Both of them plastered smiles on their faces at the exact same time.
Eve twisted the corners of her lips upward in what she hoped resembled a smile. She was grateful that she’d sat on the side of the table closest to the door. She’d only have a few seconds’ head start if she had to run.
“So … how are things with you and Aidan?” Victoria asked. Eve noticed that her eyes looked more human than they did before. The whites were wider, and the pupils were rounder. Her irises were still golden.
Eve shot a look at Aidan. At the counter, he winked at her and blew her a kiss. He then turned and spoke to the man at the cash register. She assumed he was ordering, but she couldn’t hear his words. “Fine,” Eve said vaguely.
“He’s going to be insufferable now,” Topher said to Victoria.
“Only if this works,” Victoria said.
Can I ask what they mean? Eve wondered. Or am I supposed to know?
Topher called to Aidan, “Get an order of garlic knots!” At the counter, Aidan waved. He talked more to the man at the cash register, then pulled out his wallet to pay.
“What made you late?” Victoria asked. “Or am I prying?” Beside her, Topher smirked, and Victoria elbowed him. His smirk half vanished.
“I had work,” Eve said.
“You”—Topher leveled a finger at her nose—“shouldn’t be working so hard at that library. You should be spending time with us instead.”
Eve tried to remember agreeing to spend any time with these people. She couldn’t.
“Besides,” Topher continued, “books lie.”
Victoria whacked his shoulder with her book. “Philistine.”
“Beyond the misuse of your time, if you spend too much time with the locals and their literature, you’ll end up with vocabulary exclusive to this world,” Topher said. “Case in point, ‘philistine.’ You need to be in a world with certain historical facts for that word to exist.” He stretched his legs out and propped them on one of the empty chairs. “And most worlds differ so dramatically that that kind of historical overlap isn’t even on the table.”
“But that’s why it’s so fascinating! All the differences reveal the minute and not-so-minute differences between related realms,” Victoria said. “Seriously, Topher, you can’t tell me you don’t enjoy the interrealm equivalent of the regional-dialect-comparison conversation. You know, the grander version of: some say ‘soda’; some say ‘pop.’ Some call it a ‘bubbler’; others a ‘water fountain.’” Victoria made air quotes as she talked in her mocking lilt. Eve tried to keep her face blank. She wondered if this conversation would have made sense if she had all her memories.
“No one says ‘bubbler’ in any world,” Topher said.
“You are in the heartland of ‘bubbler,’” Victoria said. “Soak in the ‘bubbler.’”
“I hate the people here.” Topher scowled at the other customers. There were only three other occupied tables. Across the restaurant, by the window, a woman coaxed her three children to eat their pizza without stripping off the cheese. Their faces were smeared with orangish grease. In another corner, an older couple ate sauce-soaked sandwiches. The man stared out the window as he ate, and the woman continually checked her phone. The last customer was a middle-aged man in paint-stained jeans who had folded a piece of pizza in half and was shoving it into his mouth. Eve wondered what people in other worlds were like.
“They are pigs,” Victoria said prissily.
One of the kids tossed his pizza on the floor and began to cry, a bleating sound.
“Sheep,” Topher corrected.
Aidan laid a tray on the table. He slid a slice of mushroom and pepper pizza in front of Eve. She had no memory of eating that kind of pizza before. The mushrooms resembled dried slugs. “At least no one here is trying to kill us,” Aidan said.
“Yet,” Topher added.
He’d said it so casually, as if death could stride through the door any second and order garlic knots. Eve felt as if the grease-tinged air had turned rancid. Her eyes slid to the door, and then to the black agency car with the tinted windows. She hadn’t thought … Of course she’d known that Malcolm and Aunt Nicki were her guards. She’d known she was in WitSec for her protection. All the security cameras. All the guns. But to hear out loud, tossed off in conversation, this easy talk of death …
Topher suddenly grinned. He rubbed his hands together, and sparks danced over his palms. “Let’s have some fun with the sheep.” Stretching back, he slapped his palms on the wall. The lights in the pizza place flashed.
