Reaching, my touch grazes the surface, and my eyelids begin to sweep downward for the blink.
A strong hand grabs the back of my head, wrenching my hair and swimming backward forcefully, dragging me back to the surface.
I tug hard against that grip, yelp at the pain, taking in water like an idiot. I am not a Body here.
Shit.
My eyes begin to bug as my world grows smaller. Air leaves my lungs as this hero who's got a grip on me swims us to the surface in sure strokes.
Away from Tara and Dee.
We break the surface.
I shove at him, trying to capture elusive air back in my lungs, trying to turn and get back to my world.
The girls.
The guy whirls me around, gripping my drenched T-shirt with an iron fist.
Swinging my hair out of my face, I choke out, “Don't make me bust you in the chops, pal.”
“That's no way to treat your rescuer,” he says then punches me in the face.
Fuck!
Oxygen deprivation, an adrenaline-filled blink, and general fatigue collude with the darkness that swallows me like the water did before.
My last thoughts are of Dee, wondering where she went, and Tara being unprotected.
*
Deegan
I see:
Penises.
Disembodied hands. Weapons. Fingers. All floating by in the darkness of my vision like living dust motes.
I stumble backward, gravity holding me against the weird surface of this earth, yet allowing everything else to be a river of grotesque motion all around me. I hold my hands out in front of me to ward off the human body parts, and squeeze my eyes shut.
“Hi,” a voice says from my left.
Startled, I leap backward again, my arm grazing something nasty and feel my eyelids springing open.
The warped, spinning stuff shuffles sluggishly around me as I spin, hand to my chest.
I lock eyes with an old guy, maybe Grampsʼs age, standing there in an ill-fitting pair of denims and a flannel shirt.
“Hi,” I reply automatically, unease sinking like icicles of dread into my pores.
We stare at each other for a handful of seconds.
I have to know. “Do you live here?” I ask. Here in this world of zapped leftovers?
He cocks his head, palming greasy hair back and appearing to consider my question. “Nope. Like to come and go, see.”
I frown. “You mean, you arrive here and go somewhere else?”
He nods. “Name's Irvine.”
Okaaay. “Ah—Deegan.”
“Peculiar name.” His brows fold together.
Like I can help what I'm called. “Yes, I guess.”
“What's a little filly like yourself doinʼ... just appearing here?”
Should be obvious.
Especially to him.
I take a small step away from him, trying to avoid the current of ick.
His eyes flick to the movement then come to rest on my face.
“Are you a Mover too?” Irvine asks, and eyes that should be lovely in his long ferret-shaped face look too owlish to be anything but unnerving. Those round bluish-gray eyes blink.
Suddenly, he's standing in front of me.
I scream.
His hands snake out, capturing my shoulders and squeezing, hard.
“You're a Mover too.” His sour breath bathes my face as I try to wrench myself away.
Can't. Instead, I zap in a frantic reactionary instant.
And Irvine comes with me.
Apparently, other Atomics can't be zapped by an Atomic, but they can be towed along.
Never tested that until now.
We both come back to the space I just vacated.
Then everything I've ever known changes.
*
Pax
I come to, spewing water. My throat's a raw mess, and I'm full of snot and pond water.
A face swims into my vision. Four eyes finally become two.
The guy doesn't have an unkind expression, but this dude did just sock me in the face.
Moving too fast, I about head butt him as I try to sit up.
“Whoa, fella, give yourself a second.” He puts a steadying hand on my shoulder.
The kid I saw in the rowboat is staring at me like I'm an alien. Probably because technically, I am.
“I'm sorry about that right hook back there”—he's clearly regretful—“but I thought you'd drown us both.”
Yeah.
“I—” Realizing there's no explanation that will make any sense, I snap my mouth shut. In fact, anything I do say will remove all the doubt of my sanity.
The sun beats down on me as my mental wheels turn. It's daytime here, for extra fun. I can't blink back because I'm lying on the soggy bank of what looks like a small lake in direct sunlight. Could've done it under water, where it was dark. Almost did.
Shit. Fury sweeps through me then I stuff it.
These guys aren't responsible. They're just a father and son on a fishing expedition, and some strange guy bobs up in the water.
The man’s face scrunches up. He's squatting next to me, wearing a mild expression, hands knotted and hanging between his legs. “I was going to ask how it was that you suddenly appeared in the middle of Lake Meridian?”
Lake Meridian. Still in Kent. Of course.
Planting my palms in the wet turf, I hike my ass up and whip my head, displacing the dripping water from my hair.
I check out their clothes, looking for anything that will tell me when I am. Their outfits look dated. Kinda like what Gramps wears. So pretty safe to guess this is the twentieth century.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
I nod. Not really. Mouth feels like an elephant took a big, steamy growler in it. “Yeah.”
He holds out a palm, and after a second's hesitation, I slap mine into it. He hauls me up. “I'm Frank Hampton, and this is my son, Lowell.”
“Pax.”
His blond eyebrows rise. “Pax—just Pax?”
“No, it's Paxton, but only my mom calls me that.”
Frank looks me up and down. “Interesting threads, man.” He slaps my shoulder in a good-natured way.
