Chapter 20

Any date that begins with?—

I don't even stay at my table. Vee's about to ask me if she can't make me something, but I don't stop to talk as I rush for the door. When the green cap comes around the corner, I take off running down the sidewalk. Jasper is deep in thought and doesn't even look up until I'm ten feet away. His eyes widen in surprise as I launch myself into his arms.

"Oof." He stumbles back as he catches me. "What did you do? How long was I gone?"

"No time. No time. I couldn't. I couldn't do it without—" My words are all punctuated with giddy kisses and he laughs.

"Morgan."

"Are you okay?" I barely have my feet on the ground and I'm pulling at his shirt, fumbling with buttons.

"You're going to strip me right here on the street?" He's still laughing, but he grabs for my trembling fingers, trying to keep me from undressing him entirely.

But I won't be dissuaded so quickly. "The... your chest. The wound. Are you—" When I brush over the spot where the ugly bruise was the night before, he yelps.

"Ow. Shit." Then he freezes. "What... why does it still hurt? It never hurts the day after for you, does it?"

I pull him across the street. If he won't take off his shirt in public, the next best option is my car. He tugs both the flannel and T-shirt over his head, groaning as he does it. I hope his modesty will survive as I turn on the overhead dome light, though I hardly need it. The bruise on his chest is ugly and purple.

"Why? It's bigger now than it was before." He brushes the edges with his fingertips. "Why is it like that? You don't have any scars or anything, do you?"

I shake my head. Jasper's stomach growls.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I say between clenched teeth.

"What?" He grins sheepishly. "I may be dying, but doesn't mean I'm not hungry. I deserve a last meal."

That's decidedly unfunny. Now is not the time for humour. "I'm not going to let you die."

He grimaces, rubbing his chest. "Not sure you get a choice." Without warning, he coughs. The sound is already wet. We don't have much time.

"Jasper." My voice wobbles.

"It's okay." He takes my hand, kissing the knuckles. When he looks up, dark circles are forming under his eyes.

I shake my head furiously. "It's not. I have a plan. My powers. I can restart the day. Whenever we need to. It doesn't hurt."

"And what?" he asks. He hasn't let go of my hand and he runs his thumb over the back of it. It's meant to be comforting, though his words are anything but. "We go on our first date forever and ever?"

"We'll make progress," I say. His gaze is steady, but there's sadness in his eyes. Resignation. It's like the first night again, when he thought he'd be alone forever, only now he believes it's me who's going to be left here by myself. "Don't worry. This isn't the end. When you..." I clear my throat. "When you... we'll start over."

Jasper doesn't say anything. He shivers as he pulls his shirt on, covering the internal wound that's slowly killing him. Again. I don't understand it as I run my hand over my own body, feeling all the places where aches and pains have healed. If I were like Jasper, after two months or even more, I shouldn't be able to walk—or breathe or speak or anything. The bus alone should have left me a crumpled mess.

I lean across the car and kiss his cheek. "We'll go to the lab," I say. "See about the machine in the basement. If that's as far as we get today, that's fine."

"The lab? What lab?"

Did I not tell him about that? Was I so horny that the topic of the apparition of my dead mother slipped my mind? It certainly wasn't enough that I didn't?—

I gasp and cover my mouth with my hands.

"What? What is it?" Jasper pulls my wrists.

The horror is unthinkable. Oh god. I seriously consider freezing us both solid in my car to avoid the conversation, but it's not like he won't remember if we start again. The only way out of this is through it.

Still. Asking the question is agony.

"Did I really interrupt you midsex to tell you about my dead mother?"

He blinks a few times. Clearly, he was expecting a different, more earth-shattering crisis, though I really don't see what could be worse than this. But then he wrinkles his nose like it's the funniest thing he's heard all day, and when he laughs, I know it's going to be okay.

"Technically, it was midforeplay. And it seemed kind of important."

I put my hands to my cheeks, trying to cool my burning face. "But not so important that I remembered to tell you I saw her."

His smile vanishes. "What?"

"At the lab. Right before the last time I died." Not including giving myself hypothermia on the bathroom floor. "Well... the other last time."

