Everything was silent as I moved, walking carefully across the pristine floor. I listened hard, alert for any sign that I wasn’t alone, and a subtle change in air pressure warned me a second before I heard a distinct click behind me.
I whirled, going immediately into a crouch, only to discover the figure behind me doing the same.
“Don’t move,” she hissed, and in her hands was a gun. It was pointed directly at me.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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NOW, I’D SEEN ALL kinds of guns since I started training at InterWorld, from all worlds and times. Blasters, emitters, ray guns, laser guns with detachable Bluetooth scopes, plasma guns, you name it. This was a modern handgun, a Colt .45. Basic, easy, and still able to kill me twice before I hit the ground.
“Whoa,” I said, holding my hands out in front of me.
“Don’t move,” she repeated. The gun was leveled at me unwaveringly, and from the look of the face behind it, this wouldn’t be its maiden voyage. I wondered if that’s how I looked in my weapons training classes. I imagined it wasn’t far off, since we shared the same face.
“Josephine,” I said, trying to make my voice as soothing as possible. “It’s okay. My name is Joe, I’m—”
My words didn’t have the calming effect I was hoping for. “It’s you,” she snarled, and her hands began to shake. “You’re the one who was in my house that day!”
“Yes,” I said, but didn’t get any further. She started to stand. So did I, but she gestured me back down with an angry jerk of the gun.
“You ruined my life,” she spat, edging closer. I was well versed enough in weapons to know what a bullet from that gun would do to my head if she fired. She was still shaking, though it was obviously from anger rather than fear.
“You don’t want to fire that,” I said, trying to be reasonable. I hoped she couldn’t hear the panic that was threatening to shatter my calm. “The police station isn’t too far from here, they’ll hear the shots.” That was a guess, actually; I remembered that the police station was on a street of the same name as this one, but I had no idea how close or far it was from here.
“I don’t care,” she said, standing just out of my reach. She was about my height, dressed in loose jeans and a baggy hoodie, both of which looked like they’d seen better days. Her frizzy red hair was short, barely brushing her cheeks, and looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a while. Despite the baggy clothes, I could see that she was thinner than was healthy. All this added up to a desperation that made me believe her next words. “It’ll be worth it. Even if I go to jail, it’ll be worth it. They’ll finally stop coming after me.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that if she killed me, it wouldn’t matter if she went to jail or not; she’d likely be dead either way when FrostNight destroyed everything. There was something else I could use to make a far better point.
“No, they won’t. They aren’t after me! Well, they aren’t just after me. They
’re after you.” The pieces had all fallen together. The HEX agents outside her house had been waiting for her to come home. The bad guys had found her because I’d Walked there unknowingly. I’d led them to her.
Simply put, I had ruined her life.
“Shut up! You’re lying. Why would they be after me? They started coming after you showed up in my house that day. They must be after you!”
“They were, but now they’re after us. You have to trust me. Look, look at me! We could be twins!”
“You’re just one of them, trying to . . . to do whatever weird magic crap they do, to take my place!”
“No, Josephine, listen!” I told her my full name, my birthday, my mother’s and father’s names and birthdays. I told her where I went to elementary school and what my favorite dessert was. From the look on her face, I could tell everything I said was true for her, too. “If I was trying to take your place, first of all why would I be a boy, and second, why wouldn’t I be living your life right now? You’re obviously not. You haven’t even been home, have you?”
“Not in months,” she admitted, though the gun was still pointed at me.
“So why would I come find you?”
“To lead them to me,” she said, but she sounded less certain.
“No,” I said, as forcefully as I dared. “I’m trying to help you. I am you, you from a different world. And you are me, from this world.”
“And those things?” she asked.
“Those are the bad guys,” I said. “I know it’s a simple explanation, but we don’t have time to get into it. I promise I’ll explain on the way, but we can’t stay here. They can sense us, and they’ll find us eventually. You have to trust me.”
She just looked at me, indecision plain on her face. I could almost read every thought as it went through her mind; after all, I knew what I’d be thinking, if I were in her shoes. I knew what I had thought, when all of this had first happened to me.