I let time loose as I kneel to retrieve the computer mouse. The underside of the desk is as dark as a cave, and it takes three tries before my shaking fingers manage to close around the hunk of plastic. Maybe his email address is in a sent-mail file. Aren’t there sent files? I’m sure I’ve heard someone talk about those. Crawling out from under the desk requires an uncomfortable, backward squirm. The carpet scratches my palms. It must be new, because it has a weird chemical smell that even the burnt stink can’t completely cover up.
Heat brushes my skin, a flash of warning I recognize at the same instant that a hand closes on the back of my neck. I scream. The grip on my neck tightens.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The voice—male and very angry—rings through the empty office. My mind lunges for time, then hesitates on its brink. The man’s hand is flat against the skin of my neck. If I freeze, he’ll come with me.
Sweat traces a path down the side of my rib cage. I twist my head. Just past my shoulder stand a pair of large black running shoes.
The man shakes my neck, knocking my head against the hard wood of the desk.
“I asked you a question,” he says.
The space under the desk turns claustrophobic, the sides pressing closer together.
“Please,” I squeak. “Don’t.”
The shaking stops, which doesn’t make the space I’m jammed in feel any less threatening, nor my brain any more focused. Why didn’t I ask Jack to come with me? The man drags me to my feet, slowly, without letting go of my neck. I stand on wobbly legs, blinking in the harsh office light. The closed office door, the only thing I can see in front of me, undulates beneath the press of my fear.
Think. I need to think. The man’s grip is inescapably tight. I can feel each separate finger digging into my flesh. Time—my only weapon is time. If I can shock him with its sudden absence, even for a split second, it might be enough to break his hold. I yank the world to a stop, and at the same moment, twist my body away from his.
The man’s hand remains soldered to my neck. His body follows my movement, leaning over me as I rotate forward so that he ends up curled over my back. I squeeze my eyes shut. Let go. Please. Just. Let. Go.
The man laughs.
“I guess that explains how you appeared here so suddenly.”
My heart, galloping a second ago, stops in my chest. I know that voice. I’ve talked to him before. My captor is Matt Thompson, which means my captor is Sikes.
My legs turn liquid. All my theoretical heroism about warning a fellow spinner pales under the grip of this very real man. KJ’s warnings strangle my tongue. Sikes is dangerous. A murderer.
Sikes grabs my bare wrist and straightens up. He takes his other hand off my neck and wraps that arm around me, pressing my back against his stomach and pinning my arms to my sides. I squirm. He’s taller than I am and much stronger. My efforts are useless.
“Hold still,” he mutters. Adjusting his hold so he has one hand free, while still maintaining contact with my skin, he opens one of the desk’s drawers. I crane my neck. The drawer is deep. Sikes’s arm is partially buried as he digs around the bottom. What’s in there? A knife? A gun? Only Sikes’s rough grip keeps me from melting onto the floor.
Sikes’s arm slides out of the drawer holding a metal band, hinged in the middle, so it hangs like an open jaw. It isn’t a gun, or a knife. Sikes is smarter than that. A leash won’t hurt me, only render me powerless.
The cool metal touches my skin, instantly sending a low-level buzzing into my brain. Time wrenches away from me, leaping back into its recently abandoned groove. Sikes lets go of my arm. Even knowing it’s impossible, I try to take time back. The effort is as useless as trying to find a handhold on an infinite glass wall.
“Sit,” Sikes orders.
I turn around. The man facing me is average height, white, and clean shaven, with dark hair clipped tidily short. He points to the desk chair, and I sink into it. There’s no point in trying to run. Sikes could overpower me before I so much as tensed a muscle. Or he could stop time and I would freeze like everyone else. When time resumed, I could be anywhere, most likely bleeding my life out in some deserted hiding place where no one would find my body for days.
Sikes perches on the desk in front of me and places one foot on each arm of the chair, creating a sort of cage with his body and the chair.
