Page 101 of Middlegame

“Your mother answered the door, and when she didn’t go back up the stairs, your father came down. I shot him. Men get so aggressive when they see their wives dead, and his hands are intact. You’ll never see me coming. Do you believe me now? Or do I need to walk through your childhood home, describing everything I see to make you understand that I’m not a liar? Because I’ll be honest, Dodger. I’m getting tired of you calling me names I haven’t earned.”

A soft squeaking sound, and then silence. Leigh opens her eyes.

“Come home,” she says. “Leave them, or bring them with you. Try to take me by force, try to ambush me, come for revenge, I don’t care, just come home. Come close enough for me to give you what I’ve promised. The people who took you in, raised you, and claimed you as their daughter are dead, little cuckoo, and all because you wanted to see the Impossible City. You could have spared them. You could have spared so many people. Come home, and leave the rest of the people you care about among the living. Because I assure you, it doesn’t end here.”

“I can’t . . .”

“Your mother’s blood tasted like candy, little girl. Don’t fuck with me. Come home.”

Leigh hangs up the phone and stands. The nameless alchemist is standing in the hallway, his construct a dark shape behind him. She looks at the pair with narrowed eyes. “Well?”

“I have them both laid out in the dining room like you asked.”

“Good.” Her smile has nothing to do with happiness. “Let’s arm ourselves, shall we?”

Back in the diner, Dodger drops the phone. She stares at it, eyes huge in her pale face, and for a long moment, no one says anything. Finally, Roger reaches for her, and flinches when she pulls away.

Her head snaps up, attention zeroing in on Erin. “Was she lying?” she asks. Her voice breaks on the last word.

Erin is more concerned about the rest of her breaking, for good. “No,” she says, quiet, implacable. “If Leigh Barrow says she’s killed someone, she’s killed them. That’s how she operates. She can lie, but she rarely sees the need. The truth hurts so much more.”

Dodger stands. This time, it’s Erin who moves, leaning across the table, putting her hands on the other woman’s shoulder, and shoving her back down into her seat.

“Let me go!”

“And what? You’ll call an Uber and run off to Palo Alto to get yourself killed? You die, Roger dies. You want that?” Erin glares. It’s the last weapon she has. She belonged to Leigh once: she knows how the woman operates because she operates in much the same way. There’s power in the truth. It’s an alchemy of its own. “If she told you any lies at all, she told you there was a way for you to die without killing him. His body might keep breathing for a while after yours stops, but it won’t do a damn thing to save his mind. You die, he dies, and no matter what, your parents don’t come back.”

Dodger’s eyes widen again, flaring with sudden hope. “They could! They could. The timeline, we . . . we can reset the timeline. We can go back and try to warn them.”

“It doesn’t work that way. It’s never that precise.”

“It has to be!” Dodger turns to Roger. “Please. She said you’re the one who has to tell me what to do. So tell me what to do. Let me change the timeline.”

“I think we need to listen to Erin right now,” says Roger quietly.

“Dodger, don’t you think if we could do this without losing your parents, we would have already reset the timeline to do it that way?” Erin tries to make the question as gentle as she can. “I know you’ve accepted that the earthquake had to happen to make you believe me. What if—as much as it hurts—what if this is where your parents have to die, because otherwise, they’re going to suffer something much worse? Not everyone can be saved.”

Dodger stares at her. “You’re fucking kidding, right? They’re my parents.”

“His parents work for Reed,” says Erin, indicating Roger. “They trained him like a puppy to be sure he’d take the correct shape. At least your parents truly loved you. Take that, and avenge them by manifesting the way you’re supposed to.”

Roger says nothing.

Dodger looks between the two of them, eyes going wider and wider, before she moves, again, to stand. This time, Erin doesn’t stop her. “You people are both insane,” she says. “I’m going home.” She steps out of the booth, moving toward the door.

Roger jumps to his feet before he can stop to think, lunging after her, grabbing her arm. “Don’t go. Please.”

She looks back toward him. “My parents,” she says.

“I’m know. Dodger, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Really? Because we just found out you lost your parents, too. Maybe this is symmetry. Maybe this is the numbers balancing. Only, you never really had yours. There was never anything there to subtract.” She’s being cruel. She knows it; he can see that in her eyes. That doesn’t keep the barb from hitting home.

He lets her go.

Dodger takes another step away.

Erin looks at him. “It’s on you now,” she says.