by Jill Cooper
I stand there, at the mouth of the lobby, and in the center, stands Lara. In her hands, she holds the electrical batons that I use, that have been used against me. Cameron liberated me with those and then handed them to me. They became mine.
I became the master of my own domain and now I wield the devices that once tortured me. But now, they are in the hands of my enemy and she's going to use them against me all over again.
She’s manipulated me again. She used them against me once and now she is just playing games, allowing me to believe she is nice, kind, and has somehow become my friend. Right now, I don’t know if I am angrier at her or at myself.
As she comes at me, I shudder and back up a step. "Please, don't do this." I take a defensive stance with my left leg, leaning forward with my arms forming a defensive block, but inside I am shaking. I really don’t want to do this. I don’t want the pain to come back.
"Is this what you're afraid of?" Lara smacks the batons together and I watch the electrical bolt dance from one to the next.
Yes, yes, that is what I am afraid of.
Lara stops. She just stops and allows her hands to drop to her side, each holding a baton but neither of them strike out at me. Instead, she offers one to me.
I don’t get her. I don’t understand.
"Go ahead. Take it."
I stare at her, with my mouth agape.
"Go on," Lara’s eyes beg me to take it, "Take it, use it against me if you want to, but just take it."
My hands shake and shudder as I slowly stretch them out to the baton. "Why would you offer this to me? Why would you do this?"
She puts the baton into my open palm. "Because we’re family.”
Family. The word stings. I don't remember what family is. For so long, all I'd had was Cameron. But, the look on Lara’s face strikes me. She believes what she says.
My fingers tighten around the hilt. When I take a step forward, Lara looks unsure of herself. Her eyes dart to the side as she takes a step back.
"You said I could strike you."
Lara takes a deep breath. "I did. And I meant it, but that doesn't mean I'm not afraid."
The answer startles me. Lara’s afraid? She's nothing like I remember, or like what Cameron told me she is. Where is the ruthless girl who destroys everyone and everything that gets in her way?
The doubt lingering in my mind scares me and I lash out. I lunge forward and strike. The electrical baton slashes at her side and the force of it pushes her back.
Her legs struggle to hold her up and when I think she’ll go down, she doesn't. She’s stronger than she looks—for such a little, tiny thing. Fear circles in her wide eyes and I strike again. This time, I hit her hard and fast, against her right side. The blow is enough to knock her onto her back.
I gaze down at her as spiral curls lay around her face and she squints from the pain.
Pain.
It's been the only constant in my life for so long, it’s all I can really think about. And now, I've done that to someone else. Even if she is my captor, it stings.
I want to strike her, I want to finish the job and rid myself of Lara Crane. Montgomery—whatever she calls herself. My jaw is tense and my determination returns. I raise my hand overhead and prepare to slam the electrical pulse through her temple, directly into her brain.
Say good-night, Lara. Say good-night.
At the last possible moment, her eyes open and she raises her hand. When she’d done that the other night, she’d frozen time. Everything around me had slowed, I hadn’t been able to even move. So why doesn’t she do that now? Why would she let me kill her when she could freeze time?
Or just time travel somewhere else?
Lara licks her lips. "I had to let you defeat me. Prove that I would let you do it, rather than hurt you. I had to let you see that I am serious about caring about you, that we’re family. What happens to one Montgomery, happens to us all."
"How do you know what I was thinking?" Lara read minds now too? I’m horrified at the idea.
Somehow, through the pain, Lara manages to smile. "Because I know you. We spent time together; once you were my friend." Lara lowers her hand back to the floor and rests her head.
She closes her eyes as if she's ready to accept whatever fate I decide to dish out. It’s not normal for a captor to treat her victims this way.
I'm hit with blinding pain behind my eyes. My nose scrunches up to avoid it and my mind flashes to something new. I'm sitting in the cage and Lara is with me, down on one knee. She laughs and I glance over at her, afraid of her eyes.
For a split second, I don't see Lara at all. Instead, I see Cameron and he licks his lips, smiling at me cruelly. "Finish her, dear Cassidy. Finish her."
My mind spins again; I’m back in the office lobby, and the baton slips from my hands, hitting the carpet. Everything Lara said to me is true. It was Cameron who had held me captive for years. He's the one who had tortured me? He's the one who’d hurt me, all the while, working to turn me into an assassin he could unleash on the world. To disrupt the timeline, destroy lives, all to do his bidding?
How could all of this be true and I not have seen it?
My chest heaves with a painful sob that I don't want to let go, but it hurts to hold onto it. I fear it’ll hurt even more to let it free. Wet, angry tears blind me. As the tears flow down my face, I'm so wrapped in my own anger and desperation I almost forget there's someone else in the room. But then, Lara grabs my hand and my fingers squeeze hers.
"It's okay, Cass. You're going to be okay."
I shake my head because I'm unable to speak. Lara embraces me, hugs me as if she really does know me, and I feel that maybe, once, I had known her too. I return her embrace and rest my head on her shoulder. "How did you know? What made you trust that I wouldn’t kill you?"