He whirls, like she might appear in the car. "You saw her? Your mother? You saw the Legendary Flame and jumping my bones seemed more important?"

"I didn't jump your bones, Jasper. I seduced you."

He looks appalled. "You didn't even buy me dinner first."

I gape. "Now who's fighting?"

He's laughing once again. Jasper always seems to be laughing. But suddenly he winces, putting a hand to his chest. His face contorts in pain. We're running out of time.

"We have to go to the lab," I say.

"Your mother is at the lab?"

I don't even know who's at the lab. Indigo, yes. Something that looks like my mother but has all the substance of a mirage. So many questions, and if we don't hurry up, Jasper will be dead again before we get there.

Jasper coughs a few times as we drive, and each one ratchets up my nerves. I have no idea how long he has. If we go by yesterday, then at least four or five hours still, but I would have noticed the bruise on his chest while we were having sex, wouldn't I? So it's accelerating, making today's timeline uncertain.

We go in through the back door, and Jasper doesn't make a dig about my "Prestidigitator" password, which makes me even more nervous, as does the way he's moving slower than normal. I lead him to the elevator, and when the door opens to the subbasement, I hesitate for a moment. Maybe this is the wrong choice. Maybe, instead of dragging Jasper around town, we should go somewhere quiet. Somewhere private. Enjoy the time we have.

Inside, though, I'm afraid I won't be able to save him. I can't survive this alone. I mean, I probably can. Sooner or later, I'll figure out what's going on. But I won't. I refuse to escape only to spend the rest of my life grieving Jasper and the fact I couldn't save him. There was ultimately nothing I could have done for my mother, and it's nearly wrecked me. Losing Jasper in here would be my fault, and it isn't something I'd ever recover from.

"Now where?" Jasper asks behind me, jolting me into motion, and I lead him down the hall.

The door at the end isn't glowing, and I'm torn between the fear that the room will be empty and that it isn't. When I push the door open, the space inside is dim.

But the machine is there, and so is my mother.

"Woah," Jasper says as he walks past me. He stares at my mom. "She looks like you."

Everyone always said so. I never could see it. I reach out to run my fingers through her hair, then gasp when my fingers tangle in the strands. My mind reels. How is that possible? Last time, she might as well have been a hologram or projection. Now she's here. Solid. What's different? There's two of us here now. And Indigo isn't. Jasper and I have both died again.

I stare at my hand in awe. It's barely enough information to form a hypothesis, much less a conclusion.

"What's wrong?" Jasper asks.

"She's—" I reach for her again, but this time my fingers slip through her like they did the previous day, and with it, all my fractured ideas go floating away.

Wishful thinking.

Jasper coughs, long and wet. I spin, expecting to find him on the floor, but he's staring at the dials on the machine. "What do you think it does?"

Ugh. Despite my previous confidence, we're never getting out of here, are we? So many questions still unanswered.

But at least Indigo isn't here? Suddenly, being in control of my own death is a far more comfortable thought than waiting for him to pop up.

"Let's go to my office," I say.

"Your office?"

"There's something I want to look at."

"What about... what about her?" He glances up at my mom, still floating in her light-up cocoon.

I drag a finger through the glow, making it ripple. She blurs, like there's a lag in a signal somewhere, before she seems to recombine, more solid than before. I'm not brave enough to try to touch her again, but my heart seems to beat in time with the gentle pulse of the light around her.

"She's not really here," I say, taking his hand. "But if we can figure out who built the machine, maybe we can figure out what it does and if it's related to the loop."

He holds my hand all the way up the elevator.

"If Clarissa or Ezekiel asks, our date has been one for the record books."

"No way to avoid them?" His face is the colour of the elevator walls. I would do anything not to see them with him in such bad shape, but time is a cruel mistress.

"They were both here last time, so we have to assume..."

The end of the sentence freezes on the tip of my tongue and sends the rest of me subzero.

"Oh," Jasper says with a cough. "Because of the data breach. I helped him fix that last time."

"What time is it?"

"Just before eight, why?"

I stab at the panel, pressing every button I can until the elevator stops, one floor below my office.

"Get off," I say.

