“Stop.” Her voice was sharp and loud, the usual smooth edges disappearing in her anger. “I’m not a thing, and I’m not joking around. I care about you both.”
“One of us more than the other.” There was no reason to bother trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“You aren’t being fair. I don’t want to be the thing that ends your friendship. You two used to be like brothers.”
el’s jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth. “I still think there were limitations because of the exotic matter formula. Remember how much he’d aged when he came out of the veil in Liam’s office? I was shocked he was healthy tonight.”
“I can’t stop thinking about something Cat said.” Em stared at the floor. “That Jack piggybacked my travel gene to get out of the bridge when he was stuck. I know only travelers can move through time, but the continuum is so screwed up now. He could still be manipulating it.”
“That could mean …” I stopped cold and waited for Em to finish.
“If Jack could piggyback a gene to get out of a bridge, could he piggyback to get into one? And if he can get into a bridge, can he use it to time travel?”
The massive oak doors to the Phone Company swung inward to admit my dad, putting a quick end to our theorizing.
He picked his way through glass and overturned furniture to the stage. He kissed Em’s cheek and gave Michael a long look. My ribs gave another twinge before he turned his attention to me. “Show me.”
Keeping my eyes on the far wall, I lifted my shirt just enough for him to see the beginnings of a nasty blue bruise starting where my ribs had caught the stage.
“Do you think they’re broken?” He tapped the pocket of his brown tweed jacket and pulled out a pair of glasses.
I still didn’t look at him. “I don’t even think they’re cracked.”
He slid the glasses on and leaned in closer, furrowing his brows in concern. “You wouldn’t tell me if they were.”
I shrugged and dropped the shirt. There were lots of things I didn’t tell him. From the way he’d looked at Michael, he had secrets of his own.
Dad straightened and removed the glasses, dropping them back into his pocket. His eyes fixed on the exact spot where Jack had appeared and disappeared.
“A veil,” he murmured. “Is that where Jack showed up?”
“And where he disappeared.” Em shuddered. “Wonder when he’ll be back. And what he wants this time.”
Dad and Michael exchanged a look over Em’s head. I knew what they were thinking.
Jack wanted her.
“You can’t worry about that,” Dad said to her, with a gentleness he used to reserve for my mom, or me when I was a lot younger. “We can’t anticipate Jack’s every move.”
“We can anticipate that he doesn’t care about the continuum,” Em said, “or all the ways he can screw it up.”
I knew what was coming next, and not just from Em’s pointed stare at me. Bossypants.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you going to tell him?”
“Tell me what?” Dad asked.
Coerced and trapped. “I saw a rip today. I know it was a rip, because Em was with me.”
He didn’t say anything, just rubbed his beard the way he always did when approaching a problem.
“Why aren’t you surprised?” I asked, the uneasiness growing in my gut.
“Because it’s not a surprise.” He dropped his hand and sighed deeply. “I didn’t have to call Nate and Dune to come and stay with your mom. They were already at the house, along with Ava. They’ve all seen rips, too.”
Chapter 3
I stared at Dad, thrown by the implications.