His eyes blink. The box he’s holding slides from his fingers, landing on the floor with an unfortunate cracking sound. He puts a hand on my shoulder.
“What happened to you?” he asks.
I tell my story quickly, trying to gloss over the worst parts. KJ looks sick when I finish.
“Alex, I …” He moves as if to pull me into a hug and I step back automatically. KJ shoves his hands into his jeans pockets.
“How badly did they hurt you?”
“Nothing permanent.” I hold up my arm to show the small bandage Amy taped over the wound. “This is the worst of it.”
KJ shakes his head, clearly still trying to fit my story into his brain. “And now you think Dr. Barnard has ties with Sikes?”
“Yes. I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m sure he suspects what I can do.”
“Then why did you freeze again? This is only going to make things worse.”
I study the floor. I’m not looking forward to this part. “I didn’t tell you the full story before. There’s a reason Ross is faking my blood tests. He’s giving me an experimental medicine. It’s supposed to let me live longer, and this new skill is a side effect. If Barnard runs a test, he’ll figure it out.”
“You let Ross give you drugs?” KJ speaks with ominous calm.
I nod.
“Then letting Barnard run the test is the best thing for you,” KJ says. “He’ll take you off Ross’s drug and put you back to normal.”
My head snaps up. KJ wears a look of grim determination. A beat of panic rises in the back in my throat.
“This new medicine might be the only reason I’m alive right now,” I say. “Plus, if some other drug shows up in my system, Barnard will run a bunch of tests. He’ll make me freeze time and figure out I can change things. You said it yourself. They’ll send me to the Central Office. I can’t just appear places. It’s too much. They won’t let anyone have this kind of power.”
We stare at each other for a long time. I know KJ so well I can see the struggle beneath his skin: desire to get me back on Aclisote, fear of the consequences if my secret is discovered, anger that I lied to him. Finally he lets out a long sigh.
“You’ll help me?” I ask.
“On one condition.”
“What?”
“You get your blood tested.”
“KJ, I told you, I can’t. If they test my blood, they’ll …”
He shakes his head. “Shannon can run the test.”
Shannon. Of all the people he could have chosen to involve, Shannon is probably at the bottom of my list. I bite my lip, trying to think of another option. The image of Dr. Barnard holding the vial of my tainted blood leaves me with little choice.
“OK,” I say. “She can test it. But don’t tell her that my skills have changed.”
KJ uncrosses his arms. “What do you need?”
Relief hits me so hard my eyes spark with tears. KJ is back on my side. I allow myself to believe my plan might work.
“Your blood.” I hold up the stuff I took from the clinic. “I need your blood.”
“To swap out your sample?”
I nod.
“It’s a temporary fix,” KJ warns. “He can draw more.”
“It buys me time.” I grimace. “It always comes down to time, doesn’t it?”
KJ gives a wry smile. He’s already rolling up his sleeve.
Drawing blood turns out to be harder than the clinic staff makes it look. Even after I’ve tied off KJ’s arm to make the blood vessels pop up, the actual injection takes a while. Skin is tough. By the time I’m done, KJ’s face has turned slightly green.
“You might want to practice that if you’re going to make a habit of it.”
“Sorry,” I mutter.
I cap the filled syringe while KJ unties his arm.
“We have another problem.” I dab his arm with a cotton ball, then stick it and the rubber tie into my pocket. “I need to block the grid somehow so Barnard doesn’t know I stopped time. You know, like they do when we’re on missions.”
“It’s too late for that. You’ve already triggered the system. The alarm will go off in a few seconds.” KJ scratches his chin. “I suppose we could unplug the server.” He must notice my blank look because he adds: “If we unplug the server that the monitor runs on, the whole system will reset, which should clear your freeze from its memory. It happens sometimes when the power goes out. You’ll have to melt time long enough for the monitor to recognize the power was cut and then freeze again as soon as we plug it back in.”
“Is there any way to disable my tracker permanently so that I’m not on the system?”
“Not unless we cut it out of your neck.”
I touch the barely discernable bump just below my hairline.
“They’d probably notice that, wouldn’t they.”
