by Jus Accardo
Grabbing a shirt from the pile on my bed, I raced across to the small rusted sink and ran it under the water. The pressure sucked and it dribbled out, but I managed to get it saturated. Breathing through wet material helped, right? With smoke inhalation? I was sure I’d heard that somewhere…
I moved back to the center of the room. I could see the flames licking at the door now, the smoke growing darker and thicker. It burned my eyes and throat, and with each passing second, made it harder and harder to catch my breath.
Something crashed against the wall behind me, shaking the entire cabin. For a second I thought it was the same people who’d locked me in here, but there was something different about the sound. Something frantic.
Someone was trying to break through the wall.
Maybe it was possible. The cabins had no solid foundation. The walls were several layers of sheet rock and plywood and not much else. I lunged forward and started kicking at the wall where the sound was coming from. “I’m trapped in here!”
There was no reply, but the banging continued with even more vigor. After a few moments, the wall cracked and split, and a boot rammed through as I fell to my knees. There was no air left in the small space. Only thick, noxious smoke. I was vaguely aware that I was moving, that someone had hefted me up and thrown me over their shoulder.
“Damn it, Ash. Answer me!” my savior commanded, setting me back on the ground. I stayed upright for about a half second before crumbling to the grass. “Are you okay?”
I coughed and wheezed, gasping greedily at the fresh air. “I—yeah.” Breathing under control, I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand and stared as the cabin came into focus.
What was left of it.
Another moment inside and I wouldn’t have made it out. The entire thing was engulfed, flames shooting up through the roof—or, where the roof had been—and sending dark gray smoke curling into the night sky.
“Why the hell hasn’t the fire department gotten here yet?” It was Noah. He’d pulled me out. “There’s no way your neighbors missed all the smoke.”
“I’m sure they didn’t,” I said, struggling to my feet. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. His face was dirt-streaked and the edges of his jacket looked singed. Most of his hair had pulled free from the band, the bulk of it thrashing wildly in the wind. In that moment, he looked taller than he ever had. Like some avenging angel sent not from heaven or hell, but someplace in between. I swallowed the large lump in my throat. “But I doubt anyone here has a phone. And even if someone did call, the fire department wouldn’t have come. Not here.”
“Why the hell not?”
I spread my arms wide. “This is a listed compound. They’d rather set up chairs and scarf popcorn to watch it burn.”
“I have no idea what that means.” He shook his head, then hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “Don’t care, either. We should get out of here, though.”
“And go where?” I jabbed a finger at my still-smoldering cabin. “I don’t exactly have a backup place.”
His expression softened. In that moment, he looked so much like the Noah I’d known. Sweet and caring. Unaffected by money and power. It lasted about three seconds before the scowl set in. “So you plan on, what? Camping out on the grass? Good plan. I’m sure when they come back to drag away your charred corpse and find you waiting here for them they’ll apologize and offer you a cookie.”
“You’re—”
“Look, I’ll level with you. I don’t think the Andersons are your only problem. I think you’re in danger.”
“Danger? From what?”
“More like who.”
“The guy who killed Corey…” The smell from the fire was starting to get to me.
He nodded and hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “I promise I’ll explain it to you, but right now you have to trust me. We need to get gone.”
“Fine.” I didn’t trust him—and I didn’t trust myself with him. His appearance kept throwing me off. It was making my mind wander to places it shouldn’t go. But he was right. It wasn’t safe to stay here. The moment I’d admitted to being with Corey tonight, my life had been over. Now that he was dead, it was only a matter of time until I joined him. The fire proved that in spades. Then again, if what he’d said about Cora telling the cops she believed I’d killed Noah, what happened with Corey had only sped things along. The short of it was, if Cora Anderson wanted you dead, you might as well go dig yourself a nice big hole…
I had no intention of buying a shovel.
Chapter Five
Noah
“Is it really smart to be heading back in the same general direction we were caught in the first place?”
“Probably not,” I said without looking back. Ash was trailing behind and had been asking questions nonstop. Like the goddamned Energizer Bunny, that girl. “Probably doesn’t help that you’re stomping through the woods like an elephant and chattering like a monkey, either.”
“Are you always this much of a dick?”
“Only on my good days.” Granted, I was an asshole, but in this particular instance I was going out of my way to ramp it up. It was the only way I could stay focused. If she was irritated by my attitude, if I pissed her off, then maybe she’d stop looking at me the way she was. Like I’d hung the fucking moon or some lame shit like that. When she looked at me like that, it made me want to… No. This girl was a distraction. The universe’s way of trying to throw me off track. I refused to give in. Not this time.
We weren’t far from the Doon. The sooner we got there, the better. I’d spent countless hours scouring different earths for this girl. When I found her, there wasn’t usually much conversation. Our chemistry was instant and wild and we caught fire pretty damn quick. I’d convinced myself that she was nothing special and that I could easily live without her, but in the back of my mind, I always walked away from our encounters a little bit raw. Ashlyn Calvert was going to be the death of me some day, but I was determined not to let it be this Ashlyn Calvert. It was time I had some damn self-control.
“Well?” she snapped after a few moments of blissful silence.
