SCREAMS ERUPT FROM EVERYONE AROUND ME AS THE RED sports car smashes into the thick concrete column of the streetlights. The deafening slam of metal shifts into the hiss of a demolished engine, and through the thick smoke I can see the car almost torn in two.
How could Theo have crashed the car? I think, stunned, before the truth descends:
Theo crashed on purpose.
My body and brain can’t agree on what to do. I stand there swaying, wanting to faint, then take a few lurching steps forward before bracing myself against a lamppost to keep myself from falling down. Within a few seconds, though, I’m able to push myself on and run to the wreckage. Someone shouts at me in Spanish, probably warning me to pull back to safety, but Theo explained once that crashed cars only explode in the movies. Nothing short of an explosion could keep me away.
I come up on the passenger side, where the door has been knocked off, and Conley—
It’s all I can do not to throw up. I hate this man . . . I mean, I hated him, when he was alive. But looking at him now nauseates me. Never did I need to see Conley’s head split open. I never wanted to learn how brain fluid smells. Now I can never forget it.
The coldest, most calculating part of my mind—the part Wicked would understand—knows that this dramatically changes the odds. In this dimension, Triad had only one leader, who was also their only perfect traveler. This world will never be a risk to mine again.
Yet none of that seems important compared to the fact that Theo is somewhere in this wreckage. He did this on purpose, and instinctively I know that he did it for me.
“Theo?” My voice cracks as I edge around the back of the vehicle. Please let him not be torn up like this, please don’t let him be split open, please, please, please. “Theo, can you hear me?”
“Meg?”
Finally I reach the driver’s-side door. Theo slumps in his seat, which hangs unnaturally far back—the impact must have dislodged it. His face is already swollen and purple. Blood trickles from his nose and ears. One of his arms, obviously broken in multiple places, lies limply across the gearshift. With the other, he reaches for me.
I take his hand, pretending not to notice the blood pooling between our palms. This is the same person who murdered the other me, the same fingers that gripped the scarf he knotted around my throat. Yet I can’t look into his bruised, despairing face—without accepting his grip. His hand is weak and shaky in mine. “Theo, what did you do?”
“I knew . . . knew I could take him out.” Theo tries to smirk, but then he coughs and winces from the pain. “The son of a bitch never . . . wore his seat belt. Always . . . always wear your—”
His seat belt cuts into his torso so unnaturally. Several of his ribs must be broken. Maybe his sternum, too. “Hang on. They must’ve called an ambulance, so the doctors will be here any second. Okay? Hang on.”
“That’s not . . . how this goes.” His head lolls toward me. His eyes seem to meet mine, but I’m not sure he can even see me. “I took a life. You can . . . you can only pay for a life with a life.”
“Oh, God, Theo—” I hate this Theo so much. I’ve hit him, cursed him, even attempted to kill him. But I’m not made of the kind of stuff that could enjoy watching him die.
My mind shows me an image from my second night in an alternate dimension: the Londonverse, where I wore the body of a girl who’s already dead. I believed my father had been murdered, and I staggered around drunk in a nightclub in the vain hopes that the alcohol would numb the endless pain inside. Theo came to me then, picked me up in his arms and held me right there in the club, cradling me against his chest while I sobbed, even as the drumbeat throbbed and the dancers swayed around us. He was pretending to be my Theo—manipulating me, even using me—but that night, I know, he genuinely hurt for me too. That moment might have been the realest I ever shared with this Theo, until this one, right now.
“Conley . . . he . . . he told the other one to move on.” He swallows, winces, gasps. “You have to follow her.”
“I will,” I promise. “Right away.”
“You asked me . . . how she felt. The other you. While I killed her.” Theo tries to smile, but his cut lip makes it grotesque. “Now I know.”
He shudders—no, spasms. He coughs again, and the trickle of blood from his nose turns into a heavy flow. His eyes roll up in his head, and his breath rattles in his chest.
“No,” I squeeze his hand more tightly. As much as I’ve hated him, it turns out I can’t bear to watch him die. “No, Theo, hang on. You can still help us. You can be the one who brings the Triadverse around! You could undo some of the damage—help bring things back. . . .” My voice trails off as I realize he can’t hear me anymore
The rattle in his chest stops, and for a moment I think that’s it, until Theo whispers, “Meg . . .”
