by Lola Dodge
Not right now. Somehow, Quanta transmitted a mental headshake. I just want to deal with one thing at a time.
That’s fair. And not to ignore the topic at hand, but it feels like your telepathy is getting stronger. More expressive.
Really? The hopeful little note in her voice was so pure and sweet I couldn’t help smiling.
Definitely. I can feel the progress.
“That’s something,” she said aloud.
“What is?” Eva looked between us, increasingly suspicious.
“Her telepathy is getting stronger.” There was no need to hide that much now that I’d started digging through the data on Eva’s other pairs. Psychic connection wasn’t unheard of. It wasn’t common either—it seemed exclusive to the Reds who had mental powers—but Quanta and I weren’t the first case.
Eva nodded as if she’d already suspected as much. “It should continue strengthening with more practice.”
“It better,” Quanta muttered.
It will. I was confident it would, as long as she stayed that determined.
The beep at the door knocked all thoughts of telepathy from my mind. Tompkins entered, flanked by a guard on either side.
He wore sweats, and his brown hair was rumpled as if he’d been dragged from bed. No morning training for the desk agents. I followed the path of his gaze—from Eva to me, then sweeping across Quanta to the cameras, and almost back to the guards behind him.
I assumed he was looking for a way out, but he wouldn’t find one. The guards didn’t miss his subtle twitchiness. Both men stood balanced and ready to reach for their weapons.
“Lady?” Tompkins finally dared to look forward. “What’s this about?”
“Trust,” Eva said. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
Tompkins flinched, and the gesture was as good as an admission. He tried to gather himself, smoothing his T-shirt and then his hair, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet Eva’s glare.
I wanted to ask my questions, but I preferred to let him stew, wondering what info we already had. Quanta stepped slightly in front of me, drawing his attention.
“Hmmm.” She exaggerated looking around him, widening her eyes and then shaking her head.
I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling, but Tompkins wasn’t paying attention to me. He stared at Quanta in abject horror. He must’ve heard the rumors about her abilities, and I hoped he believed the most overblown ones—that she could see his entire life’s path at a glance.
“I haven’t…” He pressed his hands against his thighs as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “I mean, I thought about… But I didn’t…”
“What did you think about?” Eva’s voice was cold.
“Cipher. And then Quanta. I couldn’t not think about it. But there was a test, and I didn’t know… And the other girls…” Logic was escaping him as he rambled.
“Other girls?” Eva folded her arms. “You’re going to have to explain this in a way we can understand, Tompkins. I want to be perfectly clear what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“I haven’t. Not yet. I just wanted to see what they’d give me if I…”
Tompkins was after rewards. I’d seen stronger men and women twist themselves in pursuit of the glittering life of Seligo.
Quanta stepped forward so suddenly that Tompkins jumped. She broke away from my hand, and I let her go—she was still close enough that I could pull her back before he turned aggressive. As she leaned toward him, Tompkins looked more sickly than threatening.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m pretty sure you’re lying.”
“I’m not. I didn’t…” He tried to back away, but the guards grabbed him.
Quanta took another half step forward. “You did something. What did you do?”
“Just a test. To prove my loyalty. But I didn’t finish. I swear. I didn’t!” He glanced at Eva and me in turn, but neither of us moved to spare him. I couldn’t muster any sympathy.
“Show me.” Quanta reached for him. Tompkins froze as her fingertips touched his hand.
Long seconds dragged out. Quanta blinked rapidly and her eyes flickered while she processed what she was seeing.
Then Tompkins started to pale.
In a flash, his face was white and bloodless. A keening sound slipped through his lips.
Quanta stood entranced, obviously not realizing something wrong was happening. I lunged for her, but before my hand reached her shoulder, Tompkins’ knees folded.
I yanked her away.
Too late. The damage was done.
Tompkins convulsed, moaning. Foaming saliva escaped his parted lips.
“I didn’t mean…” Quanta trembled. I eased her into a chair and then knelt to check his pulse.
Weak, but not gone. Yet. Eva crouched across from me and lifted Tompkins’ eyelid to reveal a fully dilated pupil.
Our gazes met. She shook her head.
“What happened?” I moved back to Quanta, keeping my voice low and soft.
“I just wanted to see. They slipped out…” Quanta gripped my arm. “Reset. We have to—”
Her face scrunched with focus and then twisted into terror.
“What? What’s wrong?” I took Quanta in my arms and pulled her away from the man on the floor.
“I can’t wind back.” Quanta’s nails dug into my arm, biting through my shirt. “I let too much time pass.”
My gut clenched. I pulled Quanta tight. “It’s my fault.” We’d both gotten caught up in uncovering the lead, but I should’ve insisted on establishing a new reset point. I should’ve brought it up again instead of running headlong into danger.
At least now we knew the limit of her power. We couldn’t reverse time farther than a day.
“Yours? Never.” Quanta pressed her forehead into my chest. “It’s my fault. And he’s not going to make it.” Her grim tone sent a shiver down my body.
