05:17:01:46
I listen to everything Barclay says while I fight to keep my breathing even and my hands still.
I’m tempted to run upstairs, change my clothes, give Jared a hug and tell him I’ll be back, and bolt through a portal with Barclay—charge off and rescue Ben from these false charges. This is Ben. He saved my life, and I would do anything for him.
This is Ben—and I love him.
Even though I don’t trust Barclay himself, I trust his motives. This is Barclay wanting to do the right thing—get the right guy—and it’s him wanting to do the right thing for his career. Plus he and Eric were partners, and there’s an unwritten rule in law enforcement that says when your partner is killed, you do whatever it takes to nail the guy responsible.
But for me there’s still one very important thing to consider.
“How can I possibly help you?” I ask.
Barclay purses his lips, and I know he must have a well-thought-out reason. He strikes me as a guy who hardly ever asks for help, and I doubt I’m his go-to person. But whatever it is, he’s hesitant to tell me.
“I’m serious,” I add. “Even without IA resources, you’re still way more equipped to handle this alone. At best, I’ll slow you down. At worst, I’ll get in your way.”
He doesn’t say anything—he looks like he’s trying to weigh his words before speaking. Given his ability to offend me pretty easily, I can’t say I blame him.
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” he says finally. “I did that, and you almost shot me.”
“That’s different. We were here.” I shake my head. “How is me traipsing through different worlds with you going to be helpful? Plus, I have my brother to think about and a world to help rebuild.”
He rolls his eyes. “My plan is a little more sophisticated than that, Tenner.”
“So what is it?”
He doesn’t say anything, and that’s when I have my answer. I’m not going to blindly leave my world and put my life in Barclay’s hands, when I can’t think of anything that would actually help me find Ben or prove him innocent. “My answer is no.”
“You can’t say no. I—”
“This isn’t about you,” I say over him.
Barclay stands up and begins pacing around the room in front of me. “This is important. You need to come with me—I can’t find Ben without you.”
“Tell me your plan, and maybe I’ll reconsider.”
He shakes his head.
Stupid prick. “Then get out of my house,” I say as I stand up. I’ve had enough.
I’m halfway to the stairs when Barclay says, “You’re in danger, Tenner.”
I stop and turn to him. His expression is blank, his blue eyes just staring at me, without betraying whatever it is he’s thinking.
I don’t get a chance to ask him why. Because right then, as I’m halfway up the stairs, the front door flies open and Deirdre is there, gun drawn, with about a dozen Marines at her back, screaming at Barclay, telling him to put his hands on his head and get down on the ground.
05:16:53:35
“I can’t f*cking believe this shit,” Barclay says as he raises his hands.
From the stairs, I yell that it’s okay, that it’s just Barclay, but no one listens.
The Marines move into the apartment, sweeping into position to cover any possible escape and to make sure no one else is here. Their guns are pointed at Barclay, their eyes only on him.
Deirdre shouts at Barclay and advances on him swiftly but cautiously. The look on her face is absolutely feral—this is Deirdre Rice, FBI agent, and Deirdre Rice, widow and mother of two kids, all in one. Deirdre, who’s not about to lose anyone else. If I was Barclay, I’d be scared.
As she moves in, Barclay keeps his hands raised. He’s relaxed, but with a clear look of annoyance on his face, as if this is inconvenient for him.
He doesn’t even flinch as Deirdre moves in and disarms him, taking a gun from the base of his spine.
“Do you have any other concealed weapons on you?” she says, her voice thick with venom.
“Gun at my left ankle,” he says.
Without taking her eyes off him, she bends down to retrieve the backup gun, and once she has it, orders a Marine to move in and frisk him.
I can’t help holding my breath. I’m worried Barclay has another weapon. He’s the kind of guy who would have a backup for the backup and the kind who would keep something to use to escape. Plus, with the technology he has access to, he could have something innocent looking like a pen that’s actually a lightsaber.
The last thing I want is for anyone to get hurt—Deirdre, the Marines, even Barclay.
“Can we put some of the guns away and maybe sit down and have a rational conversation?” I say.