His hand goes slack in mine. Blood flowing from his nose and ears slows, then stops. Theo’s head falls back, free of the broken car seat. Nobody is here any longer.
Trembling, I take my hand from his and touch his face. Closing his eyes feels impossibly strange, his eyelids thin and fragile against my fingertips. When I pull back, I see the bloodstains I left behind.
I stagger away from the wreck, oblivious to the gore dripping from my hand. Far away I hear sirens. Whatever limo driver or security guard or goon Conley had watching me obviously thinks I’m no longer a priority, or figures he’s no longer on anybody’s payroll. At any rate, nobody is trying to capture me or hurt me. I’m on my own in Ecuador, completely alone.
Think. I reach the coffeehouse on the corner, where all the patrons have gathered to gawp, and sink into one of their woven-cane chairs. You can reach a landline and call your parents again. They’ll come and get you. I mean they’ll come get the Triadverse Marguerite. As soon as I’m sure she’s okay, I intend to follow Theo’s advice and return to pursuing Wicked.
No, I need Paul. He’s here in this very city. But how do I find Paul in the middle of an enormous city I don’t know and where I don’t speak more than three dozen words of the language?
I focus again on the shattered wreck smoldering in front of me and realize—one of the world’s richest men just died violently in public. This will be on YouTube within minutes, if it isn’t already. News crews will get here before the ambulances do. Paul will find out as fast as everyone else on the globe, and if I’m in any of the pictures or video being taken by the zillion smartphones I see being held up by the murmuring crowd, he’ll see I’m here.
Paul will know to come for me.
I have Theo’s blood all over my hands. The thought seems simultaneously incredibly important and a thousand miles away. Some paper napkins have been left on a nearby table. I grab a couple and start scrubbing away the red. There’s so much red. Paul can’t see this, he can’t know what happened to the guy who used to call him little brother.
Blood stains my shirt, my jeans, my skin, but the Firebird remains spotless. The cause of all this turmoil glints in the noonday light, bright as ever.
Theo said Conley had already signaled to Wicked. How? They can’t communicate the way we do, or else they’d already know . . . wait. Of course. Romola. He called her, she swapped universes long enough to make a phone call, and it’s done. Maybe he has other henchmen, other imperfect travelers willing to leap between worlds and screw stuff up for the rest of us, but I bet Romola’s the only one in on the whole scheme.
The point is, Wicked’s gone. I have a chance now to leap to this so-called “neutral universe,” since this Firebird picked up her trail as soon as I got here. Then the race begins again.
At the moment, a neutral universe sounds like an almost unbelievable luxury.
I take a pen and my dog-eared boarding pass for the San Francisco–Quito flight and jot down a few notes. While I know my other selves remember my time in their bodies, this might be too much of a shock for my Triadverse self to handle in the first several minutes. I put down the hotel name and room number and underline the words Paul will be here soon. Part of me wants to linger until he arrives, to take momentary comfort in his arms . . . but he should be with his own Marguerite when he sees this. They need each other.
No need to mention that Conley’s dead, that Theo gave his life to protect us, or that she shouldn’t walk back to the car and look inside. What I saw there—what Theo did—neither she nor I will ever be able to forget that as long as we live.
I tuck the boarding pass in the front pocket of my T-shirt, take a deep breath, and leap away.
After seeing two people die in a violent car accident, it’s jarring to jump into myself behind the wheel of a car.
But this car isn’t on the road.
It’s in the water.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God! Frantically I paw at the door, look out at the river or bay or whatever is now lapping over the hood, and feel the first trickles dampening my feet. Panic rushes in along with the water. I look up for the sunroof—our new car at home has one—but not here. Water closes over the hood completely, and the car tilts as it begins to sink.
My fingers clasp the handle before I remember, Don’t open it.
Back in late November, when we believed my father had been murdered, we thought he’d drowned when his sabotaged car crashed into the water. Dad turned out to have been kidnapped into a parallel dimension instead, but none of the rest of us discovered that for nearly a month.
And the thing is, when you mourn someone’s death for that long, you don’t get over it instantly, even if you get them back.
