Chapter 22

The parking lot is completely empty as I drive up to Ziro Labs. If this really is going to be some kind of showdown, Ezekiel clearly doesn't want an audience. Even the security guard at the desk is gone. My footsteps echo in the hallway. I've been inside this building every day for the last two years—I refuse to think of it as longer—but suddenly the clean white walls and the squeak of my shoes on the tiles aren't familiar. The silence around me is ominous, and I have a moment of panic as the elevator doors shut. Too late now. I descend to the subbasement.

The hallway is as vacant as the main floor, but the glow from the last door beckons me. When I open it, everything is nearly the same as it was last time. The machine. My mother. Except now Ezekiel is there, and he's holding her hand.

"Look," he says with an elated smile as I walk in. He lifts my mother's hand triumphantly. "Isn't she perfect?"

I can't make myself approach. She may be solid, but she's not awake. Whatever is happening, that's not really my mother.

"What did you do?" I ask, trying to keep my voice from trembling.

"I brought her back. I told you we were going to save the world." Ezekiel's gaze is glassy and unfocused. He might know I'm here, but I don't think he's actually speaking to me.

Something like an inky black tendril slithers out from one of his shirtsleeves, winding its way toward his hand... and my mother's.

Indigo.

Ezekiel's eyes widen as he looks down at their joined hands, and at least he has the sense to pull away. He laughs as he adjusts his cuffs. The black apparition slides back inside like a creature returning to its den.

"You see?" he asks. I really wish he'd stop smiling. "I told you I could control him."

A million questions collide together in a traffic jam at the back of my throat. What does he mean by control? How long has he been Indigo? Is that really my mother? If so, how did he get her here? And what does that have to do with me and Jasper?

Finally, his focus sharpens, and his smile turns kind instead of feverish as he looks at me from across the room.

"I owe you some explanations," he says, and for a second, I can see my stepfather. My colleague. He would never let me get hurt, if only because he loved my mother too much to let it happen. But as I glance at her still form glowing in the machine, an uneasy voice in the back of my head asks if maybe that's exactly the problem. He loved her too much.

"Were you always Indigo?" I can't help the way my hands clench into fists as I speak. "Were you always going to betray us?"

His expression changes to surprise and he shakes his head adamantly. "No. No of course not. I'm not Indigo. I'm only working with him for a little while."

"Like you're working with Walter Wolfe?" I half expected to find him here, gun at the ready while he issued threats. But it's only me and Ezekiel, who snorts at my question.

"Wolfe has nothing to do with this. His vision is too small. He started bragging about a time machine, but he didn't understand its potential. Thought he'd use it to steal crown jewels and buy stocks for public companies that hadn't hit it big yet. I knew it could do so much more." He's back to staring down at my mother, and I want to scream at him to get away from her. Whether he's himself or Indigo or something in between, I can't have him corrupting her.

"So, the plans?" I ask. "The ones in his office?"

"Stole them. It wasn't hard. We weren't making progress fast enough, and Farah kept getting further and further away. Indigo could only provide so much support. I'm sorry for sending you on a wild goose chase, but I needed more time. Your mother wasn't ready yet."

The confession leaves a bitter taste at the back of my throat. His sketch. The one that jump-started the machine design. Jasper and I believed Wolfe had stolen the Ziro Machine plans, but it was the other way around the whole time. And when he says he needed more time, somehow I know he means he needed me to die some more, though I don't understand the connection yet.

"This isn't really about climate change, is it?" I ask. All of me is poised to run. Not that I can outrun Indigo if he makes a full appearance. But there's something almost as menacing about Ezekiel's mannerisms right now. Like if I ask the wrong question or upset him, he'll leave me dead on the floor and waltz out of here with my mother to finish up whatever experiment this is somewhere else.

