Find Me Where the Water Ends (So Close to You)

by Rachel Carter

  “Of course,” Wes responds, and Twenty-two narrows her eyes at him, hearing the same strangled quality in his voice that I do. But he folds himself into the chair next to Tierney and doesn’t try to stop me from walking over to a smiling Sardosky.

  When I get closer, the president stands. “Samantha, why don’t you sit by me? They’re about to start the speeches.”

  I take his outstretched hand, lowering myself into the seat next to his. Beside me, Wes whips out his napkin with more force than is necessary, but then Tierney says something on his left, capturing his attention.

  The president turns to me. “Bea tells me you grew up in Boston.”

  I nod. “Yes, I miss it.”

  “It’s a beautiful city.”

  We continue to make light conversation, and Twenty-two excuses herself, turning to flirt with the older man on her right. The president pours me a glass of champagne himself, even though there are several waiters hovering behind us.

  He asks me about my family, where I went to college, even how I met Michael, which I’m surprised by. I give him the answers I’ve memorized, and for a minute I pretend that Samantha is real, and that her life is mine, and I almost enjoy talking with him. I’ve spent the last nine months alone, with the Project hurling instructions at me. Classes and combat and orders. No friends. No Wes. Sardosky is attentive and focused, and there’s something about him that reminds me of my grandfather. It might be his bushy hair, laced with strands of gray and white, or the wire-rimmed glasses he puts on to read the menu that one of the waiters places in front of him, or maybe it’s just that he’s paying me attention, in a way that makes it seem like he doesn’t want anything back in return.

  That can’t be right. I must be reading the situation wrong, lulled by the friendly way he offers me some of the organic freshwater trout on his plate. I was told that, based on his reputation with women, the only interest he would show in Twenty-two or me would be sexual. But his attention doesn’t feel like how I thought it would. It’s politely friendly, not sleazy. Which might present a problem. Now that I’ve switched roles with Twenty-two, I am the one who is supposed to get him alone.

  I lean in to him, making sure my side brushes against his arm. “Why don’t you tell me more about yourself, Mr. President?”

  He pulls away, reaching for his glass of whiskey. “Oh, there’s not much to tell.”

  We are no longer touching, and I sit back again, defeated. Behind Sardosky’s back, Twenty-two is watching me. When our eyes meet she raises one of her small shoulders. I give a tiny shake of my head, and I see her look down at the table as she sighs.

  Sardosky turns to me and I smile, but we both jump when Twenty-two abruptly stands, pushing back her chair with a long scrape against the marble floor. “Michael, dance with me.”

  Her voice is loud enough to carry halfway across the table, and most of the conversations around us trail off. I feel a rush of gratitude for her, that she would try to help me complete my part, that she would recognize how Wes’s presence might be a distraction for Sardosky.

  Wes shifts in his seat, his body finally angled toward mine. He has spent the entire dinner physically turned away from me, as if he is trying to block out what is happening at his back. Now he takes in the way I’m twisting my fingers together in my lap, the way Sardosky is staring into his whiskey and turning it around and around until the liquor is a mini-tornado trapped in the glass.

  I watch as Wes’s eyes close for a second, as he realizes that he needs to leave in order for me to get Sardosky to make a move.

  “Go dance. I’ll be fine here,” I say.

  He hesitates, both of his hands coming up to rest on the table in front of him. That’s when I see that his fingers are shaking. It’s just a minor tremble, but I look up at him in alarm. This was one of the symptoms that suggested his body had started to fall apart because of the damaging trips through the TM and that he didn’t have much time left. Once the Project noticed, they would experiment on his body while he was still alive to try to learn more about the long-term effects of time traveling on a recruit. He would eventually die, but it would be slow and agonizing. It was why I wanted us to run away together—to get him away from the Project and to save his life.

