo reached out and grabbed the edge of my shirt. "Oh, you got it early! Damn, that was fast. You look nice. Do you like it?"

I brushed her hand away. "Look, if you're too sick to come up with a plan. I have an idea."

"I'm not sick! What sort of plan?"

"To find Judas?" Lupe asked, stroking Keira's back.

"No! To stop REVs from being combined."

"Who's combining the REVs?"

"Who else? We're going to trap them. I can lure them here since no one else can ever do it. Stan and Jamie will make them stay put until we find out what's going on."

"What are you talking about?"

"We're going to war with France," Jamie surmised, fingers pressed to his mouth. Behind him, clear sunlight shimmered through the windows. Orange and yellow fall leaves littered the dying grass outside. My heart skipped a beat.

"What's going on?" Jo rose from her seat slowly.

Their twin link activated. He had passed on to her that something wasn't right. The others around the room were catching on as well.

Judas' laptop poked out from Jo's messenger bag.

"Oh."

"Oh?" Jo demanded.

"You see, I can explain."

Everyone looked at me expectantly.

"It's really simple, I just—"

I leapt over the couch and ran out of the house.

#  A LECTURE

How home had ever once been my safe haven was lost now. I was going stir-crazy from inaction. As days passed and no one else exploded, the tight knot in my throat eased, clearing a path for a plan to form. Every second of the day, Kiko's words haunted me. I needed certainty. There was someone else who had to have seen the ending. Someone other than Continuum.

"What's this?" Darcy halted in the middle of the pathway, ripping her headphones off. Students parted around us. The bustle of the university was frantic, a flurry of bodies whose fear and concern were turned inward. Blue eyes, wide under penciled-on eyebrows, studied the offering in my hand. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." I held out the bubble tea. "You have finals. Here's some caffeine."

"Oh." She blinked, taking the cold plastic cup from me.

"Strawberry."

"Thanks." She pinched the wide straw, pushing it into the drink. "Sorry, I just saw you and thought . . ."

"I know. I only show up when something bad is going to happen. But I'm trying to get out of the house more often." I grimaced. "Be more social."

"How's that working out for you?"

At least, the students milling around were too concerned with whatever was going on in their heads to notice the boy with the service dog.

"Do you want to get some lunch?"

"I have a final in ten minutes." Darcy pointed to the building on our left. Her gaze didn't quite meet mine. "Later?"

"Theo and I can wait."

"I have another right after this one," she apologized. "Next time. I swear."

"Swear?" I called after her.

"Swear."

"Swear on Bennett's grave?"

She stopped short.

"Is there a next time, Darcy?"

"I—" She turned around slowly. "Dammit, Lanny. Just let me go to class. Please."

"What do you know about the future?"

She closed her eyes, voice cracking. "Everything stops. I can't see beyond another week. It's like everyone's timeline hits a wall. A wall of bright light. And yours is the first one to end."

Bright light. Lallo.

"Are we going to die?"

"I don't know."

"Then why are you doing this?" I shouted. "Why waste what time you have left stuck in a classroom taking tests?"

"Because!" she yelled back. A few students paused along the pathway to watch, looking up from their phones and notebooks. "Because if I don't fill my head with stupid facts, it gets filled up with Bennett! I don't know if I should be sad that we're all going to die or happy that this is all about to be over so I can see her again. I don't know, Langdon. I don't know! But I know that the Austria Succession was from 1740 to 1748 and that is the only thing I am going to allow to take up space in my mind. So, when I say next time, just let me say next time!"

The door to the history department swung shut behind her. Her blonde wig vanished quickly from the view offered by the glass doors. Theo pawed my leg. His bootie slipped off and landed in the snow. I knelt to fix it.

"Summers' boy?" A familiar voice asked from above. "Tough luck with the ladies? Well, it's nothing to be too upset over. I have that one in my nine a.m. class. You're better off. She's got a stare that could peel the skin off your bones."

I stood up and nodded at Mr. Kilmar. "Thanks."

"You'll get over her. There's plenty of fish in the sea and you've got great bait. Women go crazy over an animal lover. Why don't you come up to my office for a pick-me-up? That will set you on the straight path. Wait. You _are_ eighteen, right? Yes? Has anyone ever told you that you've got a face like a cherub? It's so hard to tell how old anyone is once you've reached my age. If you ask me, all these students should still be learning how to tie their shoelaces."

* * *

Mr. Kilmar's office was smaller than I expected for a professor, packed with thick books on oak shelves and a desk that looked like it had been under the strain of too many essays.

"How's your dad?" He frowned as I tipped back a third tumbler of whiskey.

I shrugged.

"You don't think of Ben as your dad, do you?"

I brushed a small fleck of melted snow off Theo's vest. "I don't have a dad."

"It's been, what, seven years now? Seven years since they took you in . . . Yes, that's right. Nearly seven years."

"How could you know that?"

"I don't know if you remember this, but your fathers—pardon, your _not_ fathers—had a little falling out around that time. Ben slept on my couch for over a month until they came to an understanding." He slipped a plastic bag out of a faded lunch box and cracked the seal. He stared at the wilted ham sandwich with uncalled for fondness. "Ben always felt terrible about you."

"I know."

"No, you don't. Ben felt terrible because he didn't know what to do with you. When you get older, you'll understand. The truth is no one ever wants a child. Oh, sure, some people do, but when a babe is handed to them in the delivery room, you suddenly realize that you never wanted it. You wanted the _idea_ of a child. Not some screaming shitting shouting . . . _beautiful, fragile_ responsibility. A real child is much too terrifying to ever wish for. They hold too much power. When you can't protect them, when they are hurt and there is nothing you can do to right the wrongs of the world, it shatters a piece of your soul. I believe that's why Ben resigned and opened that bookstore of his. He knew that this place," he waved half of the sandwich around, gesturing to the pockmarked walls, "this facsimile of knowledge couldn't teach him what was truly important."

The thought of Ben spending hours upon hours here didn't match up in my head. Yes, he was a strict, no-nonsense sort of person, but he was also the person to stop everything to discuss a comic book with a customer. Or buy a piano on a whim.

"It does suck here."

"I presume continued education is not a part of your future?" He took a bite. "If you ever decide you need a letter of recommendation, I'd be happy to write you one."

"I'm not smart."

"No. You're too smart. Too smart to be one of these young semi-adults wandering around the campus. Shame, I'd like to have someone on my level." When I didn't bite for the false compliments, he continued, "What do you want to be when you're older? Ben speaks very highly of your musical talent. He said you have a voice bigger than your disdain for authority."

"I don't think I'm going to get much older."

"No plans? No dreams or aspirations?" He took another bite.

"I don't need a lecture. If I wanted one, I'd go home."

"Yes, I've heard you and Ben clash rather often."

"I don't pick fights."

