to get their hands on some hydrochloradneum to keep the radiation from frying him.
Ben liked that plan and promised him he’d talk to his brother about it. No matter what, he knew he couldn’t stay where he was.
But IA busted them, took them to Prima, and threw them in prison. Elijah was sure it was because he’d been universe hopping, and as a result, he’d somehow gotten Ben in trouble too.
But it was worse.
Their abilities had been recorded in Barclay and Brandt’s original case report. Two young men who could portal in and out of any world without being tracked by technology were exactly what a human-trafficking ring could use, especially a ring that was currently attracting heat from the IA’s wonder-boy agent, Taylor Barclay.
While Ben and Elijah were in prison, Meridian broke into their apartments and confiscated their belongings. He found the notebook where Elijah kept notes on the different worlds he’d visited. Meridian praised what Elijah could do, the notes he’d taken, and promised him money, power, women—anything he wanted.
For a second, it was tempting—not for the money, power, or women, but for the freedom to go from universe to universe and discover what was out there. That was something Elijah wanted.
But this was slavery, and Elijah knew what it was like to be taken from your family and your world, and he wasn’t about to do that to anyone else. So he refused.
That’s when the threats started. They threatened his life and his body—and they beat and tortured him to prove they could follow through. Still he refused. So they threatened his mother and everyone he cared about.
He bluffed, shrugged, and told them to go ahead.
So they took some of his blood and beat him for good measure, but left him in his cell.
He didn’t see Ben—not since they were first arrested. They were in different cells and weren’t allowed to see or talk to each other, but some nights Elijah could hear Ben scream.
And he heard him scream the last night Ben was there—the night before he agreed to help them. It was when Meridian and IA threatened people they cared about. They threatened to bring in his parents, his brother. And then they did. They brought someone in—beaten and bloody—and told Ben he could watch them die, or he could help.
That’s when he gave in.
02:23:49:27
“And that’s it. I’ve been rotting in that cell, eating sloppy mush and waiting for him to come back and get me out of there.” Elijah cracks his knuckles and looks at Barclay. “So, you gonna call in the cavalry or what? I’m ready to beat some asses.”
“Why did they take your blood?” I ask, ignoring his question. He just got shot; he’s not going to beat anyone’s asses, and there’s no cavalry to call in. We’re it.
“To do tests and shit.” He rolls up a sleeve and shows me the needle marks.
For a minute I don’t get it, then Barclay says, “If you were running a human-trafficking ring between universes, wouldn’t you want to somehow replicate what he and Ben can do?”
A shiver moves through my body. Criminals with the power to move through the universes—go wherever they want—without a quantum charger. They’d be virtually untraceable. And who knows what kind of damage all those unstable portals would do to the multiverse.
“Tell me more about Meridian,” Barclay says.
Elijah describes him—six feet, lanky, sandy-blond hair shaved close to his head, scruffy facial hair, light eyes, barbed-wire tattoo—and Barclay jots down notes, adding a few questions here and there, and I recognize this for what it is—a gentle interrogation. It’s the way you question a victim about their attacker. Quietly, nonthreatening, slowly.
I watch Elijah when he answers. He speaks deliberately. He’s calmer than he was in my world, more thoughtful. He still swears a lot, but it’s more habit than swearing for some kind of effect. I can’t imagine what he’s been through, not just in the prison, but in the months before it. He spent seven years waiting to get home, and when he finally did, he found out it didn’t exist anymore.
And that makes me think of Ben.
As horrible as this is, I find myself wishing it hadn’t been Elijah in that cell, that I hadn’t gone in to break him out. I wish it had been Ben. Because I have a fierce urge to lay my face against his chest and breathe him in until the world makes sense again.