Rewind

by Carolyn O'Doherty

  “Let’s split up,” Ross says. “We can work faster that way. Do you want to search upstairs or down?”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “The same stuff we did before—anything that ties Shea to either the robberies or Matt Thompson.”

  The dryer to our right is full of clothes. Ross bends to peer through the clear panel on its front door. The bright metal feels warm when I touch it; someone must have run the load very recently.

  “I’ll search downstairs,” I say. If someone is home I don’t really want to stumble across them tucked in their beds. It’s creepy enough to dig through someone’s house without having their frozen bodies bear witness.

  Ross nods before striding out of the room. I listen to the thump of his shoes until they fade away. There’s a small part of me that kind of wishes I’d taken his suggestion and stayed behind. The search of Matt’s office felt invasive, but this midnight trip makes me feel like I’m in a horror movie. The burglar alarm’s unblinking light glares at me through the darkness, and the closed cupboards hint at grisly secrets, their knobs poised to start turning on their own.

  I give myself a mental shake. There’s nothing to be afraid of in a freeze. Ross only suggested we separate so I don’t have to hold time as long. I move out of the utility room into an open kitchen. Stainless steel appliances gleam in the moonlight. A dirty bowl lies on the marble countertop near the sink. I look for somewhere to search. Ross forgot to give me gloves this time, so I cover my hands with my sleeves, just in case. There’s a formal dining room off the kitchen, but all it has is a cupboard with plates and wine glasses. The living room has pillows, lots of books, and an abstract painting on the wall that looks like a hundred eyes all watching me. I scurry past it into a family room, which has a huge TV and is very, very dark.

  Something creaks. I jump, stifling the scream strangling my throat. Which is ridiculous. Ross must be walking around up there. He probably found a study, really the most likely place to find any kind of evidence. No one is going to hide notes for their next burglary under the TV remote. There’s not even a mysterious trunk or anything I could unlock with my pick. I should go help Ross instead of wasting time down here. I pad over soft carpeting and climb the stairs to the upper floor with more eagerness than the task deserves.

  “Mr. Ross?” I call, but so softly my words melt into the surrounding silence. I turn on the spot, trying to choose among the line of closed doors, when a slight rustling sound tells me where to go. I hurry forward and push the door open.

  Moonlight spills through an open curtain, illuminating a bed resting in a carved wood frame. A man lies there, eyes closed, his mouth hanging slightly open. There’s an empty glass on his bedside table, next to a photo of a smiling woman holding a small child.

  Ross is standing beside the bed. I am about to announce myself, when something about his stance stops me. He’s staring at the man, his face blazing with a triumph that looks more hungry than celebratory. It’s somehow intensely personal, and I hesitate, torn between offering help and withdrawing to give him privacy. Before I can decide, Ross moves. He slings the messenger bag over his head and pulls something from it, then turns back toward Shea. My heart stutters.

  Ross is holding a knife.

  18

  IT FEELS LIKE SOMETHING HARD JUST SLAMMED INTO my chest. I can’t breathe. I try to call Ross’s name and all that comes out is a choked burble. The knife glints in the moonlight. It’s a long blade, the top edge serrated with jagged cuts.

  Ross raises his hand. Surely he’s going to set the blade on the bedside table. A warning. A threat. Ross’s hand swoops down and slashes across the man’s neck. I scream.

  Ross whirls around.

  “Alex! You’re supposed to be downstairs.”

  My breath comes so fast it makes me dizzy. A small drip of blood leaks from the gash in the man’s neck, the first hint of the flood that time will eventually release. Ross moves toward me, the knife loose in his hand. I back away.

  “What did you do?” I whisper.

  “I had to.” Ross’s voice is gentle, soothing. He approaches me like I’m a wild animal that might bolt. I take another step and hit a wall.

  “You could never be safe as long as he was alive,” Ross says. “Neither of us could.”

  I can’t tear my eyes away from the frozen figure on the bed. He’s a big man. There will be a lot of blood.

  “You killed him.”

  “That’s Austin Shea. He killed lots of people. He killed Sal. He deserves to die.”

