Читать книгу Unbreakable - Elizabeth Norris, Elizabeth Norris - Страница 20

relax for a second. My whole body feels a little like Jell-O, and I reach out and put my hand on the wall. Though I’m sure Barclay in my world is a bad sign.

He’s got one hand on Jared’s shoulder. I don’t like that.

Barclay must see the shift in my position. “Why don’t you head upstairs, kid?”

Jared looks at me, and I nod. The last thing I want is him getting dragged into whatever has Barclay showing up at my door. We both watch him as he leaves the room.

“Tenner, relax.” He raises his empty hands and smiles. “Just here to talk. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

His smile is disarming. It’s light and casual, like we’re long-lost friends and he’s happy to see me.

“So you come to my home and scare my brother?”

Barclay shrugs. “I knocked.”

“What do you want?” I ask, because let’s face it, he wants something.

His smile disappears and his eyebrows draw together, a flicker of annoyance on his face. “I need your help. I need you to come with me.”

He pulls a quantum charger from his pocket—I’d recognize one of those anywhere—and I shake my head. I remember how much it burned the last time he dragged me through a portal, and that thought sparks one that’s worse—all our missing people. What if that’s why Barclay is here? What if I’m next?

“I’m not going anywhere.” I bite my bottom lip and debate what to do next.

“We don’t have time to argue right now,” he says. “I’ll explain everything once we’re out of here.”

In hand-to-hand combat, I don’t stand a chance with Barclay unless I can take him by complete surprise and knock him out. I’m sure he has a gun on him, and I don’t. He also has a quantum charger and as a result he has access to anywhere—any universe. I can’t possibly keep him away from us.

Which means I need to hear him out.

“If you want me to go somewhere with you, you can explain it right now,” I say, pulling back. “I’m not about to just blindly follow you through a portal.”

“Fine, you want to have a chat, Tenner? Why don’t you have a seat,” he says as he sits down on our taupe couch with that stupid, arrogant smirk on his face.

I move into the living room and sit down on the couch as far as I can physically get from him. “So what is it?”

“We have a problem.”

“We?” I ask. Because there’s Barclay, and then there’s me. There’s no we at all.

He turns his blue eyes to me and stares for a second. Then he says, “It’s Ben.”