Rift (Rift Walkers #1)

by Elana Johnson

  “It was a huge risk for me to chat,” she says. “I was on a job, and I could’ve gotten in a lot of trouble.”

  “Did you?” I ask.

  Her silence says she didn’t. She clears her throat and says, “I put Price in your contacts list, so you wouldn’t be freaked out if he had to call.”

  “Wow, thanks.” I restrain myself from rolling my eyes, but it’s hard. “Seeing the name of a futuristic guy who showed up in my bedroom in the middle of the night wasn’t freaky at all.”

  She sits by me in the twilight for a few more minutes. Then she stands, sighs like she wishes I could accept her apology, and goes back in her house.

  I stay on the porch, simultaneously hating myself for being unable to forgive her instantly, and proud of myself for not forgiving her instantly.

  Price

  ENTERING CASCADE’S HOUSE FEELS DIFFERENT now that her sister is here. I don’t know how to navigate sister-territory, and I certainly can’t read the vibes Cas is giving off. Saige’s hostility isn’t that hard to figure out though. I get it, sort of. I’ve been here with Cascade and she hasn’t. I sort of wish Soda were here, but she’d gone home. She’d definitely know what to do and say to get Cascade’s shoulders to loosen up and Saige to take the glaring down a notch.

  Heath and Cooper seem oblivious to the girl drama, so I decide to ignore it too. I step next to Cascade and slip my fingers through hers. She responds by squeezing my hand. “You don’t look beat up,” I say. I’m glad my dad showed some restraint. He chatted me while I was at Heath’s to tell me he and Mom decided not to stay in the city. I’d admitted to giving Monroe the slip—as if such a thing is possible—but assured Dad that I was only at Heath’s and would join them at home later.

  Cascade lifts her hand and brushes her fingertips along my bruised eyebrow. “You’ve looked better.”

  “Yeah, well,” I say. “I’ll heal.” I want to kiss her, but we’re not really to the stage where I want to do it in front of other people. “Where’s your grandfather?”

  Sadness washes over her face. “He’s asleep upstairs. He wouldn’t want to know about any of this anyway. He has to be able to claim innocence if the Hoods come asking questions.”

  I pull her closer; she leans her head on my shoulder. “Sorry,” I whisper.

  “Price,” Heath says, and I put distance between me and Cascade. “Cooper needs a run-down.” I reluctantly step away from Cas to instruct Cooper in how to weave my Black Hat signature, and what kind of jams I’m attracted to. Cascade said she’s got the rift scheduled to open at midnight, and as the minutes pass, I feel like water is slipping through my grasp.

  I constantly check the network news feeds. There’s been nothing about the Black Hat jam at the Bureau. Nothing about the break-out. It doesn’t feel right, and I know I need to talk to my dad about the rift. I’m sure he won’t miss it opening, even at midnight.

  As darkness descends, loud knocking lands on Cascade’s front door. I spin toward it, my heart hammering in my throat. Heath’s the closest to the door, and he drops to the ground as if the Hoods will start electrifying everything.

  Cooper slides frantically on his flatpanel. “There’s been no news of the escape.”

  “They want the Black Hat,” I say, still staring at the locked door. “Cooper and Cascade, you guys should hide.”

  Cascade throws me a panicked glance before she sprints upstairs. Heath and Cooper follow her. Saige is frozen on the sofa in the living room, only I’m sure, because she doesn’t know what the Hoods are capable of. I follow Cascade and find her standing at her window, peering through a gap in the heavy black curtains. “There’s no one there,” she whispers. “But they can’t have gone far.”

  I pull her to me. “You have to get out of here. Please. Go anywhere. Stay in the city for a few days. Fly to California, or New Mexico, or anywhere you want. Get back to the rift when you can.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  I think of Cooper, who has just as much at stake as Cascade does. None of us can be caught.

  Everything that I’ve learned, everything that’s happened, races through my mind. The only thing tethering me to this earth is Cas’s hand in mine. “I’m going to talk to my father.”