Lara shrugs. "It's the only thing I had left,” she laughs and I can hear the tears in her voice, "If you had killed me, there are other Laras out there that would've taken up the task again. It's not just about me, Cassidy. It’s about saving my family—and you’re part of that too. But it's also about stopping Cameron."
Cameron. There's so much to talk about and there’s so much to do. I’m struck with the fact that once I’d had family. I’d had roots. Connections.
And with Lara’s help, maybe I can get it back.
****
We settle down on the floor of the lobby for what seems like hours. Lara tells me the story of the adventures we had gone on and how I’d helped her change a future I'll never know. Between us are several empty cups of coffee, and empty candy wrappers. The sun is high in the sky and shines brightly down on us. "This Jeffrey person felt like a really nice guy," I muse gently, wondering what it would be like to have a boyfriend. To do all the normal things I’d never gotten to do because of Cameron—because of the cage.
Lara’s face is sad. It’s been sad for the last half-hour at least. As she recounts her story, especially the parts about what Xavier Daniels had done. It grows worse. Her face falls further than I’ve ever seen. Slowly it’s revealed to me that Lara is damaged. She might appear strong and together, but underneath it all, she’s as scarred as I am.
Traumatized.
And when she talks about it, it only gets worse.
We’ll be stronger together. I have to believe that. Cameron violated us both and now it is time to stop him. No matter the cost.
"I'm ready now. I’m ready to tell you everything I know.”
Lara nods and the determination in her eyes returns. "Then let's do this.”
“What do you want to know first?”
She tilts her head as she thinks. “Where is the cage where he broke you? I’ve leapt into it, but I have no idea where it is.”
I rise up to my feet and face the window. “I’m going to have to show you. It defies explanation.”
“Well, now I’m curious.” Lara stands beside me and crosses her arms. “Show me.”
I take a deep breath, allowing the
current of time and space to travel through me. Then I raise my hand and freeze it. I only let Lara and me experience what I’m about to do. I can’t resist glancing at her face as I slowly part time.
Her mouth is open and Lara stands up straighter. “What the f—”
I’ve parted a hole in the wall of the office building. The edges shimmer like gold, but instead of the sky in the opening, there is a window to a different place. A different time. We can see right into the lab. Lab technicians walk back and forth, none the wiser that I’m there. None the wiser that we can see them.
“What is it?” Lara’s arms are relaxed, at her side. She’s a bundle of nerves, energy, and excitement, shifting her weight from one foot to the next. “Where is it?”
I grin. “Nowhere. It’s nowhere. Yet, it’s everywhere.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lara
Nowhere. There’s that word again, but now I realize it means something. It’s not the mumble of a scared little girl. Molly had been trying to tell me something. Over and over again, she’d been trying to tell me something. Only I hadn’t been equipped to know what that something was.
Cassidy wiggles her fingers and the hole in time grows larger. It begins to extend under our feet and I begin to understand that we can walk straight into it if we wanted to. Part of me wants to go and see, but the other part is stronger. It backs up.
“Can you explain what it is first, please?” I’m not proud of the fear my voice holds. After sharing my story about the boxes of Lara’s in the future, I’m feeling more vulnerable than usual.
“It’s a rip in time. A place that exists outside of time. Cameron says you caused it when you destroyed the time travel cooridor built by Xaiver Daniels.”
My eyes widen at the mere thought that somehow I had created a hole in time. It makes sense that all that power being destroyed had somehow damaged the fabric of time.
“He said that’s where you kept me and trained me. Once he freed me, you ran off and he took it over. I’m guessing most of those are half-truths. You might’ve made this place, but he’s the one who found it and is using it by kidnapping different versions of your family. Using them for his research.”
“What does he use this place for?”
Cassidy gives me a steady glower. “To follow you. Study you. See what it is you’re going to do. When he’s there, he can see what you’ve done and what you’re going to do. We pick and choose where to come and go, but the technicians in there, they see everything.”
They can go to the past, the future, multiple timelines, just like that? What a place. What a dangerous place. “So, we need to keep him from going back there. Can you? Keep him from going back?”
Fear fills Cassidy’s eyes. “You mean, see him again? Do what he asks of me? Everything?”
I hold a breath. “Cass, it’s the only way. If he goes back there and sees we’re working together, he’ll just come back at a different time. Collect a different version of you. He has to think you’re on his side.”
The color drains out of her face, but Cassidy nods. I hope she can be as strong as I know she is, but considering how new all this information is to her, I can’t be sure.
I have to trust her.
“Can he travel in time?”
Cassidy shakes her head. “Not in the strictest sense. Only from there. This hole in time. He can’t even open it like I can. He has to use a device.”
A device. Good. We can find a way to use that.
“I can teach you,” Cassidy says, “how to open the bridge—as we call it. You said you jumped in before, but you can’t control it. I can teach you how to control it.”
Good idea. I take a deep breath and raise my hand. “Okay, teach me.”
“It’s always there.” Cassidy smirks and I realize whenever she talks about this place, she comes alive. Maybe part of it feels like its home. “When you time jump, it begs you to come to it. It wants to grow bigger, become stronger. If we’re not careful, one day, it might consume everything.”
