––––––––
“So, um, how long do you plan on staying here and killing everyone?” I asked, trying to temper my voice so it didn’t sound insulting. At least she’d stopped uncontrollably laughing and I hadn’t had to slap her. I didn’t see that going over well. She’d probably whip out her knife and slash my throat without a second’s hesitation. Gah! What was the world coming to?
Gavyn shrugged and wiped the tears off her face. “I don’t know. It’s not like I can leave or anything. I suppose I could evacuate...” Her eyes met mine. “I don’t see the point when all of my family is dead.” She squared her thin shoulders. “I feel like I’m doing more good here.”
“What about Liam?”
“Yours or mine?”
Mine. My Liam. Oh my God. Where is he? She set her hand on my arm. A hysterical thought flitted through my mind. Does this mean I’m touching myself?
“You should probably accept that he’s dead.”
“What?” I exploded, rounding on her. “Hell no, I won’t accept that.” I shifted away from her touch.
“Then where is he?” The softness of her voice took some of the sting out of the words, but not much.
I shook my head as I realized what he’d meant when I was shifting: I’ll find you. I’d thought Liam was threatening Nevin, but he was actually talking to me. He’d known he wasn’t going to follow me. Damn him. How could he do that to me? I trusted him.
Gavyn watched my face like one would inspect a slide under a microscope. “You can’t trust anyone, Gavyn. Not even me.”
Well, that was ominous and not at all comforting. “But I trusted Liam—trust! I trust him.” I wouldn’t think of him in past tense.
She stood up and brushed some of the dirt off the back of her jeans, though it did little good. They were still smeared with black and grass-stained. “Come on. We’ve got to get you cleaned up.”
I stared at her. She wanted to leave this spot? Five minutes ago she hadn’t ever wanted to go. “No. I’m not leaving.” I threw her my best are-you-crazy? look and planted my butt more firmly on the ground. She’d have to use a forklift.
Gavyn put her hands on her hips and glared down at me. I almost wanted to laugh. No wonder no one took me seriously when I was angry. All those freckles and red hair are ridiculous.
“Now is not the time to be an idiot,” she said.
I ignored her insults. “I’m not leaving. He’s coming for me.” I was being stubborn, but I didn’t care. This was Liam we were talking about. He promised he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
She let out a long-suffering sigh, blowing strands of idiotic curls from her face. “Why do you care so much? You don’t even know him, do you?”
I looked guiltily away and inspected the dry grass. Sure, I knew him, maybe not the way I knew Lena or Drake or my other friends that I’d been with since kindergarten, but I knew him. I didn’t say anything.
“When you realize he’s just using you, I’ll be over there.” She pointed across the street to a deserted house with blue shutters and a white picket fence. It reminded me of Pleasantville. When I made no move to follow her, she threw up her arms in exasperation. “Fine. Be a moron. See if I care. I hope Nevin comes through here and cuts out your stupid Ginger-heart.” She stormed away from me without a backward glance.
Jeesh, the girl had anger issues. Maybe I could direct her to a nice psychiatrist that would help her channel all the energy into something productive, like running or karate or interior decorating. I’d always wanted to be an interior decorator.
But what if what she said had credence? I’d trusted Liam blindly, but only because I didn’t have anyone else to trust. He was the one person (other than the psycho-Gavyn) who wasn’t trying to kill me (anymore). Suddenly, I felt very, very tired in a way that had nothing to do with lack of sleep.
The sun sank below the horizon and I knew that the town should be lighting up. People should be at home, getting ready for bed, eating dinner, watching TV...but the street was silent and dark. It gave me the creeps. As if to solidify my fear, the hoot of an owl pierced the air.
“Seriously?” I muttered, forcing myself to my feet. I jumped when a solitary yard light blinked on. It stood protecting the house that no longer existed. “Damn stupid owl. Damn stupid light.” I trudged across the street to find Gavyn. Before I could decide to trust anyone, I needed more information.