Threads.
There's an awkward silence while he and his kid check out my weirdness, and I silently freak about my pregnant—whatever Tara is to me—and my sister back home.
This is a nightmare.
Some of what I feel must show on my face. “Hey, man, I'm sorry about chin-checkinʼ ya.”
Won't be the last time somebody takes a swing at me. “Nah. It's okay.” I wave a dismissive hand. “I must've looked like I was drowning.”
“Sure did, mister,” Lowell says.
I glance at their boat and see a line of trout caught and waiting. “Did okay fishing today,” I comment, taking a stab at normal.
“Yup!” he squeals then races over to the beat-up boat and hauls up the catch.
Bunch of dead fish stare back.
Huh. Still have wild fish here.
I lick my suddenly dry lips then ask the question sure to get me the real cautious looks. “What year is it?”
The little boy carefully puts the catch back in a red box that says Igloo on the side. Ice clanks around as he settles the fish, letting the hinged lid flop down with a decisive clunk.
“Year?” Frank asks, jerking his jaw back. He puts his hands on his hips and cups his chin, mulling over my odd question.
“1970,” he says slowly, like I'm slow.
Shit. I blinked myself to a when, not a where. Seems I'm destined to go to every Kent, Washington, into infinity, but I did a Mitch and blinked to a when.
God dammit.
Lie through your teeth, Pax. Shouldn't be too difficult. “So I like to dive, one of those dudes who can hold their breath for a long time. Ya know, like those deep-sea pearl divers.”
I smile, my palms dampening, grappling to remember home tutoring factoids I didn't much give a shit about.<
br />
Good news is I'm a five-point Organic in this time. That's something at least. If I don't break my femur or some other shit like that.
Giving off a low-level power surge, I get rid of the headache the guy gave me with his fist.
There's always time for me to gain an injury. I'm rivaling Bry Weller at this point.
Frank frowns, scratching his perfect flat top, which reminds me eerily of Gramps. “Don't know if I've ever heard of pearls in these parts.”
Excellent. “No—I don't dive for pearls. I use the same method.”
“You hold your breath and dive to the bottom of Lake Meridian?” His frown is bordering on a scowl now.
“Yeah, just for the challenge.”
“You're a strange ranger, mister,” Lowell says, eyeing me up.
I rock back on my heels, check the sky, see that it's high noon, and have a sudden and insane urge to cry.
Not the bawl-my-eyes-out-like-an-infant kind, more like the I'm-frustrated-as-fuck kind.
“That's about the strangest tale of bull hockey I've ever had the misfortune of hearing.”
Great.
“But since you were drowning...”
I really wasn't.
He cups his chin, “I think a spot of supper with the misses is in order.”
No way.
I open my mouth to say so, and Lowell chooses that time to take my hand and pull me, soaking wet, over to see his catch.
I'm so fucked.
*
Deegan
Zapping isn't like blinking.
They're not even close. When Pax blinks, my world turns upside down and I feel all Roto-Rootered from the inside out.
With zapping—now that I've done it to myself—there is none of that nauseating shifting of vital organs that are rearranged upon arrival.
Irvine and I are still three dozen centimeters from each other.
I'm clear-headed, spinning away from him and into the arms of the Sanction goons.
“Argh!” I scream, letting my power over the dead flare.
Mitchell answers. I hear him roaring to get to me, but they hold me tight.
“Let go, you-you bastard!” I scream.
“Tsk-tsk, mister.”
With a snapping pop I'm very familiar with, I'm left holding air where a man once stood.
Oh no.
“Uncle John!” I scream as I run from the room.
Things disappear at either side of me as I race down the long corridor, where I hope someone is: especially John Terran.
Doors.
Potted plants.
When the floor disappears, leaving a gaping mouth of dirt in front of me, I leap over it.
“You never told me your name, little lady!” a shrill voice grates from behind.
John Terran seizes the side of a doorjamb from a room, poking his face out.
Our eyes lock.
“Save me!” I shriek.
His eyes widen, and in the next moment, power bursts over me like a flood of icy water, passing like a soothing tide then slams into the psychotic Atomic behind me.
“Deegan,” John says, voice like frozen calm. “What is he?”
“Like me,” I pant, coming to stand in front of him and gulping air, bent over and hands to knees as I gasp.
“Not like you,” Uncle John says.
“What?” I ask, turning around and finding Irvine smiling, Uncle John at my back.
“Much worse,” he whispers.
Something sizzles behind me.
Many pops erupt like firecrackers.
I rotate slowly, peering inside the room where Uncle John was... and see my family disappearing one by one.
I whirl, facing Irvine. “You!” I shriek in his face. “That was my family.”
He grins, and I see holes where teeth ought to be. “They're still your family, princess. But I've put them back where they belong.” A vague smile touches his thin lips and is gone.
I want to beat on him and actually bare my teeth in anticipation.
“I was just on my way to see you when you conveniently appeared in that dumping world. Your dumping spot.” He taps his chin. “Come to think of it, all of our dumping spots, us Movers. See—I gotta keep moving, or the Reflectives will be after me.”
