by Julie Cross
“Uh-huh,” she said, gazing out at the street. The waitress came and set down my coffee and Lily’s chocolate milk, which was a much more appropriate choice than coffee considering the current summer temperature.
“We’re on one check,” Lily said to the waitress, who rolled her eyes but moved on without objecting. “I just need you to look really excited to sit here with me in about ten minutes, okay?”
“But I shouldn’t look excited right now?” I asked, and couldn’t help smiling.
She returned the smile, tossing her long brown hair over one shoulder. “That’s totally up to you. I realize I’m completely pathetic but the boys’ cross-country team comes by here almost every morning at this time and it’s possible I might be trying to impress one of them.”
“Impress them by buying me coffee?”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Okay, maybe ‘impress’ isn’t the right word. I guess I’m trying to make him jealous or just get him to notice me.”
“Oh, right.”
“I told you it was pathetic. After today, I’m quitting cold turkey, I swear.” She smiled at me again and took a long drink of her milk. “Do you go to East View?”
Must be a school name. “No.”
“Where do you go then?”
It took me a few seconds to reply, but finally I formed some sort of identity in my head to use for the remainder of this conversation because I was enjoying it far too much to end it now. “I do my studying at home. Home education.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re homeschooled? No offense or anything, you’re not one of those religious nuts, are you? Do you have fifteen siblings and parents who force you to build houses and make your own clothes?”
I laughed really hard. “No, I have only three older brothers. And I can safely say we’ve never agreed on anything long enough to complete a project like home building together. That would be a disaster. Does believing in God make me a religious nut?”
“Maybe.”
“Statistics show that 87 percent of this population believes in a higher power.”
She shrugged. “I guess. I just don’t see how you can believe the Bible and science at the same time, so I’ve chosen science.”
I nodded, finally understanding her issues. “Well, I guess I don’t believe in the Bible. You shouldn’t have to choose God or Science. Mostly I believe in a creator and an afterlife.”
“Well, I guess that’s safe of you,” she said, trying to sound objective but I could hear the skepticism behind her words. “That way if you end up being right, you don’t have to go to hell after you die.”
“I don’t really think like that,” I explained. “I don’t think believing in God makes your afterlife better. For me, what happens to you after you die is a direct reflection of your level of moral integrity while you were alive.”
Her eyebrows lifted and I could tell I had either intrigued or impressed her. “That doesn’t sound too bad, actually. You aren’t going to convert me, are you?”
I laughed again and tried to sip the revolting coffee. “No, it’s a personal choice. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong. The outcome is the same either way.”
That was just the beginning of three hours of conversation with the subject of my mission. She asked if she could call me or email and I told her I’d meet her at the same place, same time tomorrow. I know I shouldn’t have, but some other force had taken over, and it wasn’t alcohol or the coffee because I only had a sip of it and I spit most of it right back into the cup. Something else made me want to break all the rules and talk to Lily Kendrick every hour of every day.
* * *
“It’s weird, all the connections,” Holly said. “Like everything is so orchestrated.”
“I know. I had no idea it was like that,” I said. “I always wondered things like, who was the first time traveler or how did Chief Marshall and Dad find these Tempest agents I worked with. It’s almost like Tempest was just chasing someone else’s work the whole time, picking up stragglers and trying to make the best of a bad situation.”
“How very noble of you,” Holly said, rolling her eyes at me.
“He’s basically right,” Blake said.
I punched a fist in the air and then pointed a finger at Holly. “See? You’re evil and I’m good. I knew it all along.”
Holly cracked a smile. “That would be the ultimate cover, wouldn’t it, considering you don’t look even a little bit innocent and I can pull off the good-girl act fairly well.”
“We’ll have to use that to our advantage should the gods otherwise known as Eyewall pay another visit to Misfit Island,” I said.
Blake opened his mouth to respond, but a loud bang on the door stopped him.
Holly and I both sprang up from our chairs. She reached the door before me and flung it open. It was Emily and she looked upset. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hall. “Come on, you’ve got to help!”
The three of us ran outside behind Emily, past the fire pit, past the cabins, and toward the grassy hill where we had first crossed inside the force field weeks ago. Rain had started to fall in a drizzle just like it had that day.
The first thing I noticed was Sasha, her olive skin and wild, curly hair standing out among the group of people. That and the fact that she was holding someone at gunpoint.
“Does she even know how to use a gun?” I mumbled to Holly and Blake.
“I was just gonna ask that,” Holly said.
Blake shook his head, increasing his pace. “I highly doubt she does.”
Finally, I took in the entire situation and realized that Dad stood several feet to the side of Sasha, also holding her at gunpoint. “Put the gun down, Sasha. She’s not going to hurt us.”
She?
I walked closer and got a better look at the person under Sasha’s control and nearly lost my ability to stand. “Holy shit!”
“Oh my God,” Mason said, approaching me from behind. “It’s Stewart!”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Holly spring into action. She grabbed Sasha from behind, snatching her gun and tossing her into the grass in the process.
Okay, Commando Holly: 1. Sasha: 0.
