Chapter 34 Rose
We appear in a deserted park surrounded by tall pine trees, Parker carrying Ella’s future self in his arms. He lowers her to the ground and yanks a small syringe from the side of his neck, his gaze never leaving her blank face.
I keep waiting for her to blink. To draw breath. But her body remains still, her unfocused gaze tilted toward the insultingly blue sky. The metallic scent of blood fills my nostrils and I keel over and dry retch into the grass.
Parker presses his fingers to her neck and whispers, “She’s gone.” He closes her eyelids and cradles her against his chest. Head bowed, he shakes as he sobs, at first quietly, then louder, until he’s gasping for breath between each cry.
The guttural sounds tear at my insides. I turn away, clamping my eyes shut, as if it will erase the image of my dead best friend burned into my mind. I should do something. Cry? Scream? But I’m numb. I half sit, half fall onto the wet grass beside Parker and just breathe.
“Rose.” Parker’s hoarse voice startles me.
“Where are you going?” I ask, jumping to my feet. He’s fading, as if he’s about to travel.
“I don’t know. It’s not me,” he says, staring at his translucent hands with wide eyes.
“Well, fight it.” I don’t understand. Five minutes ago, Parker traveled three of us at once, without touching me.
He lowers his head in concentration, yet his body continues to fade. “I can’t. I think I’m losing my ability.”
I point to the needle mark on his neck. “They shot you with something.”
Parker’s face pales, his hand ghosting over the puncture site. “You have to hold us here.”
“I can’t travel three people at once,” I cry. “I struggle with two.”
Parker’s eyes meet mine. “Try, Rose. You can do this. Focus.”
I take a deep breath and kneel beside him, placing one hand on his shoulder. Taking Ella’s cold fingers in my other hand, I focus every part of my being into holding them in this moment with me. Sweat breaks out across my brow, yet slowly, they reappear.
“How long can you hold it for?” Parker asks.
Pain rips through my head. “Not long.” I gasp. “A minute at most.”
Parker lays Ella’s future self down on the grass and kisses her on the cheek. My head pounds in warning, and their bodies fade.
“I need to let her go,” I say.
With silent tears streaming down his face, he unfastens her heart-shaped necklace and tucks it into his pocket. “Goodbye,” he says, his voice breaking.
I place her hands over her still chest and let go. “Goodbye,” I whisper, and she disappears.
“Take my watch off,” I say, holding out my hand. The other still clings to Parker’s shoulder. “It could be a way for them to track us.”
Parker removes the black smartwatches Neurovida gave us in silence, any trace of emotion leached from his face. I keep my concentration on him, placing my free hand on his other shoulder. “Are you ready?”
I push through the pain, waiting until Parker’s bloodshot, empty eyes reach mine. He nods, and we disappear.
I return to my body, resting on my bed, and drop my head into my hands.
The bed dips beside me. “It’s okay, Rose,” Parker says, wrapping his arms around me, and for once I let him hold me.
Parker hoped reliving Ella’s last moments might provide insight.
Details we’d missed, like what happened to the other Alphas or why Matthews betrayed us.
None of those questions were answered. Reliving my past has only highlighted the lack of time I’ve had to process her death.
We’ve been running from the moment we left Neurovida, focused on saving Parker’s life and what comes next.
I piece myself together and pull away from Parker. “No, it’s not okay. She’s gone. Nothing we do will change that. It’s hopeless.”
He sits beside me. “I don’t think it is,” he says, his voice lifting.
“What do you mean?” I ask, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
“Did Ella’s future self ever tell you she broke her wrist before Neurovida?”
“Yeah of course. It hurt her all the time. Especially during fights.”
“And after we stole McGregor’s journal and your memories split? Did you lose or gain any memories involving her wrist?” Parker asks.
“I don’t think so?” I filter through my hazy, split memories. “No. Why?”
Parker runs a tense hand through his hair. “When Ella bandaged my chest, I noticed a scar on her left wrist.”
“Okay,” I state. “That’s nothing new.”
“But what if it is?” He stands from the bed and paces, something I’ve never seen him do. “Because before that day, I thought I’d never noticed it before, or it was hidden beneath her watch,” he says. “So tell me why, in my memory of her death, there’s no scar on either wrist.”
“I’m not following Parker.”
“Why do you have memories of her with a sore wrist at Neurovida and I don’t?” He strides toward me. “Don’t you get it? Something changed in Ella’s past, before we showed up, and it’s only altered your memories, not mine.”
“Because you haven’t been back to our time since you regained your powers. Your memories haven’t split yet.”
“But neither have yours,” Parker says.
“I—” I go to argue and slam my mouth shut.
If something changed in her past, and it involved her wrist, I would have gained new memories, in addition to my existing ones, but I haven’t.
And those memories would be split. Blurred together.
I wouldn’t know which were real. But my memories surrounding Ella’s broken wrist remain intact. “How is that possible?”
“It’s not,” Parker says. His shoulders drop.
“Fuck,” I say, straightening. “Okay, if what you’re saying is right, what other inconsistencies have you noticed between Ella in the past and Ella at Neurovida?”
Parker halts. “Her ex-boyfriend, Glenn.”
He mentioned this before, but at the time, the information seemed trivial. “No. She never had a boyfriend before Neurovida,” I say.
“Yes, she did. His name was Glenn and they met at the start of college, but when I brought him up, Ella said she’d been hanging out with someone called Silas.
She never met Glenn.” Parker groans in frustration.
“Can’t you see—” He plonks down on the bed beside me.
“So many of the memories she used to enter at Neurovida involved Glenn. You trained with her every day and yet you have no memory of Glenn, not even split ones.”
“What are you fucking saying?”
“Rose, your memories aren’t split because they’ve been replaced. And the second I go back to our current time, mine will be replaced too.”
I stare at the off-white wall opposite my bed and my stomach turns. “There’s something else.” I hesitate. How has it taken me so long to put this together? “Ella told me she has medication that stops her sub-t. Completely.”
“What?” Parker yells. “And you didn’t say anything?”
I press my palms into my eyes. “I’m so stupid. She said they were sleeping pills, so I didn’t think much of it. And I saw the same drug in McGregor’s book, E24… something, and it sounded familiar, but then you got your powers back and—”
“Did she say who gave her the pills?” Parker asks, running a hand through his hair.
“I can’t remember. No, wait.” I want to kick myself. “She said her friend Silas got her in with some psychiatrist.”
Parker’s face pales. “We need to see Ella. Now.”