Intersect: The Parallel Duet, Book 2

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  My twins. They exist somewhere out in the world at the moment, somewhere in the future. And when she kills me they’ll just disappear. If Nick is raising them, he’s going to lose them both at once. Maybe he won’t realize they ever existed, but I think they’ll remain inside him somewhere, a longing he can’t explain, the same way I did. I curve forward as if it can ease the ache in my chest. “Why couldn’t you have done this before I met him?” I cry. “Why do this now?”

  She looks surprised, like the answer should be as obvious to me as it is her. “Lots of reasons. I mean, would you have shackled yourself to the wall for that boy you were going to marry? Of course not. You had nothing to live for until you met Nick, and you certainly wouldn’t have flown all the way to Paris to chase the other one down.”

  I hate that she’s right. I hate that she knows me so well when I have no idea who she even is. If Jeff were in Paris depressed, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to come see him. And if someone trapped him, my reaction would have been pure logic. I’d have recognized I’m neither James Bond nor Bruce Lee, and I’d have called the cops despite her warning not to. “Why does it have to be Paris?” I ask, my lip curling. “Do you try to limit your murders to some distinct geographic area?”

  She frowns at me. “Sarcasm is an unbecoming trait, Quinn. It needed to be in Paris because I want my husband nearby when this finally ends,” she says. Her head tilts and the smile on her mouth is almost…affectionate? “He’s waited a long time for this.”

  I doubt she’s married to anyone I could actually appeal to, but my head swivels, looking for him anyway.

  Her eyes follow mine and she laughs, as if I’m a child trying to read a book upside down. “He’s here, just not in this time. Some of us excel at traveling through time but not place. Places are difficult for me, while you were good at both, until you decided to give it all up. Such a waste. I understand you’ve somehow been able to jump back to previous lives too. I have no idea how, but that power you’re hiding must be tremendous. It could have ruined everything if you’d just remembered a little more.” Her mouth curves in disgust, and, seeming to remember her purpose here, she grabs duct tape off the desk and walks back to me. “I’d better muzzle you before he arrives. Not that he appears any more likely than you to care for his own safety.”

  I swing my head away but there is little I can do and in moments, I’m effectively silenced.

  If I could, I would curl up on the floor and weep, but instead I lean against the wall, trying not to choke on my sobs. I still don’t understand why she is forcing Nick to be here to watch me die, and I’m going to leave this world without ever knowing if he’s okay when it’s done. She is no longer interested in me. She returns the tape and gun to the desk—there’s a knife there too, which I suppose is for me—and busies herself around the room, cleaning up, going through a stack of papers on a desk nearby, ignoring me completely.

  Upstairs, the door hinges creak. My heart climbs into my throat, beating beating beating like a battle drum. A wary footstep echoes across the marble floor above us, then another, and another.

  I want to shout into the tape but this will only gain his attention, so I sit, still and silent.

  Sarah just laughs at me, in no rush to alert him to our presence. “I lured him all the way here and you know what I’m capable of. Do you really think if you stay quiet I’d just let him walk out? That farmer and his wife did you a disservice if they raised you to be so naïve this time around. I should have given you to someone else. It’s not nearly as much fun as it could have been.”

  I thrash against the wall, in agony over what Nick is about to see, and so frustrated by what she’s done and all the things I don’t know. Who did she take me from? Does my birth mother even know I’m alive? Did my father know I was stolen?

  I’m about to die without the answers to any of it.

  30

  NICK

  If you want to save her, you will come alone, the text said, accompanied by a photo of Quinn chained to a wall. The picture sends me into a rage so fierce I can barely function around it. How could I have let this happen? I should have hidden Quinn, kept her locked up somewhere and guarded within an inch of her life. All that fucking education and when it came down to protecting her, I was worse than useless. I still am, but there’s no choice anymore—Sarah has Quinn, which means she’s got us by the throat.

  I run to a main road and call a car, urging the driver to hurry in my pathetic French. “Vite, s’il vous plait. C’est un…emergency.” I don’t know the word for emergency in French. Fuck. I can’t do anything here, can’t control a single fucking thing, not even my ability to speak.

  The driver seems to figure it out. My hands clench into fists as we fly back toward the sixth arrondissement, arriving at a home not too far from where I’ve been staying this entire time. Was Sarah nearby all along? Why is she going through all this? She could easily have killed Quinn, if that’s what she wants to do.

  None of it makes sense, but whether it makes sense or not, I’m no longer thinking in terms of negotiation, of convincing Sarah to help us. As I reach the front door of the mansion Sarah directed me to, I’ve only got two goals: to save Quinn and to make Sarah pay for what she’s done. Killing Sarah no longer seems extreme. It seems well-deserved.

  I push the door open and walk inside. The place must have been spectacular once, though it’s mostly empty now. I hear noise coming from the back of the house and creep toward it, over floors that squeak no matter how quietly I tread. I pass several doors until I get to a small salon and come to a stunned halt. The noise was just an open window. What stops me are the hundreds of photos hanging on the walls, every last one of Quinn. As a pink-cheeked toddler cradling a duckling. Her first day of kindergarten, with a wide, toothless grin. With rain boots on, ankle-deep in mud outside a barn. Her high school graduation, her prom. Every important event lovingly documented. It’s as if Sarah has been stalking her since birth.

