“Next year.” I leaned back to look at him. “You want to be kissing me next year?”
“Yes.” Straight and true. “But you have to be here.”
“You think there’s a chance I won’t be?”
When he didn’t answer, I pushed away from him to go to the window. To calm my breathing. So I didn’t have to see the truth on his face.
“You aren’t the only one who loses if this situation goes wrong,” he said. “I didn’t see you coming, and then you were there, and now … you’re everywhere.”
“I never wanted to belong to someone.” After Benny, I never wanted to risk loss like that again.
“You belong to yourself, Hal. More than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“But I—I need you.”
“You don’t think I need you?” he asked.
I turned around to face him.
“I didn’t come to New Orleans looking for this. I was trying to do a job, to carry my weight for the Hourglass. But now I’ve come to believe that my place is with you.”
“Dune—”
“I’m going to be with you until we fix this. And I want to be with you after that.” His shoulders raised and lowered. “All I need to know is what you want, and you don’t have to tell me now, okay?”
“I already know,” I said, crossing the room to him. “It’s you.”
Dune
Decorative pillows littered Hallie’s bedroom floor the way confetti littered the city at Mardi Gras. At least the Mardi Gras I’d seen.
“How long do you think we can hold Mom off once she gets out of the rip?” Hallie tucked her head in the crook of my shoulder.
Her hair was a mess again, and I realized how much I loved her like that. Breathless and ravished. Thanks to me.
“Since I’m assuming that at least half your determination comes from your mom, I don’t expect her to take too long.” I kissed her soundly and started picking up the cushions, tossing them to her one by one. “Hopefully, she thinks it’s just you and me without backup. We need an advantage.”
“I’m not sure she’s anticipating a team of X-Men, but who knows?” She caught a pillow right in front of her face, and then peeked out from behind it, grinning. “Is Liam Ballard bald?”
“No, actually, but he’s still more Professor X than Magneto.”
“Speaking of hair,” she said, “yours is a mess.”
I looked in the mirror. I had enough hair for it to be a mess. “What day is it?”
“December tenth.”
Christmas was a couple of weeks away. I felt like I’d known Hallie for years, but it wasn’t enough. She stepped up beside me, and we looked at our side-by-side reflection. My skin was tan, hers was pale. We both had light eyes and dark hair, but her features were delicate. Mine were big and broad.
“I like the way we look,” she said, meeting my eyes.
“I concur.”
“I’ve been waiting to give you my Christmas wish list, and I think this is the perfect time.”
“Because we have the opportunity to shop right now?” I faced her, smoothed her messy hair. “Kidding. Spring it on me.”
“Spend Christmas here. With me. That’s all. That’s the only thing I want.”
The statement was reminiscent of what she’d said to me on the stairs the day she’d threatened to get me fired. Forever ago. “I thought the only thing you wanted was to know my name.”
The kiss she gave me was sweet. “I knew you’d catch that.”
A knock interrupted the moment. Hallie opened the door to Michael and Em. They both looked serious.
“Any word on Teague?” Michael asked. His eyes widened, like he was trying to communicate something silently.
“Not yet,” Hallie said, looking back and forth between us, pulling her hair into a knot on top of her head.
“Hallie, can I borrow you for a second?” Emerson asked. “I wanted … I needed you to …”
“Talk to me alone so that Michael will stop doing the eyebrow-raise thing, and he and Dune can have a private conversation?” Hallie asked.
Em let out a sigh. “Thank you.”
Grinning, Hallie stood on her tiptoes to kiss me. I gave her one last squeeze. Michael followed me downstairs to the living room.
“Sit.” I gestured toward the couch.
He rubbed his hand over his face. “I’ve been reading through the Infinityglass research, the part you told me to focus on. I talked to Liam, too. This isn’t a sit-down conversation.”
I disagreed. Michael was pacing, and it made my stomach threaten an out-of-body experience. I sat.
“If you follow it to its logical conclusion, transmutation is about cell regeneration. Regeneration, making things new. Renewal. Fixing what’s broken.”
“I understand the definition. Hallie does, too.”
Being a smart-ass wasn’t in my wheelhouse, so Michael let the comment go. “Regeneration, especially if it happens that fast, could heal the continuum.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I believe Hallie could heal the continuum.”
“You think she has enough power to do that?” I heard the strain in my own voice, felt the kick in my gut.
“If the rips continue to possess her and she continues to fight them, she’ll eventually burn out.” He shoved his hands in his back pockets. “The Skroll info proves the Infinityglass was never meant to bear a load like this. Healing individual rips could’ve been manageable, possibly her purpose. Crowds of them, no. Entire rip worlds, no.”
His words echoed in my head.
“I agree with your theory. They possess her because they want to live through her,” he continued. “But they want more than that. They want her to fix them.”
I stared at him as things from the Skroll shuffled into place. Information I hadn’t understood in the context of an object. “The amount of regenerated cells she produces could heal the rifts in the continuum.”
“Only if she’s inside it.” Michael’s eyes clouded with concern. “The rips are multiplying; their worlds are taking over. Time is ripping apart around us, Dune, and Hallie might be the only one who can repair it.”
