The Chaos Loop Read online

  Dedication

  To the memory of Kurt Messerschmidt,

  whose story of bravery, sacrifice, and grit in escaping

  the Nazis is a great inspiration to me.

  —P.L.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  Corey Fletcher was two hours early, but about three minutes late.

  Well, later than he wanted to be, anyway. He was still getting the hang of time-hopping.

  As he rounded the corner toward the 96th Street station, he scooted around his neighbor, Walter Preston. Walter’s black Lab, Bailey, wagged his tail at the sight of Corey, but Corey was in too much of a hurry to say hello. Sprinting down the subway stairs, he could hear the rumble of the uptown train approaching. The station clock said 4:17. In one minute the train would be in the station, and the doors would open. At that moment, his sister, Zenobia, would be attacked.

  He knew all this, because it had already happened. She had come home crying. Corey had felt so angry and frustrated that he hadn’t been with her.

  That’s why he had traveled to the before. Before the incident happened. Before his sister was hurt. Because he was going to change things. He was going to thwart that attack.

  His watch beeped 6:17, but he ignored that. Messing with time could make your head spin. He’d aimed to get here just a few minutes earlier, with enough time to think of a plan. But he was late. It hadn’t worked exactly the way he wanted. It hardly ever did.

  He’d just have to wing it now.

  “An uptown train is entering the station . . .” came a recorded voice from below. “Please stand clear of the platform edge. . . .”

  He raced for the turnstile, nearly knocking over a girl with blue hair as she fumbled in her pocket for a MetroCard. Shouting a hurried apology, he plowed past her. Even though he’d grown five inches that year and had trouble with coordination, he flew down the steps three at a time.

  The train shoved air through the tunnel as it entered the station. It created a warm breeze that smelled of dust and stale pee. Corey cast a quick glance left and right. The platform was nearly empty, so he crouched as close to the edge as he could. He could predict the exact spot where Zenobia would exit. She always did the same thing, every single trip. She sat near the door closest to the turnstiles, so she could be the first person out of the train and up the stairs. She was so competitive.

  Corey covered his ears against the shriek of the brakes. Several cars slid past him as the train slowed to a stop. Through the window he could see Zenobia in the train, sitting on an orange seat, tapping on her phone. He could see her mop of dark brown hair, even thicker than his own. The fluorescent subway lights made her glasses glint. She hated wearing those glasses.

  Most people would be texting or posting, but not Zenobia. Even though she was still in high school, she was writing her memoir, which she was convinced would make her rich and famous. And she wasn’t watching anything around her. Or anyone. Her backpack was resting beside her on the seat, her right arm hooked through one of the straps.

  She definitely did not see the guy sitting at the other end of the bench, wearing the black ski mask.

  “This stop is . . . Ninety-Sixth Street . . .” chimed a voice from inside the car.

  The train clunked to a halt and the door noisily slid open. The black-mask guy pulled out a knife. In a quick move like a dancer, he spun toward Zenobia and sliced through the backpack strap that was hooked to her arm.

  As he pulled the pack away, she let out a piercing shriek. Her phone clattered to the floor. The attacker scooped it up as he ran toward the door.

  “Give it back, you creep!” Zenobia screamed, although honestly, she used a stronger word than creep. She lunged for him, managing to grab the back of the guy’s jacket. It was enough to keep him inside the train car, but his momentum pulled her onto the floor behind him.

  Now. Don’t think!

  Trying to be a hero was crazy, and Corey knew it. The guy had a weapon. Also, Corey had never played football, never taken a martial arts class, and hadn’t the faintest idea how to attack someone.

  As the man shook off Zenobia and ran for the door, Corey did the first thing that came to mind.

  He ducked.

  The attacker didn’t expect a body just outside the door. His midsection caught Corey in the shoulders. Both of them tumbled to the ground in the doorway. Corey tried to push the guy away, but the doors slid shut on either side. They lurched open and closed, again and again, banging against their bodies with an insistent thump-thump-thump.

  “Let the doors go!” a voice barked over the loudspeaker.

  With a grunt, the attacker pushed Corey away and sprang to his feet.

  But Zenobia jumped at him, grabbing for her pack. “Give that back!” she shouted.

  Off-balance, the man stumbled back into the car. The pack slipped off his shoulders and out of Zenobia’s hands, landing on the floor. Corey scooped it up and stood in the doorway, making sure it stayed open. “Hurry!” he shouted to his sister.

  As Zenobia slipped past him, Corey spotted the blue-haired girl. She had entered the car through another door and was standing a few feet away, aiming her phone at the scene. But at the moment, her face was turning ashen with fright.

  The attacker was lurching toward Corey with the knife.

  No time to think. Corey lashed out with a kick. His heel caught the guy square in the knee, causing the man’s head to jerk back and hit a metal pole. He slumped slowly downward again, moaning.

  “Whoa,” said the blue-haired girl.

  “Did you do that?” Zenobia said.

  “Let go of the doors!” came the conductor’s voice as the door banged against Corey again.

