I'll Stop the World (37)

“Everything okay, miss?” His voice sounds vaguely familiar.

“Yeah, sorry,” Rose says again. “I was just heading home.”

“This guy bothering you?”

Not really sure how I could be the one bothering her when she was the one choosing to drive next to me at three miles per hour, but okay.

Rose shakes her head. “We were just talking.”

“Not a great place to talk. You’re lucky you didn’t get hit. License and registration?”

She hands it over, and I wait for him to point out that it’s out of date by a few decades, but he just scans it quickly, looking bored, and then turns to me. “Yours too, son.”

Seriously, has everyone lost their minds tonight? In what universe is her archaic driver’s license an acceptable form of identification? I’m so busy gaping at him that I forget to do what he asked, until he clears his throat. “Now, kid.”

Come to think of it, this guy looks kind of familiar, too, although I can’t place him. Maybe he brought Mom home one night after one of her benders or something.

“What’d I do? I was just walking.”

“Don’t make me ask again.”

I hand over my ID, but he barely glances at it before he narrows his eyes and hands it back. “Very funny. C’mon, kid, show me your real ID.”

“This is a Real ID.” I tap the gold star on it.

“I’m not playing here.”

“Neither am I. Just look—”

I stop as my eyes flick down at the name on his badge, then back to his face. Gibson.

That’s why he looks familiar. He reminds me of the sheriff, although this guy’s no more than twenty-five, and without the sheriff’s beer gut and receding hairline. But his voice, eyes, and towering height are all the same. His badge says DEPUTY, and I wonder exactly what flavor of nepotism we’re serving up here.

“Are you related to Sheriff Gibson? Is he like . . . your dad or something?”

“I’m Deputy Gibson. The sheriff’s Montague.”

“But is there, like, another Gibson? Do you have an uncle or something in the police department?”

“I’m the only Gibson at the Stone Lake Police Department,” he says, one hand going to the handcuffs at his waist. One finger taps against them threateningly. “Now if I have to ask you one more time for that ID—”

“Can you just—” I interrupt, holding my hands up for him to wait. My jumbled thoughts tumble over one another like dice. What the hell is going on here? “Sorry, I know this is weird, but can you just tell me . . .”

My pulse races. I can’t believe I’m about to ask this.

I swallow, feeling like I’m losing my mind. “What year is it?”





Chapter Twenty-Three


ROSE

Deputy Gibson frowned, his hands tightening on the handcuffs at his waist. “Okay, kid, I think you’d better come with me,” he said, reaching for one of the strange boy’s outstretched wrists.

All the blood rapidly drained out of the boy’s face as the officer twisted his arm behind his back.

“Wait,” he said, his breaths coming faster now. “Wait, you don’t understand!”

Rose watched, her own heart rate increasing as the boy’s wide eyes met hers, filled with fear and confusion and desperation. She could tell he wasn’t lying—or didn’t think he was—but it was more than that. Her mind was seized by a prickling thought that kept nagging at her, despite being completely impossible: he’s telling the truth.

Nothing he said made sense. Some of it was verifiably false. And yet, a part of her believed him. Maybe even the biggest part.

Something in Rose’s heart twisted, then gave.

“Officer, wait!”

She jumped out of her car before fully considering what she was doing. Gibson pivoted toward her, one hand still holding the boy’s wrist behind his back, the other grasping a dangling pair of handcuffs. “Miss, I’m going to need you to stay back.”

“He’s my cousin!”

Gibson frowned as the boy stared at her, mouth agape. “Your . . . cousin?” His eyes slid suspiciously from her to the boy, and back, one eyebrow raising at the obvious lack of physical resemblance between them.

“On my mom’s side,” she said, thinking quickly. “He’s visiting from, uh, Hawthorne. We were just heading back from the bonfire, but he, um, had to get out of the car for a minute to, uh . . .”

Crap. Why would he have to get out of the car? Her mind was totally blank.

“I felt dizzy,” the boy supplied, his voice shaking.

Gibson raised an eyebrow, his gaze shifting to the dazed-looking boy. “Dizzy?”

Rose nodded, her throat thick, heart hammering. What was she thinking? She was lying to a police officer, all to help a complete stranger who thought he was from the future. If anyone found out about this, she’d be grounded for the rest of her life, and Diane’s campaign would be ruined. And that was a best-case scenario, assuming this guy didn’t kill her and dump her in the river.

But she couldn’t just sit there and watch him get arrested. Not when there was a small but insistent part of her that was—inexplicably—sure he was telling the truth.