Mason and I ran toward Stewart. She was covered in dust and looked like she had been through hell to get here. I reached her first and grabbed her, pulling her into a tight hug. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She stumbled out of my arms and took in Mason. “What the hell are you doing alive?”
“Emily did it,” I explained. “Probably around the point when you were off giving Healy truth serum, Emily was using her fingerprint advantage to read my diary.”
“I knew I liked that kid,” she said, reaching out to hug Mason.
It was Dad who broke the reunion. He grabbed Stewart from behind, turning her around and gripping her shoulders. “How did you get here? Who brought you?”
She let out a breath. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. I really can’t.”
Grayson stormed up behind Dad, then surprised me by turning toward Emily. “Is she one of us?”
Emily opened and closed her hands, squeezing her fingers together and then releasing them. “No, she’s not. I can’t feel it.”
“Can’t feel what?” a few of us said at the same time.
“Emily can sense the presence of time travelers,” Grayson explained. “She describes it as a buzzing in her head.”
Okay, that’s insane. But then again … “Wait?” I asked. “Is that how you found me and Kendrick in Central Park? Could you sense me?”
Emily only had a chance to give a tiny nod because Grayson was drilling Stewart. “Someone brought you here, then?”
“Obviously,” Stewart said.
“That was Sasha’s concern. We don’t know whose orders she’s here on. We both know how convincing Eyewall can be,” Grayson said.
“Oh God, give me a break. I know what I’m doing,” Stewart said.
Dad looked almost as crushed
as he had when Courtney and I showed up. “You shouldn’t have come. Whatever you were told isn’t true.”
She folded her arms across her chest, glaring at Dad. “You must have no faith in me at all. I’m here to get you guys out. I have a plan. A damn good plan.”
“But the force field—” I started to say.
“We’re gonna shut it down,” Stewart said. “And then get the hell out of 3200.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAY 12. NOON
“This sucks.” I pointed my gun at the tree-stump T-shirt target. The slight tremble in my left hand still prevented me from actually firing.
“What sucks?” Holly asked. “The fact that you still can’t shoot or the fact that we’ve just been shoved away like little children being excluded from the adult conversation?”
“You don’t think they’ll do anything to Stewart, do you?” Mason paused midreload and waited for Holly, Blake, or me to reply.
“Dad won’t let them,” I answered right away, hoping it was true. Like Dad, I didn’t want Stewart trapped here either, but I couldn’t say I wasn’t the slightest bit happy to see her. Besides, she said she had a plan.
And I’d learned to trust Jenni Stewart in moments of stress. She had yet to let me down. I also knew she was strong enough to withstand any interrogation Grayson, Lonnie, and Dad might be throwing at her in the reproduction room right now.
“I don’t think there would be any concerns about her safety if she’d just tell us who brought her here,” Blake said.
“If she said she can’t tell, then she can’t,” I snapped. But really, I wanted this information, too.
“And why does everyone insist on showing up unannounced with weapons?” Sasha said. “It’s like they’re asking to get killed.”
Holly laughed under her breath and was then awarded with a killer glare from Sasha, who still seemed pretty bitter about the fact that Holly had tackled her to the ground. “Did you really think you would have hit her on the first try? Considering the fact that you’ve never used a gun before?” Holly asked Sasha.
“I can time-travel, unlike you,” Sasha said. “I don’t need firearms as a crutch to keep me alive.”
Holly snapped the trigger into place on her gun, eyebrows lifting way up. “Really? How’s that working out for you right now?”
Sasha grumbled something incoherent to herself and then Holly sighed and turned to face her. “I’m not trying to insult you, I’m just saying that learning to protect yourself might not be a bad idea, given the circumstances.”
“She’s right,” Blake said, kicking Sasha’s shoe playfully. “It couldn’t hurt to have a better defense ready.”
The wait was killing me. I had to do something constructive while Stewart got picked apart in private. “I’m gonna go chop some wood,” I said before walking off.
“I’ll go with you.” Blake jogged after me. “Think Holly and Sasha will be okay without us?”
I picked up my pace, hoping to keep anyone one else from joining in on my distracting activity. “I think Holly will be okay.”
We walked farther than I’d ever been on Misfit Island, all the way to the edge of the thick woods, the complete opposite end of the lake. Blake handed me an ax and picked one up for himself. Large pieces of tree trunks lay scattered around our feet. I picked a thick one to start on and hit it several times before making a dent.
“Was Holly correct the other day?” Blake asked after a good ten minutes of perfect silence, only the sound of metal hitting wood having passed between us. “When she said you’re keeping stuff from her? About her?”
I threw something extra into my swing, splitting a piece of tree trunk into two perfect halves. “I’m keeping a lot of stuff from Holly. We were enemy agents, you know? It’s not like she’s told me much about her life in Eyewall.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Blake stopped chopping and stacked up his firewood pieces. He already had a good-sized pile compared to my two pieces to contribute thus far. “I understand why she might feel entitled to have this information, but she can’t possibly know what it’s like to time-travel, like you and I do. She can’t comprehend the anxiety it causes us to know things that happened a certain way and watch them change. It would be like if we had the ability to read minds and then we were ridiculed and hated for not telling people what went on in the heads of their own family members and loved ones.” He wiped sweat from his forehead, staring off into the distance. “It isn’t fair to accuse us of anything when we can’t help having this God-given ability.”