"You seem to have instigated a fight with Miss Wordsworth a few minutes ago. You know, you do remind me of a heralded warrior from mythology but I can't quite put my finger on why." He paused in thought. "He was the hero of many ancient tales. He—Well, he did kill a dog but I don't think that's why you remind me so. Perhaps it was his intelligence and his drive to prove himself. He knew to use his liminality to his advantage."

I leaned forward and he subtly moved the decanter away. I studied his face through the warm haze filling my vision. "What does liminal mean?"

"Liminal? Well, liminality is a fickle subject. Most people consider liminality as a space or a state of being. Such as limbo."

"What do you think it is?"

"A gift."

"A gift? How is it a gift?"

"It is a magnificent part of life. It is through periods of transition that we find out who we truly are and greet the world on the other side as our whole self. Imagine if you never had any change in your life. Where would you be instead of right here, right now?"

I tried not to picture it, but Will's corpse flashed in my mind. "Limbo? Doesn't that mean a person is stuck? Trapped?"

"That's one way of looking at it."

"But?"

"The greatest warriors knew to challenge their rivals to battle in a liminal space. In a river, on a shore, at dawn with the sun to their back and its glare in their enemies' eyes! To be liminal is also to be in a position of safety. No one can reach you. You are free of harm, of influence. You are, in essence, free to make up your mind, to transform into your next state. It's understandable to think that to be in the middle is to be stuck, but that's because we're thinking as humans. Look at those students out there moving around, so eager to become adults, so scared to be on their own. They are terrified and they have every right to be so. But in the end, they will get out of this liminal phase of their life and turn into old men who have nothing better to do than eat ham sandwiches their daughter made them as they bore an old friend's not-son to death."

"So, if we don't think like humans . . . ?"

"We must think beyond ourselves."

"I thought you were a history teacher."

"True. I may have surpassed my element." He tapped a finger on the tip of his nose. "If you would like more insight, Mr. Dupree, our head of philosophy, has office hours every Thursday on the floor above."

#  LOOK WHAT THE DOGS DRAGGED IN

Jamie was warm, especially after the long journey to his hotel. His touch eased the chill hindering my every move until the only way I could exist in comfort was beside him. Jasmine graced the air as his hair tickled my cheek. His breath moved gently against my neck. Every rib counted, my fingers began tracing each dip along his spine. This hotel room had been trashed as much as the last. Heat hummed from the vents, voices gurgled outside the door, but his steady breath was the only sound that mattered.

Laika was on my mind, again. Not the one waiting for me back at Marigold Court, but her namesake. Questions about her had woke me from sleep several nights in a row until I typed her name into my phone. It had finally started working again for some inexplicable reason.

Picked up from the streets. Given food and shelter. Taken care of. Made whole.

Then tested.

She was one of many stray dogs selected, put into small, individual dark crates for hours.

Those who survived were awarded with smaller darker crates.

Other dogs quit eating. They gave up hope. But not Laika. She was the chosen one, the one who endured their training and trusted that something good was coming.

The scientists who put her through the confinement tests all had different nicknames for her. Little bug. Curly. Each time they put her in the small dark crates, she waited for the moment that they would open the door. She waited for days. Weeks. She must have thought if she played by their rules she would eventually get the good life.

And she did. But only for a day.

Colleen had been right. Before they sent her off to be incinerated alive, millions of miles above earth, one of the scientists took her home. He let his children play with her. They probably even played fetch. Chase. Did he tell his children what he was going to do to her? Or did he merely watch them play?

One day. She got one day, spent not knowing that it was the last time she would breathe fresh air, feel grass, human touch. One day lived as a lie, a pathetic apology before she was sent where humans were too afraid to venture.

She had one good day.

Then she was taken back to a new small dark crate and locked inside.

She waited, even as the heat from her ship leaving Earth's orbit burned her alive.

She was murdered by hope.

What would you even call a life like hers? Where those who planned her death were the nicest she ever encountered? A life so doomed and desperate that the first ray of light she saw was simply the light at the end of the tunnel.

My hand burned deep inside and I flexed my fingers.

Kiko was dead. I was lying in bed with Jamie curled next to me, the taste of his mouth still on my tongue. Neither statement seemed real.

"Are you asleep?" Jamie's whisper slipped into the silence.

"I thought you were."

He sat up, leaning on his elbow.

We hadn't spoken much after I arrived. We hadn't done much of anything since I arrived. A long embrace. A few kisses. To look at each other, feel his hand in mine, without fear of interruption was bliss. Lying beside him, learning the way an hour felt when it was just the two of us, held more power over anything else.

"You said you would quit drinking."

"How—?"

"I can smell it on you. Promise me you'll call me the next time. Promise me. Please."

"I promise." My eyes fluttered shut as his fingers combed my hair back, nails scratching my scalp. "I promise. I'm keeping all my promises from now on."

Lips met mine. Blindly, I felt along his back, pulling him down until his body weighed against mine. Jamie might have had a limited interest in things, but he was certainly interested in kissing. Time passed quickly as my fingers memorized every inch of him. Seconds stalled as his mouth pressed against my neck. My heart stopped, stumbling, as we rolled over. Jamie's hand slipped under my shirt, tracing my spine as I had done his. I left no part of his face, his neck, his collarbones unkissed.

"Are you sure you're ok with me?"

I pulled my lips away from the curve of his jaw. The wall behind Jamie's eyes met mine.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not changing."

"I don't want you to change."

"Are you using me? Because you're afraid?"

"Afraid of what?"

"Do you like me _because_ I'm ace?"

"No."

He looked away.

My fingers touched his cheek, turning his face back. "I like you, but I can't explain why. It's not because you're smart, or kind, or because of the thousands of other reasons everyone else likes you. It's because I never understood why someone would give another person a chance to hurt them. Not when it's safer to be alone. But then you showed up and one day the world had more color. And I know it's because while everyone on earth is looking at the sun, the sun looks on earth for you. She knows you're the most amazing soul to walk these grounds. I know you are worth any risk."

Slowly, ever so slowly, the wall lowered until Jamie looked at me without any defense raised. His lips moved, struggling to find a word. Finally, he mumbled, "Ok."

"Ok?"

"Ok." He exhaled. "Fuck, I wasn't expecting that. Now I feel like a jackass. Damn it, Langdon." He cupped the back of my head and pulled me down for a kiss. His body relaxed under mine.

"Why do you like me?" Every syllable moved against his lips.

"Because you're cute. And you have dogs. And you're going to inherit a bookstore."

"I'm serious."

"Because you're cute." His mouth moved to my ear. "And you care about Jo as much as I do. And you cried over a homeless dog. Because you tell the truth when I can't. And when you look at me, I know you're really looking at me. Ask me. Ask me if I'm lonely."

"Are you?"

"Not when you're around."

