“I’m sorry.” My voice also begins to shake. “I shouldn’t have pulled you in.”
“Don’t say that.” He smiles at me. It’s one of the last smiles I’ll have from him. “I’m glad I’ll have a chance to . . . a chance to say goodbye.”
I remember my thought right before I Split into the Mind Dimension and realize I had created something like an evil omen. A part of me knows that the idea is irrational, but I feel like I brought all of this on with that prophetic thought. A chance to say goodbye.
I squint as though I’m going to cry, but no tears come out.
“Don’t.” Dad reaches for me. “Let’s spend the time we have left remembering the good times. Your Depth is only about a half hour—not enough time to spend on anything but happy memories.”
He hugs me and tells me stories, determined to be with me for as long as I can stay, until I run out of Depth and become Inert—unable to go back into the Mind Dimension for a while. As I catch myself enjoying his stories and being with him, I hate myself more and more.
I’ll later wonder what kind of bitch I was to extend such a moment for my father, but for now, I’m just happy to have him with me a little longer. For as long as I’m allowed.
“We’re running out of time.” Dad is trying his best to sound cheerful, but I know he’s pretending. “You did the right thing,” he says. “I’m really glad you pulled me out.”
He’s lying. Like my brother, Dad repeats lies to make them sound more convincing.
“To live even a few more minutes, to see you, is a treasure.” His eyes look earnest, but I can see the truth. He isn’t glad. He’s terrified because he knows that as soon as my time runs out, he’ll be taken out of the Mind Dimension and pulled back into his frozen body.
Into the explosion.
“There’s nothing you can do for us now, Mira,” he says. “Please take care of your brother; he’s all you’ve got—”
I don’t hear him finish that sentence because my time runs out. I will later grow to resent this limitation, my Depth. This finite amount of what-if time.
If only I could’ve stayed in the Mind Dimension forever. Then Dad and I could’ve talked forever. Or we could’ve explored that frozen-in-time world. Instead, I’m back in my body and the explosion is in my ears again, ears that feel like they might bleed. I fall on the ground, like I promised Dad I would. I welcome the pain of the fall because it numbs the pain from knowing that I don’t have parents anymore.
With herculean effort, I pull my mind back to the present. To the poker table and the Russian thugs surrounding me. I really have to get it together. My Depth’s being wasted as the seconds turn into minutes. If I run out of time, I’ll be Inert for a while—which means no more Reading and having to play fair in this poker game, to boot.
I shake my head and try to focus, determined to forget Mom and Dad for the moment. I try to focus on something else. Anything else.
To distract myself, I think of how strangely I experience emotions in the Mind Dimension. For example, if I cry there, because my face is dry once I get out, I don’t feel as sad anymore. Sometimes things work the other way. I can be terrified when I get into the Mind Dimension, but once there, I’m much calmer. Probably because there I’m safe. So if I get any tears now, they would be gone when I’m back at that table. And tears should be falling down my face right now, but none come. Just like on that day. The worst one of my life—
I have to stop thinking about that day.
So I try to picture talking to my brother about emotions in and out of the Mind Dimension. He would want to study this phenomenon, as he—ever the scientist—would call it. It makes me feel somewhat better. Thinking of Eugene always helps take me out of the darkness, if only for a moment.
“I do take care of him. The poor bastard would’ve starved long ago without me, Dad.” I’d say that to my father if I believed he was listening to me from Heaven. Of course, my father is not in Heaven or Hell—those are just constructs people make up to dull the pain of losing their loved ones. I know that, in reality, he’s just gone, and nothing I say can reach him.
And that means I need to stop dwelling on what might’ve been and focus on the task at hand.
The fucker who put the explosive under my family’s car might be in this very room right now.
I take a deep breath, finding comfort in anger and the violent fantasies of what I plan to do to him.
“It’s time,” I say out loud—though, of course, the frozen people can’t hear it. “Let’s see if any of you fuckers are thinking of explosions.”
Chapter 2
I’m hoping the guy I’m looking for, the guy who deals with bombs, will be primed by my words and think of setting up one specific explosion. I’ll be the first to admit that this tactic is a long shot, but it’s the only option I have since my Depth allows me to go back only a few minutes into their memories.
Not for the first time, I envy more powerful Readers. Those like the legendary Enlightened, the most powerful Readers of all, who have enough Depth to relive whole months, if not years, of someone’s life. Someone like that would get the answer directly without any gimmicks, but I can’t. There are no shortcuts for Readers like me. Given that Depth is spent at twice the speed when you Read, I have to be careful about running out of my measly half hour.
Whatever Depth I spend on Reading is going to be worth it in this case, though. Trying to learn the truth is why I come to these games. Well, that and the money from the wins—but there are better ways to make money gambling than coming here. Safer ways.
My strategy for today is to spend only seconds of my Depth on people I think as unlikely candidates, leaving extra time—even if it’s just a few minutes—for the others.
One such unlikely candidate is Shkillet, the guy who’s staring at me in the real world.
Shkillet is not his real name, but a street alias. Probably has something to do with his too-thin pasty-looking face. He resembles one of those skeletons we had in science class before I dropped out of school. The Russian word for skeleton sounds a lot like the word skillet, only with a yet sound at the end. Shkillet’s lisp could be the reason for the sh sound at the beginning.
Or I could be completely wrong. I was pretty young when we left the Motherland, and I do get some of these little ethnic things confused now and then—which drives my brother nuts.
I look at Shkillet’s cards. He’s not holding anything I need to worry about. But he is staring at me—the real-world me. In fact, if I drew a line from his pupils to that me, it would land directly on her/my boobs. Boobs that are nicely displayed in my red strapless dress, thanks to the Victoria’s Secret pushup bra.
I intended that effect, but I’m still annoyed. Fucking men.
Stepping around him, I take off his shirt.
I know it seems weird that I’d undress someone, especially someone this unattractive, but I do have a purpose. I’m looking for tattoos. Over the course of my investigation, I’ve learned that a man’s tattoos in the Russian criminal underworld reveal a lot about him. Well, only for the ones who’ve been in Russian prisons, but those are the ones I’m looking for. The most dangerous. The ones without souls.
Those who’d plant bombs on innocent families.