After racking his brain for the past half hour, he decided on a crafty maneuver that he hadn’t used in years. Always focused on big picture decisions, and not so much with the happenings of individual time travelers, Chris had long lost the need he hoped would now serve as a final resort in throwing Martin off his game.
The plan was to re-enter Martin’s mind, knowing the cost would again drain him of the ability to move for a few minutes. He wasn’t returning to see where his enemy was—it had already become clear where he was headed—but to play with his emotions and thoughts. Chris could extract memories from one’s mind and tinker with them to the point of driving his victims mad. For Martin, he knew he could make the voices of his mother, daughter, wife, and even Sonya, play within his skull. With a little extra push, he could create a visual hallucination of them, something that would surely drive Martin to madness.
Having just been in Martin’s head, Chris had a better sense for what to expect as far as the toll these actions would take on his body. It fortunately didn’t require much more than his first dip into the waters. Once inside someone’s mind, it became like roaming an open-world setting and deciding what to do. The biggest gamble was deciding the best time to re-enter Martin’s mind, knowing if he went too soon, his actions could fall wasted if Martin was merely sitting in a car. And if he waited too long, Martin would arrive to the cabin before Chris had an opportunity to sway him. He needed to leave Martin flustered upon his arrival to the woods, completely frazzled by the time he reached the cabin.
Chris had no familiarity with the roads driving into Angle Inlet, but he could tell Martin was within at least thirty miles, judging by the glimpse of surrounding trees he had caught. That had been an hour ago, and if Martin hadn’t yet arrived to the cabin, then he either had to be walking through the woods, or sitting at their outer edge, regardless of the direction he decided to enter from.
“No time like the present, as they say,” Chris said to his empty room. He lay on the bed, folding his hands over his stomach as he closed his eyes and prepared his mind for the grueling task of re-entering Martin’s conscience. The process was similar to an intense meditation session, Chris assuring his mind was clear, aligned with his breathing as he maneuvered to get it all in perfect harmony.
Chris drew a long, deep breath, the stuffy cabin air filling his lungs that had aged fifty years in the past day. He cleared his mind, sifting through and pushing away the thoughts of war, the chaos around the continent, and narrowing the entirety of his concentration on his target, Martin Briar. He started down the hallways of his subconscious, knocking upon all the doors that served as portals into the minds of those lives he had welcomed to the wonderful world of time travel. Millions of them. But the hallway knew his greatest desires, and wouldn’t make him run down the thousands of miles of doors decorating each side. It would know to bring Martin’s door to the front.
And it did, right after tempting Chris with the opportunity to take a peek into Duane’s mind and see what his old friend was up to at this exact moment. He shook his head. “No time, I’m afraid.”
The doors were labeled with each person’s name in simple gold lettering. After ten steps he found the one belonging to Martin Briar and wasted no time turning the shiny knob and entering, the sensation a free fall until he crash-landed in Martin’s brain, watching the world through his eyes.
“Oh, yes,” Chris giggled. “Finally something going my way.”
Through Martin’s eyes, he saw Main Street before being spun around for a view of the woods. A car sat behind him, the lady driver appearing frozen as her eyes gazed out the windshield, lifeless and glossy.
“You son of a bitch,” Chris muttered to himself. “Freezing time already, before we even get to dance. I have some tricks up my sleeve, too.” Chris knew that at this point in the process, his thoughts would echo in Martin’s mind, like a distant narrator telling a story from the depths of the subconscious.
Through the windows of Martin’s eyes, the snowy ground passed by in a white blur as he started picking up pace.
“So rushed,” Chris said, refocusing on the task at hand, having to set aside his temporary glee for the turn in fortunate events. He had Martin in the precise moment he had hoped, ready to make the man’s trek through the woods a living hell. He prepared to deliver the performance of a lifetime, knowing his life hung in the balance of the next thirty minutes.
He briefly attempted to take control of Martin’s mind and body, a task he had never quite mastered, and doubted he had the energy to complete now. He felt the momentary grip around Martin’s conscience, promptly slipping through his fingers like a wet fish.
Chris backed off and settled for the barrage of mental attacks he had enqueue, letting the world and Martin’s subconscious fall silent as he hid in the corner, ready to fight.
Chapter 28
Martin started into the woods, dragging his feet as he kept shooting glances over his shoulder, convinced Chris had somehow planted another Warm Soul to tail him. But no one appeared, and the reality settled in that it truly was Martin and Chris, alone in the wilderness to fight to the end.
Much to his surprise, Martin didn’t feel the weight of the world on his shoulders as he crunched through the patches of snow, following a hand-drawn map that showed the safest path to the cabin. He couldn’t even acknowledge the gravity of the situation after stressing over this exact moment all day. The thoughts of death and the jumble of scenarios for how this could all play out remained dormant in his mind, his eyes focused on the physical steps ahead.
He did as advised, taking one step at a time, staying behind one of the several tree trunks that surrounded him, shielding him from the outside world where no one would ever hear his screams. Chris had proven a deliberate man, and Martin didn’t doubt this location was part of a long series of well-calculated decisions should matters escalate to this point.