Some unseen barrier had been removed. I fell deeper into his embrace, his mouth, as though Jamie had finally allowed himself to be at ease. The thought of him being uncomfortable before stayed my mind, distracting me. And then his hands touched my lower back and his teeth pulled at my lip like our first kiss in the back of his car.

_Beep_.

"She can wait," Jamie murmured.

_Beep_.

"It's not important," I replied.

Jamie's phone rang. He groaned into my mouth and my heart stuttered.

"One second." He stretched an arm to the night stand and picked up his phone. He growled, "What do you want, Jo?"

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and checked the notification. "It's important."

Jamie raised his voice, rolling out from under me and reaching for his keys, "What do you mean Jude is drinking a hot cocoa in Darcy's kitchen?"

* * *

"The key is to stay calm. We need answers. We need to find a way to get these things out of us." Darcy breathed heavily as she climbed out of her van. Jamie's car had pulled into her driveway barely a second after hers.

I nodded, a few paces behind Jamie as we dashed into Darcy's house. We turned the corner of the hallway and met an unbelievable sight: Judas Morgan stood, huddled in a thin brown coat, as Jo, Stan, and Lupe glared at him. The doctor/scientist/liar looked the same as he had the last time I saw him at Mercy, outside Jo's hospital room. There had never been anything special to his appearance, he could blend into a line-up of politicians or reporters. Now, standing before us, he had opted to show up as his weaker persona, the one who dressed in casual runners and wrinkled button-up shirts.

Jamie grabbed him by the throat and shoved him against the wall. Bells on the fake Christmas tree in the corner jingled. Three small picture frames clattered to the floor as Jamie pulled him from the wall and pushed him into the liquor cabinet. The bottles inside rattled, clinking and sloshing.

"JAMIE!"

Jamie hissed something into the doctor's ear while he clawed hopelessly at the hand around his throat.

"JAMIE! LET HIM GO!"

Stan stepped between them, one hand placed firmly on Jamie's chest. The two locked eyes. Jamie slowly relinquished his grip. A sneer marring his face as he stepped back.

"Well, this is not," the doctor straightened his thin coat, gasping, "the reception I anticipated."

"Jamie," Jo spoke in a low tone.

"You will only tell the truth," Jamie commanded.

"I like to think I always have." He swallowed. A lisp strong as he coughed out the words, "But I suppose I have no choice thanks to your verve. Why such stern faces? I understand I left suddenly but—"

"Why are you here?" Stan asked.

"I'm looking for someone?"

"Angel?"

He frowned at me. "Who's Angel?"

Darcy stepped forward, her entire body quivering with rage. "What do you want with us? Why did you do this to us?"

"I have done nothing but try to help—"

"Liar!" Darcy pointed from him to Jamie.

"Tell the truth!" Jamie demanded.

"I am." He cowered, glancing at Jamie's hands. "I promise. I have only ever tried to help, to undo what the others did."

"Others?" Jo rose. "Oh, dammit, this is a clone!"

He nodded.

"I thought they were all dead." Darcy whirled around. "Where's Judas? The real one? The original one, not someone born in a lab."

"He's dead." The clone backed away as she stormed toward him. "He died many years ago of a glioblastoma."

"A _what_?"

"A brain tumor."

"How many other clones are there?"

"At their peak, they numbered a total of one hundred and twenty-three. As of this moment, I am the last. The first and last."

"What do you mean the first and last?"

"I was the first clone Judas Morgan ever created. I was made exactly in his image to further his experiment and given his first name. Though he always hated the full version of it." He swallowed. "He made a second clone to test his theory. After his death, I tried to carry out my promise and finish his experiment. My counterpart tried as well, only through more devious means."

"You're Jude." Jo narrowed her eyes. "You're the Jude that helped me. And your counterpart is—"

"Morgan Rockwell, yes."

Darcy folded her arms, looking around the room with wide blue eyes. "Someone give me a goddamn piece of paper. I can't keep this straight."

"If you only wanted to help," Jamie stepped closer, "why did you disappear after removing Jo's REV?"

"Someone stole her REV from me. I believe they mean to use it. I have been searching all over for the thief and I believe that they may have come back to Montreal."

"What's so important about one person that you abandoned all of us?" Lupe stood up.

"Continuum?" I asked.

He nodded. "I am not entirely certain what name they go by, but I do believe that is most likely one of their aliases."

"Did you know that Continuum is stealing as many REVs as they can get their hands on?"

"You mean they have more than one?"

"What does Continuum want?"

Jude shrugged, shock heavy on his face. "I have no possible clue."

"Hold on." Darcy held out a palm. "Do I have this right? You are a clone of the man who made another clone, who then went rogue, made his own clones, and then started testing REVs on humans? Meanwhile, you're running around looking for the person who's stealing the REVs out of us?"

Jude searched the ceiling, lips repeating her sentence silently before agreeing, "Yes."

"If I hadn't replaced all the alcohol in that cabinet with water, I'd get a drink right now."

"Do you know how to get the REVs out of us?" Stan asked. "We're dying. Kiko _exploded_ three days ago."

Jude frowned at the floor. "I didn't know that she had died. I am so sorry."

"Can you get the others out?" Jo demanded.

"I don't know. Possibly," Jude apologized. "You were the exception, your REV hadn't firmly taken hold, the path from your spine to your heart much shorter than the traditional path the devices take. It's possible, but I would need time to study—"

"We don't have time!" Lupe cried, sinking down on a cushion. "What are we going to do? We finally found him and he's useless. We're all going to die."

Darcy slowly turned her gaze to meet mine.

* * *

"Lallo," Winona called out as the small boy rushed to the swing set. "Slow down!"

Warm summer sunshine flooded the park, illuminating the early morning. A few other mothers sat, talking, while their children played on the seesaws. Winona brushed her highlighted hair back and sighed. Weariness set in fine lines across her forehead. She looked over.

"Are you lost?"

I looked behind me.

"Are you lost?"

"You can see me?"

"Of course, I can see you," she replied. "Though you do look like a ghost. Why are you staring at me, ghost boy?"

"I'm sorry. You just . . . You remind me of someone." I paused. "Are you ok? You look sad."

"I'm fine, thank you." Winona smiled weakly, glancing as her son kicked off the ground to go faster. "Lallo, not so high!" She turned to me. "You're not from here. Where are you going? Do you need directions?"

"I don't know. I'm not headed anywhere, really."

"Do you want to use my phone?" She reached into her purse. "Your mother must be worried sick about you."

"I don't have a mother."

Winona slowly withdrew her hand from her purse. The other mothers laughed loudly from their bench.

"It's hard, isn't it?" She sat back, eyeing them. "Seeing others have what you can't."

I looked at the women then back to her. Winona's clothes and shoes were nicer than theirs. She was much prettier as well. I couldn't understand the wistfulness in her words until her eyes moved to Lallo.