  “We were going to arrest him.” I flatten myself against the wall. “We were looking for evidence.”

  Ross shakes his head. “I never said we would arrest him. I said we’d take care of him. Austin Shea … he’s not like a normal criminal, he’s too well protected. Until last week no one even knew he existed. We would never be able to send him to jail.”

  “But … you killed him.” The bald fact seems insurmountable. That and the idea that Ross stands before me brandishing a knife. I rub my eyes. I want to wipe away the images in front of me, but as soon as I close my lids I see Ross’s hand plunging toward its victim, his face lit with that terrible triumph. I look up.

  “You used me. You’ve been using me all along. Mr. Sidell was right, wasn’t he? Karl Wagner never showed up in that rewind.”

  “I told you. Karl Wagner was a bad man. He deserves to be in jail.”

  “Not for a crime he didn’t commit!”

  Ross frowns. “I thought we had a partnership. That you understood. Sometimes the truth doesn’t make things right. Remember Mrs. Montgomery? You were OK telling a lie for her. We only managed to ID Sikes by doing things that were technically illegal and because I flushed him out with a rumor that Jason Torino was blabbing his secrets. Are you saying we shouldn’t have done those things?”

  “Yes. No.” The dizziness isn’t getting any better. I press my hands against the wall, the single point of solidity in a world turned upside-down. “This is different. Sneaking around in frozen time. He never had a chance. It’s not fair.”

  “You think the bad guys play fair? This is justice, Alex. This is making the world a better place. It’s what we both wanted.”

  “This isn’t better.” I point toward the bed. “I never wanted this.”

  Ross and I stare at each other. He’s still frowning. A headache pulses in my temple, the first twinge of time resisting my control. The pain sets off a string of associations: the sickness, Aclisote, whispers in the dark. I touch my brow.

  “You’ve been planning this for weeks,” I say. “Longer. It’s why you changed my meds. You knew what would happen.”

  Ross adjusts his grip on the knife. A drop of blood drips from the blade in his hand, and for a confused instant I’m convinced that it’s mine.

  “I saved your life by taking you off Aclisote,” he says.

  “Saved my life?” I push myself away from the wall. “Your drugs sent my chronotin levels sky-high. I’ll probably die sooner thanks to you.”

  A flicker crosses Ross’s face, a small spasm as if I’d said something amusing. “Drugs? What drugs?”

  “The ones you’ve been giving me!” I’m yelling now, the words tearing from me like chunks of my own flesh.

  Ross sighs. “I was waiting to tell you this until after you got away from the Center. High chronotin is normal for spinners. It’s suppressing it with Aclisote that makes you sick.”

  Comprehension bursts over me with the force of a bomb. I slide down to the floor, crumpling onto the thick carpet. Drugs didn’t change my skills. It’s me. Me, unfettered by any medicine. No wonder freezes feel easier now, the melts more smooth. Spinners are supposed to have high chronotin levels. We’re supposed to be able to change things in frozen time. And Aclisote … I look up at Ross.

  “Dr. Barnard is killing us?” From my position he looks very tall, like an adult does to a very small child. “You knew this, and you never did anything?”

  Ros
s’s eyes slide away from mine. “What was I supposed to do? Take on some crusade to save the spinners? Nothing would have changed. It’s not like people in power don’t know. They’d have lots of ways to prove me wrong. At least I saved you.”

  “But …” I touch the aching spot on my temple, forcing my thoughts into order. “You didn’t save me because you cared about me, you saved me so I could do this for you.” I wave my hand around the darkened room.

  “We did this,” Ross says. “Just like we always said we would. This is our dream, remember? Stop Sikes and get justice for Sal.”

  I struggle back onto my feet.

  “You did this,” I say, “not me. And I’m going to tell everyone the truth. I’m going to tell Chief Graham that you’re a murderer.”

  Ross’s mouth draws into a tight line.

  “Do you know what I’ve risked for you? I put my job in jeopardy. My reputation.”

  “I didn’t ask for any of it.”

