Loop (39 page)

My extremities began to tingle once more, and I recognized it as the pull to synch. I reached up to give him a quick good-bye peck, but it turned into more.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Finn quietly when we finally pulled away from each other.

“Forever.”

Finn tucked a flyaway wisp of hair behind my ear. The tingling moved to my heart. I circled my arms around his waist.

Forever could wait.

Epilogue

(aka Who the Heck Is Muffy van Sloot?)

I STOOD ON THE STEPS
of the Institute in the chill of the wee morning, blowing on my hands to warm them. Leto had better show. It made me nervous standing out in the open like this. ICE hadn’t approached me since I’d gotten home, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to stroll into their headquarters. Yet.

But flashes of red still popped into my peripheral vision and disappeared just as quickly. They were watching.

I buried my hands in my sweater and was surprised to find a lump in the inner pocket. I hadn’t worn it since I left Chincoteague yesterday afternoon. I pulled out a green velvet jewelry box. When I opened it, a note fell out.

For you. I know it had to be done, but I still felt bad about your broken bracelet. This one’s not an antique like yours, and there was no time to have it professionally engraved, so I scratched our initials on it myself with a nail. But it’s a really close match. Hope you like it. See you soon (at least for one of us). Love, Finn

I pulled a sterling heart locket from the box and clasped it around my wrist.

“It’s perfect,” I said to no one, light glinting off the bracelet as I held it up to the street lamp. It was exactly like mine.
Wait.
I squinted for a closer look.
No blarking way.
“It’s
exactly
like mine.”

Finn had given me
my
bracelet. But brand-new. The original etchings that had worn off were our initials. So somehow this one would end up in an antique shop and eventually my mom would buy it in my past, but really it would be the—

“What’s exactly like yours?”

“Nothing.” My shoulders tensed as Leto slithered up next to me out of the shadows. With zero prelude, I handed him the failed delivery. “Here.”

“So you weren’t lying? Well, thanks, kid. And no hard feelings. To prove it, I’ll give you another shot. Double or nothin’ on your next delivery.”

How easy that would be as a free Shifter. But even if I were willing to sink to those depths again, I knew there was no way my tendrils would cooperate and pull me to the past for shady gain.

“You forget. I’m still Anchored.”

“Right,” he said with a look that was a bit too knowing. Nothing got past him in this town.

Which brought me to why I was here. I didn’t like Leto. I certainly didn’t trust him. But there was a very good chance that in the not-so-distant future I was going to need him.

I handed him a sheet of compufilm with nine digits on it.

“What is this?” he asked.

“A pile of money you can’t even fathom. In exchange for your assistance from time to time.”

His eyes widened, then narrowed to snake slits. “If this is a bank account, it’s missing a number.”

“And someone very precious to me is the only one who knows it. I don’t even know it. If any harm should befall him, you’ll lose your payout. If any harm should befall
me,
he won’t tell you the last number. I suggest you get into the business of protecting life and not threatening it.”

“How am I supposed to—?”

“You’re a clever fella.” My hand tapped his cheek with a
thwap.
“Figure it out.”

Without another word, I turned on my heel and walked back into my school.

*   *   *

“Well, looks like Charlie’s been bored.” My side of the room was completely flipped with Mimi’s. This was my first time back to the Institute since returning. I’d spent last night with Mom at Resthaven (where both she and Mimi experienced miraculous recoveries from their comas), but Charlie must have gotten restless. Mimi was still sore from her injuries—he probably wanted her to be closer to the bathroom.

“Huh?” Mimi propped herself up on her pillow, groggy from sleep.

I pointed at my desk, a mirror of where it had been yesterday, in response.

“Oh, I know. I’m sorry. I tried to save her, but it was too long between feedings.”

“Huh?” We were having two different conversations.

“Your fish.” She pointed at the fishbowl on my desk, where I now noticed Franny Fishington was belly-up.

“I liked Fran.” I frowned.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Fran kicked it a couple weeks ago, when you were on your History midterm. I replaced her for you. So you actually liked Muffy.”

“What did you say?”

“I named her for you. Muffy—”

“Van Sloot,” we said together.

“How did you know?” Mimi asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” I swirled the water, laughing.
Garden-variety colored pebbles. Just like the ones in my fish tank at home.
I really had taken care of every detail. Looked like Future Bree would be taking a few Shifts back to tie up some loose ends soon. What was that phrase? “There’s no time like the past.”

“I’ll bury her on the beach,” I said.

“What?” Mimi screwed up her nose.

A message popped into my in-box.

