After what felt like forever, Nurse Bell returned. “She’s stable for the moment, but she’ll need treatment. I’ve paged Dr. Eversley.” Her gaze swept around the room. “What happened?”
A beat while they exchanged uneasy glances. Finally, Pyro volunteered, “She fell. Her wrist is broken. Contusions to the head and body. No other broken bones.”
“I didn’t ask for a diagnosis,” Nurse Bell replied. “I’m fully capable of assessing her injuries.”
The Misfits stayed silent.
“How long has she been in and out of consciousness?”
“About two hours,” Teddy said. She knew it sounded bad. She felt like the worst sort of person.
Nurse Bell looked between them. The moment stretched. “And you’re coming to me only now?”
“We were in San Francisco,” Teddy said. “We were—”
“Hiking,” Dara said. “She fell hiking.”
“And you didn’t think to bring her to the emergency room?”
“She doesn’t have insurance,” Jeremy said, speaking for the first time since they’d boarded the boat back to the island. “She begged us not to take her to the hospital.”
Nurse Bell released a lengthy sigh. No words accompanied it, but her opinion of the way they’d handled Molly’s injury was clear. “I will alert Professor Corbett to these events. Now I have to take care of your friend.”
Her stomach tied in knots, Teddy asked, “Should we wait?”
Nurse Bell paused. “There are many things you should have done. Loitering in my waiting room isn’t one of them.”
* * *
The Misfits trudged together toward Harris Hall. No one spoke. It was easier not to. Fog had begun to sweep over school grounds, shrouding the normally tranquil Zen garden in a gray mist.
Teddy stopped at the steps of the dorm. She looked at Dara. Someone had to summon the courage to say the words on everyone’s minds. “Did you see—” she began.
Dara shook her head. “The future can change.”
“Molly’s not going to die,” Jeremy said. He stated it as a fact, when all of the Misfits knew that the future was always murky, constant only in its inconstancy.
Jillian brushed his shoulder. “It’s okay, Jeremy.”
“Okay? How is any of this okay?” He jerked away from Jillian’s touch and turned on Teddy. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t wanted to go, none of this would have happened.”
“Jeremy, you don’t mean that. We decided this as a team,” Jillian said.
Nice of Jillian to come to her defense, Teddy supposed, but completely unnecessary. Jeremy was right. Everything that had happened was her fault. She didn’t try to defend herself. She couldn’t.
“If Teddy had just thought about what might—” Jeremy said.
“That’s enough, Jeremy! Molly wanted to get that video file. She wanted to go on the roof. And she was the one who wanted to go down that line. You followed us. It wasn’t a particularly challenging descent. It was an accident. She got hurt. And that sucks. But it was her choice,” Jillian said.
“Is there any chance that this could have been worth it? Any way of recovering the hard drive?” Pyro asked.
Dara lifted the backpack with the broken laptop. “It’s shattered. And I looked through the debris. The hard drive was missing. When the computer hit the pavement, it must have skidded beneath something in the alley.”
After everything they’d been through, they had nothing to show for it. They’d left the island that morning hoping to right a wrong. They’d been so confident they could pull it off. Free Yates, stop Whitfield from turning into another Sector Three, and . . . Teddy swallowed hard as she realized what else: find her mother. Suddenly, she saw their plan for what it was—foolhardy, selfish, shortsighted—and Teddy felt sick.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
TEDDY LAY ON THE TWIN bed in her dorm room, waiting for news of Molly’s condition. She rolled the Ping-Pong ball Clint had given her between her fingers. The wall clock ticked off the seconds. Teddy had never noticed it before; now it was all she could hear. Those steady ticks reminded her of how she hadn’t been quick enough in Nick’s office or, later, in the alley.
“You’re tormenting yourself,” Jillian said. “It’s not like you pushed Molly off the roof, Teddy. It’s not your fault.”
Teddy ignored her. Of course it was her fault. No one was going to convince her otherwise. “Part of me feels like I should start packing now,” she said. She rolled onto her side, reaching for the purse she’d used earlier that day. She dumped the contents onto her bed, including the cell phone that Molly had given her. She felt strange having a phone again; she’d become used to living in the moment, tech-free. Her heart twisted. The screen indicated one new message. Teddy pushed a button and read it: Just in case.
Just in case . . . what? As Teddy filled in the rest, she couldn’t help but think the worst. Just in case something happens to me.
“What is it?” Jillian asked.
“A message from Molly. There’s an attachment, too. Must have come in before I left.”
Jillian leaped from her bed and stood over Teddy’s shoulder. “Open it.”
Teddy pressed the alphanumeric link. Disbelief and incredulity warred for dominance in her mind as she watched a folder containing two video files appear on the cell phone screen.
She clicked the first. The phone went momentarily dark. A small white arrow appeared, and Teddy pressed it. Then a black-and-white video image filled the screen, revealing a grainy surveillance shot of a crowded sidewalk. No sound. Men and women walking with umbrellas flexed open to shield themselves from rain. Tall buildings loomed around them. It could have been any large metropolitan city. Teddy noted the time and date stamp floating in the lower-right corner: August 17, 08:21. Six years ago.
Teddy’s breath caught. This was it. The proof they’d been after.
The video rolled on. A uniformed hotel doorman stepped from beneath an awning and signaled for a cab. Three men followed. The first was slight of build, dressed