"What don't you have?"

"Time," she said faintly. With a sigh and a soft smile, she watched as Lallo returned to earth only to push off harder.

"Is he your only child?"

She shook her head, smiling. "I've got another. But he was a surprise."

"Is he sick?"

She shook her head again. "He's so scared of everything. He's supposed to be in school, but I can't make him stay there with the other kids. He cries himself sick. It makes my husband so mad. See, he wants him to go into business, but, my Lallo, he wants to be a writer or a dancer. My husband gets so mad when I tell him that he can grow up to be whatever he wants to be." Her voice faded as tears welled.

Lallo's feet reached up, almost touching the clouds above.

She spoke, softly, to herself, "No matter what, he's always going to be my beautiful angel."

We watched as Lallo kicked harder with each return, chains rattling. In the distance, car alarms blared. Winona blinked then turned her attention back to me.

"Do you have somewhere to go?" She cleared her throat. "A home?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "I have a home."

* * *

Jo was silent. The juxtaposition of a quiet car ride and Jo in the passenger seat disrupted my thoughts. It didn't help that Jamie's face had switched into a default, positive expression. As one, they turned to look back at me.

"What?"

"We're here." Jo pointed to the house barely visible through the snow gushing down from the dark sky.

"Oh." I struggled to recall how we got here. I couldn't even remember getting in the car. Theo leaned against the other backseat door, ready to jump out. My hand hovered on the handle. "Do you want to come in?"

"We should get back to the hotel."

"Come in. We'll order dinner and you can wait until the snow dies down."

"We have to—"

"I am so sick of the hotel," Jo whispered.

Jamie turned the engine off.

Weeks of isolation had given Dan a change of heart, and not just a healthier one. He was more than happy to see us track snow through the house, tossing jackets and scarves on every surface.

"About time. Where have you two been? You think coronary obstructions are contagious?"

"No, we've been busy living in the real world where people can eat salt," Jo hugged him, "and red meat."

Dan gently patted her back, glancing at Jamie for an explanation.

"I have to check on my daughter. Make sure you're treating her right."

"She's fine and she's _mine_."

"I paid for her."

Laika wobbled toward Jamie, falling onto her side and exposing her pink hairless belly.

"You two might want to slow it down. Three weeks is a little early to be planning a family." Dan shook his head slowly as Jo stepped back.

"What do you mean three weeks?"

"They've been dating for three weeks, haven't they?"

Jamie shook his head frantically, stopping and assuming an innocent expression when Jo looked at him. "We're not."

"He's joking," I added.

"I think I would know if my brother was dating my best friend." Jo narrowed her eyes as Jamie shifted slightly. "Are you _kidding_ me?"

"Is who kidding you?" Ben stepped in from the not-garage. "That is the ugliest color I've ever seen. Repaint it. Lan, could you walk across the street and pick up dinner? _You are getting a salad_."

"Are you two seriously dating and didn't tell me?"

"No. He's just joking." I turned to Ben. "Tell her he's joking."

"They're not dating." Ben pushed the door firmly shut. "They just make-out occasionally in the fiction aisles." He lowered his voice as he passed, "Like I don't have security cameras."

Jamie paled.

Jo spun indignantly from him to me. She opened her mouth.

My last defense tumbled out before she could speak. I yanked the back door open. "Ben's last name was McDonald before he got married and Dan was a lieutenant in the army." I tagged Jamie's arm. "Run."

* * *

"Do you miss ice cream?"

"The moment this snow clears, you're out of here."

"Why? Got to get up early and milk the cows?"

"Where's your brother?" Dan asked.

"Probably hiding in embarrassment." Jo scrunched her nose gleefully as she slouched further into the couch cushions. Her thumb slid across her phone screen as she checked a notification. She held the screen out to me.

"What is it?" Ben leaned forward and Jo pulled the phone back quickly.

"Just a meme. You farmers wouldn't understand."

While the snow raged, piling up by the second, warmth flooded the crowded room as everyone I had ever loved made fun of each other over take-out. As Dan had picked at his salad, eyeing Jamie's enthusiasm for his own with confusion. As Jo had argued with Ben about the ratio of sheep to people in Scotland.

"Thirty-five centimeters? Christ." Dan whistled as the weather report flashed on the TV. "It's going to be a nightmare out there for days."

Darcy's message on Jo's phone, letting her know that everything was fine on their side of town, pulled me back into the harsh reality. Winona's broken voice echoed in the winds howling outside.

"Where's Jamie?"

"I told him to give the dogs their treats." Ben scoffed, gesturing to the TV. "Looks like an extra-long holiday for me. I'm not opening the store up in this mess."

The home phone rang.

Jo crawled from the couch onto the floor to lay beside me and Laika, who was chewing on a length of beef flavored jerky. She flashed a real meme this time. I nodded, not quite getting the joke.

"Are you mad at me?" I asked quietly as Ben turned the volume up to catch the news.

"Why would I be mad?"

"Because you said people only wanted to be your friend because they wanted to date your brother."

"Is that why?" She slapped my leg. "No, I'm not mad. You're a good peanut. You do no harm. I'm sorry, though. I owe you an apology."

"For what?"

"I've been mean. Look at me. Do you really think I'm in any place to judge someone for not being able to get out of the house? I'm sorry for pushing you out of your comfort zone."

"Jesus, who is that? Lan, unplug the phone." Ben turned the volume higher. "If it's that rude solicitor again, tell them to fuck off."

I rolled to my feet and walked into the kitchen. Ice frosted the window above the sink. We had eaten in the other room, the kitchen table too small for so many people. With the lights off, the room felt smaller. Shadows rose from the corners as I picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"He's here."

I exhaled, hanging my head, as Jo's and Ben's laughter poured from the other room. "Please, not now."

"Yes, now. Jude is here. He'll try and stop me. I'll never stop Angel if he finds me. If he takes your verve before it's ready."

"You want me to die?"

"I want you to do what you promised. You said you would save Angel. I promised you I would help."

"I don't care about Angel. I don't care about helping you. Forget whatever deal you think we have. I'm happy now. If you call me again, I'll make sure Jude knows where to find you."

Static crackled over the line. "You really did leave me no choice. Meet me outside now. Give me your verve or he will die. We're starting this tonight."

"No, I'm ending this—"

"Come outside or he will die. Your best friend will die." They hissed. The line went dead. I hung my head. I didn't care about Angel. I didn't. But Winona, with tears in her eyes, watching him swing further from her reach appeared when I blinked.

A loud creak startled me. Jamie emerged from the empty not-garage, frowning.

"What are you doing?"

He pursed his lips, scanning the floor. He held one last dog treat in his left hand. "I can't find Theo anywhere."

#  THE LIMINAL BOY

Whimpers echoed around the streets, the snow muting the sound. Wind cast his cries in every direction.

