Chapter 20: Four

"Romy!"

I turned my head in the water.

There were lights on the beach now. Headlights, swinging across the sand, and a truck parked crooked on the grass with its doors hanging open.

A flashlight bobbed at the edge of the lake.

Behind it, a small figure in a red cape.

"ROMY!"

Briggs was in the water.

He'd come straight in with his jacket on.

"Two minutes, Host," said the System.

"Go back," I said. It came out as a croak. Nobody could hear it but me.

He was up to his waist. Up to his ribs. The lake was dragging at him.

On the shore, Goldie had Birdie by both shoulders and was shouting something at her. Birdie was fighting to get loose and go in after her father.

"Romy, please! Please!"

His voice broke in half on the second please.

I had never heard anyone say my name like that.

Not once in this world. Not once in the last one.

"Host," the System said.

Then it stopped.

It had never stopped in the middle before.

"Host. Reviewing exit conditions."

"There's no time."

"There is one minute and forty seconds. Reviewing."

The rain hammered the lake around me.

"Original rule, as issued to Host on arrival," said the System. "Be loved in this world within ten years, or leave it."

It paused.

"Be loved in this world."

Another pause, longer.

"The rule does not say by a target."

I stopped breathing.

"This unit tracked targets. This unit classified all other sources as unregistered and disregarded them. This was an error."

"An error," I said.

"Reading unregistered signals now."

Briggs was in to his chest, fifty yards out, still coming.

"Unregistered signal one," said the System. "Source: Briggs Eklund. Reading: 100."

I put my hand over my mouth in the water.

"Unregistered signal two. Source: Birdie Eklund. Reading: 100."

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