  He backed out of the car and onto the platform. Through the open doors, he caught a glimpse of the blue-haired girl, phone to her side, staring downward with her mouth hanging open.

  “Next stop, One Hundred and Third . . .” came an announcement.

  On the train floor, their attacker was groaning for help. “Knife . . .” he called out, reaching toward the blue-haired girl. “Fell . . . on knife . . .”

  As the doors slid slowly shut, Corey could see a trickle of dark liquid oozing out from underneath his body.

  2

  “I still don’t understand why you left me, Corey,” Zenobia said.

  Corey stared at the TV. The den was crowded. Watching the 7:00 local news after dinner was a family tradition. Corey’s dad’s parents, aka Papou and Yiayia, sat in matching leather reclining chairs. They lived in the same brownstone. His other grandmother, on his mom’s side, was in a wheelchair, visiting from the elder-care facility
on West End Avenue. Mutti didn’t speak much anymore, and sometimes she didn’t know where she was. She moaned and cried a lot, but right now her eyes were glued to the TV screen.

  What happened in the subway had caught the attention of the press. When the reporters had gotten there, the train had still been in the station. A crowd of passengers had gathered around the blue-haired girl and the attacker. By that time Zenobia was gone.

  Corey had left before her, slipping away when she wasn’t looking to get back to the present. “I left because I heard a siren,” Corey said. It was a lie, and not a very good one. “Like I told you. I followed them down Ninety-Fifth Street. Sorry.”

  “You couldn’t have just called nine-one-one?” Zenobia asked.

  “Paithi mou, Corey was trying to help,” Papou said.

  “I know, I know.” Zenobia took Corey’s hand and kissed him on the cheek. Normally that kind of behavior would have sent Corey away screaming, but he felt numb. It was one thing to save Zenobia. It was a whole other thing to cause a man to fall on a knife, even a bad guy. Corey hoped he hadn’t died. There was nothing about the incident on his news app.

  Corey’s phone dinged and he quickly glanced at a text notification.

  Leila Sharp

  can u meet me RIGHT NOW in the park? u test me for my AP German vocab quiz tmw & ill treat u to mila café

  He texted back a quick no. Leila was his best friend. She was also the only thirteen-year-old he knew who was taking AP German. But that was because her dad and mom were descended from Germans and her family spoke the language while she was growing up. Anyway, she would have to wait. Everything would have to wait until he figured this out.

  His mind raced. There were options if the guy had died. Corey could do the whole thing again. He could go back even earlier in time and get it right. He could get the police involved in advance. If they were set up for action, waiting at the station, then the masked guy would have to give himself up. The fight wouldn’t happen.

  That was the advantage of being a Throwback. You had the power to redo anything. Infinitely. All Corey would need was a chance to get away.

  “Mama, is that you?” whispered Mutti, as an urgent-looking woman with beautiful hair appeared on the screen.

  “No, Mutti,” Corey’s mom said, taking her hand. “It’s only a newscaster.”

  “This is Carla Hasty with breaking news,” the TV woman said. “This afternoon, a potential thief on the C train received a shock, thanks to a young hero named Trilby.”

  “Trilby?” Corey said.

  The blue-haired girl appeared on the screen, standing on a subway platform and looking very solemn. “I saw it happening as the train was pulling in. This creep, he—he had a knife . . . he was approaching this, like, little girl on the way home from school . . .” Her voice caught and she took a breath.

  “Little girl?” Zenobia hopped up from the sofa. “I’m a high school senior!”

  Mutti laughed softly. “Hoo, hoo, hoo.”

  “Well, that girl is like twenty,” Corey said. “To her, you looked—”

  “So . . . so . . .” On the screen, Trilby was in close-up, choking back tears. “So I guess I didn’t care about the danger to me. I didn’t even think. There was a fight. Everything happened so fast. I pulled the guy off to let her escape. And he lost his balance and f-f-fell on his knife.”

  “Whaaat? She’s taking all the credit!” Zenobia shouted at the TV. “Corey’s the one who saved me!”

  “Sssshhhh.” Papou turned up the volume as Carla Hasty appeared on the screen again. “The attacker, who has not yet been identified, is reported in good condition at Saint Luke’s Hospital with minor lacerations. He is also reported to be wanted in connection with a string of robberies on the Upper West Side. . . .”

  “Corey’s a hero, Mutti,” Corey’s mom whispered.

  “Like Stanislaw . . .” Mutti muttered.

  “Like who?” Corey asked, but no one was paying attention.

  “The real story will come out,” Yiayia said, “when Zenobia presses charges.”

  Corey let out a sigh of relief and flopped back on the sofa. “Well, I’m glad the guy didn’t die.”

  “Yeah, me, too, so I can nail his butt in the courtroom.” Zenobia leaned down and cupped the back of Corey’s head in her hand. “I’m glad you didn’t die. You are my hero, little bro. I will never ever ever say a bad thing to you again.” She gave Corey a hug and then kissed her grandparents one by one. “Papou, Yiayia, Mutti, ’bye, gotta do homework!”

