3:59

FORTY-NINE

3:57 A.M.

JOSIE GRIPPED THE VIAL IN HER HAND. SHE wasn’t sure what to expect. Clearly, Jo and her mother had no intention of letting Josie just waltz back into her own life. They wouldn’t be going back to their own world willingly, so Josie was just going to give them no other choice.

She checked the time on the bedside alarm clock. Another minute clicked by. Any moment now. Josie curled her toes inside her reclaimed pink tweed Converse. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing pulse. This was it.

By now, Mr. Byrne, Nick, and Tony were smuggling a multimillion-dollar experimental laser out of Fort Meade.

But Josie wasn’t with them. Mr. Byrne had insisted she stay behind out of fear for her safety—which was just fine. She had no intention of going up to Fort Meade that night.

Josie had a date to keep.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror as it began to ripple. The portal was opening. She had to play this perfectly, not let Jo suspect what she was really up to. She knew from experience that Jo was an excellent manipulator, but Josie wasn’t the same girl she was a few days ago. She was smarter, wiser, and most important, she had something to fight for.

All she had to do was keep track of the seconds. Sixty of them. If she timed it perfectly, she’d have the advantage. Finally.

As soon as Jo’s face came into focus, she gestured for Josie to pass through the mirror. Perfect. Much easier to stall when you could actually have a conversation. Josie reached her free hand before her and forcefully pushed her way through the gelatinous substance of the portal.

“Where is it?” Jo said the moment Josie’s feet were firmly planted in her old bedroom.

Josie pursed her lips. “I’m doing well, thanks. How are you?” Ten, eleven, twelve.

“Funny,” Jo said.

Josie surveyed the room. She’d expected Dr. Byrne to be there with her daughter, but instead, Jo stood alone in Josie’s old bedroom. It looked pretty much the same, though Josie’s eye immediately noticed that the objects on top of her bureau had been rearranged: perfume bottles aligned by height, unused jewelry organized by type and size, and the loose photos that had been shoved into a dresser drawer had been put into an array of matching frames, clustered together.

“So do you have the vial or not?” Jo tried to sound harsh, but there was a tremor in her voice, and she shifted her weight back and forth between her feet. Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five.

Josie flashed a view of the vial in her hand, then clenched it firmly behind her back.

Jo’s hand shot forward. “Give it to me.”

“You said I could come home,” Josie said, taking a step back. Her hand grazed the heavy, viscous surface of the portal.

Jo held up her hands. “No!” she squeaked. She glanced to her left, took a slow breath, and regained her usual composure. “I mean, not now.”

Not exactly a surprise answer. “Why not?” Thirty-three, thirty-four.

Jo’s eyes shifted to her left again. “Because . . .”

“Because we can’t allow it.” Josie knew that voice, only the version of it that she knew was more like a jingly domed bell, while this voice was harsh and staccato and lacking anything even remotely considered hospitable. Dr. Byrne stepped into the room from the hallway. She held a gun clasped tightly in her left hand, only it wasn’t pointed at Josie but off to the side. With a violent yank, Dr. Byrne pulled someone into Josie’s view. The straight, black hair. The watery dark eyes.

Penelope.

Josie clenched the vial even tighter. “What is she doing here?”

Penelope gasped. “Josie?” she said. Her eyes flitted back and forth between Josie and her doppelgänger. Josie could pinpoint the exact moment Penelope realized she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. “Wait, which of you is Josie?”

“It’s me, Pen,” Josie said.

“But . . .”

“I know.” Josie’s voice choked off. She’d lost Penelope once and to have her here, in danger again—it was too much. Josie swallowed hard, forcing the emotion back into the pit of her stomach. She had to focus, now more than ever. Penelope’s life depended on it. Thirty-nine, forty.

Penelope stared at the mirror, taking in all the details of Jo’s room. She turned and took a quick look at Josie’s bedroom, then back to the mirror. “Wow,” she breathed.

“Enough,” Dr. Byrne said, tugging at Penelope’s arm. The gun wavered. “Give me the vial,” Dr. Byrne said coldly. “And I’ll let her go.”

A new plan began to take shape in Josie’s mind. A laser, right there in her house. Penelope would know how to use it, if only Josie could get her out of there. She could get Josie’s dad, explain what she saw. Together, maybe they could force Dr. Byrne and Jo to switch back. . . .

“You can’t come home,” Jo said, in that soothing you-can-trust-me voice that had at one time been so seductive. “Okay? We can’t both be here. Someone will find out the truth. But I can give you something else.”

“Josephine, hurry.”

Forty-seven, forty-eight. Josie shrugged. “Like what?”

“Nick. We can exchange them.”

Josie practically laughed out loud. The idea of exchanging her old boyfriend for the Nick she’d grown to care for was ludicrous. “Not a chance.”

Jo tilted her head to the side, her expertly waxed brows drawn together. She must have thought the idea of delivering Nick would have Josie salivating, and Josie’s lukewarm reaction threw her for a loop. Her pinched face reflected confusion, but her eyes reflected something else. Something more like suspicion. “Why is that funny?”

Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five.

The five-second countdown. Time to act.

Josie tossed her head. “I’ll give it”—she nodded at Penelope—“to her.”

“Fine.” Dr. Byrne shoved Penelope. She stumbled forward, unable to take her eyes off Josie. Jo crept up behind her and stood at her elbow almost as sentry.

Josie caught sight of the mirror just as the image began to blur. Time was up.

She spun around and threw her arms around Penelope, enveloping her in a massive bear hug. “Tell my dad,” Josie whispered directly into Penelope’s ear. “She’s not my mom. You’ve got to get the mirror free at exactly three fifty-nine p.m.”

Penelope stiffened, unused to the physical contact. “Huh?”

Fifty-nine, sixty.

“Do it,” Josie hissed.

“O-okay.”

“Run,” she whispered. “Now.”