Rift (Rift Walkers #1)

by Elana Johnson

  “Among other things,” she says. “And people pay a lot of money for that.”

  “They pay for what, exactly?” I squint at her, trying to see if there’s more to her than I’ve imagined. She shrugs and turns away from me, effectively hiding her expression. I still see the muscle working in her jaw.

  I don’t want to drop the subject, but I need Cascade to get back to my own reality. I look down the street, wondering if I should push her for more information. Clearly, she knows more than she’s said—and she’s more than she’s let on. She’s already admitted that she’s only used the rifts, which means she’s—

  “Crap,” I say, twisting back to Cascade.

  “I see them.” She reaches for me at the same time I reach for her and then we’re running back toward the house. The sidewalk isn’t busy in this quiet neighborhood. The two men wearing foil jackets—Hood-issued jackets—are painfully obvious. I have no idea what they’ll do if they catch us here. Will they make us stay? Abandoning me in a time period that’s not my own seems infinitely worse than being interrogated, beaten, or incarcerated.

  We round the corner to see a green auto pulling out of the driveway of my house. Saige’s house, I tell myself. Not mine.

  Cascade yells and I wave my free hand. Saige stops the auto and we spill into the backseat. “Go,” Cascade gasps.

  “Where?” Saige asks, gaping at the lights embedded into Cascade’s face.

  “Anywhere. Just go!”

  The two men turn the corner as Saige presses the gas pedal to the floor.

  “In four hundred feet, turn right onto Carter Boulevard.” The robotic voice on the GPS directs Saige. She’s asked me several questions on the way into the city—Can everyone see the rift? Why not? I hadn’t known the answer to that, but Cascade said, “Rifts aren’t exactly visible to everyone. Usually, once you’ve been exposed to the influx of energy, you’ll be able to see it.”

  “So now that Sarah Jane—” Saige had glanced at her friend in the front seat— “has…been exposed, she’ll be able to see it all the time?”

  “Most likely,” Cas answered.

  “How did you know my phone number?” she’d asked. Again, I’d let Cascade take the lead on that, since I hadn’t really known what a phone number was until today.

  Cascade had looked at me while she spoke, her jaw muscle jumping like she was beyond angry to be providing the answers. The first time I’d seen that muscle twitch, I’d found it sexy and humorous. Of course, Heath had been on the receiving end of Cascade’s wrath, and we’d been eating in a noisy diner during social time.

  “I try to make sure I have help in certain time periods,” she had told Saige. “You seemed like the best bet.”

  She’s saying she’s familiar with rifts, that much is certain. She’s adept to rift-walking. She has backpacks stored in other time periods, and she has contact numbers for “help” if she needs it.

  Cascade is a rift-walker. I can’t get the thought out of my head, because I know it’s true. My stomach swoops as Saige completes the turn onto Carter Boulevard. I think of the conversation I had with Heath just last night, of the punishments Cooper—and his family—is enduring. I don’t want those to land on Cascade. I wonder what made her so desperate that she’d turn to rift-walking as the solution.

  The city feels outdated and slow. The auto unsettles me. The buildings in the city proper aren’t tall enough, and there’s vehicle and foot traffic alike.

  “Turn right onto Jasper Avenue,” the GPS directs.

  Saige successfully navigates onto Jasper, and I imagine the building that stands on this block in 2073—the Time Bureau.

  Cascade leans forward. The hem of her jacket hikes up, revealing a thin strip of skin just above her waistband. I lick my lips before tearing my eyes away. I nudge forward too, so I can hear what she says.

  “It’s just up here, on the right,” she says.

  The robot-woman on the GPS confirms what she says, and Saige drifts to a stop next to a curb. Cascade pinches a folded piece of paper and holds it toward Saige, who takes it, her eyes glued to Cas’s f-pat.

  “What is that thing?” she asks, but her voice is timid, small. Cascade’s f-pat is dancing with distracting lights that Saige can’t look away from. Even I think this particular pattern is crazy.

  “Thanks for the ride.” Cascade ignores the question as she opens the door and slides out, leaving me to scamper across the bench seat in pursuit.