"What? Why?" But he does as I say. Jasper stands, bewildered, as the elevator doors close without us on it. "What's going on?"

But my head is racing as I do the math. I stab at the elevator's down button, waiting impatiently for a new door to open and return us to the lobby. I want to take the stairs, but I don't think Jasper can make it. When we finally get back on the elevator, he leans heavily against the rail. I need to help him, and the best way to do that is to solve the riddle of how we got stuck here and a piece—a really unnerving piece if I'm right—has finally clicked into place.

On every date, Jasper and I were supposed to meet at Wench at seven. He was a few minutes late. The second time I remember, I was so out of it after getting hit by the bus I basically fled the moment he arrived. We argued—because that's what we do best, or is it second-best, now?—on the street for a bit. Then I drove home. It's at least twenty minutes from downtown out to the house. So no later than seven thirty, I was at home and Ezekiel was leaving because he'd gotten a call about the data breach. He was on his way back to the lab, which is another fifteen minutes from the house if there's no traffic, and you don't catch every red light between there and here.

But today, we were here at the lab by seven fifteen, and his car was in the lot.

"Morgan." Jasper follows as I shove through the back door, rushing toward my car. "What's wrong?"

"I forgot my laptop," I lie, getting into the car. My hands shake as I release the lock on the other side. This can't be it. This can't be the answer. "We don't need to go to my office. We can check at home... at your home."

"My house? It's kinda far from here." Jasper's got a hand on his chest and he's gone very pale. "Are you sure?—"

"My place, then." Anywhere that Ezekiel is not, so I can think.

I put the car in reverse and wheel around toward the exit like I'm getting ready for the demolition derby.

The house is quiet when we pull into the driveway. In a fit of what I pray is needless paranoia, I don't park in the garage, instead going around to park by what was originally servant's quarters and is now a guesthouse—not that we have many guests.

Jasper is wheezing audibly behind me as I push open the guesthouse door. The space is significantly bigger than Jasper's cozy apartment. The front room smells like dust. For a while after Mother died, I thought about moving over here, but Ezekiel convinced me to throw myself into work instead.

"Keep those off," I hiss when Jasper flips a light on.

"Why?" But he shuts it off and doesn't argue further when I glare at him. "Okay, okay. What's with the spy act?"

"I need to see something." I squint as my laptop turns on. Jasper slumps next to me, kicking up a cloud of dust and fluff from the disused sofa. His whole body strains with every inhale.

"I'll try to be quick. I need to get into the lab security system."

"Do you want me to—" He wiggles his fingers. I pretend I don't notice the way they tremble. Jasper can barely hold his hands up.

"It's fine," I say, logging into Ziro Lab's security system. "Being the boss's stepson does have some perks. I have remote access. No hacking required."

Fortunately, what I'm looking for is security camera footage from this evening, so it doesn't take long to find.

Unfortunately, what I see is exactly what I was afraid of. Ezekiel's car, parked in his spot. In fact, it doesn't even leave. It's been there since seven this morning, when we both arrived for the workday.

"Well, shit." I slump back in my chair.

"What?" Jasper coughs into his sleeve, and the flannel comes away bloody.

"Ezekiel is outside the loop."

"What?" This one is shouted, then punctuated by more coughing that doesn't stop. His chest gurgles as he gasps.

I stare at the screen where the BMW sits unmoving in the parking lot. "Ezekiel should have gone home and come back like the first time. But instead, he spent all day at the office."

"Maybe something changed." Jasper's sweating. "Like something happened that meant he had to stay at work?"

"No." I stare at the black-and-white image of Ezekiel's BMW on my screen. "If we're the only ones who affect the loop, and he was at the house before, then he should be here, unless I do something to change it."

His brow creases. "But when we went to see him, he said he didn't know anything about the loop."

And here is the part that makes my stomach turn. "He lied to us."

"Maybe he—" Jasper groans and slumps over, spitting blood onto the dusty floor.

"Morgan, I can't?—"

He may not be scared, but I can't stop my heart from pounding in my chest, even as he coughs his life away.

"It's okay," I say, helping him lie down completely. I crouch on the floor so we're eye to eye. "It's okay. We've got this."

