Malice, page 25
Only, I’m not there to experience it because I’m back in the present.
I zoom around my brain, searching in those little nooks, in the shadowed corners where a traveling being might hide. I even check for a consciousness crouching stealthily under mine.
There’s no doubt about it. She’s no longer with me—the woman named Malice who tried to trick me. The mother who inadvertently killed her child, over and over again. The version of my older self who said goodbye to the man she loved across time streams.
It’s just me in here. No one else.
Disappointment floods me, which is ridiculous. There’s always only been me for the bulk of my seventeen years. Do I actually feel…lonely…now that I’ve reverted to my normal state?
Yeah, I do. Because for long moments at a time, while I was blended with Malice’s mind, we merged into the same person.
And I miss her, in a weird, nonsensical kind of way.
“Well?” Cristela’s impatient voice intrudes on my thoughts. “Did it work? Did you go to the future?”
I sit up so quickly, the room spins, and I have to press both hands against my temples until the furniture rights itself.
“Yes.” That one word is woefully inadequate in capturing what happened. “How long was I gone?”
She glances at her wrist, bare except for a few freckles. “Two, three minutes?”
My stomach tightens. What will it be like to see Bandit again? He didn’t travel to the future. He has no idea what we’ll become to each other. To him, I’m just a girl he’s kissed who tried to kill him. But to me, he’s…so much more.
To me, he’s everything.
Except he’s not here, slouched against the brightly colored walls or fiddling with the dangling spider plants.
Only two minutes have passed. Where did he go?
“Spill it,” Cristela demands. “I want to know everything. What you saw. How it felt. What you did.”
Automatically, I start talking. This is her research, after all. She figured out a way for me to get to the future; the least I can do is give her information.
“I’m not sure why you lived the future, instead of observing it,” Cristela admits when I’ve told her everything. “Maybe it’s because you dove directly into the time stream, instead of zipping your consciousness to hers? One more thing I can look forward to in my research. That, and figuring out how Malice was able to control your arm when you gave Bandit the cupcake.”
I scan the room as she talks, from the vases with the petal cutouts to the waist-to-ceiling windows, as though I expect to find Bandit’s tall frame folded like a pretzel.
But I don’t. Because he’s not here.
Maybe it’s just as well. My insides churn with a mix of sorrow, anger, and love. But a single piece of knowledge rises above all that emotion.
Do I dare share it with Cristela? She’s little more than an acquaintance now, but in the future, she’s my ally. More than that, she’s my friend.
“In order to save the world, I need to kill somebody,” I say slowly. “Bandit…or my brother.”
She whistles, long and low. “That’s quite a dilemma.”
“Bandit was supposed to be the easy choice.” I get up from the sofa, shoving my hands into my hair. “He was supposed to be just a student at school. A guy I barely knew. But that was before I traveled to the future. Before I understood how much he’ll mean to me. Before I learned the truth.”
She shivers, as though glad she doesn’t have to make the decision. “Do you agree with what your older self has concluded?”
“I don’t know. Once, I would’ve deferred every important decision to her. I thought, falsely, that just because she was older, she was also wiser. But I’ve seen her heart.” I stalk the circumference of the cheerful room. The brightly colored walls do nothing to assuage my uneasiness. “The organ that beats in her chest is as black and hard as a lump of coal. There’s no life left. No hope. How can I trust someone like that to make the right choice?”
I turn back to Cristela. “The future was right about one thing. I need to figure this out for myself. And I won’t be able to do that until I see Bandit. Where is he?”
She frowns. “A minute after you closed your eyes, he bolted straight up, muttered something, and ran out of the room. I assumed he went to the bathroom.”
We look out the double french doors.
“I’m sure he’ll be back,” she says unconvincingly. “I mean, where would he go?”
My heart leaps into my throat. What am I doing? Why am I standing here, talking to Cristela, when Bandit’s been gone for entire minutes?
Something’s wrong. It has to be. He wouldn’t have just left. He would’ve wanted to know if my trip to the future was successful.
Anxiety strums through my veins, and I stride out the door. Cristela hurries after me. I check behind every door in the hall, and she slips past me to the two-story foyer.
“Bandit!” she bellows up the stairs. “Where are you?”
No response. There’s no one inside the orderly office, the walk-in closet, or the flowery powder room, either.
Cristela and I meet where the hardwood joins textured stone tiles. “Does he like to wander around houses?” Her nail scratch-scratch-scratches at her thumb.
“I don’t think so,” I say, although the truth is, I’m not familiar with his habits. All I know is that one day, we’ll be soul mates.
Unless I kill him first.
I dart my gaze from the thick wood banister to the wedding-cake chandelier. It lands on the stained-glassed windows…and then my heart stops.
“Um, Cristela?” I say faintly. “I don’t think Bandit got lost on his way to the bathroom. His car is gone.”
We both stare at the empty driveway. Both sides of the concrete are lined with beds of greenery dotted with little purple flowers. But even through the rose-tinted glass, I can’t find anything to appreciate about the view.
“I can’t believe he would ditch you,” she murmurs.
