by Karen Akins
“Don’t. You’re one of the good ones, Bree. And I really do feel horrible about the forced fade. Promise you’ll let me make it up to you.”
I started to argue with him, but then it occurred to me that I’d just found Finn’s transporter. I bit my cheek to keep from smiling too widely.
TWEET.
“Less chatty, more twirly!” yelled Coach Black.
Above me, Patrice snickered and whispered to her friend. If Bergin thought I’d have an iota of sway with any of the nonShifters at the Institute, he was going to be sorely disappointed.
“You wanna hang out later?” asked Wyck, ignoring them all.
“I can’t,” I said. “Homework.” If sitting on my bed figuring out a way to sneak Finn into the Institute without raising suspicions qualified as homework.
Wyck mimed a knife stabbing into his chest. “You’re killing me here, Bennis. You know that, don’t you?”
“Another time,” I said, meaning it. I clutched his elbow one last time to steady myself.
A few minutes later, Coach blasted his whistle and tapped each student’s name on his clipboard to indicate he’d tortured us all a sufficient amount. We hit the showers, and as I passed Patrice Wallingham’s locker she murmured, “Tink.”
That was it.
“Do you want to say that to my face?” I asked.
Out of nowhere, a tru-ant crawled onto my toe and stung it. “Oww.” A warning. Literally. I needed to toe the line.
Fine. If ICE wanted a poster child, they would get one. I dressed in a hurry.
Mom’s bills were a thing of the past. I’d be rid of Finn soon. And surely my future self was just keeping Leto’s delivery safe for me—she’d give it back in no time. Nothing could shake me. Then I walked out into the hall and saw the welcome banner.
Family Night.
* * *
Mimi had her feet tucked under her legs on the sofa like a nesting bird. A gleaming smile matched her shiny, fresh-brushed hair. When she saw me walk in, her face fell, not in a don’t-rain-on-my-parade way. In an I-wish-I-could-get-you-your-own-float kind of way. The first few Family Nights since my mom’s accident, Mimi had told her parents to stay home and had spent the evenings with me instead. But after a while, it seemed silly. Besides, I loved seeing the Ellisons.
I pulled up my messages and tossed a few new pieces of junk mail away. One envelope glowed a dull orange. In the spot where a real envelope would have a seal, this soligraphic one had a countdown clock, ticking away, only a couple minutes left. I turned it over and over but couldn’t get it open.
Feet skittered past in the hall as more and more names were called. Mostly the younger students, but a few of my friends.
“Molly Hayashi.” That First Year who I’d caught coming back to berate herself. She should try to get in good with her parents while she still could.
I pried my nail under the seal of the envelope, but it stuck tight.
“Wyck O’Banion.” Probably his brother, Den, sneaking contraband junk food in.
Why couldn’t I get this thing open?
“Charlie Wu.” He’d play it cool but was always secretly giddy when his grandma visited.
The envelope timer hit zero and sprang open.
Dolores cleared her cactus throat over the P.A., and Mimi scooted to the edge of the couch, waiting for her name to be called next.
I pulled out the note. It read:
Hey, kiddo.
Deadline’s up. [Leto. The name came out like a swear in my mind.] You disappoint me. I hate being disappointed. Which got me thinking about disappointments in general: What sort of things get a resourceful gal like Bree Bennis down? Nothing came to mind, but in a stroke of luck, I’m headed to the hospital soon. I’ll be sure to drop by your mom’s room to ask her. No one knows you better than her, right?
P.S. Tough break on that forced fade. My sources tell me you have a new friend to help you through it. Glad to hear it.
My skin went frigid as I tried to rip the note up. Even as I tore and tore, the pixels knit themselves back together, yet another reminder that I couldn’t escape Leto. He knew about Finn. Which meant Leto must be having me followed. This was bad. This was very, very bad. And that threat against my mother. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
Of course he can! a voice shrieked in my head. He’s a blarking chronosmuggler. What were you thinking?
