This Strange and Familiar Place

by Rachel Carter

  He shakes his head. I reach for him, but he puts his hand out. “No. No. I need to be alone. I need to think about this. I’ll . . . I’ll see you guys later.”

  “Wait—”

  He disappears into the sea of dancers. I start after him, but Wes stops me. “Let him go.”

  “It might not be safe.”

  “They’re not coming for him now. Let him be alone.”

  It goes against all of my instincts, but I turn away from LJ’s departing back.

  Wes and I stand in the middle of the dance floor. Even surrounded by people, I feel completely alone. The adrenaline from searching for Maria is wearing off, and the constant beat of the music pounds inside my head.

  Wes turns to face me. He bends down until his mouth is next to my ear. “I’m sorry about earlier.” I feel his breath against my neck. “The thought of you having anything to do with the Montauk Project makes me crazy. But I shouldn’t have acted like that. I won’t leave you alone in this.”

  I lean into him. So he can hear me over the music, I tell myself. “I don’t want to be right, if it makes you feel better.”

  “I hope you’re not.”

  “Me too.”

  Someone jostles me from behind and I fall forward into his chest. His arms close around me. I want to press against him, to crawl inside of his skin just so I’ll know what it feels like to be safe again.

  I hook my arms around his neck and slide closer. He freezes for a second, and then he pulls my body against his. I feel his hand clench on my waist, holding me close to him. My face is tucked against his chest. I feel his body move under the dark material of his shirt.

  I tilt my head back and our eyes meet. And then his mouth comes down hard on mine, so quickly that I jump a little before sinking into it. This is not a slow kiss. This is hands twisting in hair, tongues molding together, lips and teeth and gasping for air. He grabs my hips tight and pulls my body up against his.

  He rips his mouth away and kisses my chin, my collarbone. “I won’t let them take you,” he repeats over and over against my skin.

  “I know. I know.”

  Someone shouts, loud enough to hear over the music. A murmur spreads through the crowd. Wes lifts his head up.

  “Cops!” I hear a girl next to me scream.

  People start running for the exit in a stampede. I am thrown against Wes. He curls his hand around my elbow.

  I can’t see anything except for random bodies moving in every direction, but the crowd is getting louder. Wes and I move in the opposite direction, toward the back of the room. There is a hallway connected to the back wall; a few planks of wood are nailed across what used to be the doorway. I can’t see what’s beyond it; everything is in shadow.

  Without a word of warning, Wes lifts me up and over the wood. I land on my feet with a gasp and turn to see him vault over. He takes my hand again and we run down a long, dark hallway.

  We climb a staircase and reach a locked door. Wes shoves his shoulder into the rotted wood until it breaks free. I hear shouting and loud banging noises that travel up from the basement, though it doesn’t sound like anyone followed us.

  The door is connected to the main part of the old church, and Wes and I enter a huge room with cathedral ceilings and broken stained-glass windows. We are standing by the altar, near where the priest used to deliver his sermons. I walk slowly down the steps until I reach the aisle. Only a few pews are left on either side; most of the room is empty, covered in debris. There are piles of dirty tarps along one wall, discarded by workmen who abandoned this place years ago.

  “We should stay here for a while,” Wes says. His voice sounds louder than normal as it bounces off the high ceilings. “There are probably cops outside, arresting whoever comes out of the building.”

  “Okay.” I press my fingers to my lips, thinking of that kiss. It it felt different from any other kiss I’ve had with Wes. Like it was with someone else entirely.

  I glance over at him, and the events of the last few days start flitting through my head: Wes telling me we can’t be together, shaking in the bathroom, his too-bright smile at the fountain.

  Something is off about him, and it has been since that first night he stole into my bedroom. I’ve been letting him tell me he’s fine, afraid that he’ll push me away if I pry too hard. But I can’t keep pretending that everything is okay when it’s clearly not.

  “We need to talk,” I say softly.

  He walks down the steps too, until he’s standing near the pew opposite me, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “Wes?”

  “I . . . there’s nothing to talk about.”

  “There is. I think you’re hiding something from me and I think you have been for a long time.”

  “There’s nothing—”

  “Stop.” My voice is firm. “You’re acting so different lately. Erratic. It’s like you have no control over what you’re feeling. And that shaking . . . I’m worried about you.”

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  “Fine, then I’m angry with you.” And I am, I realize. Wes is the only person left I can count on, but I don’t even know how he feels about me. When he brought me to 1989, I thought we would be together. But every move he’s made since then has been unpredictable.

  “You can’t keep pushing me away and then pulling me closer,” I say to him. “You’re jerking me around and it has to stop.”

  He clenches his hands together, maybe in an effort not to reach for me, maybe because he’s starting to get angry too. “I’m not jerking you around.”

  “What do you call that back there? Last night you said we can’t ever be together. Earlier today you spun me into a fountain, and now you kiss me on some dance floor.” I step closer to him. “Did that kiss change anything? Do you want to be with me?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  I whirl around until my back is to him and cross my hands over my chest. I am facing one of the few stained-glass windows that hasn’t been cracked or smashed, and I stare at the Virgin Mary on her knees with her hands folded. “It’s more than just that, Wes. Something is wrong, and I think it’s bigger than you and me. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  I turn to face him again. “Then make me understand.”

