Departure(68)

I take a seat on the floor, stretching my legs out on the cool marble. The warm steam feels good, a contrast to the chill on the bottoms of my legs. I run my hands down my calves, over where the infected gash used to be. Closing my eyes, I let my head fall back against the wall, willing myself not to focus on the sporadic blasts or the tremors that run through the floor and walls every few seconds.





The swishing sound of the double doors outside, in the corridor, brings me back to the moment. I wasn’t asleep. Or awake. Rather in a daze, somewhere in between, an unfocused state where I hoped time would pass and everything would be okay.

Through the pitter-patter of the shower, I can just make out boot steps in the bedroom, padding quietly on the carpet.

I sit still, hoping . . .

The footsteps come to a halt. I can’t see the figure through the cloud of steam. Maybe they can’t see me.

More footsteps. Walking away.

I exhale.

A sliding door.

Steam flowing out, being sucked out—onto the balcony. The figure opened the sliding glass door. It marches through the flowing white steam, each step revealing more of its body.

I expected a glassy, semitransparent suit, but the outer shell on this suit is gone. Half the glass tiles are missing, revealing black, rubbery lining beneath, gashed in half a dozen places to expose cut, burned flesh.

But I focus only on the face. Nick’s face. Or is it Nicholas?

Is this the Nick I know, who saved so many after the crash of Flight 305? Or is it Nicholas, the man who caused the death of so many, who came here to take even more lives—just to be with me?





38





“Harper.” His voice is a whisper.

I want to start my interrogation, get right down to which Nick Stone he is, but I can’t help pushing up off the cold marble floor and racing to him, scanning the gashes and bruises all over his body. He’s in bad shape. A gentle touch on his blackened, exposed ribs draws a wince.

“I’m okay.” He smiles, pained. “Harper, this might sound crazy, but there are two of me. The version of myself from this timeline is still alive.”

I have limitations. Lying is one of them. I can’t even play poker.

Here in the steam-filled bedroom, I just try to look confused. At least I’ve had a lot of practice with that this week. I don’t know if he buys it, but he goes on.

“Nicholas, the other . . . me, told me what’s going on here. Yul created a device, a quantum bridge that connects our two worlds. He and Sabrina are going to use it to send us back to 2014. It will be like none of this ever happened. Our world will end up exactly like this one. We have to destroy that device so it can never be reset. But we’ll never go home.”

I nod. My mind races, trying to formulate—

“Do you know where it is?”

Wind blows in through the open balcony, a cool gust that drives the steam back even more. The moon is bright tonight, but my eyes lock on the twinkling lights of the airship hovering out over the Atlantic, waiting to bring the last colonists home.

“Harper.”

I search every micron of his blood-caked face. The hair is the same. The features—

“Harper, come on, we don’t have a lot of time here.”

“Yeah. Yul told me where it is.”

“Thank god.” He starts toward the door, leading me.

“After the crash, you found a glass structure. What was inside?” I ask, trying to mask my nervousness.

He turns, confused. “What?”

I speak softly. “Please answer.”

“Stonehenge.”

“Before you went there, you and Sabrina had a row. What about?”

“She wouldn’t give you antibiotics. You were at death’s door. What the hell is going on here?”

“We can’t destroy the device.”

“What? Are you crazy?”

“If we do, those passengers who died in the crash and in the outbreak after will be dead forever. They’ll never have a chance at growing up or living the rest of their lives.”

“That’s the price of saving our world, Harper.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Yul and Sabrina have another solution. They’re going to use Yul’s quantum device to send our memories back. Flight 305 will return to our time, and the four of us will remember everything that happened here.”

“Why didn’t they tell Nicholas?”

“They did. Nicholas and Oliver betrayed them. Bringing Flight 305 here wasn’t about testing that vaccine. Not for them. That was secondary, a cover.”

“Cover for what?”

“Bringing Grayson and me here. I’m what Nicholas is after.”

Nick turns away from me. Hurt? Confused?

His voice comes out hard, determined. “He’s here for you and the device, right?”

“Yes. What do you want to do?”

“I want to finish this.”





Steam seems to have permeated every square inch of the hotel tower, but Nick and I march through it, descending as quickly as we can. On the first floor, on the landing of the stairwell, a pool of blood surrounds a clump of stacked bodies. I recognize the face at the bottom of the pile. Yul.

Nick steps over him and jerks the stairway door open.