"It can be," he says, looking up at the machine. "After we bring your mother back, we can do anything we want. Everything is energy, in the end. Indigo explained it to me. I found him after he..." He has to clear his throat before he keeps speaking. "After your mother died. I went to the building looking for her body, even though the authorities said it was hopeless. I found him instead. He was weak. Nearly dead himself. But he said... he promised me..." His tears catch me off guard as they spill down his cheeks. "I failed her, Morgan. I told her the light box would work. That we could trap him and no one would get hurt. But she did. The box failed, and she died, and it was my fault."

I stumble back. The pain in his voice hurts almost as much as my heart stopping, because I know it so well. I've felt it, as the voices in my head tell me that it was my fault. That I was never good enough, and if I'd only found a way to be as super as she was, I might have been able to save her.

"But partnering with Indigo? That was the only solution?" I ask.

He wipes his nose with his sleeve. It's a decidedly un-Ezekiel gesture. Indigo's inky coils try to slip free of the cuff again.

"He said he'd tell me how to do it. All I had to do was give him somewhere to recover. I didn't realize at the time he meant inside me, but we all have to make sacrifices. For the greater good. And what could help humanity more than bringing her back? When she's alive again, she'll be able to stop him," Ezekiel says, taking her hand again. The Indigo wisps wrap around her too, spiraling quickly up her arm. The intrusion makes her ripple, like she's reverting to her intangible form. She won't be able to stop anything the way she is right now.

"Ezekiel!" I point, and he finally seems to notice the threat, letting go of her and shaking his arm like it's on fire. His face contorts as Indigo realizes his intrusion has failed and turns itself back on Ezekiel. For a second, his eyes go completely black, like the pupils have consumed everything else. He flickers, becoming negative space where the light around him continues to shine, but his silhouette blocks it from passing through, before he returns to his normal, human form. Though I'm starting to wonder how much humanity is really left in him.

"See?" he says, like nothing at all weird has happened.

"So you're in charge? Except for the times he showed up at the house and here to kill me on the spot?"

"An accident. I was distracted, and he gets impatient sometimes. Your deaths are inevitable now. Nature is always about balance. Once it happened the first time, it was always going to happen again. But if it takes too long, sometimes he slips his leash to speed things along. Every reset makes him a little stronger, I think, just like her, but I'm still in charge. I can reel him back in. Nothing to worry about."

I am so, so worried. What does he mean my deaths were inevitable? My fingers prickle with power, with the desire to freeze him to the floor and smash him like I did Walter Wolfe. But he's talking for a change instead of feigning care and ignorance like he has since I started remembering. If I think of this as a data-gathering mission, not a suicide one, maybe I can finally get the answers I need.

"What about us? Me and Jasper. What do we have to do with anything?"

"It's all energy," he says, like it's the simplest explanation in history. "All of it. Climate. Storms. Travel is moving your molecules through and around others that stay in place. Life and death. She was still there, Morgan. We couldn't see her, but you don't cease to exist in death. Your energy only goes somewhere else. All I had to do was find it, anchor it to something compatible, and bring her back."

I have a sinking feeling. "Compatible?"

His smile is once again compassionate. Fatherly. "She loved you a lot. You're so similar. Stubborn. Brave. She would be so proud of how hard you've worked. So who else could I have used to call her back? Once we had the machine assembled, it was easy."

"Easy as me dying?" Like I've become some kind of superhero homing beacon. The last few years have been filled with so much purpose, but it was all a sham. Lies to keep me from guessing what was really going on.

Ezekiel moves toward me, reaching out like he might comfort me. Slim chance of that. I can already see Indigo trying to creep out from Ezekiel's sleeves again, as well as from the neck of the fine collared shirt he's wearing. The ink swirls around Ezekiel's throat, and he doesn't seem to know.

"It's a balance. Death releases so much energy," he says. "How could she not come back for that? Of course, her energy returned in very small amounts every time, but that's why you weren't supposed to remember. Our minds aren't built to understand the repetition of time. We want so much to see it as linear. But I needed more of it, so I built the loop."

