glasses, takes a look at the clock on the bedside table. “Erin, it’s after midnight. What’s going on?”
“We’re getting out of here.” The statement is calm, matter-of-fact: it leaves no room for argument. “This isn’t the time to explain. You need to trust me.”
“I do trust you, but Erin, I’m not going to get out of bed and . . . run away . . . because you had a bad dream.” He schools his face, trying to look understanding when all he feels is confused. “Come back to bed. You can tell me all about it.”
“You’ve been hearing your sister’s voice in your head since you were in elementary school. I don’t know exactly when it started in this timeline, since you never trusted me enough to tell me, but I’m guessing between the ages of seven and nine. You told me once that that was the ‘sweet spot’ for acceptance in small children.” That had been another timeline, another Roger. Her memory of the conversation is hazy, but the fact that she remembers means it was important, that he told her to hold on to the information no matter what came next. She remembers him without glasses, with shorter hair, with a mustache. It’s all superficial, the result of small choices gone differently, culminating in someone who was almost, but not quite, the Roger in front of her.
They destroy themselves every time they destroy the world. Their past is littered with the unburied bodies of the people they chose never to become.
Roger gapes before his mouth snaps shut and he sits up straighter, some of the old wariness coming back into his eyes. “I don’t have a sister.” The lie is automatic. He’s ashamed of it: his cheeks redden, he presses on, saying, “Even if I did, that wouldn’t make us . . . whatever that would make us.”
“I know most people believe every word that comes out of your mouth, but I was Dodger’s roommate before I was your girlfriend, and I’m not going to forget her. She’s your sister, and if you’re in danger, so is she. I had to stay with one of you, and you were the more dangerous, so you got me. We need to find her.” Erin purses her lips. “Unless you think she’d listen if you called? Give it a try. She needs to be warned. I honestly don’t know if they have her under surveillance, and if they do, we could be running for nothing.” She can’t count on the way the other timelines have played out to give them time to get to Dodger. The trouble with starting from scratch over and over is that things can change. If they’ve changed too much, this is the end of the game, and she’s throwing herself away on a plan that can never work.
Roger is looking at her with increasing dismay. He’s a smart man. There are things he hasn’t thought about for years, moments when she broke character, when she tried to warn him. She can see him putting the pieces together, finding the way they fit together, however much he wants them not to.
“Erin . . . ?” he finally says. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Dodger Cheswich is your sister,” she replies. “Denial is fun, and I’ve encouraged it, to be fair, but the time for denial is over. You need to wake up if you don’t want this to be the ending. Did you really manage to forget I knew about her—did you run away from yourself that hard? Why else would I have let you keep her picture next to our bed for all these years? Seriously, you’re smarter than that. Think.”
“That doesn’t mean . . .” He tapers off, stops dead, and gives her a narrow-eyed, suspicious look. “Her being my sister doesn’t mean any of those other things.”
“Yeah, it does. We’ve met before, Roger, on the improbable road, and I know where you come from.” The answer is so much bigger and more complicated than that, but these are the answers he can accept here and now, and she needs him to accept. She needs him moving. If she doesn’t do her job by morning, they’ll know, and they’ll send someone who will. She’s not their only hunter. “Can you call her or not?”
“I don’t have her number.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Erin’s eyes are cold. “Close your eyes, and call her. I know you can. You know you can. We don’t have the time for