Timestorm: A Tempest Novel (The Tempest Trilogy)

by Julie Cross

  “But do you think she did?” Holly asked, slowly turning to face me again.

  My eyes met hers. “I don’t know. I honestly have no idea. The Holly that I knew then took her time. She wouldn’t have met some random guy in a bar and made out with him but there was someone before me, so I suppose…”

  “David?” Holly finished for me.

  I nodded. “Even if she did cheat or whatever we’d call it since we didn’t say we were exclusive, it wouldn’t have been because she didn’t want to be with me, it would have been because she was probably so scared of holding on too tight. I think right before she … you and I got together, she was confused, and probably screwed up a lot of things to figure out what she really wanted. I think what I went through after 009 Holly got shot and I couldn’t get back to her, she experienced in a much more subtle form when she broke up with David. That realization that you want more, that you’re willing to risk your heart for it, is something she hadn’t known with David because he was safe.”

  Holly moved on to the items on my desk. “So really, your only problem was that your timing was off. She grew up before you did.”

  “I guess that’s a good way of looking at it.”

  “In my version of junior year,” Holly said, “the version in my head—not the one we’ve landed in—I never had that moment with David. I don’t think about him like that. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

  I laughed again. “I thought the same thing when I met him in 2007. I just didn’t see the chemistry. Of course, I didn’t want to see it, but I think that actually made me even more in tune with his every move.”

  She moved closer to me and nerves flickered in her expression for a second and then faded. But it was long enough to cause butterflies to start flapping around inside my stomach.

  “I read about your first time with original Holly,” she said, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. “It was in the pages that Emily wrote down.”

  I covered my face with my hands and groaned. “God, that child has to be the most morally corrupted kid on the planet. Not that it’s her fault or that it’s affected her negatively but man, eight-year-olds do not need to read about some eighteen-year-old losing her virginity.”

  “Did you ever read that entry?”

  I shook my head. “I tried to read as little of that diary as possible. It felt like an invasion of privacy and I’m kinda pissed at that version of me for being an idiot.”

  Holly gave me a tiny smile. “Why did you have such a hard time going through with it after you found out it was her first time?”

  I reached for Holly’s hand and held it in mine. “It seemed too big, too important for me to be involved. I just wanted it to be fun. But then I got it. I got that she wasn’t asking me for a ring or anything. She just had to tell me before I figured it out and then it would have been even more weird.”

  “The thing is…” She leaned into me, resting a hand on the back of my neck and pulling our foreheads together. The heat, the tension built between us. “I want to be able to write a diary entry like that one. That’s what I want to envision when I think of being close to someone like that. I’m not saying it has to be today, but I am saying that you looking at me like I’m a wounded, fragile girl who you can’t dare go crazy with isn’t going to bring on the steamy journal entries and … I almost avoided telling you this because it’s really hard to say out loud, but I kind of think we’re past the point where we hold back important information and expect that we’ll have the opportunity to say it later on.”

  I swallowed back the lump in my throat, knowing exactly what my face must look like. Sure enough, Holly pulled away and sighed. “See? There you go again. The sad Jackson face. It’s so heavy, it’s like you’re suffocating me with all that guilt and grief and regret.”

  “I’m sorry.” I reached for her, but she backed farther away. After a two-second hesitation, I made a decision to ditch the concerns from last night and take my dad’s advice, and most of all, leave Holly knowing what it felt like to do this with someone who loves her as much as I do.

  My heart was already racing, anticipating what would come of this revelation, and maybe I wanted it for me as much as I wanted it for Holly. I left her hanging in the middle of the room, while I walked over to my iPod and speakers and started looking for a song to play.

  “Jackson,” Holly said, sounding slightly frustrated. “You can’t play the same song and pretend I’m the other version of me and that’ll fix everything.”

  I hit PLAY and then turned around, grabbing Holly’s hand and pulling her against me before she could object again. “I’m not playing the same song and I’m not pretending you’re someone else. This is the version of you I want to be with, okay?”

  Her eyes met mine, her arms circling around my neck. “Okay.”

  Until the moment I started kissing Holly, right after her arms tightened around me, I hadn’t even realized how much of my self-control I’d used up in all these days of keeping my distance from her and drawing these invisible barriers between us. Knowing they were gone sent every concern I’d had over the past sixty days flying from my head, my mind focused on one thing and only one.

  Holly was right there with me, pulling at the bottom of my shirt, tugging it over my head before crushing her mouth against mine again. I reached for the tie around the waist of her dress and pulled it quickly apart before sliding down the zipper. One of my hands was tangled in her hair and the other carefully slipped inside the opening at the back of her dress when Holly lifted her head suddenly and closed her eyes, her own hands pausing in their movement. “Good song … but I’m trying not to read too much into it.”

  Good.

  I slid my hands to the back of her neck, and whispered, “Don’t think too much. Not now.”

  After a few minutes of insanely good kissing, we ended up stretched out on my bed, both of us in our underwear and both of us completely breathless and absorbed in the moment.

  “Condoms,” Holly whispered into my ear, her leg wrapped around me, my fingers running up and down that bare leg. “Do you have any?”

