Mend (Rift Walkers #2)

by Elana Johnson

  Two car doors open. And close. The door nearest to my head opens and cold air assaults my face. I manage to stop myself from flinching away from it. Equally icy hands slip under my arms and pull me across the seat. I’m hauled over the man’s shoulder, and the car door gets kicked behind us.

  I slit my eyes and glance around. From my upside-down position, it’s hard to make sense of things, but I see pine trees, iced dirt, chilly blue sky, and the edge of a red truck before closing my eyes again.

  “Put her in the bedroom,” someone says, and I recognize Payton’s voice.

  The man carrying me needs no explanation about where the bedroom is, which unsettles me. How many people have they brought out to the woods? How long can I survive out here alone? Maybe I won’t be alone…

  I swallow back the scream building beneath my tongue. No one out here will hear me, because there is no one out here.

  I get dumped on a hard mattress, where I groan. The man doesn’t stay or see if I’m awake. His boots cross the floor, he leaves, and the door gets secured behind him. I open my eyes as a key gets fitted into the lock and wince with the resulting click that tells me I’m trapped.

  Heart pulsing behind my eyes, I sit up slowly, hoping the bed won’t squeak. I gain my feet in silence, taking in the stark room. If I thought the room at the Global Initiative was bare—and it was—it’s nothing compared to this cabin bedroom.

  The only thing in the room is the bed. Made, with sheets and a quilt, with a single pillow, the box springs sit right on the floor. There isn’t a closet, a bathroom, another door leading anywhere.

  Nowhere to hide.

  The window spans half the wall to my right, but after I tiptoe over there and crack the curtains, I see bars. On the inside and the outside.

  Nowhere to go.

  Panic builds in my gut, and I swallow down the sour sensation. I mince my way to the door and press my ear against the wood. I can hear two voices, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.

  In all my experiences, I’ve never been in a situation that felt this hopeless. Sure, I’ve completed some pretty risky jobs for Guy. But we always had a contingency plan—and sometimes I had to come up with a contingency for the contingency on the fly.

  But I’ve never been put in a ten-by-ten room with no possibilities of escape. No gadgetry. No help on the way.

  I hear a door close somewhere in the house. Could be a bathroom, could’ve been someone leaving. I cross back to the window and catch the flash of red as the truck door closes. The engine rumbles to life and the truck leaves. I can’t see who’s driving, so I don’t know who I’m left with.

  I spin back to the bed and pull the pillow from under the quilt. I strip off the case and tuck the naked pillow back under the blanket. I twist the pillowcase in my hands until I’ve made it as rope-like as possible, and I wrap an end around each of my palms.

  I crawl onto the bed, not caring now if I make noise. I want whoever’s still here to come check on me. Open that door.

  I roll over and off the bed, my knees and hands knocking against the wood floor, hard. I cry out in false pain—though my right knee does throb a bit—and hurry to the side of the doorjamb.

  Footsteps approach. Keys jangle. Metal scrape on metal. The door swings open, concealing me behind it.

  I wait until I see the back of the man’s head, wait until he says, “What the—?” before I launch myself at him, looping the pillowcase rope around his neck. We stumble backward together, his hands automatically coming up to keep the rope from tightening too much.

  My back hits the wall, bracing me. I yank harder, growling. “Where am I?”

  Payton stills. “My family’s cabin in the Mountain Lake region.”

  Mountain Lake means nothing to me. “How far from the city?”

  “A few hours. A few hundred miles.”

  I swallow back my fear. A few hours by car, not by foot. A few hundred miles from any chance of going through a rift and getting home.

  “Why are you telling me everything?”

  “You asked, and you have a sheet around my neck.” Payton holds perfectly still. “I didn’t bring you out here to hurt you.”

  “Then why did you have my father drug me?”

  “You started screaming, said you wouldn’t go.”

  “Do you drug everyone who screams?”

  “Usually, yes.”