My hand lowers without me intending it to. “Time travel is more dangerous than I ever thought.” This is all my fault. All of it. When I went back in time to save my mother, I never fathomed there was so much danger.
Maybe I should’ve gone back in time long ago to stop myself. Let Mom stay dead for all the trouble it caused, but I can’t. God help me, my heart just can’t take it.
With a breath, I raise my hand again. “Okay, show me what you’ve got.”
****
By that night, I can open and close the portal to the bridge at will. I can shrink the portal, make it larger, even pulse it large and then small if I want. It exhausts me, and by the end we’re sitting on the floor with our backs under the window, nursing a bottle of wine I had grabbed at the packie just across the street.
“Did you see a girl when you’re on the bridge? A tween?” I study Cassidy’s face as I ask the question.
She nods slowly. “Only glimmers. There’s a girl there he keeps under lock and key. Highly secretive about it. I run the bridge—or I thought I did—with him and he wouldn’t even let me in to see her. Who is she?”
“Molly,” I whisper her name, as though if I say it too loud she’ll just up and disappear.
“Your sister,” Cassidy’s eyes widen, “Is she really my grandmother?”
“One day, if we fix this mess.” I throw my empty Styrofoam cup at my feet. “Here, Molly has memories of other timelines. She knew something happened to my dad when you killed him even though no one else did.”
Cassidy sucks on her bottom lip and I’m sorry my words hurt her. “I don’t know…I mean, Cameron always spoke about someone having the gift, as he called it. One that could hold knowledge of the past and the future…spot anomalies. He said a person like that, an organic as he called it, would be even better than a computer. Computers can be fixed, things can be deleted. People are just…”
“People,” I lean my head back against the window and sigh, “But how can something he’s doing to one Molly effect the one here?”
Cassidy shrugs. “It doesn’t, I mean, not really. Molly, as you call her, is what Cameron calls the organic. She’s an organic time traveler. In you, it was unlocked by Rex and his techs, so I’m told. For Molly, it’s unlocked when she goes through puberty.”
I think of fourteen-year-old Molly. She is definitely maturing in all the ways a girl turns into a woman. But if eleven-year-old Molly can blink when time is frozen, does that mean it had started even when the most basic of hormones surged?
“Cameron, he wants to unlock it early. That’s why he’s been experimenting on the younger Molly. He wants to use the one from this timeline.”
“Why?” I ask in horror, and then it hits me, “To punish me. Then we need to act fast and keep her safe. I can’t save my father only to lose my sister.”
“If we can assume control of the bridge—.”
I hold up a hand to stop her. “Baby steps. First, we need to go back in time so Cameron never realizes you were missing. We go back to the night I took you, and carry on like none of this ever happened.”
Cassidy rises and I stand beside her. “I’m ready if you are, but Lara? What about your dad? How can I keep up an act with Cameron if—what do we do about your dad?”
A sinking realization hits me and I sway on my feet. Cassidy grips my arm to steady me. Deep sadness and longing take hold in my belly. “You’re going to need to kill him.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
We go back to the night I’d kidnapped Cassidy. I slam into my body and everything is still frozen. Cassidy is frozen in an attack, lunging for me with her electrical batons. I re-position her hands so when she flies back into motion, she won’t kill me accidentally.
When it all snaps back into motion, Cassidy stumbles forward. To be honest, I’m not sure which of us is in charge of time right now and I wonder which Cassidy I’m stuck with. A moment later she blinks and gives me a small smile.
&nb
sp; I take a deep breath. “We’re not going to be able to talk for a while. Not until the first stage of our plan is set in motion. Then we can meet, but only after Cameron thinks he’s on the path to winning everything he wants.”
Cassidy nods. “Eventually he’s going to want to go back to the bridge. I can’t keep him here for three years, Lara.”
“But, you can keep him here a few weeks, until you offer Donovan the papers that will fix his financial troubles.”
Cassidy’s eyes darken. “You still want me to offer him the papers?”
I nod. “You have to. If you don’t, Cameron will be suspicious. Donovan has to be the one who turns down the deal. Then we strike.”
“And if Donovan doesn’t? If he won’t?”
Sucking on the inside of my cheek, I nod. “That you’re going to have to leave up to me.”
A car pulls up and I’m blinded by its headlights. I shield my eyes as the door opens and the other Lara steps out. She gazes at me and back at Cassidy. “I guess you don’t need me after all.”
I wave a hand at her. An instant later, Other Lara closes her eyes and she disappears all at once. It’s like she was never there. The headache slams into me fast and hard. Squeezing the bridge of my nose tightly, I realize there’s a set of car keys in my hand. I had better get home fast before this headache gets too bad.
Once I’m at the driver’s side door, I gaze back at Cassidy, but she’s already heading off to her apartment. There’s a lot left unsaid as I slip behind the wheel.
By the time I get to the apartment, the traffic lights are splitting in two. It’s been awhile since I’ve merged two timelines into one and I’m out of practice. I’m so bad at it, that I can’t even put my key into the doorknob.
Someone pulls it open for me and I’m afraid it might be Donovan, but it’s Other Lara. This one looks tired and is in her nightgown. “Is it done? Did you do it?”