“I’ve seen you before,” he says.
I nod. Fear mingled with the buzz of the leash has turned my thoughts into mush. Sikes’s eyes narrow.
“You said you were a high school kid who wanted an interview,” he says, referring to the cover story I made up so Ross had time to finish searching his office. “I knew there was something sketchy about you.”
My tongue feels like it’s glued to the roof of my mouth. It takes all my effort to force it to shape words.
“I came here to warn you,” I say. “The police are coming to arrest you. They know you’re Sikes.”
The man’s expression barely flickers. “Don’t lie to me. You think I can’t figure out who you are? You’re Alexandra Manning, Carson Ross’s tame spinner.”
I shake my head. “I don’t work for Ross anymore.”
“Come on.” Sikes gives a disgusted snort. “Jeffrey Barnard might be naïve enough to believe Ross when he says he had nothing to do with your disappearance, but you and I both know you couldn’t have gotten out of the Center without help.”
I shake my head harder. It’s stupid and pointless, but for some reason, I can’t stand to have anyone, even my probable killer, think that I am being controlled by Ross.
“I left the Center to get away from Ross. And from Barnard. He was going to put me back on Aclisote.”
“You’re not taking any Aclisote?”
I pull at the leash. If only the buzzing would stop, so I could think clearly. “Of course not.”
Sikes’s eyebrows rise. “That’s not good.”
Why is he playing this game when we both know he knows everything? He’s obviously a spinner; the office door didn’t open before he appeared behind me. Anger shoots through my fear, and I straighten in the leather chair.
“Why have you never done anything to stop the CIC?”
“Me?” Sikes sounds genuinely surprised. “Why would I stop them?”
“Because you’re one of us!”
“One of…?” Sikes blinks. “I’m not a spinner.”
My head throbs. “Yes, you are. You couldn’t have done all those robberies without stopping time.”
“I’m not a spinner,” Sikes repeats. He holds out a hand to me. “You can feel when someone has it, right? Try me.”
I stare at the proffered hand. It’s pale and large, each finger as thick as two of my own. Sikes waggles his hand impatiently. I grasp it, then reach out for time. The solid wall of the leash’s resistance meets my searching mind, but there is no answering pull coming from the hand resting in my own. Sikes is telling the truth.
“If you’re not a spinner,” I ask, “how did you get into the office just now?”
Sikes frowns. “I’ve been in the office the whole time.”
“You…” I turn my head, searching for the hiding place I must have missed. The door to the bar is still closed, the bookcases are flush against the walls, the storage room…my search ends. The inner door is wide open, revealing a gleaming executive bathroom.
All the facts I thought I knew scatter like so many piles of debris. I reach for time and once more fail to detect any answering pulse from Sikes’s limp hand.
“You have to be a spinner,” I say. “It’s the only way your crimes make sense.”
“Aren’t you the clever one.” Sikes drops my hand and stands up, no longer bothering to guard me in my chair. “Did you figure that out yourself, or did your pal Ross clue you in?”
�
�I did.”
“Huh.” Sikes picks up one of the stacks of paper scattered across his desk and fans the sheets in his hand. “Well, it was a good gig, but now it’s over. Time for me to move on to new adventures somewhere far, far away.”
The papers scatter as Sikes tosses them into one of the boxes on the floor, the pages an unintelligible riot of words and numbers. I stare down into the mess. Just beyond the leash’s smothering buzz, understanding whispers a terrible truth.
“You’re not a spinner.” The next question takes effort. “But you know one, don’t you?”
“I used to.”
“Who?”
Sikes straightens. The eyes that meet mine burn. “His name was Austin Shea.”
The room tilts. All the fancy furniture lists to one side, as if the whole building has been caught on the swell of a giant wave. I clutch the arms of the leather chair to keep from falling over.
“Austin Shea was a spinner?”
