PART THREE
But already my desire and my will
were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed,
by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.
—Dante
00:17:26:17
Before I even have a chance to register what’s going on—or what I’m doing—I grab the earpiece and pull it from Barclay’s ear. He lets out some kind of yelp from surprise and pain, but I’m not paying attention.
“Ben, are you okay?” I say, pressing the button. There are several more shots, and I can hear Cecily screaming, “No!” and “Don’t!” and “Ben!” Then there’s some kind of thud. Then nothing.
“Ben?” I say again. I’m shaking my head, because this can’t be happening. Not after everything. He has to be okay.
Barclay grabs my hand, pulling it off the button. “If they’re in trouble the last thing he needs is you talking to him in the middle of it.”
I open my mouth to argue, to tell him that he doesn’t understand, but I don’t say anything. I know he’s right. Instead I take a deep breath and listen. If ears could strain, that’s what I’d be doing right now. I’m listening for anything that’s going to fill me in.
It’s like time—or the world—slows down, and all that matters is what I’m hearing from the earpiece. My eyes are closed, and I wait to hear Ben’s voice again, for him to say something, anything. And every time my mind starts to conjure an image of him lying in a pool of blood with a bullet wound in his chest, I squeeze my eyes tighter and push it away.
I want to shout that it’s not fair, that this should be over, that I shouldn’t have to lose him, too.
I don’t register anything else until I realize my face is flushed, and the taste of blood is on my tongue. I let out the breath I’ve been holding and steady myself against the wall of the train as stars cloud my vision. Barclay reaches over and wipes the blood from where I’ve bitten deep into my lip.
And still I try to listen.
But I don’t hear anything except the echo of my pulse in my ears.
Not a thing.
Not the commotion that would result from fleeing the scene, not labored breathing from someone who’s injured, not screaming or shuffling around. There’s nothing.
“Ben, are you there?” I ask, my voice cracking. There’s no response, which shouldn’t surprise me because deep down, I know he’s not. “Ben?”
“Tenner, we’re approaching the next stop.” Barclay tugs on my arm, his voice an urgent whisper.
The image of Ben is back. It’s all I can see. There’s blood everywhere, soaking through the front of his clothes, pooling underneath him, coating his dark brown curls. My chest constricts, and I can’t breathe. This was my plan. It’s my fault—I’m the one who sent him into IA.
It’s like Alex all over again.
Suddenly I’m so angry, I want to scream as loud as I can at the sheer unfairness of all this.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Janelle.”
I take a wheezing breath and turn on Barclay, pounding my fists into his chest and arms. “What happened? What happened to them?”
At first he just takes it. He stands there and lets me hit him. He doesn’t do anything to stop me or to minimize the damage I want to do, and for some reason that just makes the anger worse. Because I’m so insignificant—I can’t change anything. Everything we’ve done has been as effective as throwing ourselves against a wall.
But something in Barclay changes, and he reaches up, cupping my head in his hands while I hit him. His voice comes out, steady, even, and calm, but there’s a certain gravity to his tone as well. “Janelle, we need to get out of here.”
It snaps me out of it, as I remember where we are.
Our train is half full with commuters on their way to work. They’re all squeezed in next to one another at the other end of the car, pretending not to stare at us with masks of indifference, their body language saying, I don’t see anything, as if they’re trying to blend into the background. As it is, the waves of panic coming from that end of the train add a tangy scent to the air.
“Let’s go,” I say, my voice raw.
Barclay nods and pulls out his quantum charger.
When the portal opens, I go through it first. I don’t even register how it feels or what I’m doing when I go through. It’s just another portal, and after everything else I feel numb to the fact that I’m slipping through a black hole and ending up in a different world.
I’m waiting for Barclay, on my feet in his abandoned overgrown jungle of a world, when he comes through behind me.
“Hey, you went through relaxed,” he says. “I knew you’d get it eventually.”
I don’t care about that. “Tell me what happened,” I say. “I need to know everything.”
“It might not be as bad as it sounded, Janelle,” Barclay says, but even I can tell that this is him playing hopeful and optimistic.
He doesn’t believe what he’s saying.
“Just tell me.”
Barclay recounts what he heard. He starts at the beginning with the parts I already know, but I don’t stop him. I said I wanted everything, and I do.
If these are the last moments of Ben’s life, I want to be able to picture it all. I want to commit it to memory.