And Bergin had just warned me to be on my best behavior. If I got caught … But then, paying for my mother’s bills was the least of my worries if Leto got to her first. I whimpered.
“Bree Bennis.”
I jerked my head up. Dolores had said my name. This couldn’t be happening. Leto. Here.
Wait. My brain caught up with my racing pulse. Leto operated in shadows, not school cafeterias. There was no way he’d come here. But I had no one else, or at least no one who cared enough about me to …
Oh. No. Finn. Didn’t.
chapter 14
UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, one more set of footsteps would have added to the din in the steel and glass portico. Today the sound of my feet silenced the rest.
I could hear everyone’s thoughts. “What’s she doing at Family Night? Bree never comes to Family Night. Who does she have other than her mom?”
Yes. Who?
My long-lost—what would Finn have gone with?—cousin, probably, stood there at the welcome desk, his arms spread wide like he was expecting a hug. Hug, my arse. He’d be lucky if I didn’t give him a giant slap upside the noggin. With the prying eyes that surrounded us, a quick neck squeeze it was. It wasn’t my fault I hadn’t had time to file my fingernails in a week.
“Ow.” Finn grabbed the spot on his skin where I’d left a claw mark. “Nice to see you, too.”
My cement smile fractured. “What are you doing here for Family Night, dearest…”
“Distant cousin Finn.”
“Yes, as you can see, so many of the other students have their distant cousins visiting them.”
Finn’s lip brushed my ear as he bent down to whisper, “I’m not here to see the other students.”
Heat radiated from the base of my neck and tingled down my spine. Nerves. And anger. Too bad sending Finn away would only draw more attention.
“All right.” I rumpled my fingers through his hair so the style didn’t look so ridiculously out-of-date. “I’ll handle the introductions. Follow my lead and keep your blabber shut. You’re my withdrawn and dim-witted relative who happens to be both nonverbal and—”
Ow. I stumbled into Finn. Mimi’s mom had stepped on my foot as she plowed past me with her husband, their hands outstretched. Mimi had inherited the supermodel gene from her mom. Her dad? Kind of looked like a peeled potato with dead caterpillars for eyebrows.
“Mimi didn’t tell us Bree had any family in the area!” Mrs. Ellison grabbed my hand, only to release it a second later to grab Finn’s.
“It’s so good to meet you. How are you two related?” asked Mr. Ellison.
“You’ll sit with us at dinner, won’t you?” His wife interrupted him before I had a chance to make something up.
“And we’d love you to join us in the weekly Ellison Yahtzoid game later on.”
“How could Mimi never have mentioned you?” Mrs. Ellison looked at her daughter with a hint of reproach.
“Yes, Mimi, how could you never have mentioned him?” Her husband joined her.
Mimi’s mouth burbled open and closed like a fish. I couldn’t tell if she was shocked by Finn’s sudden appearance or by the parental admonishment. They were both firsts, for sure. I squeezed Finn’s (oh my, rather firm) biceps to warn him into silence. Too late.
“I’m Bree’s cousin. Only in town for a short visit.”
“You have a cousin?” Mimi looked at me as if this omission had been a personal slight. I could see the hurt build up behind her eyes. I was the worst person ever.
Finn waved off Mimi’s question. “Like fifth or sixth, twice removed … by marriage. Somethi
ng like that.”
Mimi’s chin started to quiver.
Don’t you do it, Mimi. Don’t do it, I pleaded to her silently.
It was too late.
“Ellison team hug!” Mimi and her parents swooped down on Finn and me and swallowed us up in a giant grizzly hug that knocked all the air out of my lungs. Phhpt. I blew away a mouthful of either Mimi or Mrs. Ellison’s gold-spun hair and staggered back. Thankfully, Finn looked more amused than annoyed.
Not that I cared one nano what Finn Masterson thought.
Mimi stepped away. Her voice went all squeaky like it does right before she starts crying. “It’s just so good to have you here because … because…”
Her squeaks trailed off, and she looked away.