“Cut it out, man,” Aidan said. “I still have two slices cooking.”
“Why don’t you go electrify the urinal again instead?” Victoria suggested. “That seems to be suitably juvenile for you.”
“If ‘juvenile’ means ‘hilarious and awesome’ in the local dialect, then yes, you are correct,” Topher said. “But I’ll quit if you fetch more Tabasco sauce.” He picked up a nearly empty bottle and waved it in the air. He then uncorked it and chugged the remaining sauce. A shudder ran through his body, and he shook it off like a horse shaking its mane. “Fantastic stuff. Must remember to pack a case for home.”
Eve’s stomach churned, but not from the sight of the sauce. She tried to will it to steady. Don’t be sick, she thought. Hold it together. She tried to breathe evenly. In and out. In and out. Malcolm had said “he” was still out there, and Patti had been concerned about security. She shouldn’t be so surprised. She’d just had so much else to think about. Lately, it felt as if her thoughts were swirling and bubbling inside her. She didn’t remember feeling like this before, but then, given her memory …
Aiden draped his arm around her, and Eve flinched. “Green Eyes, you okay?”
“You are looking greenish beyond your eyes,” Victoria said. “Not an attractive shade.”
Eve licked her lips and coughed. Her throat felt as if sand had been poured down it. She thought of what Topher had said and clung to the word “home.” “After this is over … after we testify … can we go home?”
All three of them looked at her.
“Testify?” Topher asked carefully.
“We aren’t witnesses,” Victoria said, “despite the agency name.”
“But I thought …,” Eve began.
“All the witnesses are dead,” Aidan said. His voice was kind. She looked at him, into his eyes, which suddenly looked more serious and sad than she’d thought he could look. He stroked her cheek and brushed her hair back behind her ears. With pity in his voice, he said, “Didn’t you know? We’re merely likely targets.”
“He only kills the best of the best,” Victoria said. “The young and the strong.”
“And that,” Topher said, “is why we have to stick together.”
Victoria smiled at her as if they were friends. “Strength in numbers.”
Aidan brought Eve’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Together.”
An hour later, Eve knocked on the window of Malcolm’s car. He rolled down the window. She handed him a slice of pepperoni.
“Extra cheese?” Malcolm asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. No, she thought.
“Aidan?” Malcolm leveled a look at him. “What game are you playing now?”
Behind her, Aidan placed his hands on her shoulders. “No game. I’ll take her straight home. You can stay and eat your grease.” His hands felt like shackles, chaining her to him. Together, she thought. Safety in numbers.
Malcolm snorted. “I’ll be so close behind you that you’ll think my license plate is yours. You’ll wonder if I’m actually in your back seat, and then you’ll realize, no, that’s Malcolm, stuck to my rear like a bumper sticker.”
Eve didn’t have to look at Aidan to know that he was grinning. “Sounds like a dare,” Aidan said. “What do you say, Eve? Up for some more fun?”
“Nuh-uh.” Malcolm leveled a finger at Aidan. “You pull any of that
stunt-car driving again, and I’ll ram your car so fast that you won’t know which happened first—your stunt or my crash.” He looked at Eve. “Do you want to ride with me? Just say the word.”
She must have had a reason to agree to these pizza dates. Her past self must have seen something in Aidan. “I’ll be fine.”
Aidan thumped her shoulders. “That’s my girl.”
She wanted to say she wasn’t his girl. But maybe she was. Maybe it was safer if she was. She let him guide her to his car.
In the car, Eve leaned her forehead against the car window. She counted the parked cars and then the telephone poles as they drove past. Every once in a while, she checked for Malcolm’s car in the side mirror. He kept behind them by exactly one car length.
“You’re quiet today, Green Eyes. What’s churning in that pretty head of yours?” Aidan reached over and ruffled Eve’s hair. She tensed as the car veered toward the median. He corrected it, both hands on the wheel again. Behind them, Malcolm closed the gap until he was only a few feet from their fender. “Is it Topher? You know he gets in these moods.” Before the end of lunch, Topher had shorted out one cash register and singed multiple tables. “Just think of him as a blond, blue-eyed version of an elephant transported from the wide savannah to a city zoo. Sometimes he sees this place as more cage than sanctuary.”