“Well, what?”
“You said you were going to explain. Danger, remember?” She rushed ahead and jumped out in front of me. “How do I know that it’s not you I’m in danger from?” She jabbed her finger in the direction we’d been walking. “Looks to me like we’re heading back to the Doon. Back to the place that guy attacked Corey.”
“That would be because we are.” I sidestepped her and started walking again. She didn’t follow.
“I can’t go back there.”
“So stay here.” I slowed my pace but didn’t turn around. She’d follow.
“How did you find me? At the cabin? Did you follow me?” Her tone was soft. Hopeful, almost. It made me uncomfortable, while at the same time, had me desperate to tell her the truth. To see how she’d react. Of course I’d followed her. I couldn’t not follow her. That was the problem.
It was getting brighter. In an hour or so the sun would be up. We must have been in the Andersons’ basement for a hell of a lot longer than I’d thought. I had to find Cade and Kori and figure out what the hell was going on with the cuffs.
I threw up both hands and shrugged. I still couldn’t force myself to turn around and face her. “Look, you wanna stay here, then stay. I don’t—”
“Noah?” A second later, Kori came bounding out of the woods. She crashed into me, throwing her arms tight around my neck. My arms tightened around her instinctively. “It’s been hours. Where have you”—she caught sight of Ash and pulled away—“been?”
Cade came up behind her. He glanced from Ash to me and shook his head. “Really?”
“Obviously this isn’t what it looks like,” I said—though I didn’t have to. There was no way Cade thought I’d blown off checking in with them to go looking for Ash. Except, I had done it in the past. I’d never told him I’d met her before, much less had any kind of interaction. Up until thi
s moment, she’d been my dirty little secret. The addiction I couldn’t bear to face.
“Um, excuse me?” Ash pushed past me and positioned herself between Kori and me. “And what exactly would they think it looked like? Maybe like some crazy guy was dragging me back into the woods to, I dunno, murder me?”
“Aren’t you dramatic.” God. Hot and sarcastic. “And just a refresher—since your memory seems to be on the fritz—I saved your ass. Twice.”
“Saved her?” Kori said.
“Oh. Yeah. Mommy and Daddy dearest are like mobsters or something on this particular rock. Should have seen them. Totally surreal.”
Her eyes kind of bugged—I loved saying shit that shocked her—and her mouth fell open. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! They—”
An irritatingly familiar whistle cut through the chatter and all heads spun toward Cade. The guy could be stiff at times, but he sure knew how to grab the attention of a crowd. “Focusing now.” With a nod toward me, he said, “You were about to tell us what happened?”
“Obviously the problem is getting worse. That last skip was almost instantaneous. I caught sight of Dylan and I thought I had him, but he sucker punched me.” Admitting this to Cade in private would have been hard enough. Add Kori? Harder. Fessing up in front of Ash? Yeah. I felt like the biggest loser alive. I squared my shoulders. “I went down and—”
“And I ran into him. We went for a swim, then got kidnapped and stashed in the Andersons’ basement. It was a lovely evening I can’t wait to forget. Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Andersons’ basement?” Kori took a step toward me, and I could see the hope brewing in her eyes. She’d been with us for several skips now and having lost her own Cora Anderson, was eager to interact with another. She hadn’t gotten the chance yet. “As in—”
“Take a breath, Kor. Like I said, Mom and Dad Anderson aren’t the friendly type here.”
“Mom and dad?” Ash looked from me to Kori. “Kor? Are you—”
“Yeah. Guess I should do introductions. Guys, this is Ash. Ash, this is my best friend, Cade Granger, and this is my…this is Kori.”
“You’re a girl?” Ash almost looked like she wanted to poke Kori to see if she was real.
“Thanks for noticing?”
I rolled my eyes. “Moving on…. It looks like Dylan isn’t skipping from this earth right away. At least, he doesn’t seem to be planning to. He’s already taken out this world’s version of you—a dude, I might add—and is probably already looking for Miles, Odette, and Penny.”
“Maybe not,” Cade said. “He hasn’t gone after them for a few skips now. Like you said, the cuff is getting worse. I know him. If I had to guess, he’s going to be looking for a way to fix it.”
“But he took out this world’s Kori.”
“The guy that killed Corey was surprised to find us,” Ash said. “If that’s who you’re talking about, maybe it was by accident?”
Cade nodded. “That would be my guess. Dylan is going to be focused on the cuff right now.”
“You’re saying he might hit up Infinity?” He was in for a nasty surprise if he did. They hadn’t struck me as the helpful type.
“That’s what I would do.” He glanced at Ash before turning back to me. “What do we know about this world’s Infinity?”
I pointed to Ash. “She’s the expert. I’ll let her fill you in.”
All heads swiveled toward her, and Ash’s mouth fell open. She even blushed. It was adorable. “I’m not an expert!”
“But you know more than we do,” Cade prompted. “How about we go someplace safe and you can fill us in?”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll tell you what I know, but it won’t matter where we go. There isn’t any place safe.”
...
