Authors: Julie Cross
I heard a door burst open and voices.
“Just tell me what happened to him!” Holly said. “Can he come back if he … vanished?”
I sighed with relief. She was okay. But who was she talking to? I didn’t want to draw attention to myself yet, not until I knew it was safe.
“I have a feeling we’ll find out very soon, now that you’re here,” another voice said.
A very familiar voice. One I had heard on the very worst day of my existence. I had to see his face … the other man in Holly’s dorm.
Slowly, I stood up and forced my eyes to stay on the sky and not the ground.
The man had Holly pressed against a pole. It was the same man who fired his gun and shot her on October 30, 2009.
It hasn’t happened yet,
I forced myself to remember.
“Jackson, just the person I was looking for,” he said. “I’m not sure we’ve officially been introduced. I’m Thomas.”
“Thomas,” I spat. Of course it was Thomas. The EOT who could keep doing this over and over again until the fight turned out exactly how he wanted. Maybe I’d have to give him what he wanted right away, so he wouldn’t try and do it over again. All I had to do was pretend to be on his side.
Easy, right?
I couldn’t look at Holly or I’d deviate from my plan. Screw it up. But I could feel her eyes burning into the side of my face.
“Was that Rena flying off the roof?” Thomas asked casually.
“Um … yeah.”
He turned to face me. “I’m not here to hurt you, Jackson. That was never the intent. We’d be happy to leave your father alone if he hadn’t killed so many of us.”
I sucked in a breath and tried to calm down.
Dad is a survivor. He makes it out alive all the time,
I repeated to myself. “What is it you want from me, Thomas?”
He leaned closer to me, still gripping Holly, and I could see the slightest bit of resemblance between him and me. Probably fifteen years older, but still, we looked alike. “I just want you to hear my side. You’ve been influenced by others. Others not like you … they don’t understand us. I want you to see what you could have. The perfect life. We’ve tried to get you alone and now the only solution seems to be threatening the life of this girl. Look how you discovered your full abilities when she was shot. Amazing progress.”
I could feel my face hot with rage at the mention of what had happened to Holly … but the other dude … Raymond said it was a mistake. Did he mean that?
“What’s he talking about?” Holly asked.
Thomas looked at her. “Just the future, dear, nothing you need to worry about. The future’s always changing.”
“Yes, it’s changing already,” I said, jumping into my plan before I got distracted. “A lot of time has passed since that event. For me anyway. The more I use my abilities, the more I want to learn. Everything else is nonessential.”
A grin spread across his face. “Now, that’s
exactly
what I love to hear.”
“Like Rena. You don’t care that someone just killed her, because she’s alive somewhere else. Another timeline, right?”
“Ah … I see you haven’t been taught everything. When someone like myself…” He pointed at me. “Or yourself is killed, we cease to exist anywhere else, forever. Not in the past. Nowhere. But this young lady, and ordinary people in general, may be perfectly fine when we create another timeline. It’s one reason we were against Dr. Melvin’s experiment.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. From the corner of my eye, I could see Holly’s chest moving up and down as she took in heavy, fearful breaths.
The rain was slowing to a light drizzle, but the sky was still as dark as the middle of the night. I had tunnel vision right now, ignoring the turmoil I knew must be happening down below.
“Well … creating multiple timelines could lead to the destruction of the world. Time travelers driven by emotion will never stop saving loved ones. You’ll act the part of complete idiot regardless of the power you have. It won’t matter to you, and pretty soon … well … world destruction.”
Like what Emily showed me? Could I have caused that in the future? Or another time traveler?
“What if I fixed things without making a new timeline?” I asked.
He smiled this patronizing smile. “Yes, that would be excellent for you, but only I can do that. Others have tried. So much that they rotted their minds and died. Besides, changing one event often creates a chain reaction, and if you haven’t carefully considered each alteration, if you act impulsively, the results could be disastrous. It’s a responsibility few can handle.”
“I get it. Well … I do now anyway. Now that I’m more
experienced,
” I said, channeling Jenni Stewart and her ability to dive into a role so completely. To pretend. “So, tell me, then … tell me your side.”
