One instant is all Paul needs.
He twists free of me and slams his elbow into Theo’s face, knocking him back to the floor. I try to regain my hold on Paul, but it’s useless; he’s up now and using every inch he has on me, every pound, to hold me back.
“What are you doing?” he shouts. The security lights pulse above us, turning the line of blood along his mouth from red to black and back again.
“Stopping you!” I swing at Paul, but his massive hand blocks mine easily.
Theo scrambles to his feet; Paul sees it. Immediately he grabs me—literally picks me up—and shoves his way through the doors of the train car right before they close. I wriggle free of him just in time to see Theo press his hands against the glass door. But it’s too late. The train is moving.
For one moment I match my hand to Theo’s, separated only by the glass; he looks stricken, but says nothing. What can he say? Nothing can prevent the way the train speeds up, pulling away from him, leaving only his fingerprints.
The train slides into the tunnel, into the darkness. Nobody else is in this car. Paul and I stand there, breathing hard, illuminated only by the holographic ads overhead. He’s still wearing his Firebird. We are alone.
“How did Theo bring you here?” Paul says, voice low. “And why?”
I lift my chin. “Theo rebuilt the Firebird prototypes on his own. You didn’t think he could, did you?”
“The prototypes. Of course,” he whispers, and it’s almost like he’s glad to hear it. “But . . . but why did he bring you along? Do you not see how dangerous this is?”
“That doesn’t matter. If you thought you could kill my father and get away with it, you’re—”
“What?” His face pales so suddenly that I think for a moment he might pass out. “What—you said—Henry’s dead? He’s dead?”
The astonishment and pain I see are very real. Some people are good enough actors to feign shock, but shy, uncertain Paul Markov has never had that kind of game. There’s no way he could fake this kind of horror, or the tears I can see welling in his eyes.
It hits me then, a blow more stupefying than sharp: Paul didn’t kill my father.
“Oh, God.” Paul wipes hastily at his eyes; he’s trying so hard to stay focused. “How can Henry be dead?”
All those moments that have tormented me over the past few days—Paul smiling at his birthday cake, listening to Rachmaninoff, standing in the doorway of my bedroom. Those were real. Paul is real.
But then what the hell is going on? If Paul didn’t kill Dad, who did?“Wait. You thought I killed him?” Paul says it with none of the anger I’d feel in his place. He’s just completely confused, like he has no idea how I could ever believe anything so weird. “Marguerite, what happened?”
“His car went into the river. Someone had tampered with Dad’s brakes.” My voice sounds small, not like my own.
“You have to believe me. I didn’t hurt Henry. I would never do that.”
“It really looked like it had to be you.” And as soon as I realize that, I realize something even worse. “I think someone framed you.”
Paul swears under his breath. “Why on earth did Theo bring you along?”
“Why do you keep acting like it’s all up to Theo? I chose to come. I have to find out who did this to Dad.”
Then it hits me—this wave of anger. I thought I knew who to blame for Dad’s death, before; I thought I knew who to hate. Now I don’t. For the past few days, my hate has been the only thing keeping me going. I feel naked, unarmed.
The train curves through the tunnel, and the floor beneath us rocks back and forth. All the ads flicker slightly. Paul’s face is half in shadow like the album cover of Rubber Soul.
“I’ll find out who hurt Henry.” Paul takes one step toward me. “I swear that to you.”
“If it’s not all up to Theo, then it’s not all up to you either! Okay, so, you didn’t kill Dad or trash the data. Then who did? Why did you run?”
He startles me again. “I didn’t kill Henry, but I did destroy the data at the lab.”
“What? Why?”
Paul puts his hands on my shoulders. I flinch. I can’t help it. He jerks away, as though he thinks he might have injured me. “Tell Theo I’m sorry. When I saw him earlier, I thought—I blamed him for something he didn’t do. I realize now he was only trying to do something for Henry—” His voice breaks again. Our shared grief pierces us at the same moment, an electrical shock of feeling traveling from him into me, or from me into him. “But tell Theo that he has to take you back home, now. The sooner the better. It’s the most important thing he could possibly do.”
“No. You have to explain.”
He says only: “Go home. I’ll fix this.”
Then the train rocks on its track hard enough that I stagger. In the second before I can catch my balance, Paul clutches his Firebird in his hand, and—
It’s hard to describe exactly what happens next. Although nothing moves, it feels vaguely as if a breeze has stirred the air around us, changing something indefinable about the way Paul looks. He lifts his head, as though startled, and he brings one hand to his torn lip and winces. When he sees the blood on his fingers, he doesn’t seem to remember how it got there.
Then I realize the Firebird is no longer around his neck. There were no crackling lights, no unearthly sounds, nothing like that; one instant the Firebird was there, and now it’s not.