Run (The Tesla Effect #2)

by Julie Drew

  Tesla closed her eyes as she heard her mother speak, her voice choked with emotion, her accent more pronounced than usual. Were these her last moments?

  “You know I’m right,” Sebastian Nilsen insisted as he walked quickly to her and laid a hand on her shoulder, the gesture at once threatening and possessive.

  “I know nothing of the kind,” Tasya shot back, jerking her shoulder out of his grasp. “We worked well together once, but you are the one who made the situation impossible. Your ego got in the way, and you stole my work—you stole from me! There is no going back, Bas. You must accept this.”

  “I accept nothing!” he said, his anger matching hers, any trace of supplication in his voice now completely gone. “That work was as much mine as it was yours. You cut me out—I had a right to that work, just as I have a right to what you now have hidden away at the university!”

  “You have no rights, to me or mine!” Tasya snapped. “I’ve done what I had to do to protect everything from you. You’ll never have what you want.”

  Nilsen stared at her, then both of his hands were on her upper arms and he pulled her roughly toward him, bent over her and kissed her hard, on the mouth, her spine curved as she tried to move her head back, out of his reach.

  Sudden movement among the figures hidden in the trees caught Tesla’s attention, and she crept forward on silent feet, refusing to make her presence known, even now hovering between acting and merely watching. She had to know, but could she live with just that? Was it enough to simply understand what had happened on this night?

  The shorter of the two figures hiding in the woods in front of Tesla reached out as the taller one moved suddenly, as if propelled forward. “Greg—no!” Jane Doane whispered sharply.

  Tesla was now within six feet of them, her attention drawn to this second struggle, only vaguely aware that Tasya had ripped herself from Nilsen’s embrace and slapped him across the face, the sharp sound of the impact ringing in the unnatural stillness of the night.

  “You go too far, Bas. You always do.” Tasya’s voice was heavy with contempt.

  “We should be together, and you know it,” Nilsen replied, his smooth, deep voice quavering with passion long kept in check.

  Tasya laughed, a sound of genuine amusement that struck a more ominous note in the night than anything yet had done. Jane and Greg Abbott sensed this as well, Tesla realized, as they both froze at the sound and then Jane reached inside her jacket and withdrew a handgun from her shoulder holster.

  It was only then, when the gun appeared, that a third, much smaller shadow that had yet to move or make a sound stirred just to the right and slightly behind Greg Abbott. Tesla’s eyes went right to the small figure and she forgot how to breathe.

  Her younger self—Tesla, as a little girl. She was here, with Greg and Jane.

  I was there when my mother died, Tesla thought, stunned. How is that possible?

  Tasya’s laughter still rang in the silence, and she realized immediately it was the worst possible thing she could have done. Nilsen’s face changed in an instant, from love and longing to viciousness, and without a word he grabbed Tasya’s wrist and began to drag her toward the car.

  Tasya was silent, but she leaned back, resisting, and with her free hand attempted to peel Nilsen’s fingers from her arm. Greg Abbott, who had paused at Jane’s warning, stepped forward again toward his wife, but Jane laid her gun on the ground by her side, braced herself and grabbed his arm with both hands, trying to hold him back. They struggled for the briefest of moments in absolute silence, a parody of the scene unfolding in the lights before them, and in the confusion Tesla watched the shadowy form of the little girl—Tesla herself—step forward, move one hand forward with absolute certainty, and lift the gun from the ground without either her father or Jane realizing it.

  The little girl stepped to the side, raised the gun in both hands, and took aim at the man dragging her mother into his car, and in the moment before she pulled the trigger and destroyed everything, the moment before Tesla knew, finally, that she would act, the stunning fact of what had actually happened eight years ago, right here, resurfaced in Tesla’s memory and threatened to black out the world.

  It was me—I’m the one who shot my mother eight years ago.