He smiled and released Holly, then wrapped his fingers around my arm. We were jumping. Together.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I shook Thomas’s hand off my arm the second I felt the ground underneath me.
“It’s Times Square,” Thomas said. “What do you think?”
The buildings I knew so well surrounded me, only they were painted in soft earth tones, reflecting perfectly the sun’s rays.
And this version of New York had people everywhere. Their clothes matched the earth tones of the buildings. A woman walked by us and smiled, then said hello. My eyes dropped to the ground. It was covered in greenish brown brick that extended out everywhere. No dividing lines between sidewalk and street.
“Where are all the cars?” I asked.
“No cars. Just teleportation devices for traveling lengthy distances,” Thomas said. “Notice the air. It’s perfect—always clean, never too hot or too cold.”
Not like the air in the destroyed New York Emily had taken me to. I wouldn’t have lasted a day breathing that in. What was she trying to tell me?
“Some people are fighting to keep this from happening and some people are going to make it happen.”
“Is this where you’re from?” I asked Thomas.
“Don’t you mean
when
I’m from?” Thomas asked, then he laughed. “That’s the wonderful thing about being one of us, you can call anywhere home … anytime. Why not choose a world that makes the most logical sense?”
Okay, so obviously he isn’t going to tell me what year he was born. Not that I expected him to.
Behind me there were kids playing on a playground. At least I think it was a playground. But they were almost silent. Nothing like the kids I had in my group at camp. All the equipment seemed to be moving or electronic. A beam ran in between two poles and shifted side to side and the kids walked the length of it while it swayed.
The small climbing wall leading up to the main structure revolved so kids just climbed in place. They all moved like little Spider-Men, practically leaping tall buildings.
“All solar-powered,” Thomas said, turning to face the playground next to me. “Here, in the future, we don’t do anything that damages the Earth.”
But somebody did damage the Earth in the future. Or at least New York. I saw it with my own eyes. Or maybe that had already happened and they’d fixed it? Or … it was just a different timeline?
He started walking closer to a light brown building and I followed.
“We’ve improved the quality of life beyond what anyone could have imagined. Eliminated obesity, improved vitamin supplements, increased brain function.”
Vitamins that gave everyone superhuman strength? That would explain the amazing spider-children. “When does this happen?”
More important, what kind of drastic measures did it take to achieve this type of success?
“That I can’t tell you.” He spoke in this formal yet calm tone, like he was a guide giving me the four o’clock tour of the perfect future.
I continued to take in my surroundings, and it truly was beautiful. No trash anywhere, nothing out of place. The color schemes were brilliant. Like city and country blending together. Unbelievably perfect … exactly why I didn’t trust it. Emily had showed me the other future for a reason. I really wanted dates. For both worlds.
“Time’s up,” Thomas said, grasping my arm and pulling me back.
CHAPTER FORTY
AUGUST 15, 2009, 5:00
P.M.
Thomas did have skill. We were exactly where we’d left. I bent over, panting and trying to orient myself. Obviously, time travel had a different effect when I went with another time traveler. Going two years in the past had weakened me quite a bit and the half-jump to 1992 had beaten the shit out of me. But I felt fine now.
“So, were you impressed?” Thomas asked me.
“Yeah, it was … incredible,” I said.
He walked toward Holly, who must have been standing there for only a second or two, because she was still in the same place. He grabbed her by the elbow and tugged her closer to the edge.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, not sure if I should make a move yet.
“Your speech earlier about nonessential items was very convincing, knowing what you’ve been through recently. But unfortunately, I’m a little too smart to allow myself to be fooled.”
“You don’t believe me?” I asked, keeping my voice perfectly even.
“That is irrelevant. Facts. Tangible proof. That’s what I rely on.”
Thomas wrapped his arms around her, in a hold too tight for Holly to escape. I could see her face twisting with anger as she attempted to wiggle her way out.
I held on to my cover, waiting to see where Thomas was going with this little diversion.
