“THEO?” I TAKE A STEP FORWARD, THEN STOP. FOR SOME stupid reason I feel ashamed to see him like this.
Right after the shame comes anger. Why should I be embarrassed? I’m not the one getting high in the middle of something so dangerous, so important—
Then Theo groans as he slumps sideways onto the bathroom floor. He’s completely, totally out of it.
“Oh, shit.” I drop to my knees and roll him onto his back. Theo doesn’t even seem to know I’m there. “What are you doing?”
Theo focuses his eyes on me for only a moment and chokes out one word. “Sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry?”
“Yeah,” he says. My anger is very far away from him right now; I can tell. The whole world is far away from Theo at the moment.
I grab the small bottle I see on the bathroom floor; it’s still about half full of some liquid that’s a brilliant emerald green. What drug looks like that? It must be something from this dimension, because I’ve never seen anything like it.
I try to adjust him on the bathroom floor so that he’s not all crumpled against the vanity; he responds by rolling halfway over to rest his head in my lap. With a sigh, I settle in on the cold bathroom tile, back against the wall, and untie the rubber tube that he’d knotted around his forearm. It can’t be good to leave that on for long.
I can feel his breathing, deep and regular, as his chest swells against my thighs.
Leaning my head against the vanity, I try to steady myself. But it’s hard. Theo . . . isn’t stable. I knew this. We had all begun to realize that about him. His courage and loyalty don’t change this one critical fact.
The person I’ve been relying on to get me through this is someone I can’t be sure of relying on at all.
Although I hate to admit it, Paul was the first one who warned me about Theo—the first one who realized how bad he was getting, who tried to say something. And he must have suspected for a while, but kept it to himself. Only the Accident made him speak up.
The Accident was two months ago, and it’s the only time I ever saw my parents angry with Theo. They patched it up, and nothing actually happened, but still, it stood out.
That afternoon, I was hanging out with my sister, Josie, who was home from Scripps for the weekend. She was helping me study for the AP exams, which can be a little tricky when you’ve been homeschooled with no planning for the standardized tests to come.
I know the stereotypical images people have when they first hear the word homeschooled. They assume it’s super religious and not very difficult, like we sit around all day learning God made dinosaurs for the cavemen to ride.
In my case, however, my parents took Josie out of public school when the kindergarten teacher said it was impossible for her to already read on a fifth-grade level, so clearly she’d just learned to sound out words without understanding them; I’ve never so much as stepped into a real school. (From what I hear, I haven’t missed out on much.) Instead Mom and Dad lined up a series of tutors—their assistants and grad students from other areas of the university—and made me and Josie work harder than anyone else. Every once in a while they’d bring in other professors’ kids, so we’d be “socially well-adjusted.” The other kids have become my friends, but mostly it was only my sister and me in it together. So Josie and I learned about modern literature from a would-be PhD who mostly made us study her thesis on Toni Morrison. Our French lessons were taught by a variety of native speakers, though we got a mix of dialects and accents—Parisian, Haitian, Quebecois. And somehow we made it through science as taught by my mother, which was definitely the hardest of all.
It was a Saturday afternoon, gusty and overcast. My parents were at the university, working in their lab; Paul and Theo were supposed to be going through equations here, but Theo had coaxed Paul outside to see his latest modifications to his beloved muscle car. So Josie and I had the place to ourselves.
And instead of helping me study, Josie was nagging.
“C’mon,” Josie said, as she played with one of the long vines of Mom’s philodendron. “You’d love the Art Institute.”
“Chicago’s so cold in winter.”
“Whine whine whine. Buy a coat. Besides, it’s not like it never gets cold at Ris-lee or Ris-mee—”
“Rizdee.” That’s how most people shorten the name of the Rhode Island School of Design. “And yeah, I know, but it’s still the best place for art restoration in the country, hands down.”
Josie gave me a look. We’re pretty different, for sisters—she’s average height while I’m tall; she’s athletic while I’m anything but. She inherited our parents’ love of science and is following in Dad’s footsteps by becoming an oceanographer; I’m the odd duck of the family, the artsy one. Josie’s laid-back while I freak out about every little thing. Yet despite all our differences, sometimes she can see right through me. “Why are you learning how to be an art restorer when you’re going to be an artist?”
“I’m going to try to be an artist—”
“Do or do not, there is no try,” Josie said in her best Yoda impersonation, which is sort of scarily good. “You want to be an artist. A great artist. So be one. The Art Institute of Chicago would be the place for that, right?”
“Ruskin.” The word came out of my mouth before I could stop myself. Josie gave me a look that I knew meant I wasn’t going to be able to drop it. “The Ruskin School of Fine Art at Oxford. In England. That would be . . . the ultimate.”
“Okay, while I would miss you like crazy if you were in England, don’t you think you ought to at least think about getting yourself to your ultimate? Because, trust me, nobody else is going to get you there.” But then she got distracted from her lecture. “What is this thing?”
