Twisted Fates

by Danielle Rollins

  Damn it, I think that’s him outside now. I should really put this away before I’m caught—

  7

  Dorothy

  The spotlights switched off, leaving Dorothy blinking into spotty darkness. For a moment she heard only the plastic click of buttons, the dying whir of motors.

  And then Roman, snickering. “Revel? Really? I’m afraid you’re beginning to show your age.”

  Dorothy rubbed her eyes. “People don’t say revel anymore?”

  “Not for the last hundred years or so, no.” Roman came out from behind the camera equipment, carrying the duffel bag containing their stolen artwork.

  He placed it on the cart that already held the king’s lost jewels and removed the Vermeer, tilting his head to study it.

  He sounded awed as he said, “Just think, we’re the first people in over two hundred years to see this painting in person.”

  Dorothy allowed her eyes to flick to the painting. It really was amazing. Not just the art, but all the beautiful things they were allowed to see, all the incredible places they were able to visit. Sometimes, they went back to a specific time or place out of necessity, and other times it was merely because one of them had wanted to see it.

  The Vermeer, Dorothy had desperately wanted to see. A smile tugged at her lips as she pulled her gaze away.

  She stopped beside Roman, lifting the king’s scepter. “You know, I don’t really understand the point of a scepter. Is it just a stick that you’re supposed to hold? Or another place to put—”

  Someone cleared her throat, interrupting her. Still holding the scepter, Dorothy turned.

  The girl standing in the doorway was tall and broad-shouldered, with round hips and long red hair that she wore in a braid down her back. Her face was so freckled that it was hard to make out the color of her skin beneath, but her eyes were dark brown and vibrant.

  “Mira,” Dorothy said, surprised. Mira worked in Mac Murphy’s whorehouse. Mac didn’t usually trust women, but Mira had been with him since before the flood, and so he often allowed her a few small tasks outside of her usual duties.

  But Mac always dealt with the Black Cirkus himself. Something must’ve happened for him to send Mira in his place.

  Dorothy looked around, suddenly anxious. No one had seen the treasures down here except for Roman and herself. “Perhaps we should speak in the hall. . . .”

  Mira cocked her head, amused. “I’m not here for any of this,” Mira said in her rasp of a voice. But her eyes lingered on the jewels, impressed.

  “Then why are you here?” asked Roman.

  “Mac was . . . unavailable this evening.” She spoke coolly enough, but Dorothy thought she saw a flash in her eyes—humor, perhaps, or delight. There was a story there. “He sent me to collect your payment.”

  The Black Cirkus had been squatting in the Fairmont since the mega-quake flooded the city. It was a dilapidated mess, but it was also the only hotel in downtown Seattle that was still livable and, as such, it was incredibly valuable real estate. The Cirkus had managed to hold it for so long by paying off some rather unsavory people—Mac included.

  Roman pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Mira.

  She nodded, lips pressed tight as she counted the bills inside. After a moment, she paused, glancing up. “I’m afraid you’re a bit light.”

  “We’ll make it up next week,” Dorothy promised.

  “Will you?” Mira pocketed the envelope, looking unconvinced. “This is the third time you’ve handed over less than the agreed-upon amount. Rumor has it you’ve been more interested in playing Robin Hood than making money lately.”

  A beat of uncomfortable silence followed her statement. Dorothy placed the king’s scepter back on the table; Mira followed the movement with her eyes.

  Dorothy wished this could be solved as easily as handing over the scepter—or any one of the other treasures—as payment. But, priceless though the items were, their actual worth here was very little. No one in New Seattle was flush enough to hand over money for jewels and gold.

  Resources had always been slim in New Seattle. After the mega-quake destroyed most of the West Coast, the United States government moved the country’s borders inland, leaving the remains of the devastated cities to save themselves. With all the nation’s wealth consolidated to a dozen or so states at the center of the country, inflation along the coasts skyrocketed.