Remember, Martin reminded himself. You’re on his land. It’s all designed to give him an advantage. Be ready for anything. Bear traps, trees falling over. A split-second decision can decide your life in these woods.
With that thought, the adrenaline started to pump into his veins. Looking ahead, Martin observed trees as far as he could see, snow scattered in the few areas that lacked foliage high above. Any sighting of a cabin waited at least fifteen minutes ahead, possibly more if he took a wrong turn. But he trusted the map would guide him with no issues.
He continued forward, hiding from something he couldn’t see, trusting the process and his own abilities to save the world while it remained frozen. He imagined Commander Blair, surely pacing his office in London, flipping desks and furniture over in a fit of rage once he realized time had been frozen without his knowledge, assuming he was awake at the odd hour. To Martin and Steffan’s knowledge, Commander Blair didn’t know any other Warm Souls besides himself and Martin. If he was sleeping—something Martin now understood as a rare commodity for commanders—then he’d wake to news of one story or another, leaving the fact that time had been frozen irrelevant.
Martin shook his head, refusing to fall down the rabbit hole of what-ifs, especially in a situation where a bullet could strike him without warning should he lose focus. He resumed watching his feet, looking to the ground, then up to the nearest tree to hide behind.
A woozy sensation swarmed over him for a brief moment, and he thought he heard Chris’s voice speaking in his head. But it wasn’t loud or clear enough to make out for certain. He stopped in his tracks to listen to the silent world around him. No animals, no chirping bugs, no distant hum of vehicles driving around town. The silence echoed back to him and he took one more step before stopping again.
“Martin,” a soft voice said, one that sent chills across his whole body. A voice that made his heart pound with the drums of love.
“Sonya?” he asked to the wilderness, his voice carrying.
“Oh, Martin,” Sonya’s voice replied, echoing, cocooning around him, prompting him to s
pin to find the source. “We could have had a life together. Was this all worth it? Why did you let me die?”
“That’s a lie!” Martin growled, his lips quivering as he kept jumping around in place, hands sprawled in front of him as if he were ready for an attack. Deep down he knew that Sonya’s voice wasn’t real, and it had to be a decoy from Chris, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to lean into this moment and see where it might take him.
“You didn’t kill me, but I’m dead because of you. You should have never kept looking for me—I’d still be alive.”
Martin cupped his hands and slapped them over his ears like a child throwing a tantrum. He wanted to see if the voice was in his head or actually occurring in the woods. “Sonya, where are you?”
“Buried where you instructed—right next to Izzy.” The voice spoke from the trees, muffled through his hands, its lingering echo still shooting around him when he lowered them back in front of his body.
“None of this was supposed to happen,” Martin said. “I just wanted to live a normal life with you. I had no control over how things played out. I was sucked into this.”
“You were always in control, Martin. You were on the beach in the Bahamas. You could’ve stayed. Could’ve arranged for a boat to pick you up and take you away before those two guards had a chance to realize what was happening. You could have stayed in 1996. You could have accepted your mother’s fate and not traveled into the future. There were so many actions you could have taken—or not taken—to change the course of your life.”
Martin lowered his arms, no longer fearful of a potential attack, recognizing the mind games Chris was playing instead.
“I can’t change anything now—all I can do is keep moving forward.”
Martin took his own advice, emotions swirling no differently than the snow above him before time had frozen, and continued walking, still aware to remain behind the trees as he checked the trembling map clutched in his grip.
“I’ll forever be the one you think about, Martin. I only hope you can find peace, no matter how this turns out for you.”
He kept walking, shaking his head and fighting back tears. He had been too emotionally scarred to let something like this distract him. His heart had hardened over the years, even more so since joining the world of time travel.
Sonya’s voice kept speaking, but mostly remained in the area behind him, unable to follow him as only the echoes remained. That’s it, he thought. That’s all he could throw at me and it didn’t work.
“Marty,” a new voice called out, freezing Martin where he stood behind the next tree trunk.
“No,” Martin cried, leaning back on the tree as his legs grew wobbly. “None of this is real.”
“Everything is real, Marty,” said the voice of Marilyn Briar. “I might not be here physically, but I am real. As real as the stars in the sky, or the dead leaves beneath your feet. I’ll always watch over you.”
Martin regained his strength, fully aware Chris was putting him through these auditory hallucinations, refusing to succumb to the emotional tailspin his rival was surely counting on.
“Nope.” He kept walking, bouncing to the next tree, stomach churning as he saw the distance on his paper map shrink between him and the cabin’s supposed location.
“Marty, come back!” Marilyn’s voice cried. “Come back and save me. Don’t fail again and let me die. Help me!”
The mere act of walking away from his mother’s voice was enough for tears to start oozing from his eyes. But he pushed through, leaving her behind just like he had unknowingly done when he traveled to 2064 for her medicine.
Over the next five minutes, Martin further reduced the distance to the cabin. He hadn’t looked too far into the distance, only concerned with what was immediately in front of him, but when he glanced up and saw a small figure standing between two trees, he slowed down, squinting for a better view. His heart knew who it was—or at least who it was supposed to be—but his brain offered every objection to reject what his eyes saw.