I crept into the house, feeling like I was disturbing a mausoleum or something. I mean, I knew the people were just evacuated, but it was still weird. Not to mention I didn’t know these neighbors in my home world. I vaguely remembered seeing some guy getting the paper in his underwear, but we definitely weren’t friends.
The front door was unlocked and I was beginning to see why Liam always muttered about people not locking their doors. What the hell? Were they idiots?
It was cool inside the house, probably just a couple of degrees warmer than outside. It felt like fall in this dimension, though the trees still had emerald leaves.
“Gavyn?” I whispered. My voice wafted through the dark rooms but there was no response. I sighed. Of course she wouldn’t just wait for me inside the door like a good little Ginger. She was probably lurking in one of the corners, knife ready to slash me like I was in an awful horror movie.
I latched the door behind me and dead-bolted it. No need to be an idiot, too. “Gavyn?” I called again, squinting my eyes against the darkness. Where the hell is she?
I tiptoed into the ridiculous country living room and rolled my eyes. It wasn’t like we lived in Kentucky or anything. I trailed my fingers over a blue gingham quilt on the back of the couch. This was just excessive.
“What are you doing?” Her voice raked through the shadows. I jumped a foot in the air and let out a very Gavyn-like squeal of pure terror.
I whirled. Gavyn stood before me, holding a family-size bag of cheddar-flavored potato chips. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” I held my hand to my chest where my heart was doing its best to beat right out of it. “For the love of God.”
She shrugged. “I knew you’d wander your lame butt over here at some point.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did you just call me lame?”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes. She’d showered, I noticed, and changed her clothes. There were fresh butterfly bandages on her forehead. She looked almost normal—just like me, except two-armed. The thought of my arm set the gash in my shoulder throbbing.
“What of it?” She shoved a chip into her mouth. Gah. She was a bitch. I wondered once again how we were the same person. She poked at my shoulder. “You should probably clean that up.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for the advice, Sherlock.”
Gavyn blinked at me, eyes owlish in the dim light. “What’s a Sherlock?”
“Never mind. Next thing I know you’ll be telling me you don’t know who Inspector Gadget is either.” Her expression remained blank. Hell. “Where’s the bathroom in this place, anyway?”
She pointed behind her. “First door on the right. Mrs. Publey has some seriously awesome hair products.” She screwed up her face and assessed my hair. “I’d suggest you use them.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes again.
I found the bathroom and was relieved when the lights flicked on. I turned on the shower and let it steam up the room. I stripped and inspected my injuries in the mirror that covered the entire wall. Mrs. Publey liked to look at herself because no space in the large bathroom escaped the mirror. You even had the pleasure of watching yourself squat on the toilet.
The cut on my shoulder was jagged. It started at my collarbone and sliced a line over to the top of my shoulder. The bleeding had long stopped, but the gash itself was ugly and caked with blood. And it hurt. A lot. My neck wound (from the infamous bitchy Gavyn) was a thin straight line, also caked with blood. It didn’t look as serious as my shoulder. Finally, my eyes wandered to the bruise on my chin. It was fading fast, now just barely a greenish-blue. I wondered why the miraculous burn ointment hadn’t healed it, too.
I turned away from the mirror before tears welled up in my eyes. I slid back the shower curtain and stepped into the sweltering water, gritting my teeth as it opened my cuts and started them bleeding again. And finally, there in the solitary confines of Mrs. Publey’s shower (that was lined with hair products, by the way), I cried, letting my tears wash down the drain along with the rust-colored water.
When I couldn’t stand any more water (and I’d stopped bawling), I wrapped a towel around myself and found Gavyn in the living room. She was stationed on the couch, legs pulled up underneath her, watching what was left of her house across the street. She looked me over. “Well, at least you look one step up from a homeless person now.” There was a stack of clothes on the end of the couch. She gestured to them. “Those are for you. I figure we’re probably the same size.”
I tucked the end of the towel inside itself and hoped it would stay up and grabbed the clothes. Not that it really mattered. I’m sure Gavyn had seen herself naked before. “What are you doing?” I asked, following her gaze across the darkened street.
“Waiting.” She gave me a look that said clearly.