Ben and Cecily went into IA headquarters on cue—they headed up the back stairwell to the second floor and waited for everyone to leave after Barclay pulled the fire alarm. They didn’t make it to their computer, but as soon as Barclay told them he’d gotten the email off, it didn’t matter. They kept their heads down and walked out with the crowd, allowing the people around them to dictate how fast they moved and where they went.
Only they ran into Deputy Director Ryan Struzinski. He seemed surprised but not alarmed when he recognized them. Of course, both Cee and Ben recognized him, too, so they went into his office and he promised to listen to them.
Cecily told him everything. She started with her abduction and didn’t leave anything out. And then Ben filled in what he knew.
The deputy director was impressed but skeptical. He asked to see the drive with the evidence from the processing center. He put it in his computer and looked shocked at what he saw. He praised Ben and Cecily for everything they’d done, and Ben sighed in relief and said he was so glad he could trust Struz.
Silence followed.
Then the deputy director asked if they had been worried about who to give the information to. Cecily said, “You have no idea,” with a laugh, and all three of them chuckled.
Then the deputy director asked, “So you mean you haven’t shown this to anyone else?”
That’s when Barclay stopped. Because he knew that wasn’t right—that shouldn’t be the next question.
Ben didn’t say anything, but Cecily started to answer.
Barclay isn’t exactly sure what happened, but it was clear to him that Ben had the same sudden realization that he did. The deputy director wasn’t on our side. “You know the rest,” Barclay says. “The next thing I heard was the gunshot, you ripped the com out of my ear, and now no one is on the other end.”
My body feels heavy, like it’s already dead and is just waiting for me to notice. I can’t keep fighting—keep moving forward, keep trying to win against something like IA, not after everything. Barclay never should have come to me for help. We’re up against something that’s too big, too powerful.
Now both Cecily and Ben are gone.
00:16:51:44
I think of Cecily on the back soccer field, standing with her hands on her hips, her hair lit up with the sun, as she looked at Ben, as serious as a heart attack, and said, Who’s your favorite superhero?
Ben stepped back like he’d been wounded, and laughed. That’s it? That’s all you got? That’s easy.
And then he looked at me. His eyes dark, his lips curled into a slight half smile as he said, Wonder Woman.
Cecily threw a grin in my direction before grilling him on his choice, and Alex offered his two cents about the wonderfulness of her costume, and I just felt light-headed—in the best possible way.
It feels like it could have been yesterday. I remember it all so clearly.
How did we get so far away from that moment?
00:16:51:43
Now they’re gone. All of them.
And it’s my fault. My stupid plan. We should have left them at the hospital with the Unwilling. Barclay and I should have just gone in ourselves. I should have fought harder to keep Cecily out of it—I should have fought harder to keep them alive.
More tears spill over my eyes. I can’t hold it together anymore.
“We don’t know what happened,” Barclay says again.
“What, you think they got out of IA headquarters, away from a guy with a gun who was shooting at them? You and I both know that office layout, tell me how that’s a possibility.”
He doesn’t say anything.
I hold a hand over my eyes and try to will the tears to stop, but they seem to have a mind of their own.
“This isn’t over,” Barclay says, grabbing my shoulders.
I don’t say anything. I have nothing to say.
“Look at me,” Barclay says, giving my shoulders a jerk that shakes my whole body.
I look at him.
“Pull yourself together. We don’t know what happened.”
I shake my head because I can’t get the words out.
“Those shots could have been fired at the air,” Barclay says. “Even if they’re hit, it might not be fatal. I’m not going to sit around waiting for IA to find me, and neither are you. We have a limited amount of time before they start doing a multiverse sweep or someone realizes that the best place to hide is in a world where no one is looking.”
“We don’t have anything left,” I say, because wasn’t this our Hail Mary play? How can we win if the conspiracy goes as high as the deputy director of IA?
“There’s always something left.”
00:16:48:09
“This is just a setback,” Barclay says.
“A setback?” I could punch him. “Ben and Cecily could be dead, and if the deputy director is involved, couldn’t he be making an announcement to IA that you’re crazy or something? Can’t he bury this?”
Barclay shakes his head and starts pacing. “I mean, he could try, sure, but the order to disregard an investigation would have to come from the director.”
Suddenly his eyes widen and he turns around, grabbing me by the shoulders. “I know what we need to do.”
