Our genetic matching might turn me into her glorified assistant, but I couldn’t think of any position I’d rather have. With her power, we could change everything.

Together, we could make a difference.

Together we would make a difference.

On our own terms.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

QUANTA

Sleep was the greatest.

I dreamed like crazy because the timeghosts didn’t want to leave me alone, but they weaved through everything instead of waking me up. Even passed out, I knew why I could finally relax.

There were no cameras on me and no guards waiting to tranq me if I took a step in the wrong direction. Even better, I didn’t have to worry what I was going to say to the next person who walked in so I didn’t get killed or cut up or worse—get someone else killed or cut up.

Tair hovered nearby, smoothing back my hair and talking. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it didn’t matter as long as he didn’t go anywhere.

We snuck from transpo to boat and boat to pod and pod to every other possible way to get from one place to another. Time pulled at me as we passed so many new spaces peppered with moments in time that wouldn’t fade. We crossed bloody, screaming Civil War battlefields, and wagons jammed with prairie settlers, and skyscrapers that still gleamed in my mind, even if they were mostly ruins now.

When our pod on wheels started climbing, tipping my head back in my seat, I woke from the current doze. Still groggy, I rubbed my eyes as I squinted out the window, a little disoriented by all the peaks and fluffy clouds.

We were climbing a mountain.

“Feeling better?” Tair asked. He set down the tablet he was reading while the two-seater pod drove itself. His glasses had slipped down his nose and his hair was a mess, all sticking up.

“I’m fine. You should’ve gotten some sleep too.” But disheveled looked ridiculously cute on him.

“Couldn’t relax.” He clicked on the GPS unit and the screen showed squiggly mountain lines. “Ten more minutes and we’ll be at the gate.”

I sat up straighter, fighting the urge to squirm. The gaps in my memory were still as good as chasms, but not even a decade and more of torture could make me forget Eva. She was the closest I’d ever had to family.

I just wasn’t sure if I should hug her or slap her. The way Tair bunched his fists against his legs, I guessed which way he was leaning on that one. “Did you tell her we’re coming?”

“It’ll be a surprise.”

“Fun.” I loved a good surprise as long as it was on someone else.