A serious expression clouded Finn’s face. “Because it’s always good to have family around.” He turned to face me. “I was so sorry to hear about your mom’s accident.”
My first reaction was to toss on my Teflon smile as usual, but then I realized there was only one way he could have known about my mom’s accident, since apparently Future Bree hadn’t told him. He’d gone through my drawers, and he didn’t even have the decency to look sorry.
Mrs. Ellison reached out and took my hands in hers. “You know we keep your mother in our thoughts and prayers.”
“Thank you.”
“I probably would have done the same thing if I were in your mother’s situation,” Mrs. Ellison added, giving her husband a meaningful look.
“Mom!” hissed Mimi. “There’s no proof she tampered with her chip.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Bree. I didn’t mean … I only meant that if she did tamper with her chip … I mean, I wouldn’t blame her what with the situation with … I mean … oh, sweetie, I’m so, so—”
“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. E.”
Sometimes, the well-meaning comments of the few nonShifters who weren’t up in arms about my mother hurt worse than the jabs of those who were. Of course, Mrs. Ellison was sympathetic to Shifters since she was married to one and had a Shifter for a daughter, but she still believed that Mom had purposefully tampered with her chip. Not that I blamed Mrs. E. Once the story broke and reporters latched on to the details about my father, it seemed like the obvious conclusion. But Mom’s chip wasn’t damaged at all. No scars. No signs of trauma. It had just stopped working.
And then her body stopped working.
I glanced back over at Finn. He was staring at me. I’d grown used to stares. Total strangers stretched their necks to see the girl from the news. People needed to believe my mother had done something reckless or ridiculous or romantic. Shifters needed something preventable. NonShifters needed something stoppable.
Finn’s stare held none of those things. And it threw me.
Counselor Salloway flitted into the room and announced dinner was served. The crowd surged and thinned as students with no family visiting filtered in to eat. The Ellisons moved forward. Finn paused by the welcome desk to fill out a name tag along with a handful of other people.
He waved the compubadge in the air. “Is there a pin or something to attach it to my shirt?”
At least he was wearing one.
I grabbed the tag away from him and slapped it against his chest. Finn’s face lit up like he’d witnessed a magic trick. Here I’d been feeling sorry for him cooped up in my house. He’d probably kept himself entertained watching the dishwasher. That and rifling through my stuff and plotting how to invade my school.
When I didn’t move for the stylus, he picked it back up. “Do you want me to fill yours out?”
“People know who I am.” I lowered my voice: “And people don’t need to know who you are.”
“It’ll make me stick out less if you’re wearing one, too.”
He had a point. I nodded my consent. Finn took extra care in forming the letters so they weren’t the same messy chicken scratch as his own. It was kind of sweet. Kind of.
He held the tag up. “So what makes it stick?”
“Body heat.”
“Oh.” With the tip of his finger and the lightest of pressure, he touched the center of the tag to my chest, right under the collarbone. I smoothed it the rest of the way down. I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was listening to our conversation.
Because there was about to be a smackdown.
“How did you even know tonight was Family Night?”
“Your, umm, fridge told me this morning.”
I’d been back to the house only a handful of times in over six months. It had never occurred to me to reset the reminders. It had never occurred to me that Mom would have remembered to set the reminders in the first place. I imagined them going off every week, reminding nothing and no one just how alone I was in this world. And the single time someone was there to hear them, it was the one person I wanted to stay away.
“You took a Publi-pod to get here?” I asked.
“Publi-potty is more like it.”
Ha. The initial charm must have worn off.
“What if you’d been seen?”
“I was seen.”
“I mean by people who could tell you’re from…”
“What? The past? I thought you said no one would believe it, that it isn’t possible.”
“It’s not.”
“Then how am I—?”
I shoved my hand over his mouth. “Not the place.”
He licked my hand. Licked it. I jerked it away.