The server lives in an electrical closet that’s locked with a key card. KJ and I run through the options, settling on one that will use the least fragments of real time. We retrieve the key card from Charlie’s guard station, then hurry to the closet, blessedly located in a little used side hall. I take KJ’s hand.
“Remember,” he says, “you have to be fast or the monitor will register your freeze.”
With the image of Barnard’s vial floating in the forefront of my brain, I drop hold of time. KJ swipes the card. We snatch the door open, and I refreeze. It’s not easy, even with the supportive energy I get from the link with KJ. Time fights me, a powerful force straining for freedom. I clench my teeth and drag it under my control.
The closet is dark, lit by only a few small lights on the monitor’s control panel. KJ crawls around on the floor, patting wires and cords as he traces the right one to the power outlet. One hard tug and it’s unplugged. I prop the door open and move closer so I can put my hand against the back of his neck.
“Ready?” I ask.
KJ nods. Time runs forward. The lights on the server wink out. KJ thrusts the plug back into the wall.
Freeze time.
The two of us sink back on our heels. For a while we just sit there. My hand lingers on the back of his neck. It seems hard to believe it was only a few hours ago I imagined doing this so we could freeze together, picturing those moments as some kind of illicit romance. This stark reality is both less and more than I imagined—less in that there isn’t an inch of romance in this cramped closet, and more because sitting here makes me realize that my bond with KJ is much deeper than a few stolen kisses. He might not be my boyfriend, but he’s still my rock. I know he will always be there for me.
My headache gives an insistent throb.
“We’d better get moving,” I say. I lift my hand, missing his warmth as soon as I’ve stopped touching his skin.
We return the key card to the guard station. Charlie is sitting where we left him, completely engrossed in his cell phone. When we reach the lab, we find that Dr. Barnard hasn’t moved much either, only shifted the eyedropper from the counter to rest on the lip of the vial. I pour KJ’s blood into a fresh tube and add a few drops of the separating solution. I swirl it slowly, checking the original vial to try and match the blood wash up the sides of the glass.
“We should be timing this,” KJ says.
I automatically check the clock. 2:56. That isn’t going to work.
“Count,” I say.
KJ starts counting in a steady cadence. I swirl the vial until he reaches three hundred. Five minutes, halfway there. Very carefully, I slide the vial with my blood out of Barnard’s inert fingers and replace it with the tube of KJ’s. KJ takes the vial with my blood and caps it with a stopper.
“Can you get back in five minutes?” I ask. KJ nods. Without pausing his count, he pulls the medical trash from my pocket and wraps it around the tube of my blood.
“I’ll get rid of this,” he says between numbers, then takes off down the hall at a run.
I pick up his count and head back to the clinic, easing past Yolly to return to the sickroom. I’m so
tired it’s hard to keep the numbers straight. Amy is right where I left her, eyes squeezed shut. I fit my arm back into the open curve of her fingers, making sure not to touch them, and realign my feet and body as close to my former posture as I can remember. At six hundred I release time, tensed for the scream of the monitor. Amy opens her eyes.
“You’re still here,” she says.
The monitor remains quiet. I let out a shaky breath.
“Of course I am.”
“I thought you were …” Amy’s mouth hangs open, suspended just like her sentence.
“Thought I was what? Going to run away?” I shrug. “How could I? I just wanted a few seconds to think before you put the leash on. It makes my head so fuzzy.”
Amy closes her mouth. Her hand wraps around my arm again. She lifts the leash, hesitates.
“So will you cover for me?” she whispers.
I rub my temple. “You don’t have to worry.”
Amy gives herself a little shake, either dismissing her fears or reclaiming her role as the responsible person in the room. She snaps the leash on my wrist and leads me to the bed.
“You’d better lie down,” she says. “You lost quite a bit of blood. Those stitches might hurt once the lidocaine wears off.”