He smiles at me with bloody teeth, and I wonder if this is how he felt all those times he had to watch me die on a sidewalk. Because it really sucks.

"It's okay," I say again.

"I'm ready," he says. Panic bubbles inside me and I shake my head, but he holds my hand. "We agreed. Start again. It'll be fine."

I take a long breath. His heat is already leaching into me, even as I breathe out puffs of condensed air.

"I'll see you soon," I say. This will be easy. Just like last night in the bathroom. Like falling asleep. I put my hand on his chest. He groans, and I whisper apologies as I reach inside myself and find the tip of frost that is already becoming familiar.

Jasper is cold all the way through when I finally let go, but somehow knowing that I'll be at Wench waiting for him soon doesn't make the whole thing any better.

I glance at the laptop and the image of Ezekiel's car. It doesn't make sense. Why would he lie to me? And more than once?

The minutes tick by. I should get on with it. Back to Wench. But I can't help myself when I go back to the computer. I watch the motionless car for a long time before finally clicking through other feeds.

There are no cameras in the room in the basement, but there are in the hall. The footage is so uneventful that I set it at high speed. I scan through days of footage before the first person appears. A janitor mops the floor. I wait for him to scrawl a hidden message on the wall or drag a body through one of the doors, but he finishes mopping and goes back to the elevator.

I go back further. Lots of emptiness. Then a man in a suit. I expect it to be Indigo, but as he's about to step through the door, he glances back once, and my heart stops.

Ezekiel.

He's there a lot. Up and down the hall. Through the door to the last room and back. He's always alone. The timestamp I'm looking at is months after we moved to the primary assembly wing. But he can't have built what's behind that door by himself. I never see him carrying anything. So where did all those parts come from?

Questions for another day. Another attempt. Jasper's waiting for me. Next time, we won't leave the diner. Travelling takes too much time. Hopefully Vee has a cord to charge my laptop. No wonder I was never able to manage more than a little spark. It wasn't my power at all. Like trying to run batteries in the wrong alignment.

Just as I'm about to close my eyes, though, a beam of light passes over me, shining through the window, before it arcs away. A car turns into the driveway, heading toward the main house. On instinct, I duck, but the car is already pulling into the garage.

"Jasper?" I say, though he can't hear me. "Someone's here."

Ezekiel. Ezekiel is here. I glance at the time. Just after nine. On the first day, I was still awake, tweaking slides I'm starting to think I'll never get to present. Ezekiel should still be at the office.

Is he Indigo? He couldn't have betrayed my mother like that. Why would he have helped her and Vee build the light box to trap Indigo if it meant trapping himself? Unless he's the reason it failed? Maybe the box was never going to work but would give him deniability when Indigo killed my mother? But that's impossible. There were too many times where Indigo was across the world and Ezekiel was here. There were witnesses. Business meetings. There's no way he could be both of them.

After this is all over, I hope I stay dead the final time long enough to at least get a decent nap out of the deal.

Lights come on in the house. My pulse pounds. I promised Jasper we'd do this together, but all my intuition says that something is wrong and that I need to know what Ezekiel is up to. I've spent the last two years working by his side, and to my knowledge he's never lied to me. Why he'd start now, at the same time everything else goes haywire, feels all kinds of wrong.

I mutter an apologetic promise to Jasper and leave the guesthouse.

Sneaking across your own front yard like you're trying to break into the house is weird. Even weirder is picking your way through the dogwood underneath the windows, hoping no one notices you being a creep.

Ezekiel is in his study, illuminated by the brass lamp on his desk. He's on the phone, and I can't hear what he's saying, but he looks relaxed, with his tie loosened around his neck and the top button of his shirt undone. Is he checking in with some henchman of his own to see if I've died yet? Whoever he's talking to, the conversation doesn't seem very urgent. He might as well be confirming travel plans, a busy philanthropist squeezing in a few more hours of productivity at home after a long day at the office.

I'm being paranoid. Too many attempts at the same day have gone to my head. Watching my boyfriend die three times in a row—facilitating that death twice—is a big ask. I'm seeing things that don't exist. What does Ezekiel gain from my death? We've essentially been brothers in arms—stepfather and stepson in arms sounds awkward—for the last two years. What does betraying me now get him?