  Who knows how many times Wes has traveled through the TM since the last time we were together, feeling the way it tears through your skin, separating molecules and shoving them back together again? It is why the Project uses only young people—our bodies are able to hold up longer, to take the abuse more easily. But even then we need a special serum in our blood, called polypenamaether.

  If the TM is hard on a new recruit, leaving us white and shaking, what is it doing to Wes, who’s been through it hundreds of time?

  I put my arm out, but before I can touch him he clenches his teeth together, his hands slowly steady, and he gets up from the table in that careful, measured way of his. “Let’s go, Bea.” He offers Twenty-two his arm and bows slightly toward Sardosky. “Mr. President, please excuse us.” His voice sounds strained, and he won’t look either of us in the eye.

  Sardosky inclines his head. Twenty-two pulls Wes away, and they disappear into the crowd. I stare at their backs, not paying attention to the waiters clearing the plates around us or to Sardosky, who has turned to study me.

  “He’s a good man?”

  Startled, I shift in my seat to face the president. “I’m sorry?”

  “Your fiancé. He’s a good man?”

  I open my mouth but no words come out. It is not what I expected him to say. “I . . . yes. I guess he is.”

  He puts his tumbler down roughly and the whiskey swings back and forth in the glass. When he turns to me, his hand falls out to the side to brace himself against the table. He is drunk. I hadn’t realized it before, even though he was steadily drinking throughout dinner, but now his eyes are unfocused, and his body matches his whiskey, swaying a little from side to side.

  “You’re not sure?” he asks.

  I stare at the condensation that beads on the edge of his glass. The table is littered with the remnants of our dinner: dirty forks and water-stains on the once white cloth. “I don’t know. I think there was a time I would have said yes without reservation. But now I’m wondering if I ever knew him at all.”

  “Relationships change.” The bitterness in his voice makes me look up.

  “Mr. President, are you okay?”

  He takes a heavy breath that flutters through his mustache. “I think I might need to rest for a minute. I’m usually more careful at events like this.”

  This is my opportunity. I lean into him and lower my voice. “Why don’t we go somewhere quieter? No one would have to know.”

  He nods his head, his eyes half closed. I cannot tell how drunk he is, but his body is steady as he pulls himself up from the table.

  “If you’ll excuse me for a minute, gentlemen.”

  The other men murmur their good-byes, and I ignore the way they look at me with knowing eyes.

  The president walks on his own, his back straight, his large chest pushed out in front of him like a sail that has just caught the wind. At first we are side by side, but I slowly move in front of him until I’m leading the way, angling us toward the small library where I know Twenty-two had been planning on taking him.

  We pass by Tim, who’s carrying a tray heavy with dishes. I put my hand out to stop him. “Bring two glasses of water to the reading room, please.”

  He nods.

  Sardosky and I continue through the crowd. It is different walking with him. Instead of fighting my way through the guests, everyone parts before us, a Red Sea disguised as silk gowns and dark suits. A Secret Service agent follows behind, and even when the crowd is dense I can feel him at our backs.

  When we are near the orchestra, almost to the edge of the room, I turn my head and see Wes and Twenty-two on the dance floor. Their arms are wrapped around each other, his hand on the bare skin of her back, and he appears to be holding her mor
e closely than he held me. For one second I think our eyes meet, but then he whips her around in a fast circle, and the moment is gone.

  I lead Sardosky out of the ballroom, down a short hallway, and into the small library. When I open the door, he looks over his shoulder at the agent who followed us. “Wait outside.”

  The younger man’s face is like granite as he nods.

  The room is empty, the walls lined with bookshelves from ceiling to floor. A pale green love seat sits in the center, and there are no windows, just the overwhelming smell of musty books.

  Sardosky steps inside while I shut the door behind us.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  Now that we are away from the staring crowds, he is like a marionette with his strings cut, staggering forward until he reaches the couch. He slumps down onto the silk cushion and lifts his hand to his forehead. “Unsteady.” He narrows his eyes at me from under his hand. “Will you get in trouble for being in here alone with me?”