  “Price?” Saige says, still pinching the note like it might bite her.

  I pause, halfway in the auto and halfway out. “Yeah?”

  “Who is she?” She looks at Cascade with obvious confusion.

  “She’s….” I don’t know how to answer. “She’s Cascade Kaufman.” That’s the only explanation I have.

  “Where are you going now?” Saige asks.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Thanks, Saige.” I close the door behind me with Saige’s questions still burning in my ears. It bothers me that I don’t know how to answer them.

  Cascade motions to me from the doorway of a building halfway down the block. I run to her, and we press through the door together. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. When they do, I see a long hallway with another exit at the far end. Closed doors line both sides of the hall, with a flight of stairs on my right leading to the second floor. Cas bypasses the staircase and starts down the hall. I join her, thankful the space is wide enough for us to walk side-by-side.

  She takes my hand in hers and leans in close to whisper, “Let me do the talking, okay?”

  “You’re going to be doing a lot of talking,” I reply. “Here, and when we get back.”

  “I’ll answer your questions.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “All of them?”

  She stretches closer and brushes her lips against my cheek. I suddenly can’t remember what we were even talking about.

  “All of them.” Her thick voice tells me that I might hear more than I’m expecting. Which is fine by me if she’ll kiss me with those lips.

  Before I respond, she straightens her shoulders, squeezes my hand, and taps in a nine-digit code. The door clicks and swings in. I’m left staring after Cascade as she shoves the door all the way open and strides into the apartment. “Get out,” she says.

  A man not much older than me jumps to his feet. “Cascade,” he says, and his voice holds only one emotion. Fear. He checks a device. “I don’t have you scheduled to—”

  “Shut up and get out,” she yells over him, glancing at me. I pretend like I’m not listening, but I so am.

  The scheduler scrambles for the exit, throwing his arms into a sweatshirt as he draws closer. His eyes are pinned to her, and as he passes me, he briefly glances at me. “Good luck, mate,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say before I can think through what he’s actually said. Like I’ll need luck to deal with Cascade. As I watch him scamper out, I realize he’s probably right.

  When I turn my attention back to the apartment, Cascade’s abandoned her leather jacket in favor of a green sweatshirt. “Clothes for you,” she says, indicating a pile on the floor. “Looking different when we return is our best chance of convincing your dad that we still know nothing about the rift.”

  “So it should be my future self he saw.” I pick up the pile and examine it. The clothes aren’t anything like what I’d normally wear. The jeans have holes in the knees, and the sweatshirt has a swirling pattern in a rainbow of colors. Totally not my style, whether my mom does my shopping or not.

  “Come on,” she says. “Now is not the time for your fashion sense to kick in.”

  I glance away from the clothes I’m still holding to find her grinning at me. Her jeans—which she’s changed while I examined the clothes—are equally ripped. They even have a ring of black around the cuffs.

  “Change, fast,” she says, turning to adjust the controls on the air conditioner. She keeps her back turned as she yanks open the doors to th
e refrigerator and freezer. “We don’t have much time.”

  Time, I think as I pull on the replacement jeans. I don’t want to think about time ever again.

  I don the sweatshirt, feeling my skin crawl a little, and survey the apartment. The door swings limply, and the sunlight from the window falls on a shabby couch, a mismatched armchair, and beat-up kitchen appliances. A bookcase in the corner holds only a cell phone.

  Cascade pockets it as she paces from one air conditioning console to another. She switches each of them to high, and the sound of rushing air fills the void. I remember the air vents in my ceiling, noting that these are nearly identical. This place feels like a time travel hotspot. The air conditioning, the extra clothing, the scheduler—though he left real fast at the sight of Cascade.

  “So, now what?” I have to yell over the blowing air.

  “We just need the temp to come down, and then we can open the rift.”

  “How the heck do you do that? Genetics or something?”

  “Not genetics,” Cascade scoffs. “It’s scientific.”

  “Genetics is a branch of science,” I argue, just because I can.

