“Mia!”
She looked around the cubicle with frantic eyes, and then screamed in bewilderment. This Mia was nine hours younger than the one Rebel shot. She’d only just slammed the bathroom door on the sisters in Quinwood. Then suddenly her whole existence screeched like a yanked vinyl record and she felt the vague sense of drowning. Now here she was in some strange corporate office that looked like it had been through World War II. Zack and David were both marred with bloody gashes. Theo never looked healthier.
Mia glanced down at her open shirt, then anxiously covered herself. “What’s happening? Where are we?”
David wrapped his arms around her, hugging her with a gushing relief that scared her as much as it thrilled her. She feebly returned the embrace. “You’re bleeding.”
He croaked a soft chuckle. “I’m all right. I’ll be fine.”
“David, what’s going on?”
“We’ll explain it,” Theo promised. “But right now we have to go. David, can you carry her?”
He nodded at Theo, his young brow curled in gentle contrition. “What’s the plan?”
“There’s a hatch in the generator room. It’ll take us underground. We have to move fast.”
“I heard someone screaming upstairs. I think it was—”
“We’ll deal with that.” Theo looked to Zack. The reversal had left him even more shell-shocked than Mia.
“Zack . . .” Theo shook his shoulder. “Zack!”
“Huh?”
“I know that took a lot out of you, but we’re not done yet. This is the hard part.”
Zack’s absent stare turned sharp with worry. “Amanda. Hannah . . .”
“I know.”
“We have to get them.”
“We will. I promise. Come on.”
While Zack regained his footing, Theo avoided David’s suspicious leer. It seemed like weeks ago that Azral warned the augur about the burden of foresight. Our choices often seem questionable to those around us, even cruel. You’ll know this soon enough.
“Soon enough” had come far too soon for Theo. There was no way to prepare his friends, no time to explain why they had to leave Hannah and Amanda behind. Even the best strings turned in bad directions. The sisters had to suffer just a little bit more.
—
The law office shook with loud orchestral drama. Evan had cued Hannah’s iPod to the original Broadway cast recording of Les Misérables, thirty-ninth track. Now he danced around the reception area in his security guard uniform, a puckish smile on his face and a cone-shaped gun in his swinging hand.
He minced his way to the dismal corner where Hannah wept, strutting with operatic pomp as he marched to the final battle song.
“Ohh, would you listen to that drama? I’m all tingly. Aren’t you tingly?”
The actress lay fetal on the floor of her cage, her hands pressed over her eyes. Evan had drawn three screams from her with his handheld jolter, a weapon legally restricted to riot police. Though its static electric charge could clear a small crowd without causing injury, the blast was far less gentle to those who couldn’t flee. Every inch of Hannah’s skin throbbed with hot needle stings.
Evan paused the iPod, then heaved a bleak sigh.
“Tragic. The only surviving music from our world and it’s all showtunes and crap pop. Typical Hannah. Bouncy, flouncy, mispronouncy. It kills me to think of all the great minds who died while you just keep on jiggling.”
She pulled her hands away, only to flinch at his sickening leer. It bore through her clothes and skin, making her feel worse than naked, worse than the dumb animal he’d trapped so easily.
“Bet you’re itching to know how I got my hands on your little pink jukebox.”
“Go to hell,” she croaked.
“Yeah, that’s right. Azral gave it to me. He knows I’m a sucker for old-world gewgaws.”
“Why?”
“Hey, I have a sentimental side.”
“Why would he give you a gift?”
“Oh.” Evan’s grin deflated. “I guess he has a sentimental side.”
His last encounter with Azral and Esis had been a tense, mystifying affair. He knew they were mad about his hotel prank, the spiked mimosa cocktails that triggered a near-fatal brawl between Amanda and Hannah. And yet instead of venting their ire, the pair took Evan on a portal jaunt to Amsterdam, treating him to a sumptuous lunch at a five-star floating restaurant.
At dessert, Azral presented Evan with a book bag full of treasures rescued from Terra Vista—Zack’s original sketchbook, Theo’s Oakland A’s cap, Hannah’s iPod and Entertainment Weekly. The unprecedented bounty had left Evan speechless. After fifty-four lifetimes, he still couldn’t figure out the Pelletiers. They operated with the convoluted madness of a Rube Goldberg machine, shaping all their actions on complex calculations and byzantine prophecies.
Once they returned to Indiana, Azral acted more in line with expectations. He’d gripped Evan’s arm, chilling him to the bone with his harsh blue stare.