No. I pull myself up into a sitting position and push my bangs off my forehead with so much force they flutter up over my head. I trust Wes. There has to be a reason for his silence, for why he couldn’t help me just now. He would never deliberately hurt me. He’d never hand me over to the Montauk Project, not when he has spent so much time trying to protect me from them.
Any minute now that door will burst open and Wes will be there, and he’ll explain everything. I have to be ready to escape with him.
I hear the muffled sound of voices speaking, and the squeak of a boot on the tiled floor outside. See? I say to myself. Wes is already here. I stand up and face the door.
The door swings open and I jerk forward automatically, expecting Wes. But it isn’t him.
A middle-aged man enters. A younger guard follows him, carrying a metal folding chair, which he places in the center of the room. The young guard then leaves, closing the door firmly behind him.
The older man sits down and gives me a measured look. His hair is brown, with only touches of gray at his temples, and he’s wearing a black uniform, though his is slightly different from the guards’. I see a gold, triangular metal gleaming at his shoulder.
“Lydia Bentley,” he says gravely. “We meet at last.”
At the sound of his voice, I sink back down onto the white mattress. This is General Walker, the man who debriefed Wes and me when we arrived in 1989. The man who looked at me as if he knew exactly who I was. Now I’m starting to wonder if he did.
“I think we’ve already met.” My voice sounds surprisingly strong. Much stronger than I feel right now.
He leans forward in his chair and rests his elbows on his knees. “But you were pretending to be Seventeen then. So I’m not sure it counts.”
When I first saw General Walker, I thought he had a kind face, with crinkly hazel eyes. But I can’t find any of that kindness in him now. He just looks calculating and slightly pleased, as though he has won some game I didn’t even know we were playing.
“You knew who I was, didn’t you?” I ask softly.
“Not then. We did think you were Seventeen, until our recruits in twenty-twelve found her body stashed in the woods yesterday. From there, we were quickly able to ascertain who had taken over her identity.” He smiles. “We’ve known about you for a very long time, Miss Bentley.”
I twist my fingers together on my lap. “How?”
“For several reasons.” He sits back in his chair, his eyes never leaving my face. “Eleven informed me that you found your name on a list of our recruits. So, you know that we’ve been tracking you ever since you were born. Or should I say, as soon as you will be born.”
My breath is short. “Wes wouldn’t tell you that.”
He smiles. Walker is distinguished-looking, with a long, patrician nose and a high forehead. None of this can quite hide how cruel his eyes are, though. “Are you sure you know Wes as well as you think you do?”
“What does that mean?”
But he doesn’t answer my question. “Eleven also said that you discovered what the scar on your shoulder means. I have to say, I’m impressed that you put it all together.”
I close my hand around my upper arm, and I feel the round bump under my fingers. “It is from the serum, then? You injected me with something when I was a baby, didn’t you?”
“Polypenamaether was invented by a Doctor Faust in nineteen forty-five. It’s a type of vaccine, and when injected into the bloodstream it better equips people to handle the TM. Of course children are still able to travel more easily than adults. And even with the drug, the TM is so physically demanding that it will break down the body of any traveler, eventually.”
Like Wes, who told me he was dying, who wanted to run away with me.
Then the significance of what the general is saying hits me. Doctor Faust invented the serum that allows me to travel through time safely, and I’ve had it in my system for my entire life.
“Why are you telling me this?” I demand.
“This is information we share with all of our recruits, eventually.”
“But I’m not . . .”
“You are now.” He says it as though I should be excited. “You’re a recruit, Lydia. It is your destiny.”
“I’m not.” I jump up from the bed. “I refuse.”
“Sit down,” he growls.
“No. I’m not yours to control and I never will be. I’m not some scared little kid you picked up off the streets.”
“We have your grandfather. According to Eleven, you’ll do whatever I say to keep him safe.”
I slowly sink back down onto the mattress. According to Eleven? How could Wes tell him that?
I glare at the general. “Why me? I’m seventeen. I’m too old already. And I’m not trained.”
Walker steeples his fingers together and considers me over the top of them. “Let me tell you why this election was so important for us. In this time line, because John McGregor loses, Alan Sardosky wins the election. In a few more years, he goes on to become mayor. Then, eventually, a U.S. senator. In the year twenty forty-four, at the age of seventy-three, he will run for the presidency and win. He’s an older candidate, but by then, people are living a lot longer. In twenty fifty, during his second term, he signs a nuclear arms act. Two months later, war breaks out between North Korea and the United States. Nuclear bombs are sent to Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, DC. Millions die.
