by M. S. Parker
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Sir, with all due respect, unless you're killing innocent civilians or unarmed men, I don't think strategy touches on honor.”
If he and his men knew how war was fought in my time, they'd be appalled. We'd certainly come a long way from two lines firing at each other.
“You are unlike any woman I have ever met,” he said.
“Thank you, Sir.” I hoped it had been meant as a compliment. “And believe me when I say that history will consider this to be one of the most important decisions made during this war.”
“I truly hope so, Mrs. Lightwood.”
He turned away from me as a soldier approached. It was almost four o'clock, and we would be leaving soon. I only wished that I was able to give Washington a heads up about the battle that would await us on the other side, but there was no way to explain my knowledge of the Battle of Trenton – nothing that would make sense anyway – so I hoped what I said was enough. He'd made the right decisions in my history, so I knew he could make them again.
“I found something for you,” Gracen said as he came up behind me. He held out his hand. A small knife and a band of leather lay in his palm. “I cannot promise that my orders will keep me near you, so I wanted you to have a way to defend yourself.”
“Thank you.” I kissed his cheek. “I'll put it on right now.”
I ducked behind a building and quickly attached the knife to my thigh. A sheath would've been preferable, but the leather worked. I had to admit, as I smoothed down my skirt, that I felt better knowing I was armed.
A sharp command came from a few yards away, and it was time to move. I knew that no one had been lost on the crossing, but that didn't make me dread it any less. It would take us until the early morning hours before we reached the opposite shore, and then we'd have to march for hours before we'd reach Trenton. While I remembered Ennis saying that there were only a small number of American casualties, it was still a battle.
I took a deep breath.
I could do this.
Gracen took my hand as we followed Washington to the boats. John Glover was technically in charge, but Washington wanted us to stick close. A part of me wondered if some part of him knew that I was different, if he suspected that there was more to me than he could see.
“Are you certain I cannot convince you to stay here?” Gracen asked as he settled next to me in the boat. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer. “You will be safe here.”
I shook my head, little shards of ice falling from my wet hair. “I'm not leaving you. Whatever happens, we're in it together.”
As the boat began to move away from the shore, we both fell silent. Even though Trenton was a few miles from where we'd land, we didn't want to take the chance that the Hessians had guards posted. I didn't know enough details about the battle to know where the dangerous spots were.
I'd been in plenty of miserable situations before. Hiking miles in the desert heat with a full pack on my back. Crouching for hours on end while bugs made my skin itch. Sitting through my father interrogating Bruce.
This was worse than any of them.
While I left off my corset, I kept on the layers under my dress. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, more protection from the elements. I hadn't counted on the rain and snow soaking through each layer until it was a heavy, frozen mess. By the time we arrived on the other side of the river, I'd been shivering so long I could barely remember what it was like to be warm. Gracen was doing his best to share his body heat, but it was just as cold for him as it was for me.
I stumbled as I got out of the boat, grabbing onto Gracen's arm before I fell into the water. I stifled a cry as my shoes filled, the cold intense enough to burn. I clung to Gracen as we waded to the shore, my muscles and joints stiff from cold and lack of mobility. I forced my body to move through it, to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
As I marched with the soldiers, my body began to warm, but my clothes were still cold, and the wind was brisk. The rhythmic sound of the soldiers' feet was almost hypnotic, lulling me into a sort of trance. I tried not to think ahead or dwell on things behind. The here and now was all that mattered.
Chapter 24
Dawn had broken by the time we stopped for food and water at the house of a man named Benjamin Moore, but it had offered little warmth. For heat, we kept moving. We'd lost two men on the march from exposure, but we were close enough to our goal for me to be optimistic about the chance for the rest of us to make it.
It was still morning when we came within sight of the Hessian outpost about a mile north of Trenton, and I knew the time for battle had arrived.
As Washington swung himself up on his horse, I turned to Gracen and pulled his head down for a quick but fierce kiss.
“Be safe,” I said and nipped his bottom lip. “Come back to me.”
“Always.”
As the first shot fired, he moved away from me and shouldered his musket. A part of me wanted to call him back, but I had my own responsibilities now. I looked around for the rest of the medical personnel, ignoring the harsh German words I heard being shouted behind me.
“Fire!” One of the commanders called out the order and the first volley rang out.
I grabbed the kit I'd put together a few days ago in preparation for this battle. I'd kept it with the rest of the medical supplies so I wouldn't have to carry it, but I needed it now. I refused to force myself on the doctors who'd barely spoken to me the whole time Gracen and I had been with the army. I hadn't told anyone, but I always planned to do what I'd been trained to do.
Be a field medic.
I let the familiar cold of battle come over me, push aside the fear. The place and circumstances were different than before, but my job was still the same. Help my fellow soldiers.
A second volley of Continental bullets rained down on the German troops, and I saw a soldier go down.