I climb into bed without protest and stare up at the ceiling. The stress of the past hour, combined with the strain of holding time so long, has left me so tired I can barely move. Amy heads for the door. I hear it shut and then the snap as the lock clicks. My head aches, the pain worsened by the buzzing of the leash’s interference. So many things could still go wrong: the beep of the reawakened monitor exposing my freeze, KJ not making it back to the storage room and appearing out of nowhere in some random hall, Barnard figuring out he’s been tricked.
The murmur of Yolly and Amy’s voices drifts through the locked door—soft, worried sounds unintelligible from where I lie. Across from me, high on the wall, a clock with a thin red second hand ticks relentlessly. Time moves forward, out of my control. I close my eyes and wait.
Barnard turns up in my room a half hour later. He’s calmer now, though apparently still too worked up to sit. Instead, he paces around my room, spinning the watch on his wrist as he walks.
“Tell me again what happened today.”
I tell my story the way I had before: Jack calling me with a message, the woman sending me to the back room, the men threatening me. I add that they wanted me to testify against the evidence of my rewind. I don’t mention Ross or Sikes. Instead, I keep the focus on Sidell’s role as Karl Wagner’s father.
When I finish, Barnard stops pacing and rests his hands on the metal bedrail at the foot of my bed. His eyes are bright behind his glasses.
“And tell me again how you got away?”
I meet Barnard’s gaze with all the innocence I can muster. The half hour has given me time to think up a faintly possible cover story.
“I managed to grab up one of the trophies, and I hit the big guy with it and ran. The other two had left, and I figured Buck wouldn’t chase me once I hit the street.”
Barnard studies my thin frame. If he’s actually met Buck, he must know I’m lying. I hurry to change the topic.
“Mr. Ross will want to know what happened. Have you called him?”
Barnard releases the bedrail and walks to the window. “You have to admit your story is pretty farfetched, Alexandra.”
I swallow. “It’s the truth.”
Barnard lifts a slat and peers out the window into the depthless gray of lowering clouds. I wonder what he’s thinking. He’s had time to run my blood test at least twice. Does the fact that I’m not being dragged to the Central Office mean my secret is safe? Or is he even now plotting how to turn me over to Sikes?
“Yolanda thinks your wounds are self-inflicted,” Barnard says. “That the sickness is making you hallucinate.”
I pick at the bandage covering my wrist. Does Barnard really believe I’m sick, or is he using Yolly’s fears as a convenient cover story? If Barnard really does have ties with Sikes, it won’t take long before he hears about my disappearance in front of Buck. And if he doesn’t, there’s still Sikes himself. My probing fingers catch the edge of one of my stitches, sending a dart of pain along my arm. I don’t see Sikes as a man who takes defeat easily. If he wants to stop Ross from pursuing his investigation, one unexplained escape isn’t going to slow him down. He’ll either come back for me and do it right, or change his tactic and go straight for Ross instead.
I smooth the bandage against my arm, wishing the motion could just as easily smooth away the fear clamping my chest. If I want protection from Sikes, then he needs to go to jail, and right now I’m the only one who can make sure that happens.
“How long until I’m cleared for time work?” I ask.
“Time work?” Barnard drops the slat and turns back toward my bed. “Oh, you won’t be doing any more time work. Not if you’re so unstable you’d consider suicide.”
I bolt upright. Barnard moves across the room.
“We’ll just keep an eye on you here for a while. Maybe run a few more tests.”
“No!”
Barnard pulls out his keys. I scramble to get out of bed.
“You can’t do that.” My hands fumble with the sheets, which tangle around my legs. “I can still go on missions. Ask Mr. Ross.”
“Carson Ross is not a medical expert,” Barnard says, not even bothering to turn around.
The lock clicks. I manage to tear the sheets away, half-falling out of bed.
“Wait!” I say. “You don’t understand.”
Before the door even opens all the way, Barnard slips through it and yanks it shut.
“I’m not sick!” I wrench the handle just as the lock falls back into place.
“Come on.” I bang against the unresponsive wood. “I didn’t try to hurt myself. I feel fine. You saw my chronotin levels.”
Footsteps retreat on the other side of the door. I press my ear against the crack and catch the thump as the outer door to the clinic closes.
