Read Undone for Free Online Page B

of her head, sneakers on her feet, her cell phone to her ear, standing at the bottom of the hill, at the edge of the parking lot, on the cusp of the road. Directly in the truck’s path.
    “Ben, we gotta go,” Eli said.
    This was all my fault. “I’m so sorry,” I said, leaning forward, pressing my lips to her forehead.
    She stirred, moving her legs with a pained sigh. I pulled back to see her eyes were open again.
    “You’re going to be all right,” I breathed as I sat up. Her brown eyes looked up at me, and I said it again. “You’re going to be all right.” This time I couldn’t help but smile. Exhaustion weighed my body down, making me feel weak and dizzy, but it didn’t matter. She was really going to be okay. She looked whole again, like herself.
    I brushed a strand of hair out of her face.
    I had put her back together. I saved her life like she had saved mine—for real this time. She wouldn’t ever forget this. I’d be imprinted on her memory the same way she’d been imprinted on mine. Even when I went back home, we would still always be a part of each other’s lives.
    Someone grabbed my arm, and I realized how little strength I had left.
    “Let’s go!” Reid yelled, and Eli yanked me off the road.
    Reid had his bike already, and mine and Eli’s were both lying on their sides. I didn’t have time to ask who brought my bike down or thank them for coming after me, or apologize for breaking the rules we had and the ones we didn’t.
    “You okay to get up the hill?” Eli asked, grabbing my bike.
    I nodded. I would have to be. We needed to get out of here. I took my bike from him, swung my leg over, and followed Reid, who’d already started up the hill.
    Eli followed me, and we caught up to Reid. I felt tempted to turn around and look back, check on Janelle one last time, but I forced myself to keep going. She was alive again; she wasn’t broken. That was the best I could do.
    “The guy in the truck?” I said, my voice labored.
    Neither of them responded, and I knew what that meant, or I should have. I looked at Eli anyway.
    He shook his head.
    “Very dead,” Reid said. “Same as the other.”
    “And that truck,” Eli added. “Nothing I’ve ever seen before. Definitely not from home.”

E ven though I already knew that deep down, hearing it confirmed was worse than getting punched with a lead fist. I wobbled slightly on the bike, head still swimmy and weak from the exertion.
    When we reached the top of the hill, the road turned inland, and I turned left down the first side street I could. I didn’t care if Eli and Reid followed me or not, even though I knew they probably would. I rode straight toward the cliffs overlooking the beach, skidded to a stop, and got off the bike.
    I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure how everything had managed to go so wrong. We still didn’t have the right answers. We hadn’t been able to keep anything from coming through. Now we had a dead driver who was most certainly not dead when he’d been driving wherever he came from, and we’d killed Janelle. That I brought her back was a miracle, but it didn’t change that fact that everything we’d done today had been wrong. I kicked the bike and sent it skidding a few feet to the left.
    “It’s okay,” Eli said. “We can try one more time, we can—”
    “No,” I said, cutting him off.
    The guy was a mess. He drank too much, got into too many fights, and didn’t care about anything other than getting home. He was also my best friend, and he knew me better than anyone. He heard the finality in my voice, and he nodded. A sign he knew I’d do anything for him. Anything but this.
    He didn’t say another word. No outburst, no swearing, nothing. The disappointment hung heavy in the air between us, and he looked out over the ocean.
    “We’ll go back to the research,” I said. “We can build a machine, something we can control. I’m not saying we won’t get home. I’m just saying this isn’t