And trapped us for years. Over and over without our knowledge or consent. I don't think I can ever forgive him for that. For what he's done to Jasper. And what he's describing goes beyond finding a needle in the cosmic haystack. Even if that's how death worked, it's not the same as finding change on the sidewalk. You can't vacuum her up, sort through the bits, and reassemble her puzzle pieces to make a living, breathing human being.

Though as I look down at her, floating in the machine's radiant embrace, I have to admit somehow, he seems to have done it. But at what cost?

"If we keep going in this timeline, Jasper will die," I say, trying to appeal to any shred of humanity he has left.

He nods, making me hope he understands, until he says, "I'm sorry about your friend. I didn't consider what the long-term effects might be. Without powers or a legacy like you and your mother have, it was inevitable he would die. Every reset scrambles things a little. I can't believe he lasted as long as he has, to be honest. But I thought you might enjoy spending time with him. That's why I picked tonight to repeat. I saw it when we were working. You were so isolated. I figured if we needed to buy time until your mother came back, at least you could have some company. You seemed comfortable enough with him when you came to see me at the office. Didn't you like him?"

The mental gymnastics going on inside my head better win me a medal when this is done. He's saying that our date was some kind of matchmaking distraction. Poor oblivious Morgan won't notice he's died a thousand times because he'll be too busy gazing into Jasper's speckled eyes. And worse, that Jasper is only collateral damage. That my mother's life matters more than his. Why? Because she might save people and he won't? Only because he never had a chance. He could have helped so many people as a doctor if he hadn't been caught up in Walter Wolfe's traps... and Ezekiel's.

I look up at the machine. The thick wires dangle from the ceiling, out of reach.

"Turn it off," I say.

Ezekiel blinks, looking confused. "What?"

"The machine. Turn it off. The experiment is over." I reach for the closest cord. No idea what it does. It might electrocute me with the voltage of a small power station or make me burst into a ball of flames. Doesn't matter. I'm sorry Ezekiel's grief has pulled him so far under, but that doesn't justify what he's done. Who's to say he'd only use it this one time? He might get my mother back and decide to resurrect other great heroes from the past. Or he's vastly overestimated his control over Indigo. If Indigo wins, he might trap so many people and their deaths in the machine for his own profit. Even in a world with powerful heroes and villains, there are limits to what can be allowed.

"Stop." Ezekiel grabs me. The glow in the room gets brighter. My emotions are rising and my control is slipping. If I could get a hand on the components inside, I could freeze them enough the whole thing would probably short-circuit. Even the most powerful flow of energy stops if you drop the temperature enough. I'll sink this place to absolute zero if I have to.

For a split second, my gaze drops to my mother. I think her eyelids might flicker, like she's dreaming. If she is real and actually here, I hope she can't hear what Ezekiel's done. He may think it's justified, but I don't think she would ever forgive him.

"I love you," I whisper. "I'm sorry."

I twist, breaking Ezekiel's hold and plunge my hand into the glowing field until my fingers tangle with my mother's. Then I find the switch inside me. I flip it, focusing on the not-quite-alive weight of her hand in mine. There's something there. Ezekiel is right. She's so close to coming back. I don't know how he did it. Better if I never know. The sacrifice is too high.

So instead, I close my eyes and focus on pulling the something inside of her out.

Absorbing it.

Making it mine.

It's a lot. I expect her to go cold. Turn icy like the thugs in the penthouse. Maybe she's close enough to living that she's fighting me. My hand is freezing and hers is burning hot. I frown as I take the heat, letting it slip inside me. It's like frost thawing on a windshield. The warmth wins the battle, travelling up my arm, lighting my heart on fire.

Around me, the sounds of the machine and Ezekiel's protests vanish. There is only me and my mother. For a second, she opens her eyes.

"Morgan," she says.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

The fire and the ice twist and dance and consume us both as the basement room comes back into focus.

"What are you—" Ezekiel asks, but he's too late. "Stop!" He collides with me, knocking me off my feet and ripping me away from my mother's still form. His eyes are fully black as he snarls. "What did you do?"

