Except.

I don’t want him.

Not me.

They do. They want him so badly I’m not sure my brain can handle the split decision without tearing apart.

Stalling, I reach my fingertips out to touch Quinn’s familiar face, made modern in this Logan guy. His hair is shorter, tousled and hanging almost to his green eyes instead of tied with a ribbon. Jeans and a T-shirt look so odd on him, and yet he seems very at home, glancing just over his shoulder.

I can deny my heart, cling to Benson, ignore Elizabeth’s warning, shut out Rebecca and Sonya’s voices.

But I can’t escape those eyes.

I know those eyes. I’ve loved those eyes. Looked into them while they loved me. Hundreds of times. Thousands. My breath feels sharp as I stare into his eyes and am hypnotized.

Desperately, I push my gaze to the date at the bottom of the picture. “This was taken yesterday?” I gasp, and Sammi nods, mistaking my dismay for delight.

“As he was walking to school. I saw him myself. In the flesh, not this vision of Quinn Avery that you’ve been seeing the last week. He’s real. It’s the reason I had to go to Phoenix so abruptly. That’s where he is.”

Phoenix. I almost went there. Meeting up with ghost Quinn nearly ripped apart my heart and soul; what would seeing the real Logan have done to me?

Sammi leans forward. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before that I thought I’d found him—I see now that I should have—but … Tavia, it almost destroyed me when you killed yourself while under my care. I was there when my father told you Darius was dead. You—you can’t even imagine the devastation I saw in your eyes. Maybe you can,” she said wryly. “Surely you remember that part.”

I hesitate. “I don’t, actually. I don’t remember a lot of things. Mostly just my life as Rebecca, but even that’s vague. I … I sense,” I decide on, not really sure how to better describe it, “that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen. That this whole remembering thing should be easier.” I let the unasked question hang in the air.

“You don’t remember anything about Sonya? At all?” Sammi asks.

“Just a … familiarity,” I admit. “A trickle of a voice in my head.”

“Do you remember—” But she cuts off. “Now’s not the time; we can discuss Sonya later. Liz did a ton of research after the plane crash, and she theorized that the damage your brain suffered would make things more difficult. The same way it was so hard for you to start drawing again.”

“It’s why we were worrying about damaging you further,” Elizabeth tacks on.

“Will it always hurt?” I ask in a weak voice, my whole body on edge at even the thought of the pain the necklace had invoked.

Sammi’s chin shoots up. “It—”

“The brains of Earthbounds don’t function quite the same as ours—not even the same as those of us who have Earthbound as kin,” Elizabeth interrupts. “It’s the reason you see things the rest of us can’t.” She pauses. “Like the glowing triangles.”

My eyes widen and I try to ask about that, but Elizabeth cuts me off.

“As far as we can tell, the synaptic pathways both connect and fire differently. What we aren’t certain of is how the damage to your brain will affect that. But no, it shouldn’t hurt.” She hesitates, understanding how bad it must have been even though I didn’t say so. “I don’t know if it will continue to be a painful process or not, but now that you’ve had your initial memory pull from one of your creations, the worst should be over. From here on out it will hopefully just be a matter of sifting through the memories from the change you’ve already invoked.”

“I had hoped to find a way to bring Logan back with me and pull his memories while you were together.” Sammi’s voice is soft and even, but I’ve lived with her long enough to hear the current of frustration. “But your running away kind of put a wrench in that.”

“If you’re waiting for me to apologize, it’s going to be a long night,” I say, leaning closer to Benson with my arms folded over the files, holding them against me.

I’m not giving them back.

“I’m not waiting for anything. We know where Logan is; we’ll take you to him tonight.” She looks up and meets my eyes. “By force, if necessary.”

“What do you mean by force?” I snap. “I think you’re being a little melodramatic.”

Sammi looks at Mark and they have a silent conversation with their eyes. I rest one hand on my hip to wait for them to finish deciding if they are going to continue lying to me. But Mark gives a tiny nod and Sammi turns back to me with genuinely haunted eyes.

“Mark has the virus.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“The virus? The one from the news?” I ask, and reach for Benson’s hand. I grip his fingers so tightly I know I must be hurting him, but he doesn’t complain.

“I estimate he’s got twelve to eighteen hours,” Sammi chokes out.

I look over at Mark, understanding his limp skin, deep under-eye circles—even the signs of fatigue I was seeing before I ran away; he’s dying.

And then, as I’m about to look away, he flickers. I draw in a loud breath.

I get it now. I see it when others don’t because I’m an Earthbound. The reporter on TV—probably dead or dying. The woman who gave me the Band-Aid, almost certainly gone. What about the man by the candy shop? If flickering is the virus, what is disappearing entirely? I shake the thought away; there’s no time. “What does that have to do with me?” I ask shakily.