I wince and remember that I have at least two bullets lodged in my vest. Even though they didn’t do the damage they could have, they’re still a throbbing pressure against my skin.
“We’ll go straight to the director’s house and talk to him,” Barclay says, letting go of me.
“How do we know he’s not involved?” I’m starting to feel like the whole multiverse is against us.
“Don’t you see, I knew someone high up had to be involved because of the way that paperwork got erased or rewritten. But Director Franklin is older. He’s about to retire. He’s been giving a lot of his responsibilities up to Struzinski.”
“That doesn’t make him innocent,” I say. I don’t want to rain on Barclay’s plan, but I can’t help myself. We’re in a colossal mess right now. “If the deputy director is involved, who says the director isn’t? All of IA could be involved!”
“They’re not,” Barclay says through gritted teeth. He’s clearly trying to keep from getting emotional, and I’m impressed with his willpower. “We just need to get to the director and he’ll help us.”
I can’t listen anymore. “How can you possibly think that!” I yell.
“Because I don’t know who else to trust!” Barclay screams back. He turns his back on me and walks a few paces away. “This isn’t just happening to you, you know.”
“I know,” I say, my voice thick. I haven’t really been thinking about what he’s going through—if he’s scared for his family or if he’s worried he’ll never be able to go home.
“We’ll go to the director’s house, we’ll get a task force set up—”
“How can you still have faith in them?” I ask.
He turns and looks at me, his eyes glassy. “I have to,” he says. “I’m still good. Nothing would make me sell out. Eric was still good.”
I don’t remind him that Eric’s dead, that they killed him.
“This was my dream, as a kid, to be IA and to make a difference.” His voice cracks slightly, and he takes a deep breath. “There have to be people left who are like me.”
“What if there’s not?” I say. It’s callous, but I have to say it. We can’t walk into a trap because Barclay is feeling sentimental.
“Janelle, there are terrible people out there, in every world,” he says. “Trust me, I know that just as well as you do, but for every one of those people, there are people like you and me.”
I wish I believed him.
But right now I can’t. The two of us running around playing heroes can’t last much longer.
“I can go alone,” Barclay says. “If you don’t trust me.”
I kick the dirt. “You can’t go alone.” I have faith in Barclay. And I do trust him, whatever his misguided and romanticized feelings about IA are. “I don’t have any better ideas, anyway.”
We have to go to the director’s house. We’ll need to try to convince him of what we’ve seen. We know enough of the operation on the processing center and we have witnesses. That should get an IA task force into the Black Hole and working on the files. That should get the Unwilling back to their homes.
“How do we get into the director’s house?” I ask.
00:15:40:37
We portal into the director’s backyard and end up hiding out behind a hydrangea bush.
This is by far Barclay’s least complicated plan, and part of me is glad for it.
Anyone who’s anyone in IA has hydrochloradneum shields around their house, which means the director most likely has a really good security system. There’s no way we’d be able to break in, and we don’t want to seem like a threat anyway. The plan is to just go up and knock on the front door.
So that’s exactly what we do.
My fingertips tingle with anticipation as we approach the house. The sun is beginning its descent, and the lights inside the house, set against the graying sky, make it look a little like it’s glowing.
An older woman opens the door. She’s probably in her sixties, but I can tell she was classically beautiful in her day, with thick blond hair that falls to her shoulders and washed-out blue eyes. She’s wearing a long-sleeved black dress and high heels.
This is clearly the director’s wife. “Can I help you?” she asks. Her tone says she’s confused as to why two bruised and beat-up people in dirty clothes are standing on her doorstep, but she doesn’t look alarmed.
Some of the tension coiled inside me gives a little and my shoulders relax slightly.
“Mrs. Franklin,” Barclay says. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m an agent with IA, and I have something urgent I need to discuss with your husband.”
I don’t say anything. I’m just along for the ride.
She opens the door wider, her confusion turning to a knowing smile. The director is apparently the kind of guy who brings work home. More tension uncoils—I know a few guys like that.
“Of course,” she says. “Let me just . . .” She turns, and I see a man approaching the door. He’s in his sixties as well, with distinguished gray hair and lines etched into his face, but he’s built like someone who is still in the kind of shape he was in when he was thirty. “Keith, one of your agents—”
She doesn’t get a chance to finish, because that’s when Keith Franklin, director of the Interverse Agency, recognizes us.
00:15:32:19
He’s got his phone out of his pocket and to his ear so fast that there’s no time to tiptoe around the issue or make apologies. The door’s wide open so I cross the threshold.