  She throws me a quick smile. “The rifts open when the combination of temperature and gravity align.”

  “Sixty-four degrees,” I say.

  “Sixty-four degrees,” she echoes.

  “How long have you been using the rifts?”

  “Not long,” she hedges. “But this rift is…complex.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Complex. Fantastic. “How many times have you used the rift at my house?”

  “Not many.”

  My pulse quickens, and I find it difficult to breathe. Cascade Kaufman has been in my bedroom “not many” times. Who knows what she’s seen? Or smelled? Or…. I silence the thought as panic takes full root in my gut.

  “Don’t worry,” she says quickly. “You were never there.”

  “Right,” I say. I don’t believe her, and I tell her so.

  “Believe what you want, Price. I’m telling you the truth. Anything you wanted, remember?” She glances at the thermostat and curses.

  “Won’t we be walking right into the Time Bureau?” I ask.

  “You’ve figured out that rifts are anchored geographically.” She gives me half a smile.

  “Easily,” I said. “We landed in three different versions of my bedroom. And I know enough about downtown Castle Pines to know that this block in the future is where the Time Bureau stands.” I fold my arms. “So how are we going to get out of there? How is this better than simply going back to my bedroom?”

  “We—”

  Heavy footfalls sound in the hallway. I don’t need to look to know who they belong to—the Hoods. I stride to the armchair and shove it against the door just as a man outside shouts. Muffled beeps come through the door as he enters the code.

  Cas joins me, taking something out of her knapsack. She drops a gooey, white ball and stomps on it. She drags her foot through the instant cement, and I slide the couch against the armchair, further bracing the door closed.

  “One more degree,” she says, wiping the rest of the sealant off her boot. “Then we should be able to detect the rift—”

  “With what?” I edge closer to her as someone kicks against the door. “You didn’t bring any of your fancy gadgets, did you?”

  She glares at me, and I return it in full force. “Well? How are you planning to detect the rift?”

  A sound like the el-rail roars into the room, causing me to take a step toward the window. I cover my ears with my hands and stare at the multicolored light now dancing through the living room. This rift is definitely different than the one in my bedroom. Different colors. Different noise. Different.

  “With my eyes and ears,” she says, smirking and pulling my hands away from my ears. “Step where I step okay? This rift is finicky. The Bureau is still developing it.”

  I ignore the jab at my father, instead choosing to focus on, “Finicky? What does—?”

  “We have to step through multiple threads of time to get back to 2073,” she interrupts. “Step where I step.”

  A cracking noise punctuates her last word. The door squeals and the couch slips a good two feet. A pair of burly arms wedges into the gap, accompanied by an animalistic growl.

  “Step where you step,” I say. “Got it. Can we go now?”

  Cascade licks her lips—something that completely distracts me—and studies the disgusting carpet. She shuffles to her left a few inches, forcing me further into the window. “Here,” she mumbles. “Maybe here.”

  “Maybe?” I ask.

  Before she answers or moves, the window crackles. When I look, I find it splitting into a spider-webbed pattern and a black-gloved fist driving forward to hit it again. This time, the glass shatters and the fist continues through the pane and right into my back. I grunt and squinch closer to Cas even as strong fingers clench around my arm.

  Price

  “HERE,” CASCADE SAYS, AND STEPS into the rift.

  I put my foot where she had hers, I think. It’s hard to tell with her leg disappearing and all. Not to mention the vice-grip on my bicep and the explosion that rocks the door of the apartment.

  She steps again, allowing me space to move into the nothingness. Her voice says, “Here,” once more, and then we’re both completely swallowed in the rift. The fingers squeezing my bicep release me, and the noise of the apartment vanishes, sealing Cascade and I inside the folds of time. A dull ache spreads from my head into my shoulder.

  It’s quieter than I thought quiet could be. I imagined moving through multiple threads of time to be blue and pink whirls rotating in haphazard patterns, a whistling white noise, and lots of heat.

  This is like navigating topography that is neither light nor dark, high nor low, hot nor cold. It’s eerie and strange, and I want nothing more than to find a surface with recognizable qualities and air that feels like it provides the necessary oxygen.

