Page 3 of Intersect

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “About that. Something happened this morning. I was going to wait until I saw you in person but…I went in early today, and inside my locked office, which only myself and one other person have a key to, was a woman looking at your file.”

I grip the nightstand, as if the world has suddenly turned over, and I’m about to be spilled from its surface. “You’re kidding.”

“That’s not even the weird part. She looked up at me and then she vanished, sitting right there. Just like Rose did.” He draws in a breath. “I think she’s the one behind all this.”

Fear opens wide in my stomach. Having a brain tumor is bad enough, but the threat this woman presents is far more imminent. “God. Nick, all she has to do to separate us is go back a few months. It would just take one little tweak—"

“She won’t,” he says, with a certainty that makes no sense to me. Even his size and strength can’t combat a superpower. “And we’re going to figure this out. There are no security cameras in my office but since she was wearing scrubs, I knew she must have been in the hallway at some point, so I analyzed the hospital’s security footage and found her. I’ll forward you the picture in case you recognize her.”

He texts the photo and I pull away from the phone to look at it.

And then my breath stops.

The same white-blond hair. The same beautiful, severe face. “It’s her,” I finally whisper. “The woman I’ve been dreaming about since I was small. She’s the one who took me away from you.”

“This time we have her, though,” he says. “We’ve got a picture and we can track her down.”

Except I seemed to know exactly who she was in London too, and it didn’t appear to do me any good. Which makes sense, because how the hell do you stop someone who can vanish at will?

* * *

2

QUINN

I leave my mother’s first thing in the morning, before she can guilt me into staying another day…or another two years, like she did when my father died. I get back to Caroline’s apartment just after ten. The old Quinn would use this day off to pay bills or organize paperwork or get her car washed. The new one, the one who suddenly realizes time is fleeting, chooses to do none of those things. It’s entirely possible this could be my last summer. If I’m on my deathbed next year, am I going to wish I’d spent today paying bills or getting my car washed? I doubt it.

Instead I lie out on Caroline’s balcony. I start off in the red bikini, as I’m still limited to the clothes I brought for the trip to Vegas, but then, on impulse, I remove the top. Not a soul can see me since she’s on the highest floor and faces the woods, but I feel rebellious for the first time in my life. It’s Nick. Something about him makes me feel safe, willing to take risks, even when he’s not around.

I’m too drowsy to read so I find myself thinking instead, my mind returning again and again to what my mother said: that she thought my father knew something about my future, some terrible outcome that marrying Jeff would help me avoid. I know it’s related to Nick somehow, but I just don’t see how it’s possible. Being with him makes me feel like a better person. It makes me want to run out to the street and hug everyone that passes—clothed, of course.

I just don’t see how it’s possible something so good could turn bad.

* * *

I wake slowly to the sounds of Nick getting ready for work. Outside our flat the sky is winter gray, though it is, theoretically, spring, and the light is so dim it must be early. I vaguely wonder how far along he is in the process of dressing…if I catch him early enough I can almost always convince him to get back in bed. I roll over to check, and instead wind up lunging forward, barely making it to the toilet before I expel the contents of my stomach.

Nick follows me in, looking more like a worried husband than a doctor who’s seen everything. And in spite of the fact that he’s seen far worse, I wave him away. “Don’t look at me,” I plead. I flush the toilet and he comes and sits on the edge of the tub.

“We’re married. I was going to see you throw up eventually.”

I shake my head. “You’re not going to want to have sex with me after this.”

He laughs low. “I fucking guarantee I will still want to have sex with you.”

I sit up, leaning my head against the cool tile on the wall. “What if I was pregnant? Would you want to have sex with me then?”

His eyes widen a bit. “Of course I would,” he says, tensing. I hate the hint of dread I hear in his voice. “Why?”

I reluctantly meet his eye. “Because I threw up yesterday too.”

The next day, after three positive pregnancy tests, an obstetrician tells us we are about ten weeks along, which means we got pregnant pretty much the first time we slept together.

“We were so careful,” Nick says, as if he might persuade the doctor she’s wrong.

The two of us come home from the appointment, looking at our small one-bedroom flat in dismay. I’m on the cusp of apologizing, though I took that pill every day as if my life depended on it, but before I can he wraps his arms around me.

“Do you think the baby will be more comfortable sleeping on the terrace, or on top of the washer?” he asks with a laugh. “Because that’s pretty much the only space we have left.”