“Isn’t it the same thing?”
Althea steps away from the door and looks at Wes. “The timers are on the table. Send me back now. I already set the date.” She points at the large, boxy computer consul sitting on one of the desks. “You just need to push the button.”
She starts walking to the TM, but stops and turns back to Wes. She steps close, hesitates, then puts her hand on his arm. Wes doesn’t move at all, his face unreadable, and she pulls away slowly. “I guess . . . well, good-bye.”
“Good luck.”
She nods and approaches the TM, the door sliding back for her when she gets close enough. She steps in and spins around to face us. Her brown eyes seem larger, the color in her cheeks high. “They won’t be able to control me anymore, will they?”
Wes walks over to the consul and clicks something on the keyboard. The door to the TM closes, cutting off the look of careful hope on Althea’s face. The machine starts to shudder and quack. The room fills with throbbing light and the familiar buzzing. I shield my face when it gets too bright, when the TM seems to explode outward, the glass on top swirling with smoke and color, Althea’s body disappearing into time.
I can’t say that we liked each other, but I hope she finds what she wants—a life without the Project.
Wes is still at the keyboard, typing rapidly. “What date for Faust?”
“I don’t care. Maybe sometime in the Middle Ages.”
I hear the doctor’s sharp intake of breath.
Wes pushes another button. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and he’ll get the plague.”
I glance at Wes over my shoulder. And then I see his face change, his eyes getting wider, his mouth opening. I hear a scraping noise from behind me and turn to look, but something hits me in the stomach, the impact throwing me to the ground. Faust is standing over me, panting. The gun falls from my hands, slides across the floor, and he lunges for it. I launch to my feet, but it’s too late. Dr. Faust is holding the gun, and he’s pointing it at me.
“I made a mistake, last time, trying to send you both through time.” His voice is still weak, but it is angry too, lashing out at us.
I back up, inching closer to Wes.
“Don’t move!” Faust screams.
I freeze.
“I should have killed you. Shot you, like you shot me. I won’t make the same mistake again.” He looks over at Wes. “You’ll be first. I need more of your blood. We’re so close to making the serum. If we just have a bit more, we’ll succeed, I know we will.”
Something hard slams against the door, and all three of us jump, the gun wavering in Faust’s hand. The table and chair start to shake as the metal is hit over and over.
“See? They’re coming already. You have no hope.”
Wes moves forward so slowly that at first I don’t even notice. If we can just stall Faust for another minute . . .
“There’s always hope,” I say quickly, and Faust’s attention swings back to me.
“You think so?” He smiles, a teeth-clenching grin where it looks more like he’s in pain. “How about now?” He points the gun at Wes and pulls the trigger.
“No!” I shout, or maybe breathe, or maybe think the word. One minute I am standing near the door and the next I am in front of Wes, pushing his body out of the way.
Wes gasps as he falls to the side and slams into the corner of the desk, his head whipping back to stare at me in horror. I hear the bullet leave the chamber of the gun, I watch it cross the room in slow motion, and I feel it when it rips into me, tearing through skin and muscle, leaving only blood and burning in its wake.
Chapter 25
“Lydia!”
Wes’s voice. Screaming.
I fall to my knees, clutching my elbow. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I whisper. “Stop him.”
Wes takes half a second to see the neat hole in the flesh of my lower arm, spilling blood across the white floor. But it’s not enough to kill me and we both know that.
He flies across the room, before Dr. Faust figures out that the weapon is automatic. He raises it in Wes’s face at the last second, but Wes spin-kicks him in the chin. I hear the bone crunch, watch the doctor’s face twist. By the time Wes lands on his feet, Faust’s mouth forms a distorted O that he cannot reshape. He tries to speak, but only moans, incapable of moving his jaw. Wes kicks the gun across the floor, grabs the doctor’s arm, and drags him over to the TM, throwing his body into the base of it as soon as the door opens.
I crawl across the cold floor on my knees and grab the gun, holding my other arm tight against my body. The bleeding is slow, but the pain is so strong that I’m pretty sure the bone broke when the bullet hit it.
“You’ve earned yourself the prehistoric age,” Wes says to the doctor.
Through it all, the banging never stops, as if the guards outside are using a battering ram to try and push their way through the metal door of the chamber. The table and chair are holding for now, though there is a large dent forming in the middle of the door.
I stand up, holding the gun high and pointed at Faust. Wes turns his back on the TM and keeps his eyes on me as he walks to the consul and pushes a button hard. Faust scrambles to his feet, ready to throw himself out of the machine. I step forward. When he sees the gun he cowers against the metal wall, whimpering as the door closes in his broken face.
Wes and I both ignore the rumbling and the lights and the smoke as the doctor is torn into fragments, hurtled through
