Chapter 28 · The Price of Staying

The timer on Lisa's chest reads forty-three seconds.

Charlotte's still holding the syringe Marcus threw her before the pipe blew. Her hand's shaking so bad the needle catches the overhead light, throws little white streaks across the cryo pod's glass. Forty-one seconds. The fluid inside the syringe is dark red, almost black. Looks like old blood. Smells like burnt copper and something else, something that makes her sinuses ache.

She knows what it is. Marcus told her. One shot stops the loop anchor. Breaks the chain. She goes back to linear time. No more resets. No more twenty-one-hour do-overs.

No more second chances if this goes wrong.

Thirty-eight seconds.

Lisa's eyelids are moving. Rapid little flickers under the thin skin. Her lips are blue. There's frost in her eyelashes. The pod's still venting cold air, hissing like a pissed-off snake. Charlotte yanks the access panel open, finds the manual release, and slams it with her palm. The hiss stops. The glass seal cracks with a sound like ice splitting on a lake.

Thirty-four seconds.

"Come on, baby. Come on."

Charlotte pulls the lid up. It's heavier than it looks.