My thoughts spin. “You said he bolted upright. Did he remember something? Or could he have heard…someone?”
She widens her eyes. “You mean, like a voice? From the future?”
The older Bandit’s last words, a moment before I was ejected from Malice’s consciousness, flash through my mind.
Don’t worry, he said. I’ll fix this. I won’t let her mess up everything we’ve worked for.
I’ll fix this.
I’ll fix this.
I’ll fix this.
The pieces click together. “The timing’s too coincidental—one minute after I closed my eyes, when I was only gone for two. The future Bandit had already used all his jumps. Any more, and his mind will come apart.” The words sprint out of my mouth, but my thoughts have been lapping them and then some. “But our older selves had already decided to kill him. So he has nothing to lose by traveling to the past one more time.”
“Why?” Cristela’s eyes are shiny black ponds. “What did he need to say to his younger self that was so important?”
“Bandit loves me.” No truer words have ever been spoken in any time stream. When I was in the future, I felt his heart, and it was as unshakable as the laws of gravity. As inevitable as the rising of the sun. “I don’t mean this Bandit, in this time. Who knows what he feels? But the older Bandit loves the older me.
“He would’ve been thinking about me. Only me. How he can help me. How he can ease my pain.” I take a rattling breath. “I’m pretty sure he came back to tell his younger self to take the decision out of my hands.”
She blinks three times. Stops. And then blinks three more. “You mean to say…”
“Yep.” I look at the driveway once more, but this time through a shard of blue-colored glass. Same scene, new angle. The absence of his car now makes me want to howl, long and loud and never-ending. “Right at this moment, Bandit is either on his way to kill Archie…or himself.”
Chapter 50
I fly over the highway, pushing the odometer to its limits. Seventy-five, eighty-five, ninety-five. And still, the car’s not going fast enough. Still, it can’t keep pace with the racing of my heart.
Bandit has at most a twenty-minute lead on me, but I have no idea where he’s going. I’m not sure what he’s planning. For all I know, he could’ve already flung himself off the road.
My knuckles tighten on the steering wheel. Oh, please. Not that. I have to believe he’s still alive. I have to believe that he needs time to digest his older self’s orders, that he wouldn’t jeopardize anyone’s life hastily, much less his own.
I swipe at the sweat on my forehead. At least I have a car. Cristela wasn’t too keen on parting with her Mini Cooper, especially because I didn’t know where I was taking it or when I could bring it back.
“But this is a matter of life and death!” I shouted. She agreed, although whose death, we weren’t sure.
I urge the car faster, hoping there are no cops on the road. Wishing that for once, Fate is on my side.
Oh, please, I plead again. It’s a refrain with no specifics, and I don’t know what it is I want. I’m not sure to whom, exactly, I’m begging.
Do I want Bandit to live? Of course I do. But not at the expense of my brother. Does that mean I would choose Archie over him, this kind, strong-willed boy who will be…might be…my everything?
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!
A conversation flits through my memory. Funny. I don’t remember experiencing it, but I must’ve absorbed it during the hops I took through the original time stream. One more thing for Cristela to figure out and explain to me.
“I’m going first,” Bandit says, his tone arrogant, his jaw chiseled rock. If I weren’t so irritated, I might marvel at how I married such a handsome man. We’re in Cristela’s unit, and the time tube emits a low, constant hum as it warms up. “The younger me will be easier to convince. He already believes time travel is possible. He’ll accept more quickly that the Voice is his older self, and he’ll question less.”
My temper flares. “Oh, because my younger self is an annoying brat who won’t listen to reason?”
“You said it, not me.” His mouth quirks. After five years, I’ve finally learned that means he’s teasing me. He pulls me against him for a hard kiss and then leaves the room for his final prep.
Huffing, I join Cristela at the computer, where she’s inputting the coordinates for Bandit’s trip to the past.
“You’re a lucky woman,” she says, her eyes soft.
“Why? Because I’m married to the most exasperating man on the planet?”
“No. Because every thought that man has is to protect you,” she says simply.
I sag against the wall as her words sink in. She’s right. Bandit doesn’t actually want to go first. He’s not a reckless thrill seeker looking for adventure in an untested time machine, one that could as easily send his mind to a black hole as to the target date.
He just wants me not to take the risk.
“You’re right,” I say. “I am lucky.”
In the present, my eyes fill. Blinking quickly, I press my foot on the accelerator. The car rattles, as though it might come apart at any moment.
Good. Because I’m going to find Bandit in time—or die trying.
Chapter 51
Ninety minutes later, I arrive at my house. Pulling crookedly into the driveway, I’m out of the car almost before the engine stops running. I vault up the front steps and burst through the front door.
“Archie?” I call. “Are you here?”
Of course my brother’s home. He was sleeping in his bed when I left this morning, and he never goes anywhere on Saturdays. It’s his favorite day of the week because he can work uninterrupted.
I skip down the basement stairs two at a time, but he’s not sitting in front of his computer. Huh. I go back upstairs and check the bathroom. Nope. The living area. Nada. The bedroom, in case he’s sleeping—nothing, nothing, nothing.