It was a young girl standing with her back to Martin, a puffy black coat draped over her body, its hood pulled over her head. Despite knowing it was a physical impossibility for his daughter to be standing in these woods, he couldn’t deny how real she appeared. Still, Martin was ready for anything, even for Chris to be hiding inside that coat, sure to pounce on Martin as soon as he stood close enough.
He inched his way closer, still cognizant of the trees, but his eyes now glued ahead to the figure standing alone, not moving in the frozen time. “Izzy?” he called out, nearly inaudible as his throat had tensed with what felt like a tennis ball inside. “Izzy?” he tried again, much louder as his voice swirled around the woods.
The girl wavered in place before taking a slow, cautious turn to face Martin. The softest of smiles touched the corners of her mouth, flooding Martin with nostalgia and grief while his heart hammered against his chest. “Hi, Daddy,” Izzy said, her eyes sparkling as they always had, her hair brushed back and hidden inside the jacket’s hood.
Martin tried once more to convince himself that this was fake, certainly a figment of his uncontrolled imagination. But he couldn’t argue with Izzy’s physical appearance in front of him, just like he had seen her hours ago during his quick trip to 1995.
Just like you see her whenever you close your eyes?
“Izzy, wh-what are you doing here? How?”
“Oh, Daddy, I’m always with you, right next to you. Don’t you know that?”
Martin raised his eyebrows, scanning his daughter, trying to find the faintest of hints that suggested she wasn’t real, a hologram, a ghost, anything besides flesh and bone. He remembered his urge to grab her during his first trip to 1996, hug her and run away where they could spend the rest of their lives in peace. That he never had the opportunity pained him over the years that had since passed. All of that followed up with the teaser of a similar chance during his most recent trip, only to be interrupted by the Revolution.
Martin briefly considered the possibility of running away with Izzy, even if this was some sort of hallucination or alternate reality. But he couldn’t, not when he was minutes away from potentially ending the Revolution once and for all. His chest tightened with pain at the thought, knowing that regardless of how this ended, this would most likely be the last time he’d see Izzy. If he lived to tell about it, he’d never go back and try to find her again. If he actually managed to fulfill his destiny and cause his enemies’ downfall, it was time to close all doors from the past and only look ahead to the bright, hopeful future.
“C-can I hug you?” Martin asked, not sure if the question or action were appropriate.
Izzy parted her lips in a wide grin. There were no signs of Chris lurking behind that smile—it was the real thing—and Martin stepped forward, arms stretched out as Izzy allowed herself to fall into his embrace.
Her warmth radiated Martin, Izzy’s sweet scent both familiar and foreign at the same time. Alone in the woods, two long-lost souls reunited, Martin broke into hysterical crying. “Oh, my God, it’s really you,” he said, a hand pressing her head into his chest, squeezing her with all of the love that had never vanished.
“You need to go, Daddy. We’re all watching,” Izzy said, her voice muffled as she spoke into Martin’s heaving chest.
“I know.” He squeezed tighter, watching his tears fall on top of her hood in dark spots, fading away as soon as they landed. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there that night. I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of the person you were—the young woman you were becoming. I love you, always and forever.”
Izzy pulled back, looking up to her father, Martin returning a gaze through bleary eyes, fighting his natural reaction to frown. “I love you, Daddy. You need to go, and so do I. Grandma wanted me to tell you how proud she is of you for always getting back on your feet after being knocked down, but that today isn’t the day to try so hard.”
Martin’s brows furrowed as he digested this state
ment. If Chris knocked him down, you could guarantee he’d be right back on his feet to defend himself. Was his mother really calling on him from the grave to roll over and take defeat?
“I love you, Izzy, more than you’ll ever know.”
Izzy looked up to him, her big blue eyes filled with joy, and nodded before turning around without another word. She walked with a slow, steady pace, not in any hurry to leave, but not trying to stick around either. It took two minutes until she was completely out of sight, Martin left with nothing but memories, satisfied to have received the little bit of closure he wanted before his own potential death. Martin tried to follow her, of course, but his legs wouldn’t move, destiny tugging him in the other direction.
The blanket of silence returned to swallow him up, and he pulled his map back out from his pocket to see he was well within a thousand feet of the cabin. He had no idea how much time had already passed since he had left Arielle behind. He was fairly certain the allotted time hadn’t passed, but the distractions he encountered so far had a way of skewing everything about reality.
Just go. There’s no time to look back.
Martin continued, forcing himself to refocus after the emotional reunion with his daughter. The encounter left him more puzzled than before. If this had all been some ploy by Chris—which it had to be—then what exactly was the purpose of Izzy being herself? Clearly the voices of Sonya and his mother were there to frazzle him, so why would Izzy be encouraging? Was she part of Chris’s games, or had that been her actual spirit? He debated this matter over the next few seconds before catching sight of the cabin ahead.
Time of Fate (Wealth of Time Series #6) Page 17