Tears swell the back of my nose. Sikes is out there, a dark menace with the power to destroy everything I care about. I crumple to the floor and let the tears fall. All my planning, all my lies and desperate tricks, have landed me exactly where I didn’t want to be: leashed and alone in a locked room.
16
TIME GROWS UNRULY. I LOOK UP AT THE CLOCK AND see only five minutes have crawled past, and then the next instant an entire hour is gone. I pace the room, tracing Barnard’s steps around the bed to search the street for signs of Sikes’s men, then looping back to try the door, which is locked. Always locked. I finger the rough keyhole. The unmoving knob doesn’t offer me any protection. Not if Barnard is the only thing standing between me and Sikes.
The clock reads 5:30 when I finally hear voices in the clinic lobby. My body tenses until I recognize them. Yolly. And KJ. I’m standing a foot from the door when it swings open.
“KJ!” I hurl myself at him. KJ returns the hug, his arms tight against my back.
“He’s insistent, your friend,” Yolly says, pretending to frown at us. “He can only stay for five minutes. Dr. Barnard didn’t explicitly say no visitors, but I’m not sure he’d approve.”
“Thanks, Yolly,” I say, blinking back tears. “I really appreciate it.”
Yolly dabs at the corner of her eye, trying to make it look like she’s fishing out an eyelash.
“I’ll go rustle up some dinner for you,” she says as she backs out of the room.
I press my face into KJ’s chest, taking in the earthy scent that is so uniquely his. The solidity of him calms me, and I wish I could stand here forever.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I say. “I have to get a message to Ross. I need …”
KJ makes an odd gulping sound. I realize he hasn’t moved since he entered the room. I loosen my hold on him and take my first good look at his face. His jaw is taut, eyes wide, like he’s trying really hard not to cry. The com
fort I’d felt in his arms evaporates.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Shannon tested your blood.”
I move away from him.
“What? How?”
“That sample Barnard took. We snuck it down to the lab an hour ago. Alex, your chronotin, it’s high.”
He’s holding his hands at his sides, fingers clenched into fists.
“How high?” My voice squeaks. “Like over 175?”
“Higher.” He swallows. “It’s 317.”
“317?” I back away from him, stopping only when I hit the hard edge of the bed. “That’s impossible. Nobody tests anywhere near that high.”
“We ran it twice.”
My knees give way. I collapse against the bed.
“How?” I say, though I’m not even sure what I’m asking. How is that possible? How can I still be alive? KJ comes over and sits next to me.
“You have to get back on Aclisote. Now. It’s a miracle you haven’t had another attack.”
“Will Shannon tell Barnard?” I ask.
“I told her I had to talk to you first. But she’s worried about you, too.”
I shake my head. “This can’t be right. Ever since I started Ross’s medicine I’ve felt completely healthy. Normal. Better than normal.”
“It’s all in your head, Alex.” KJ puts his arm around my shoulders. “You wanted to believe the medicine was working, so it did. And even if you do feel OK, Jack says how you feel is no way to predict an attack. He said he felt fine the day before his.”
I stiffen. “You talked to Jack?”
“Yes, I …”
I shake his arm off my shoulder, wrenching my body away so it no longer touches his.
“He’s the one that sent me to the trophy store.”
KJ flinches.
“I know. He told me …” KJ rubs his forehead. “I’m not explaining this right. Let me start at the beginning.
“After you melted time, I went to find Jack. I wanted to hit him like you’d been hit, but he wouldn’t fight me. He just stood there and swore that he thought the errand was legit.”
“And you believe him?”
“I do.” KJ twists on the bed so he’s facing me. “He looked completely un-Jack-like—no showing off, just scared. He told me he’s pretty sure Sikes pays Barnard to do favors for him and that Barnard covers up Sikes’s crimes. Nothing huge, just stuff like stalling an investigation or making sure only weak spinners get sent to do rewinds on Sikes cases. Sometimes Barnard sends Jack out on his own to deliver messages to this mailbox over at some rent-a-box place. He’ll sneak him out through the parking garage so there’s no record of him leaving. That’s why Jack never gets in trouble when he breaks rules. The two of them have an understanding.”
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