  He moves toward me, and I flinch at the fierce look in his eyes. “Why do you have to push so much all the time? Why can’t you leave anything alone? You wouldn’t even be in this mess if you hadn’t inserted yourself into the Project, yet again.”

  “It doesn’t even matter!” I shout the words, and then hear them repeated back as they echo through the empty space. “They’re going to find me in the end. I was always destined to become a recruit. Why can’t we enjoy the last few days or weeks we have together?”

  “Is that what you really want?” Now he’s practically shouting too. “A few minutes of happiness before you’re condemned to a lifetime of slavery? Of silence?”

  “No. It’s not what I want.” I drop my voice. “What I want is to be with you. I want to fight against our fate. To try and figure out some way to save both of us from the Project without losing everyone else I love too.”

  He sighs and stares down at his feet. “I want that too. But it’s not possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “It just isn’t. They’ll always find us. We can’t get away from them.”

  “So that’s it?” I throw myself down onto one of the pews. It squeaks under my weight and a puff of dust flies up around me. “They just get to win? To wreck both of our lives?”

  “We don’t know that’s what the list means. They probably don’t know about you at all.”

  “Oh, wake up, Wes. We just watched Maria disappear tonight. I don’t know how my name ended up on that list, but I’ve had this scar my whole life, even before I went back in time. It means something.”

  He shakes his head. “No. You’ll still be safe. You have to live a normal life.”


  “What’s normal?” I stand up again, my hands in fists at my sides. “Was it normal that I ended up going back in time? That my great-grandfather created the program that’s responsible for snatching you off the street? That you randomly saw me in the woods one night and that stopped you from killing me when you found me inside the Facility? We’re so far beyond normal, Wes. I don’t think my life can ever go back to that.”

  He steps forward and closes his hands over my shoulders. “It has to.”

  “Why? What are you so afraid of? Why can’t we work together to figure out a solution to this?”

  “There is no solution. I’m condemned to this life, but you can still get away.”

  But I’m on a roll now, and I barely hear him. “Why were you shaking the other day in the bathroom? What are you hiding from me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “The mood swings. The twitching. The pushing and the pulling. You can’t think I wouldn’t notice that something is wrong.”

  “I . . .”

  “Don’t shut me out anymore,” I whisper.

  “I’m not trying to. I just . . . don’t know how to deal with this.” His grip is almost painfully tight.

  I go still. “Deal with what, Wes?”

  “I’m . . .” He clenches his jaw and turns away.

  “Wes.” I move in close to him. “I came to the past for you. There’s nothing you can tell me that will change how I feel. I’ll do anything to help you. You have to trust me.”

  “I don’t think even you can help me this time, Lydia.” His voice cracks.

  “Try me.”

  He closes his eyes. “I’m dying, Lydia. And I don’t know how to stop it from happening.”

  CHAPTER 17

  We sit side by side on the dirty pew. Wes is so motionless that I’m not sure he’s even breathing anymore.

  I keep his hand clasped in mine and wait until he’s ready to speak.

  It takes a few minutes for him to start. “Seventeen killed herself, but it wasn’t because the Project was investigating her.”

  I think back to that broken look on his face, the night he came to my room. I had never seen him so upset. Until now, maybe.

  “Her body was starting to show signs of deteriorating,” he explains. “I saw it that night on patrol. She was shaking, her concentration was off. She couldn’t hear as well, couldn’t see things that were right in front of her. As soon as I saw her, I knew she didn’t have long before they realized she was done.” He pauses and gives me a sideways glance. “She was already nineteen. Had been traveling through time for the past eight years. The TM was wearing her body down. It happens to all of the recruits, eventually. Once the Project notices, they dispose of us.”

  I force myself to ask, “How? What do they do exactly?”

  His fingers spasm in mine, and I bear down hard on our joined hands until it stops. “They kill us, but not right away. First the scientists use our bodies for research, to study how much damage the TM does. It’s rare that a recruit even makes it to eighteen or nineteen; most of us die in the field before then. It’s why the older recruits are more valuable. They’re usually . . .” His voice falters a little and I press into his shoulder. “Alive. For the experiments. At least in the beginning.”

  “God.”

  “Sometimes it even happens when we’re conscious.” He sounds remote, detached. Pretending he’s not afraid. “Getting samples from a live person is the best way to get results.”

  “So Seventeen killed herself,” I say softly. “To not go through that.”

  He nods. “But as soon as I saw her that night, I knew I wasn’t far behind. I was starting to twitch sometimes. Small stuff, but it had never happened before that. And I’m eighteen now, in my time.” His mouth twists. “Happy birthday to me.”

  “Wes . . .”

  “It’s why I had to see you that night when I came to your room. I didn’t know how much time I had left. And then you begged me to take you with me, and I couldn’t say no. I just wanted to be near you before it was too late. But then we kissed in the subway, and I knew it wasn’t fair to you. It was selfish to put you at risk. To pretend that we could have a future together when we can’t.” He sighs. “I know I’ve been acting strange, but I just don’t know how to deal with this. Maybe if you hadn’t come into my life, it might have been different. I might have stayed cold, I might have even welcomed it. But now . . .”