“You don’t want to do that,” I say. My voice shakes a little despite my conviction. This has just all been too much.
It’s not what he’s expecting. A bad guy would go for the phone or pull a gun on the innocent wife. Plus Barclay is the one everyone thinks is running this operation. I’m just some girl from another universe who’s caught up in it.
The director’s gaze shifts from Barclay to me, though not for long. He’s not stupid—he knows who he needs to be watching out for.
“Look, I know what you’ve heard. That Barclay’s a traitor, that I escaped from prison, and that Ben—” My voice cracks. “That Ben Michaels is operating a human-trafficking ring. The truth is that’s all a lie. It’s a cover-up, because there’s something a lot bigger going on.”
“Director Franklin, sir,” Barclay says. “Please just hear us out. Let me explain everything that’s happened. If you still think we’re guilty, we’ll willingly go into custody.”
I don’t look at Barclay. I don’t want to give away the fact that I know that’s not at all the plan. We have an escape route he’s mapped in case the director is involved or doesn’t believe us.
But he doesn’t need to know that.
I watch the director as he decides what to do.
On one hand, Barclay trusts him, likes him even, and on the other, he’s the guy who signs the paperwork to execute people—I can’t believe that this guy, who’s willing to execute innocent people because of their association with someone who isn’t even proven guilty, can be one of the good guys. There are supposed to be some lines you don’t cross.
I try not to think about that, though. Otherwise I’m going to dwell on the fact that we’re here, trying to get his help, and I don’t understand how we can really be putting our faith in this guy.
He puts his phone in his pocket and looks at Barclay. “Come inside, Taylor.”
I hear voices from another room, someone laughing and then calling, “Keith! Annamarie! What’s keeping you?”
I look at Barclay, and I’m not surprised to see the shock in his eyes and the confusion on his face. Because I recognize that voice. It takes me a minute to place it, but then I remember—she invited him to lunch at a restaurant with the best air in the city.
It’s the governor.
“Dinner guests,” the director says to us. He’s been entertaining while my friends have been dying. Looking at his wife, he says, “Could you tell Hanna and Macon that I’ll be a few minutes?”
“Of course,” she says as she gives us a wary glance and moves through the house.
I hope a few minutes is enough time.
00:15:28:19
The director takes us into what’s either his library or home office, and he closes the door behind him.
He folds his arms across his chest. “You have five minutes.”
Barclay tells him everything.
And when I say everything, I mean he doesn’t leave out any part of it. He starts with the case he was on when he met me and Ben—how we helped him figure it out, sort of. He explains how he stumbled on the trafficking ring and how it was a lot more complicated than one girl getting nabbed from her universe. He details his suspicions about Eric’s death and IA involvement.
Barclay doesn’t even leave out the things the two of us have done that are clear violations of the law. Like the fact that we’ve each killed people.
It takes longer than five minutes, but the director doesn’t stop Barclay or look at his watch. Instead, he takes a seat while Barclay is telling him about the three guys who broke into his apartment.
After Barclay explains everything we found at the processing center, he pauses.
“And you have this computer?” the director asks.
“I emailed the files to everyone at IA, including you,” Barclay says.
The director gets up and moves to his computer, turning it on. As I wait for him to open his email and read the files we’ve sent, I can’t help holding my breath. This is it—the moment we find out if he’s going to listen to us or not.
His eyes widen as he reads. “Taylor, this can’t be right . . .”
“It is, sir,” Barclay says, leaning over him and pointing a few things out on the computer. “The records begin in 1995 and continue up until yesterday. This is a fully formed operation.”
The director takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.
Barclay nods. “But there’s more. And sir, it’s worse.”
The director raises his eyebrows. “Worse?” he asks. “How does it get any worse?”
Barclay swallows, and I know what he’s about to say. He’s about to point fingers at the director’s right-hand man. “Today, Ben Michaels went in with the proof. He brought with him a girl who had been abducted as a witness. They spoke to Deputy Director Struzinski. They told him everything, and they showed him the evidence we’d gotten from the traffickers.”
“And he shot them,” I say before I can stop myself. The best friend I had left and the guy I loved are gone. I’m not about to sugarcoat it.
The director looks at me, his eyes slightly widened, lips parted. Now he’s surprised. “This happened today? When—”
“An hour ago,” I say.