  I lifted my head and looked right at her. “I have no idea.”

  This wasn’t usually a detail I skipped over. In fact, I’d been a pro at condom preparedness. Dad had stressed it from age twelve, years before I ever needed that lecture. I reached over Holly and opened the bedside drawer. Nothing but a couple books and a flashlight. I rolled over and brought her with me, yanking open the other drawer on the other side of the bed. I stared into it and let out a short laugh, causing Holly to look at the contents from over my shoulder. There were at least thirty condoms lying in the bottom of the drawer, a couple issues of Popular Science half covering the supply.

  “Whoa,” Holly said, laughing. “That’s some wishful thinking, huh?”

  I left the drawer open and turned back over, pulling Holly on top of me, kissing her and running my hands all over her body until she was the one reaching into the drawer and making the next move.

  Her hand shook as she dropped the red-foiled package between us. I caught her wrist and pulled her hand toward my mouth, kissing her palm. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I trust you.”

  There wasn’t a trace of doubt in her eyes to cause me to hesitate, so I didn’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  DAY 4: 2009. 12:01 A.M.

  “Maybe your dad put the condoms in the drawer,” Holly suggested.

  “Maybe.” I rested my chin against her chest, looking over every inch of her skin from the shoulders up, memorizing the scars and the marks that made her Holly. I was trying my best not to let the sadness consume me, to remember that I’d made the right choice. She combed her fingers through my hair and I pressed my forehead into her chest, closing my eyes briefly, inhaling the moment. I almost wished this was the bottom of the ocean and I could just die right here like this.

  I lifted my head when Holly’s fingers slowed down and eventually her hands l
ay heavy on my head. Her eyes were fluttering shut. I leaned in and kissed her, lingering with my mouth against hers long enough to get her eyes to open all the way again.

  “You’re falling asleep on me,” I said, smiling.

  “I’m sorry.” Her lids started to drift closed again, but she gave me a lazy smile in return. “I’m just happy … and that makes me tired.”

  “But you haven’t told me yet,” I said. “Is this going to make a hot diary entry?”

  She laughed but her eyes stayed closed. “I think maybe it’s just too perfect to put into words. We’ll see.”

  I got up and put on the jeans I had worn earlier and went to the kitchen, my heart heavy and beating hard as I got a glass of water and dumped in the clear powdered solution that I knew would ensure Holly’s inability to keep me, Courtney, and Marshall from leaving in a few hours’ time.

  Luckily, her eyes opened when I returned to the room and she gratefully took the glass from my hands and chugged half of it. That would be more than enough. It was almost too easy.

  I pulled her into my arms, her cheek falling against my chest, her heart thudding slow and steady against my skin. I waited until the heaviness of her body against mine increased and I was sure the drugs had kicked in. It wasn’t until then that I finally allowed a few tears to fall and my emotions to completely consume me.

  I lay awake until a quarter to four, then slid out from under Holly, covered her with a blanket, and folded her clothes neatly, setting them on the bed beside her. Courtney’s gentle knock on the door sent my heart racing again, but I hadn’t changed my mind. I leaned in to give Holly a quick kiss on the forehead and then left the room, shutting the door behind me.

  DAY 4: 2009. 6:40 A.M.

  “I can’t believe we’re taking a commercial flight,” Courtney whispered into my ear as we took our seats in row thirty-five, seats E and D. “And coach? Seriously?”

  Chief Marshall leaned over from his seat at the end of the middle section. “It was the only way they wouldn’t catch up to us. Once we get to Norway, we’ll have to lie low for about eighteen hours before we get on the boat.”

  The word “boat” sent my heart into a full-out sprint. Courtney squeezed her eyes shut beside me and drew in a slow breath.

  We had both been provided with passports identifying us as Landon and Marie Robertson. I’m not sure what Marshall’s name was but the fact that we hadn’t even traveled under our own names would mean it would take a while for Dad and anyone else to catch us.

  It wasn’t fear that consumed me and forced me to reach into my bag for the heavy sedatives, it was the thought of Holly and Dad waking up to find us missing. To know that we weren’t coming back. Ever. Adam would explain it all eventually. It killed me to think about what they would feel in that moment. No way in hell could I sit on a plane for seven hours absorbed in those thoughts.

  I held the bottle out to Courtney, offering her a pill. She shook her head and patted a book in her lap. “I’ve got some things to do.”

  My head started falling toward my sister’s shoulder over the next few minutes and I was out like a light long before takeoff.

  * * *

  The small cabin Marshall had rented near the coast had the most amazing views. I couldn’t even fathom how this much beauty could exist in moments as dark as this one. Since I’d passed out on the flight over, only waking when Courtney shook me for a full five minutes after the plane had emptied, I was a bundle of nerves now, watching Courtney sleep in the bedroom we were occupying with two twin beds and creaky wooden floors. I’d already forced myself to eat a sandwich and take a shower and there was nothing left to do but sit in the dark and think about what would happen the next morning.