  CHAPTER 25

  Time seemed to slow and there was a roaring in her ears as Tesla took three perfectly calculated steps and reached out, watching her hand as if it belonged to someone else, as if it weren’t connected to her body at all but was acting on its own volition. The flat of her palm came to rest firmly on the back of the little girl, right between her shoulder blades, and just as the younger Tesla closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger, the older Tesla shoved her hard and she fell forward, stumbling as the sound of a shot rang out and the flash from the gun’s muzzle drew every eye to the spot where it had been fired.

  Tesla stepped back, further into the shadows as her father and Jane turned to the little girl, gun still in her hand, who now lay on the ground, her lip cut and bleeding. In the road, Tasya screamed as the man dragging her toward the car grunted, dropped her wrist and slumped toward the ground, one hand on the pavement to keep from falling to his knees.

  “Who’s there?” Tasya cried, scanning the woods in vain, her eyes wide and frantic.

  Tesla heard the terror in her mother’s voice and, a moment later, a squeal of tires, but she barely registered Nilsen limping back to the car, getting in and driving away as she backed further into the woods, away from the chaos and fear reverberating among those who remained.

  Tesla watched her father pick up his little girl and then race with her, following close on Jane’s heels, to his wife who stood shaken but unharmed in the middle of the road, moonlight now the only illumination.

  Think Tesla shouted inside her head, trying not to give in to the wave of numbness that threatened to overtake her, the shock she welcomed because it would allow her to feel nothing.

  Turn around. Run.

  And she did—she turned and ran, faster than she ever had in her life, away from what she’d just done, away from any consideration of what it might mean for the future, away from the new-found memory of what she had done when she was a little girl. Tesla allowed herself one thought and one thought only, and it kept time with her pounding footfalls:

  My mother didn’t die. My mother didn’t die. My mother didn’t die.

  Lifting the latch to swing the garden shed door open, Tesla stepped carefully inside and closed the door with shaking hands. She could see her breath in the cold, still air, and make out the faint shapes of tools and a potting bench against the wall underneath the small, four-paned window where wan moonlight spilled into the small room. The light sheen of sweat between her shoulder blades dampened her shirt and she shivered. Racing back through the woods had warmed her, not to mention the unthinkable thing she’d done by changing history, but she felt cold and leaden now, the shock of all that had transpired tonight finally settling upon her shoulders. She rolled them back, as if to adjust the unfamiliar weight she now bore, and reached behind the lawnmower for the sleeping bags her parents stored there between camping trips.

  She pulled one out, unzipped it, and after retrieving Schrödinger from her bag, climbed in, shoes, jacket, and all, tucking her chin in toward her chest where she cradled the little brown mouse. She lay, hugging herself, her face hidden, pressed against the flannel lining that smelled like summer, freshly mown grass, campfire smoke, and dirty sneakers, and the mouse’s whiskers tickled her fingers.

  Time passed—she wasn’t sure how much—and Tesla realized she wasn’t shivering anymore. She stretched out inside the sleeping bag, poked her head out to breathe the crisp, fresh air, and stared up toward the ceiling in the dark, barely able to make out the raw wood rafters in the faint moonlight, the nearly invisible structure that kept the whole thing from falling down on her head.

  She heard the scrabble of tiny claws somewhere in the shed, and felt, more than heard the almost sound
less response of the mouse she held, desperate for the comfort of his warmth and nearness.

  Selfish, she thought. He doesn’t exist to comfort you.

  She sat up, then, and let the sleeping bag fall away from her shoulders and arms. She set the mouse down on the dusty floor, just able to make out his shape in the dark, the faint light in the shed glinting off his black eyes, his tail now pitifully crooked.

  “Go on,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”

  He stood up on his hind legs, stretching tall to look at her, his nose and whiskers twitching. Then he turned, down on all fours again, and scurried away.

  When he was gone, she lay back down, and finally, the tears came.

  Tesla awoke with a start, sunshine streaming in through the smudged window of the shed. Consciousness brought memory with it, and she bolted upright, recalling the night before.