  As she ran out of the room, Mutti was calling out names now, in a world of her own. Corey’s mom quietly wheeled her away, just behind Zenobia.

  As a commercial started, Yiayia sat back down and sighed. “I still can’t believe what happened, Corey. What are the chances you’d be waiting for an uptown train at the exact moment your sister arrived?”

  “It’s like you planned it,” said Papou.

  Corey gave the old man a glance. Papou’s left eyebrow was raised sky-high. The message was clear:

  We need to talk.

  The park’s stone wall was amber gray in the setting sun, as Corey and his grandfather crossed Central Park West. Neither of them said a word. It was a freakishly warm December evening, but Corey zipped his jacket tight. The temperature always seemed to drop the moment they reached the park side of the street.

  “So, let me guess,” Papou said. “You hopped, because something bad happened to your sister?”

  Corey had to remind himself that Papou didn’t know exactly what had happened. Changing the past meant that everything was reset, including people’s memories. In Papou’s mind, the robbery and the hospital trip never occurred. But Papou was a time traveler, too. Even though he still had a memory like any other human being, he knew something was up.

  Corey had inherited the ability to time-hop from his papou, and they kept no secrets. “Yeah,” Corey said. “I did.”

  Papou stopped at the entrance at Ninety-Sixth Street, next to the large stone slab in the wall carved “Gate of All Saints.” His face was lined and dark in the waning sunlight. Their neighbor Walter was approaching with Bailey, who was straining at the leash. “Hi there, we’re late,” said Walter as he passed. “Don’t know if he’s walking me or I’m walking him!”

  “Hi, Baileeeeeeeey!” Corey shouted. But Bailey ignored him. It was as if he’d remembered Corey’s snub from earlier by the subway stairs.

  Normally Papou would say hi to Walter and crack some lame joke. But his eyes were fixed on Corey. “Was Zenobia badly hurt? Disfigured?”

  “No, you saw her,” Corey said.

  “I mean, before,” Papou said. “Was that the reason you hopped—she was terribly injured?”

  “No,” Corey replied.

  “So . . . concussion? Great loss of blood?”

  “I don’t think so. She was upset. Mom wanted her to go to the hospital, you know, to rule out anything.”

  “Okay. So help me understand the before part, paithi mou,” Papou said. “You went along with your mom to the hospital, and from there you ducked out in order to sneak back into the past and confront this knife wielder yourself? You decided to go it alone, putting your life at risk—even though your sister was shaken up and could have dealt with it the way people in New York deal with things like this?”

  Corey didn’t like this line of questioning. It was so matter-of-fact. A scolding. It wasn’t like Papou at all. “She’s your granddaughter! If you could do what I can do, wouldn’t you—”

  “Ah, there’s my point, Corey,” Papou said. “We’ve talked about this, yes?”

  “I know, I know,” Corey said. “Along with the powers of being a Throwback comes great responsibility.”

  “Were you being responsible?” Papou asked. “What if you’d died? Who would go into the past to save you?”

  Corey turned away. He knew the answer to that.

  No one.

  Papou could time-hop. Corey’s best friend, Leila, could,
too. The Upper West Side of New York City was headquarters to a group of time travelers called the Knickerbockers, and they were part of a bigger international group. But the rules of time applied to them all. The past was the past. It could not be changed. Period. No matter how many attempts you made, nature interfered. It stopped you in your tracks. You could jump on the back of John Wilkes Booth and he would still shoot Lincoln. You could try to poison Christopher Columbus, but he would still set sail. Corey’s grandmother had died in the World Trade Towers on 9/11, and Papou himself had tried many times to rescue her. Each time he failed and failed again.

  The idea of a Throwback, a real, honest-to-goodness history changer, had been a legend among the Knickerbockers. A tall tale.

  It took Corey to make it real. He had saved his grandmother. But it wasn’t easy. It took a failed try and a slip back into 1917. And Corey came close to dying there.

  “Come with me,” Papou said. “There’s one more thing.”

  As he turned into the park, Corey asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Into the North Woods,” Papou said. “For a little refresher talk with a friend.”

  Which meant, Corey suspected, that they were going to see the mutant talking warthog formerly known as Cosmo deSmiglia. Who smelled something like a fart in a bed of rotten cheese.

  “Oh. Come on.” Corey stopped walking, forcing his grandfather to stop. “Smig? Why?”

  Papou turned. “You need this. He will talk sense into your head. About ELSTTS.”

  “Else?”

  “E-L-S-T-T-S,” Papou spelled out. “Excessive life span time travel syndrome.”

  This was the flip side of time travel. It was dangerous to go back to a time when you were already alive. It seemed nature didn’t like when two of you existed at the same time. Your body’s genes, in Papou’s scientific analysis, “freak out.” They don’t know how to handle it, something like magnetic poles repelling each other. With each visit, the agitation gets worse, until finally the body revolts. The genes shift and become something else. Something as far from human as possible.

  Like Smig.

  “Look, I promise, Papou, I’m not like Smig,” Corey pleaded.

  “Addiction to time travel is what caused him to be the way he is.”