“Are we safe here?” Eve asked.
He flashed a smile at her. “If we stick together.”
“If then. Are we safe here?”
His smile faded. He said carefully, “They say we are.”
“Do you think we’re safe here?” She studied him, trying to read his face, trying to gauge whether he would lie to her. She thought of the who’s-next-to-die game and the cavalier jokes about death. All the jokes didn’t mean there wasn’t something very real to fear. In fact, she thought they meant the opposite.
Aidan was silent for a moment, then said, “There’s only one way in and one way out of this world. It’s the safest place we could be. He should have explained this to you.”
“He didn’t,” Eve said. Or maybe he did.
Aidan whistled low. “You should have been briefed like the rest of us when you arrived.”
Eve glanced again at the side mirror. As Aidan braked at a traffic light, Malcolm braked too. The front of his car looked like a scowl. “Can you brief me?”
“Yeah, no, not my job,” Aidan said. “Our tailgating friend would have my head on a platter. He’s a bit protective of you, you may have noticed. He plays favorites. Only reason I’m allowed near you at all is that Lou insisted.”
“But if I’m supposed to know already …,” Eve argued.
“There’s no magic in this world, right? So, no portals. The only known one is in the agency—it was brought from another world. And don’t ask me how that was accomplished if there were no portals here. Apparently, it happened decades ago—who knows, maybe centuries. The agents won’t spill about that. And don’t ask me where the portal is either. Close-lipped bunch of bastards.”
Level five, she thought. She didn’t know why she was so sure. She’d been in the silver room, and she hadn’t seen any “portal,” whatever that was. But still, she was certain. “You don’t know?” Maybe he’d forgotten. Maybe he’d lost memories too. Maybe she wasn’t alone. Taking a deep breath, she took a risk. “Do you remember coming here? Do you remember where you’re from?”
“Tsk-tsk. Rules are rules.”
“But do you remember?”
He looked at her instead of the road. Behind them, Malcolm honked as if saying, Pay attention. Aidan veered around a parked car. “Yeah, of course. It’s only been a few months. And the only reason I don’t know the portal location is because the agents blindfolded me—a security precaution, they said. They didn’t want me popping in and out of there without their approval. I can’t teleport to a location I haven’t seen. Didn’t they blindfold you? They claimed it was standard procedure.”
“Yes, of course,” she lied. She shouldn’t have asked. She’d revealed too much. Eve laced her fingers together and then unlaced them. Maybe she was the only one with memory losses. Maybe she was the only one with visions. None of them had collapsed back at the agency when they’d used their power in the game. Topher hadn’t collapsed in the pizza place when he’d used his. She’d been blaming the surgery for her problems, but from the perfection in their faces, it was clear they’d had the same surgeries that she’d had. Maybe the surgery was different for different people. Maybe hers had been botched. She spread her hands on her lap. Her hands looked perfect, her fingers smooth and even. She was perfect on the outside but broken on the inside. A voice inside her whispered, She’s broken. But she couldn’t tell if that was a real memory or a memory of a vision.
She noticed Aidan was watching her. He was trying to be subtle, but she caught the quick glances as he drove. She tried to figure out how she could salvage the conversation, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead, she looked out the window at the cookie-cutter houses and the mailboxes and the bleached, dry lawns. Her thoughts spun and spun as if caught in a blender. He’d said he’d been here only a few months; she knew she’d been here longer. Longer than Victoria? Longer than Topher? Longer than the ones like them that she hadn’t met (or had met but didn’t remember)? She could have been the first, the experimental surgery, and they’d perfected it later.
Or maybe she was flawed in some other way. Maybe she always had been.
Aidan parked in front of her house. Malcolm parked on the opposite side of the street. A tree, heavy with branches, hung over the black car as if it wanted to hide Malcolm from view. “He’s never liked me,” Aidan said.