I had nightmares about Dad’s crash for more than six weeks after he was back home safe and sound. Paul insisted that knowledge was the answer, that if I understood what to do in that situation, eventually I’d save myself in the dream and the nightmares would end. It didn’t exactly work that way—the bad dreams trailed off on their own. But those dozens of videos of safety experts or TV reporters I watched, all of them explaining how to escape from a sinking car, told me the water pressure makes the door hard to open. You’re supposed to try to get out through the window instead.
My finger finds the window controls, and the glass slides halfway down, then stops. At the exact same instant, the entire dashboard goes dark. Water has shorted out the car’s electrical system.
The opening at the top of the window might be wide enough for me to squeeze through.
Might.
I slip my head through, angle my shoulders, and start pulling myself out. But the glass snags on my belt, and even as I wriggle desperately, the car keeps sinking. With one hand I fumble at the belt, manage to undo it, and then brace both my palms against the car door and push myself out as hard as I can. The force pulls my jeans down to my thighs, but now I can get my hips through the window. Almost free.
The car tilts and I splash into the water, my lower legs still trapped between the window and the door. I struggle, but my feet catch in the opening. For one sickening moment I think the car’s going to tow me down like an anchor, all the way to the bottom. In the last instant before I go under, I suck in a deep breath.
I go under. Everything turns so cold. My hair swirls around me in a dark cloud. Sunlight turns the muddy water amber. The car still drags at my legs, its weight sure to drag me to my death if I can’t shake it. Desperately I kick and kick and—yes!—my feet slide free. My jeans and shoes went with the car, and now I’m able to swim upward.
When my head breaks the surface, I gasp for air. A small crowd has gathered on the road, near the smashed rail that must show where my car plunged in. No strong current drags me down, and thank God, because I’m not sure I could fight it. The lack of oxygen, combined with extreme physical exertion, dizzies me—but adrenaline has begun to kick in. I have the strength to keep going. Struggling, I head for shore.
Thank you, Dad, I think as I feel the first riverbank slime beneath my bare feet. Thank you, Paul. All those nightmares and videos just saved my life.
For a while, I just lie on the riverbank, too exhausted to even cover myself. If the world wants to look at my butt through my wet underwear, it can go right ahead. At the moment I couldn’t care less.
I can handle a lot. I know this about myself by now. But those two moments, back to back, have left me so ragged and tired that I am beyond action. Beyond caring. Some kind woman who keeps a first-aid kit in her car covers me with one of those silvery safety blankets. So I allow myself a few moments to simply exist. To say nothing to myself beyond the thought, I’m warm.
By the time the police arrive, though, I’m able to talk again.
“Witnesses said it looked like you drove off the side on purpose,” says the cop, who squats in front of me with a notepad in his hands. “But then you fought like hell to get out of there.”
“I didn’t mean to drive into the water.” A droplet makes its way down one of my curls before falling on my cheek. “I—I think I fell asleep at the wheel.”
“Fell asleep? If I run a field sobriety test on you, what’s it going to show me?”
I wouldn’t put it past Wicked to do a couple of shots before driving into a river, but I feel totally, almost brutally sober. “I’m clean. I swear. But I’ve been putting in a lot of all-nighters, and—”
“You’re lucky you didn’t hurt somebody else.” The cop seems to believe me, but he heads off to get the Breathalyzer anyway. “Hang tight. Who can we call for you?”
My phone, if it was on me at the time of the crash, is now at the bottom of the river, completely ruined. So I give the cops my home landline number, but when nobody answers, and I can’t remember any of the other numbers off the top of my head, they agree to give me a ride home. If everyone’s out, well, I know where the spare key is kept.
In my universe, anyway. But this one looks close. The license plates are all from California, and although I’m not positive, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this area before. It can’t be too far from our house in Berkeley. Even this sweater is one I own at home.
A neutral universe, Conley said. One not marked for destruction—one where this world’s Marguerite didn’t have to die. Wicked tried to kill her anyway.
Was Conley lying to me? He never hesitated to when it served his purposes. This time, though, I think he was telling the truth.
I think Wicked tried to kill this Marguerite . . . just for the fun of it.
She calls it an art form, Paul told me in the Home Office. What brushes and paints are to me, manipulation and murder are to her.
And I know—from my own heart, and from the experiences of so many other Marguerites—I’ll never give up my art.
