Page 59 of Intersect

I pick up my phone and dial. Silence greets me: I have nosignal.

The trap Quinn warned me about—I see it now. This was never about me meeting Sarah. It was about Sarah getting Quinnalone.

29

QUINN

Nick was right. Only twenty minutes have passed and I’m going crazy. If he’d given me the address I’d already be there, banging on the door. I text him but there is no answer, so I pace the room, taking deep breaths that don’t help in any way, shape, orform.

I finish dressing, ready to leap into action. But what action can I even take? I should have forced him to give me the address. I should have followed him. I sink onto the edge of the bed and bury my head in my hands, tug my hair in frustration. What if he doesn’treturn?

It’s at the 45-minute mark that I finally hear the chime of a text. I pounce at my phone, laying on the bed. It is from an unknownnumber.

Your boyfriend needshelp.

And then there is a video. A doorway, and someone pounding on it from the other side. A stream of profanity from a voice that is unmistakablyNick’s.

I can almost hear the sound of Sarah’s trap slamming shut. She played us both like clockwork. She knew he’d be desperate enough to do anything to save me, and I’d be desperate enough to do anything to save him. And we walked right into it like fucking toddlers. The wise thing, of course, would be for me to not take the next step, not go wherever she directs me. I already know I won’t be doing the wise thing. I justcan’t.

I ask where he is and after a single, labored minute, the reply finally comes:25 Avenue Montaigne. If you call the police, I will have no reason not to kill him. And as you must realize by now, I’ll never becaught.

I scramble to my feet. I know he asked me to stay. I know he wanted me to protect our child. But if only one of us is going to survive this trip to France, it needs to behim.

I’m unnervingly calm as I climb into the back of the car, because it’s not Nick she wants, it’s me. I have no illusions about surviving the day, but right now it just doesn’t matter, and there’s something freeing in the fact that I care so much about his outcome that I’ve stopped caring about myown.

We fly past the Seine, past all the wonders I gawked at yesterday, never dreaming my time here would be so fleeting. The phone rings—my mother again. Her timing couldn’t be worse, and yet…do I really think I’m making it out of this place alive? It’s me Sarah wants, not Nick. And my mother is back home in Pennsylvania, clueless. I’ll never have told hergoodbye.

I pick the phone up. “Hi, Mom,” I say, swallowing down my sadness. We were very different people, and yes—maybe her fear of what I really am set me back—but she loved me the best way she knew. She deserves better than to be left alone in theworld.

“I have to tell you something,” she says, her voice quavery. “It’s something I should have told you a long timeago.”

“Mom, I’m so sorry but this might not be the best time. Sarah’s causing trouble and it’s sort of anemergency.”

“She isn’t your aunt,” my mother says breathlessly, as if trying to expel the words before I can hang up the phone. “You wereadopted.”

For a moment I don’t understand what she’s saying. “What?”

“You were adopted,” she weeps. “I-I wanted to tell you so many times but your father saidno.”

“But…that’s not possible. I’ve seen my birth certificate.” Even as I say the words though, things are clicking into place…that I tan while my parents both burned. Their stick-straight hair versus my waves. The green eyes when theirs were both brown. I was different in so many ways. I just tried not to seeit.

“We faked it,” my mother whispers. “Someone gave you to your father and he brought you home. We had no paperwork, nothing. We were scared the state would take you from us since we didn’t do it all the rightway.”

“Whogave me to him?” Idemand.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I asked him so many times and he wouldn’t say. He told me you were our miracle and that there were some things you don’t question. So I let itgo.”

That dream I had, about a version of my mother who time traveled…was that person my birth mother? Did she raise me once? I felt, in that dream, as if she loved me. As if I was her entire world. Which makes me wonder: did she give me up when my timeline was reset, or did someone take me from her? Under normal circumstances I’d need an hour or a day or a decade to unpack this, but the driver is pulling over, and the truth is it hardly matters. Not when Nick’s life is in the balance. “I’m here, Mom. I really have to go. But thank you…for everything. I loveyou.”

I hang up before she can question me. I just hope my final words wereenough.

I climb out of the car, shocked to find I’m surrounded by mansions. And the biggest one of all says 25 Avenue Montaigne on a brass plaque outside its opengates.

I swallow hard and move toward it. The building is intimidating, formidable, older than any building we have at home. It makes no sense that I’ve been led here, and it worries me that it feels…familiar. Is this where another of my lives endedtoo?

There’s a pounding at my temples I try hard to ignore as I walk through the wrought iron gates, half expecting to be tackled by security and somewhat surprised to make it to the front door unscathed. If Sarah is not a blood relative, then why the hell is she doing this? How would she even know I can, theoretically, time travel? Things make even less sense than ever, but there’s not a doubt in my mind she’s the one who took me from my birthparents.

My hand raises to knock, but I think better of it. I’m not stupid…I know I’m walking into a trap. And this bitch has Nick, so I have no intention of being polite. If there were time, I’d stop to laugh at how much in my life has changed. Obedient Quinn, who was marrying someone she didn’t love, who wasn’t willing to rock the boat no matter what it cost, is now someone ready to fight to the death. I’ve come a long way in eight weeks. It’s a shame it took me so long to gethere.