Intersect: The Parallel Duet, Book 2

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  “I have this appointment, Mom, or I would.”

  She nods but I swear to God it looks like she’s about to cry, and I think it has nothing to do with my tumor.

  * * *

  I arrive at Dr. Grosbaum’s house just before lunch. I’ve decided to keep the trip from Nick since he’d worry unnecessarily, and if it’s okay for him to break into the home of a potential murderer with supernatural powers and not mention it until afterward, I can probably visit a neurologist with some offbeat ideas and not mention it either.

  The sight of his house no longer scares me. It just makes me sad. How long has he been waiting for his wife to return? Will he die alone, still waiting?

  He steps back in silence as I walk through the door.

  “I owe you an apology,” I begin, as I follow him to his office, but he waves my words away.

  “Several universities thought the same things you did and were far ruder in their dismissal,” he replies. “I’m accustomed to it. But I’m curious to hear about this time traveler you met.”

  We both take the seats we took a few weeks ago. My heart lurches a little at the emptiness of the chair beside me. Nick should be here. He should never have left.

  “She was young,” I reply. “Barely even a teenager. I saw her once in my head when I’d blacked out, and she insisted I hadn’t blacked out at all, that we’d just passed each other time traveling.”

  He frowns. “But that’s…” He stops, shaking his head. “And do you believe her? That you were time traveling?”

  I nod. “Yes, but it only seems to happen when I pass out and maybe at night though I’m not sure, and then it’s completely effortless. When I’m awake nothing happens. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, or maybe I’m just not relaxed enough?”

  He leans forward, tapping a pen against his lips. “Or perhaps your conscious mind fears it, so the ability sneaks around in the background instead. Time traveling PTSD, if you will.”

  “Why would I fear it?”

  He shrugs. “Maybe you were raised in a very religious household? Or it had some negative association for you? I’m not sure.”

  The funeral. Nick’s hand clenching mine and the certainty it was my fault. “Like maybe if I caused someone harm.” I pose it less as a question and more as an admission of guilt.

  He’s quiet for a moment. “It’s always a struggle for people with your gift. For all the good you can do going back in time, you risk causing just as much harm. What you don’t realize is that any human’s life is just as full of choices.” He leans back in his chair and observes me solemnly. “Say you set up two friends on a date and they marry. People will pat you on the back, but you’ve also deprived other people of marrying them. The children they might have had with those other people are now not born. Every action we take, even the best ones, may cause harm. Time travelers just have the unhappy side effect of knowing what they’ve done.”

  My eyes flicker to his. “What if I’m the reason someone died?” I venture. I sound as guilty as I feel. “There’s no good side there.”

  “You have no idea what would have come of that person’s life,” he argues. “If you caused a murderer to die early on, would you have done the world harm or performed it a service?”

  Except Ryan wasn’t a murderer. He was a brilliant, funny boy who looked so much like Nick and had just as much potential. He might be a doctor now. He might have kids. And I took all of it away from him. It makes perfect sense to me that I’d have decided, long ago, that I would never risk using my abilities again. “I was hoping I could talk to someone about this. I’m obviously not the only one of your patients with this, um…”

  “Talent?” he offers. I was going to say issue, but I nod. “Unfortunately, my files are organized by identifiers but there are no names or contact information, for your protection.”

  My brow furrows. “Protection?”

  He nods. “Even the fact that we sit here now, discussing it, is a threat. Time travelers are like the rest of us in that there are some good and some bad. And the bad ones…are very bad. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who showed signs of unusual ability, something greater than theirs. And I suspect, based on your ability to jump between different timelines, you’d fall into that category. Which reminds me…the DNA test.”

  “What will that tell you?”

  “Right now I’m just trying to keep a database, determining family lines, trying to see what makes some so much more powerful than others. There are those of you who excel at jumping back through time but struggle to change your location. Some can direct themselves anywhere, but can’t quite pinpoint time. And then there’s someone like you, who can jump back through worlds that no longer exist. It’s…rare. No, not just rare. It’s unheard of.”

  A chill crawls up my spine. I think of that voice whispering to me in a darkened room, saying my powers make hers look childlike by contrast.

  “Full disclosure,” he says, with a heavy sigh, “I’m also trying to get information about my wife. She was pregnant when she got lost. I don’t know where she went. I don’t know how far back she went. I just keeping hoping that…if I find a time traveler with our DNA, it might mean our child survived. It might even mean she stayed there and led a happy life.”

  I sit with that, feeling heartsick. I could do this very thing to Nick if I jumped. “I’m so sorry.”

  He stares at his desk before finally raising his head to meet my eye.

  “Make no mistake, Quinn: being able to time travel is both a blessing and a curse.”

  25

  NICK

  Two days pass. Two long days during which I do nothing but miss Quinn and imagine the worst. What if I come up empty-handed? What if something happens while I’m gone?

  I walk for hours without seeing anything. I’ve been to Paris before, and there are places I’d like to go again, but right now this city is only a reminder of all the things I’ll never be able to show Quinn—restaurants I can’t take her to, museums she would love. A whole world I might be able to offer if I could just fucking fix this, which looks less likely with each hour that passes.

