Unbreakable. Elizabeth Norris

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      hen the door shuts, Deirdre slumps onto the couch, and Struz watches her, then turns to look at me. “Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

      “That asshole has come back to tear more shit apart,” Deirdre says, and I’m a little surprised. She isn’t the kind of person who swears. “What more do we need to know?”

      “Where the missing people are going,” I say without thinking. Because it’s true. If nothing else comes out of this night, now we know why people are being abducted.

      For a minute it feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. Both Deirdre and Struz freeze with their eyes on me. My heartbeat throbs in my chest.

      “Barclay is investigating a human-trafficking ring,” I say. Then I tell them about Barclay following me today, surprising me before I got home, and about Jared opening the door for him.

      Struz turns to Deirdre. “Get everyone here in the next fifteen minutes. I don’t care what else is going on.” She nods and grabs the walkie-talkie, and Struz puts a hand on my shoulder. He squeezes lightly, and the look on his face is my undoing. His eyes are soft and the lines on his face express concern and worry—they say, Are you okay? I struggle to keep my emotions under control, keep the sting in my eyes from turning into tears. The truth is, sometimes it all feels like it’s too much, like I can’t take it anymore, like I don’t know how to keep living like this.

      Struz can either tell how close I am to losing it, or he just gets it, because he pulls me into a hug. “It’ll be okay, J-baby.”

      I know that’s not true, but it still makes me feel better.

      When everyone is here—everyone being fifteen other FBI agents, most of whom I know from when they were part of my dad’s team—I start over. They all seem to be aware of what happened four months ago, so I start with the missing-persons cases, the ones Deirdre and I have been working on over the past couple of months. I tell them what Barclay told me.

      The only thing I don’t tell them is that Ben is a suspect.

      I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing. I won’t let myself think about why he didn’t stay at home with his family or why he hasn’t come back. No matter how much it’s eating at my insides, the facts are that he’s not there and he’s not here. But I know he has nothing to do with a human-trafficking ring, and I’m not about to make him a suspect here.

      I tell them what Barclay told me about the human trafficking and that the missing people—our missing people—are being abducted for who knows what and pulled into some other universe where they can’t get back, and we can’t go rescue them because we don’t have the technology.

      When I finish, no one says anything. A few people exchange looks, but Struz is clearly thinking something through, and no one else is about to jump in. I start to count the seconds as they pass, and it’s a full minute before anyone speaks.

      Then Struz says, “Well, fuck me.”

      “So we need to figure out how people can combat that,” Deirdre says. “The first priority has to be that we can’t lose more people. Then we can figure out how to get back the ones we lost.”

      Several agents jump in and start talking over one another. There’s mention of the Multiverse Project, something Struz has started. The goal is to prove that the multiverse exists and to figure out interverse travel. Struz recruited a few renowned scientists in Southern California and gave them the necklace Barclay told me I could wear to portal safely as well as a few other things he left behind.

      A couple of agents are intent on brainstorming ways to fight against the portals. Someone says they need to tell the public. Make some kind of announcement. Explain to people.

      At that, Struz shakes his head. “I’ve already violated a presidential order by telling you what Janelle went through in September. And I’ve just violated it again, by having her share this new information.”

      One of the agents I don’t know laughs bitterly. “Who cares? That guy’s not our real president, anyway.”

      “Wait, we still have a government?” another guy says.

      “Let’s save the jokes for later. We can’t make an announcement until we know how people should keep themselves safe,” Deirdre says.

      Struz nods. “We’ll only create more panic.”

      “We should change curfew,” I say. The side chatter stops. I feel everyone’s eyes on me and even though I don’t know what I’m doing either, I’m bolstered by the respect most of these people have for me. “All of the abduction cases so far have been people grabbed when they were alone. The night curfew could still be in effect, but we could push it up an hour or two to make people feel better, while at the same time saying that no one should be alone. Institute a buddy system.”

      A couple of people nod. The guy who doesn’t care about our president shrugs. “We could work with something like that.”

      They continue talking about it, but I’ve had enough. I excuse myself and head up to my bedroom. No one minds since we’re beyond my realm of usefulness anyway. I can’t stop thinking about Ben. Not just because of what Barclay said. But because he’s out there and maybe in trouble. What if he’s stuck somewhere—or what if he needs me?

      I think of the way my skin tingled when his fingers touched mine, the way I felt warm from the inside out when he wrapped his arms around me, the sense of calm that was impossible to ignore when my head was against his chest, the soft thump of his heartbeat under my cheek.

      The intensity of missing him is so strong, it’s physical. It starts as an emptiness in my chest and radiates outward until my hands are shaking and I feel like I’m gasping for air. I have to put a hand on the wall to keep my balance.

      I wonder if I’ve made the right decision.

      Barclay wanted me to go with him. I haven’t changed my mind—I still don’t understand what I can do to help. And I still don’t think that following Barclay blindly without knowing his plan is a smart thing for me to do. I’m not Ben. I can’t portal around on my own. He wouldn’t want me lost in some other world.

      But even knowing all that, even repeating it to myself, I can’t silence the thoughts that say: Maybe Ben needs me.

       Maybe I should go.

      

       wake with a start, drenched in sweat, my heart racing. A shadow is looming over me, a hand heavy on my shoulder. For a second it reminds me of the first time I really noticed Ben—when I came back from the dead to see his silhouette leaning over me. I open my mouth to say his name.

      But the fog of sleep disappears, and I recognize Deirdre’s blond hair.

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