by Claudia Gray
Theo rides in the seat next to me, his expression stark as he stares straight ahead. Neither of us has spoken to the other since we got in the car. I don’t think we have any idea what to say.
Then I realize the first thing I need to know. “What was it like when you were, you know—taken over?”
Although he still doesn’t look at me, he relaxes a little. “At first it was like I was just losing time. Blacking out or something. I thought I was working too hard on the Firebird project, skipping too much sleep, something like that. Didn’t mention it to Henry or Sophia, because I thought they’d tell me to take it easy and I might miss out.” Theo sighs. “If I had, maybe one of them would’ve realized what was going on. So, that was pretty stupid.”
“You couldn’t have known.” Inside I find myself thinking of every other Marguerite I inhabited. At the time, I felt as though I was making responsible choices—or that if I made mistakes, they were the mistakes those Marguerites would have made in my place. But now that I see Theo’s profound sense of violation, I wonder if that’s how they feel, too.
“After he started using that green stuff, everything changed. I was aware of what was going on, but it was—distant. Foggy. It reminded me of twilight sleep at the dentist. Then he’d leave. Go back to his own dimension to, I don’t know, report in or whatever. By the time I could feel myself sobering up, he’d be back.”
I remember now, back in the Triadverse, the talk about Theo’s time-consuming “internship” with Conley. Really Theo was traveling between dimensions as Conley’s spy—going back only often enough to maintain his cover story.
Finally Theo looks at me, though his gaze is hesitant. “Once the son of a bitch moved on for good, I could only remember the big details—that they’d done something awful to Henry, that I’d framed Paul for it, and that they were after you. They’d been after you the whole time, and I couldn’t even warn you. We had to wait here, not knowing if we’d ever see you again.”
As much as I sympathize with the pain I hear in his voice, I can’t let Theo keep beating himself up about this. “I made it back. Okay? You have to stop worrying about the past. Worry about the future, because Triad’s definitely going to keep trying.”
“Oh, I’ve been thinking about Triad. Trust me, I’ve been thinking a lot. They had their chance to surprise us, and now they’re going to get a few surprises in return.” Theo actually smiles, but it’s the scariest-looking smile I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t want to be Wyatt Conley right now.
We reach the university campus. It’s a still place between semesters, almost abandoned, with only a handful of the usual cars in the parking lots and a few forlorn international students wandering around. With a stomp on the gas pedal, I speed us toward the lab and pull into the closest spot.
Josie’s Volkswagen is so tiny that we must look like clowns spilling out of a circus car. As I peer through the darkness on the grounds, I don’t see anyone close by.
Mom steps in front of me. “Henry?” Her voice shakes as she calls his name again. “Henry?”
Then I see what she’s seen—the shape running out of the shadows.
“Sophie!” Dad shouts as he dashes straight into Mom’s arms.
Somehow we all wind up on the ground in a group hug, and everyone’s crying and everyone’s laughing and we probably look like crazy people, but I don’t care one bit.
And yet, down deep, I’m still afraid.
What about Paul?
As we disentangle ourselves and get to our feet again, Mom kisses Dad—and I don’t mean, like, a normal kiss; I mean, she lays one on him. I’ve always been glad my parents loved each other so much, but I never felt like I was watching anything quite this intimate. As I turn my head to give them a little privacy, Josie giggles. “That’s right,” she says, wiping tears from her cheeks. “You weren’t with me that time I walked in on them doing the deed. Seriously Freudian horror.”
“You saw your parents at their best,” Mom murmurs, before Dad sweeps her into another kiss.
“Go ahead,” Josie calls. “Mate in public. Tonight we won’t even mind. You deserve to break a few decency laws.”
I can’t bear it any longer. “I have to go. I have to find Paul.”
Slowly Theo nods. “Come on. I’ll take you there.”
Together we run across the dark campus, past enormous, empty buildings and then into a block of dormitories. They look nicer than I thought dorms would be—more like apartment buildings. The lock on the door is ultramodern: a huge black access-card reader that stops me in my tracks.
“ID reader,” Theo says as he fishes his student ID out of his wallet. One swipe, and the lock clicks, letting us in the building.
Together Theo and I walk up two flights of stairs and along the hallway until we reach Paul’s door. Hoping against hope, I knock and call out, “Paul?”
No reply.
So we stand there in the hallway, with nothing to do but wait.
“You say Paul’s in danger because he’s saving my evil twin?” Theo leans against one wall, folding his arms in front of his chest.
“And the other you, the oceanographer from that dimension. The one who got pulled into this against his will, like you did.”
“Little brother,” Theo says softly.
“You know he’d never leave you when you were in trouble.”
“Yeah. I know. But even evil me?”
I take a moment to word this correctly, because it’s a hard thing to accept, and probably even harder if you’ve been through what Theo has. “Evil you is still you,” I say as gently as I can. “He actually thought he was helping me. The guy’s not a monster. He’s just a . . . slightly inferior version.”
Theo sighs. “If you say so.”
Silence falls between us. I keep staring at the door, willing Paul to suddenly appear on the other side and open it for me. Nothing happens.
The storm was getting worse. What if Paul’s sub wasn’t able to dock? What if he crashed like Theo and I did? Maybe they’re both drowning, even now, or being crushed by the impossible pressure—
“Tell me one thing,” Theo says.
I never stop staring at Paul’s door. “Sure, okay. What?”