Okay, this is weird. Déjà vu washes over me. Didn’t I just go through these same actions, looking for someone else? For the one other boy who’s vitally important in my life?
I swallow, but I can’t budge the lump that’s taken permanent residence in my throat. I shuffle my feet—and then I hear it. The scrape of a spatula against a frying pan. Come to think of it, I also detect the greasy scent of something cooking in oil.
Archie! I race toward the kitchen. I suppose even my scattered brother can make an omelet when he’s hungry enough.
When I fling myself over the threshold, however, I see not my brother but another man standing at the stove, one with the proud stance of a prodigy who graduated college at nineteen to start his own company.
“Dad.” I screech to a stop, dismay seeping through my word. “It’s you.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “And you wonder why I’m not around more often. So pleased to see you, too, daughter.”
“Sorry,” I say, too distracted to be truly sorry. “I was looking for Archie.”
“He already left for prom.” He cracks an egg in the frying pan and then peers at me. “Which, frankly, is where I thought you were.”
Prom.
I stumble backward. Prom. I can’t believe I forgot. This is what happens when the administration schedules the most important dance of the year on the final weekend of spring break. Damn the exam schedule and budget constraints!
Bandit and Cristela didn’t mention the dance, but I suppose it would’ve been awkward for Bandit to bring it up if he were attending with someone else. And Cristela and her girlfriend recently split, I suddenly remember.
The egg sizzles in the pan. Dad stares at me, even though he likes his yolks runny. “Archie was looking for you, too. You were supposed to go somewhere with him? He was banging around the basement all afternoon because you stood him up.”
Aw, crap. The tux shop. I’m a terrible, terrible sister.
“Did he end up getting a tux?” I ask. “He must have if he went to prom.”
Wordlessly, my dad gestures to a garment bag hanging from a chair at the dining table. A piece of white paper is stapled to the plastic.
I snatch up the receipt and scan it. The line items include: a white tux with purple stripes. A satin top hat. White gloves. Even a cane.
I gulp at the air. No. He couldn’t have. There’s no way he thought this outfit was appropriate.
“Dad?” I ask in a strangled voice. “Did you see Archie before he left the house?”
“I did.” He slides the egg onto a plate, the edges crispy and practically burned. It’s no secret where I got my cooking skills. “I wondered about his attire. But I didn’t want to crush his spirit. Goodness knows I’m not in touch with what’s hip these days.”
“Dad!” I yell, anguished. “It was a purple-striped tux! That’s not hip in any time period. Someone…must’ve tricked him. Maggie, most likely. He’s too smart to fall for it from anyone else. She must’ve convinced him purple stripes were the trendy look of the season. That he had to wear the tux in order to match her. And I wasn’t around to tell him otherwise.” I sway forward as the full horror of the situation sinks in. “They’re going to laugh at him, and it’s all my fault.”
Dad whirls so fast that it almost gives me whiplash. His eyes are as wide as dinner plates, his skin the same color as his egg whites. “Are you saying he’s about to be embarrassed in front of the entire school? Not just a few kids here and there but hundreds of them?”
I nod, a blast of ice hitting my core.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen! Not in the original time stream. Not in any version of the future I was told about.”
I don’t even blink. Dad already admitted that he was being visited by a voice, even if I’m not sure how much he knows about Archie or the decimation he’ll cause.
“I put us on a new time stream,” I say, my stomach hollowing. “These last few days, I’ve been investigating the Voice, and I enlisted Bandit’s help. Neither of these things was supposed to happen. That’s why I didn’t go to the tux shop like I was supposed to.”
“You have to get us back on track!” Dad surges forward. He wasn’t this frantic when his company was the target of a hostile takeover. He didn’t agitate this much when he discovered Mom had left us for good. “We don’t know what will push Archie over the edge. In every iteration of the future, there was always one devastating event that made Archie lose touch with humanity. This one is occurring way earlier than the others…” He stops. Swallows. “If we lose him now, we’ll never get him back.”
His hands tremble. “Everything I’ve worked for these last six years will be for nothing. The sacrifices we’ve made as a family—for naught. That’s why I pushed him to form connections with legitimate scientists, in hopes that it would shield him from Charlie’s influence. That’s why I held you at a distance. In the original timeline, Archie felt like you were the favorite child and hated me for it. We thought that if I favored him, it might prevent his slide into darkness.”
I blink, hardly able to comprehend his words. Is he saying that his coldness, the distance he imposed between us…was all the result of a mission to save the world?
“That’s why you stopped talking to me?” I whisper. My heart pounds, a time machine in its own right. Because all of a sudden, it’s reverted to the frantic hop-skip pattern of the little girl who only wanted her father’s attention. “It wasn’t because you stopped…caring about me?”
“Oh, Alice,” Dad says, tears in his eyes. “If you only knew how much it destroyed me to push you away. I love you, honey. I’ll never stop. But I hope you understand that I had no choice. I had to do everything in my power to keep Archie from inventing that virus.”
Of course. It makes sense that the future would’ve approached not just Bandit and me but also Dad. They would’ve used every arsenal available to them. They would’ve tried every avenue of reaching my brother.