"Theo!" I called out. "I'm coming! Hold on!"

While Jamie had climbed the steps to search for him in my room, I tugged on my jacket, ran out the back door, and jumped the fence. Margret called out to me as I raced to the end of Marigold Court. Fresh snow was harder to move through, but the older layers packed underneath gave me some ground to run on. On the street corner, I squeezed my eyes shut and listened. Wind howled, screeching. But in the small undertones, a dog whined.

Streetlights dimmed, flickering as I ran past the shopping center. My heart pounded in my throat. Cold clenched my chest, scratching at my lungs with each gasp of freezing air. With all of Montreal to search, he would be dead by the time I found him.

I stumbled and slid along the ice. My hands braced on my knees as my pulse thrummed loudly in my ears. I shook my head. I needed to listen, to hear over the wind and the clamor of the city. To hear—

"Silence."

I slid to a stop on a street in Old Port and spun in a circle. This would have been an hour's walk in the summer. There was no way. Unless . . . My verve.

Whines overlapped, echoing in the stillness.

"I'm coming!"

Snow in my liminal space was a sight to behold. Rain had glimmered like diamonds. But snow? Snow shone like miniature stars suspended above earth. Each suspended star flickered out of sight as I glided down the Saint Lawrence River, skipping like a stone across the hoods of cars stuck in traffic on the highway, bouncing off the walls and careening around a corner as whimpers filled the dead silence.

Not Theo. Not my dog. He had no part in this. This was between me and them now. They couldn't get away with this any longer. I would use my verve and drag them to Jude's feet by their own stupid glittery scarf.

Theo howled. His cry was cut short with a yip. My heart pounded faster.

Rainbow squares stained the snow. The flames in the water fountain were small and blue, dying in the sub-zero temperatures. Theo's cries magnified in the space before the entrance to the convention center. I was close.

"Oh, I shouldn't. I really shouldn't." Continuum leaned against a wall, picking at the tips of their bright purple gloves. My blood boiled at the sight of their calm face. "But you have to remember there's a little bit of Midnight inside me. So, I have to." They pointed one finger to the sky. "What's up, dog?"

I tilted my head back. Barely a block away, a crane towered far above the city. It quivered. Not from wind. There was no wind in my liminality. No. Something at the very top was moving.

"You—" I looked down. They were gone. Behind me, the flames burst back into life. Snow fell into my eyes. All around me, the world resumed.

The construction site around the crane was eerily empty. Grooves from heavy tires disfigured the ground under my drenched sneakers. Light from distant street lamps barely breeched the area. I leapt over the barriers and scrambled up the concrete anchor. It was a lot higher than I expected. Cold wind bit at my face as I peered up. A small wiggling figure perched at the very tip of the crane.

The crane swayed back and forth, clanging loudly at random intervals in the violent wind. Continuum was most likely waiting in the shadows for me. But Theo could fall at any second.

I closed my eyes, listening to the pulse pounding erratically in my ears, letting the panic rise.

"Come on!" I clenched my hands, pulling at my hair. "Work!"

Theo howled.

Without my verve, I had no other choice. I jumped, grasping a rung on the first try. Part of me wished Jamie was here. He had the strength to do this a lot faster than me. But I didn't want him anywhere near this danger. Theo was my responsibility. If I couldn't save him, I really was a waste of a life. He was my guard. I owed him one moment of protection in return.

The rungs of the ladder weren't made for climbing in this weather. Freezing rain stuck to each one and my bare hands burned as I gripped them tightly. Ice splintered off the first few, but my grip was growing weaker with each level I ascended. My hand slipped. My foot hit the rung below and I braced myself against the side rails to stop myself from falling. As I moved up, the rungs grew closer together. I moved faster even though feeling was leaving my hands and feet.

At the top, the air was thin. My lungs burned with each breath. Black and white spots filled my vision and I swayed, pausing for a short second. Something rustled and the craned swung. The night split with a quiet flutter.

"Theo!" I opened my eyes, crying out with relief that he was still there.

Montreal spread out below us, glowing with sleepy flickers. The height and swaying disorientated me. Before I had started climbing, I had never given a thought about how high the crane reached. No wonder the air was getting hard to breathe.

"Tee, hold on!" I held out a palm, the signal to make him wait.

At the very edge of the crane, Theo cowered against the blistering wind. Snow plastered his black and white hair against his trembling frame. Frost clung to his vest. A strong gust moved the crane and knocked him off balance. His back legs slipped between two rungs. He clawed at the metal helplessly, trying to pull himself back up.

I sprinted the length of the crane and dropped flat onto my chest, reaching for his black scruff. His hair slipped through my fingers. "No!"

Far below, on the earth, there was nothing but untouched snow.

"Theo?"

Their question stopped my tears from rising, halting my grief at a scalding feeling in my throat. I turned around, one foot hooked around a rung for safety.

Near the other end, blocking the exit, was the spy.

Continuum sat bundled up in a thick blue coat and purple gloves. Sequins peaked out from under their coat's fleece-lined hood, catching the light of the city skyline and sending small prisms across the frozen metal rungs between us. They chewed. A pink carton rattled in their purple glove as they shook out brightly colored sour candy into their other. They showed no concern as I struggled to move away from the edge.

"I had my money on a twin."

"Where is my dog?"

"Probably at your house." They pulled the strings of their hood taut, hiding their thin cheeks from the cold. Gloved fingers touched their temple, mimicking Darcy's concentration. "Let's see. Ah! He is currently laying in front of the fireplace in the house on Marigold Court, wondering when Ben is going to notice that Misty is rooting around in the garbage. And yes, I got the talking-to-animals verve as well. Just because I felt like it."

The thin air, the snow biting my skin through my useless coat and drenched sneakers, and the exertion of climbing hundreds of feet were working against me. My breath came in gasps that could not bring in enough oxygen. "How?"

"The others in her clinic called her Mirage. Real name, Georgia Spencer. Amazing knack for gas-lighting other people."

I braced myself as another gust of wind threatened to blow me off the narrow railings. The metal creaked under us as the world spun a few degrees. The vertigo didn't disappear when I squeezed my eyes shut. If anything, it became worse. Every pinprick of ice more painful in the dark.

They picked out the red candies and popped them in their mouth.

"We're not doing this anymore. Tell me what your plan is."

"So demanding all of a sudden." They looked up. "I like it. This is more like the Liminal Boy I know."

"Why did you make me come here?"

"To show you this." They gestured to the city around us. "Down there? That's the rainbow place, plenty of happy memories there. And over there, that's the park near your house. Good and bad feelings over there. You can see everything from right here. It's a wonderful vantage point."

Shivers took control of my body. I wasn't sure how I was going to climb down without falling to my death.