“For what?” I was dumb enough to let the words pop out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“Movement.” She pointed across the street. “That light has a motion sensor. Whenever it goes off, someone’s shifted. I kill them. The end.”
My mouth dropped, horrified, even though she’d told me all this earlier. I thought of Liam. “You can’t kill Liam. What if he’s my Liam?”
“They’re all Liam, sweetheart. I don’t make exceptions.” She sounded hollow, like the ability to feel had been sucked out of her.
There were so many things I wanted to say, but it had to wait until I changed because my arm felt like it was going to fall off from holding the clothes and the towel. “I’ll be right back.” I ran back to the bathroom and threw on the clothes. Gym shorts, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. Not too bad. I wondered where Gavyn had gotten the clothes, since all of hers had burned, but then I noticed Mrs. Publey’s daughter in a family picture in the hall. She was about our age, with bright blue eyes and long blonde hair. She also looked like a Barbie. I rolled my eyes.
Gavyn hadn’t moved from the couch when I came back. I sat next to her. “Promise me you won’t kill any of the Liams.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do that. When will you learn that you can’t trust him?” She glared at me, which I returned with my own glare that was just as hateful. She relented first. “Why do I even care?”
I figured she didn’t want an answer to that, so I said, “You said that Liam injected himself with some sort of antibody before he went after the murdering Gavyn. What was that for?”
“It prevents the Pershings from controlling you and making you part of their interdimensional army. Unfortunately, I think Liam is the only one who got any of that. The rest of us are vulnerable.”
I stared at her. I was in way over my head. Suddenly, the pieces clicked. “Nevin.”
She nodded. “Exactly. And a lot of the Liams. I knew I could trust my Liam, but there aren’t that many that the Pershings haven’t gotten to.” She leveled me a look.
“The Nevins will never stop,” I mumbled, finally seeing part of the larger picture.
“Not until they’re all dead.”
“And the Pershings—the real ones, not us,” I clarified, “they’re winning, aren’t they?”
She nodded. “So far. They’re using the shifting connections to infect the dimensions and mind-control the people. It might take years for them to infect them all, but it’s already started. Once they have their army in every world, there won’t be anything they can’t do. They’ll have access to resources in every reality. No one can stop them.”
“Except Liam.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know about that. We can’t see the ripples yet, but they will happen. Shifting makes the universe unstable. If the Pershings had any fucking brains, they would realize this.” She grabbed the bag of chips off the coffee table. “Here. All of this doesn’t sound so terrible when you’ve eaten.”
In response, my stomach rumbled. I grabbed the bag and stuffed one in my mouth. “So if these ripples happen, what then?”
“I don’t know for sure, but Liam seems—seemed to think that everything would collapse.”
“Collapse?”
She rolled her eyes. “The world will end, Gavyn. We’ll all die. The apocalypse, the end of days, sayonara.”
“Oh my God.” I crushed the bag of chips in my fist and Gavyn ripped them out of my hand.
“Jeez. Get a hold of yourself.”
“This doesn’t freak you out?” I inspected her face. She looked angry (which seemed like her usual expression) and sad.
She lifted one shoulder and popped a chip in her mouth. “I’ve lost everyone I love. If I die, what does it really matter?”
I opened my mouth and then shut it again. What did one say in response to that? I felt hopeless, but I didn’t feel that hopeless. If this war wasn’t even worth fighting, why had Liam found me? Why did he drag me across worlds? There had to be hope, I decided.
Plus, he needed to avenge his father’s death.
Oh my God.
His father.
“Gavyn?” My voice was high and breathless. If I was right, this was a serious revelation. “There’s only one Liam—the true Liam, right?” I met her steady gaze, trying to get my words to come out right. Everything got jumbled with all the Liams, Nevins, and Gavyns we were dealing with. “There’s only one Liam who had the true Dr. Jamison as a father, right?”
She narrowed her pale eyes and I could tell she wasn’t following me. “I guess.”
“He’s my Liam,” I said, excited. “That’s why you can’t kill him. My Liam has the antibodies.”
Gavyn opened her mouth to speak as the motion light flickered on across the street.