  Or as if Sarah loves her.

  31

  QUINN

  Down here, Nick,” Sarah sings, grabbing the gun from the desk. She sounds cheerful, like she’s inviting him to join her potluck.

  His legs come into view, then his chest, and with each step I’m futilely hoping he’ll suddenly turn and flee.

  He doesn’t.

  When he reaches the bottom step, he’s so relieved to find me alive he doesn’t even notice Sarah until the moment she raises the gun and pulls the trigger.

  His eyes meet mine as it happens. One last, panicked glance as the bullet hits his leg. He staggers and falls. All my screaming is silenced by the tape.

  This can’t be happening. This is a dream. Wake up, I scream at myself. Wake up. But nothing changes. Nick’s on the ground, bleeding. He’s struggling to get to his feet, so Sarah walks to me and presses the gun to my head. “Shackle yourself and stop struggling,” she says to him with a click of her tongue. “Surely you realize that the more you struggle, the faster you’ll lose blood.” She waits until he’s shackled himself before she puts the gun in her waistband.

  Nick grinds his teeth as he twists his leg to make the wound face up. “You fucking bitch,” he says. “What do you want with us?”

  She tips her head to her shoulder, amused by his anger. “This is a good start. I never dreamed it would all go quite this well. But don’t worry. I’m going to give Quinn here one more chance.”

  One more chance to do what?! I already told her I’d do anything she wants. She’s toying with us, as if this is fun for her, a lark.

  She turns to me. “Just look at him. You could save him, you know, if you wanted to. That wound won’t kill him. Not immediately, anyway. But now I can shoot him in the head from two feet away, and that will. And it’s entirely your fault.”

  I struggle against the shackles, weep so hard I begin to choke, and she strolls over and finally rips the tape from my mouth. “Tell me what to do!” I scream. “Just fucking tell me! I’ll do it. Anythin
g.”

  “Quinn,” Nick groans. “Don’t.”

  She crouches in front of me. “You want to save him? Then come get me. If you wanted it enough, you could have your hands around my throat in a moment. You just don’t love him that much.”

  I thrash against the shackles. “I do!” I scream. “I do! I just don’t know what you want!”

  “If you love him so much, I want you to show me,” she says, smirking. “Close your eyes and place yourself behind me. See that knife on the table? Picture yourself there.” I think of that dream I had weeks ago at my mother’s house. The voice telling me I’d be able to jump on the day when I needed it most. I couldn’t possibly need it more than I do right now, yet there is nothing there. I’m as impotent as I ever was.

  “I can’t!” I cry. “I’m not like you.”

  “You can. You were once such a talented little time traveler. Remember? Remember how you rushed back to change Nick and Ryan’s timeline? The way you swore you’d never wish for anything again after you messed up. You should tell Nick what you did. Go ahead.”

  My head is shrieking but I see it. I see the decision. I picture the moment I stood there, watching Nick and Ryan tearing each other apart, how I couldn’t stand that I was at fault. “No,” I cry, my eyes squeezed tight.

  “The three of you were at a party and your brother was drinking too much. Sulking, as always, because he thought you stole Quinn from him,” says Sarah without emotion. “He kissed her against her will and you caught them.”

  Nick’s face is so pale, twisted with pain, but he stills at these words. My head falls backward. He’s going to hate me, but maybe it’s better that way, if she lets him live. Maybe hating me will make this easier when I’m gone.

  “Tell him what you did, Quinn,” Sarah says. “Tell him what you did, or I shoot him again and end this.”

  I turn toward him. He looks at me with absolute faith in his eyes, and he never will again. “I went back,” I weep. “I went back and convinced you not to go to the party because I wanted it not to have happened. I didn’t want it to come between us, and I was scared you and Ryan would kill each other. And Ryan went alone and got in that truck, and he died.”

  Nick’s face gets even paler, and he stares at me in shock. He’s just...blank. As if everything he felt toward me a moment before has seeped out along with the blood pouring down his leg.

  Sarah turns back to me. “You didn’t just stop time traveling, Quinn. You stopped fighting for anything you want, and I’m sure today’s no exception. You’re going to roll over again and because of it, Nick will die.”

  “I’m not! I just…please…I don’t know how to do what you’re talking about!” I plead.

  Sarah groans in aggravation. “Enough! Enough of this nonsense. He dies.” She walks toward the desk for the gun.

  “Quinn,” says Nick, suddenly still. “It’s okay. Look at me.” I comply, stunned by how calm he is, how resigned, as if there’s no use fighting it anymore. That blank look on his face a moment ago is gone. His heart is in his eyes now, a heart that’s entirely mine. “I love you. So much. And even if you can’t say it back, I know you love me too.”