Things became very simple as my vision narrowed to what I needed to do. I moved on instinct, keeping myself as low as I could manage to make myself less of a target. I knelt on the ground next to the young man and set about assessing his wound.
In the background, I could hear Americans and Germans giving orders, but I ignored them. Fighting wasn't my job right now.
Inch after inch, the Americans pressed forward, forcing the Germans to retreat, and I followed, binding wounds for both sides, unwilling to let anyone go without treatment. If I could help, I did. Besides, most of the wounded were Hessians anyway. I didn't dare to try to find Gracen in the chaos, but the lack of American casualties kept me hopeful that we'd both make it out of here unscathed.
As Washington took the high ground, I knew the battle was nearing its end. I stood, wincing as my knees popped. Despite the cold weather, I was sweating. I rubbed the back of my neck. A hot bath sounded magnificent right about now.
“Honor!”
I jerked my head to the right when I heard Gracen yell. I started to smile when I saw that he appeared unharmed, but the look on his face was one of pure terror.
I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong when I felt a sharp pain at the back of my head as something struck me from behind. I dropped to the ground, the world turning gray, then turning black.
Chapter 25
The world came back to me slowly.
My body was stiffer than it had ever been in my life, like my entire skeletal system was made of cement. My muscles felt weak, like I'd spent days in bed, but I managed to gingerly turn my head to the side, trying to make sense of all the things my other senses were telling me.
Like the fact that I was warm and dry when the last thing I remembered was being wet and cold.
Or that the only thing I could hear was a weird, steady beeping that didn't seem to fit with the battle I'd been in. Had something damaged my hearing? A cannon blast, if I'd been too close, could have done something to my ears.
That didn't explain the strange smells.
No dirt or gunpowder.
No blood.
Nothing that I associated with war.
No, I smelled...antiseptic.
My eyelids flew open, then immediately closed as a sharp pain went through my head. I'd seen enough to send panic through me though.
Lights.
Artificial lights.
In a ceiling.
I tried again, and when my vision focused, I saw that nothing had changed.
A scream ripped out of me. “Gracen! Gracen!”
Someone ran into the room. As she came into my line of sight, I saw a woman in scrubs. Dark skin and features that looked familiar, but out of place.
Twentieth-century clothing to match the twentieth-century room.
What the fuck happened? Where was I? Where was my husband?
“Hey, hey. It’s okay, honey. You’re okay,” the stranger soothed as she came over to the side of my bed.
“Where am I?” My voice shook. “What's going on?”
“It's okay, Miss Daviot. You're okay.” She put her hand on my arm. “Calm down.”
Why was she calling me Miss Daviot? Where was Gracen? Why wasn't he here?
“I don't want to calm down! I want you to tell me what the hell's going on!”
“You're safe,” she insisted. “You're in a private rehabilitation facility.”
“What happened?” I fought to keep down the panic. “Tell me!”
“Why don't I get your brother?” She smiled as she walked back toward the door.
My brother?
My heart gave a sickening thud as my brain began to piece things together. This couldn't be happening. Not after everything Gracen and I had gone through.
“Ennis! She's awake!”
I looked around the room, trying to find something, anything, that would tell me I was dreaming. Because this had to be a dream. The alternative was too horrible to imagine.
My surroundings looked more like a bedroom than a hospital room but was easily twice the size of any room I'd ever been in. I was hooked up to medical equipment – an IV and a heart monitor most notably – but the walls were a warm peach color, and the windows had heavy curtains that no hospital would have paid for. There was a dresser against the far wall, and a pair of plush armchairs. Other chairs sat near the bed.
My examination came to an abrupt end when a man rushed into the room. It had been years – centuries? – since I'd seen him last, but I'd have recognized him anywhere. Light brown eyes that were almost amber. Dark brown hair that did its own wild thing. Features that were similar enough to mine to make people ask if we were twins instead of siblings born years apart.
“Ennis?”
My brother’s eyes were wide as he stared at me. The nurse came back to my side, and I flicked my wrist in annoyance as she checked the IV in the back of my hand. I didn't want her here. I wanted my husband, and the more time that passed, the more I doubted that I'd ever see Gracen again.
“Ennis, talk to me. What's going on? I don't understand. Why am I here?” Tears burned my eyes, and I pushed them back. I couldn't cry, not when I needed answers. “Where is here?”
Whatever shock he'd been feeling passed, and he came to my side, sitting in one of the nearby chairs as the nurse left, closing the door behind her. He grabbed my hand, the gesture telling me as much as his words that something bad had happened to me.
“I'm not sure where to start,” he said. “So much has happened in the last two years–”
“Two years?” My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. The words came out barely above a whisper. “What are you talking about?”
He shifted, eyes sliding away from mine. “It's June 16, 2012.”
My vision started to gray as my head spun. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be real. It didn't make sense.
“Stay with me, Honor.” Ennis was on his feet, leaning over me. “Don't you dare leave me!”
