“As much as I think this is a bad idea, I know exactly how you’re feeling. I’d do the same thing if it was Emma in there. We’ll get her back.”

“Of course we will.” Certainty rang in Eva’s voice.

I didn’t share the confidence, but determination burned inside me anyway.

The odds were against us, but they had been from the beginning. None of that mattered.

I would help her escape that nightmare.

And the rest…

Well, we’d figure that out together.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

QUANTA

Someone screamed.

“Hold her down!”

The table vibrated under me.

“Where’s Waldman?” asked the panicked voice. “We can’t sedate her again.”

For a flash, the timeghosts cleared and I checked in with reality.

I was screaming. And thrashing.

That wasn’t good. Or intentional.

My body cried. My edges felt numb with drugs. Exhausted. Hurting.

So done.

A door whooshed. “Status?”

Ah. Doctor Nagi.

My second least favorite person in the universe.

And wasn’t that pretty impressive? I knew a lot of universes.

My overseers muttered something medical, medical, medical while I squinted hard, trying to stay in the present. Timeghosts bubbled around me and scenes from all over time and space flashed in and out, layering over the room. Not that I wanted to look at all the white, sterile nonsense. Even Nagi was wearing the body armor now, and overhead lights cast a glare against his face mask.

“Quanta.” Nagi leaned over me and I saw him for a clear moment, his eyes darker than usual. Concerned? No. That wasn’t possible. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

I meant to laugh, but it came out as a cackle. The laugh of an insane girl who’d just set something on fire. But that was me. “There’s only one way.”

“That isn’t true.”

“There’s only one truth.” And who’dve thunk? Being batshit made me all philosophical.

“Tell us what you see. Help us. It’s that simple.” Nagi’s voice bled in with the whispers and howls gaining volume at the fringes of my hearing. At least he’d go away soon. I couldn’t stay focused on him much longer. “You can live a normal life.”

A normal life?

Another cackle slipped my lips. Normal? Me? “Not in the cards.”

“Then I’ll tell you the future,” Nagi said. “You’ll be sedated and hooked to thought projection for as long as your body can sustain it. When it’s too much, you’ll be harvested for tissue samples to fuel Darren’s research. Is that what you want?”

Nope. But it wasn’t going to happen like that. I could kill myself.

Actually, I would kill myself.