  Oh God, she thought. What have I done?

  She unzipped the sleeping bag and climbed out, then stuffed it back behind the mower, not bothering to roll it up. She peered out the window at the house, but saw no movement, and the sun just peeking through the trees told her it was still quite early. She slung her bag over her head, opened the door, slowly, and let herself out, grateful for the ease of mobility and warmth Beckett’s clothes had afforded her through the night. Even in the face of world-changing events, difficult decisions, joy and tragedy, she realized, the little things in life still matter, and make themselves felt.

  Like the fact that she seriously had to pee.

  Tesla cut through the neighbor’s yard, noting that nothing stirred but a few birds pecking in the damp grass for breakfast. A light frost covered the cars parked on the street as Tesla jogged the two blocks into town, to the convenience-store-slash-gas-station that had the closest public bathroom. Thankfully, they opened at six a.m., and she emerged a few minutes later much relieved and smelling faintly of institutional liquid soap.

  As she walked back toward her house the neighborhood was coming to life with people going to work or school, walking their dogs or picking the newspaper up from the driveway, as if something momentous had not just happened a few hours before.

  My mother didn’t die. But she couldn’t savor it the way she had last night, not in that passive form. The truth of what had happened—a truth she had blocked from her memory—had been revealed. And, now, reversed.

  I didn’t kill my mother, she amended her litany, caught between the desire to dance and laugh and twirl around in the street, or to fall to her knees, broken and sobbing, now that she finally knew the truth.

  Tesla spent the next few hours hiding behind the shed and creeping up to the house to peer into the windows. She watched them, wanting to miss nothing—Tesla and Max, playing in the sandbox while their parents hovered. She saw Greg and Tasya—a Greg and Tasya who had never existed, she reminded herself—so nearly destroyed, so aware of their narrow escape, constantly reaching out, silently touching each other, assuring themselves that they were alive, and together. They were whole. They exchanged silent, teary-eyed looks, they laughed too often, with an edge of hysteria in the sound. Tesla, the child, was blissfully unaware, though her lip was swollen where she’d fallen and cut it.

  It was a relief at first, to see this new day that had never actually dawned, a day that Tesla didn’t remember because it had never happened to her. A day of closeness, and gratitude, and love. This day, the way it had originally gone, had been filled with shock and grief and tears, had been the foundation of Tesla’s lonely adolescence and her father’s life as a widower.

  Before long, however, tendrils of worry crept in like smoke flowing underneath a door and were soon pouring in, filling Tesla’s mind with a sense of impending doom.

  What have I done?

  She didn’t know; she couldn’t guess. How would this work? When she jumped back would her mom just—be there? Would she always have just been there? How could Tesla even be thinking this, now, she wondered, if that change had occurred? Wouldn’t she herself be changed, with no knowledge of the past timeline in which her mother had died, and she had been raised by her father alone?

  When her head began to ache and a wave of nausea roiled her stomach, Tesla knew it was time to go. She was merely postponing the inevitable, not ready to leave the bittersweet sight of her family, mended, all its pieces whole and intact. She had made it right, but surely she had made something else wrong.

  It was time to face it.

  CHAPTER 26

  Tesla opened her eyes and took in the early morning light that shone through the gap in her curtains. Home.

  She stretched once, thoroughly, feeling the cool sheets against her bare legs before drawing them back up toward her chest and the warm spot made by her body while she’d slept.

  When she realized she was dawdling, deliberately putting off the day—a day which would at least begin to reveal the changes she’d wrought—she threw back the covers, got out of bed, and marched into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

  Don’t be a coward, she admonished herself silently.

  By the time she’d thrown a hooded sweatshirt over her T-shirt, pulled on yoga pants and shoved her feet into warm socks, Tesla was beyond second thoughts. She realized she was actually holding her breath as she slowly descended the stairs, skipping the creaky one out of habit, so she exhaled slowly, deliberately, trying to soothe the butterflies flitting and bumping around in her stomach, awakened, now that the exhaustion of last night had abated.

