32
For a moment, Sabrina’s voice echoes in the empty lab, her words hanging in the air, waiting for me to respond. But my mind is blank. I can’t wrap my head around it. Nicholas, the future version of the Nick Stone I’ve come to know, crashed Flight 305 to bring me here.
“Me?”
Sabrina gives a curt nod. “In the years after the creation of the Titan Foundation, you and Nicholas worked very closely together. You become close friends, then much more. In 2071 he stole the immortality therapy to save your life.”
The passages from my journal . . . My forbidden love. It was him. Nick. No. Nicholas. God, it’s so confusing. I turn the facts over in my mind, trying to make sense of them. He stole the therapy for me, my future self, to make me a Titan so that we could spend eternity together. It’s bizarre and dramatic, but at the same time . . . it’s so very romantic. I’m not used to that.
“Nicholas’s plan was simple. After you received the therapy, you and he would undergo surgery to alter your appearance, then depart as settlers on a new orbital colony sponsored by the Titans. Oliver and Grayson would join you.”
I can only sit, in a daze. My mind is completely blown at this point.
Sabrina drones on, oblivious to my catatonic state. “When you and Grayson died after they stole the therapy in 2071, Nicholas and Oliver were devastated. Since that day, they’ve devoted their lives to recovering the two of you, to starting over. They manipulated the Titans, steered Yul and Sabrina here in the future, and us in the past. They tricked and connived, all to get you and Grayson here. Nicholas will go to any length to be with you. He’s killed for you, and he’s planning to kill again.”
It’s hard to imagine the Nick I know taking a life, but I have to remind myself that this is another person, separated by over a hundred and thirty years’ time, someone who has changed a great deal, no matter what he may look like.
Sabrina pauses, reading my expression. “After our plane crossed into this time, Nicholas and Oliver launched their attack at Heathrow. Their first targets were Yul and Sabrina, the keys to resetting the quantum bridge and returning the passengers of Flight 305 to 2014. During the fighting Yul tried to reset the bridge, but he was unsuccessful—he only sent a series of disturbances along the link.”
“Which crashed our plane.”
“Yes. Nicholas killed Yul and Sabrina before the bridge could be reset.”
“Those are the bodies I saw in the lab next door?”
“Correct. About half of all the Titans were killed at Heathrow. Ten remain loyal to Oliver and Nicholas. There are twelve here. Since the crash, they’ve been looking for the three of us.”
“Why?”
“They want Yul and me to complete our counterparts’ work, to reset the bridge and return Flight 305 and its passengers to 2014.”
“Is that possible?”
“We’re not sure. We’ve been working on it. And another project, the original plan to save the world we came from.”
Sabrina’s usually stoic mask fades a bit. That makes me nervous.
“We believe, however, that we may be almost out of time. A few hours ago Nick—the Nick you and I know—and Grayson made their way to Heathrow. We believe they were searching for the three of us. Nick and Grayson are with Oliver and Nicholas right now, who are no doubt feeding them misinformation, enlisting their help in a final assault.”
Don’t like the sounds of that. “Final assault?”
“They’re coming here, to Titan City. Their goal, as I said, is to destroy the quantum device, ensuring that the bridge can never be reset. Only one thing has kept them from destroying the city and the quantum device with it.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“You, Harper. You’re Nicholas’s one true desire; he would never risk killing you. So long as you’re here, Nicholas and Oliver can’t make a direct strike on the city. They’ll have to come in to extract you.”
“So, I’m . . . bait?”
“Leverage.”
Now we’re playing word games with my life.
“You’re the only thing that’s prevented everyone here from being killed already. I’ve told you all of this because I believe you might determine all of our fates. When the time comes, when Nicholas, Oliver, Nick, Grayson, and their Titans invade the city, you’ll have a decision to make.”
Oh, god, anything else. I put my face in my hands. I’d like a stiff drink about now.
“Harper, are you listening to me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No, you don’t. In a few short hours, you’ll have to decide whether the passengers of Flight 305 return to our time or stay here in 2147.”
Blimey.