My heart beat steadily, a quiet drumbeat against Amy’s palm. Her skin pressed against my back was sticky, warm, but I didn’t want to move. Not now...maybe not ever again if it was an option. Amy stirred briefly, a yawn tickling the back of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine and a tingle even lower.

  I cracked my eyes open, staring at the clock on the bedside table. Seven. How much of last night had I actually slept and how much had we… I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t complaining either. Amy’s grip on my chest tightened suddenly, making my heart skip a beat. I heard a tired chuckle, then felt her lips press against the back of my neck.

  “Morning,” Amy greeted me, still sleepily pawing.

  “Hey,” I said, a smile creeping onto my face. “Sorry, you can keep sleeping.”

  “Mm,” she groaned. “Not really, school.”

  “Fuck.” I sighed and shut my eyes. “Right.”

  “S’okay,” she said, giving me a pinch that sent sparks dancing over my skin. “We can lay here for a bit.”

  “Not if I ever want to get up,” I said dryly, taking her hand and pulling it away from my breast. I entwined our fingers and gave it a tight squeeze. “Thank you Amy I...thank you, for everything yesterday. I love you.” Another kiss on my neck.

  “You’re welcome,” Amy replied. “But you’re right, unfortunately.”

  She let me go and I pushed the covers off, standing and stretching as I rose. I retrieved my clothes from the floor and headed to the bathroom after at least getting a shirt and underwear on. As soon as I was done, Amy went in and I headed to the kitchen to make breakfast. A few minutes and a couple peanut butter sandwiches later, I sat at the table and waited for Amy to join me, staring blankly at the wall.

  Everything felt raw, like too much all at once. Even the fairly soft cotton of my shirt was scratchy as a wool blanket. School yesterday had been...I didn’t want to think about it, but I couldn’t avoid thinking about things anymore because they’d slap me in the face. It had gone from bad, to worse, to nightmarish to...less bad. Amy padded into the kitchen wearing nothing but a smile, joining me at the table.

  We hadn’t talked about it, we’d just… I hadn’t wanted to talk about it, still didn’t, but I needed an answer to the only question that mattered. If it was a no, then, what? I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to try and think about it because all I’d do is psych myself out. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them and met her eyes.

  “Amy,” I said, getting a nod; she was chewing. “I um… Can I ask you something? It’s important and...and I need a serious answer.” She swallowed, then frowned.

  “Um, sure, what’s up?” Amy asked, sounding worried.

  “If I…” I bit my tongue. Had to ask, had to. “If I wanted to leave Brockton Bay, leave everything, would you come with me?”

  “Um.” She pursed her lips and looked at the table, scratching at it with a nail. “Just...us?”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding.

  “What would you like, do? Where would we go?”

  “Not the question.”

  “I guess…” Amy took a deep breath and looked up, meeting my eyes with iron in hers. “I would, if you had a plan. Was going to leave anyway after...y’know. So...is that—”

  I cut her off, wrapping my arms around her neck. I’d leaped across the table, knocking my breakfast to the floor. It didn’t matter, none of it did. Tears wet my cheeks, I felt like an idiot crying over something I wanted but...god.

  “Thank you,” I whined, hating my voice but I had to say it. “I love you Amy.”

  “Hey, easy,” Amy said gently, hands grasping my waist. “Can’t fix brain damage if you fall over.”

  “Built in helmet,” I countered, sniffing. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, kissing my neck. “Was that...it?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” I apologized, pulling away and wiping my eyes. I delicately got down from the table and picked up my plate, fortunately intact, and sandwich, unfortunately less so. I put it back together and wiped up the mess before sitting back down. Amy eyed me all the while. “What?”

  “You...you don’t want to leave town?”

  “Um.” I winced. “That was just, uh, hypothetical?” Her look told me she wasn’t buying it.

  “Was it about, uh, Trixie?” I swallowed against my dry mouth and nodded. “Okay. For the record, I meant it.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly.

  Breakfast continued in uncomfortable silence. My sandwich barely tasted like anything, and I only managed to choke it down because I figured going without would suck more. Amy finished before me and headed back to our room. Once I’d eaten, I cleaned up and joined her. She stared at me as I dressed, a frown growing on her face.

  “Are you really wearing yesterday’s clothes?” Amy asked, her tone judgy.

  “I mean, I only wore them for half of yesterday,” I said with a shrug. “Why?” She walked over and hooked her thumbs in the waistband of my underwear, gripping my hips. I barely suppressed a whine.

  “You’ve got plenty to choose from,” she replied, eyes slowly trailing up and down with a look that made me shiver. “I’m sure we can find something you look good in. I was a fan of your outfit yesterday afternoon.” I felt my blush spread down my cheeks and neck.

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  “We don’t have time,” I complained weakly.

  “We do,” Amy countered, trailing butterfly-light kisses up my neck. When she spoke again, her voice was a hot whisper in my ear. “Trust me.”

  I did.

  “Amelia, you’re late,” my precalc teacher, Mr. Rathburn, commented.

  “Sorry sir,” I said, cheeks darkening. “Won’t happen again.”

  “Mm, please be seated.”

  I ignored the looks from my classmates as I headed to my desk and sat down. Hell with them, even though Amy had broken her promise about having time I wasn’t about to complain over my morning. I’d happily complain about having to crack open my math textbook and try to figure out what was going on though. It wasn’t even important, not really. As much as I wanted to avoid thinking about the new-old-new memories in my head, that just wasn’t practical.

  After all, there was no avoiding the end of the world.

  That was what Tattletale had been asking about, at the party we crashed; Gold Morning. A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered the perpetrator looming over me, radiating curiosity and disgust. How close had we come to experiencing it right there? Did he know now, because of what he did to me? Did he actually do anything?