“That’s right.” Sikes picks up another stack from his desk and starts flipping through it. “I might not be out there helping every pathetic kid locked up in the Center, but I did save one spinner. He was homeless and semi-crazy when I found him, with no idea how to control his skills. I helped him.”
“You used him.”
“I gave the guy a nice life.” Sikes puts down the paper. “He might not have loved the work, but he was grateful. We were a team.”
A team. Sikes and Shea. I had my facts right—I just had their roles reversed. Ross knew. He’d told me that Shea was vital to Sikes’s operation. I just hadn’t understood what he meant.
“We killed him,” I say. The words come out softly, the air barely able to squeeze past the lump in my throat. “I killed a spinner.”
Something flashes in Sikes’s eyes, a spark of anger—or maybe hurt—so deep I have to look away. Sikes squats down by the paper shredder and starts shoving handfuls of files into its vicious maw. The engine hums as the sheets dissolve into tatters.
“Not exactly doing your part to save your fellow spinners, either, are you?” he says.
I killed a spinner. The memory of Austin Shea lying in his moonlit bedroom returns to me, as clear as the night it happened. He’d been sleeping so peacefully. I picture his silken sheets. His gaping throat. All those pints of blood frozen in his veins, waiting for the release of a single heartbeat.
Sikes shoves more papers into the shredder. The buzzing in my head sharpens into pain.
“Why did you come here?” Sikes asks.
“I told you.” I see no reason to lie. “Ross and I searched your office, and so I called in a tip to the hotline telling them who you were. But then I thought you must be a spinner, so I decided to warn you.”
“How noble of you.” Sikes points to the scorched safe. “Too bad someone already did me that favor.”
“That wasn’t you?” I ask.
“Not me.” Sikes’s laugh is hollow. “There were things in there I wanted to keep.”
The stolen painting—priceless sunflowers daubed on a piece of canvas—dances in front of my eyes. It’s completely destroyed. Who would have done that? I claw at the leash’s immobile clasp.
“Let me go,” I say.
Sikes looks up. “Why should I?”
“You owe us!” My voice sounds shrill, and I struggle to control it. “Everything you stole—the money, the painting, all of it—you got because of a spinner. It’s only fair that you do something for us in return.”
The shredder’s noisy hum stops. “I owe you?” Sikes rocks back on his heels, his expression cold. “You’re the person who not only killed my spinner but also just admitted to turning me in to the cops. I’d say, if anything, you owe me.”
Tears burn in my eyes. “I was just trying to do the right thing.”
“You can tell that to Dr. Barnard when he comes here to get you after my anonymous call.”
I twist my arm inside the confines of the leash.
“Please,” I beg.
A loud banging sound interrupts my appeal. Sikes’s head swivels toward the noise.
“Police!” a voice shouts. Another bang. “Open up!”
Sikes is on his feet in an instant, his face so close to mine I can feel his breath against my cheek.
“What did you tell them?” he hisses.
My mouth goes dry. “The safe,” I whisper. “I told them about the painting. That’s all.”
“Do not attempt to leave the premises,” the voice at the door shouts. “I have a time search warrant.”
Sikes grabs my arm. His head whips toward the empty safe, then at his computer. The hand circling my wrist tightens. He yanks me out of the chair and holds my body against himself like a shield. I can tell he’s weighing his options. Desperate options. None of which will end well for me.
“Let me go,” I squeak. “The evidence is gone. They can’t arrest you.”
“There’s more evidence to find if they get suspicious and start digging,” he mutters. “And once they see I’m packing, they’ll think the same thing you did—that I’m the one that burnt the safe, or ordered someone to.”
From the front of the bar comes the unmistakable crash of breaking glass. Sikes hooks his arm around my neck, the inside of his elbow crushing my windpipe.
“Here is what is going to happen.” His voice rumbles in my ear like the growl of a cornered beast. “I am going to take off your leash, and then you are going to freeze time.” The pressure on my windpipe increases. My face feels like it’s expanding with the blood that can no longer pass through my neck. “Do you understand?” Sikes asks.
