Unbreakable (Unraveling)

by Elizabeth Norris

  I watch Elijah when he answers. He speaks deliberately. He’s calmer than he was in my world, more thoughtful. He still swears a lot, but it’s more habit than swearing for some kind of effect. I can’t imagine what he’s been through, not just in the prison, but in the months before it. He spent seven years waiting to get home, and when he finally did, he found out it didn’t exist anymore.

  And that makes me think of Ben.

  As horrible as this is, I find myself wishing it hadn’t been Elijah in that cell, that I hadn’t gone in to break him out. I wish it had been Ben. Because I have a fierce urge to lay my face against his chest and breathe him in until the world makes sense again.

  Only I can’t, because I don’t know where he is. At least not yet.

  “Why did you think Ben would come back for you?” Barclay asks.

  “I couldn’t keep good track of time,” Elijah adds. “I think the bastards only fed us once a day. Four or five days, or maybe a week ago, the guards and Meridian came back into my cell. They wanted to know where Ben would go. Where he would hide.”

  “They’d lost him?” I ask. He must have had a plan—he must have agreed to keep his family safe, while at the same time coming up with some kind of plan to get away from them, to get out of it.

  Elijah nods. “But it was worse than that—for them, I mean. I got the impression he took someone with him.”

  02:22:51:42

  I tell Barclay about seeing Meridian at the prison—about him torturing Derek. “What do you think?”

  He doesn’t respond right away, and I’m tempted to reach over and slap him again.

  Then he says, “Constantine Meridian is bad news. If he’s the one behind the trafficking, it makes sense—it’s clearly an organized, multi-universe operation, and he’s got the manpower and the money to back it.”

  My shoulders relax a little, and I take a shaky breath. I’m suddenly less mad, because this is good news. If Barclay knows something about this guy, it means we’re a huge step closer to finding him—finding Cecily—than we were just minutes ago.

  “Good,” Elijah says. “Glad I was able to fucking help. I’m ready to beat the shit out of him too, if you need me.”

  Barclay shakes his head. “It’s not going to be that easy.”

  Of course it’s not, but I don’t like the expression on Barclay’s face. He looks . . . defeated. “What are you leaving out?”

  His eyes flick to mine. “Meridian’s been on our Most Wanted list for the last seven years, and if he’s been in and out of the Piston, it means he’s got a lot of inside help. Maybe more than I suspected.”

  I bite down on my lip. We need more good news—less things for us to try to do ourselves. “We just need to prove that he’s behind it all and Ben’s not.”

  “Ben is part of it, or he fucking was,” Elijah says. “IA’s not going to just forgive that. Hell, who knows how many of them are fucking in on it?”

  Barclay puts a hand on Elijah’s shoulder. “Meridian is bad news. He grew up in the underground. He’s one of those guys with a juvenile file twenty pages long. Breaking and entering, theft, larceny. He smartened up when he was an adult, but that doesn’t mean he’s been any less active. His predecessor, Crewe Fielding, ran all the organized crime in the underground. Then suddenly he’s dead on the floor in front of one of the elevators, mutilated so badly he’s unrecognizable. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Even worse than that house?” I say and I cringe involuntarily. An unstable portal killed everyone with high levels of radiation. It made them look like their skin was melting off their bones.

  Barclay doesn’t need me to elaborate, but he nods. “This was worse.

  “Eric and I had a case last year, drugs coming from other worlds and spreading through the underground. A lot of kids ended up overdosing. We had four deaths, a couple of people in a coma, and one of the dealers in custody. We suspected Meridian was responsible, but before we were able to prove it, we were reassigned, and our case moved to a different department that just sat on it. Eric thought someone might have been using Meridian as an informant, keeping him on the Most Wanted list in order to keep up pretenses but using him for information about other cases—bigger cases.”

  “So what the fuck are we going to do about all this?” Elijah asks. “I’m sick of just sitting here.”