  “Michael didn’t see us leave.”

  “I suppose it would look bad, if he did.”

  Before I can respond there’s a knock at the door. When I open it, Tim is there, holding a tray with two tall glasses of water. I step back to let him enter.

  He sets the tray on a side table next to the couch. Sardosky does not acknowledge him; he still has one hand pressed to his forehead, but now his eyes are tightly closed. Tim glances at me, then nudges the glass closest to the lamp. I tilt my chin down and he bows low.

  “Please let me know if you need anything else,” he says before he leaves the room.

  When I shut the door behind him the click it makes sounds ominously loud, and I stare at the wood for a second, at the wavy lines of the grain running parallel, up and up. I imagine them as part of a tree, alive and stretching toward the sun. When I turn back around, Sardosky is in the same spot, his head against the back of the couch.

  “I hate these things,” he mumbles.

  “The fund-raiser?”

  “Just a bunch of blowhards standing around bragging about who has more money, with politicians kissing their asses.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I know, I know.” He laughs without opening his eyes. “I’m one of those ass-kissing politicians. It’s the game you have to play, if you want to make any sort of change.”

  I lean back until I’m pressed against the door. I know the type of change he wants to make, but I can’t tell him the consequences of it. It makes it worse, that his intentions are good.

  “You should have some water,” I say.

  He sits up fully. It takes a minute for his eyes to focus on me. “Not yet.” He runs a hand down his face, stroking his mustache, his chin. “I don’t usually drink this much. But seeing you . . .”

  I tilt my head, my hair sliding across the smooth wood. “What about me?”

  “You remind me of someone. That’s all.”

  “Who?”

  He suddenly lurches to his feet and stumbles over to the bookcase on the far wall. He was holding it together for the partygoers outside, hiding how drunk he really was, but here, with me, he is letting down his guard.

  So that is why he has been so focused on me: because I remind him of someone. It would explain why he drank so much, if it was a person he lost long ago.

  I walk to the side table, reaching for the glass of water with the poison in it. It is cold in my hand, the ice cubes clinking together when I pick it up, and I’m amazed by how normal it seems, this thing that will soon kill a man.

  “How old are you?” He still has his back to me, and I watch as he runs his finger down the spine of a book. It looks old, but that could mean anything here. Maybe it was written when I was a girl.

  “Twenty-nine,” I lie.

  “You look younger. But then, everyone does these days. I remember when twenty-nine looked like twenty-nine. And eighty-five looked like eighty-five. Did you know that’s how old I am?”

  “Yes.” I step forward, skirting the side of the couch. The condensation from the glass slides down my fingertips. “But you don’t look a day over fifty, Mr. President.”

  “Call me Alan.”

  “Okay, Alan.” The word feels unnatural on my lips. In training we never referred to him as anything other than Sardosky or the president. It’s hard enough looking at his face, knowing I have to kill him. I don’t want him to have a name, too.

  He finally turns around, propped up against the bookcase, unable to stand on his own. I clutch the water glass in my hand.

  “I had a daughter, once.”

  “You did?” I act surprised, but of course I knew. She died when she was sixteen, not much younger than I am now. He and his wife never had any more children.

  “I did. But not anymore.” He drops his eyes to the hardwood floor at our feet. “She had leukemia. It was slow. Back then they couldn’t fix it like they can now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  I’m not sure why he’s telling me this, but I want to rush forward and cover his mouth with my hand. I do not have a choice about what happens tonight. Even now, Wes is in the control room, knocking out the guards and cutting the video feed to this room. Twenty-two is in the ballroom whispering, scheming, orchestrating a scene that will distract security while Tim hovers near the hallway, watching and waiting. I have to play out my part too.

  Sometimes the Montauk Project is monstrous, kidnapping and torturing children like Wes. Stealing my future from me. Changing the course of time in what it thinks is its favor, regardless of the consequences. But this time they could be right; if we do not alter the time line now, the world as we know it could end.