Ezekiel's presence at home must be explained by some kind of butterfly effect, like Jasper said. Every time Jasper and I behave differently, tiny ripples cause other things to happen. I don't get hit by a bus, which means one of the passengers makes it home on time. I don't call Clarissa to whine about my date, so she has time to call Ezekiel earlier to tell him about the data breach. Maybe tonight there's no data breach at all and Ezekiel was able to come home early.

I should get back to Jasper. We can go see Ezekiel at the office together and ask him what he knows. If he says nothing, we can trust that, right?

My foot slips on a rock in the garden. Tumbling forward, I put my hands out and bang against the window frame before I drop to the ground.

Smooth. Very smooth. I glance up at the window, and the light has gone out. Great. Ezekiel will be out here to investigate any minute now and find me lurking in the bushes. I keep my head low as I get back up, risking one last peek through the window. What I see has my foot slipping again.

The light isn't out. The glow is still visible on the far wall. But none of it shines toward me, obliterated by the shadowless void that is Indigo.

He's standing at the desk where Ezekiel was a moment before. Panic washes over me like an icy wave. No, not panic. Power. The tiny dogwood at my feet has turned to brittle ice as I gathered energy on reflex. Indigo. I may have to fight Indigo to save Ezekiel. Unless he's already dead? It could happen that quickly.

I hold still, hoping Indigo can't see me beneath the windowsill. The closest exterior light is by the driveway, so I shouldn't be visible through the window, especially with Indigo blocking the light at the desk.

Slowly though, he raises a hand. I flinch, because if he's seen me, I'll be dead—and painfully—in the snap of a finger. But instead, he claps his hands together, and suddenly the room gets brighter again.

Indigo is gone. If I'd hoped to avoid the truth, it's too late for me now. My reasoning has failed because, once again, Ezekiel is standing at his desk, while the traces of black-hole shadows swirl around him and slowly evaporate. He turns, and our gazes meet through the window. His eyes flicker with surprise for the barest of seconds. I can only guess what he sees on my face, but it's not good. There's no way to hide what I know.

My heart hammers at the truth I can't avoid anymore. Because Ezekiel is Indigo.

He rushes to the window, and even through the glass, I can hear him shout my name. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest I'm dizzy. Ezekiel rushes toward the window, trails of inky smoke following in his wake. My ears are ringing. He shakes his head, like he's trying to deny what I've seen with my own eyes, and reaches out to me.

But as his hand presses against the glass, he disappears, and Indigo replaces him, a void in the warm light and sumptuous surrounding of Ezekiel's study. I swallow hard, waiting for the click of his fingers and the rush as my body shuts down, but it doesn't come.

My hand is not my own, though, as I raise my arm and touch the window, my palm pressed where Ezekiel's, where Indigo's is. I stare where his eyes should be. What would I see if he wants an empty nothingness? Still the same regret? Shame? Derision that I couldn't see what was in front of me the whole time?

Cold purpose settles over me and I open myself up. Instead of taking Jasper's hurt, I imagine taking Indigo. Saving Ezekiel. Maybe if I can separate them, then?—

I realize my mistake immediately. It should have been plain from the start. Because the second Indigo's energy slips inside me, every part of me shrinks away. I'm a split second away from the most unimaginable pain, and I yank my hand back, breaking the connection. But it's not enough. My insides turn sour, and I can practically feel them rotting. I'm contaminated. Even that tiny moment of contact—and even with the separation of the glass—leaves me feeling polluted. I choke on it as I tumble backward to the grass. As I fall, Indigo vanishes and Ezekiel is there again. The expression on his face is fearful.

Sucks to be him, but it sucks to be me more.

Because now he knows I know.

I don't know what will happen if I stay here, letting the virus of Indigo spread inside me, but I don't intend to find out. I hold Ezekiel's gaze as I imagine the ice taking me. It forms a hard case around the tainted parts of me that Indigo has touched, then I push it outward, over my organs, my muscles and bones. My heart slows, and I lie back, already planning next steps.

When Jasper and I start again, we're going to have to act quickly.