Deirdre doesn’t turn to look at me, but I can see the anger sweep across her face. I know how much she blames Barclay for everything that’s happened—because he betrayed the Bureau, because he lied, because he was, in a lot of ways, too late.
“Taylor Barclay is wanted for questioning,” she says. “And I plan on doing just that.”
I nod because I know it’s true, and if Struz were here, I’m sure he’d be going through the same precautions.
“Cuff him,” Deirdre says to the Marine who’s just frisked Barclay and come up empty.
I hear a creak from the hallway upstairs and look up to see Jared. “You okay?” I whisper.
He nods. “Are you?”
I couldn’t be more proud of him. Deirdre and the Marines are here because Jared used the walkie-talkie in Struz’s bedroom to get in touch with them. Jared reacted, even though no one told him to, and now he’s watching me with fierce protectiveness.
It’s a little like looking in a mirror.
“I’m good, I’ll be up in a minute.” Again he nods, and he goes without having to be asked twice. He’s going to be a great man someday—he’s going to be a lot like our dad.
When I look at Barclay, Deirdre is maneuvering him to the couch. His hands are behind his back, and he’s not actively working against her, but he’s a pretty solid guy, and he’s not exactly helping her either.
“Where have you been, Taylor?” Deirdre asks.
He snorts. “Not anywhere you’d be familiar with.”
“So you just went home to your own universe and left us to clean up the mess you left behind?” she asks.
Barclay’s eyes shoot to mine, and I see the flicker of surprise, like he’d assumed I’d kept the multiverse and everything that went with it to myself, before he covers it with a shrug of feigned indifference. “Wasn’t exactly my mess.”
“And whose was it?” she asks, even though I told her—several times—the same story I told Struz. She knows it was Reid.
Barclay smiles. “That’s classified.”
I’m not sure why he’s trying to piss her off, but when she backhands him across the face, he must know it’s working.
05:16:21:57
The rest of the interrogation is painful to watch. It’s not like on television. There’s no soundtrack to manipulate your emotions, no music to muffle the shouted questions and answers, the sound of skin hitting skin, and the anxious breathing of everyone stuffed into too small a room. The air is tight and smothering, with fear, anger, and egos threatening to strangle us all. It’s too hot, and the sweat beading on my skin only seems to emphasize the way my pulse is pounding underneath.
Deirdre’s questions are focused and specific. She asks Barclay about everything from his life in his universe to the recent disappearances here in ours. She’s unyielding and determined—even I feel a little off guard at the way she fires questions at him.
But Barclay doesn’t once seem fazed. A few times he lets out little quips or snide remarks. Once he answers her question with, “That’s a little above your pay grade.” But mostly he’s just silent, wearing a heavy-lidded expression of smugness with his lips curved in an arrogant smile.
He doesn’t flinch the couple of times she slaps him, but his lip is bleeding when Struz finally comes home. He opens the door slowly and scans the room without a single expression coming over his face. His eyes meet Deirdre’s, and after whatever silent communication passes between them, she nods and steps aside.
“Take him to a secure location and confiscate everything he has on his person,” he says to the Marine in charge. “Keep three people on him at all times. Someone has to take a piss, they radio for someone to cover for them first.”
“Yes, sir,” the Marine says.
Two of them haul Barclay up, as Deirdre whispers something to Struz. He nods.
As they’re pulling him out the door, Barclay turns back and looks at me. “You’re smart, Tenner. Just like your father. You know you should come with me.”
My face feels hot at the mention of my dad. I wonder what he would think of all this.
But Barclay has no right to bring up my dad. If Barclay had just come clean with him, maybe my dad would still be here. Which means I’m not about to feel bad for Barclay.
I take a deep breath and remind myself that he didn’t want to tell me his plan, and I wasn’t going to blindly follow him. I remind myself I can’t do anything to help.
“You should come with me,” Barclay repeats. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
What he means, though, is Ben.
Ben doesn’t have a lot of time.
05:16:19:03
When the door shuts, Deirdre slumps onto the couch, and Struz watches her, then turns to look at me. “Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”
“That a*shole has come back to tear more shit apart,” Deirdre says, and I’m a little surprised. She isn’t the kind of person who swears. “What more do we need to know?”