"You're a vantage point," they continued. "Or rather, your verve is a vantage point. You can see every point in your life if you wanted. You can see next week or next year. You can see your wedding or the time that you were able to truly help the person who helped you the most. You can see the impact your life will have on so many others. But you haven't done that. All you've done is look at the past. Distracted yourself with others. Looked at the bad things that happened to you and to those you love. You could see the whole picture but, instead, all you're doing is staring at one little corner in the shadows."

"Fuck you." I crawled forward slowly, teeth chattering. Continuum was blocking the exit, but I would find a way past that challenge later. My hands were shaking so badly I wasn't sure I would get that far. "I'm not playing your game."

Wind blew flurries into my eyes as they finished off the box of candy. I settled in a nook between rungs to recoup. Wind cut like knives along my face and ears. My hands and feet had stopped tingling. The numbness grew stronger, moving up my wrists and ankles. I hadn't brought my gloves. Hadn't changed into waterproof shoes. I was exposed.

"Let me go."

"Nope."

"What is happening?"

"Hypothermia." They checked their watch. "Right on time, too. Oh, great. Are you back to being mad at me? This conversation is the worst."

"I'm freezing." My jaw quivered. My teeth clacked. "Let me pass. Why are you doing this to me?"

They pulled another box of candy out.

"Maybe I'm a terrible person," they contemplated. "But do you blame me or the circumstances that created me?"

"You want my verve? Take it, I don't care anymore. I'm not Jo or Stan. I'm not going to fight you for it. You can even have it without killing me. Jude will find a way—"

The muscles in my legs and arms screamed. Cold settled into my blood as my limbs stiffened. There was no way I could climb down, much less fight my way past them. Light danced below as the crane swayed. My hands were as white as the snow below us. An ugly black spread from my left hand and down my wrist.

"Please," I begged them. "I don't—I don't—I don't want to die up here."

"You're not going to die," they dug their short nails into a new box, " _up here_."

Wind knocked their hood back. They peered around their boots at the ground below.

The shivering was worse than anything I could have ever expected. I sank deeper into the rails. I knew how deadly winter could be in Montreal. Five minutes was enough to freeze wet hair and break it off someone's head like an icicle. Ten minutes and frostbite was inevitable. But I hadn't thought clearly when I raced out. I never did.

"So, like," they called out loudly over the wind. "You're here. But are you _here_?"

"You let Kiko die!"

"You're not." They rolled their eyes. "Look, we tried to save her."

"Stop saying we."

"This is all you. All of this is your plan to save Angel."

"I don't care! Why would I want to save Angel? Who is he to me? He's just another one of the millions of scared idiots on this planet!"

My right hand was a pale blue. I gripped a rung as wind shrieked. My left blended into the night, black spreading like a bruise across the back of my hand. Warm blood trickled out of my cracked, blistered lips.

Their gaze met mine. "Are you ready to start now?"

. . .

Goodbyes were hard. It was why I never gave one when I left the first time, but this time I had to. Not to Stan. Or Jo. Or even Jamie. There was really only one person who deserved the truth.

Jo's Star Bolt stood in the middle of the cluttered garage. The metal door was raised. Summer air blew warm along the breeze.

"Dan?"

He looked up from the engine. "She's running this into the ground."

"Dan?"

"Hand me that light, would you?"

I picked up a flashlight and held it out to him. "I want to talk to you."

He eased into a crouch beside Jo's motorcycle. "Kid, I don't want to hear it."

"I'm sorry," I began. He didn't lift his eyes from the task at his hands. I was grateful, even though I knew this was my last chance to say what I should have said every day since I met him. "I'm sorry for everything I ever did. I'm sorry I ran away. I'm sorry I didn't trust you enough to tell you about Will and my mother. That I didn't try harder to come home. I'm sorry that I made everything difficult for you, with Ben, with the therapy, and the money, and the worry. I'm sorry I was so difficult—"

"Lanny—"

"Please, I have to say this just once." I swallowed. "I never thanked you for saving me seven years ago. From that place, from the foster system, from him. You deserved so much more from me. I thought I was trying my best but I wasn't. I didn't try hard enough to deserve the life you gave me, didn't appreciate it enough, and I'm sorry."

"Langdon." He put a hand to his brow. Grease smeared on his forehead. "Listen to me. You don't have to thank me for any of that. I didn't do any of it to get a thank-you."

He dropped the flashlight into the toolbox. A tangled knot of chords and cables caught his attention and he tugged at it. I looked up at the old metal garage door hanging above us.

"I didn't save you."

I looked back down. His attention was still devoted to the cables.

"Before you, I was just going through the motions. Every single day, going through the motions. Then I saw you and I knew what I was supposed to do. You saved me." He tossed the bundle of chords back into the tool box. He stared at it, chewing his tongue, then turned to look at me. "What's going on? Why are you talking to me about this now?"

"I just really wanted to be honest about everything. It's always bothered me that I never said—"

"Kid, it's nothing." He rolled the bundle over and selected a wrench from under the mess. "It's fine, Lanny. You don't have to say anything about all of that."

"You didn't have to save me."

Dan hung his head, palm spreading more oil on his face. His voice sunk low as he asked, "Do you know what the worst pain I've ever felt in my life was? I always thought it was when they told me Antony had died." The name of his first husband, my guitar's original owner, was never spoken, even though both Ben and Dan had known him well. "I could have sworn nothing could hurt more than that. And then I found you, and I gave you everything I could to help you beat this world. Then you left. You left with no warning. No clue. I knew, I felt it: you saved my life, but I couldn't save yours. Nothing could ever hurt worse than thinking you were dead."

"I'm sorry. I just wanted you to know that I—" The tingling moved from my hand, spreading further up my arm. "I always thought of you as my dad."

His hand fell from his brow. He opened his mouth to speak. "Kid, I . . ."

He exhaled, searching for the words. But, whenever he found them, it would be too late. I was already gone.

. . .

"Death is inevitable, but we don't want others to run to it. Or from it. We're supposed to just embrace it as it happens naturally." They had been talking for some time, but I couldn't focus on what they were going on about. "But no one ever wants to talk about it, so how are people supposed to handle things if no one talks about it? You get it, right?"

I gazed blearily out into the night. Was my heart supposed to beat so slowly?

"No, no, no!" They lunged forward, grabbing my hands as I slipped between the rungs. "You're not ready!"

"Are you killing me or not?"

"Have you even listened to a word I've said?" They peered from under the hood that slipped past their eyes. "Which one are you now? Are you past? Future? Rebound?"

"I'm here."

"And where is here? _When is here_?"

"I . . . I don't know." I paused. There was something that tasted like a dream in my mouth. "France?"

"Look at you, putting the puzzle pieces together." They grinned with red-stained lips. "If that's me, then who are you? Are you ready?"

France had never been a country or a group of experiments to fight. France was a name. Their name. Spoken sometime in the future and echoing in my head.

"How will I know if I'm ready?"

