Unbreakable (Unraveling) by Norris Elizabeth

Author:Norris, Elizabeth [Norris, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-04-22T22:00:00+00:00

03:01:11:36

“There’s no way he would do that,” I say, my voice firm.

I’m relieved there’s something I can be sure about. Ben isn’t a bad guy. He would never help them. I look at Barclay to validate what I’m saying, but he just sits there. No disagreements. Worse, there’s no surprise on his face, nothing to suggest he didn’t know this was coming.

I shake my head. “Ben wouldn’t do that,” I say again. I know Ben. I know what he went through—how guilty he felt—when he was in my world. He would never use what he could do to smuggle people—to make people slaves. Not for anything.

Elijah touches my hand.

I look from Elijah to Barclay. “You know he wouldn’t.” I’m practically pleading with him to agree with me. Elijah’s been tortured and locked away in prison for months. He’s delusional. But Barclay is rational. And we’ve talked about Ben. He told me he didn’t believe that Ben was involved—that Ben was just some kind of scapegoat for the dirty IA agents to cover their tracks.

But when Barclay looks down and avoids my eyes, I know.

This is what he expected to hear.

Which means I’m missing a huge piece of the puzzle because I can’t think of anything that would make Ben join a human-trafficking ring. Of all people, Ben knows what it’s like to stumble out of his world and end up somewhere else—somewhere he doesn’t belong. He would never inflict that on anyone else.

I turn away from the table and look around the café. It’s the first time that I notice there’s another Seattle’s Best right across the street. Apparently Seattle’s Best is this universe’s Starbucks. I’m trying to grasp some kind of normalcy, something I can latch on to, something that will tell me that I’m not losing my mind. But everything is wrong.

“Tenner, take a seat,” Barclay says.

I can’t sit down and discuss anything with Barclay. I can’t even look at him because I know he’s lied to me. Again. I know he’s kept this from me, that he brought me here, made me go through hell to break Elijah out, and he knew that Ben had done this. He knew that if we made it this far, I would find out. And he made me find out this way.

I can’t believe I trusted him, that I didn’t see this coming, that I sat on the couch in his mother’s house and listened to him tell me stories about his life and I thought we were friends.

The rage from that idea boils somewhere deep inside me. It burns deep in my chest, because I can’t believe he’s put me in this position—and worse, I can’t believe I was this stupid. I clench my hands into fists to keep them from shaking, and I wrap that anger around myself, because I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to come through a portal and chase after bad guys. I didn’t want to watch Ben walk out of my life, or find out the best friend I have left was abducted.

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