  I’ve searched for the name Amelie Bertrand, but there are thousands, and ostensibly this one is cautious about giving out her address, though it seems she had no issue with giving it out as Sarah Stewart. With every new piece of information, the questions only grow.

  * * *

  Quinn calls when she wakes up. We try not to talk about Sarah, about the tumor, during these calls. I want just a few hours of seeing what it might have been like to have a normal life with her, and I think she does too. So she tells me about the garden, about the bulbs she’ll plant once the weather cools, and the small blueberry bush she found in the back corner of the yard. I tell her about Paris, about the things I’d like to show her.

  We talk about where we’d move if we had a family, whether we’d put a pool in the back yard, where we’d go on trips. I’m smiling throughout all of these conversations, but they cut like a knife at the same time.

  That night I go to a bar down the street. Though I’ve never been a big drinker, I’ve become a regular here during my short stay. The weight of missing Quinn, of worrying about her, is killing me. I need to take the edge off. I’m on my second bourbon when another American shows up. He’s already drunk at 10 p.m. and loud as fuck, which I’m not in the mood to put up with.

  “Check, please?” I ask the bartender. “Billet, s’il vous plait?”

  “You American?” the guy shouts across the bar.

  Fuck my life. “Yeah.”

  “Then you’re from the best country in the goddamn world,” he replies.

  Drunk asshole. “If you say so,” I reply, sliding a few bills to the bartender.

  “I do say so!” he shouts. “You got a problem with that?”

  He’s an idiot. Normally I’d laugh this off. But tonight I’m in no mood. I’m angry. I’m bitter. What I want to do is blame God or fate or whatever is responsi
ble for this situation, and in its place, he makes for an easy target. “No, but I have a problem with you running your mouth about it in someone else’s country.”

  “I’ll run my mouth wherever the fuck I feel like it,” he says, climbing off his barstool and crossing to my side of the room.

  “Yes. Obviously.” I’m a big guy and aside from scuffles with my brother, I’ve never lost a fight. The sight of him moving my way leaves me more tired than worried.

  He pushes me, and my fist slams into his face before I’ve even realized I’m doing it. I welcome the opportunity to tear something apart. It feels like the first thing I’ve actually fucking succeeded at in weeks.

  He hits me back. I welcome that too.

  My fist sinks into his stomach, and he gasps. I relish it. I even relish the sharp snap of pain when he hits my jaw.

  I want all of it. I welcome all of it. Until the cops arrive, that is.

  26

  QUINN

  I sit in our adorable backyard, lying on a blanket in the garden and looking at the stars. It normally brings me peace, but I’m unable to find it tonight. In part because Nick didn’t call when he was supposed to. But there’s something else too. It rests at the back of my brain, some small answer waiting to be recognized, a puzzle piece waiting to be put in its proper place. I have missed something big.

  Something about Sarah.

  It’s not just that she wants me dead…it’s that she’s not making sense. Why would someone hell-bent on killing me leave the country right now? Shouldn’t she be waiting here to hover over at me at the moment of my death and take whatever it is she plans to take? And why would someone who’s been so careful and methodical in her planning—she’s obviously been at this for a good long time—suddenly begin slipping up? Letting herself get caught by Nick. Leaving an address where she can be traced in the pocket of her scrubs.

  I picture the key under her mat as Nick described it. Gleaming and new. Who leaves a key under the mat when they live in a home worth a gazillion dollars?

  It’s too easy.

  The address, the key, the journal left open with her dates of travel, an address. Sarah has left us a trail of breadcrumbs to find her, to chase her. She is laying a trap and Nick is going to fall right into it—if he hasn’t already. Why didn’t he call me? Panic, which was merely a whisper moments before, turns into a roar.

  It’s the middle of the night there but I call him anyway. It goes to voicemail. I call again. It goes to voicemail. He’s too worried about me to have shut his phone off, and he’s not a heavy sleeper. My hands palm the ground, press into it. I know I need to stay calm, but already I’m envisioning the worst. If Sarah’s done something, how the hell will I ever find him?

  * * *

  For five hours I remain awake, calling him, pacing through our house, sick to my stomach. Do I call the police? The state department? I can just picture how much attention they’ll pay to a girl complaining that her boyfriend is in Paris and hasn’t called her back. His parents might have better luck but they probably don’t even know I exist. For all I know they still think he’s with Meg.

  When my phone rings, it’s two in the morning. I open my mouth to speak and promptly burst into tears.

  “Quinn,” he croons. “Stop, honey. I’m so sorry.”

  “I was worried sick,” I cry. “I didn’t know if you were hurt, and your parents don’t even know I exist, and I had no idea who to call, and would they even have told me if you were hurt? Would they?”

  He laughs softly. “Yes, my parents know about you. I’m sorry I put you through that. I kind of got arrested, so I didn’t have my phone for a while.”

  My tears come to a sudden, shocked halt. “Arrested? For what?”

  He sighs. “I got in a fight, in a bar. I know it sounds bad and you’re probably now wondering if you’re stuck with a violent alcoholic. All I can tell you is it was the first time since college that I’ve gotten into a fistfight at a bar. It’s hard, being apart like this. I’m just not myself right now.”