“Where the missing people are going,” I say without thinking. Because it’s true. If nothing else comes out of this night, now we know why people are being abducted.
For a minute it feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. Both Deirdre and Struz freeze with their eyes on me. My heartbeat throbs in my chest.
“Barclay is investigating a human-trafficking ring,” I say. Then I tell them about Barclay following me today, surprising me before I got home, and about Jared opening the door for him.
Struz turns to Deirdre. “Get everyone here in the next fifteen minutes. I don’t care what else is going on.” She nods and grabs the walkie-talkie, and Struz puts a hand on my shoulder. He squeezes lightly, and the look on his face is my undoing. His eyes are soft and the lines on his face express concern and worry—they say, Are you okay? I struggle to keep my emotions under control, keep the sting in my eyes from turning into tears. The truth is, sometimes it all feels like it’s too much, like I can’t take it anymore, like I don’t know how to keep living like this.
Struz can either tell how close I am to losing it, or he just gets it, because he pulls me into a hug. “It’ll be okay, J-baby.”
I know that’s not true, but it still makes me feel better.
When everyone is here—everyone being fifteen other FBI agents, most of whom I know from when they were part of my dad’s team—I start over. They all seem to be aware of what happened four months ago, so I start with the missing-persons cases, the ones Deirdre and I have been working on over the past couple of months. I tell them what Barclay told me.
The only thing I don’t tell them is that Ben is a suspect.
I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing. I won’t let myself think about why he didn’t stay at home with his family or why he hasn’t come back. No matter how much it’s eating at my insides, the facts are that he’s not there and he’s not here. But I know he has nothing to do with a human-trafficking ring, and I’m not about to make him a suspect here.
I tell them what Barclay told me about the human trafficking and that the missing people—our missing people—are being abducted for who knows what and pulled into some other universe where they can’t get back, and we can’t go rescue them because we don’t have the technology.
When I finish, no one says anything. A few people exchange looks, but Struz is clearly thinking something through, and no one else is about to jump in. I start to count the seconds as they pass, and it’s a full minute before anyone speaks.
Then Struz says, “Well, f*ck me.”
“So we need to figure out how people can combat that,” Deirdre says. “The first priority has to be that we can’t lose more people. Then we can figure out how to get back the ones we lost.”
Several agents jump in and start talking over one another. There’s mention of the Multiverse Project, something Struz has started. The goal is to prove that the multiverse exists and to figure out interverse travel. Struz recruited a few renowned scientists in Southern California and gave them the necklace Barclay told me I could wear to portal safely as well as a few other things he left behind.
A couple of agents are intent on brainstorming ways to fight against the portals. Someone says they need to tell the public. Make some kind of announcement. Explain to people.
At that, Struz shakes his head. “I’ve already violated a presidential order by telling you what Janelle went through in September. And I’ve just violated it again, by having her share this new information.”
One of the agents I don’t know laughs bitterly. “Who cares? That guy’s not our real president, anyway.”
“Wait, we still have a government?” another guy says.
“Let’s save the jokes for later. We can’t make an announcement until we know how people should keep themselves safe,” Deirdre says.
Struz nods. “We’ll only create more panic.”
“We should change curfew,” I say. The side chatter stops. I feel everyone’s eyes on me and even though I don’t know what I’m doing either, I’m bolstered by the respect most of these people have for me. “All of the abduction cases so far have been people grabbed when they were alone. The night curfew could still be in effect, but we could push it up an hour or two to make people feel better, while at the same time saying that no one should be alone. Institute a buddy system.”
A couple of people nod. The guy who doesn’t care about our president shrugs. “We could work with something like that.”
They continue talking about it, but I’ve had enough. I excuse myself and head up to my bedroom. No one minds since we’re beyond my realm of usefulness anyway. I can’t stop thinking about Ben. Not just because of what Barclay said. But because he’s out there and maybe in trouble. What if he’s stuck somewhere—or what if he needs me?
I think of the way my skin tingled when his fingers touched mine, the way I felt warm from the inside out when he wrapped his arms around me, the sense of calm that was impossible to ignore when my head was against his chest, the soft thump of his heartbeat under my cheek.