  Price

  I HAVE A PLAN I HAVEN’T had time to brainstorm with anyone. I feel it grow and change as I leave Cascade in her secured house and head home. No one intercepts me along the way, but I feel eyes on me. I pause around the corner from my house and hail Cascade over a private chatline. Can you open the rift for a minute?

  Are you crazy? she asks. Why? Where are you? I imagine her voice pitching higher with each question.

  I’m staring at my house, and there are no Hoods here. I don’t know if I’m more afraid that they’re not visible, or simply waiting for me to make the wrong move. I need…I need the rift open for just a minute so I can talk to my dad.

  What does this have to do with him? she asks.

  I press my eyes closed, and speak before I think. Just do it, Newt.

  The silence coming through the chat feels angry.

  Is this worse than being a middle-aged technology genius? I force a laugh. Who’s watched me change my clothes?

  She clears her throat and then a giggle bursts over the chatline. I can’t help it; I start laughing too, and suddenly it’s not so bad that she’s seen me in my boxers.

  I laugh and laugh, though the seriousness of our involvement in Dad’s rift business is heavy and pressing.

  Opening the rift in 3…2…1….

  The rift blazes to life. One, two, three flashes of magenta light streak through the center of the rift before I cross the street and prepare to face my father.

  I don’t know who or what awaits me in the mansion that Dad built. I go straight to his office, though my heart is trying to leap out of my throat. The words I want to say aren’t ordering themselves in my head, and the frown he wore the last time I saw him is all I can see.

  His door is closed, and I take two seconds to breathe before I press my palm to the sensor. The door slides up, and I enter without waiting for his permission.

  “Where’s Mom?” I ask before Dad can stand.

  Dad presses a button and his office door slinks closed. “She went out with her friends tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “Nixon Heights. She needed a break from work and everything else.”

  I perch on the chair opposite of Dad. Mom loves the art galleries that line the streets in Nixon Heights. When I was little, she’d take me there and show me the ink drawings, the ones done with raw materials, not coded on the Circuit. She hasn’t done that for a long time.

  “When will she be back?” I act cool and relaxed by leaning back in the chair, but I’m not sure it works.

  “I told her to go back to the apartment,” Dad says. “It’s closer to Nixon Heights than our house is.” He looks like he’s in command, and though I try not to let him intimidate me, he does.

  “I know you’re using the rift for illegal things,” I say, going straight to the issue. “You’ve got to stop.”

  He laughs, throwing his head back and sending the sound to the ceiling. “You sound like Cascade. I knew she’d get her hooks in you.”

  The way he speaks about Cascade, like she’s nothing but trouble, sends heat through my body. “She’s right. She’s got graphs and measurements.”

  “She’s a teenager who doesn’t want to complete her contract because she’s fallen in love with some boy.”

  “You use teenagers to do your dirty work,” I shoot back, stung he thinks I’m just “some boy.”

  The smile on his face takes a few seconds to fade. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Dad, please,” I beg. “It has to stop.” Desperation coats my words now. “You’re going to hurt someone.”

  He turns away, but not before fear races through his eyes. “Money and power come at a price.”

  “Mom’s life?”
I ask. “What if the rift explodes and she’s killed? Or sucked through time?”

  Dad stands and struts away, as if distance will erase facts. I take a deep breath and keep going, hoping he’s on the edge of a decision and I can sway him.

  “I’ve seen the flick of the rift as it collapsed,” I say. “The one where you tried to save Cascade’s dad and failed.” I follow him toward the door, where he’s pacing. “I don’t know how you’re not getting caught, but it’s not worth it. It’s only money.”

  Dad whips around and lunges toward me. I don’t have time to react before he’s grabbed me, one hand around my throat and one pinning my arms to my sides. “It’s not only money. It’s power, it’s everything, Price. Everything my parents worked for, my grandparents. I control this rift, therefore I control everything. Past, present, future.”

  Wildness abounds in his eyes. He releases me and steps back, his chest heaving. My heart pounds so hard I can’t hear anything else.

