Timepiece

She’d handled it on her own.

“I guess what I don’t understand is”—Michael paused, searching for the right words—“after all those years of keeping it to yourself, why did you do it for her?”

Michael’s guitar leaned against his dresser. He’d tried to teach me chords for years, but I only ever managed to remember three. I picked it up and played each one twice before slapping my hand down on the strings to silence the sound.

“The morning I met her, I was hungover. Remember?”

He nodded, curious, but willing to wait for my answer.

“My emotions were wide open, and … she climbed right in.” I touched my hand to my heart, expecting an ache that didn’t come. “She listened.”

Before Em, no one had listened to me in a long time.

“She was completely devastated when she lost you,” I said, remembering just how broken she’d been. “Like a repeat of Mom, after Dad and the lab. You know how terrible it was.”

“I remember.”

Mom was larger than life, but so much of her life had revolved around Dad. I’d watched her close in on herself after the accident, convinced that her love for me was the only thing keeping her breathing.

I discovered that I’d failed her the morning I found her unconscious on her bathroom floor. She’d been that way ever since.

“I knew I could change it for Em. Make it better.” I stopped and stared up at the ceiling for a second. “I didn’t with Mom. I let her carry around all that grief instead of stepping in to take it. I didn’t try until she was already in the coma. There was nothing there. Too late. I didn’t do one thing that made a difference.”

“Em said it hurt you, physically.”

“That didn’t matter.” Emotional pain was layered. Taking it to ease one situation opened the doors to the past, where every emotion leaned against the one beside it. Pull out one, all the others fell. It was hard to know where to cut it off, if you got it all or if pain still remained to destroy, like cancer.

“Did your mom know? Would she have let you take her grief?”

“I would’ve insisted.” And she’d be here now.

“No one knew what Jack was doing. I should have paid attention, done more to help you both,” Michael said.

“You did enough. You took action. That’s why my dad is at my mom’s bedside right now. If anyone can bring her back, he can.”

“Thank you,” he said, meeting my eyes. There was absolutely no pride in him. Everything he felt was for Em, about Em, about her best interest. “For taking care of her. If … anything ever happened, I hope you’d do it again.”

Sorrow. Way too much for an offhand comment. I started to ask what he meant, when Em walked in, glass in hand.

“Are y’all done?” Em hopped up onto the edge of Michael’s desk. She smoothed down her hair and then smiled, as if she was remembering how it got that way.

“Yes.” I put the guitar back in the corner. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“No, sit. I wanted to talk to both of you. About Jack.”

I warily lowered myself into a chair shaped like a giant baseball mitt. Cheerful Em made me nervous.

Putting down her glass, she cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about Liam, and how he doesn’t want our help to find Jack.”

“He has reasons.” Michael’s fingers curled around the edge of the bed.

“Oh, I know he does,” she said. “But I don’t like them.”

I snorted.

Em grinned at me. “There’s one easy way to find Jack, and that’s to travel through time to somewhere he could be intercepted. Dune tracked Jack and Cat making a cash withdrawal in New York and then buying plane tickets to Heathrow, so we have times and places to look.”

“But traveling is impossible without exotic matter,” Michael said.

“Which gives Liam a good reason to be in the lab, searching for what’s missing from the exotic matter formula. Michael and I need to be there to help him.” She turned wide, innocent eyes on me. “That’s where you and Lily come in.”

“I thought you didn’t want her to help,” I said, more than nervous. Almost twitchy.

“I didn’t. Then she yelled at me.” Em winced at the memory. “A lot.”

“What does that have to do with me?” I asked.

“She’s never really used her ability outside Murphy’s Law. She also told me that she can’t track things unless she’s seen them, so to find Jack, she’ll need to see something he keeps with him. All the time.”

“That’s impossible, unless we track him down.” Michael looked at Em as if she’d lost it.

“No, it isn’t,” Em answered smugly.

“How?” Michael asked.

“You forget Lily was at the masquerade. Kaleb pushed her under the stairs, but she got a good look at Jack first.” She waited for the answer to register, and we spoke at the exact same time.

“The pocket watch.”

Chapter 13

I took a picture of Jack and the pocket watch to Murphy’s Law on Monday afternoon. He’d always carried the watch with him. I thought it was pompous, but I also thought he was a tool, so I hadn’t paid much attention.

I waited for Lily at a table in the back. She took care of her customers with efficiency and a smile. Confidence. The Hourglass school was too small to provide complications like popularity and gossip, but I knew other girls who were caught up in all that. I’d bet Lily wasn’t.

She knew what she wanted, and she was all about achieving it.

“Where are Em and Michael?” Lily asked when she finally made it over to me. She stretched, rubbing the small of her back. She was wearing the Murphy’s Law apron again, and the strings were wrapped around her waist and tied in the front.

I focused on the bookcase just behind her and tried not to notice how curvy she was. “Dad needed them after school for some research.”

“So they sent you?” She sounded disappointed.

“Calm yourself, you’re going to scare the customers,” I deadpanned. “This seems to be a persistent problem with our interactions.”

“This is where I remind myself how much I love my best friend. Abi’s at the farmers’ market in Nashville, so I have a couple of hours.” She sighed and took off the apron. “Let me get rid of this so no one asks me for help.”

I watched her walk away. Such a hot little package.

Such a pain in the ass.

She disappeared behind the swinging door and returned with a plate of cookies and hot tea that smelled like mint. Setting the cookies between us and pushing a bottle of cold water at me, she asked, “What’s the plan?”

“Who’s Abby?”

“Abi is my grandmother. Short for abuelita.”

I opened the bottle but didn’t drink. Just twisted the cap on and off. “How are you going to keep what we’re doing a secret?”

“I’m going to be very careful.” She stared into her cup of tea for a second before inclining her head toward the picture on the table. More determination. “That’s Jack, isn’t it?”

I slid it over to her. “That’s Jack.”