She could repair it.
But could she survive it?
Chapter 21
Hallie
“I am super awkward at social situations in general, and there’s some major stuff going down, so I’m not going to hold to any sort of societal standard, and I’m just going to pretend like we’ve known each other long enough to say what’s on our mind, and I hope that’s okay.” Emerson blurted all of this out in the ten seconds after the door shut behind her.
“You are intense.” Maybe she was overcompensating for height, like Napoleon and his complex.
“I am.”
“And you aren’t apologizing for it. I really, really admire that.” My phone buzzed an alert. I was supposed to have called Dad, but got distracted by Dune. “Crap.”
“Everything okay?” Emerson asked, and then she covered her mouth with one hand. “I mean, obviously, everything isn’t okay. I was referring to the ‘crap.’ That you said. When you said, ‘crap.’ ”
I laughed, deep and long, and realized I hadn’t in a while. “I’m kind of wondering where you’ve been all my life.”
“Um, committed. At least for part of it.” Emerson frowned. “That sounds scary, out of context.”
This girl was so authentic she probably had a trademark stamped on her ass.
“So explain it. And do you mind if I stretch? I get antsy after the possessions.” Talk about things that sounded scary out of context.
“Go for it.” She sat down on the edge of my bed, and I sat down on the floor and started with my hamstrings. I moved through two sets of stretches, but she wasn’t talking.
“I can stretch and listen at the same time.” I rested my forehead on my knees.
“Right. It’s just, wow. You are really … bendy.”
“That’s what three dance classes a
week will do for you. Usually, anyway. It’s been a busy week.” I shot her a look and felt very gratified when she laughed. “On with the story.”
“My parents died in an accident. To keep it short, I’ve existed in two time lines. One involves me being burned horribly in over forty percent of my body. Skin grafts to my back. Medications. Pain. Debilitating depression to the point of institutionalization.” She cleared her throat. “And then there’s the time line where Jack Landers screwed with my life.”
“I thought Jack took memories and then ran around trying to find out how to be all-powerful by using them against people.”
I stretched my neck to the right and then to the left.
“He might sound small-time, but he’s not. Jack’s time line saved me from the accident, but it was so he could use me. For his nefarious purposes.” Forced humor distorted her voice. “Nothing like owing your life to a madman.”
I stopped stretching. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize, Hallie, please. I didn’t explain for sympathy; I just like people to know where I’m coming from. Keeps things from getting complicated.”
“Do you still struggle with the depression?”
“It’s manageable,” she confessed. “But I have bad days.”
“Since we’re being honest.” I took the opportunity to lighten things up by morphing my features. First into Lily’s and then into Emerson’s, before restoring my own.
“I just saw … my face … on your face. I might … need to go throw up.”
I laughed. “I promise to never do it again. I’m just saying that I want people to know where I’m coming from, too.”
“We were all shocked when we found out you and Dune were … um, whatever it is that you are.” She took that moment to focus on a pair of Dune’s jeans on my floor.
“Uh … yeah.” I looked up at my ceiling fan.
“Right. Okay. Well. Good, then.” She cleared her throat. “I like you, and I can see why he likes you, too. He’s always been kind and smart, but, Hallie, he’s a different person around you.”
“I didn’t think good relationships were supposed to change people.” I’d never seen one make a person better. Not before I’d met the Hourglass crew.
“Who told you that? That’s their purpose. You make him strong.” She lifted her chin. “Michael does that for me.”
“What was Dune like before?” I’d been dying to ask someone, and Emerson was too honest not to dish.
“A lot like he is now, but less … in control. It’s not that he was out of control at the Hourglass—there just weren’t a lot of opportunities for him to lead. He seems older now.”
“Michael does the leading in Ivy Springs?”
“Yup.” She smiled, and I recognized pride. “He’s good at it.”
“My life has been pretty sheltered. I’ve had to learn how to be strong on my own. Dune is like … a partner. He makes it easier for me to just be.”
“How?”
I frowned.
“You don’t have to explain, unless you want to.”
I couldn’t stop my smile. “I think I do.”
“Well, then.” She dropped down onto the floor and folded her legs into a pretzel shape. “Tell me all about it.”
“It was fun at first, teasing him. But he handled it, and I barely shook him. Well, maybe I did that time I almost flashed him.”
Emerson’s jaw dropped a little.
“I’d only known him for a week, so … anyway. No one’s ever been able to keep up with me. No one’s tried. Then there was Dune, and all that—presence—and then he’s so sweet, especially his—”
“Eyes! I know.” Emerson grinned. “But don’t tell Michael I know.”
“Our secret.” I grinned back at her. I could get used to a girlfriend. “He doesn’t make any demands on me. He listens, pays attention to what I’m actually saying, and responds to that. He’s amazing.”
She had a smug look on her face. “I knew it. I even told Michael.”
“Told him what?”
“This is the real thing.”
I didn’t know what to say to that or whether to address it at all, so I changed the subject. “What did Michael want to talk to Dune about?”
Em’s smugness disappeared. “He found something on the Skroll. He wouldn’t tell me what.”