The Reflectives. I'd almost forgotten them. Gooseflesh crawls over my body like a tide of dread.
“They're about the only creation that can put a hitch in our giddy-up.”
Lunatic.
“Where. Is. My. Family?”
“Now you'll be going that there direction shortly, mhmm. No more squirreling away from Irvine. I've been promised a certain recompense if I don't dawdle, and get you back where you belong.”
What? “I belong here. This is my earth—my world.”
He grabs me, and I move to slap him. But Irvine is surprisingly strong. Inhumanly so, wrapping my wrists together with his hands in a vise grip.
“I have the Strength here, in these parts.” His fingers begin to crush my wrists, and I gasp.
Irvine grins. “There now, don't need ta hurt ya. If you cooperate.”
His eyes move to my flashing pulse informant badge. “Preggers?”
Duh. Giving a lustful look to his crotch, I fantasize about pulverizing it.
“Now, now, don't get any harebrained notions in that smart skull of yours.”
“I've done nothing to you.”
“I know.” He nods, swinging the flap of greasy ashy brown hair off his forehead. “But I finish this one task, and I get a world of my own. I've been promised.”
“By who?” I want his filthy hands off me.
His smile is quite genuine then. “Brad Thompson.”
I swear the world tilts then sways. My gorge rises.
“You make it easy, don't ya know.” He cackles.
I collapse, fingers biting on the unforgiving quartz. My family is in bot. Again. Everyone but Pax. And Mitchell.
But Mitchell's nowhere to be seen.
Sanction took him.
Then Irvine takes me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mitch
“Do not flame this zombie,” Drextel Tate says.
Thank you. I prefer not to be flamed.
I glance out the window at the charred remains of the zombie that attacked Skinny here, and chuckle.
Skinny gives me a sharp look. A chump with a fourteen-inch neck squeaks out (and I do love that—courtesy of my torched friend), “He is illegal and remains with Sanction.”
“What's illegal—is you broke into a grandfathered American resident's home and confiscated his property.”
Tate's not too bad.
Skinny swings his finger disapprovingly at Tate, who leans casually against a doorframe with about a dozen mixed fed types who appear to be standing around with fat rods up their collective asses. “That's where you're wrong. Clyde Thomas gets a pass because of his convoluted history. But this zombie...”
Skinny looks at me, and I raise my hand to give him the middle finger salute.
His face sours.
Tate picks up where Skinny left off: “Is a war veteran. We have his prints: Mitchell Rasmussen. Posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor.”
I whistle. I hadn't known that. And in this world, no less.
Get stoked just thinking about it. Not that medals matter. They give me the nod after I die.
Dicks.
I check out my hands. Nails are starting to get loose. This rotting thing is the real deal.
Deegan's been gone for an hour and a half, and I'm starting to get soft at the edges. Fucking disgusting.
Deegan...
Can't let her know everything I feel. Tried like hell to get her to stay away from me and just let me be the big undead protector.
But I was helpless to resist. She's more than a mistress to me. Deegan's this innocent, all-knowing, fragile, resilient mix of a woman. The mother of my child.
And she is mine. I feel that part to my marrow.
; There's not a force on any earth that's going to take her away from me.
“I just want Deegan back,” I say to Tate. My hands curl into fists, and the guys standing around get a little more tense.
“You're vile,” the skinny guy says.
I smile at him. Same smile I'm sure was on my face during the missions in the sandbox, where I needed to get up close and personal.
This twerp doesn't flinch.
Which tells me a lot of information. He's seen a lot.
Done more.
“We don't know where this Mitchell comes from.”
Skinny grins. “Well, we have some Rasmussen relatives who are just dying to meet him.”
Oh shit.
“I want to know exactly what's going on here!” a female voice says from behind me.
I crane my neck around because I have both legs tied to a chair, but my arms are free. I catch sight of a woman being herded through what I'm thinking of as my interrogation room.
Tara. She's old now, but it's her. I would recognize her anywhere.
Same platinum hair, but with lots of silver mixed in. Same blue eyes. Same fire.
“Mitchell?” she says, skin paling.
I glare at Skinny.
He chuckles.
“What kind of bullshittery is this?” I seethe.
“What?” He looks at my sister, who's nearly sixty years old and says, “You're not on board for old family week.”
I stand, chair attached to my ass like a metal wart, and try to hop over to this joker.
“Sit down, Rasmussen.”
I don't. Instead, I whip my tush around and bash the legs of the chair into Skinny's shins.
Four!
They don't break, but it's a good enough smack that his bellow of agony rings the ears of everyone gathered.
“Mitchell,” Tara says and runs to me.
She wraps her arms around me.
I know the instant she figures something's off—besides the fact that my legs are tied to a chair, and I'm beat up and held at Sanction.
The other thing. Me smelling like spoiling meat.
Tara pulls away first, gazing up into my face. “What's going on?”
I watch her dawning horror as she puts everything together. Beginning with the fact that I look like I’m in my early twenties and that I died in 2010.
It's a cruel thing this bastard did, hauling in my sister, who's believed I've been dead forever, on hope alone.
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