“At headquarters?” He looks at Barclay. “No one called.”
“Deputy Director Struzinski is involved,” Barclay says. “He was going to bury the proof. I heard it all on the com chip I was wearing.”
The director looks down. He’s shocked, and his brain is trying to process what he’s just heard. But he isn’t telling us to get out or arresting us, which means some of his memories are waving red flags, telling him that this actually makes some kind of sense, that there have been signs about Struzinski, signs that point to this.
“Sir, please,” Barclay says. “I urge you to handpick people for a task force. We need to move tonight while we still have a chance to get into the Black Hole and find the proof we need before someone destroys it. We can’t afford for them to move the operation.”
The director has his phone out again. He dials quickly and holds it to his ear.
I look at Barclay. I’m not sure what this means. The phone call could be because he believes us, and he’s going to follow Barclay’s suggestion and set up a task force, or it could mean that he’s about to have us arrested.
I’m frozen, holding my breath. I can’t take it if another person we thought we could trust turns on us. If the director is involved, we’re done. There aren’t any more surprise moves or last-ditch options.
Worse, if he’s involved, we’re trapped.
Which means if we’re going to run, we need to do it before other people get here.
00:14:43:54
The director calls Special Agent Robert Barnes and puts him on speakerphone. He asks Barnes to open Barclay’s email and tells him he’s going to run point on the operation. They’ll need a task force set up to go into the Black Hole and shut it down. They’ll need a team of tech people who can go through the computer files Barclay has recovered and sort out the evidence.
Then he tells him Struzinski and other people in IA may be involved.
Over the line, Robert Barnes swears. “Struzinski has been out of touch since the shooting this afternoon.” He goes on to recount what everyone in IA was told happened. Two suspects broke in, attacked the deputy director, and fled.
“They fled?” I interrupt. My heart feels like it’s in my throat, and my voice comes out a little breathless. I’m afraid to hope. “Does that mean they’re still alive?”
“A team went out after them but didn’t recover any bodies,” he says.
Barclay jumps in to explain what he heard through the com link. I can barely listen to the words, though. Ben and Cecily are alive. The relief is staggering. They’re probably back at the hospital waiting for us and wondering where we are.
“Sir, may I also suggest looping in Hayley Walker,” Barclay adds. “I know her well, and I can vouch for the fact that she isn’t involved.”
“I authorize her reassignment,” the director says. “Make the calls, get everything set up, and let’s meet in the briefing room at 0600.”
“Ben’s family,” I say, jumping in before he hangs up. “They’ve been put in prison. They’re supposed to be executed tomorrow morning, but they’re innocent.”
“It’s true, sir,” Barclay adds. “There were orders for people to be detained and executed.”
The director nods and speaks into the phone. “And Robert, you’ll put a stay on the executions slated for tomorrow and check out the transfer orders for anyone Struzinski sent to the Piston.”
A knot in my chest unfurls. I think of the way Derek’s face looked, bruised and swollen when he told me to run, and about how I promised to get him out when I knocked on his door.
I’ve made good on that, as long as it isn’t too late.
“Taylor, you should have come to me in the beginning,” the director says after he’s hung up the phone. “You’re one of the best agents we have. I would have listened to your suspicions.”
“That approach did Eric a lot of good,” I say, because let’s be honest, that’s why he’s dead.
Barclay tenses, and I know I should feel bad. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought up Eric—maybe I should be thankful the director believes us, but I can’t help it. I don’t like him. And even though it appears he’s not dirty, I still don’t trust him. Did he not know Ben’s family was wrongfully imprisoned? Or did he not care because the ends justified the means? Either way, it’s wrong. He’s stupid or he’s immoral—both are qualities that make him unfit to be in charge of IA.
Barclay takes a deep breath. “I didn’t know who was involved, and even if I did . . . If I came to you with suspicions but no proof that your deputy director and a number of other people I can’t even name were involved in a smuggling ring, would you have believed me? Jumped in to investigate?”
The director leans back, and I can see that he’s thinking about it and has decided that we’re right, that he wouldn’t have believed that of his own people—that he still can’t, despite what Barclay is telling him and despite the fact that he knows it’s true.
“Well, we’re going to investigate it now,” he says.
For a second, I think this might really be it, that even though I don’t like this guy, we might be able to portal back to the hospital, find Ben and Cecily, and go home.
We might have won.
But it’s not even close to being over.