“I can’t believe you—”
“Yeah, I know. Bugs the crap out of you when I do that.”
I got up in his face. “How many times have I had to tell you to stop?”
“Not you,” he said. “Remember? Future You.”
Wow. What were the chances of breaking every law of quantum dynamics and locating the universe’s most annoying person in one fell swoop?
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“Starving. Those instant meals are technically edible, but…”
“I know.” I’d felt a little guilty about that, too. “I’ll try to figure out a way to get you some fresh groceries before you go back tonight.”
Finn stopped. “Go back?”
“Until next Family Night.” This was actually the perfect way to sneak him in. “I haven’t had time to recruit a transporter to solve the last piece of our problem.”
He moved forward until the tips of his boots touched the toes of mine. My name tag strained against my shirt, toward the competing warmth.
“What problem is that exactly?” he whispered.
“How to—” I took a step back to concentrate. “How to get you back where you belong.”
“Wherever you are. That’s where I belong.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You want to finish your Captain Protector gig.” I narrowed my eyes. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned with how you’re going to get home?”
And there it was. A flash, before Finn wiped his face of emotion. Worry. Homesickness. Something. He turned away before I could call him on it.
“How ’bout that dinner?” he said with a smile.
* * *
Family Night meals are always the best. Fruits and veggies come down fresh from Hydroponics. Trays stacked with plates and bowls fly to the tables the second we touch the order button on the menu. Even the lighting’s better. A million little twinkle lights floating in the air rather than the usual harsh solar tubes.
Finn ogled it all. This must have been what he expected of the future. I kicked him under the table when he became so mesmerized by the sauce dispenser he missed the punch line of one of Mr. Ellison’s corny jokes.
Toward the end of dinner, Mimi’s parents became more and more insistent about me joining them for a game of Yahtzoids. I shot Mimi a desperate look. She picked up on it at once.
“Let’s give Bree and Finn some time alone.” There may have been some Ellison under-table kicking, because both her parents got the hint at the exact same time.
“Of course,”
said Mrs. Ellison.
“We’ll run up to the rec room now.” Mr. Ellison pushed his chair away from the table. “See you later.”
“Or … not,” added Mrs. Ellison.
“Thanks for understanding,” I said. “If I don’t catch up with you, have a good week.”
The dining hall had emptied out for the most part. I stretched out in my seat and cupped my chin in my hands. Finn entertained himself zipping the dishes away on the conveyor that ran down the center of the table. Dinner had actually been relatively pleasant. I forgot how nice Family Night could be when you weren’t by yourself. Maybe by next week I could figure out a way to talk Wyck into helping me without divulging who Finn really was or why he needed to go to the twenty-first century. This was all assuming Finn would Shift when I stuck him on a Pad. If he didn’t, we were yoinked.
I didn’t notice at first when Rab and Patrice stalked up behind me. When I saw them, I dipped my head low and concentrated on the last bite of my vegan flan.
“Have a good dinner, Tink?” said Patrice.
“Heard you were handing out safety tips. How to survive a forced fade.” Rab let out a guffaw, and they kept walking.
Finn looked up from the conveyor belt. “Did they just call you Tink?”
I nodded, keeping my head down.
“Is that your nickname—short for Tinker Bell?”
“Uhh, no.”
“So why did they call you that?”
I looked up, expecting curiosity or amusement. Instead, Finn looked frustrated.
“It’s hard to explain.” Plus, I flat-out didn’t want to. “Are you okay?”
“There’s so much she didn’t tell me.”
“Good. She wasn’t supposed to tell you anything.”
A movement over on the transporter side of the cafeteria distracted me.
Wyck and his brother, Den, sat in the corner sifting through a bag, likely full of items high in fat, sugar, and/or some other forbidden substance I craved on a regular basis. Not tonight, though. Tonight I wanted nothing more than to hightail it out of there without any uncomfortable introductions. I whipped my head around hoping Wyck hadn’t noticed me.