  “Here,” Cascade says again, now holding one hand in front of her face as if clearing away cobwebs. When her left foot vacates a space, I set my right foot in its place.

  Two more steps, and her right foot pierces the fabric of time. Her leg follows into nothingness and when I exit the rift, I feel a slithering prickle across my skin, almost like an electric shock but not nearly as painful. We stand in a dingy room again, but the carpet is long gone, replaced by only cement. The same refrigerator gapes open, with black marks licking up its side. The place smells acutely like smoke.

  “Damn,” she said. “They burned it.”

  “What you really mean is that they tried to destroy us by destroying the rift while we were inside it.”

  She won’t meet my steady gaze, confirming my statement. “Let’s go,” she says. “We need to get back to your house.” She climbs out the windowless frame and enters the shadowy twilight of an alley. Through the hole in the wall, the Time Bureau stands tall and proud. I could reach out and touch the building, and I realize that this is one of the outlying test sites I’ve never visited. Now I know why.

  “Who would kill us to keep their secrets? People from our time?” I ask her. “Or Saige’s?”

  “Ours,” she says. “People in Saige’s time don’t know about time travel yet.” She glances over her shoulder at me. “Come on, we really need to go.”

  I want nothing more than to leave this desolate place behind. As I heave myself onto the sill, the pain in my shoulder sharpens. I reach back to touch it, and my fingers come away bloody. “Cascade,” I say, staring at the redness like I can’t look anywhere else.

  Concern replaces the annoyance in her expression. “Glass,” she says upon inspection. “I’ll clean it on the way to your house. Come on. We only have five minutes or we’ll miss our ride.”

  I don’t ask about the ride. Surely it can’t be another auto—not in our time. That would be like blasting a siren and broadcasting “Here we are! Arrest us, and don’t bother asking questions before throwin
g us into prison!”

  I follow her down the alley as she swings the knapsack off her back. She hands me a rag and flips open the cell phone she took from 2013. I press the cloth into my shoulder, wincing with pain and trying to keep up with Cascade’s long legs. She barks instructions, but I freeze when I get a chat from the Enforcement Squad.

  Price Ryerson, confirm that you are awake and alive.

  “Cascade,” I call, my voice filled with panic. She spins, hurries back to me. She looks into my face and then touches my shoulder. “What is it?”

  “The Enforcement Squad,” I say. “They want me to confirm that I’m awake and alive.” Last time I went through the rift I had to give a reason why I’d disappeared for five minutes. Cascade and I have been gone for a couple of hours. “What should I say?” I ask her.

  “Ignore them.” She glances over her shoulder. “We’ll take care of it when we’re in a more secure location.”

  I don’t question her, but I can’t help wondering how ignoring them will help. Seems like they’ll send officers if I don’t answer their chat. But Cascade is walking again, and I hurry to catch her. By the time we emerge from the side streets onto Fletcher and 12th, a Pedi cab waits with a man in a hastily donned uniform. He continues to adjust his clothes and hat as Cas and I climb in. She doesn’t give him a destination; he simply gets on the bicycle and begins pedaling. He’s fast and strong, and I relax into the cushions and let the evening wind play with my hair.

  I’m thinking about reaching for Cascade’s hand when she says, “Let me see your shoulder.”

  Under her quick fingers and with the help of a first aid kit from her knapsack, the wound is bandaged and feeling better in only a few minutes. I catch her eye and my mouth pulls into a smile just as the sirens start. We’ve only gone ten blocks.

  I don’t wait for Cascade, which might make me bad boyfriend material. All I know is that I’m not waiting around for those sirens to catch the Pedi cab.

  “Come on,” I call over my shoulder only to find Cas right beside me. The smile that had been teasing her lips has vanished. Still, something twitches in my gut, something that urges me to pull her into a dim alley and taste that mouth, see if I can make her f-pat flash red. Some patterns come with mood sensors in the lighting, and Cas is definitely the kind of girl who would get that feature. When she darts down the alley, my pulse races.