  In one motion, I release the pillowcase and shove him away from me. He stumbles a few steps, catches himself, and faces me. His dark eyes burn with dangerous fire, but I imagine mine do too.

  “I don’t understand your Verse,” I say.

  Payton nods. “There are marked differences between Global and Primary, that’s for sure.” He gestures toward the open door. “Want to come into the living room and have a civilized conversation? We still do that here.”

  “After you.”

  He goes in front of me, and I follow with the pillowcase still wrapped around one hand. The main room of the cabin is large, with natural light coming from three of its walls. The kitchen is tucked into one corner, with a small dining table nearby and a backdoor next to that. Three couches make a U-shape that face the front door, with rugs, end tables, and lamps creating a family atmosphere.

  The bedroom we came out of sits to the right of the front door, with a bathroom next to it. A third closed door in the other corner makes me think there’s another bedroom here.

  To the right of the front door stand a couple of stools facing a paneled wall.

  Payton sits on one couch and I select another, perching right on the edge. “So talk,” I say.

  “Your father thought it best to remove you from the city.” He leans back into the couch like he hasn’t a care in the world. I envy his composure, his confidence. I mean, I just had a rope around his neck.

  “Why?”

  “You have a double in this Verse.” He speaks slowly, allowing the weight of his words to sink into my mind. “She visits him often. It would make things…difficult if she knew you were here, if she ran into you.”

  I glance around the single room cabin, a sick feeling clawing at the back of my throat. “So I have to live out here? Indefinitely? With you?”

  He laughs, but the sound has a bitter tint to it. “I’m only staying the night, to help you acclimate to your new home, give you a few pointers and rules.”

  My eyebrows lift at the word rules, but I keep my tongue in check.

  “I’m not allowed to stay in the Global Verse permanently,” he says with a grimace.

  “Why is that? Your father lives here, doesn’t he?”

  “My mother is from Primary.” Payton focuses on something out the window behind me, this conversation clearly not the civilized one he wanted to have. “I’m bound there, and my father won’t let me cross-over permanently.”

  “Why does Orville get to decide where everyone lives?”

  “He controls the rifts, that’s why.” Payton meets my eye, curiosity burning in his. “Remember, this Verse is not like ours. In Primary, people make their own choices. They do what they want, within the law, of course. Here…” He looks away again, his voice turning cold. “Here, my dad controls everything and everyone. He’s built himself a perfect little utopia, and he’s not about to let anyone ruin it.”

  “He thinks you’ll ruin it?”

  Payton stands and adjusts his jacket. “No, Cascade. He thinks you’ll ruin it.” He steps into the kitchen and fiddles with the thermostat. “Are you hungry? Do you want lunch?”

  My stomach cramps at the thought of food, but I say yes anyway. I sit at the table while he opens the fridge. “We stocked the cabin with enough food for a month. Your father will bring more supplies in a few weeks.”

  I watch him slice cheese and butter bread. “What does my father do for yours?”

  Payton slides me a daggered glare. “You really want to know?”

  I think of the “medical” files I read on the panels before I left the infirmary. “I thin
k I already know. I just want you to say it.”

  “He’s my dad’s consultant. He helped establish the cross-over laws, and he identifies people he thinks will be good Primary cross-over candidates.”

  Payton sets a sandwich and an apple in front of me, but I don’t touch either item. “Could he go back to the Primary Verse if he wanted to?”

  “Of course,” Payton says. “He requests to stay in Global every year, as required by the law he suggested.”

  I pick up the apple and imagine it as my father’s face. My fingers grip too tight, too tight. “Is my dad sick the way I am?” I keep my gaze on my food, the need to know too raw in my system to keep it from showing on my face.

  Payton practically drops his plate in the place across from me. “Your dad’s not sick. Why would you think that?”

  I squeeze the apple, wishing it were weak and I could smash it to pulp with my bare hands.

  “Do I have supplements out here?” I ask. “Do you think my condition is reversible?”

