She looks away. “You have to think of the bigger picture.”
I sit down on the bed, the mattress like stone beneath me. “Wes dies, doesn’t he?”
She doesn’t respond.
“Tell me. Please.”
When she speaks her voice is as blank as it was in the meeting. “Eleven makes it a few more years before his body gives out. But that was in my time line. Things could be different now.”
“You mean he could already be dead.”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me go back and save him.” My voice is higher, pleading. “Don’t let Wes and Tim die like this.”
“I can’t.” She still won’t look at me. “This is happening during Walker’s command, so it’s his choice. If I fight too hard for you, then they’ll think I’m attached, and I won’t be able to do any good in the future. It’s important that Walker believes I’m like them.”
“Then why are you even here talking to me? What’s the point?”
She comes forward until she’s right in front of me, and then she kneels, her beige dress molding to her body as it stretches across her legs. Our faces are only inches apart.
“I want to give you what I didn’t have, Lydia. I want to give you a choice.”
Chapter 14
Agent Bentley sits back on her heels, watching me. I want to turn away, but I force myself to meet her eyes. “Is this like the choice General Walker gave me in that cell months ago? My grandfather’s life in exchange for my cooperation? Because I’m not interested in another deal like that.”
“No.” She frowns, and I wonder if she’s angry that I don’t immediately trust her. “I’m giving you a real choice.”
“How?”
She sighs and pushes to her feet in one fluid movement. “I know you’re skeptical, but we don’t have much time, so I’ll lay out your options. You can stay here and give in to the destiny the Project has planned for us, or you can leave. It’s Friday afternoon, which means you still have time to find out if the Bentley’s Hardware advertisement meant anything.”
I sit up a little straighter. “You’re saying the Project didn’t send the message?”
She shakes her head. “I never found out who did send it, though I have my guesses.”
“Who?”
But she doesn’t answer. “It might seem simple to you—if you leave, you have a chance to escape the Project and maybe even save Wes. If you stay, then you’ll become like me. But this life isn’t all bad, Lydia. I’m not unhappy.”
“You’ve lost everything and everyone you love. How can you even be a little happy?”
“Not everyone. Grandpa survived.”
“What?” I stand up and reach out, curling my fingers around her wrist. “Grandpa makes it? Is he still alive?”
She smiles slightly and rests her hand on my fingers. At her touch I pull away. “It would be impossible for him to still be alive in this time period. But I made sure he was safe. As soon as I had enough authority, I sent someone back in time to have him released, in the nineteen eighties. He lived a normal life.”
“Grandpa,” I whisper. “He’s all I’ve been fighting for.”
“I know.”
She steps toward me, but I step back again until I’m pressed to the side of the bed. “If you choose this life, you won’t be helpless anymore,” she says. “You’ll create a better system, where time is treated as sacred, and the butterfly effect is risked only in extreme circumstances.”
I think of her face in that meeting, emotionless and stark. It may not have been real, she may have been acting, but isn’t that just another form of helplessness, hiding her true self from everyone around her?
“Why?” I ask. “Why are you giving me a choice at all, if you think this destiny is the best option?”
I watch her shoulders grow stiff under the thin silk of her dress. “Eleven . . .” She takes a long, slow breath. “Wes and I had a few good years together, even in hiding. You remember that moment you saw in the hallway. Those memories have kept me going, even though he’s gone now. But he was supposed to come back with you, and I know Colonel Walker will never allow us to rescue Wes. And that means that Wes and you won’t have the life that he and I had together. You won’t have any of those memories.” She lifts her hand and touches my shoulder. In her heels she is taller than me, and I have to look up to meet her eyes. “I’m not saying which life you should choose. And I’m not doing this because of Wes, not really. I don’t even know what will happen to me if you choose to leave here. Maybe I’ll disappear when the time line changes. Or I might still be alive, but the world I know won’t exist anymore. But I can live with that. I made the most of a life that was handed to me because I never had any other options. I want you to decide your own fate.”
I bite my lip but don’t respond.
She squeezes my arm lightly. “I know you see the Project as evil, but just a few days ago you were a part of preventing an all-out nuclear war. That’s noble, regardless of how it happened. And there’s more good that can be done. Remember that.”
She steps back, dropping her hand. I can still feel her fingers pressed into my skin. “If you’re going to leave, then go out through the elevators where you entered. I’ve made sure that you have clearance to leave for the next half hour, so decide quickly.”
She starts walking toward the door. I lean forward before she can reach it. “Don’t you already know what I’m going to do?”
She stops, turns. “Maybe.” When she smiles it makes