  Love. It’s what holds Nick calm right now, in the face of his own death, worried about me instead of himself. It’s what led him to give up everything to try to save me. And yes, it leads to bad things too—our tenant murdering his wife in a fit of jealous rage. Me accidentally killing Ryan simply because I wanted to prevent a kiss, a stupid fight. But ultimately, it’s a beautiful thing, enabling the weakest of us to transcend our fear and our failings and our desires on behalf of someone else. And I never wanted to open myself up to it, not with him, because I knew it would lead me to this moment—the one in which the door I held so tightly, only letting a tiny bit of air come through, finally swings open. Love for him rushes in, brilliant and painful at once.

  But something deadly is there too—and after way too many years, I’m finally able to welcome it. “I love you,” I whisper. “And I’m not going to let you die.”

  My eyes go to Sarah, to the knife on her desk. I focus so hard that my brain shrieks in response, black oozing into the corners of my vision. But I do not let it go. I stare at the desk while she cocks the gun and points it at Nick’s head.

  There is a rush of air. Darkness flecked with tiny pinpoints of light. I ignore all of it and focus: the knife on the desk, the knife on the desk. I picture it in my head until it no longer seems like a picture, until it is real.

  And I land. Free of the shackles, naked, on the floor behind Sarah. My brain begs for mercy, and I want to curl up in a ball at the pain, but I force myself forward to the desk, grabbing the knife. I don’t know how far back I’ve gone, but when I glance at the wall I realize Nick isn’t here yet. Which means there’s one last thing I need to do in order to save him.

  My vision narrows to only a pinpoint of light. I am half here and half in the place I go when I collapse, that land of darkness and absence. Sarah turns toward me just as I hear the door upstairs creak open. There is no time to think, to argue. I lunge, tackling her, with the knife in my hands. Her hands surround mine, and together we drive the knife into her chest. It hits bone first and then sinks in easily as we both fall to the ground.

  My vision is gone, but I hear her speaking to me. “Good girl,” she whispers. “You finally did it.”

  There’s a question on my lips but it washes away along with everything else. I no longer hear Nick upstairs. I no longer see. The floor was cold a moment before and now it’s…nothing.

  I give into it, the inky blackness, and the pain begins to ease as night sweeps through my veins. Nick, I think, just before the blackness obliterates thought. I found you before. I will find you again.

  32

  QUINN

  It’s just after 4:00 a.m. when my mother calls.

  She knows London is six hours ahead. She wouldn’t call right now unless it was an emergency.

  Despite that, I don’t want to pick up the phone. Over the past months I’ve been remembering so many things from a life with Nick that isn’t this one. Warnings. I’m not sure what happened, but I know she tried to keep us apart somehow, and I know the pregnancy is why. That’s why I’ve kept it a secret this time.

  “What have you done?” she asks. She sounds as if she’s been crying.

  She knows. Why did I think we could hide this from her? I press my hand to my stomach. The twins are so big I can no longer see my feet when I look down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply coolly.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Your twins visited me, Quinn,” she says. “I know everything. And I know they’re born a month from now.”

  My twins time travel. Which means if the Rule of Threes she’s harped on forever is real, one of us will die, and it will probably be me since my spark has faded.

  “Did you know?” I whisper. “Is this why you always pushed me so hard to time travel?” In my entire life it’s the only thing we ever really fought over. She’s begged and argued for well over a decade, but I always sensed a danger in it I couldn’t put into words. Maybe the danger was what I did to Ryan in that other life I remember. Or maybe the danger is that when I give birth to twins, it will kill either my mother or myself—and I couldn’t let it be her.

  “Yes,” she admits. “I’m sure you’ve figured out by now this isn’t the first time we’ve been through this. You and Nick grew up together, until I changed things, and you got pregnant in high school. I did the only thing I could to save you.”

  I rest my hand on my stomach. I already love my daughters. It’s far too late for her to convince me to take it all back. “Leave me alone. It’s my life and you have no right to decide how I spend it.”

  “I’m your mother. Do you really think I’m going to just let you die? I’ll reset your timeline and we’ll try it again.”

  I remember this panic. It’s what I felt in that dream, the one where I was standing outside
a convenience store, talking to her on the phone. Looking at Nick inside and knowing we were going to be torn apart. Except it wasn’t a dream, it really happened. And she really did exactly what she threatened to do.

  “You will fail again,” I tell her. “No matter how many times you try to keep me from Nick, I’m going to find him.”

  I hear the sound of something shattering. She’s breaking pottery, which is what she does only when she’s at her angriest. “Your love for him is your Achilles heel. You won’t act on your own behalf, but for him there’s no depth to which you won’t sink. And don’t think I won’t use that to my advantage.”

  I stop breathing. “Use it how?”

  “By making you take my spark,” she replies calmly.

  I sink onto the bed. “You can’t make me do that.”

  Her voice is steady now, determined. “Of course I can. I’d just have to convince you to kill me.”

  33

  QUINN

  I’m cold.

  Ice pricks the surface of my skin, pins and needles that begin at my neck and work their way down my arms. A hand is holding mine, and then I find it pressed to something wet and warm. Sound then…the gurgle of strained breathing.

  “Good girl,” a voice whispers. “Good girl. You finally did it.” She sounds as if she is proud of me, like I’m a child who’s taken her first steps.