  Payton hears the questions I’m really asking, because his voice is gentle when he speaks next. “Yes, you have all the vitamins and minerals you need here, Cascade. And no, your condition is not reversible.”

  I hear him crunch into his apple, chew, and swallow. I fight back the tears I wish weren’t there. It’s stupid. I’ve known I’m sick for months. I guess a particle of hope existed inside, one that was desperate enough to believe that if I lived in this cabin for six months, or a year, or whatever, that I’d be well enough to go through the rift again.

  “I know what you’re going through,” Payton says quietly. “I have a similar condition to yours.”

  My eyes fly to his. “You do? But you go through the rift all the time.”

  His jaw hardens. “I’m weak for days afterward. It gets worse every time, so I don’t cross-over unless I have to.”

  “So I could cross-over again.”

  Payton’s gaze dances away. I dislike the compassion in it anyway. “No, Cascade. What you’ve done with time travel is much different than what I’ve done crossing-over. The lengths are different, the energies much more toxic. I really think if you try to enter a rift again—either to cross-over or travel through time, you won’t recover.”

  I jump up from the table, the apple still squeezed in my palm, and rush out the back door. I race toward the tree line, not caring about the freezing air in my lungs or the sharp wind cutting through my clothes.

  Once in the safety of the pines, I bellow as I throw the apple as hard as I can, the sound morphing from anger to fear to desperation as I sink to my knees and sob.

  Heath

  MY QUESTIONS ABOUT CASCADE GO UNANSWERED. Her father knows something, but he’s not telling. A day passes. Then another. I can’t stand to be cooped up in my cell for another second. Greg hasn’t made contact, and neither has anyone else. Whoever Orville sent to follow me the other night must be watching remotely. I haven’t given him much to see. After all, ordering food and sleeping can’t be that exciting.

  I did a little digging on Greg and Iris too, but the holo is a lot like the Circuit, and I sent a clean-up bot after me, which erased everything I searched as soon as I navigated to a new site.

  I’ve learned a lot about Greg, including why he works at a financial institution when he used to lead a team of scientists at the Global Initiative.

  Instead of showing up at his teller window, I choose to loiter on the sidewalk outside his building. When he sees me through the dusky sky, he acts like he’s seen a ghost. He glances behind him like he expects the devil himself to be standing there.

  “I wasn’t followed this time,” I say, shoving my hands deeper into my pockets to keep them warm. “I made sure.” I scan the street. “Where’s Iris?”

  Greg juts out his jaw. “She left town for a few days.” He brushes past me. “I think you should leave.”

  “I know you can help me.” I follow him so I can get into the print-locked building behind him.

  “I already said I couldn’t.” He presses his palm to the window.

  “You’re not a great liar.”

  He gives me a withered glare over his shoulder. “How do you think I can help you?”

  “I looked up your profile.”

  He pauses two steps inside the door, leaving me very little space to squeeze in beside him. The door begins to whine, and he falls back another step so it can close.

  “My profile is private.”

  “Sure, I know.” I glance up the stairwell. “Should we talk in your apartment?”

  “No,” he says. “It’s been flagged. There are listening devices everywhere. Even here.”

  A cold fist grips my insides and twists. “Then we’ll probably have to go tonight.”

  “Go where?”

  “Through the rift,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster, which admittedly, isn’t very much.

  Greg laughs. “You’re funny.”

  “And you work for the horology department at the Global Initiative.” I cock one eyebrow at him. “I know what that means. It means you study time travel. I saw the gadgetry—”

  “You don’t know—”

  “—In your apartment,” I yell over him. “I know you were the first one to document how to open the rift. I know you and your little girlfriend were the ones who—”

  “Shut up!”

  “—Discovered how to contain the energy in a metal alloy of nickel, cobalt, and chromium. You built the frame that rift sits in. You know how to set it, open it, close it. You can get me home.”

  My chest heaves by the time I finish, and so does Greg’s. For a second, I think he’s going to punch me, lay me out flat.

