“Are you all right?” I hold him, reveling in the feel of him, safe in my arms.
“I am now.” He squeezes me tight. “You shouldn’t be here.” He looks across at Ben. “And you shouldn’t have brought her.”
“You ever try to talk her out of something?” Ben asks.
Finn raises his brows. “Good point.” He gives Ben a nod. “Thank you. I would imagine you have a lot of questions.”
Ben lets out a sound between his teeth. “That’s an understatement. But they can wait until we’re someplace safe.” He looks over at me, and then back to Finn. “Then we need to talk.”
“Fair enough,” Finn says. “Let’s get out of here.”
He takes my hand and indicates that Ben should lead the way, since he’s got the flashlight. I give Finn one of my glow sticks and start to move forward, but I slam into Ben, who has suddenly stopped moving. Finn’s hand jerks mine back, trying to pull me behind him.
“Jessa! Get back—”
He doesn’t need to finish. I can see her. Eversor is clearly visible in the light of Ben’s flashlight, and so is the gun she has trained at Finn’s head. I pull my hand away from his and step forward.
She maneuvers herself between us and any sort of escape, and then she sets a heavy glass lantern down on the rock floor, where it lights the room with a muted glow.
“Oh, but you’ve made it easy for me,” she coos. “All three in one place. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.”
“You’ve got to listen to me,” I say to her, smacking at Ben’s hand and pushing Finn with my shoulder as they both try to pull me back.
“You have such talent, Jessa,” she says almost sadly. “One of my favorite pupils, truly. But this is necessary. A necessary evil.”
“You can’t do this,” Finn tells her. “Think of all the repercussions.”
“We deal in trade-offs every day,” she snaps. “Stop this one from crossing the street, and they may go on to marry that one two years later. Remind that one’s child to return his overdue library book, and he’s kidnapped and murdered on his way to the public library by a serial killer. The tougher laws that come from public outcry save countless lives. We let people die every single day, and all for the greater good.”
“Rudy is lying to you,” Finn says evenly. “He lied to me, he lied to Jessa, he lied to Mario. What makes you think you’re getting accurate information?”
“There are rules!” Eversor exclaims. “Your Dreamer has a plan, and you follow the plan! Rudy wouldn’t lie.”
“Please…,” I plead. “We’re talking about people. We’re talking about families.” We’re talking about my family, I think but don’t say. “You’re going to help Rudy kill billions of people!”
“Not kill. Simply remove. Billions upon billions, if you also count their descendants.” She shrugs. “It’s the way we operate, Jessa. Surely you’ve learned this. We can’t get involved. Just consider this another job.” She smiles a little too wide to be anything but creepy. “But it is all for the greater good, you see? Rudy is doing this to simplify. We crave simplicity. It is in our very nature. He wants what is best for us all.”
Ben holds up his hands defensively and walks forward, keeping his eyes on the crazy teacher with the gun. “Listen,” he says cautiously, “I’m not part of this. And I left my truck out front. Any cop patrolling will see it. They’ll have to come check things out.”
She gestures with the gun, motioning for him to get back, and he does.
“And what a shame when they find what’s left of your bodies in the mine, buried under a collapse.” She steps forward to tap on the wooden column gently with the edge of the gun, drawing our eyes to the deep score marks she must have put there earlier. “Once I’ve taken care of you, this will only need one good push. Teenagers are always ignoring warning signs.” She makes a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue. “And your poor mother, Jessa! Meeting two boys here at the same time? What will she think of you?”
I have a sudden picture in my mind of my mom and Danny, standing alone outside the mine, with their arms around each other. I can feel their grief like a living thing, eating my insides, and I am burning with anger. As furious as I am about what Rudy is trying to do to me, the effect on my family just seems so much worse, for some reason. And what about Ben’s family?
Finn has no family, not anymore—but he has me. He has me, and I will stand for him. I will stand for him, and for all my families, across all the realities. None of them deserve this.
I back up a little, snaking my hand behind me and feeling around until it lands on a crumbling crevice in the rock wall. I push back and feel the edge of a good-sized stone. I start working it with my fingers behind me, back and forth, rocking it to free it. It’s not much, but it’s the only weapon I’ve got.