I focused on his stricken face, the one solid thing in a world that had lost its substance. Slowly, my surroundings settled, and I could breathe again. Nothing, however, could ease the pain of my breaking heart. I'd lost the life I'd chosen, and I couldn't understand what or how it happened.
“Talk to me Ennis. Tell me everything.”
He nodded, sitting on the edge of my bed, his grip tight around my fingers. “What's the last thing you remember?”
The Battle of Trenton.
But I didn't think that was what he meant.
I scrambled to find the last memory I possessed of this time. I'd tried so hard not to think about those final few moments here, a part of me afraid that the recall would send me back.
“I was at the airport,” I said as the events came back to me. “Bruce was supposed to pick me up, but he wasn't there. We got into a fight on the phone. He wanted me to come to Vegas and get married there.”
“Asshole,” Ennis muttered under his breath.
I agreed but didn't say so. Instead, I continued with my recitation. “I told him I'd fly out in a couple days, then rented a car.” A chill swept over me as I remembered what happened next. “I was on McClellan Highway when the car next to me spun out of control. I ended up in the middle of oncoming traffic, a truck coming straight at me. It hit. The car flipped. I think someone tried to help me, but I passed out.”
And then I woke up in 1775.
I didn't add that part, of course. I needed to get my bearings before I tried to figure out anything else.
“I was over at Mom and Dad's,” Ennis said. “We were waiting for you, and it kept getting later and later, and you weren't there. I kept calling your phone, but you didn't answer. It was near midnight when the state highway patrol showed up. They said there'd been an accident. The car was a mess. There was blood everywhere. But you were gone.”
He squeezed my hand, and I could see the emotions play across his face.
“I'm here,” I said, hoping the words weren't as bitter as they tasted. “I just need you to tell me what happened next.”
“We looked for you, that's what happened next.”
His voice was rough, and for the first time, I saw the physical toll my absence had taken on my brother. If it was truly two years later, he was now twenty-eight, and he'd always looked his age, but as he talked, he looked so much older.
“Search parties were combing the woods on either side of the highway for two weeks. The State Highway Patrol. Every friend we had. Hell, Dad and some of your army buddies got the National Guard involved. But there was nothing. Not even a trace. The police did their thing, talking to everyone they could think of, but none of it did any good. It was like you'd vanished off the face of the earth.”
I hadn't left the earth. Just this time.
“We never stopped hoping you'd be found, but after more than a year and a half...” He wiped the heel of his hand across his eyes. “When we got the call, we thought they were saying they found your body, but then they told us that you were alive.” He shook his head. “In a coma, but alive.”
“When?” I whispered the question. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach told me I already knew the answer, but I had to hear it.
“The day after Christmas, 2011, some guy in New Jersey was walking his dog, and he found you unconscious. You were wearing some weird dress that was covered with dirt and blood.”
I remembered that dress. A dark blue that had almost turned black after the crossing. The blood from the wounded had barely shown.
“He called for an ambulance and you were taken to a hospital. You were marked as a Jane Doe. Then the hospital fucked up. There was another Jane Doe, and they got things switched around so that by the time we got to the hospital, you'd been sent off and the other woman had been given your name. It took us three days to find you again. I thought Mom was going to kill someone.”
Mom. My heart clenched.
“We got you moved to a hospital closer to home and took shifts, waiting for you to wake up.”
I gestured to the room. “This doesn't look like any hospital I've ever s
een.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “It's not.”
As if things weren't disorienting enough. “Then where am I?”
“About three months ago, Dad gets this call from someone who says that a private care facility would take over your care for free.”
That didn't make any sense at all.
Ennis laughed softly. “Dad actually hung up on them, but they called back. This rich do-gooder, St. James, had set up this place to take care of military men and women. There's a full-time medical staff, and rooms where family members can stay as long as they want. And it's all free.”
St. James. I frowned as a thought came to me. I pushed it away. I wasn't going to jump to any conclusions.
“So I've been here ever since?”
Ennis nodded. Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Shit! Mom and Dad will kill me!” He stood, releasing my hand. “I was so excited to see you awake that I forgot to call them. I'll be right back.”
He rushed out of the room without waiting for me to answer, leaving me alone to process everything I’d just learned.
Chapter 26
I was back.
But had I ever really left?
That was the thought that I didn’t want to entertain. The fact that I'd vanished from my wrecked car, that search parties hadn't been able to find a trace of me, that I'd been found in New Jersey wearing a strange dress, all supported my memories of having traveled back in time. I hadn't asked Ennis, but I was certain if I had, he'd tell me that I'd been near Trenton, close to where the Revolutionary War battle had been fought. And I'd been found on December twenty-sixth, the very day I was knocked out in the past.
Except the idea of time travel was a lot easier to believe when I was surrounded by the Continental Army, fighting Redcoats. Here, after being told I'd been in a coma for at least six months, having doubts about what happened weren't unreasonable.
Was everything I experienced since my car accident a dream?