  I nearly fell right off the bed when Courtney’s pink cell phone buzzed loudly from somewhere in the bag lying at the foot of her bed. She stirred and then woke up, her eyes first meeting mine, wide with panic.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as if the caller on the other line might hear us talking. “I had to bring it in case I wanted to call at the last minute.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Just turn it off, please.”

  She fumbled around in her bag and finally powered off the cell phone. That seemed to instantly increase the distance between us and everyone else we loved. I needed that distance if I was going to make it through this. “It was Mason.”

  My eyes opened again and I tried my best to look sympathetic. “I’m sorry. It must have been hard leaving him.”

  She nodded, her eyes glistening with tears. “But it’s not like you and Holly. I’m fourteen, Jackson. I like him a lot but I don’t think I’m capable of that kind of love yet, you know?”

  “Yeah, I do.” If she was even twenty percent like me at age fourteen, then I totally understood why she wasn’t there yet.

  “Honestly, I’ve only really loved two people in my life—you and Dad.” Her voice trembled more with every word. “And there’s part of me that feels like I’ve always known it would just be you two and that I wouldn’t get older. Not like you.”

  I didn’t know if that was true or not but it hurt so much to hear either way. It wasn’t fair that I got more years to live than Courtney. We were twins. It should have been equal.

  Courtney must have seen my face because she quickly added, “I didn’t mean it like that, I really didn’t. I’m so happy you had the time to become you and be in love with Holly. It’s like you got to be a man. At least for a little while.”

  I smiled and then stood up, walking across the room and sitting beside her, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “I missed you so much. All those years, it was like I couldn’t be a whole person again. Maybe it’s best that we’re doing this together so one of us doesn’t end up alone without the other.”

  She leaned her head against my chest, tears dripping off her nose and onto my hand. “Do you ever think about what’s on the other side? What if it’s just the same thing all over again?”

  “Like reincarnation?”

  “Maybe.” She sighed heavily. “If it is like that, then I want you to promise me something, just in case I’m not there or another version of me doesn’t know what I know.”

  “Okay, what should I promise you?” I wiped the tears from her face with the sleeve of my sweater. “Should I get married to Holly Flynn and have six kids?”

  She glanced up at me, her eyes wide and amused. “How did you know I’d say that?”

  I laughed. “Because you told me that before, when I visited you in the hospital.”

  “So maybe we have nothing to worry about then,” she said, laughing with me. “Sounds like all the versions of me think alike.”

  Marshall opened the door then, interrupting our conversation. “Jackson, can I see you in the other room please?”

  I shrugged when Courtney gave me a questioning look and then headed across the hall into Marshall’s room. He had a white plastic bag in his hands and a roll of packing tape.

  “Raise your shirt,” he ordered. I did as I was told and then turned around, my back to him when he gestured for me to do so. “This bag contains two capsules with a potassium cyanide solution in the event that you arrive at our destination with your heart still beating and your thoughts intact.”

  “Is that going to happen?” I asked warily.

  “It’s highly unlikely but to not send you prepared would be barbaric,” Marshall said. “Your sister’s survival is impossible but there are two capsules just in case a miracle happens. Do not swallow these whole, crush them between your molars. Brain death will occur within minutes of consuming the poison and then your heart will stop beating shortly after.”

  I held still while he firmly taped the bag to my back. It would be hell to rip off if I did need the suicide pills. When he was finished, I turned around to face the man I had once considered a murderer. And even knowing the truth, I still couldn’t see a good person. Not exactly. “Are you scared?”

  “Fear is not something I allow myself to
feel,” Marshall said.

  “What do you feel, then?” I asked. “You must feel something or else you wouldn’t be able to do this. You wouldn’t care.”

  He shuffled over to the dresser and fiddled with a stack of papers. “That’s where you’re wrong, son. I’m just another Thomas given a direction and a purpose that I feel is the only right way. And I plan to do everything in my power to ensure the outcome is the one I wanted. The difference between him and me is that I was shown a different path early on. The same path that you happen to be on yourself.” He looked up at me then, taking in the stunned expression I hadn’t tried to hide. “Don’t mistake my choices for nobility. I’m playing a chess match, just like Thomas, only we have different strategies, different endgames, and different teachers. My teacher, Frank, believed in free will above all things. Thomas’s teacher believed in peace above all things. Do you see where our lines cross?

  “And Agent Meyer? He believes in love first. The goal of a good leader is to find what drives his soldiers and feed that need. I let him have you and your sister, and Eileen, too, before she was killed. He exceeded every expectation I ever had for him. If it weren’t for Eileen, you, and Courtney, he would have been good … above average … but not the great agent that he is today. We wouldn’t have made the progress we’ve made toward this goal of stopping Dr. Ludwig and Thomas.”

  I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around the complexity of his thoughts and the tremendous difference between him and me and how we viewed the world and people. And just the simple reminder of Dad and how much he loved me and Courtney caused a lump to form in my throat. I cleared it away quickly before asking, “What if I can’t? What if I get there and I just can’t make myself … you know … take the plunge?”

  Marshall opened a dresser drawer and removed a gun and held it out for me to take. “You might need this. And to answer your question, I have no doubt you’ll follow the plan precisely just like you jumped off that rooftop without hesitation to save Holly.”