  Well obviously he had, it was pretty stupid to think otherwise, but it left a question of what? Had he done what Amy guessed and healed what he thought was brain damage? If so, how had it come back? Or was it more that he extracted it, though if that was the case then mankind was pretty fucked on the apocalypse front. But there was no evidence Scion had done anything yet, so maybe not.

  I suppressed a frustrated sigh, rubbing one of my temples. It didn’t exactly hurt, thinking of my foreign memories, but it sure wasn’t comfortable. There was a weird feeling of otherness, or maybe not that weird since it was literally someone’s memories floating around my skull. When random, personal details invaded my head, I felt like I was digging too deep.

  Of course, it was all part and parcel of what I actually needed from her, the other Amy. God, if Yamada was still around I could really have used her help with this. She’d given Taylor hypnotherapy, fuck sake; she would have definitely humoured me trying to use therapy to figure out the end of the world.

  Oh well, bridge burned, and not even by me for once. I had my doubts about O’Keefe, but being fair I hadn’t even remembered anything when we’d interacted, nothing important at least. Even if I had, it was probably a bad idea to go bandying it around to random therapists I didn’t know. That basically nixed actual therapy, leaving me...where?

  Amy. She wanted to figure out what was going on too, she had the ability to see what no one else could, and she was available. Well, maybe available, I’d have to ask first of course. Brains were a touchy subject I knew, but she would see reason, I was certain of it. For whatever faults she had, Amy wasn’t stupid.

  I’d talk to her tonight, after class. No more distractions, because as much as I wanted every one she could offer I couldn’t afford it. Humanity couldn’t afford it. Maybe Scion really had done something. I’d been so damned shortsighted the last month, barely thinking beyond the next week. No more though. I had Amy, and she had my back. With that, this almost felt...doable.

  With some kind of a plan in mind, I did my best to focus on the rest of class, for what little good it would do me.

  “God what the hell was that traffic?” Amy complained as we got into her apartment. “An hour for a twenty minute ride, insane.”

  “I guess people are coming back,” I replied with a shrug, dumping my bag and shoes by the door. “Which it...I don’t know, I guess it’s kind of weird.”

  “Especially if they already managed to get out,” she agreed. “Like seriously.”

  “Seriously,” I said, heading in and sitting on the couch.

  Amy joined me a minute later, offering one of a couple apples she’d grabbed. I thanked her and bit down as she turned on the TV, tuning into a recorded episode of Black-eye Girl. I didn’t pay attention, knowing there was something more important we had to deal with. I just wasn’t sure I could ask…

  But I had to, I knew. Once we figured out where all this bullshit in my brain was coming from, I could maybe figure out what to do with it all. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of relying on it by any means, because I already knew where that road led and didn’t want to follow it again. If I could just chill out though, extract whatever was useful, it would be okay. For that, I needed the girl I was leaning against.

  “Amy,” I said after finishing my snack.

  “Sup?” she said, not turning from the TV.

  “Hey, can you pause this?” I asked, putting my hand on her thigh. “I um, I want to ask you to help me with something.” She studied my face for a moment, then paused the show.

  “Are you hurt?” Amy asked, holding out a hand. I placed mine in hers, shaking my head. “Okay, so...what is it?”

  “My brain,” I said, making her grimace. “I know, you don’t do brains, but we need to know what’s going on with mine.” She sighed.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “I know. Did you have any ideas?” I pursed my lips. “What? I’ve been thinking about it too, you know.”

  “Okay.” I thought it was going to be more of a fight… “Well, what can you actually like, tell me about what’s going on?” She stared at my forehead for a moment.

  “So there are these things in your head called engrams,” she began. “They’re basically the physical traces of memory on the brain.”

  “I have extras, right?” I asked, recalling some brief explanation from months ago.

  “Yes and no,” Amy said, waggling her other hand. “You do have more, thirty-odd years extra, but there’s some weirdness to it. Like, yes there’s the stuff that’s there but then there’re these other layers on top of it; superimposed, like putting an extra slide on a projector. They’re there, but not exactly. It’s...I don’t quite know how to explain it.”

  “Sounds fucked.”

  “It is,” she said with a nod.

  “So where does it come from?” I mused.

  “Dunno.”

  “It’s got to come from somewhere,” I continued. “I know you said it’s not tied into my coronas or whatever, the power glands.”

  “Not that I can see,” Amy said. “But you’re right, I...hmm.”

  “What is it?” I asked, curious.

  “It’s not…” She frowned and drummed her fingers on her thigh. “Do you remember back when the red mist infected you?”

  “Uhh, vaguely?” I said. “You mean like, when I died.”

  “Not quite died,” she countered. “Well, yes, died, but only for a couple seconds. I wasn’t really paying attention, I was kind of focused, but those engrams seem to light up whenever you think of details from those thirty years, or when you think about when you’ve died before.” I pursed my lips.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Great question,” Amy sighed. “I don’t...okay, I have an idea, but it’s sort of stupid.”

  “Half my life is made up of stupid ideas,” I retorted. “What is it?”

  “I kill you and take a look.” Something must have shown on my face because she held up a hand in front of me. “Not all the way, I know, I don’t want to send you back to...whenever. I can stop your heart, just for a second or two, then start it right back up. It’s safe, at least as long as I focus.”

  “There has to be another way,” I said, biting my lower lip.

  But there wasn’t, and I knew it. All this was tied up in whatever the fuck kept bringing me back to life. Amy couldn’t just wipe out the engrams and call it a day, like Scion might have, because we both knew that wouldn’t stick; and besides, it would be monumentally stupid to do that knowing what was on the line. Logically, that meant using whatever tools we had to get to the bottom of things.

  “Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s do thi—”