They whispered, "Who are you trying to save?"

. . .

"You can't do this!" Jude shouted at his mirror image.

"You can't do this," Morgan mocked Jude's thick voice.

"He wouldn't have wanted this! She wouldn't!"

"No one will notice. These people are like dogs. It's in the name of a greater purpose."

. . .

"I AM NOT LAIKA!"

"No." The frost on their breath split the darkness. "Who are you trying to save?"

"I am not your victim."

"Oh, I'm not the villain, Liminal Boy. Haven't you figure that out yet?"

"France, what do you want from me?"

"Who are you trying to save?" They shouted, their demeanor moved with the wind. "It all depends on you, so much depends on you. Tell me you know. Tell me, please! You know! You have to! You can jump ahead to the future—your future, my past. Before and after all of this! Tell me you remember!"

Tears froze on their short eyelashes, glimmering.

Glimmering like rings on Jamie's fingers.

Like Jo's face before she cracked a joke.

Like the shine on the sticky floor of Lallo's school.

And moonlight on the bottle of whiskey.

"Please," their voice broke as they pleaded, "Remember."

. . .

Ben pulled the protective covering off the new piano. "You'll figure it out."

. . .

"I am _not_ Laika." My brain twisted inside my skull. My soul ached. "None of us are. Not Jo. Not Jamie. Not Lallo."

"You're not an idiot. I know you aren't. You promised you would help me! Tell me you know what to do! Who do you need to save?" Tears fell quickly, too full of hot emotion to freeze on their eyelashes. They ducked their head, burying their face in the blue coat sleeves. Sequins, sewn with a thin thread into the shape of a heart on the back of their glove, caught the city lights.

The line of black creeped along the bold, taut bones of my left wrist. A small scar from Kiera shined. The new skin stood out, like burns. Like the burns on Will's arms as he lay in the basement.

"You said I wouldn't have to do it alone!" They cried into their sleeve. Below, the windows of buildings flickered and blocked out the night. Stars of our own making.

. . .

"What we protect says a lot about ourselves." Margret adjusted the cat under her arm.

. . .

Wings of golden white light that would alter the world. The boy who was too afraid. Angel was one of us. He would die the same way Kiko died. The way all the others would if someone didn't find the cure. Jamie. Stan. Darcy. Lupe. Louis and Rachelle. The black line moved down my wrist, crawling through my veins, spreading its poison. My fate was already sealed.

"You've seen it. You know what to do. Remember everything you searched for! No matter what, this was always how you were going to be. No matter what, this was always where you were going to be. It's not your past or your mind that defines you. It's you, your soul. Now tell me! Who are you trying to save?"

"Angel," I choked out his name. "My angel."

"No." They squeezed my hands, demanding, "Who are you trying to save?"

. . .

In the bookstore, Jamie smiled down at my past. I watched myself, staring at me and fearing the future. What a fool to think I was stuck. Time would catch up sooner or later.

I pointed to the remnants of the leak above. I was an idiot who never made the most of my gift. I didn't act, didn't trust myself. That changed now.

. . .

Antonia stumbled back against her desk, shouting angrily in Italian. Her words tumbled into English when I showed no recognition. "Who are you? How did you get in here?"

"My name is Langdon Moore and I need you to help me."

. . .

Angel's light filled the room. Jo screamed as Stan pulled her away from the glaring white.

. . .

"You need to put your mask on first." They shuffled the deck of cards.

. . .

My face stared back at me. He tilted his head in the opposite direction I tilted mine. He whispered a question into the stillness. I reached up to touch my white strands of hair, side effects fully taken hold. My eyes widened as I realized there was no going back now. The implant had finally cracked, the proof in the blackened hand, swelling under the rings given to protect me from others and from myself.

My past asked a question. Below him, Theo huffed and rolled onto his side. I buried my face in my hands. I had been so stupid, moaning and delaying what needed to be done. The answer had been right before me all along. My unruined hand curled into a fist.

. . .

"Lallo, my Lallo, my angel," Winona pleaded, squeezing him tightly into her chest. Children ran past as a bell rang. A dark-haired girl climbed the iron gate surrounding the schoolyard. "You can't keep doing this. You have to be strong. For me, please. Hold your sister's hand. You can do this."

"Winona, call him by his name. You'll only confuse him more."

"Give us a minute, Peter," she hissed then turned her focus back to her son. "My little boy. Lallo. You can do this. I believe in you."

. . .

I could feel the pause between each faint heartbeat in my chest. Seconds grew longer between each beat. The icy rungs of the crane felt more solid than my own heart. Its final beat wasn't far away. Continuum shook my hands. Their face inches from my own, clear blue eyes searching for a sign.

My verve answered on the final beat and I saw it. I saw how every life was made of every moment. My own included. Made of ones I could recall. Had forgotten. Was not a part of.

Jamie pressing his weight onto a knife. Rivets of blood spreading on the kitchen floor in a New York apartment.

Everyone's line crossed and crossing.

There was Dan, discharged from the army. At a funeral. The same one Ben attended.

There was no life that was certain. Everything was liminal. Time didn't stop, it was always in constant motion, moving through space. Nothing could alter the course of the lines, winding in and out of the sum of life.

The lines continued to move people along and I understood that any longing of mine had been in vain. No matter what, we would meet, whether I lived in New York or Morgan brought them to Montreal. We would meet. Our lines would always cross.

Every second was a note in a song. A chaotic, clamorous song that hummed pure energy. In the moment that was now, and then, and the end, I understood.

Wind howled as the world swiveled below the crane.

"Who are you trying to save?" They cried, "Please, _boy_!"

I shook my hands from their grip. They would have to wait until I knew the whole story. I would need to make sure they remembered this above all else.

"Me," I answered. "I want to live."

Continuum smiled through their tears. "That's what I needed to hear."

They let go of my hands. Freezing air cut my eyes and slashed my skin as I fell.

Fell.

Fell.

Fell until the city lights spun and disappeared.

And the stars reached out to catch me.

#  ANGEL

The stars caught me, setting me gently back on earth. Snow coated me, piling up on every side. Theo's black and white face blocked the night sky above. A black nose brushed my cheek. He lifted his head and howled.

"Here! He's over here, by the tree!" Jamie shouted. His beautiful face appeared above me. Snow danced in his hair, flurries swirling under the spotlight of the streetlamp.

"Langdon. Langdon." He patted my face. "Can you hear me? Are you there?"

Jo shrieked from somewhere nearby. Dan swore.

Jamie turned and threw his keys into the air. The metal glinted, landing in Jo's outstretched hand. "Drive!"

The streetlight was replaced by the dark ceiling of a car. A soft glow hovered closely. I turned to face it.

"I think he's still here. Langdon, can you hear me?" Dan asked, stripping my drenched jacket from my body. "Say something!"