Like I said before, our parents don’t usually work with cool sci-fi gizmos. This was one of the exceptions. “It’s something Triad Corporation came up with.”
Josie frowned. “I haven’t seen this before. What is it?”
“It’s not a consumer product. You know Triad supplied the funding for Mom and Dad’s research, right? Well, this is for measuring . . . dimensional resonance. I think.” Sometimes I tune out the technobabble. It’s a survival mechanism.
“Is it supposed to be blinking red?”
I don’t tune out everything. “No.”
Quickly I stepped to Josie’s side. The Triad device was a fairly plain metal box, like an old-fashioned stereo, but the front panel usually showed various sine waves in shades of blue or green. Now it pulsed in staccato red flashes.
I might not be a scientist, but you don’t need advanced degrees to realize that red equals bad.
My first impulse was to open the garage door and yell for Paul and Theo, but Theo sometimes wound up parking way down the road. So I grabbed my cell phone instead. I hit Paul’s number, and he answered, short and brusque as ever: “Yes?”
“This—thing from Triad, the one in the corner? Should it be flashing red?”
He paused for less than a second. When he spoke again, the intensity of his words gave me chills. “Get out of there. Now!”
I turned to Josie. “Run!” Instantly she fled; Josie’s smart like that. Me? Not quite. I’d kicked off my shoes and so I spent three precious seconds stepping back into them before dashing to the door. Just as I hit the threshold, though—
The light was as brief as a camera flash but a hundred times brighter. I cried out, because it hurt my eyes, and dizziness rushed over me, maybe from moving too fast. Losing my balance, I staggered onto the front steps and tried to suck in a breath, but it was hard to do, as if someone had punched me in the gut.
Then broad, strong hands closed around my shoulders, and when my vision cleared, I was looking up into Paul’s eyes.
“Marguerite? Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I leaned forward, trying to find the angle that would allow me to steady myself. Cool rain had begun to fall, but very lightly, almost a mist. My forehead rested against his broad chest; I could feel his heart beating quickly through his damp T-shirt, as if he were the one afraid.
“What happened?” Theo came running across the yard then, his Doc Martens splashing through the mud. “Marguerite? What happened?” Josie came running up too.
“That damned Triad machine is what happened!” Paul kept holding on to me, but his fury shook me even then—hinting, maybe, at the real Paul inside. “Did you set it to run an overload test?”
“No! Are you crazy? You know I wouldn’t do that and leave it unattended.”
“Then why did it overload?” Paul demanded.
“What? It did?” Theo looked so stricken. “Jesus. How did that happen?”
“What almost happened?” Josie demanded. “Do I even want to know?”
“No, you don’t.” Paul’s fingers tightened around my shoulders; he was gripping me so hard it bruised. I can’t explain how that was intimidating and comforting at the same time, but it was. He wasn’t looking at me any longer. “Theo, who gave you this? Was it Conley himself? Someone from Triad could have preset a test without our knowing.”
Theo huffed, “Stop being so paranoid. Could you do that for once?” His voice gentled as he added, “Deep breaths, Meg. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, and by then I was. I pulled out of Paul’s arms to stand on my own. Josie came to my side, but she was wise enough not to coddle me; she simply stayed close.
Paul walked through the mist to Theo; he’s five inches taller and a whole lot broader, but Theo didn’t flinch, even when Paul jabbed his finger against his breastbone. “Someone set up an overload test. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t me. Therefore it was Triad. That isn’t paranoia. That’s fact.”
Although Theo clearly wanted to argue, he said, “Okay, all right, maybe they made a mistake.”
“A mistake that could have hurt Marguerite! A mistake you should have caught, if you’d been paying attention. But you weren’t paying attention, were you?”
“I already admitted I screwed up—”
“It’s not enough to admit it! You have to do better than this. You have to keep yourself sharp. If you don’t—and you put Marguerite at risk again—there will be consequences.” Paul was leaning over Theo, using all his size and anger in an attempt to intimidate him. “Do you understand me?”
Theo’s entire body tensed, and for a moment I thought he might push Paul back. But that spark faded as quickly as it had begun. Quietly he said, “I hear you, little brother. I do. You know I feel like shit about this, right?”
They weren’t brothers, hadn’t even met two years before, but that nickname was something that mattered to them both. Theo, too, had taken Paul under his wing; Paul had seemed to idolize Theo, almost, more awed than envious of Theo’s easy humor and crazy social life. It’s hard to imagine that Paul didn’t mean it that day when his gaze softened and he said, “I know you’d never mean to do anything like that, Theo. But you can’t let yourself get distracted. By anything.”
“Listen, let me be the one to tell Sophia and Henry about this. I won’t hold anything back. It’s just—I deserve to hear it from them, you know?” Theo said, looking at all three of us in turn.