I couldn’t protect her from the truth if she was already seeing it in the future.
All I could do was hug her tighter.
Chapter Five
QUANTA
My brain spun like an ice-cream maker.
Oh, my God.
I’d just wanted to peek inside Tompkins’ head. Not destroy him.
Am I that out of control?
Tair rubbed my back. “You didn’t mean it.” I tried to pull away, but he kept me tight in his arms. “And you can’t hurt me.”
For the millionth time, I was grateful. At least there’s one person I can’t destroy.
But everyone else…
Tompkins still sprawled limp on the ground. Just like Darren had. Only I’d meant to kill Darren.
But Tompkins…
My breath panted, and I clenched at Tair as the world spun around me. It didn’t matter if Tompkins was innocent or guilty. I wasn’t supposed to be his executioner.
The shaken guards stepped aside as a medical team hurried in. Goose bumps ran up and down my arms as Eva explained what had happened, and they cast fearful looks my way. It was good that they were afraid. Everyone needed to be afraid of me if this was what I was capable of, because my powers were only getting stronger. Now I could kill in a flash. One slip. One burst of concentrated timeghosts.
After they lifted Tompkins onto a stretcher, Eva turned her full attention to me. “Has this happened before?”
“Not like this.” I should’ve read the signs. Just minutes ago, I’d leaked my powers into Tair. And I’d made myself a weapon before.
But…
Why hadn’t I seen this coming? I always found warnings in the future. Always. But now, the interference… There were too many other scenes fighting for my attention. That was why I’d needed to touch him. Just to see clearly.
Now I could see.
Tompkins writhes on his stretcher. Machines beep. The medics jam a tube down his throat, but even if they can get him breathing—
Too late.
“But it has happened?” Eva’s gaze pinned me whe
re I stood.
Guilt pressed down like a tangible thing. “It’s happened.”
“I’ll need to run tests,” Eva said.
“Right.” As much as that was the last thing I wanted, I couldn’t say no. I needed help controlling myself. And figuring out what the hell was going on with me.
“What sort of tests?” Tair shifted to shield me from Eva, but I didn’t feel like being defended.
I’d feel even more guilty if I didn’t get in trouble.
“Everything,” Eva said. “This wasn’t part of her original power. We need to chart her growth and see if it shows where she’s heading. Or if she’s destabilizing.”
Destabilizing. I shuddered.
That had always been a possibility, but I’d never thought I’d live long enough. I’d expected to get killed long before my unstable DNA came back to bite me.
That was the thing about being a Red Helix. We could be normal. We might not explode.
But if something changed… Even something as little as emotions or radiation or diet…
We could get volatile. Fast.
It meant different things for different people. Once upon a time, it might’ve meant losing my sanity, but my powers had shifted crazily lately. Especially after meeting Tair. He steadied me, but also amped me up. Now if I went kaboom…
Timeghosts played out the worst-case future.
I kneel somewhere in one of the Citadels—everything clear glass and modern white. The plaza holds a bubbling little koi pond and a shop selling cute cakes.
But I’m not looking at the scenery. I’m bent over, forehead touching the ground.
My stomach roiled as the scope of the future spread.
A ring of Black Helixes lie near me, bodies limp. Past them, innocents. A family sprawls together on the ground with their fallen slices of cake.
Absolute silence rings in my ears. Farther out, more bodies.
Dozens. Hundreds.
I tried to swallow, but my throat was chalk dry because I knew exactly what the images meant.
I was destructive now. And when Reds went boom?
I’d seen Cipher’s version of the nightmare plenty of times. If she went down, she’d blow out the power on a few continents and leave behind a smoking crater the size of a city.
I had the same potential now.
Only instead of charring the infrastructure, I was going to fry their brains.
My breath shook.
If my powers kept growing in this direction, I’d keep burning out other people. One at a time, then more and more…
Until I started lobotomizing people on a continental scale.
Tair’s watch pinged an alarm. “Your vitals…”
“It’s nothing.” I tried to step away from him, to move toward the door, but my knees wobbled.
“Quanta.” Tair steadied me. “It’s not nothing,” he said as he pulled me against him.
I resisted for a split-second—because I knew I was using him as a crutch again—but then I took a deep breath and relaxed into the quiet of his arms. I needed a crutch right now.
One deep breath.
Then another.
And one more.
His watch stopped beeping as I found an island of calm. There was no point getting stuck on the worst-case scenario.
I’d said it a thousand times, and I had to say it again to remind myself—fate didn’t exist.
Seeing this didn’t mean it would happen. I could steer myself the opposite way, and I would. I just had to stop panicking and stop pitying and work with what I had. That strategy had gotten me this far, and it was no time to take a U-turn in the wrong direction.
I couldn’t bring Tompkins back. I could only make sure I didn’t hurt anyone else.
After a final cleansing breath, I remembered the bright spot in this cluster. “I saw the web address he was using to send messages.” I hadn’t seen what exactly he was planning, but he’d been acting suspicious for sure—slinking around and typing all surreptitious.