“That means it’s serious,” I said.
“Probably.”
“Then I say it’s time we crash the party.”
Dune
Hallie and Em had just come downstairs when Kaleb and Lily entered through the kitchen. They all found seats and looked at me.
“What’s going on?” Hallie asked as she looked around. “Must be pretty big if we’re about to have a group conversation.”
“It’s a group problem.” I didn’t waste any time. “It’s about the rip situation, and the fact that every time you’re possessed, you’re cycling through an enormous number of cells.”
“Supernatural exfoliation. It’s really great for the complexion,” Hallie deadpanned. She went pale when no one even cracked a smile. “Okay. Why does this nugget of information require a powwow?”
“All the energy from the cells you create is the same thing that allows you to close the rifts in time. That energy could transfer to the space time continuum. We think you can heal it.”
“I’m all in. What do I have to do?” Hallie asked.
I wished I could let the hope shining on her face last for more than thirty seconds. “It’s not that simple. So far, you’ve managed to close the rips while you were outside them.”
Anxiety clouded her expression again in the shape of a frown. “I have to go inside a rip to close it.”
“We don’t know anything for certain,” I explained. “We don’t even know if it will work.”
“But it could.” She sat on the edge of the coffee table. “If I had the power to undo all the damage that’s been done, the rip worlds would go away.”
Michael nodded. “That’s what we think.”
Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Poe swung into the living room holding a notebook, stopping in front of Hallie, his face haggard. “It’s my fault. I’m the one who activated you.”
“What are you talking about?” She stood and reached for Poe’s arm. “Sit down. You look terrible.”
“I finally found the answer on the Skroll.” He shook her off and kept talking. “At first, I thought something we stole kicked you off. Something you’d touched on a job or even someplace we’d been. But it was me. I did it. The night I pulled you into the veil and teleported you.”
“You teleported Hallie?” I asked.
“No one is supposed to go in veils but time travelers and teleporters.” Kaleb was talking to Poe without meeting his eyes. No love lost between those two.
“It was a do-or-die situation.” Poe didn’t look at him either. He didn’t look at anyone but Hallie. “And my fault.”
“Stop,” Hallie said.
Kaleb wasn’t going to let it go. “You never told us what your exotic matter source is. You have to have it to open veils. How are you teleporting yourself or anyone else?”
“I create my own exotic matter.”
“Can other people use it, too?” Emerson asked. “Like, say, time travelers?”
Dead quiet descended on the room. Cat Rooks, Hourglass’s source of exotic matter, had betrayed us. No one with the time travel skill had been able to use it since she walked out.
“I think they can.” Poe’s attention shifted from Hallie to Emerson, and then to Michael.
Michael nodded, and Emerson took his hand.
From the way Kaleb looked at Poe, he’d discovered some affection for him. “The night you killed Emerson, I couldn’t get a pinky toe into the veil. It was as hard as a rock.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Hallie stared at Kaleb as if he’d claimed his life goal was to be a princess.
“Oh.” Em waved her hands at Hallie like it w
as no big deal. “There was this time that Poe killed me, but it totally didn’t stick, and we’ve worked it out. So. Don’t worry about it.”
Hallie’s eyes were wide. “I’m worried.”
“I wasn’t operating under my own volition.” Poe’s face went dark, shuttering any emotion.
“He’s apologized, numerous times.” Em smiled at him. “Then after that, he saved me and Michael.”
“It’s not like I’m a hero,” Poe said, but his expression lightened. “But I hope I’ve found another way to make it up to you both.”
“You’re a hero to us, Poe.” Hallie looked at Poe until he met her eyes. “Always will be.”
“I hate to ruin the moment, but can we bring the focus back around to Hallie?” I waited until I had everyone’s attention. “Poe managed to pull you in, and you survived.”
“Because of her regeneration ability,” Poe said. “Has to be.”
“I was so sick that night,” Hallie said, her gaze intensifying. “I came out on the other side, couldn’t hear or see, and I kept throwing up. That was the night I saw a rip for the first time, but Poe saw it, too, so I didn’t suspect anything or connect the dots. The next day was when my regeneration went into overdrive.”
“I’m so sorry, Hallie.” Poe stared at her, and the darkness was back.
“Do not apologize to me, or blame yourself for this.”
“But—”
“But shut up.” She grabbed Poe’s shoulders and leaned in close. “You aren’t responsible. Did you do it on purpose?”
Poe shook his head.
Hallie squeezed him before letting go and facing the group, hands on hips, chin angled out. “It wasn’t Poe’s fault.”
“We agree with you, Hallie,” Michael said quietly.
“That’s it. That’s the answer.” My brain spun so fast my vision was blurry. I sat down to get my bearings and to take control of the hope in my chest. “If the veil was the stressor that set Hallie off, then Poe could pull Teague into a veil and set off her activation.”
“How do you feel about that?” Emerson asked Hallie, in a soft voice.
“If we did it on purpose?” Emotions raced across Hallie’s face. “It doesn’t make me any different from her. She created me as a tool, and now my ticket out is using her as one?”
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