“Use my own? That’s a ridiculous assumption.” Teague crossed her arms over her chest. “I—”
“You couldn’t take the chance that having a child naturally would create someone like you. You had to make sure the specific gene was isolated. You needed exact proof.”
She leaned down to pick up her purse. “When my daughter is ready to talk to me, let me know.”
I stepped in front of her. “How long did it take before you considered cloning?”
“Cloning?” Hallie stood, too, giving up her vow of silence.
I got out of the way and let Hallie take over.
“Is he right?”
“Not cloning. You’re genetically engineered.” Teague sounded bored. “It’s not a quick explanation.”
Hallie took a step back. “You’re an Infinityglass, too.”
“I’m not.” Teague tilted her chin defiantly.
“She’s telling the truth,” I confirmed, staring Teague down. “Because she never activated, either because she didn’t want to or she didn’t know how. Or both.”
Hallie’s eyes burned with the truth. “How much of Dad’s ‘protection’ was really you? Did you feed his paranoia to make it easier to keep me under your thumb? How much did he know?”
Teague didn’t answer. She wasn’t even looking at us. She was staring at a rip.
It spread across the park like an extended movie screen, the edges undulating in the breeze.
Except the air around us was still.
It expanded into a rip world bustling with industry. Buildings under construction. Workmen busy at their tasks. Shiny metal signs hung everywhere, displaying the words WORLD COTTON CENTENNIAL, 1884.
“It’s the world’s fair,” Teague murmured.
“It’s a rip world. Your first one?” Hallie asked. Her mom didn’t acknowledge the question. “They get better. See the people in the present disappearing? It’s because the past takes over.”
Teague watched as the rip expanded again, and another building came into view. Electric lights hung everywhere, the name Edison prominent on all the accompanying equipment.
My chest felt like a semi had parked on it. Hallie and I’d talked about the next rip she’d encounter, and what the last one had done to her. What would this one do?
Hallie stood, her back to the rip. “You know how I feel about Jackson Square after what happened. I won’t go there on a good day. There’s no way in hell I’d go past the place where Benny bled to death now.”
Teague’s head jerked up and she focused on Hallie’s face. “Why?”
“The rips come from the past, and they possess me. I troll around in their memories, and they live inside my skin. That’s what being the Infinityglass means. Thank you so very much.”
The rip world grew wider, taking over another section of land. A building made of glass appeared in the distance.
Hallie’s focus shifted to something behind us, her eyes following it in a circle. Horses on a track. “You can blame yourself for this, Mother.”
“I didn’t start it,” Teague said. “Jack Landers is the one who broke the rules.”
“You perpetuated it. You threw in with him,” Hallie argued. “You let him look for the Infinityglass, and the whole time you knew it was me.”
“I kept that information from him,” Teague argued back.
The rip grew wider, going around us instead of flowing over us. I put my hand on the small of Hallie’s back. I needed to get her out.
“I tried to protect you, Hallie.” Teague’s voice trembled.
“Really?” Hallie laughed without mirth. “Don’t pretend like you have feelings for me. You’ve never cared for me the way a mother should care for her own child, because you didn’t give birth to me; you bred me.”
“I created you.”
The smell of manure blended with the sounds of livestock, all of it too close.
“Hal, we’ve gotta go. It’s growing too fast to—”
The rip world moved like lightning, swallowing Hallie, and then Teague.
I did the only thing I could.
I followed.
Chapter 20
Hallie
Suddenly, I was staring up at a bright blue sky rather than the gray one that had been there ten seconds ago.
A crowd of rips gathered, staring at me, just like ones we’d encountered in the alley in the French Quarter.
Two seconds later, my mother appeared.
I took off running, keeping to the Saint Charles side of the park, dodging in and out of crowds. It might be impossible to outrun a rip, but I was sure as hell going to try.
“Hallie, stop!”
I paused to look over my shoulder. My mother. The woman could move in heels, I’d give her that. “Enjoying the early nineteenth century? Because there’s a good chance it’s about to enjoy me.”