Not that that made me feel any better.
“An address?” Eva asked. “We’ll need to speak with Cipher.”
I wrinkled my nose. Just the blue-headed hacker I’d kind of been avoiding. But I couldn’t see another way.
Computers definitely weren’t my thing. Tair could probably figure out a hack with enough time, but we didn’t have time, and this wasn’t the moment to start bumbling around. Cipher was the only one who could get us the info we needed fast.
If she felt like helping.
But she had to. If the compound wasn’t safe, neither was she.
I just hoped getting close to her wouldn’t put her in more danger. I might be worse than the Seligo at this point.
After one more Tair-centric cleansing breath, I stood straighter and pulled away from him. “Can we run tests now? I don’t want to risk hurting anyone else.”
Eva nodded. “I’ll have an examination room prepared.”
Just the word examination made my heart pound so hard my vision started going dark. I could not panic.
Or, I could panic, but I had to go through the testing either way. Otherwise, I’d be walking around the compound like a time bomb, putting everyone in danger.
I swallowed the panic as best I could. It was going to get worse before it got better, but I didn’t have a choice.
Tests. Then I’d talk to Cipher and we could double-check Tompkins’ comp.
And then…
If my life’s hourglass was running low on sand again, I’d use every second I had left to the absolute fullest.
Chapter Six
ALTAIR
Eva and I ran Quanta through a full battery of tests. Blood chemistry. Biopsies. A series of psychological assessments. Eva’s lab assistants bustled, trying to process the workups as quickly as possible. I set my own samples aside. We could only do so much at one time, and there were so many questions to be answered.
I’d retest and experiment later.
After Quanta was settled.
She was off anesthesia after the bone marrow and organ biopsies, but still limp and dozing on the assessment table. I hated that she had to subject herself to this so soon after escaping Doctor Nagi. We needed the test results desperately, but knowing that didn’t make that easier to bear for any of us.
I caught Eva’s eye from across the lab. “I’m taking her back to her room.”
“She’s finished,” Eva said. “But the results—”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I scooped Quanta from the table before Eva could continue. Something told me leaving Quanta alone would be even harder this time—but I would return. There was work to be done.
I paused on the steps outside Eva’s double-wide laboratory. My lab was closer, but as much as I wanted to keep Quanta nearby, I didn’t want her waking up to a blinding white room not knowing where she was.
Instead, I headed toward the barracks. Quanta didn’t stir in my arms as I strode down the packed-dirt path, but as we wound through and around the work areas, stares shifted in our direction.
People weren’t typically carried through the compound. Let alone Reds.
Particularly legendary, clairvoyant Reds who’d been assumed dead for years.
We’d been mostly left alone in the week since we’d arrived, but the stares were growing more pointed. Soon, the others would stop being afraid and start asking questions. I doubted even news of Tompkins would put them off much longer.
Eva’s assistants had brought updates as we worked, but all the news was the same. Tompkins’ brain activity had shut down.
Quanta would never be able to let it go if he died. She didn’t need that guilt added to what she already carried. As cold as my thoughts were, I couldn’t care about the spy.
Only Quanta. I carried her as gently as I could.
The barracks structure was more permanent than most of the encampment—in an emergency, people were meant to abandon their beds and run to their assigned stations. The ship
ping containers had been stacked and joined with steel stairways like a ramshackle apartment building.
We’d realized on the first night that she couldn’t sleep near so many people. At least, she couldn’t if she wanted to avoid screaming nightmares. I skirted the building to find her private train car.
It looked forlorn on its own, but its spot was as secure as any in the compound—the closest structure to the battle stations, just in case the worst occurred. It could also be locked down like a personal bunker that nothing short of a rocket launcher would disturb. I shifted her weight to access the fingerprint scanner, and the door buzzed open.
Quanta had already started making the space her own. Sketches flapped, taped to the steel walls, and I had to pick my way through the loose papers on the floor to get to the bunk bed. Someone had provided Quanta with oil pastels, so instead of looking like a stark basement bunker, the room burst with brilliant landscapes from various points in time and space.
I suspected she hated staring at the blank walls. So would I, in her situation.
With one hand, I shifted aside the papers and pencils piled on her bedspread. She didn’t have much, but what she did have was scattered everywhere. As long as it kept the bunker from feeling like a prison cell, I approved of the mess, but she didn’t need to wake herself up by rolling on a sharpened pencil.
When the space was cleared, I sat on the bottom bunk to ease her down. Still woozy, she slipped from my arms. I positioned the pillow under her head and started to sit up so I could cover her with a blanket.
Before I could move too far, Quanta grabbed my hand. Will you—?
“Will I…?” I’d do anything she asked, but I needed to know the question first. I leaned closer. She smelled like shampoo, and her pillowcase was stained from falling asleep with wet hair, but that was Quanta.
She could only focus on the things that mattered.
“Will you stay longer?” Her thick voice struck a chord that ached in my chest.
“I’ll stay.” This was more important than the lab.
Quanta was more important. And she was the reason for the work in the first place.