  “How do you make sure no one flips on you?”

  He straightens his suit and takes a deep breath. “I pay very well.”

  “Alternate identity, I bet.” I narrow my eyes at him, see the wave of confession roll across his face. “Who do they think they’re dealing with?”

  His silence is eternal, and I know he’ll never tell me.

  “Fine. I’ll tell you mine.” Words I shouldn’t say crowd my mouth. “I’m the Black Hat.”

  His eyebrows raise; his eyes widen. Dad could keep my identity a secret. He could protect me. Without him, I’ve got nothing. Without him, I wouldn’t have countless lies. Without him, I wouldn’t live with the ever-present fear of the rift.

  With him, I’d have freedom. With him, I wouldn’t have to worry about money. With him, I wouldn’t have Cascade.

  But I’ve already chosen—maybe a long time ago, maybe way back when I created the Black Hat and started running jams to impede my father’s inventions.

  “I’m going to send someone through the rift,” I say. “Just this one time, and then it has to end.”

  “What’s this someone going to do?”

  “Lead the Hoods somewhere else,” I say. “They’re too close to me, and I—” My voice cracks, letting all the fear I’ve been hiding seep into the room. For a moment, Dad watches me with sympathy in his eyes. I remember that Wilder said Dad appreciates a well-researched argument. Cascade had to give him something to get something.

  “I won’t jam anymore,” I finish, my voice strong and sure. Inside, I feel dark and unsettled, the negative emotions I normally release during a jam already building into something with a life of its own.

  “So you need the rift,” he says, and it sounds calculating. He taps his foot like he doesn’t have time for me. I bristle at his dismissing demeanor and straighten to my full height. If I’m going to save myself from incarceration, this is my chance.

  “Please,” I say, with just the right current of pleading in my tone. “I need you.” It’s a victory for Dad, and he smiles.

  “Who’s going?” he asks.

  “A friend,” I hedge. If I say its Cooper, Dad will know he’s not in the Bureau prison.

  I search his face, trying to find the answers that have eluded me for days. I see urgency in the depths of his eyes, accompanied by a sea of compassion I wasn’t expecting.

  “Who?” he asks. “Using the rift for personal gain….” He clucks his tongue. “Highly illegal.”

  “If I tell you, you have to close the rift—permanently.”

  “Depends—”

  “And you won’t try to stop me.”

  “It sounds like you’re getting all the benefits from this arrangement,” Dad says.

  “You won’t blow up the house, or allow alternate universe identities to come through and kill us,” I say.

  He pales and grips the sides of his desk with white knuckles.

  “And I won’t tell the Hoods waiting outside that they should be investigating you.” I step closer to him. “You’ve paid me nothing to keep my mouth shut. And using the rift for personal gain….” I shake my head, imitating him. “Highly illegal.”

  He falls into his desk chair, his eyes angry and his jaw tense.

  “Consider all of those things huge benefits.”

  “How do you know about the dimension—?”

  “We both avoid prison,” I say over him, unwilling to explain how I snuck around Sector O in the middle of the night. “The Black Hat disappears, and I won’t pin his identity and all his brilliantly illegal jams on you.”

  “You wouldn’t,” he says. I’ve never seen his face so pale.

  “You have no idea how close I almost came to doing just that,” I counter. “I just had the rift open to complete the jam.” I make my expression as cold as possible. “Check the log if you want.”

  He blinks, surely accessing his data to find out if the rift has been opened. He re-focuses on me, a new level of both distrust and respect in his eyes. “What time do I need to pretend to be asleep?”

  “By midnight,” I say. “And do you have guards on duty? If anything goes wrong….”

  Dad settles behind his desk, his coolness returning. “I have four guards on-call. I’ll have them come over.”

  Upstairs, I pace in my bedroom, watching the clock tick closer to midnight. Heath’s not here, and he can’t give me that single nod that says everything will work out fine.

  This is real life, I think, and there are no screens to hide behind.