We rented a room downtown. Ash suggested that Cade take care of it, since she’d never seen him before, which probably meant the Andersons didn’t know him. We hadn’t had time to look into our doubles here yet so we had to rely on her. Kori was safe, too. Since her double was dead here—and a dude—there was zero chance she’d be recognized. Ash said there was a definite resemblance, but not something you’d put together unless you knew the connection.
“I can’t believe they deal with crime like that.” Kori set down the crust from her pizza—made with cottage cheese on this world instead of mozzarella—and shook her head. She looked as horrified as I felt about the abomination we were eating.
Apparently on this world, the government didn’t run the Infinity Division like it did on both our home worlds. Here, it was a corporation that sold its services to the law by ridding their world of undesirables. Yeah. And the term undesirables? That was a little different, too. We’d stumbled onto some kind of Mob-like society. There was a Gotti in the White House, and the most prominent people in America were crime families—like the Andersons.
Ash frowned. “Anything above a level two offense will get you skipped. There’s a trial, of course, but if found guilty, the ruling is final. They got rid of the appeal process a year ago.”
“I’ll probably hate myself for asking, but what kinds of things are we talking?” While we didn’t know the exact use for Infinity on our world, I was pretty damn sure we weren’t using it to dump killers and rapists on unsuspecting societies.
“Things like minor traffic infractions would be considered a level one. Level twos are your domestic disputes and squabbles with authority figures. Level three and above is everything from petty theft to murder. Of the right person, that is.”
“Right person?” Kori asked. Her expression soured even more. I wasn’t sure if it was the pizza or Ash’s description. Probably both. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Ash said with a frown, “that if someone like, we’ll say me, was robbed or murdered in front of, oh, I dunno, a crowd of two hundred, that person would walk free. Really, the severity of the punishment depends on the Tier of the victim.”
“Tier?” Cade shifted in his seat, utterly enthralled. We did this for a specific reason—to catch a criminal—but that didn’t stop him from being fascinated by the different cultures we’d discovered.
“President Al Capone implemented the—”
“President Al Capone?” Kori said with a squeal. Ash regarded her quizzically.
“On my world, and I guess Kori’s, Capone was a high-profile criminal,” I said.
“Sorry.” Kori waved her hand. She looked almost as star struck as Cade did. “Please, continue.”
“We have a tier system. The Andersons are Top Tier citizens. You cross one of those, consider yourself skipped—if they don’t kill you for it first. They can pretty much do whatever they want to whoever they want, but if you so much as give them the side-eye, it’s all over. The Mid Tiers are a little more structured. Things like petty crime and violence will get them skipped—especially if committed against a Top Tier. And as far as the Bottom Tiers go, it’s open season. We get skipped the most. Some committing crimes out of desperation or anger, others having simply pissed off the wrong people.”
“Whoa.” Cade leaned back in his chair. “That’s the harshest judicial system we’ve seen so far.”
“And the most unfair,” Kori said. “There are some harsh, unlivable worlds out there. What’s to say they aren’t shipping them off to a death sentence for stealing a pack of gum from some elitist snob? And what about the good ones? What happens when someone truly horrific gets dumped on innocent lives?”
“They’ve done research.” Ash’s tone was bitter. “Some of the public had the same concerns when the program started. Felt it could be a bit much, bordering on inhumane. But Karl Anderson is smooth. He insisted that they have a pool of seven other skip locations that they choose from—depending on the crime—and that each has been thoroughly researched.”
“Doesn’t sound like you buy into that.” The look on her face said it all. She wasn’t a fan of Infinity.
�
�There’s no real proof that they don’t, but Noah didn’t believe the research ever happened. He was convinced they skip them at random. Doesn’t matter where they land.”
“Either way, that’s barbaric.”
“He was looking into it.” She paused to take a shaky breath. “Who knows? Maybe that’s the something that started all this.”
“Something?” Cade said.
“My—our—Noah is dead. A little less than a month now. I think his death had to do with Infinity. He was poking around, said there was something he had to tell me, but before he got the chance, he committed suicide.”
“And you don’t think he did,” Cade said.
“I know he didn’t.” I had no idea what the deal between her and this world’s version of me was, but I was suddenly jealous. The ferocity in her voice left no room for argument. She squared her shoulders and certainty flashed in her eyes. “Noah would never do that. I think he was killed because of what he found out.”
Kori’s expression fell. “That would mean—”
“That Cora and Karl had something to do with it,” I finished for her. “Yeah. Trust me, it’s not a stretch from what I’ve seen. What about Omega? Could that have something to do with it?”
Ash frowned. “Omega?”
“Cora mentioned it back at the house. You were still unconscious, I guess. She asked me if I was here to sabotage it. They’ve—”
A loud wail filled the room. Everyone but Ash jumped and covered their ears, and Cade leaped to his feet, instantly on guard. “What is that?”
Unconcerned, Ash slid off the edge of the bed and hit the power button on the television mounted to the far wall. She pointed to the speakers by the door. “The alert system. Means there’s a special news broadcast. Everyone is required to tune in.”
The picture flickered to life and a tall man with a snow-white beard took front and center behind a stainless steel desk. “Good morning, people of Wells. We’re about to go live to a press conference at the Infinity Center. Please stand by…”