The intensity of missing him is so strong, it’s physical. It starts as an emptiness in my chest and radiates outward until my hands are shaking and I feel like I’m gasping for air. I have to put a hand on the wall to keep my balance.
I wonder if I’ve made the right decision.
Barclay wanted me to go with him. I haven’t changed my mind—I still don’t understand what I can do to help. And I still don’t think that following Barclay blindly without knowing his plan is a smart thing for me to do. I’m not Ben. I can’t portal around on my own. He wouldn’t want me lost in some other world.
But even knowing all that, even repeating it to myself, I can’t silence the thoughts that say: Maybe Ben needs me.
Maybe I should go.
05:05:23:13
I wake with a start, drenched in sweat, my heart racing. A shadow is looming over me, a hand heavy on my shoulder. For a second it reminds me of the first time I really noticed Ben—when I came back from the dead to see his silhouette leaning over me. I open my mouth to say his name.
But the fog of sleep disappears, and I recognize Deirdre’s blond hair.
“What happened?” I ask. “Is Jared okay?”
“He’s fine,” Deirdre says. “But there’s been a distress call. We need to go to Qualcomm.”
I nod and roll out of bed automatically. My jeans are in a pile on the floor. I put them on and grab my hoodie and my gun and am out the door just seconds after her. Deirdre hasn’t said what the distress call is for, but she doesn’t need to.
Qualcomm, the middle of the night. Another missing person.
When we’re in the car, I pull my hair back into a ponytail. My watch says it’s 3:38 a.m. We’re the only people on the road except for the Marines at the checkpoints. They check our IDs and wave us through, their faces pulled into tight expressions.
I think about Qualcomm, about Cecily and how she’s going to take this. I never told her about the multiverse, not because it sounds crazy—between her obsession with all things science and her love for anything new and different, Cecily is probably the one person who would believe me without a doubt—but when I was with her, I was trying to hold on to the aspects of my life that were almost still normal. Telling her about the multiverse, about the portals, about Ben leaving me for his world—it would mean thinking about it. Hanging out with Cee is one of the only times I’m distracted enough to relax.
But now she’s getting dragged into it anyway. I’m going to have to tell her so she can do something to help protect people at Qualcomm.
I wonder who will be missing now—and what kind of slaves they’re going to become—and it makes me feel sick. Other than a buddy system, I can’t even begin to think of a way to combat more abductions.
I need to see Barclay.
I almost say it aloud, to Deirdre, before I stop myself. She might not go for my plan. She might not see the logic in it because it will mean letting Barclay go. I’ll talk to Struz when we get back and ask him to make some kind of deal. If Barclay can give Struz something concrete that people can do to arm themselves against traffickers, or some way for us to track them when they disappear, or something, I’m sure Struz will let him go back to Prima.
We need to be working with Prima—with IA—not against them.
Because I know who would win, and it wouldn’t be us.
When we get to Qualcomm, Cecily’s aunt is awake to meet us, her eyes bloodshot and her face red and splotchy. The stress is obviously getting to her, too. “Thank God you’re here,” she says, and as soon as we’re close enough, she pulls me into a hug.
I cover my surprise by getting down to business. “Two people are missing?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, as she pulls back. “Jack Wright. He’s eleven.”
I can feel the bile moving around in my stomach.
“Where did this happen? Was he alone?” Deirdre asks.
Cecily’s aunt nods. “Both his parents were killed in the quakes, so we’ve housed him with the other kids who are alone now. Cecily and some of the girls have been taking care of them.”
No wonder she’s so upset. This is going to be hell on Cee.
“He’d gotten up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night,” she adds. “He was gone a little too long, so Cecily and Kate got up to check on him.”
I glance off to the side and see Kate, a blanket wrapped around her. She’s shaking a little with her head down, as if she’s crying into the blanket. I’ve finally gotten over the way she turned on me and traded our friendship for popularity. We’re not exactly friends again, but I’ve let go of the hate.
I look around for Cecily, since she is usually quick to comfort anyone who’s crying, and a shiver moves through my body. I don’t see her anywhere, and when I look back at her aunt, the question almost freezes in my throat.
“And the second?” I ask.
Her eyes water and Deirdre says, “Please tell us it’s not another kid.”