  “I know Orville stole the findings from you,” I say next, my voice deadly calm, and even, and low. “I know he split you and Iris up, forbade you from seeing each other, fired you and moved her into research. I read it all in your private file.”

  Greg swings, his fist making contact with my nose in an explosion of pain and blood. I fall into the door behind me, which keeps me on my feet. My first instinct is to swear and hit him back. I only do the first, stumbling out of his reach so he can’t punch me again.

  “How did you gain access to my private file?” he asks, those dangerous fists flexing and releasing.

  “I’m a hacker,” I say, gently probing my nose with light fingers to see if it’s broken. “I can get behind almost any wall.”

  “A hacker from the future.”

  “Yeah.” I straighten when I’m satisfied he hasn’t broken my nose. “I want to go home, and I know you can help me.”

  “What makes you think I’d risk everything I have to help you?” He sneers the last word, his gaze skating over me like I’m covered in slime.

  “Because I can take you with me,” I say. “I live in a time and place outside of Orville’s reach. You go pick up Iris at your brother’s house, pack a bag, and meet me at the Global Initiative. We go tonight—all three of us—and you and Iris can start a new life in a new place, no questions asked.”

  The hope on his face is immediate and heart-wrenching. If I can’t deliver what I’m promising, I’ll punch myself in the face. Over and over. Of course, I have no idea how to do what I’ve proposed, but Soda and her mom got a new life. Greg and Iris deserve one too.

  “How did you know Iris is at Victor’s?” he asks.

  “Hacker.” I fold my arms. “Do we have a deal?”

  He looks up the stairs, back at me. Out the window set in the door. “I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  I definitely have a tail on the way back to the Global Initiative. It’s not the same oaf who followed me a couple of nights ago. No, this guy moves on whisper-soft feet, but he’s got a cold or something, because I can hear him breathing behind me.

  I slip into a nearby shop while I wait for the bus and pretend to study the frozen yogurt menu. If I knew how to purchase things in this Verse, I’d buy a peach and pistachio concoction and stand in the w
indow until my tail reveals himself.

  As it is, I don’t have to buy anything to see the dude dressed in black examine the figures waiting at the bus stop. He shifts to the side, and I discover this time lord is a woman. The idea brings me little comfort, given the way she scowls when she doesn’t find me among the crowd.

  I spin away as she starts to scan the surrounding shops and step up to the counter.

  “What can I get for you?” the girl asks.

  “Can I just have water?” I ask. “Is that free?”

  She hands me a small cup and looks over my shoulder to the next person in line. I move to the beverage station and fill the cup with scalding hot coffee from a canister on the counter. A twinge of guilt steals through me, but I figure it’s only a few swallows at most. How much can that cost? When I get back to my world, I’ll buy coffee for everyone I know to make up for it.

  I linger inside the shop until one bus comes and goes and the next pulls up to the curb, refilling my coffee to make sure it’s as hot as possible. Then I burst from the shop and press my way to the front of the small crowd, getting on the bus behind a couple of people but before several others.

  The coffee steams in the cold air, and I keep it as still as possible to keep from spilling any. There aren’t nearly as many people going into the city as there are coming out, but the bus is still fairly full, and I barely manage to get a spot near the rear exit. The woman gets on, locks eyes with me, and slides into an empty seat in the front third of the bus.

  The bus pulls into the city center, and almost every person stands to get off. I realize that by the time they all leave, I’ll be left on the bus with the woman and only one other person. I merge into the crowd and hit the ground at a strong stride, easily putting them between me and the bus.

  I don’t look back until someone shouts, until electricity starts arcing into the sky. The woman stands silhouetted against a magnificent background of energy, her arms outstretched.

  “Heath Stonesman,” she calls, and her voice seems to come from everywhere.

  People scream and scatter, leaving nothing between me and her.

  “I’m looking for Heath Stonesman,” she says again. “No one else needs to get hurt.”