Eternity's Wheel Read Online Free PDF

I didn’t know if that was because that version had died, or been captured by Binary or HEX, or if this was the home world of one of my fellow students back on Base. I didn’t spend too much time thinking about it.
    When I’d expanded my senses to look for Josephine, right before I’d felt HEX’s attack, I’d felt her—and she hadn’t been home.
    What was a version of me, not even seventeen years old, doing away from home at three A.M. ? It wasn’t like Greenville had an active nightlife (although I suppose this one had a twenty-four-hour diner, at least . . .) and I had never been the most popular of kids. I certainly hadn’t been cool enough to hang out with anyone who’d stay out all night. Maybe this version of me was different, but I doubted it.
    I kept moving, occasionally hopping into a different dimension to throw off any pursuers. When I’d first started Walking, I’d done it instinctively—and, apparently, badly. One of my teachers had explained that I’d basically puncheda hole in the wall instead of finding the door. I’d gotten better at it since then, and it was easier to slip between the worlds without causing as many ripples. I could Walk as many times as there was a portal around; HEX and Binary were operating on borrowed power, so my hope was that being a moving target would discourage them from chasing me too far.
    I eventually made my way back to Josephine’s Greenville, a few blocks over from where I’d started. The HEX agents didn’t seem to be following me anymore; I couldn’t sense them when I tried.
    I could sense her. She was a couple of streets away from where I was now, out of the residential area. I could see the brighter lights of the business district off in the distance, which was definitely where the familiar tug was leading me.
    I sighed. Nothing was ever easy. . . .
    With my senses on high alert and my ribs aching again from all the movement, I started down the street.
    It didn’t take me long to track her down, though I was still at a loss as to why she was apparently in an abandoned office building. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. The last time I’d been in a place like this, I had found Joaquim, the Walker who’d turned out to not be a Walker at all, who’d betrayed my team and caused Jerzy’s death. He’d been pretending to be a captive of Binary so we’d “rescue” him. . . . Had Josephine been taken captive, too?
    It was seeming more and more likely. The HEX scouts outside her house . . . maybe they hadn’t been waiting for me, after all. Maybe they had found her.
    This was bad. I was still running on borrowed time, dealing with several injuries, and had no weapons. I had no one I could call for backup. Josephine was supposed to become my backup.
    The smart thing to do would be to cut my losses and go—head to another version of Greenville and find another me. Like I said, as long as there were portals, I never had to stop Walking. I could go anywhere I wanted, as long as I got there before FrostNight destroyed everything. . . .
    I was berating myself for not ever being able to do the smart thing as I picked the lock on the abandoned building.
    See, when HEX and Binary capture a Walker, they don’t just kill them. They use them. I’d explained that to Mr. Dimas, but I hadn’t explained how. HEX boils us down, literally puts us in a giant cauldron, still alive and screaming, and boils us like lobsters. Down past the skin and bones, to our very essence. Then they put that essence in a jar and cast some kind of spell on it and use it whenever they need to Walk. And that’s not the worst part, no way.
    The worst part is, in some small way, we’re still alive. Still aware . And we know what’s been done to us and what we’re being used for.
    I’d rather die right now—rather let all the worlds