“I’ve thought a lot about you, Jackson,” Thomas said calmly while Holly tried to break free of his death grip. “I’ve recently learned the expression
kill two birds with one stone.
We don’t say that where I’m from. There’s a way I can find out if you’re lying about dismissing emotional attachments, and learn just how valuable you may be to my team.”
“What’s that?” I asked, hearing the nerves leak into my voice.
“It’s a well-thought-out plan, and as I said earlier, that’s very important for people like us. The only problem is, if you do, in fact, show incredible talent, it will also prove you’re lying to me. That you’re not capable of dealing with the responsibilities that go along with this power you’ve been handed.” His eyes met mine and I could almost see remorse in them. Or disappointment. “None of us want to hurt you … or stop you from living your life … but we might not have a choice. Not if you’re too much of a risk. We can accept you being on the other side, but not you being flighty and impulsive. We may consider Tempest our opposition, but we don’t dismiss how careful their leader is when dealing with time. Do you understand?”
I could feel the sweat trickling down the back of my neck. My heart thudded like a freight train. He was looking at me and reading it
all
. “What do you … what are you talking about?”
He pinned Holly’s arms to her sides and walked even closer to the edge. I finally let myself look at her face and I saw the panic creep into her eyes. She guessed the same thing I did.
Thomas moved his arms to her waist and lifted her from the ground, dangling her upper body over the ledge. I sucked in a breath as he leaned farther over the edge.
“Wait! Don’t!” I shouted, but it didn’t matter.
Thomas hoisted her up higher and, with incredible strength, tossed her over the edge. Her scream was deafening and my brain went into machine mode as I jumped. Not through time, but an actual jump.
Off the roof.
The very millisecond I felt some part of Holly between my fingers, I forced my mind to focus as we were free-falling.
Think about where you want to be,
I told myself. Beautiful. Wonderful.
Solid
places.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
A second ago, I had felt Holly’s wrist between my fingers. Now I could feel her weight on top of me. Soft grass around us. Her heart pounding against mine.
“Holly?” I mumbled. My eyes were still squeezed shut.
Both of us were breathing so hard, panic flooding out.
“Oh, God, are we dead?”
I stared into her light blues eyes, seeing the sun reflected in them. Sun, not rain. “No, we’re not dead … damn … I don’t know what I just did.”
She looked at me for one more second and then she was kissing me, hard, tears flooding out of her eyes onto my face. I squeezed my arms around her so tight, I don’t know how she kept breathing.
When I ran out of air, I released her and let my arms flop down into the grass. “Holly?”
“Yeah?”
“Did I really just jump off a freakin’ roof?”
“Yes.” She pressed her face into my shirt and started crying harder.
I rolled us both over sideways so I could see her face better. “It’s okay, Hol. You’re okay.”
She finally lifted her head and wiped the tears from her face. “You can time-travel with regular people?”
“Apparently. But I had no idea. Honestly, the thought never crossed my mind … I saw you falling and it was just … instinct. I didn’t even think.” I touched my forehead to hers and closed my eyes. “I never should have let it get that close. I didn’t know what he had planned, and…”
“It’s okay … I knew you were trying to stall … I would have done the same thing.” She rested her hands on my face and kissed me again. “Is this Central Park?”
I finally looked around for the first time, not even thinking about the fact that we had just magically appeared out of nowhere. Nobody had screamed or anything … definitely a good sign. I recognized the location within a few seconds. It was the Upper East Side of the Great Lawn, near one of the baseball diamonds. Two girls were sunbathing about fifty feet from us. They had shades on and looked oblivious to anyone around. Everyone else was even farther away.
“Yep, Central Park,” I said to Holly before pulling her up off the grass. “The hard part for me is usually not where I am, but when.”
“You don’t know when we are?” Holly asked.
I smiled at the shock on her face. “We just have to find a source.”
Before we started walking, I pulled her into my arms again, reluctant to let go. My face was buried in her hair and I took in a deep breath, trying to compose myself. “Once we figure out what the hell we just did, I may have to drag you to some island a hundred years in the past.”