Tiny stars dazzle my eyes. Wheezes scratch at my throat. The light in the office is fading. I claw at Sikes’s arm. “Yes,” I mouth. “Yes.”
Footsteps crunch over broken glass. Sikes’s grip loosens. The leash falls from my arm. I draw in a life-affirming lungful of air and reach out for the time strands.
The steps outside stop. The pressure on my neck releases. I lean over, sucking in deep gasping breaths. Sikes’s other hand clenches my arm more tightly than any leash.
“Let’s go,” he says.
I stumble beside him as he drags me from the office. Two frozen police officers are striding across the bar toward us. Both have their guns out. Sikes leads us in a wide circle around them. Glass glints on the beer-soaked floor. Outside, three cop cars block the street.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Sikes says. “You’ll be in as much trouble as I will if they see you now. We need to get at least ten blocks away before you let time go.”
We head to the right, toward the river and downtown. The police cars hunker on the street beside us, their blue-and-white shapes somehow both familiar and terrifying. Two are empty. The third…my steps falter. In the driver’s seat of the third car sits a time agent, Tito Marquez, and in the back, where normally a prisoner would be, is Raul.
My feet seem to have grown roots. I remember Raul at eleven, telling the teacher in our Youngers classroom that he would only read books about dinosaurs because extinct animals deserve to be remembered. Raul announcing to Yolly that he was a vegan because Jack convinced him VEGAN was an acronym for Very Expensive Groceries and Nutrition. Raul nailing his signature twisting basketball dunk, the one I could never block even when I saw it coming.
Sikes yanks on my arm. “Come on, hurry up.”
I lunge for the cop car. Sikes stumbles after me, presumably too surprised by my sudden change in direction to resist.
“Where are you going?” he demands.
I grab the handle of the police car. It’s locked. “I have to help him.”
“This is not the time for a rescue.” Sikes’s voice is sharp.
The front door is also locked. I bang my fist against the window. Raul’s head is turned to watch the police as they force their way inside Tom’s
Bar, his expression mildly curious. How can I be so close yet still unable to reach him?
“You’re not going to get him out,” Sikes says.
“I have to.” The tears are back, blurring my vision.
“You’re not. Look.” He points inside the car. I lean forward to follow his finger, pressing my face against the glass to see through the reflection. It takes me a second to understand what Sikes means. One of Raul’s arms rests on a bar that runs along the partition separating him from Agent Marquez. Above the expected leash banding his wrist is a second, thinner band—handcuffs. I catch my breath. Raul is handcuffed to a rail in the back of the car.
“Why would they do that?” I ask.
“Because Barnard knows what you can do, and he knows that you’re out here. They’re taking precautions.”
I bang the glass again. “We’ll hide somewhere and wait until they let him out.”
“Why would they let him out?” Sikes pulls on my arm again. “You don’t have to be in the room to do a rewind.”
I strain away from Sikes and smack the glass until my hand stings. I raise my foot and kick it as hard as I can against the car’s door. I don’t even dent it.
“That’s enough.” Sikes grabs my other arm above the elbow and pulls me away from the car. “Save your energy for the freeze.”
I struggle against him, even though I know it’s hopeless. He’s too strong, and Raul is too trapped. Agent Marquez holds the keys to both the car and the handcuffs, and I am quite sure Barnard’s new “precautions” will require the agent to stay locked in the car until time stops. Sobs choke me. Sikes frog-marches me down the sidewalk, and after a few minutes, I give up fighting. I let him lead, trailing behind him like a reluctant child. Gray pavement passes under my feet, block after block.
Branches brush my face. We’ve walked all the way to the river, near the esplanade that follows the east bank, and Sikes is dragging me deep into some bushes that grow between the pedestrian walkway and a partially filled parking lot.
“We’re far enough,” he says. “You can let time go.”
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