“Okay,” Paul said, then glanced over at me for confirmation. I nodded. Josie hesitated for a long moment, then finally nodded too. Theo inclined his head, almost as though he were bowing, and then trudged toward his car.
Paul came back to me, guiding me to the house. Apparently it was safe to be inside again. Josie followed us, pointing at the device. “Can we move that thing?”
“Good idea,” Paul said. “Get it out of the house. We probably shouldn’t have brought it in here to begin with.”
Josie hauled it into her arms—that thing was heavy—and headed out, leaving me and Paul alone.
As he pushed my hair back from my face, I felt suddenly shy. So I tried laughing it off. “What, am I radioactive now? Do I get superpowers?”
“No, and I doubt it.”
“Did that thing nearly send me into another dimension?”
“It temporarily weakened the boundaries. That’s all. Any other effects would be—theoretical.” Paul blinked, then took his hands from me. I hugged myself and stepped back. Just when I thought neither of us would be able to think of anything else to say, Paul added, “I think Theo’s, ah, extracurricular activities are getting the better of him.”
“I don’t want to think about it. Nothing went wrong, right?”
“Right.”
His gaze met mine, and I remembered how he’d held me in his arms. Touched my hair. It was the first time we’d been that close . . . and even then, I was thinking of it as the first time. Not the only time.
I was beginning to wonder what else Paul and I might be to each other . . .
Nothing, I tell myself savagely. No, that’s not right. He’s your betrayer. And you’re going to be his end.
Back then I told myself the Accident wasn’t a sign of any bigger trend in Theo’s life, that it was much ado about nothing, but I was wrong.
I know that as I sit here on the bathroom floor, back cramping, a full half hour after I found Theo messed up. Paul might have been lying about everything else, but maybe he really did think of Theo as his “brother,” at least a little bit. Maybe he cared enough to wish that Theo would get some help.
Or maybe Paul only wanted me to distrust Theo, so I’d go on trusting him completely.
My hand settles on Theo’s head; his hair is thick and silky, wavy against my palm. His arm is slung across my legs. I look for the small tattoo above his wrist, the one he keeps promising to explain but never does . . . but that was stupid. This dimension’s Theo apparently doesn’t go in for body art.
Slowly he stirs, snuggling into my belly as though I were a pillow, then suddenly pulling himself up to sit beside me. His eyes have a drowsy quality, sensual and unfocused, and yet I know he’s mostly himself again. “Mmmph. How long was I out of it?”
“Thirty minutes or so.” Theo has caught the last break he’s going to get from me. I hold up the bottle of green stuff. “What the hell is this?”
Then I feel sorry for being such a hard-ass, because he looks so desperately ashamed. “Homemade stuff,” he says, his voice low. “Something this Theo uses—must’ve cooked it up with some chemistry guys. It’s one hell of a ride.”
He’s joking about what a great “ride” it is when we’re in the middle of something this dangerous? This important? I should’ve called an ambulance anyway; Theo’s going to need one before I’m done with him.
But then he adds, “It also hooks its claws into you, hard. He—we—I needed a hit. I was trying to fight it, but this body belongs to this dimension and, you know, it needs what it needs. While I’m here, I kinda have to play by this world’s rules.”
“It’s not just here, though, is it?” I ask. If it had been, I feel like Theo would have told me about his other self’s drug addiction; his secrecy seems to hint at something more. “You use at home, too. Don’t you? We all suspected.”
Theo runs one hand over his face; his gaze is sharpening back to its usual clarity. “I’m not an addict,” he finally says. “Not at home. It’s . . . more mental, really. Sometimes I need to step out of my head, to silence all the voices telling me what an asshole I am.” The shame shadows his face more harshly. “I hate that I need it. But I do.”
“How long have you been using?”
He winces, but his voice is firm as he says, “Only the last few months, and it never got in the way of the work. Never. I swear that to you.”
Has he forgotten the Accident? Mom and Dad lost it when he told them. I rub my tingling arm, which had almost gone to sleep with Theo draped over it. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry I checked out on you,” Theo continues. He reaches toward my hand, as if to take it, then stops himself. “It’s over now, all right? Totally over.”
I nod as I push myself to my feet. “Just one thing—”
“Yeah?”
“I’m relying on you.” My voice shakes slightly, but I don’t attempt to steady it. Let Theo see how badly he hurt me. “We have to stop Paul, no matter what. I can’t do that without you, and you can’t do that if you’re getting high all the time. So get your act together.”
He looks stung, but I refuse to feel guilty. Theo always manages to wriggle off the hook with those puppy-dog eyes of his—not this time.
“I need you. I need all of you. Don’t you dare check out on me again.” I spear Theo with my hardest gaze. “Do you understand?”
He nods as he looks up at me with something that might even be respect.
“Clean yourself up,” I say, gesturing toward the shower. “You have fifteen minutes. Then we’re out of here. We have a job to do.”