“Your ability might be God-given,” I said, wiping my own sweaty brow. “But mine sure as hell isn’t. I’m completely man-made.”
“Regardless,” Blake said. “The origin has nothing to do with you. You didn’t ask for this.”
“Those are all valid points,” I conceded. “Why don’t you try explaining that to Holly?”
As if it were that easy.
“I will,” Blake said, looking dead serious.
Suddenly I felt that tiny bubble of jealousy boiling to the surface again, threatening to spill over. I didn’t want Blake alone with Holly long enough for him to have this talk with her. I didn’t want Blake alone with Holly at all.
“She was my girlfriend,” I blurted out against my better judgment. “Before I went back and erased us. Then everything changed and what I did, the sacrifice I made to keep her safe, meant nothing. Her life went completely to hell and I can’t just tell her, oh by the way, I’ve succeeded in getting two out of three versions of you to fall for me, so the probability that it could happen again is very high.”
I channeled the aggression into chopping and split another large piece of tree trunk in half. Then I wondered what kind of hidden anger Blake must have to be so damn good at chopping wood.
“I’m not going to tell her,” Blake said quietly after several long moments of silence. “And I already knew that you were in love with her. It’s pretty obvious.”
My arms were ready to fall off so I dropped the ax and lowered my hands to my side. “I want to deny that so badly, to tell you that I was in love with a different Holly in a different universe, but before we left 2009 there was something … something that made me realize that although she’s different now, the core of her, the basic foundation that makes up a person … it’s always going to be the same no matter what happens. And that’s what I love. That’s who I love.”
“Thomas would disagree with you on that,” Blake said. “And to some extent I agree with him. Holly’s life might have changed, if she went from a normal eighteen-year-old in 2009 to being an Eyewall agent, but her childhood hasn’t changed at all, has it?” I shook my head, knowing she had the same mother, the same house. “The way she was raised didn’t change. But if that was altered somehow…”
I let that concept sink in for a minute or two, and then Blake and I were interrupted by Dad. Finally.
“Stewart is still insisting that she can’t reveal her partner in crime or the plan will backfire,” Dad said. “But she’s ready to tell us her idea.”
* * *
All eleven of us crammed into the small reproduction room minutes after Dad came to find us. Emily and Courtney sat on the floor. Stewart occupied the chair. She looked a little rattled but overall okay. The rest of us leaned against the wall. I took the spot next to Stewart’s chair.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” I whispered to her. “What did they do to you?”
She shrugged. “I’ve had worse. And why the hell are they so serious about every damn thing? Are we starting a political system here? Will there be an election later?”
I glanced down at her and grinned. “I missed you.”
“Of course you did, Junior.”
Grayson clapped his hands together. “Agent Stewart, you have our attention.”
It was very subtle and maybe only I could see it because of my proximity to her, but Stewart drew in a nervous breath before speaking. “The invisible field, the
one that doesn’t allow you to leave the area, it’s controlled from only one location and that’s on the other side of the woods—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “You mean the woods here on Misfit Island? Isn’t that where the perimeters end?”
Everyone stared at me like I had brain damage. Which might be true. Then Courtney’s face lit up and she looked over at Grayson. “He wasn’t here. He wasn’t conscious when you showed us the maps of the area.”
“Right, Courtney. I forgot as well.” Grayson pushed himself off the wall and started tapping buttons on the control panel. A map appeared on three different screens hanging on the wall at eye level. Everything was there. The cabins were clearly identifiable, and just beyond the thick section of trees, there was more grassy land and images of tents scattered everywhere. Around the tents were tiny black dots, some of them staying in place and some moving. Grayson’s finger touched one of the screens and moved from the technology building through the woods, through the area with tents, and stopped just before reaching another thick mass of trees. “That’s where the perimeters of the force field extend.”
“The force field gets taken down more than you think,” Stewart said. “But they hit you with memory gas to stop anyone from leaving. Think about it, they can cross into the area without taking the field down, it’s just getting out that’s the problem.”
“So the controls are on our side?” Grayson asked.
I could already see him, Blake, Lonnie, and Sasha all exchanging glances, possibly believing Stewart for the first time. Then Grayson shook his head. “Even if we found this box, there’s no way we could gain access. All the Eyewall workers have identity chips, fingerprint access—”
Stewart pointed her index finger at Holly. “Good thing we’ve got one of their team members to help us gain access.”
Several people started talking at once, trying to disprove or encourage exploring this theory. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on Holly, who also remained quiet.
“Okay, okay,” Grayson said. “It’s possible this could work. She is in the system. The retina scanner identified Holly as an Eyewall member. But Eyewall guards will teleport in as soon as the field drops.”