Page 94 of Death and Do-Overs

My throat tightened. I had the right spot. There was just nothing to find.

I said, “No pulse.”

“None of you did this, right?” Imogen asked, pointing to the dart, as if one of us Marnie’s had kept a secret weapon stashed in our pocket.

Maybe it was something I would do. But I hadn’t. None of us had.

“No,” I said.

There was no blood. The dart was deadly from poison or some magical equivalent, and whoever had lobbed it at Alden could have another. And they were close enough to kill any of us right now, without warning.

“Then we need to find cover, like now.” Imogen started running in her slow-motion way.

The rest of us hurried after her.

We left Bernadette’s house.

We left Alden, the dead alchemist.

We kept moving until we all made it back to the hotel.

By the time we got there, the sun had set. Upstairs, Mar and Levi were in my room waiting for us. Something was different between them, and not more tense because Mar had utterly rejected him the way she should have.

I pushed away those thoughts and the unpleasant feelings that came with them.

“There are four of me,” Mar said, with an air of disbelief.

“How many nicknames can you guys come up with for Margaret?” Imogen asked.

Names implied permanence. When I’d seen the blade coming for my neck, I hadn’t wanted to die. But what I wanted for us now wasn’t death, it was a full life. It was efficiency and complete understanding.

I looked to the two copies I’d created and found a look of certainty in their eyes. We all wanted the same thing.

“There’s no need,” I said. “We’re going to rejoin.”

“How?” Mar asked.

“Bubbles,” one of the other Marnies said.

I nodded.

Mar frowned, not understanding.

“You’ll get it soon enough,” I said. The best thing for all of us was to return to one. After that, we’d be able to be as many or as few as we needed. And we’d seamlessly share the informationwe’d discovered without worry that someone would leave a key detail out.

I clasped hands with the copies I’d created.

The contact showed me the patch of bubbles, just like before when I’d created them. Only this time it wasn’t only a blank field of translucent blue spheres. They were there, the Marnies who could be.

But I needed to find the Marnies who already were.

I took a breath and squeezed their palms.

Two new bubbles formed, bright and shimmering purple spheres.

These were the two who had saved me, and now as they were meant to, they were a part of me.

Their physical hands faded from mine. A wash of memories flooded through my head, each a slightly different version of what I had experienced myself.

---