  It cost a couple hundred dollars for a bag of grain large enough to feed one person for one week, a few hundred more for fresh water and a supply of vitamins to prevent someone from getting scurvy. Add to that the fact that most people in New Seattle had no way of making money or growing their own food.

  Before Dorothy had arrived, the Cirkus had been a gang of petty thieves. They’d numbered hardly more than thirty members, all children and teenagers, most close to starvation. They’d been like stray dogs, nipping at each other, fighting over scraps.

  Dorothy had organized them. She’d taught them simple cons, convinced them to work together. They made hundreds a week stealing from anyone stupid enough to be out on the docks after dark.

  At least, they used to make hundreds a week. It was impossible to get a city to trust a gang of thugs when they robbed them blind each night, so Dorothy had urged the Cirkus Freaks to lay off the thefts. Just for a little while.

  It had not made her popular. The Freaks liked money, and that was running dry.

  “Mac asked me to deliver the message,” Mira said. “He’d like the rest of his money by tomorrow evening.”

  Voice toneless, Roman said, “And if we can’t get it?”

  Dorothy glanced at him, seeing only the lower half of his face beneath the edge of her hood. There was no possible way for them to get the money by tomorrow evening, but she wouldn’t know it by looking at Roman’s expression. The annoying thing about her partner was that he grew even more cool and collected the angrier he got.

  Right now he seemed to be all calm, unworried confidence. But Dorothy noticed that a muscle in his jaw had gone tight. His only tell.

  Mira considered him, head tilted. “Mac didn’t say, but I can’t imagine he’d be happy.” She glanced at the broadcasting equipment in the corner, her lip twitching in a way that made Dorothy think she’d been watching from the shadows while Quinn Fox went on air to appeal to the people of New Seattle. “Perhaps he’ll come by your little party and you can speak with him then.”

  Something prickled, uncomfortably, in Dorothy. Was that a threat?

  The Cirkus Freaks were strong, but Mac was stronger. He made real money off his disgusting whorehouses, and that allowed him to procure certain things from the Center.

  Firearms, for one thing. And bullets. The idea of going to war with him chilled Dorothy to her core.

  Mira turned, and then she was out the door and gone.

  “Well,” Roman said. “That ruins everything.”

  8

  Ash

  Ash wasn’t entirely sure how he made it back home. One moment he’d been hunched over the bar, staring into the dwindling remains of his drink, and the next he was hauling himself through the window of the old schoolhouse, the taste of something sour clinging to his tongue.

  Beer, he realized, grimacing. Lots of it. He didn’t remember ordering, or drinking, a third (a fourth?). But he must’ve. He could taste it.

  He stumbled down the hall, propping an arm against the wall to steady himself as he kicked off his boots.

  Another step, and he stubbed his toe on a free weight that Willis had left in the middle of the floor. He swore and hopped around on one foot.

  There was a sound, a shuffling of movement, and then Zora’s voice calling, “Ash? That you?”

  Ash lowered his injured foot back to the floor, cringing. He smelled coffee. Which meant she’d been waiting up for him. It must be later than he’d thought.

  He hobbled the rest of the way down the hall, into the kitchen.

  Zora leaned against the ki
tchen table, her ordinarily calm expression twisted into something troubled. Chandra sat beside her, spinning something that looked like a small, grease-covered gear with an inordinate amount of determination, and Willis was making tea, which seemed like overkill. Ash could already smell the coffee.

  “You’re all up late,” he muttered.

  Chandra wrinkled her nose and balanced the gear between two fingers. “You’re drunk?” She said drunk like someone else might say stupid.

  Ash frowned. Was he drunk? He didn’t think he’d ever been drunk before, but it felt right. He was going to die this week. Getting good and drunk seemed like the sort of thing he should do during his final week of life.

  “We were just talking about the broadcast,” Zora said.

  Ash sat, propping his foot on one knee so he could study his throbbing toe through his threadbare sock. “You saw?”

  The teakettle began to whistle. Willis moved it off the burner. “The whole city saw, Captain,” he said, pulling a chipped mug down from the cupboard above the stove. “It’s all anyone’s talking about.”