  She had waited till dark, hidden in her parents’ shed, then snuck into the physics building, actually seeing young Sam once on his cleaning rounds but remaining out of sight until he’d moved on to the other side of the building. She had used the remote Bizzy gave her, which Schrödinger had curled around in her bag only hours before, as if it were his teddy bear, and jumped back, alone now, to the present in a heightened state of shock and nerves. When she opened her eyes in the present, inside the time machine, she had expected to see Finn come racing into the room, Bizzy grinning at her, the others making jokes, all of them talking at once. She would interrupt them, unusually serious, and tell them what she’d done. Together, they would figure it out.

  But she had opened her eyes and found the time machine silent, the overhead lights off, the metal staircase that led up to the control room dark, only a faint hum to indicate the machine itself was still on, always on.

  No one was there. No one was waiting for her at all.

  Tesla walked downstairs to the living room and tried to shake the feeling. It’ll be fine, she thought, in a thoroughly unconvincing manner. Everything will be the same, except my mom will be here.

  Hearing no sound of activity in the house, Tesla walked into the kitchen, only realizing that she was hoping for some kind of waffle-commercial vision of her mom doing delicious things for her family when she sensed her own disappointment at the sight of the empty room. Nope, no heaping plate of gluttonous carbs and sugar unless she wanted to make it herself.

  Tesla smiled a very small, somewhat bitter smile as she picked up a banana from the fruit bowl on the kitchen island. She peeled it slowly, took a bite and barely tasted its sweetness, silently berating herself for her sentimental, TV-induced hopes and dreams that she hadn’t even known she’d harbored until she was denied them. Pathetic, she thought. And this was exactly what Mom was talking about. It affects everyone.

  Quick, light footsteps ran down the stairs, and Tesla barely had time to swallow her mouthful of banana before Max came barreling into the kitchen, dressed in his favorite Dr. Who pajamas with red phone booths and swirly time-travel graphics all over them. She couldn’t help the grin that stretched her face, the sheer joy of anticipating how much better everything was bound to be—maybe especially for Max, who had never really known his mother. His mother, who was now very much alive.

  Max stopped short when he saw his sister.

  “Hey,” Tesla said, still grinning.

  “Hey,” Max mumbled, pushing his glasses up
on his nose and turning to shuffle over to the pantry where he retrieved a box of cereal.

  Tesla waited, heart pounding, while he got a bowl, poured his cereal and then opened the refrigerator to find the milk. She couldn’t understand it—everything was different now, but Max was acting as if—Oh. Wait, of course! Everything has changed for me, but not for Max, she realized. What an idiot she was, everybody would just be living their lives, they were only new lives, different lives, from Tesla’s perspective.

  It was a surprisingly lonely feeling.

  “So, Max, what’s the word-of-the-day?”

  Max looked at her, blinking, as he chewed his cereal, his bottom lip wet from the milk. “Huh?”

  Tesla felt odd, looking at Max while Max looked at her, both wearing similarly puzzled expressions if they had but known it.

  “Today’s word,” she said clearly. “You know, your Word-A-Day calendar? That Aunt Jane got you for Christmas? Your mission to improve the world’s vocabulary one day and one word at a time?”

  Max dropped his spoon into his bowl with a loud clang, ignoring the splash of milk that leapt out of the bowl and onto the counter. His face was already reddening as he looked at her, resentful and hostile. “Did Mom tell you to bug me about my homework?”

  Tesla felt the smile fade from her face, as if the muscles beneath her skin were just too weak to maintain it. She could feel her hands shaking, but refused to look down at them. She had to swallow once before she could speak, push the sudden fear down her throat to make room for her voice that still only came out as a whisper.

  “No, of course not. Max, what’s wrong?” she asked, stricken.

  “Nothing,” he muttered, defensive and sullen. “I’m just tired of mom hounding me about my grades. About my reading and test scores.”