Read Online Twist by Karen Akins - Free Book Online

reached out and pressed her palm against it, still not looking at me. I took the chance to really examine her. She looked crapawful, like she hadn’t slept or eaten in days. Dark circles clung under her eyes, and her hair was scraggly and unwashed, but the same length and style as mine, so we appeared to still be close in age. Her clothes were stained with … was that blood?
    â€œYou sound like Finn,” she finally said.
    â€œIs he okay? When can I get back to see him?”
    â€œYou’re with Wyck now.”
    â€œI’m not with—”
    â€œOf course you’re not.” She snapped around to face me. “But Wyck doesn’t realize that. And you won’t let him.”
    â€œDo you have any concept what you just cost me back there?” I gestured over my shoulder as if those few precious minutes at the Institute could be reclaimed, as if I could reach out and clasp them. “What you cost us?”
    Saying the words, the full weight of her actions settled over me like wet wool. The heaviness of my new—and now permanent—situation sank into my marrow and turned to sludge. I didn’t know what I would face as I went home. I didn’t know if my tendrils would draw me to Finn in the past like they always had if we didn’t share a history. I didn’t know if Finn would remember me even if I could.
    As my eyes locked with my future self’s, I could see that she remembered this moment. Remembered how lost and confused and angry I felt.
    â€œI know none of this makes sense right now,” she said. “And, honestly, it’s still really … it’s … it’s not going to be an easy path, but I need you to trust me.”
    Did I have a choice?
    I wandered back over to the bubble that was glowing blue and realized it was actually a window. There was a hollowed-out space behind it. And something inside.
    â€œYou said this place was ICE’s Cryostorage? Storage for what?” I asked. But when I turned back around to look at Bree, she was staring at the tubes again. She’d told me where we were, but I still didn’t know when. I checked my QuantCom. We were fifty years in the past.
    This was a few years after Shifters came out of hiding. ICE had been around since almost the beginning. As soon as we’d gone public with our ability, it seemed they’d been right there alongside us, “helpful” at every turn. Can’t find a job that thoroughly utilizes your Shifting ability? ICE career counselors can help. Can’t afford a chip functionality check? Head to your local free ICE clinic. Cost of Buzztabs have you down? There’s an ICE benevolence fund for that!
    This period of history had been a hotbed of political and social upheaval. NonShifters had been scared of us initially—scared of our ability. It had all been one big scrambled chicken-egg in the beginning. Shifters had agreed to be microchipped because Future Shifters mistakenly claimed that it was the only way to escape a Madness that would develop down the line. The microchips, in turn, led to the Buzz when they kept Shifters from going where their tendrils wanted them to go.
    The Madness ended up being nonexistent, or rather, misinterpreted. Technically I had the Madness—the ability to detect changes to the timeline. Like I said, one giant temporal omelet. And there was ICE the whole time, hovering over the skillet.
    I tapped on the bubble, and soligraphic controls popped up. Even though they were a simulated hologram—nothing but bits and bytes—they felt solid to the touch. A series of words and numbers scrolled across the front. November Bravo Golf 1309874729. I waved my hand in front of the controls, trying to get them to disappear, but instead the bubble opened like a blossom. A long metal shelf began to extend. I turned my attention back to making the controls disappear.
    â€œI said, leave her alone.” Bree stomped