"Out," I said as decisively as possible.

I could see the look of anticipation on Jin's face fade for just a moment before he perked back up again with a new thought. "Look, I know it sounds too good to be true," he said as he stepped even closer to me in the living room. His hand reached out towards me, as though to pull me into some proximity now that he realized we were being watched by others in the room.

I flinched involuntarily, my mind suddenly flooding with images of my own dead body, sprawled on my bed—our bed, Jin's and mine—in some dark fate that was apparently awaiting us.

Marina O'Connell was murdered in her sleep by her estranged husband and partner, Jin-soon Cheong.

"Don't touch me," I breathed out as my feet stumbled away from him.

That was apparently all Kieren needed to hear to be sure of what he suspected: this man who had walked into our house was not somebody I wanted here.

Before I knew it, Kieren was standing behind me, his broad chest radiating warmth into my back. "What do you need, man?" he said from above me, as though his voice were coming from some invisible appendage attached to my head.

Jin's eyes flitted up to Kieren and then back down to me. A look of disappointment came over his face, but he collected himself quickly. "Hey, it's cool," he said to Kieren, picking up his hands to show his palms. "We're just talking, man. I didn't know she was with somebody."

Instead of answering, Kieren placed a possessive hand around my upper arm.

Jin kept his eyes fixed on mine, steadfastly ignoring the enormous blond man lingering above our conversation. "Hey," he said quietly, "it's okay. I get it. But, listen, this is just a business proposition. Honestly. The guy asked for you by name. I really think we could make a lot of mon—"

"No," I said, finding my voice finally. I gently wrapped my hand around Kieren's and removed it from my arm. I needed to be assertive in this moment, and being held like a child wasn't helping me do that. I stepped away from Kieren and waved for Jin to follow me back to the front door.

I couldn't help but notice a small, glinting flash of a smile cross Jin's face as he and I walked away from Kieren, who knew me well enough not to follow us.

Once we made it to the front door, I whispered so only Jin could hear me. "I'm sorry," I began. "But Alexei Pavlovavich is not who he says he is. It—it just wouldn't work out, okay?"

"Oh, no, it's fine," Jin said, smiling at me and leaning so close that for a second I was afraid he might try to kiss me. "I looked him up. He's totally legit. I wouldn't be bringing it to you otherwise."

I shook my head, trying to figure out how to warn him without revealing too much.

"Hey," he said, and his finger found the bottom of my chin, lifting it up to meet his face so he could look me in the eye. His face exuded warmth, radiating off his handsome chin and his perfect teeth. And for just a moment, I could see an entire possible timeline flashing across my mind:

In some reality, he and I did work on this project together. Late nights in the lab.

That warm smile. Those straight teeth.

Did we get married in a big hotel?

Or on a cliffside, overlooking the sea?

Did we talk about children?

Did I love him?

Did he love me back?

Was it greed that drove him to strangle me in our bed that night? Or madness?

"You need to go," I said now, feeling an onslaught of tears threaten to invade my eyes. "You need to leave, and you can't come back. Don't work on this project, Jin. Please, I'm begging you. It's not...it's not what you think."

A crushing disappointment took over his face, which subsequently turned to steel—a hint of the cold, hard anger he was apparently capable of.

"Listen—" he began.

"No," I insisted. "You can be anything you want, Jin. You'll be okay. But just not this.

You have to go. Now."

He stared at me for another moment, the anger in his face not dissipating, but instead turning to a forged resolve. And then he walked down the five steps that led to our brownstone, and I closed the door before he had a chance to turn around and say anything else.

When I turned back to the living room, Robbie and Piper were on the stairs, listening. Kieren stood right where I had left him by the couch, and my mother was leaning against the wall by the kitchen, as though waiting for me to be through so we could talk.

My next words were just for her, but I said them loudly enough so that everyone could hear. "How did Alexei know about the project?"

"What project?" Robbie interjected from the stairway.

"I don't know," Mom responded.

"You liar!" I burst out. I could feel a hot rush of anger taking over my face, and I knew the smartest thing to do would be to take a deep breath before continuing. But I wasn't feeling terribly smart at the moment. "You are such a liar. Everything you say is only to serve yourself." My finger thrust out towards the front door, where Jin's presence still lingered in the air. "What was that then?"

"Marina, let's calm down," Mom said.

"You should answer her question," Kieren cut her off as he came to stand closer to me.

Robbie and Piper descended the rest of the stairs to come to my side, and suddenly it was like a stand-off. The four of us kids on one side of the living room, and Mom on the other.

My mother collected herself, standing as tall as possible in her small white heels. "I am not a liar," she began. "I'm sure Alexei knew about the device the same way I did. He must have gone through a Tomorrow door at some point."

"What device?" Robbie asked by my side. "I swear to God, if you all don't tell me what the hell you're talking about—"

"It's okay, Robbie," I said, turning to him. My eyes flitted to Kieren for support, and he came to my side. My hand began to reach for my temple, ready to finally show him the Frankenstein device permanently implanted in my head. But I faltered at the last moment, terrified that it would change the way my brother thought of me.