“This other Theo—he cost me my chance with you, didn’t he?”
Stricken, I turn back toward Theo, who smiles at me unevenly.
“Because I did have a chance, didn’t I? For a little while there? Could’ve sworn I did.” He shrugs. “But now you’re standing here looking at Paul’s freakin’ door the way I always used to wish you’d look at me.”
A few months ago, if Theo had said something—would it have changed who I fell for? I don’t know; I’ll never know.
So I say only, “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. But if I have to let somebody else have you, at least it’s him.” Theo nods toward the door.
And within that room, something moves.
I suck in a breath. Theo and I exchange glances, and then I call out, “Paul? Paul, are you in there?” Quickly I knock. “It’s me. It’s—”
The door opens, and my fist makes contact with Paul’s chest.
In that first instant, I can’t speak. I can only stare up at him as he slowly smiles. I launch myself into his arms. Paul hugs me back fiercely, like he never wants to let me go.
“Happy endings all around, almost,” Theo says as he takes a couple of steps backward. “I’m going to head out, you guys.”
“Theo?” Paul never lets go of me, but he looks over my shoulder, only slightly less happy about this second reunion. “It’s really you?”
“The one and only,” Theo says. “Accept no substitutes. Which I realize is easier said than done, these days.” He sounds like his old self, and I have to grin.
Paul reaches one hand out to Theo, who clasps it in something that’s more than a handshake—it looks like old paintings of Romans swearing allegiance to each other, swearing to die by each other’s side. Their bond is too powerful to be destroy
ed by their feelings for me, or their rivalry.
But Theo can’t keep up the pretense that it doesn’t bother him, seeing us wrapped together like this. As he lets go of Paul and takes a few steps back, his smile is strained. “I’m gonna—I’m grabbing the good Dr. Kovalenka and the resurrected Dr. Caine and the soon-to-be-doctor Josephine and bringing them over this way. Soon we’ll have the band back together.”
I whisper, “Thank you, Theo.”
“You crazy kids have fun,” he says, and then he turns around to go.
For a moment we watch him leave—but then Paul pulls me into his room and closes the door.
As soon as he does, though, reality intrudes. Everything I know about Paul, everything I feel for him, is swallowed up in uncertainty. In the love I felt for Lieutenant Markov, who lies dead a universe away.
I don’t say a word, but Paul understands. He takes a deep breath as he steps slightly closer. “I’m not the one you loved. I know that.”
“How can you know when I don’t?”
He shakes his head, not denying what I’m saying but moving past it. “Something in us has to be the same, Marguerite. I know we both feel the same way about you. After the way you lost him, I don’t expect you to—to rush into anything, to know your own heart right away. But I’d like for us to find out if what you felt . . . if it wasn’t for him alone. If anything you felt was for me.”
Some of it was. Is. I know that; I always have.
Paul says, “Will you give me a chance, Marguerite?”
I feel the smile spreading over my face, lighting me up inside. “Yeah,” I whisper as I take his hand. “Oh, yeah.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN WITHOUT Jordan Weaver (formerly my publicist in Australia); Dan Wells and Lauren Oliver (my partners on the book tour where I first thought of this concept); Diana Fox (my agent and destroyer of plot holes); Ruth Hanna, Edy Moulton, and Amy Garvey (beta readers and cheerleaders extraordinaire); Sarah Landis (my former editor at HarperTeen, whose input on the first draft was invaluable); Rodney Crouther, Jesse Holland, Whitney Swindoll Raju, and Eric O’Neill (for constant encouragement); Walter Wolf and Alexandra Mora (who recommended a book that wound up being inspirational); my parents and the rest of my family (for all their enthusiasm and encouragement); Kiersten White (for providing constant support); Florence Welch (of the Machine fame); and last but not least, Marina Frants (when you are writing a book that involves both Russia and oceanography, it is very helpful to have a friend who is both Russian and an oceanographer). Not all of the above people knew they were contributing—I feel sure Florence Welch is oblivious to her part in this—but each of them provided some critical element that went into A Thousand Pieces of You.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Keith Claunch
CLAUDIA GRAY is the pseudonym of New Orleans–based writer Amy Vincent, the author of the New York Times bestselling Evernight series. She has worked as a lawyer, a journalist, a disc jockey, and an extremely poor waitress. Her grandparents’ copy of Mysteries of the Unexplained is probably the genesis of her fascination with most things mysterious and/or inexplicable. Visit her online at www.claudiagray.com.
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BOOKS BY CLAUDIA GRAY
EVERNIGHT
STARGAZER
HOURGLASS
AFTERLIFE
BALTHAZAR
FATEFUL
SPELLCASTER
STEADFAST
CREDITS
Cover art © 2014 by Craig Shields
Cover design by Elizabeth Clark
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
A THOUSAND PIECES OF YOU. Copyright © 2014 by Amy Vincent. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gray, Claudia.
A thousand pieces of you / Claudia Gray. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “When eighteen-year-old Marguerite Caine’s father is killed, she must leap into different dimensions and versions of herself to catch her father’s killer and avenge his murder”
—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-227896-8 (hardcover)
EPub Edition © September 2014 ISBN 9780062278982
[1. Space and time—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Family life—Fiction. 4. Murder—Fiction. 5. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.G77625Tho 2014
2014001894
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
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14 15 16 17 18 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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