  “No, but you were certainly quick to accept it, weren’t you?”

  Ross steps closer. I shrink back, from him, from his words. I’m abruptly aware that this man is dangerous, and that I have just made him very, very angry. Ross’s hand snakes out, his fingers digging into the soft skin of my upper arm.

  “You will tell no one.” The sentence sounds like it’s chipped from ice. Ross’s hand rakes the length of my arm, his fingers dragging along the bone. He presses the handle of the knife into my right palm, forcing my fist to close around it. The wood is smooth, the blade below it wet with blood.

  “I was never here.” He’s standing so close I can smell the bitter tang of his sweat. The scent makes me gag. Ross yanks me toward the bedroom’s door.

  “You,” he says, wrapping my free hand around the knob, “are everywhere.” He shoves me deeper into the room, ripping the knife away as I fall back.

  “If you do anything to betray me—anything—I’ll say you’ve been acting strangely, tell the police to fingerprint you. It will be a familiar tale of another spinner gone mad with time sickness and attacking random strangers.”

  Ross stands before me, his body blocking the door with its incriminating knob. Little imperfections I never noticed reveal themselves: a stray hair sprouting from one nostril, a wrinkle twisting a bitter line through his upper lip.

  “Someone will find him,” I say. “The police will come. They’ll rewind the whole thing …”

  “No one will find him for days. His wife and son are out of town until Thursday.”

  The words I’d said to him earlier this evening ring in my head. You think of everything. My stomach twists.

  “Even if they do rewind the scene,” Ross adds, “what do you think they’ll see? This is frozen time. It didn’t happen. They’ll see his throat slit, but they won’t see who did it. There are a few people who might figure out how it happened but all that would prove is that a spinner was involved.”

  Dots fleck my vision. I am trapped in a maze with no exits. Everywhere I turn, Ross throws up a wall. I look down at my hands. A smear of blood from the knife smudges my palm. In the half light, the blood appears black.

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  Ross sighs again, a heavy release of air that shivers his entire body.

  “Oh, Alex,” he says. “You and I are not supposed to fight. We’re a team. Partners.” His shoulders slump. “What happens next is completely your choice. Take some time and think things over. If you choose to stick with our original plan, you can live a long life. I’ll spring you tomorrow, just like I promised, and set you up in a place of your own. We can solve more crimes, do some good with your skills. Or you can refuse and stay at the Center. Given the trouble you’ve caused, I’d guess Barnard will increase your Aclisote right away. If you’re lucky you’ll live a week.”

  My headache pulses. I want to scream at him, hit him, scratch the sympathetic expression off his face. Even more than that, I want to cry. Not because I know he has me trapped. Not because a man is dead because of me. I want to cry because I’ve lost the person I admired most.

  Ross crosses the room and picks up the messenger bag. Pulling out a plastic sack, he carefully wraps the murder weapon and places it inside. When he walks out I follow him. What choice do I have? If I melt time, my tracker will place me at the scene of the crime. I could run, but I don’t know how to ride the double bike by myself. Plus, we’re so far from downtown I’m not sure I can find my way back before I lose control. If I can’t, Ross will get there before me and then all he has to do to secure his alibi is wait until I inevitably let time go.

  We ride back without speaking. It’s mostly downhill, so this time the wind is chilling. I clench the handlebars, not bothering to pedal. Ross stops along the way to drop his gloves into a sewer. I catch a faint splash as they hit water, two small bits of leather swallowed up in an underground river of trash.

  By the time we reach the Center, I’m shivering with cold and shock. Ross stashes the bike, using a cloth to wipe away our prints. I drag my feet up the Center’s front steps. The door stands half open, just like we left it. Charlie’s hand hovers over the controls at the front desk, lips smiling over Ross’s jokes. Nothing has changed, yet everything is different.

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Ross says, “if you decide to come with me, freeze time just before six o’clock and leave your room. It’s the shift change, so hide out by the entrance until one of the staff leaves and slip out after them. I’ll be waiting for you in an unmarked car at the corner of Northwest Second and Davis.”