  “The Black Cirkus can travel back in time,” Zora murmured, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I guess we already knew that, but now . . .”

  She trailed off, but Ash knew what she meant. It felt different to hear Quinn announce it to the entire city. A part of him had still been hoping what they saw at Fort Hunter had been a fluke.

  Chandra looked up at Ash, pursing her lips. “Wait, where were you all night? You said you were going to meet us at Dante’s.”

  Ash blinked, slowly, through his drunkenness. Every pair of eyes seemed to be on him, waiting for an explanation.

  Hesitating, he said, “I . . . took a walk.” And then he shrugged, like this might lessen the blow. “I sort of ended up in a bar near the Fairmont. . . .”

  “You went over to the Fairmont?” Chandra flicked the gear she’d been playing with to the floor. “Why?”

  Zora said, “He was probably looking for Quinn.”

  Chandra made a vague noise in the back of her throat. Willis’s mustache twitched as he poured himself a cup of tea. Neither looked surprised by what Zora had just said.

  “You told them?” Ash asked, annoyed. After Fort Hunter, he’d told Zora that Quinn Fox was the girl from his prememory, the one who was going to kill him. He had not told Willis and Chandra, and yet, it seemed, they knew.

  Zora didn’t even bother looking guilty. “Of course I told them. Secrets are stupid.”

  Ash was at a loss for words. He’d kept the truth a secret because he’d been embarrassed. Quinn Fox, the Black Cirkus assassin. The cannibal of New Seattle. How was he going to fall in love with her?

  And now?

  The anger left him at once. It had just been a flicker of feeling, not the real thing. It was impossible to be angry about something like a spilled secret when he had only a few days left to live. Besides, maybe Zora was right. Maybe secrets were stupid.

  “So did you meet her?” asked Chandra.

  Ash blinked. “What?”

  “You went downtown tonight to find Quinn, right?” Her eyebrows lifted. “Well? Did you?”

  “He would have told us,” Willis said. But he didn’t sound convinced.

  “I would have told you,” Ash assured him. “No more secrets.”

  “Right,” Willis said, and Ash didn’t think he imagined the relief in his voice. “You would’ve.”

  “So you still haven’t met her?” Chandra asked.

  “I still haven’t met her.”

  “But you know she’s going to be at this masquerade at the Fairmont tomorrow night, right?” Chandra gave him a sly look. “Does that mean we get to go?”

  “Of course we’re not going,” said Zora, incredulous. “The point is to keep Ash from meeting the cannibal who’s going to murder him, not deliver him like a present.”

  Ever since seeing Zora break down on the roof of Fort Hunter, Ash had an easier time hearing the small fluctuations in her voice, when her anger dipped into fear. He heard it now, and that’s the only reason he was able to answer her calmly instead of snapping and starting a fight.

  “Actually,” he said, shifting his eyes away from her face. “I think it’s about time the two of us were introduced.”

  Zora answered with a short, hard laugh, like he’d told a joke she didn’t think was funny. “If you meet her, you’ll die.”

  Ash noticed that she hadn’t included the part about falling in love first. “I’m going to die either way.”

  Chandra coughed into her fist. Willis did something unnecessarily loud that involved a spoon clattering against the sugar bowl.

  Zora was looking at him now, brow furrowed. Ash watched her swallow, trying to gather herself.

  “I don’t understand,” she said firmly. “We talked about this. We were going to figure out a way to fix it. We were—”

  “Fix what, exactly? How do you propose we go about changing a memory?”

  “It’s not a memory yet!”

  “Zor— Jesus—that’s what a prememory is. Didn’t you read the Professor’s journal? He saw the mega-quake before it happened. He saw it for months, and he didn’t do anything because he couldn’t.” Ash raked a hand back through his hair. “If it was possible to change it, don’t you think he would’ve? Don’t you think he would’ve done anything to save—”

  He broke off then, realizing he’d gone too far. Zora only stared at him, her expression chilly and blank.

