Chapter 2

Olivia's POV

I did not hesitate for even half a second. I walked straight into the hidden room.

The perception kept pulling at me from somewhere inside my own head. What was it trying to lead me to?

Every generation of the Sterling family had spent a lifetime in the grip of collecting.

My great-grandfather's vault held genuine antiques; my grandfather favored pieces out of Asia. My father's storeroom held the largest number of the three and the worst quality: auction-lot "masterpieces," antiques that had drifted in to settle somebody else's debt, a whole set bought off a seller who claimed a bloodline out of the European aristocracy. My father could never resist a story about noble blood.

Honestly, I have no idea what it could be.

I followed the pull into my father's vault and walked the rows of it, and then my gaze slid to the desk in the corner, where that thing was throwing off pulse after pulse, and a buried memory came up all at once.

I was ten when my father came back from Europe and handed me a souvenir. A rectangular block, semi-transparent, cool and slick under the fingers, a little larger than my palm. I played with it for two days, got bored, left it on his desk, and after that it spent ten-odd years holding down a stack of unopened letters. Neither of us ever counted it as worth anything.

It was still there, sitting quietly at the center of the desk on top of that stack of envelopes, the edges worn smooth, looking like nothing at all.

I picked it up and rested it in my palm.

Dead silence for three or four seconds.

Then a red glare burst out of the object and melted into my palm in one instant. The light went as fast as it came, and the shape of a space unfolded in my mind.

A plain gray rectangular building, utterly without ornament, standing a full eighty meters from floor to ceiling, stretching away into the depths — I steered my mind forward to explore it, and there was no end to it.

No day here, no night, no wind, no rain. Nothing rots. Nothing decays. Time stands still. Anything inside my sight or my awareness goes in on a single thought and comes back out just as fast, its resting place set entirely by my will.

I stood at that desk a long while without saying anything.

"What is this?"

I said finally, low.

"Storage space? In whenever I want, out whenever I want? This is insane."

Even liquidating every asset under the Sterling name and turning every last dollar of it into goods, I doubted it would fill a space that size. I made myself cool down. "This is one hell of a secret weapon once the disaster lands," I said. "I need to start stockpiling right now."

Before leaving, I emptied the vault of every last antique and cultural relic and stowed them all away in my space. These were objects of considerable age — who knew what unexpected surprises these old things might still be hiding.

I went back upstairs to the study, spread out paper and pen, and sketched a stockpiling plan at speed. The local wholesale markets could move a few dozen tons of grain at most, nowhere near the scale of reserves I needed. So I dug through the numbers and settled on the agricultural heartland in the Midwest. The distribution system out there is mature enough to push that kind of volume east. Real purchasing has to happen there.

The sky outside was going from ink black to a dull gray when I picked up the phone and called my lawyer. I went straight at it: list the Long Island estate, and dispose of every other property, equity stake, and vehicle in my name along with it. Liquidating takes time, but the family credit line is deep enough to lock the purchase contracts now and settle the balance once the properties close. Every dollar freed up by selling something is another dollar of supplies on the floor. The target: several hundred thousand tons of grain, delivered in batches against a longer settlement cycle.

With the objective settled I put the pen down, gathered my things, and bought a ticket out to the Midwest overnight. An hour before boarding, the phone rang. Caller ID: Rexie.

Rexie Carter. We grew up together. Five foot eleven, hard-boned, arms like a dockworker's; set an ordinary man beside her and he starts looking scrawny. Her family was a tangled mess. Her father had made his money off her mother's fortune and kept a mistress on the side. Her mother fought depression for years and lost. Before she died she arranged everything under Rexie's name — a few Manhattan apartments, a large block of company shares — enough that Rexie could have spent the rest of her life as a bored and happy landlady.

Instead she never got a quiet one. In my last life we went through the building of the ruins shoulder to shoulder, and she was my most reliable second. Her luck is absurd, and she pulls herself out of dead ends in ways nobody could predict. More than once I am alive because of her.

I picked up the call.

Her voice was tight and unsteady, the background roaring, shouting and quarreling layered over each other. She talked fast and worked hard to hold it level. "Olivia! Come get me! My father and his people have me locked up, forcing me to sign over the shares—"

Then, genuinely furious, the complaint: "And the food here is horrible! I swear the cook wouldn't eat his own cooking!"

"Where are you?"

"Rikers Island psychiatric holding center. I stole a nurse's phone to reach you!"

Rikers Island. Court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, maximum control, not somewhere you walk out of unless you have grown wings. I remembered it from my last life; her father had shut her in there then, too.

"If you can get out on your own, do it," I said. "If you can't, sit tight and behave. Once I finish what I'm handling, I'll come get you."

Her voice came back wronged, like somebody being abandoned. "Where are you going?" A catch in it. "Olivia, don't leave me. We agreed we'd go to the ranch, watch the sunrise, grill beef. You can't just walk out on me!"

"Rexie, I will never leave you behind. The second I'm done with what I've got to handle, I'll come get you."

I hung up and put the phone in my bag.

At the airport entrance I turned the decision over and over. If I went back now and pulled her out before they completed the forced transfer of the shares, then when the end came we would both be left with nothing to stand on. Nothing at all. I do care about Rexie; she is the only person in this world who matters to me. But feeling with nothing solid under it only makes death arrive faster. Grain first. Then her.

After thinking it over I added a line to my notes: her Manhattan apartments are sitting empty right now. Once I am back in New York, I'll talk her into selling. Every property cashed out is another batch in reserve.

Rexie's POV

The call was cut off. I froze for a second, then jumped barefoot off the bed.

"She says she's coming to pick me up!" I announced to the room full of people. No one was listening. "Did you hear me? She says she's coming to get me!"

Wait — wait for her to finish what she's doing? Who knows when Olivia will ever be done with her business. If I wait for her to come bail me out, I'll probably have been assessed and filed away long before then.

I went up on my toes and looked down the corridor. The care cart sat against the wall; the nurse had just turned into the washroom.

I climbed up onto the reception desk and shouldered the mop handle, one end of it knotted to a bedsheet I'd ripped off the next bed over. One swing, and it snapped and cracked in the air like a flag.

"Hey — who here wants out of this hellhole?"

The second the words landed, the ward blew up.

"Out! We want out!"

Beds shoved aside, chairs knocked over, the shouting all jammed into one sound.

The duty nurse hit the alarm.

"Help!"

"Riot at the holding center! Where's security — where's security!"