When we get to the house, Mom’s car is out front, but the mail is jammed in the box like she hasn’t checked it in days. The cop who brought me here frowns. “Your parents on a trip?”
“They go to lots of academic conferences.” Which is true, though they always remember to put through a stop-mail order. Well, I guess one time they forgot. I tilt one of the flowerpots over to see the spare key just where it always is, outlined by a dusting of soil. “See? I’m good.”
The cop shows me in, gives me a citation report, and tells me to come down to the station tomorrow to talk with them about this. Although I don’t think I’m going to be in serious trouble, I suspect a suspended license is in this Marguerite’s future. But she won’t mind. Not when I leave here and she remembers what happened, and what nearly happened. Calling Uber for six months is a small price to pay compared to drowning.
Once the police car finally pulls away, I lock the door behind me and walk toward my room. My steps slow as I take a good look around. This is my house, but something’s not right.
In fact, something is very, very wrong.
Mom’s houseplants, her pride and joy . . . they’re all dying. Some are already dead. Their leaves have turned brown and curled at the edges for lack of water. The sight shocks me so much that I turn to get the watering can before I think, Shower and put on some clothes first. I’m still wearing the silvery blanket wrapped around me and not much else.
Then I hear my mom’s voice from her bedroom. “Who is it?”
“Mom? Were you asleep?” None of this makes any sense to me. “I was in a car accident—I’m okay, but the car sank—”
My words trail off as Mom shambles into view. She’s never been a fashion plate, wears sweaters nearly as old as I am, and so far as I know is allergic to makeup. But the shapeless sweatpants and T-shirt she’s wearing now are filthy and food-stained; her hair seems not to have been washed in at least a week. “Marguerite? What happened?”
“I think I fell asleep while I was driving.”
That should shock her out of her doze. She’ll come to me, ask questions about trajectories and velocities while she strokes my hair and tells me to take a warm bath.
Instead, Mom gets furious. “You can’t even bother to take care of yourself! You yell at me for not caring, and then you go and do something like this?”
“I didn’t mean to!” My mother is so even-tempered that I’ve hardly ever had to deal with her when she’s this angry. Maybe not ever. Her eyes burn with a feverish light, and suddenly I’m afraid. Not of her. For her. Because whoever this unstable person is, she’s not the Sophia Kovalenka I know. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry. I’ll—I’ll sell some paintings, maybe, start to pay you back for the car—”
“Right. It’s all going to be fine once you’re painting again, and I go back to the university. The new car will be just as good as the old one.” Her smirk is bitter. “Any day now.”
What can I say? “I’ll make it up to you. I can. Somehow.”
She puts her arms around me then, and I’m shocked by how thin she is. We’re both bony, well beyond “fashionably thin,” into the area where doctors quiz you about anorexia even though you came in for a flu shot. That’s just how we are. But my mother has lost even more weight, to the point that it can’t possibly be healthy, even for her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Mom murmurs into my damp hair. “I’m sorry. You know I love you.”
“I love you too.” As much as I mean those words, I say them mostly because I think she needs to hear it.
“If anything happened to you—”
“It won’t. I promise. Look, see? I’m fine.” I try to smile for her.
But Mom’s expression darkens. “You can’t promise me nothing will happen. No one can.”
We stand facing each other for a few long terrible seconds, until I finally say. “I need to shower.”
“And put on some dry things.” For one brief moment, she kind of sounds like herself. “Then we can get some sleep.”
“Pizza,” I find myself saying. “Pizza, then sleep.”
“Okay.” Mom wanders back into her bedroom. Although she could be going for her phone to call the delivery guys, I suspect I’ll have to be the one to do that.
Why does Mom look so terrible, and why did she act so weird about my car accident? How could she ever have let her plants die? I don’t see any equations on the chalkboard wall; long-ago ones linger as mere shadows of white dust. Do Paul and Theo not come by here, or any other graduate students either?
And where’s my dad?
As soon as I’m rinsed off and clothed again, I have to start exploring each of these questions. But I already suspect I won’t like the answers.
All I know is that this version of my mother is the weakest—the most broken—that I’ve ever found. If Wicked had murdered this version of me, already I know Mom wouldn’t have been able to go on.
But Wicked tried anyway. Even in a neutral world, with no reason for violence, no orders from Wyatt Conley, Wicked still went in for the kill.