  “I would have understood if you had told me.”

  He gives me a half smile. “No, you wouldn’t have. You would have done everything in your power to try and save me.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but he cuts me off. “That’s the type of person you are, Lydia. Always trying to save the people you care about. You never give up, even when it seems hopeless. You make me believe in the impossible. It’s why I fell in love with you in the first place.”

  My body feels like ice, but at his words, the coldness thaws a little inside of me. “You’ve never said that before.” I pronounce each word carefully.

  He shifts on the bench until he’s facing me. The curve of his mouth is drawn and serious. “I love you, Lydia, as much as someone like me is capable of loving anyone.”

  “I love you too.” I reach up and cup his face in my hands. “Which is how I know that you’re capable of loving just like anyone else. I believe that with my whole self,” I say fiercely. “And we will find a way to save you from this. It’s not impossible.”

  “Lydia.” He grabs my wrists and pulls my hands away. “I don’t know how much time I have left. It’s . . . getting worse, since we came back here. I might only have one or two more jumps through time in me.”

  “Then we’ll go to the nineteen twenties or something.” I try to keep my voice light, but it comes out shaky and unsure. “I’ve always wanted to be a flapper.”

  He gives me that half smile again, only this time it just looks sad. “I’m not doing that to you. I’m not taking you away from your family.”

  “What family?” I ignore the ache that is trying to tear its way through my chest. “My grandpa is crazy, my parents are like strangers. I don’t have much of a life left in two thousand twelve.”

  The pew under us squeaks as he quickly stands up. “No. We’ll save your grandfather and fix the future. Then your life will be normal again, and you can go back home.”

  I shake my head. “You’re ignoring that list again. If I go back home, they might come for me even if we do manage to change the future. Our only hope is to evade them. Or maybe that rebellion is real, and the Resister will pop up at any moment and take us away from here.”

  He makes a frustrated sound and slides his hand over his chin.

  “There’s no way to win, is there?” My voice is small.

  “I meant what I said, Lydia.” He reaches for my arm and pulls me off the bench until I’m standing close to him. “I won’t let them take you.”

  “I want to believe you Wes, but I don’t know how either of us can fix this.” I lean forward and rest my head against his chest. “In every scenario, I lose someone I love.”

  I feel his hand come up and gently cup the back of my neck.

  We are both silent. There’s nothing left to say.

  By the time we get back, the squat is dark and quiet. There’s a low buzzing light on in LJ’s room, but, for once, I can’t hear the clattering of computer keys. “I think everyone’s asleep already.”

  Wes slides his shoes off. “It’s late.”

  I fall onto the lumpy couch. “I want to sleep for a million years.”

  Wes smiles.

  I watch as he settles on the floor next to me. His sports jacket is already lying there from last night, and he begins to fold it into a makeshift pillow. “Wes.” We haven’t turned on any lights, but the room is dimly lit by the streetlamp outside. “Will you . . .” He stops what he’s doing and gives me a curious look. “I was thinking . . .” I trace a pattern in the ratty material of the couch and blurt it out. “Will
you stay with me?”

  “I’m right here, Lydia.”

  “No, I mean, will you sleep . . . here? With me?”

  His face goes blank. “You want me to sleep on the couch with you?”

  I nod, though I still can’t meet his eyes. “I want to know that we’re both safe. At least for tonight.”

  He opens his mouth, then shuts it slowly. “Okay.”

  I sit up as he stands and moves the short distance to the couch. He sits down next to me. There’s an awkward pause as we both hesitate, neither of us quite sure what to do. Finally, Wes slides his arm around my waist and lies down on his side, pulling me along with him. His other hand wraps around my stomach. I am resting in the cradle of his arms, and his face is pressed against the top of my head. I can feel every breath he takes.

  We’re both still, aware of each other’s bodies in a way we never have been before. I close my eyes at the feeling of being completely surrounded by him. The tension slowly drains out of me, and I sink further into the couch and into Wes. Behind me, Wes relaxes too, and his breathing becomes low and steady.

  But even this is not enough to erase the memory of what I learned tonight, and after a minute I whisper into the dark, “If we don’t find a way for you to escape, what will happen to you? Would you let them kill you?”

  “No.” He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to; I know exactly what he’ll do—he’ll make the same choice Seventeen did.

  I wind my fingers through the hand that’s wrapped around my stomach. I walked away from Wes once and it almost killed me. But even then I had hope that he was alive and somewhere in the world. I can’t leave him again, knowing that he’s going to die soon.

  In that moment, I make a choice.

  “We’re going to nineteen twenty.” My voice is quiet but resolved.

  “We’ve been over this, Lydia.”

  “No.” I stay facing away from him and watch the shadows play across the bruised and battered wooden floor. I hear a garbage truck rumble past the window, and a high beeping noise as it backs up near the curb. “It’s not about you sacrificing yourself anymore, Wes. We’re both in danger now. We’ll save my grandfather, make the future right again, and then figure out a way to use the TM to get away from all of this.”