The room around us is so bright it hurts, and the machine's noise shakes the floor, like some part of the gears is off balance.

When the light clears, my mother is gone. Vanished. There's no body on the floor, or in the air, or anywhere. But it's not over. The only way to finish this is to destroy the supervillain roaring in my face. Ezekiel's eyes are still black, and his face is contorted with rage. His hand is on my throat, and I mirror the gesture, squeezing tight just beneath his jaw. He said it was all energy. Me, him. Even Indigo. And it turns out, now that I know how, I am very good at moving energy from one place to another.

I close my eyes and open up. I hardly even need to flip the switch. A long exhale while I focus on Indigo's power clashing up against mine is all it takes. Unlike at the window at Ziro Hall, I don't fight it now. I let it in, even as it makes me gag. It's not like the others. It's so much more. Bigger. Uglier. His is a poison meant to kill.

"What are you doing?" His voice is a snarl. It hardly sounds like Ezekiel anymore.

Honestly, I'm not sure. It hasn't even been a week since I learned how to do this. Not really. But all I know is Ezekiel has to be stopped. Why couldn't he have grieved like the rest of us? There's throwing yourself into your work and then there's ripping through the fabric of time and mortality.

"I'm sorry," I say. I am. But my whole childhood was spent being told that it was our responsibility to make the hard decisions. That we had to keep people safe, even when the personal cost was too high. And I could never do it. I couldn't be the person I'd been told from the beginning I was destined to be. Until now. I'm not afraid of the pain. Not even afraid of dying. I've done it so many times now, that kind of fear is a distant memory.

I let it in. All of it. The darkness. The rage and despair.

Indigo is like venom. I choke on it, but when he tries to pull away, I tighten my grip on him, using both hands to hold him—and Ezekiel's body—in place. The inky darkness is erasing the features I knew, dissolving it all into shadow. For a second, I panic. I can't hold on to shadows. I try to pull Indigo in faster before he escapes. Then the shell of Ezekiel is gone, and my fingers slip through the emptiness. I scramble backward. Indigo follows, swelling to consume the light in the room.

No, he's not following. I'm taking him with me. It's like we're connected, and even as he seems to get bigger and bigger around me, I can sense more and more of him inside me, writhing like an animal in a trap. I can practically taste him in the back of my throat and feel him in my veins. I know how it happened. How Ezekiel let Indigo and his sadness win, taking him to places no hero ever would. It takes all my effort to hold on to Indigo. I am the trap, like the light box two years ago, and just like the box, I'm breaking apart. Ezekiel would never have been able to fully withstand him.

I stumble toward the machine. The floor shudders beneath me. The empty chamber where my mother was is still glowing. The blue light shimmers and blinks, flashing like a warning.

Energy has to go somewhere. Ezekiel has poured four years of death and grief into this experiment, and now it needs to be contained.

The machine sounds like a monster demanding to be fed as Indigo makes one last bid for freedom, but I don't think we could untangle ourselves now even if I wanted to. We're going in together.

Stepping into the machine is like stepping into a cheese grater. The connection with Indigo is torn apart, leaving me with the sensation that my chest has been ripped open. The inky black swirls away down some kind of cosmic drain. I'm left alone, watching as lights and colours spin around me. For a minute, I can see it all. Every day. Every night. Jasper's lopsided grin, and the stain of his blood on my hands. The flash of bus lights. Then further back. My mother's funeral. Her with Ezekiel, sitting together like they're settling in for a night of television. I'm not even sure that ever happened. Maybe it's what I wished for them, if their lives hadn't been so defined by ambition and obligation to a greater purpose.

"Are you coming?" a voice that sounds like Jasper's asks over my shoulder. "You didn't forget, did you?"

He smiles as I turn. I take his hand. He looks like the first time I saw him. Charming. Handsome. Optimistic. This is the Jasper I want. He has to survive so we can be like this together.

"I would never forget you."

The world blasts into shards of infinite blue and white, taking us with it.