  “We need Ben,” I say. It’s what I need—to see him, to wrap my arms around him, to hear what’s happened to him in the past few months in his words, to tell him we’ll get through this. But it’s less selfish. If Ben worked for this Meridian guy, he also has more information than the three of us. We need that information before we can save Cecily and come up with the proof that will expose anyone involved.

  I look at Elijah.

  “I know where he is, or at least where he should be,” he says.

  “How are you feeling?” Barclay asks.

  “Better than I was before,” Elijah says with a shrug.

  “Good.” Barclay stands. “Think you can portal us to wherever you think Ben is?”

  Elijah stands up. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

  “Won’t it be unstable?”

  Barclay nods. “We’ll have to open it and go through quickly. No standing around and staring at it. Unstable portals attract attention and become dangerous the longer they’re open and the more they’re used. Once we’re all together, we’ll use the charger.” He looks at Elijah. “No more world hopping.”

  “I make no promises,” Elijah says. “Not with your IA thugs after me.”

  Barclay looks at me. “Let’s go.”

  There’s a fluttering in my stomach, and I drain the last sip of my mocha latte to keep my hands from shaking.

  After waiting for so long, suddenly I feel a little nervous.

  So much has happened in the months that we’ve been apart. Ben’s been through so much—at home, in prison, working with the traffickers. What if he’s different?

  I think of the guard I killed. The life draining out of his eyes.

  What if I’m different?

  02:22:42:52

  Barclay pays the check and we leave the coffee shop and walk back toward the motel. When we pass a deserted alley, we turn down it, and Elijah holds his arm out in front of him.

  “How do you do it?” I ask without thinking.

  Elijah looks back at me.

  “I mean, how do you open the right portal?”

  He smiles. “I think of the place I want to go. The more details I have right, the better, but ultimately I just feel the molecules in the air, reach for the nothingness, and try to pull it apart, expand it. The whole time, I think of where I want it to take me, and it does.”

  “It sounds so easy.”

  He nods. “It is. Ben was right. All it takes is a clear head and a lot of practice.”

  It also sounds wrong. But I don’t say that. It is wrong. Taking a couple of precautions doesn’t change that. Opening too many portals is what destroyed my world.

  But it doesn’t change the fact that we need a portal to take us to Ben. Elijah and I can argue over his extracurricular activities when this thing is behind us. If we’re both still alive, that is.

  Elijah turns around again, stretching his hand out. The air in front of him shimmers a little, and a small black hole opens up right in front of his fingers. Elijah squeezes his eyes shut tighter, and it starts to expand. Slowly at first, and then faster, until there’s a full-size portal in front of us.

  Barclay nods to me before he moves through, and I suppose if he can trust that Elijah is going to get us where we need to go, I can too.

  My palms touch first, and the rest of my body slams against the ground a split second after. Dust from the road springs up around me and I cough it out of my lungs as I take stock of my surroundings. At first glance, it seems like we’ve landed on the outskirts of a normal suburb. There’s a strip mall with a dry cleaner, a hair salon, and a grocery store. Beyond them is what looks like apartment
buildings. I can see someone’s wash hanging on the balcony, flapping in the wind.

  But there’s something off.

  There are buildings everywhere—high-rises, strip malls, concrete parking structures, and even a park. But the leaves are missing from the trees, the grass is brown, and as I look closer at the buildings, I can see that they’re crumbling a little under the weight of the vines that are growing up around them.

  I push myself to my feet and take a more in-depth look around. And I listen, but I can’t hear anything.

  “What is this place?” I ask. It’s not the same as the abandoned world Barclay has taken us through a few times, but it looks like that’s the way it’s headed.

  “Someplace no one will be looking for us,” Elijah says.

  “Oh shit,” Barclay says, as he looks around.

  “What is it?” Maybe this place isn’t as safe from the IA as Elijah thinks. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been wrong. I reach for my gun. It can’t hurt to be ready.

  Barclay shakes his head. “IA doesn’t come here,” he says, and there’s something about the way his says it, like whatever we’re about to face is going to be worse.

