11:39

by Holly Hook

  The Timeless Trilogy

  Book 2

  By

  Holly A. Hook

  KINDLE EDITION

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Holly A. Hook

  Copyright 2016 Holly A. Hook

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Table of Contents

  11:39 (#2 Timeless Trilogy)

  Get Holly Hook's Starter Library for FREE

  Sign up for a spam-free newsletter and get three full-length novels by Holly Hook for free.

  11:39 (#2 Timeless Trilogy)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  “Keep your eyes closed.”

  Simon’s voice is silk in the darkness. He squeezes my wrists enough to tell me that I’m not going to trip. One of my feet scrapes carpet and I curse myself for my clumsiness. It always make Simon grin in that stupid way of his.

  “We’re getting there, Julia. Just keep walking.”

  “This had better be good.” I can't help but sound uncomfortable. He's led me along for the past five minutes. Over rugs. Up stairwells. Through what feels like every doorway that I don’t want to go through ever again. “Honestly, Simon. This place holds way too many bad memories. I’d rather head back to the regular world. Even the high school gym—“ I stop when I realize what I’m saying. That place doesn’t harbor any pleasant thoughts, either.

  But it’s still not as bad as walking around in the inside of the Titanic.

  Well, the memory of it, anyway.

  “It won’t be bad. Not like anything we remember.”

  "That must mean we're headed to the first class part of the ship?" It sure feels like it. Back in the regular world Simon and I were relegated to the bottom decks with all the other poor folks.

  Simon’s guiding me up another set of stairs. A door squeaks on new hinges that exist only here in the Hub, the body of Time. The real ones sit on the bottom of the ocean, getting eaten to oblivion by weird bacteria.

  This is just a memory. A record. A reconstruction, like a museum. That’s it.

  I have to tell myself that.

  This isn’t the actual place where my father and my little brother—

  “Are we almost there?” I ask, distracting my thoughts. I sound like a child begging to use the lavatory and I hate it.

  “Yes.” I hear some regret in Simon’s voice, just enough for me to know he has some doubts about this. “Wait a second, Julia.” He lets go of my arms. I open my eyes barely enough to let a hair of light in. His dark figure stands in front of me. I squeeze them shut again in case he catches me peeking.

  Silence drags out.

  “Um, Simon?”

  “Hold on. One more second.” He takes a few steps. “Okay, Julia. You can open your eyes.”

  I do.

  “Holy—“ I start.

  It’s a whole different world than I ever expected.

  White and soft yellow surround me and I squint, letting my eyes adjust to the light. We’re standing in one of the first class dining rooms, a place that Simon and I were forbidden to go in real life. Chandeliers hang down from the ceilings, giving away a soft, warm glow. Soft violin music starts playing as if our arrival has thrown a switch.

  And there are people here. Actual people. Almost every table is taken up by gentlemen in suits and ladies in sequin dresses. No one gives us a glance.

  I’m frozen.

  There's never been anyone besides Simon or me in this Hub reconstruction of the ship. Silverware sparkles. Waiters weave between tables, silver platters in hand. Low, polite chatter fills the air. A man raises a sparkling glass of water and takes a sip.

  I back away, closer to the door. I’m all too aware of my jeans and the Kool-Aid stain I’ve got on my shirt sleeve from working at the daycare earlier. The rich folks still give us no attention. It’s as if we don’t exist. I’m not sure I'll like it if they do take notice.

  “Simon—“ I face him, unable to find the words. I stand there like an idiot. He’s smiling. I don’t get it, since he's dressed just as sloppy as I am. This memory of the Titanic is always empty. I’ve never so much as seen a rat scurrying around on the lower decks. Then again, I’ve only had real access to the Hub for about a month. Simon’s been here forever. I’m sure he knows more about it than me.

  A waiter brushes past us. “Excuse me, Ma’am.” He keeps going, not looking twice at the fact that Simon and I are both living, breathing blemishes in this fancy dinner. Or tea time. Or whatever the first class people called it.

  Ma’am. I don’t think anyone’s called me that before.

  “None of these people are real, Julia. If they were, they’d be sticking up their noses at us.” Simon waves at the oblivious diners. The violin picks up like it’s trying to be heard over the talk. “It’s so depressing around here without any life. So I made some.”

  “Made some?”

  He shrugs. “After you spend decades hanging around here, you learn how to, well, manipulate things. Since this place is just a memory, all I’ve got to do is shed some mental sweat to change things up for a bit. The Timeless can affect their quarters with practice. I’ll have to show you how to do it sometime. But the food’s real enough. You’ll see.” He takes my arm.

  “We’re…” I sputter. “We’re going to eat here?”

  “No.” He’s grinning wider. “We’re going to hang back and watch everyone else enjoy the meal. Come on, Julia. It’s safe. I’ve eaten the food here lots of times. If I have to spend most of my time in this place, I’m at least going to enjoy it.” He waves me towards a table in the middle of the room. It’s the only empty one. A lone candle flickers in glass, making distorted circles on the table. “It’s not like we have to worry about food poisoning, anyway. Nothing can kill us."