  So when Sardosky holds his arm out, I only hesitate a second before I push the glass toward him. He takes it in his large, clumsy hands and lifts it to his mouth. I close my eyes so I don’t have to watch him swallow.

  According to General Walker, this is my destiny. These few moments are the reason I was trained to become a recruit, the reason my grandfather is trapped in a cell right now. But how is that possible? I refuse to believe that my destiny is to be a killer, even if this man’s death is necessary for the greater good.

  In the end, does it even matter? I am not here because of my destiny; I’m here to keep my grandfather safe. The only way to do that is to obey the Project. If killing Sardosky will keep my grandfather alive, then I have no other choice.

  The glass is empty when Sardosky holds it out to me again, and I take it from him gently. It is warm now, from his hands. He leans back against the bookshelf again, closing his eyes as he breathes deeply.

  One full minute until it takes effect. I start counting the seconds as I place the glass carefully on the side table.

  “Penny. That was what I called her, my daughter.”

  Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.

  “She had red hair, just like yours. It was why it was such a shock, when I saw you earlier. At first I thought you were her.”

  This is who I remind him of. Not a lover, but a lost daughter. The Project must have known this was a possibility. That is why they didn’t want me to change my hair color, because they were hoping it would be another avenue to get to Sardosky. Perhaps they didn’t warn me because they wanted a natural reaction—surprise when he noticed my hair, confusion at his attention. They were worried that the new recruit wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure, or maybe they were just testing me, trying to see how I’d react if the mission shifted in the moment.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat. I cannot think what else to say.

  “We were never the same afterward. My wife and I.”

  Thirty-five, thirty-six.

  He straightens, pushing away from the bookcase until he’s standing right in front of me. He seems less drunk now, more alert, his eyes wide and focused on mine. “I know . . . I know this is inappropriate. But would you mind if I hugged you? Just once?”

  I lean back automatically, my hands clutching the
fabric of my skirt. He sees my reaction and frowns. “It’s just that you look so much like her. I just want to pretend for a minute that she’s still here.”

  Oh God. What have I done? I want to refuse, to run from the room, but I can’t save him now. I have to see this through.

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  Forty-nine, fifty.

  I stay perfectly still as he moves forward, as his arms close around mine until my face is pressed to the hard surface of his chest. He smells like whiskey and stale cigars, and it reminds me of my grandfather so much that I close my eyes and pretend it is his chest I am leaning on. That instead of killing this man, I am saving him.

  Sardosky pulls back to look at me, but it is in that moment the drug courses through his system, filling his arteries like cement, the blood trickling in drops, his heart slowing, slowing, faltering, stopping. His eyes roll back into his head and he crumbles, his arm knocking against the side table and sending the glasses to the floor where they shatter around us.

  I drop down next to him, cradling his head in my hands. His mouth is open, gaping, like a bloated fish struggling to reach the water again. “Shh,” I murmur. “It’s okay.”

  His eyes dart frantically from side to side and his hands claw at his chest. He understands what is happening to him, understands that I’m not trying to help, and the accusation in his gaze is unbearable. I rest his head on the ground and turn away. The glasses have splintered into hundreds of pieces, some large enough to cut, others light as dust. I stare at the broken shards, covering my ears with my hands so that I won’t have to hear his desperate gurgling anymore.

  A sound at the door distracts me. It swings opens, and I shoot to my feet. Please be Wes, I pray. But no, it is a member of Sardosky’s Secret Service.

  Chapter 6

  The agent takes in the scene: the fallen glasses, the puddle of spilled water, Sardosky’s feet sticking out from behind the love seat, twitching and shaking. I freeze, unable to say or do anything to explain.

  “I need an ambulance and backup,” he calmly states. It sounds like he is saying it to me, but I know the noise is carried like lightning through the airwaves, arriving at the I-units of his fellow Secret Service in less than a second.