  I nod my head without really listening. Ross ducks into his spot behind the front door when I cross the threshold. My footsteps echo through the hallways, reverberations no one will ever hear. Without conscious thought, I head to the only consolation I know.

  KJ’s door opens with a twist of my pick. He’s asleep, knees half bent, face turned toward the wall. I climb over his inert form and coil myself into the curve of his body.

  At this instant Austin Shea is alive. Frozen, but alive. He is still a husband. A father.

  I close my eyes and inhale the night’s dark air. It fills my body, slowing the shudders. When I am nothing but an empty shadow, I let time go.

  A breeze finishes its journey through the window. The thrum of the highway resumes. KJ’s sleeping form twitches.

  And in that perfect house, far away across the city, Austin Shea’s stilled heart begins to pump. I picture the blood pouring through his slashed veins, red soaking his sheets, his body arching in a final spasm. I wonder if he feels pain. Tears burn against my eyelids. I keep them back. I do not deserve the relief of crying.

  Carson Ross may have slit Austin Shea’s throat, but I am the one responsible for his death.

  19

  KJ WAKES WITH A START. HE STARTS PUSHING ME AWAY, then stops and puts a tentative hand on my shoulder.

  “Alex?” His voice is muffled with sleep.

  My body is shaking again. I curl into a ball, pulling my knees close against my chest.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispers. I can’t answer. KJ’s hand brushes my arm. “You’re cold.”

  He tugs his blankets out from under me and drapes them over both of us. I duck my head, burying myself inside his shelter. It smells musky and intimate—safe. KJ wraps his arms around me and holds me close.

  We lie like that for a long time, my back against his chest, his legs curled against mine. I try to focus all my attention on the warmth radiating from his body. It doesn’t work. Images of Ross and Shea keep crashing into my head, ripping away any pockets of peace. Eventually, the blanket tent fills with my recycled breath and turns claustrophobic. I raise my head into the night.

  KJ strokes the hair back from my forehead. His hand moves gently, as if I might break if he presses too hard. I stare at the wall in front of me. Pencil scratches mark the surface, some faded, some fresh.

  KJ freezes time so we can talk without anyone hearing us.

  “What happened?” he asks.

/>   I tell him everything: how Ross and I found Sikes and learned about the existence of Shea, about Ross’s plans to move me out of the Center tomorrow, and about tonight’s mission and the perfect house high up in the hills. KJ’s hand never stops stroking my hair. I touch my fingers against the wall. He’s written my name there, Alex, over and over in his neat writing. I rub at the pencil marks, trying to erase the letters.

  I tell him about the gash along Shea’s neck.

  KJ’s hand pauses.

  “He’s dead?” he asks.

  I nod. “I killed him.”

  “No, Alex.” KJ’s arm tightens around me. “It wasn’t you, it was Ross. This isn’t your fault.”

  I shrug. “There’s more. Aclisote is not a miracle drug that keeps us alive, it’s a poison that makes us sick. Spinners are supposed to have high chronotin levels, we’re supposed to be able to change things in frozen time. Ross figured it out. He’s been giving me a placebo all this time so he can use my skills.”

  KJ rolls over and stares at the ceiling.

  “Are you saying that the Sick,” he says, “Dr. Barnard … ?”

  “They’re killing us off. It’s like you said, no one can let us have this much power. It’s too dangerous.”

  Even for frozen time, the room feels very quiet. I stare at the wall. It’s a long time before KJ speaks.

  “So all those old stories are true,” he says, “the ones about spinners appearing places and about them being adults.” The bed creaks as he shifts his weight. “Do you think they all know? Amy, the teachers, Yolly?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Probably not.”

  KJ turns toward me again. “We’ll have to leave,” he says to the back of my head.

  We. I blink at the wall. The letters are smudged but I can still read them.

  “Do you mean the two of us?” I ask. “Or all the spinners?”

  “There’s over twenty of us. That’s too many to take at once. We’ll have to figure out a place to hide first, and then come back for them.” He pauses. “I mean, if you want us to go together.”