"M," Kieren whispered. "He needs to know."

Piper took Robbie's hand, although whether it was to offer support or steady herself, I couldn't be sure. Her eyes were blasted open in panic.

I shook my head, unable to move my hand another inch. So Kieren did it for me, gently pushing my hair back to show my now-dormant ICD. From my peripheral vision, I could see no emanating green light. I hadn't invented Minerva yet, so it was just cold, useless plastic and wires, protruding from my skull like a barnacle.

"What is it?" Robbie asked with a slight tremble in his voice.

I nodded toward the front door. "It's what that guy was talking about," I said gently. "It's the device he wanted me to build with him. It—it's supposed to make us tell the truth. Rewire the brain and..." my voice trailed off, a tight lump of tears threatening to drown it out.

"Take it out," Robbie insisted.

"I can't."

He turned to mom, undeterred. "Mom, take this out of her head."

"I can't, either, baby."

Robbie reached out tentatively and touched it. I inhaled sharply, not because it hurt, but because I could see the fear in my brother's eyes. When he pulled his hand away, it formed a fist by his side. And in unison, he and Piper turned on Mom with accusations etched into their faces.

A calmness took over my body as I turned over the debris of my life: the choices I had made; the fact that every previous Marina who had "visited" the future was unable to change it; the little details of what my mother had shared since coming to find me in the dome.

It wasn't all adding up. It should have been easy to change to the future. Just make different choices.

If the ICD in my head was truly my invention, then stopping it from existing could happen instantly. But it wouldn't.

That was never going to happen. And the guilt on my mother's face now told me why.

"You are a liar, Mom," I said coolly. "You've been lying since you came back. Since the night you left me when I was sixteen years old. You're lying to me right now."

She shook her head slowly, tears pooling in her eyes and finally escaping in an animalistic roar. It scared me, and I backed into Kieren, who placed a gentle hand on my shoulder.

"Every time," she muttered to herself, clutching the back of the couch so fiercely I thought she might rip the fabric. "Every time. Over and over again. It's impossible."

She finally sat down, collecting herself before speaking again. She ran her fingers through her hair, and for a brief moment I caught a glimpse of what I had suspected: a scar on her temple. A jagged line where her ICD had been removed.

And she began to speak.

"You have to understand that I've tried to protect you a million different ways. I've known what was behind the Tomorrow door since high school. It's always some variation of the same thing. War, despair. The domes. The devices in our heads. I just didn't know then...I didn't know until recently, that they would be invented by my own daughter."

"Go on," I said calmly. Robbie looked to me for some clue of what she was talking about, and I offered him a slight nod to let him know it was okay.

Mom cleared her throat. "There are scenarios where Adam comes back to you and scenarios where he doesn't. There's even one where you run away with Kieren. They always end the same. Jin creates the mind devices. And the war starts."

"He makes them without me?" I asked.

"Yes."

"How? They're my idea."

"They were your idea," my mother clarified. "The first time. In the future, every kid in a robotics class will understand the basic mechanics. All Alexei had to do was go through a Tomorrow door, read a few blog posts about it, watch a few videos, then go back to the past with knowledge that only he would have."

"Is that why Adam tried to kill him?" I asked, and I could feel Kieren tense by my side as I said the name.

"Yes," Mom admitted, her eyes shutting briefly. "Alexei brought the blueprints back from the future and simply showed them to Jin. Then they made it together. They didn't even need you. Or...I guess what I mean is he will do that."

I nodded, seeing the whole picture start to form before me. "And the doors under the school?" I asked.

She finally turned to look at me. "When Adam failed in killing Alexei this past January, I knew it was up to me. I destroyed the doors because I knew Alexei was somewhere in the future, looking for the way to make his own ICD. I thought...I thought maybe I could trap him there. But he must have found another way back, and so the opposite happened instead: I trapped us all on a pathway with only one potential future. The one where Alexei gets his war."

"Why did he want a war?" Robbie asked by my side, catching up quickly. I wondered if he knew who Alexei was. After all, Alexei lived in Portland, and was apparently still friends with my mother. Robbie might have met him while growing up there.

"The same reason powerful men always want war," Mom answered, chuckling to herself with a sardonic smile. "He knew he would win."

"We'll stop it this time," I said confidently. "We'll just—"

"There's no way to stop it," Mom said now, turning away again. "Evil finds a way. Life is chaos, like I said."

I turned back to the members of my family who meant the whole world to me: my brother, my sister-in-law...and Kieren. My second brother. My oldest friend.

"My life isn't chaos," I said, smiling into Kieren's familiar blue eyes. He smiled back, his cheeks reddening as I repeated his words back to him. "Alexei is in Portland. And we're going to stop him."

I turned with a new certainty toward the staircase.

"Where are you going?" Mom asked.

"To pack," I answered, my hand resting on the bannister. I looked to Robbie for confirmation. "We're going to Portland."

Robbie nodded, reaching out to squeeze Piper's hand. He turned to her, almost as if asking for permission.

She smiled back at him. "I'll get our suitcases."

***

I love when Marina goes into action mode! What do you think we'll find in Portland?