Jo sat in the driver's seat of Jamie's car. Signs and roads sped past faster than when she had driven the Star Bolt.

"This _is_ an emergency!" Ben shouted into his phone from the passenger seat.

Jamie's face became visible as the glow in the backseat grew bolder. Brown eyes fixated on me as he muttered a prayer over and over under his breath, just as he had for Jo so many months ago.

"He's barely breathing." Dan's hand was heavy on my chest, the heat from his skin burning through my shirt. "My God, his hand. It's black. Shit. His arm, too. This isn't frostbite. It's under the skin. How did this happen? What is this?"

"Langdon." Jamie gently placed his hands on my cheeks and turned my head to face him. His eyes were frantic, vivid, and gleaming with light. He whispered his prayer in the chaos, verve pushing at my very soul. "You are not going to die. _You are not going to die_."

"It's you." My weak voice was barely audible to my own ears over the commotion in the small car. He leaned in to listen, long hair brushing my face. "Her little boy. Lallo."

Jamie's eyes widened at his nickname.

The car jumped the curb into Mercy's emergency entrance. How could they not see his light? How could they not notice?

The glow transformed in the small space. It turned, as if called to him, twisting into a soft halo. Rays of light glimmered, multiplying and folding in waves. Its shape grew stronger, discernable in the darkness. White light surrounded Jamie, extending behind him in the shape of wings.

"Jamie, you're the angel."

#  THE START OF IT ALL

"So, you have to save yourself before you can save others? You can't save Angel or Daydream or _anyone_ if you're dead? Oh, like the masks! Wait, did I tell you about that or am I going to?"

"You already told me." I stepped forward to look at myself. A ghost dying on a hospital bed as two almost lovers worked to save me. Antonia took the scalpel from Jude, completely oblivious to the face behind his surgical mask.

In a waiting room on the other side of the hospital, more people than I had ever expected gathered. All of them wore a heavy, unspeakable sorrow in their eyes.

The sight had been too much to bear. So, I had left and found a clueless, younger France wandering around. They followed me as I went to check on my body's status.

"Do you know what happens next?"

"Most of it. There's a lot and it's hard to remember it all at once."

They leaned their face close to me, the me with his eyes shut on the operating table, and touched a short finger to a bold freckle on the side of my nose.

"Don't get used to it. You can only touch me when my REV is out."

"If it's gone then why is everyone still acting like you're dying?"

"I am. The poison from the leak is trapping me in my verve. It's killing me. But once Antonia has filtered the last of it out of my blood, I'll be back to my normal, pre-REV self. We'll have to work fast. I only have one shot at this."

"Is your verve why they can't see us?"

"Unless they know how to look. Not many do. But anyone can see us if they're lost."

The flurry of hospital staff danced around us.

"Your spots are like stars." They looked up from the five fingertips pressed against various constellations on my physical body's face. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Can I really do this? Can I find the truth and set things in order?"

"You're here, aren't you? Who else do you think told Antonia to come here and save you? Who do you think gave her the formula for removing the REV? Who else do you think told me to trap you out in the freezing cold so your heartbeat would slow enough to stop the implant from exploding?"

"But why didn't we save Kiko?"

"We don't?" They frowned. "I thought we saved . . . Oh, no. That's right. Tantrum. We will try—have tried—to save her, but she says no."

"She _died_. Why would she say no?"

"But . . ." They released my face and put a hand to their mouth in thought. "Oh, that's sad. Maybe we should warn her."

"She's dead."

"I can warn her before her story ends. That might help her some."

"Stories. Why is everything a story to you?" I groaned as they turned their attention back to my freckles. "Would you leave my face alone and listen to me?"

"It is always about stories," ten spidery fingers pressed against various freckles on my cheeks and nose, "because we have to understand the enemy."

"Jamie is not the enemy."

"Maybe not yours. Mine."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"You are going to figure out what makes China Doll break." They moved away as Antonia stepped around them, oblivious to us. "And when he does, I'll take care of the angel that emerges from his destruction."

"Jamie's not a bad person." Memories yet to come flooded my mind. "He makes mistakes."

"Mistakes that cost."

"He's scared." I closed my eyes. The anxious little boy who was forced to stow away his emotions for others' sake. Lallo was still buried inside Jamie. "He's trying to fix things. You know as well as I do that this will always end the same way."

"I know," they said bitterly. "Where do we go from here?"

"I'm going to go down the hall and steal Jo's REV from Jude before he can destroy it. You need to go downstairs, take her from Jude, and put her in the morgue. Watch out for the security cameras."

I closed my eyes. So many of them. So many of me. So much to do. Everything happening all at once.

"Don't worry, you won't forget anything important. And if you do, you'll figure it out." They offered their hand.

"I know." I took their small hand and led them out of the operating room, away from my body before they could start counting my freckles again.

"Are you ready to end this?"

"No." I took one last look behind me as the door swung shut. "I'm ready to begin."

# ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Different versions of Langdon's story have been bouncing around my head for well over a decade. Finally piecing this tale together was a hell of a mess. It took a long time to get it onto the page, so I have a lot to thank for helping me survive this story.

First, if you made it this far, this thanks is for you. Without my readers, I'm just shouting purple prose into the void. You bring the rest of my story to life.

A huge thanks to my mom, Becky. (Look! Those guitar lessons you paid for finally came in handy!) Thank you for supporting me even when I made no sense to anyone, much less myself.

Unending thanks to my critique partner (and possible doppelgänger) Jenn Gott. Thank you for being the best cheerleader and superhero-sequel-writing-commiserator I could have asked for. Another massive thanks to Jenn and Graeme Gott for creating beautiful interiors for Jo and Langdon's stories. You made my words look so much better.

Thanks as well to all the Montreal Instagrammers who gave me updates on the never-ending winter and construction in the city. (I still think you're all weird for loving ketchup chips.)

Thanks are due to Leonard Cohen and Arcade Fire for being my writing soundtrack.

A sincere thank you to everyone who bought, reviewed, and blogged about Midnight. Life has been a wild ride ever since Jo's story came out. I never expected so many people to enjoy her story. It's been amazing.

Finally, to anyone wondering if _just maybe_ the moral of Lanny's story wasn't meant for them, that they don't get to have another shot at life, another breath of hope to hold on to, another reason to try again. It most certainly was meant for you.

# ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stefani Chaney is the author of The Opposition series and the paranormal romance, _The Moonlight Herders_. Stefani graduated with a degree in Creative Writing and currently lives in Arizona with a clowder of cats. She likes coffee, puns, and letting her chronic illness know who's in charge. More information about her books can be found on her website, stefanichaney.com

# BY STEFANI CHANEY

The Opposition Series

_Midnight_

_Liminal Boy_

# ELLYSIAN PRESS BOOKS BY STEFANI CHANEY

_The Moonlight Herders_