  I try to imagine Simon sitting down at one of these tables and chatting it up with these fake rich people. It’s not something I can wrap my mind around. It’s not Simon. And it’s definitely not me.

  Or is it? I don’t know anymore. Not since Time claimed me as the newest member of its time police. Not since I survived the sinking of this ship twice only to see my little brother, Melvin, get swept away by the icy Atlantic.

  “Julia?” Simon’s concern. Maybe disappointment.

  I shake my head and force a smile. I won’t let my memories drag us down tonight. I can tell by the lines around his eyes that he really did some mental sweating to set this up. Even the emerald flecks in them look duller and more tired. He's trying to make all of this easier for me, to give me a break from darker things.

  Simon takes my hand. I imagine I'm dumping my depression and horror at the door, but it follows me close like a toxic cloud, gripping my clothes and invading my lungs. I follow him to the table and we sit.

  I breathe out and watch the candle flickering. The song changes to a happy springtime waltz. Light flickers across Simon’s features. He sits opposite me. He’s so messy. Out of place. His chocolate eyes are so extraordinary but so normal. The candle on our table brings out the green flecks to life again. I turn my gaze to him, trying to
ignore my surroundings. This place is something the kids on the East Side of Trenton would enjoy if they lived in the early nineteen hundreds. I can imagine Wendy sitting at that table next to us instead of that woman with the pearl necklace and the cream dress that she’s trying to protect with the fancy napkin on her lap. Wow, she looks so real. She even has a mole on the side of her neck shaped like the state of Virginia.

  “Like the detail?” Simon asks. “I can’t tell you how long it took for me to master making all this. The Timeless can change their surroundings here. Soon you’ll learn how to do it, too.”

  "I can't wait. I don't want this remind me of that night anymore." I still wish Simon had taken us out somewhere in the real world, maybe to a time we've never visited, but he's right. This isn't the same Titanic that Simon and I experienced.

  “Would you like an appetizer?” the waiter asks. He's appeared out of nowhere at the side of the table, towel folded over his arm. His eyes smile. There’s no trace of stuffiness here.

  Simon flicks his hair out of his eyes. “Breadsticks. With garlic butter dip. And two glasses of Coke.”

  “It will be right out.” The waiter smiles and turns and heads to the double doors of the kitchen.

  “Breadsticks?” I ask. My jaw falls open, but I’m secretly relieved. “In here? I thought you were going to order caviar or something the way we were going.” That’s another thing I can’t imagine.

  Simon makes a face. “Fish eggs. Tasty. Like I said, I changed a lot of things.”

  “Thank you.” Maybe this won’t be bad after all. I should’ve known. Simon wouldn’t drag me to anything where I have to act the part of polite, perfect Victorian girl just to sit down and eat. I’d rather sit on the floor and put my plate up on the coffee table in front of the TV, as much as my guardian, Nancy, hates that.

  “So we could even order pizza?”

  Simon rolls up his napkin and out again. He lets it flop dangerously close to the candle, but it doesn’t catch fire. “For free.”

  “And have them play heavy metal in here if we wanted.”

  “If we wanted.” He smiles. “Come on, Julia. You hate the music from Nancy and Monica's time."

  It’s true. I do. That comes from your original life happening way before the Oldies were invented.

  “Here you are.” The waiter’s back and he’s putting two glasses of Coke on our table. Complete with straws in paper wrappers. They’re cheap glasses, too, the kind you’d get in some burger joint. They even say Coca Cola on the side.

  “Hey. I like this,” I say, feeling kind of bad that I didn’t show much enthusiasm before. “We should do this more often.”

  “We should. I just wanted to show you that it’s not so bad. You know, being this way.” Simon unwraps his and a streak of gold shoots its way through the color of his eyes, almost like it’s angry and going to impale someone.

  I can’t help but shudder. I’ve never seen Simon’s eyes go completely gold before like some other Timeless members I’ve seen, but he can’t completely hide that he’s an immortal. I think it freaks him out just as much as it does me. I’m still dreading the day I see that glitter in my own. I've had several nightmares about it since Time pulled me out of 1912. Studying myself in the mirror has been a no-no since then.

  He rubs his face. “Did you see it again? Rats.”

  “Yeah. It’s just a lot to get used to.” I sip my drink. I’ve got to ask the question. “What if someone notices that with me?"

  Simon lays his hand over mine. “Even if they do, they’ll probably just think they’re seeing things. And a Timeless member’s eyes only turn completely gold when they want them to. You don’t have to worry.”

  “Thanks.” I can’t imagine Nancy or Monica seeing such a thing. “I could always chalk it up to contact lenses if it happened, but that’s good to know.”

  Simon lets go of my hand, leaving electricity racing over my skin. He tears the straw wrapper into bits while I watch. Wads one up, turns, and flings it at the woman in the cream dress. It bounces off the side of her head while she takes a sip of her soup. She keeps eating like nothing happened.