  I curl up and press my face to my knees. This is insane, us being apart. We’ve waited our entire lives to get together, and once it happens we’re separated by an ocean. “Then just come home. Please. I want you to stop anyway. I was thinking about it and Nick…it’s a trap. It has to be. She’s left us a trail of breadcrumbs straight out of Hansel and Gretel. The receipt? The key under her mat? She wants us to follow her.”

  “Maybe she wants you to follow her. But you’re not, so we’re fine.”

  I press my hand to my forehead. He doesn’t get it. She can time travel. She’s always going to be ten steps ahead of us. “Nick…”

  “I’m sorry I worried you. It’s the last thing you need right now. Seriously, I’m fine. Just a few more days.”

  “I don’t think you’re grasping how bad this could go. Sarah might not even be the only person you have to look out for. Grosbaum told me—”

  “Grosbaum? You called him?”

  I sigh heavily. This is going to go over well. “I drove up to see him.”

  “Jesus Christ,” he says. “Why?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I counter. “He was right about everything, so I thought he might know something more. He thinks—” I hesitate. Telling him Grosbaum’s PTSD theory opens up the topic of what I might have done wrong in another life. “He thinks I’m scared to use the ability, so it only comes out when I’m sleeping or unconscious and can’t repress it.”

  “You’re right to be scared to use that ability,” he says. “Please tell me you’re not trying anymore.”

  I could point out that there’s nothing left to lose, but he sounds so despondent I decide not to argue with him. “I let Grosbaum do a DNA test. He wants yours too. I apparently have ‘unusual’ ability and he thinks your DNA is what would determine how powerful our child could be. Maybe that’s why Sarah’s trying to stop us.”

  “I don’t want to brag,” he says, “but I bet my DNA is fucking awesome.”

  I laugh, and then it fades away. “In this case it sounds like it would be a bad thing.” I tell him about Dr. Grosbaum’s missing wife. About those who target travelers more powerful than themselves.

  “Fuck,” he groans. “I wish I didn’t know that. I thought we just had Sarah to worry about, and now it sounds like we have a whole universe of these people who could come after you. I hate that you are there, and I can’t protect you.”

  Says the guy who just got out of jail and is hunting down a potential murderer. “You’re the one in danger right now, not me,” I reply.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he says. “This will all end soon.”

  We hang up, and I walk out back to stare at our pretty garden, still flourishing in the warm August air. I’m glad something’s flourishing. Nick obviously isn’t, and I’m not either. I’ve felt a little worse every day since he left. We are not meant to be apart.

  And I’m tired of him telling me it’s fine that we are.

  27

  QUINN

  I have a passport that’s never seen the light of day. I still remember when it arrived eight years ago—how thrilled I was by the possibilities it offered. That was back when I still believed I’d be spending my junior year abroad. A week later I learned my father was going to die, and I threw it in a file and tried to forget.

  Today, for the first time in all these years, I retrieve it. The cost of a last-minute ticket to Paris makes my stomach churn but right now, I need Nick and he needs me, and every other consideration is irrelevant.

  I arrive in Paris just as the city is beginning its day—the tourists trickle while the Parisians move with brisk, impatient steps, dodging bikes and cars that zip down the street at twice the speed they should. The buildings rise on all sides, intricate and ancient and so amazingly different from home that if it weren’t for the prospect of seeing Nick, I’d just want to start walking, drinking it in.

  I arrive at the hotel and text Nick, who has no idea I’m here.
<
br />   Me: What are you up to?

  Nick: At breakfast. It’s 3:00 a.m. there. Why are you awake?

  I gather my bags and go in. After a brief and apparently persuasive conversation with the guy at the front desk, I’m standing inside Nick’s room.

  Me: Getting in shower. I like our room btw.

  I take a selfie with his suitcase in the background and hit send, then go into the bathroom. As much as I’d like to stand under the hot spray for an hour or more, I hustle, because I imagine Nick’s going to be here within minutes of getting that text. I’ve just finished shaving my legs when the door slams. Before I can turn off the water, Nick is there, pulling back the shower curtain, staring at me in shock.

  His eyes sweep over me from head to foot, and I’m not sure how to interpret the look until he steps into the shower fully clothed and pulls me against his chest. “I’m going to kill you for flying,” he says, his mouth buried in my hair, “but God, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  I lift my mouth to find his. “Me too,” I reply. “And you’re wearing way too many clothes.”

  * * *

  Later, we lie in bed, a slight breeze blowing in from the open doors of the Juliet balcony, sunlight streaming in. “I still can’t believe you did that,” he says for what must be the seventh time. “I don’t think you realize how badly it could have gone.”

  I smile. “Except it didn’t. The guy beside me hogging the armrest was the worst thing that happened the entire flight.”

  He isn’t impressed. “You still have to get back home.”

  I stretch my arms over my head. Given that I’m naked and the sheet’s fallen to my waist, I’m assuming I can distract him once more into forgetting his worry. His eyes fall to my chest and his hand slides over my stomach to cup a breast. His brow furrows and his hand moves to cup the other one. “They feel…bigger.”