The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(202)

Evan’s fists clenched with trembling rage. Though the details were off, the gist of her tale was painfully accurate. Her lips curled in a vengeful smirk.

“Oh, how that must have stung him, Amanda, to learn that this brand-new world was just like the old one, where the boys with the biceps got the girls with the tits. Nothing changed. Except—”

“Shut up.”

Hannah’s smile flattened. Her eyes cracked with grief. “Except it got worse. As time went on, this little shit came to realize that what Jury and I had wasn’t all that shallow. He saw the way we looked at each other and he knew we’d developed something strong, something that had eluded me my whole life.”

“You don’t know that! You don’t know anything! You’ve never even seen the guy!”

“I saw him, Evan. You didn’t erase all of him. I glimpsed him with my own two eyes and I know why you killed him. It’s because deep down you knew that Jury wasn’t just the better-looking man. He was the better man.”

Hot blood rushed up Evan’s neck. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Hannah grew a teasing sneer.

“I bet you even tried a round without him, just to see if you could get me on your own. I’m sure that worked out really well for Theo.”

“That’s because you’re a goddamn whore!”

“Right. Hannah Banana, Always-Needs-a-Man-a. Except that man was never you. You stopped trying a long time ago, but you never got over it. So this is how you spend your days. This is what you do between Armageddons. Jesus Christ, Evan. You have got to be the single most pathetic—”

The gunshot shook every wall and window, rattling teeth. While his thoughts and ears rang with clamor, Evan studied the large new spatter of blood on the wall behind Hannah, the trickling hole in her forehead. The two of them traded a wide look of horror before the actress fell dead to the floor of her cage.

For a short hot moment, Evan wondered if perhaps someone else in the room had shot her. He didn’t remember aiming his .38 at her head or pulling the trigger. And yet there was the smoking gun in his hand, still raised. Strange. He’d killed Hannah so many times before but something, something, something about this didn’t feel right. Something—

He shrieked when a cold white blade cut into his calf. Before he could register Amanda on the ground, she jammed her tempic knife through the back of his knee.

Screeching, Evan swung the pistol down and fired a bullet through the top of her skull. Her face splashed down into her own exit blood and she fell still. He only just now realized that Amanda had been howling along with him. She’d been screaming the whole time between gunshots.

Wide-eyed, bleeding, Evan stumbled against the wall and pondered the consequences of his actions. The Deps surely heard the blasts. They’d be here in seconds now, but they were the least of his problems.

“Oh no . . .”

The sisters were dead.

“Oh shit. Shit . . .”

Trembling, he closed his eyes and struggled to concentrate through the ringing in his ears, the pain, the fear of what Azral would do to him.

Two speedsuit agents appeared outside the door, cracking the smoked-glass pane with their armored fists. Evan pressed his fingers to his temples and yelled in desperate torment. His skin tingled with bubbles as the clock of his life spun back forty-nine seconds.

Now he found himself once again standing at the reception desk, the cool .38 back in his hand. He looked to Hannah—unmurdered, unsilenced. She continued to rail at him in all her gorgeous fury.

“Right. Hannah Banana, Always-Needs-a-Man-a. Except that man was never you. You stopped trying a long time ago, but you never . . . you never . . .”

Hannah trailed off, thrown by the sudden change in Evan’s demeanor. A moment ago, he looked ready to bare her throat with his teeth. Then his head snapped back as if he’d woken up from a nap. Now his face was white with inexplicable terror. Gemma Sunder, a girl who shared Evan’s talent but not his impression of it, would have said that he was being possessed by a future self.

To Hannah, it looked the very opposite of possession. It appeared the devil inside Evan Rander had finally fled.

He dropped his gun and raised his palms in trembling acquiescence.

“Okay. Okay, look, we’re all good here. I went too far, but it’s all right now. You’re okay.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’ll be fine. You and . . .” He suddenly remembered Amanda and nervously jumped away. His unstabbed leg screamed with phantom pain. He didn’t want a repeat of the real injury.

Hannah eyed him incredulously as he limped across the room. “You’re insane.”

Evan crowed a grim and broken laugh. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve seen the world end fifty-five times. At the very least, it’s made me cynical.”

“Then hate the universe, not me.”

“I hate the universe through you,” he told her, with a sorrowful shrug. “It’s just the way it is.”

A round white portal opened up on the northern wall, stretching from rug to roof. Evan’s stomach dropped. His pants trickled with urine. He’d been carrying a ray of hope that his transgression would go unnoticed. Of course not. Of course they knew.

He kneeled on the ground, raising stretched and shaky fingers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I screwed up. I know it. But look, they’re fine! They’re both alive! I undid it!”