  The air inside the house feels too heavy, pressing down on me and making breathing almost impossible. Finally, eleven-thirty arrives—and so do Heath and Cooper. Flatpanels get hooked together. “You taught him how—”

  “I taught him everything,” Heath says. His voice is tight, and I fall into silence. We set up the equipment needed to calibrate the rift according to the specs Newt had sent.

  It’s too early. There’s nothing for us to do but wait, and that turns out to be worse with Heath and Cooper than when I was alone.

  “Did you show him—?”

  “Price, I showed him everything. Dammit!” Heath sucks on his finger where he’s sliced it on a stray computer part lying on my desk. He heads into the bathroom, and I know it’s not only because he needs my spray-on skin.

  “I’m ready.” Cooper watches the doorway to the bathroom where his brother disappeared. “Don’t worry, Price. I’ve got this.”

  Easy for him to say. He’s going to be off-grid, while I’m still here, hoping that he’ll be able to create a believable path to lead the Hoods somewhere else.

  “Okay,” I finally say. “Cas said she’d be here by midnight.” Heath hears the last part of what I say when he comes back into my bedroom.

  No one answers me. Neither Heath nor Cooper cares about Cascade Kaufman the way I do.

  As if bidden by my thoughts, Cascade hails me over a secure chatline. “At the corner. Rift set to open in a few minutes. Nice job with the calibration.” Pause. “I want to talk to you. Backyard?”

  “Confirmed.” I turn to Heath and Cooper. They’re both looking miserable, and I don’t know what to say to cheer them up. Heath is losing his brother, and Cooper will have to cut off all contact with his family.

  For me.

  I stride across the room and clap Cooper on the back as I hug him. “Thanks, blood. Good luck out there.” I lock eyes with Heath. “Cas says the rift’ll be up in a few. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

  He nods, and I climb out the window. I drop to the porch and launch myself over the railing toward the backyard. As I sprint across the lawn, a lean body joins me and presses a cool hand into mine.

  Cascade. I tow her behind the shed where we huddle together, hands clasped and breathing synchronized.

  “What’s going on?” I ask her.

  I assume she’ll fill me in on everything that happened with Saige, or explain how altered timelines work and what I can expect once Cooper starts acting as the Black Hat. Instead she says, “I’m leaving
, Price.”

  Saige

  OUR HOUSE COMES INTO VIEW, and suddenly Chloe stops. We haven’t spoken much beyond her explanations and my outbursts, and certainly not about anything that matters. She hasn’t said if she’s coming home with me, but I doubt it. Even if her agreement didn’t prohibit it, she needs to be here to take care of Shep.

  “I need to talk to Price, alone. Give me a minute. The rift will be open at midnight,” she says. I don’t respond, because she sounds so much like Mom when she won’t tolerate an argument.

  I watch her cross the street, expecting her to scale the rain gutter to Price’s window. But a figure separates from the porch and streaks into the backyard. Chloe joins Price, and I slink closer to the house on the corner to wait for my sister.

  I don’t have two minutes of peace before the rift blazes to life. It looks different somehow, and as I watch it ripple, I realize it’s not the same color.

  This rift is mostly silver, with a lot of blue. It also has violent streaks of pink and slashes of purple undulating amidst the softer particles of light. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but the bees are back in my stomach, writhing along with my nerves.

  I wish my sister would freaking hurry. I don’t know what the plan is. Am I supposed to go into the rift alone? Will it take me straight home?

  The rift pulses, a single burst of white light. Seconds later, a figure emerges from the bedroom window and drops to the porch. He races toward me. “Heath,” I hiss out of the shadows, and he veers into the darkness beside me.

  “It’s done,” he pants. “Cooper’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because though Heath knew his brother was leaving, it can’t be easy. I know what it’s like to live without a sibling, and the pain in Heath’s voice wasn’t hard to miss.

  “Where’s Cascade?” Heath asks.

  “She went to talk to Price,” I say, though it annoys me that he calls her the wrong name. I don’t know how I feel about her being with Price. She said she didn’t mean for their relationship to happen, but it did. “Should I just go into the rift?” I ask.