  Still looking around, he brushes a hand through his hair. “This is Earth 36552.” His voice is drowned out by the wind that picks up, but I can see the expression on his face. Lips slightly ajar, eyes wide, he looks horrified.

  I’m not sure why.

  But I don’t have time to ask. The history lesson can come later.

  “This way,” Elijah says.

  I follow him, but Barclay grabs my arm. “Take this off.” He grabs at my hoodie, yanking it off my shoulders.

  “Why are you trying to undress me, you creeper?” I shove him off.

  “Nuclear war destroyed this world,” he says, giving my arm a sharp jerk.

  02:22:39:00

  “I don’t know where we are, but the radiation . . .” Barclay says. “Don’t breathe this air unfiltered.” Pulling his own jacket off, he ties part of it like a scarf around his neck so that it covers his nose and mouth.

  I do what he says and copy him, even though I’m not sure it will do much good. If he’s right, and all the people in this universe died from the radiation fallout of a nuclear war, a layer of cotton between me and the air I’m breathing isn’t going to save me.

  “Stay in the middle of the road,” Barclay shouts at me, and I nod. Radiation sits on the soil, on the grass, in the water, and in fruits and vegetables, like apples and mushrooms. It isn’t retained by asphalt.

  We pass something that might have been an apartment building. There’s a wooden sled discarded on the lawn. It looks like it might have once been painted red, but the paint has long ago peeled off, and it’s back to being just the color of wood and rusted metal.

  I turn around to look at Barclay. He’s wrapped up like some cross between a cowboy and a ninja. “How did this happen?”

  Rather than shout over the wind, he jogs to me. “About sixty years ago, the former Soviet Union wanted to have missiles in range of the US, so Khrushchev moved them to Cuba. To compensate, the US armed missiles at their base in Turkey. It’s not exactly clear who started what, since there isn’t anyone left to tell the tale and IA didn’t have anyone stationed here. But the basic idea is that no one would back down, someone fired first, someone else struck back, and they started World War III.”

  We pass a building that looks like a school, only the trees are growing unchecked and their roots are starting to overturn the foundation of the building.

  “Nuclear war,” Barclay repeats. “About eighty percent of the population died off within the first year from the bombings and the actual war. Everyone else was gone within the next five years because of the radiation levels.”

  So this is what the Cuban missile crisis could have looked like.

  We go into a building slightly overrun by vines and plants. It’s an old hospital. The once cream-colored walls are gray in places and chipped in others to reveal the concrete underneath. There’s a small tree coming up through the floor in the lobby, and there are cockroaches skittering around in dark corners. I’m not surprised. The level of radiation lethal to a cockroach is over a hundred times that which is lethal to a human, and now, without people to kill them, they must be rejoicing.

  “The elevators don’t work,” Elijah says.

  He doesn’t bat an eye at the way either Barclay or I are dressed and covering our mouths. Which means he knows there’s a radiation risk here. Either he or Ben figured out what could have caused this at some point in their exploration. But he doesn’t make a move to shield his own breathing, which means he’s been here enough that he’s not concerned about the levels of radiation hurting him.

  I reach up and pull my hoodie away from my face. It’s probably not doing anything anyway.

  Barclay grabs it and shoves it back in my face.

  I gesture to Elijah. “Doesn’t look like we’re about to drop dead yet.”

  “He drank a pure source of hydrochloradneum,” Barclay spits. “He’s practically immune to radiation. You’ve only had one shot.”

  I roll my eyes. “Stop being such an alarmist.” But I do what he wants. He knows a lot more about this shit than I do.

  “Do you see anyone living around here?” he says, shaking his head. He mutters something else, but it’s lost underneath the jacket covering his mouth.

  We’re wasting time. We need to find Ben, get somewhere safe, figure out what he knows, and come up with a plan. Every second that goes by is a loss—and we don’t have that many to lose.

  I turn to Elijah, and he must sense what I need.