“I thought you charmed everyone.”
Aidan flashed a grin at her. “Only those I deem worthy.”
“Are you complimenting me or insulting Malcolm?”
“Both at once,” Aidan quipped. “Aren’t I impressive? I can also walk and talk at the same time.” She could tell he wanted her to smile. She couldn’t. Her cheek muscles wouldn’t budge, so she looked at the house instead.
She heard Aidan open his car door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him scoot around the front of the car. He opened her door and held out his hand. She fumbled with the seat belt and stepped out of the car. She didn’t take his hand.
On the sidewalk, she looked at Malcolm’s car. “Why doesn’t he get out?”
“Ignore him.” Aidan drew her toward the house. “He’s jealous because he’s too old for you.” She shot another look at the car. That couldn’t be true—could it? “Or maybe it’s the pepperoni pizza. By now, the smell should have permeated the car. He might be unable to resist it any longer and is busily stuffing his face.”
“He could have eaten while driving,” Eve pointed out.
“Possible,” Aidan said. “But unsafe. Good thing you were with me.” At the door, Aidan raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. His lips were soft. He turned her hand over and kissed her palm, then her wrist. “I’d never endanger you.”
Eve extracted her hand. “Except for when you tried to kill me.”
“Except for that,” he agreed. He leaned closer, and Eve shot a look again at Malcolm’s car. Lie to everyone, he’d said, until you know the truth.
She let him kiss her. But she didn’t float above the cement steps, and when he stepped back and smiled at her, she had to remind herself to smile too. He left whistling. She stayed on the steps and watched him drive away, aware that Malcolm was watching her.
Chapter Eight
After aidan drove away, Eve knocked on the front door. She still didn’t have a key. Or if she did, she didn’t know where she had put it. She might have to invent a lie for why she didn’t have it.
The lies pulled on her like weights on her limbs, and she suddenly felt exhausted.
She wished she could simply walk down the street away from the house and keep walking until she was somewhere else where no one knew or remembered her any
better than she knew or remembered them. But Malcolm’s car sat dark and silent across the street, and she had already knocked.
She heard footsteps inside. Sharp, loud, close. And then the door swung open.
“Oh, it’s you,” Aunt Nicki said. “I was hoping for something more interesting. Like a delivery of soap.” She waved her hand at Malcolm’s car, and he drove away. The street was empty except for parked cars and recycling bins. Aunt Nicki checked outside and then waved Eve inside.
Eve lingered in the hallway, looking for other changes that she might have missed in the morning—other clues to what she was supposed to know. She flipped through a stack of mail scattered on a small table. Most of the envelopes were addressed to “resident” or “occupant.” She supposed that was what she was, an occupant. She didn’t feel like she was home. She was merely occupying space.
Aunt Nicki bustled past her. “Worst part about this babysitting duty is that housecleaning isn’t included. Not enough cleaners with the right security clearance. Okay, obviously, that’s not the worst part.”
Eve faced the wall with the photo of a dead tree. She tried to force herself to picture “home,” to remember what it felt like to be there. If she was so sure that this wasn’t home, then what was? Did it have a smell, a sound, a color, a temperature? Anything? Remember! she shouted at her mind. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. Her hands clenched into fists. She tried to focus on the single word “home.”
A towel smacked into her stomach, and Eve flinched.
“You dust,” Aunt Nicki said as she went into the living room.
Eve examined the towel. It had a smear of grease on one side, and the edges were frayed. She must have helped Aunt Nicki or someone clean before because she knew she was supposed to wipe down surfaces with it. At home? Or only here?
She peeked into the living room. The vacuum lay across the carpet. Aunt Nicki was squirting blue liquid onto the mirror and then wiping it away. Eve entered the room and began dusting the coffee table. It had a thin film of gray dust that smeared as she rubbed it with the towel. Coffee rings were permanently ingrained in the wood. She moved aside a stack of magazines: Country Gardens, Better Homes and Gardens, Fine Gardening, and Guns & Ammo. “You like flowers?” Eve asked.
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