  “Simon!” I say, unsure whether to be upset or to laugh.

  He leans so far back in his chair that it threatens to tip over. “Hey, we’ve got to have a little fun here. It’s not like they’re real or anything.” But there’s a knife hiding in his voice. I can’t tell if he’s disappointed that these people aren’t real.

  And I don’t know if I am, either.

  The air in the room grows thicker. Darkens. It might just be my imagination, or maybe I’m tired. The band plays slower and notes stretch out, long and exhausted. My Coke on the table has stopped fizzling like it’s already gone flat.

  “Julia, are you okay?” Simon reaches over the table and massages my bare forearm.

  I’m staring at my glass. “Yes. I think I am.” I will be. I have to be. If there’s any hope of ever going back in time to save my little brother—

  My little brother and my father died in the sinking and here we are, enjoying a stupid dinner.

  I became this to save him, not to sit around with the rich people who got to live while he drowned in the icy Atlantic. And so far, we're doing nothing.

  I swallow down the pain. Simon massages my arm a little harder. My skin warms, soothing some of it away.

  “We’re going to save them, Julia. We’ll find a way.”

  “Then why haven’t we, already? I've been this way for almost a month now." The memory’s frozen there. The falling. Melvin calling for me, his voice a razor of panic. The stampede of people and the screams of agony…

  “We need to work out a way. If we rush, Frank will be there to stop us. Time's not going to help, either. We're only both here together since you outsmarted it. This is the first example of two Timeless coming from the same tragedy, as far as I know."

  “We need to outsmart Time again.” I need to focus on something else for both of our sakes. Of course we can’t rush in. It’s what Frank expects. “How are we supposed to hide this at all? Time’s going to know if we put Melvin and my father in Nancy and Monica's period. It'll send the other Timeless to go after them like it tried to do with me."

  “Exactly,” he says. “We’ll figure out a way. I’m thinking.”

  "So am I." It's all I've thought about night and day. If I were still human, the whole thing would have killed me by now.

  “Your bread rolls are done. Enjoy.”

  The waiter sets a plastic basket in front of us. The bread smells just like the real garlic sticks that Grondin's back in the real world serves as an appetizer. I seize one. My stomach's growling. I breathe slowly, all too aware that Simon's watching me, hoping that I can forget things for one night and enjoy myself. My pulse slows and I'm Julia again, the Julia that was happy for the year before she found out she was a transplant from the past. Before she learned she was supposed to die there. Before she tricked Time into making her an immortal.

  I loosen my grip and take a bite of the bread roll.

  A taste like dry sewage explodes in my mouth and I spit it out.

  “What's wrong?” Simon leans over the table to look at the bread sticks. They glisten in the yellow light like they just came out of the oven.

  “I don't know.” I take a swig of the Coke to wash the bad taste away. It's flat, but it's better than the bread sticks. “You try it.” I cough and my eyes water. “I don't get it. That bread tastes like it's five years old.”

  Simon bites into another one and chews for a second. He squeezes his eyes, gags, and spits the piece back out onto the table. The bread's green, covered in dusty mold. I gag again and look down at mine, fighting back nausea. The piece I spit out has turned the same. Our food has aged by months in only seconds.

  “I...I don't understand this.” Simon wipes his mouth with the cloth napkin. “This has never happened before with the food.” He looks at me. His eyes forgive, but they also question.

  And I know wha
t they're asking.

  “Is me being here doing something to all of this?" I scoot away, watching the bread sticks on the table. Mold spreads on them as I watch, blossoming into green and blue flowers of death. They grow and overtake it all, choking the bread in a layer of alien dust. “Am I like, causing some kind of interference or something? Is my mood changing our surroundings?"

  He stands. “I don't know.” Simon shakes his head. It's an apology. “I swear, this has never--”

  I stand with him. “Things are weird now,” I say. I fight to keep my voice calm. “I think it's me, Simon. Monica would say my subconscious is acting up or something. If she, you know, believed in this stuff.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  It’s the waiter. I turn to him.

  And choke down vomit.

  He’s no longer the friendly dark-haired guy that served us a few minutes ago.

  Well, he is…just dead.

  His skin hangs off his cheekbones like melting wax. One of his eyes is gone, leaving a pit of nothing in its place. The other eye’s nothing but a pale raisin. He smiles, revealing teeth without their gums. One has a gold crown. I focus on it, unable to look away.

  "Um..."

  "We should go." Simon grips my wrist so hard, he's cutting off my circulation.

  We’re in a room full of the living dead.

  Skin falls off bones. Skeletal hands reach for rusty teacups and dessert forks. The woman in cream sips on her soup that’s turned the color of sewage. She’s green, ancient and moldy like the bread that sits on our table.

  All heads turn to face us.

  Simon pulls on my arm. He’s just as freaked out as me. "The door.”

  “I agree.”

  We back away. I gag on the stench that fills the room and chokes me. It’s the air of a million corpses that have sat rotting on the ocean floor for ages. I need to breathe. We’ve got to get out in the hallway and get out of this memory.