Timepiece

The closer we got to the fire, the more something about it pulled at my memory. The base of the flames was beyond blue, almost an electric purple. The flames consumed stone and wood, burning both with the same speed and intensity. Only one person could make fire like that, and only one person could spread it so destructively.

“Hurry. Em hasn’t reached the Phone Company yet.” Lily pulled at my arm and panted for air. “Come on!”

“This isn’t normal fire.”

“What?” She let her arm go slack, but I held on to her hand tightly.

“This is the kind of fire that burned my dad’s lab. Jack and Cat did this.” Maybe Ava, although I hoped that wasn’t true. “Look around. Why aren’t there any people on the street? Where are the cars? This doesn’t look like Ivy Springs; it looks like a movie set, or a ghost town.”

Doubt. Realization. Fear.

I squinted over my shoulder through the smoke, from the direction we came. “Lily, look.”

No pumpkins sat on the street waiting to be lit for Halloween. Gone were the decorative pots of flowers and wrought-iron benches used to adorn the spaces between red maples and pear trees. The replica gas streetlights remained, but only a few were lit, and the rest was broken sidewalks and weeds. A power surge hummed, and everything went dark. The only light came from the fire glowing orange in the night sky.

Now Lily squeezed my hand. “Something is wrong.”

Very wrong. “I don’t think we’re really here.”

“What?” Lily breathed.

“I think we’re in a rip.”

Chapter 46

“How are we in a rip?” Lily asked. “We saw the fire from inside my apartment. We even heard sirens.”

“But we didn’t hear any more sirens after we came out of your apartment. And your Murphy’s Law key didn’t work.” I didn’t want to think too hard about the possible implications. We started running toward the Phone Company again.

“I’ve never heard anything about Ivy Springs catching fire. That would be a huge part of our town history,” Lily said, panting. “Especially with all the post–Civil War building that was done here.”

“If Jack and Cat started that fire, and I think they did, this rip is from the future. Only my dad and Michael have ever seen those. The whole situation escalates every time another rip shows up.” My feet pounded the sidewalk in time with the thoughts pounding through my brain. “Time has started traveling to us.”

Rips were having an impact on people who were alive. If that were the case, and Emerson ran into a blazing fire …

The Phone Company came into view just as Em approached the side of the building, the very place I’d first met Lily the night of the masquerade. “Wait!” I shouted. “Don’t let her go in.”

Michael caught Em by her upper arm. She’d been running so fast she almost lost her footing. “Let me go,” she demanded, trying to jerk away from him.

“You can’t go in there,” I insisted when we caught up. “Look around—this isn’t the Ivy Springs we know. It’s a rip.”

“A rip?” Em stood completely still, staring at the building. The Phone Company sign was gone, as were the usual impeccable landscaping and lighting, signatures of Thomas’s work. “What the hell?”

“A future rip.” Michael’s face paled as he considered the circumstances. “One we can all see.”

“Rips are tangible now,” I said, thinking out loud. A concentrated wave of intense panic pulsed through me. Coming from Em. “Does that mean we could change the outcome of an event, even though we aren’t really here?”

“It’s a possibility,” Michael said grimly. Defeat made his voice and eyes tight. He didn’t look at Emerson. “What we do now could flow backward or forward.”

Em broke free from Michael, shaking her head in denial. “If my brother and Dru are in there, I’m not leaving them. I’ve already broken rules. What’s the difference now?”

Lily reached out for Em. “Maybe there’s another way—”

“No.” Em cut her off and backed away. The flames were no more than fifteen feet away from the building on the left side, maybe twenty feet from the back, burning as if possessed, bent on total destruction. I felt a memory clawing at Em’s insides, tearing her open, so strong I had to bend over at the waist. “I know what burning feels like. It sears your skin, but it’s almost cold. Then there’s the smell.” Her nostrils flared. “You can’t escape it. There’s nowhere to go.”

In Emerson’s original time line, she’d been horribly burned in a fire, caused by the shuttle bus accident that killed her parents. Jack’s machinations, as horrible as they were, had saved her from that. He’d taken that time line away.

She shouldn’t be remembering it now.

“Em, please.” Michael moved slowly, keeping his eyes on her. “Don’t. They might not even be in there.”

“‘Might not be’ isn’t good enough.” She took another step back. Determined. “I won’t let them go. Them or their baby.”

The roof from the building beside the restaurant crashed to the ground. The vines climbing the iron fence on the dining patio burst into flame, and I shook my head in disbelief when the iron immediately glowed red. The glass in the French doors that led in popped, and the fire slid inside.

Too hot. Too fast.

“I can’t lose them, too.” Emerson took one more step back, and then rushed the heavy oak front doors, pushing them open and throwing herself inside.

“Emerson!” Michael followed.

“No!” Lily grabbed my arm, digging in her heels when I tried to take off after Michael. “You won’t help if you go in there now.”

Terror bled under the doors of the Phone Company. “I can’t …”

“If we make the rip go away, we can end this.” She yelled over the sound of the fire, which grew more ardent every second. Her desperation was barely under control. It matched mine. “Please. Think.”

I stepped back to gauge the path of the flames. Half the roof was already gone. Ending the rip would be the fastest way to get us all out of danger. “We have to find a person, and I haven’t seen one since we landed here. Unless …”

If Jack and Cat started this inferno, they’d stick around to watch it burn. Just like they had the night they killed my father.

I shouted instructions to Lily. “We have to find the origin of the fire. Let’s try the midpoint.”

Lily nodded instead of screaming back.

Everything in me fought to run toward Em and Michael instead of away from them, but I knew Lily was right and that we had to make the rip go away. The heat coming off the buildings made my eyes water, and the closer we got to the center of the fire, the thicker the smoke became.

But there was nothing was left to burn.

I wanted a second to shut everything out, to quiet my hectic mind. But I could sense Em and Michael, which meant they were still alive, and I didn’t want to lose the connection. My focus on maintaining it almost made me miss seeing him.

Jack. Ashes, falling like snow, covered his shoulders.