“I didn’t know about this.” He leans forward, his hands clasped between us on the table. “I swear I didn’t. I would have told you.”
“I believe you.”
And I do believe him. At that realization I take a slow, deep breath. Maybe I am starting to trust Wes again.
“I knew there was something, though.” He pushes away from the table and walks across the room to the kitchen, then back again. He can cross the short distance in three strides, but the movement seems to comfort him. “General Walker told Twenty-two and me to keep you alive at all costs, and I knew it had to be about more than just the Sardosky mission. But I didn’t know it was that big.”
“It was strange, seeing an older version of myself. She was so different in the meeting with Colonel Walker, and then when we were alone . . .” I wrap my arms around my middle, remembering her eyes, so much like my own, but wounded in a way that was permanent, that stretched into every part of her.
“She was probably just trying to protect herself,” Wes says. “I understand that better than most.”
I think back to when I first met Wes: his blank, empty expression, that frustrating recruit mask he rarely took off. He was always protecting himself, and I lived for those moments when he let his guard down and let me in. It was why his betrayal hit me so hard—I thought I was different, that I was the one person he would never pretend with. But was it unfair of me to have those expectations for someone conditioned not to feeling anything? Future me seemed blank too, but she showed me that we were still the same person on the inside. Did I ever really trust Wes before, if at the first sign of betrayal, I believed the worst in him?
“How did you end up with the resistance?” Wes asks.
I focus on him again. “The message. It was from LJ.” I tell him the rest, about meeting Tag and Nikki again, and my ultimate decision.
“You’re going to stop the Project?” Wes sits down again, his body falling into the chair heavily. It looks handmade and creaks under his weight. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes. I won’t let them destroy anyone else.”
“But you’re already here, Lydia. We could run away.” He leans forward. “They don’t have the same resources in the nineteen forties. We can get away more easily.”
“We can’t run, Wes. Not anymore. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering when they’ll find me. What they’ll do to my family. This is the only way to give everyone a chance at a new life, one that’s not tainted by the Project.” I stand up, suddenly feeling that same urge to move, not to be confined to one chair, to one space.
Wes stands to face me, and I see the doubt in the downward curve of his eyebrows. “But you came late, Lydia. The Project has been going on for two years now. They already have a TM. It won’t be as easy to stop them now.”
I move across the room to the bed, then back to Wes. “The only one who knows how to create the TM is Faust, and he’s not the type to share his secrets. I’ll destroy the notes and the TM. He won’t be able to rebuild.”
“Lydia.” He touches my arm as I pass, stopping my restless movement. “That only works if you get rid of Faust, too.”
I don’t meet his eyes, and he squeezes me once, gently. “Are you going to kill him? Are you prepared for that?”
“Yes.” I face him fully. “Kill one person to save thousands, right? That’s what the Project taught me.”
“It’s not as simple as that and you know it.”
“I killed Sardosky, didn’t I?” My voice comes out softer than I intended, and Wes sighs.
“That wasn’t your fault. You didn’t have a choice.”
I shake off his arm. “Maybe I won’t have to kill him,” I say. “What if I treat him the same way he treated Dean? Send him far, far back in time through the TM. He’ll end up in the prehistoric age.”
“But the TM is unpredictable now. He could land somewhere in the future, like Dean did. And then he could start the Montauk Project over again.”
“Without Tesla’s notes?”
He runs his fingers through his hair, the short black strands tumbling around his head. “You have a plan, right?”
I point over my shoulder, feeling my cheeks get warm. “Yes. But I need your help.”
Wes stands slowly and moves until he’s behind me. He places his hand on my back, right where the folder is taped to my skin. “I was wondering what this was.”
“I can’t get it off by myself.”
He doesn’t say anything, but runs his hand along my back, feeling where the edges of the file start and end. His touch is too soft, too deliberate, and I swallow hard.
“I, uh. I can’t get to it when you have the dress on,” he says softly.
“Right. Okay.” I reach up and start to unbutton. I get halfway to my chest when my fingers start shaking. “How about now?”
He carefully pulls the fabric away from my back and reaches down. I feel his fingers brush my skin and I close my eyes. We are both silent, and all I can hear is Wes’s breathing. “I got it.” He slowly peels the folder away from my skin. I wince as the tape comes undone.
Wes pulls the folder out and sets it on the table, sitting down again and keeping his eyes averted as I quickly button my dress back up.
There’s an awkward silence as I sit down next to him. Finally he opens the folder, flipping through the pages. I watch as he skims one of the backup plans.
“Obviously, I need to make changes,” I say.