  Zora’s mother, Natasha, had died in the massive earthquake that had destroyed Seattle, and the Professor had nearly ruined himself going back in time again and again, trying to find a way to bring her back.

  Ash felt cruel, bringing it up like this. He looked at his hands. “Sorry.”

  Zora considered him and then nodded, and turned toward the window, her shoulders rigid.

  “About this party,” Chandra said, after a beat. “You feel like you have to go, right? Like it’s destiny or whatever?”

  Ash was quiet for a moment. He pictured Quinn staring out of the television set above the bar—or, rather, the darkness inside the cloak where Quinn’s face should have been. He imagined walking up to her at this party, pulling his gun out, finger twitching on the trigger and—

  It could be over, just like that.

  He could live.

  But he wanted something else, too. Maybe more. In his head, he threw back Quinn’s hood and finally, finally saw her face.

  His chest hurt with the wanting of it.

  How? he thought. His heartbeat was cannon fire. How do I ever fall in love with her?

  “I have to go,” he said, looking at Zora. “I have to know how it happens.”

  Zora wouldn’t meet his eyes, but a muscle in her jaw tightened.

  “Okay,” Chandra said. “Can’t we all just go with you? We can make sure you don’t do anything completely crazy, and if there is a way to keep your prememory from happening, it’s more likely that we’ll figure it out if we’re all there together.”

  Ash frowned. This hadn’t been part of the plan. “Wait—”

  Chandra turned to Zora, hopeful. “You said that you needed your father’s old textbooks to help you figure out the math in his notes, right? The ones he had in his office before the earthquake?”

  Zora blinked, clearly surprised by this sudden shift in the conversation. “Yeah.”

  “Okay, well we can’t go back in time to get them, but the Black Cirkus can, somehow. Either they’ve found more exotic matter or they’ve found another way to go back, and, either way, I think we should know how they’re doing it.”

  She shrugged.

  “Maybe it would help us figure out how to go back in time again ourselves.”

  “That’s actually a good point,” Willis said.

  Chandra rounded on him. “Don’t say actually like you’re all surprised. I’m freaking smart.”

  “Wouldn’t we be seen?” Willis asked. He lifted a teacup to his lips and blew gen
tly. “Roman will be there, and the last time we saw him he was very much in a shoot now ask questions later sort of mood.”

  “The whole city’s going to be there,” Chandra said. “We’re lucky it’s a masquerade, otherwise everyone would recognize us.”

  “I’m not fading into any crowd,” Willis said.

  “You might have to stay behind for this one,” Zora said. Ash glanced over at her and saw—unbelievably—that she was considering this.

  He sat up straighter. “Zor—”

  Willis cut him off. “And I’ll just, what, sit at home darning my socks while the rest of you attend the party of the year?” Willis sniffed. “Why, yes, that sounds like my idea of the perfect evening.”

  Chandra said, “Darning your socks?”

  “It used to be a thing,” muttered Willis unhappily, sipping his tea.

  Zora leveled a heavy gaze at Ash, and he could see the two sides of her brain going to war. She didn’t want him to go anywhere near Quinn. But Chandra had made a convincing argument.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Ash rushed to say. And then, turning to Willis and Chandra, he added, “None of you do.”

  “If you’re going, we’re going,” Chandra said simply, and Willis nodded.

  Zora remained quiet, chewing on her lower lip. After a moment, she said, “If I do this, if I help you meet her, will you at least try to change things?”

  Ash swallowed. He’d gotten so tired of waiting. There were only seven days left. Seven days to fall in love with the enemy, seven days for her to betray him. It didn’t seem like enough time.

  A small part of him still hoped for a miracle. The curiosity was stronger, but it didn’t mean the hope wasn’t there, too.

  But if there was nothing he could do to change the future, at least he could meet it face-to-face.

  He took a deep breath.

  “Of course,” he said.

  Zora stared at him for a beat longer. “Then, I guess it’s settled,” she said.