Drake’s leather-daddy transformation, Brielle’s sudden fetish for felons, Gage’s kamikaze dive into dating Chloe—it’s all us. We’re like some kind of temporal infection, spreading our damage with every word we say. And if we can’t get home soon, these ripples are going to turn into a tsunami that drowns the future we’re supposedly protecting. I shake my head. I know the tenets of light driving say otherwise. But I don’t see any of this righting itself anytime soon.
My phone buzzes with a text from Skyla.
Skyla: Any luck reaching my mother?
Me: Straight to proverbial voicemail. You?
Skyla: Same. Logan, what if we can’t get back? What if we’re stuck here and we just have to watch everything fall apart forever?
I stare at the message, trying to come up with something reassuring to say. But what am I supposed to type?Don’t worry, honey, I’m sure the future as we know it will only partially cease to exist? Good news, we might still remember our children’s names even after we’veaccidentally erased them?There’s no emoji forwe’re destroying everything we love and I can’t stop it.
Me: We’ll figure it out. We always do.
Skyla: Promise?
The word sits on my screen like a challenge. How can I promise something when I have no idea if it’s even possible? But Skyla needs to hear it, and maybe I need to say it.
Me: Promise.
I pocket the phone and head toward the kitchen to check on things, mostly to avoid screaming into the void. Managing the bowling alley should feel normal—hell, I plan on doing this for the next few decades—but right now it feels like rearranging deck chairs on theTitanic. Sure, let me check the nacho cheese levels while reality collapses around us.
“Logan!” Brielle calls out as I enter the kitchen, and she grabs hold of me. “Perfect timing. I just thought of something and need your expert opinion on something very important.”
“Let me guess. This involves that maniac, Razor Blade, again?”
“You’re like a freaking mind reader,” she says, oblivious to the fact that if we are touching I’m able to do just that. “Do you think it would be too much if I asked him to teach me how to ride a motorcycle?”
“Considering you don’t know him and he’s probably armed? Yeah, a little.”
“But that’s what makes it so great! The danger, the mystery, the possibility that he could be a serial killer…”
“Brielle, that last part is not a selling point.”
She rolls her eyes like the teenager she is. “Geez, you’re worse than Skyla. What happened to taking risks? Or is dating Skyla Messenger the only dangerous thing you’re allowed to do?”
“Dating Skyla is plenty dangerous, thanks.” She accidentallyattracts catastrophe like it’s her job, but I don’t dare say that out loud. Especially not to someone who might repeat it.
“Exactly my point. You get your danger from supernatural disasters. I want mine from a guy with a criminal record. We all have our preferences.”
“Your preference is going to end up on the evening news.”
“At least I’ll make headlines. When’s the last time you did anything newsworthy that didn’t involve Skyla’s drama?”
Never, actually. Everything noteworthy in my life revolves around our special brand of chaos.
Bree bounces around the kitchen, humming love songs about dangerous men, and I can’t help thinking that in some twisted way, she has a point. My entire life is about managing Skyla-related disasters. Maybe that’s my version of dating a criminal.
But right now, sitting in this bowling alley in the wrong decade, I know exactly what I need to fight for. Getting us home. Fixing whatever we broke. Making sure our kids actually exist.
Even if it kills me.
Which, knowing our track record, it probably will.
24
Skyla
Evening descends on Paragon like a bruise with nothing but purple skies and brooding clouds that press down on this forsaken rock with a personal vengeance.