It was from Wyck. Another one. The same three words he kept sending me: “I’m not him.” My heart hurt every time I thought about him. He
wasn’t
Evil Wyck. But he was going to be. I wasn’t ready to confront him yet, though.

I plopped down on my bed, which was now Mimi’s, without thinking about it.

“Sorry,” I said, jumping up. “I can’t get used to the switch.”

“What switch?”

“The room flip.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Our stuff. It’s flipp—”
Blark.
Charlie hadn’t moved anything. There’d been a change to the time line. “Nothing.”

I gripped the reverter in my pocket. It was whirring and glowing green. I guess I was supposed to click it, but I hesitated since I was standing in front of Mimi. But before I had a chance to excuse myself, it faded back to the intermittent blip.
Dang.
Maybe I had missed my chance. Finn had wanted to store the reverter in Chincoteague, but I insisted on keeping it with me until I figured out exactly how it worked. If I got in trouble, I could always Shift away. At least Bergin and ICE didn’t seem to know that I was a free Shifter yet.

I glanced out the window. Hopefully, whatever had changed was small. The sky wasn’t, like, purple now or anything. But the switched-bed thing confirmed my fears that every change had ripple effects further than intended. How many of these changes had I already experienced and not realized it as a chipped Shifter?

“Are you okay?” Mimi asked.

“I’m fine. I—”
No.
I couldn’t tell her. I had debated whether to fill Mimi in about everything the moment I got back. There were still four more doses of that vaccine left. But she might not believe me. She might freak out. Or turn me in for the Madness because she was so worried for me.

If I was this terrified of my best friend’s reaction, how on earth was I going to get the word out to other Shifters? They needed to know the truth. But the Truth was going to be almost impossible to accept. At least for now.

But this was the
oomph
I needed to face the one meeting I’d most dreaded since my return.

“I need to go do something. You go back to sleep. I’ll see you later.”

Bergin. We’d reached a stalemate in our chess match. He couldn’t do anything to me while I held his queen, the reverter. But I also knew ICE still thought they could turn me into their pawn, just like him.

The door to his office was open, and I stepped inside, unsure of what I would find.

Bergin stood at the window, statue still. I glanced around to see if anything had changed, if there were any new photos. The room was stark. His possessions were arranged neatly in crates scattered about. I realized he was packing.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said.

“Couldn’t do what?”

“I went back more times than I can count. Watched the accident from every conceivable angle. Watched my wife die from every conceivable angle.” His voice was a husk of its normal boom.

“Why would you do that?”
The physical pain alone.

“Her Pod crashed in front of a school. An emergency swerve to avoid plowing into a group of children. I measured each possible angle, timed each possible movement. And realized if I altered the events of that day—modified her Pod’s trajectory or stopped her from leaving the house—an accident would have still occurred. Either her Pod or another would have crashed into those children. I couldn’t change the events of that day knowing what it would cause.”

“I’m … sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I sensed a change in the time line, and I assumed it was—”

“Wasn’t me.” He smiled weakly and walked to his desk. “In fact, I’ve decided to destroy my IcePick. I’m going to advise ICE to do the same with their supply.”

A deluge of relief flooded over me. He’d cooperate with my plans to get rid of the Picks. Without even a fight.

Bergin opened the secure compartment within his desk.

He frowned and felt around to the back of the drawer and clawed at the empty corners.

There was nothing there.

“Where is it?” I rushed to his side.

“I don’t understand. I returned it here last night.”

“You
lost
it? Who has it?” I grabbed his lapel.
“Who has it?”

The possibilities were terrifying. One of those Red Scrubs. Leto. Someone worse. Before Bergin had a chance to answer me, though, my pocket began to shake violently and glow a burning emerald green. And suddenly my hands were clutching thin air. I was alone in the room, Bergin’s possessions were back in their rightful place.

I pulled the reverter from my pocket.
Click.

Time for the Truth.

about the author

Karen Akins lives in the Mid-South. When not writing or reading, she loves lightsaber dueling with her sons and forcing her husband to watch BBC shows with her. Karen has been many things in her life: an archery instructor, drummer for the shortest-lived garage band in history, and a shockingly bad tic-tac-toe player.
Loop
is her first novel. No DeLoreans were harmed in the making of this book.

* D P G R O U P . O R G *

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

LOOP.
Copyright © 2014 by Karen Akins. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

Cover retouching by Shane Rebenschied

Cover photograph by Elena Vasilchenko/
Shutterstock.com

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected]

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request
.

ISBN 978-1-250-03098-6 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-03099-3 (e-book)

e-ISBN 9781250030993

First Edition: October 2014