  “I’m not sure which floor he’d be on,” he says. “But if he’s here, this is where he’d be.”

  “Why here?” I ask, my breath shallow.

  “It’s a hospital, Tenner. There are empty beds, blankets and shit.” Elijah smirks. “And I stashed food and medicine here, in case we need it.”

  I suppose it’s as good a reason as any. I just hope Ben is here. I’m not sure if I can stand to come this close and then wind up empty.

  We climb the stairs. They’re sagging and crumbled in places, but we climb them anyway, and to make Barclay less nervous, I try to keep from touching anything.

  When we get to the fourth floor, I hear something.

  Correction. I hear someone.

  I can hear him singing.

  02:22:09:47

  The singing is gravelly and slightly off-key, and it feels like my heart has skipped a beat. I don’t have to think twice to know that it’s Ben. I don’t bother with Elijah or with Barclay. I just run toward the sound. It’s the only noise there is—other than the wind outside—which means there’s nothing to throw me off.

  I recognize the song, and it brings a smile to my face. It’s “Iridescent” by Linkin Park, complete with sound effects for the guitar riffs. It’s a song we heard on the radio when he picked me up for our first date. He glanced at me, turned the volume up, and we drove with the windows down, the sun on our faces, and the ocean breeze moving through the car.

  He’s thinking of me.

  I race through the empty hall. He’s in the last room on the right. The door is ajar, and I barrel through it, only to stop short a few paces into the room.

  Because I see him.

  He’s sitting on the edge of a bed, wearing a gray, long-sleeved thermal, jeans, and white socks. His Chuck Taylors are discarded on the floor a few feet away. His hair is a little longer than when I saw him last. The brown curls droop into his face past his eyes. His lips, curled into a smile as he sings, falter slightly when he looks up and sees me.

  He pushes his hair out of his face, grabbing the ends, and I’m breathless at the sight of it, because even something as simple as a familiar gesture matters. Because it’s familiar—to both of us.

  Ben’s mouth drops, abruptly cutting off the song, and the surprise and confusion on his face are clear.

  For a split second, I won
der why he hasn’t jumped to his feet and rushed toward me. Then I remember what he’s been through—and what I must look like with my burned hair pulled back into a bun, and my hoodie wrapped around half my head. I pull the hoodie off and smile.

  Around us it’s almost quiet.

  Almost because I can hear Elijah’s and Barclay’s clunky footsteps as they chase after me.

  And because I hear my own voice whisper, “Ben,” before I can stop myself.

  Before he says, “Janelle?” his voice raised in question, before he looks down at the bed next to him, and before I realize he’s not alone.

  02:22:07:18

  My gaze moves to the bed. Under the once-white blankets is a girl. Her brown hair, highlighted with blond streaks, is thick and long, and it’s strewn over her pillow in messy waves. Her eyes are closed, but her olive skin has faint bruises that look like they could be a few weeks old. Her arms are curled around the blanket, and as I take a step closer, I realize the oversize black hoodie she’s wearing is Ben’s.

  But that’s not what makes my own breath feel like it’s choking me.

  I take another step closer, unable to take my eyes off her. Her heart-shaped face, the long eyelashes, and the Italian nose—even the bone structure of her cheekbones and jawline.

  It’s like looking in a mirror.

  02:22:07:12

  “I never would have believed this shit,” comes Elijah’s voice behind me.

  I knew there might be other mes out there. Of all the universes, there have to be others where my father and my mother both existed, and they married and had children. And this isn’t the first double I’ve seen. Only a day ago, or maybe two, I had to sit across from someone who wasn’t Struz even though he wore the same face, and answer questions. But I didn’t expect this. I wasn’t ready to see another version of myself.

  Because the girl lying in this bed is me.

  Me with highlights.

  I want to turn around, to look at Elijah and Barclay—to see the expressions on their faces. To confirm that I’m not dreaming or crazy. But I can’t. My body is frozen in place, captivated by her—by me.