It’s not, but for me, this answer is worse.
“It’s Cecily.”
05:05:02:35
I first met Cecily my sophomore year. She was the only freshman in AP Chem, and when it came to answering questions and playing teacher’s pet, she gave Alex a run for his money. She sat up front with a crisp notebook and eight different-colored pens, and she practically fell out of her seat with enthusiasm every time Mr. Easterly asked a question.
She was blond, bubbly, and far too excited to be at school. She was perkiness personified.
Alex had a huge crush on her, and I hated her a little on principle.
Then I got stuck with her for a lab partner.
Alex was at some special “best students in California” weekend up at Stanford, and Easterly was trying to discourage Mason Rickman from coasting through class by letting Cecily do all the work, so he stuck me in a threesome with the two of them, knowing I’d badger Mason into doing his fair share. The lab itself was essentially analyzing a few different chemicals in commercial bleach. My plan was to just get it done—even with Mason slowing us down, it would be an easy one.
But then Mason spilled some of the bleach and Cecily said, “God, Mason, just because Janelle is here doesn’t mean you have to get all weird. Stop letting her make you nervous. It’s like you have a crush on her or something.”
Mason snorted. “Well, I certainly don’t have a crush on you.”
“Thank goodness. I don’t need another stalker. I mean, it’s hard enough to leave my house as it is.”
Mason looked at me and rolled his eyes, but the smile never left his face.
“Don’t worry, Janelle,” Cecily said to me. “He’s a little funny looking, but I promise you he’s pretty harmless. In fact, if we let him, he’d probably just go to sleep.” Then she handed me a beaker. “Here, fill this before he manages to spill it and get it all over our clothes.”
I realized Cecily was funny. She made fun of Mason—and me—constantly. And she loved it when we managed to think of something witty enough to make fun of her right back.
She was smart and hard-working—like me, if I was less serious and more friendly. When Alex came back, she and I stuck him with Mason on most of the labs and worked together. Though he hated working with Mason, he loved the attention he got from Cecily as a result.
I’ve already lost Alex. Cecily is the only friend I have left. I can’t lose her, too.
I try to listen to Cecily’s aunt as she describes what happened. Kate and some others heard Cecily shout, “Fire!”—it’s the one thing you can shout and guarantee that people will come running—and got up and ran to the hallway in time to see her disappear through some kind of black hole. But there’s something wrong with either my ears or my focus—or both. I feel like I’m caught in some kind of air tunnel and the wind is roaring in my ears.
We’re on the first floor of Qualcomm, where the small children and families with young ones are staying, where the crime took place. Despite the time, handfuls of people are standing around watching Deirdre and me.
And I can’t stop staring at them, memorizing each one.
Their faces all ask variations of the same question: What are you going to do about this?
A young boy is missing, which is tragic enough as it is. But Cecily is missing too—the girl who kept this place together, the girl who gave people hope. Underneath the lines of anger on their faces is a desperation—you can see it in their eyes. Because without Cecily, how will they keep going?
The faint singed line of a burn on concrete—what I now know is the mark of a portal flaring to life and disappearing quickly—draws my eye, and I squat down to touch the end of it with the tips of my fingers. It doesn’t feel any different. There’s nothing about this soft mark to suggest that two people were just ripped from this world.
I look a hundred feet south, toward the bathroom. In my mind I see Cecily in pink sweatpants and her I ONLY DATE NINJAS Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt coming out of the room where she sleeps and heading toward the bathroom. Her white-blond hair is mussed, probably from tossing and turning, and she has circles under her eyes from not actually sleeping.
I see her stop and her head swivel at a sound—maybe a shout or a yell, maybe just something unusual and therefore alarming—and then I see her take off running toward us, toward an eleven-year-old boy with sandy-brown hair struggling against one or both of his captors. She shouts for them to stop, and one of them turns to her, grabbing her when she gets close, deciding that taking her is far better than leaving a witness. A girl who just turned sixteen, a girl who’s petite, and thin, with blond hair and innocent doe eyes—she’ll be easily placed as a slave.
She shouts, “Fire!” as one of the abductors covers her mouth and jabs her with a syringe. Then they’re vanishing through the portal.