Time's Divide (The Chronos Files Book 3)

by Rysa Walker

  “There. All taken care of.” She shoves Saul’s medallion into her back pocket and starts to wipe her hands on her pants, then apparently thinks better of it when she sees the blood spatter on her arms. “Yuck. I’m going to take a shower and change. Don’t leave without me, okay, Kier?”

  I step toward the tub, half expecting to see that Saul’s knees simply slipped down and the body’s still there. The surface is now white, with a few splotches of black where the enamel has chipped away. Not a single trace of Saul. All that remains of my grandfather is the blood on Pru’s arms and clothes as she saunters out of the barn. And I’m guessing she’ll have no trouble removing the bloodstains from her clothes—just toss them into a corner outside of a CHRONOS field and they’ll be squeaky clean.

  The three of us just stand there silently for a moment, staring as Pru walks away.

  I have a hard time believing that Saul is dead. And gone. I’m relieved beyond measure that I won’t be the one to kill him. I’m sure that I could do it, given the circumstances, but I’m not especially wild about the idea of killing anyone, even the monster that is—was—my grandfather. I don’t feel a single shred of regret that he’s gone.

  What worries me most is the why question. What would push Simon to slit the throat of the man who more or less raised him—and to toss his body in a bathtub?

  And then I remember that the same man is holding my mom and Katherine, and I have to push down my panic. I don’t have time to think about that now, and I refuse to even imagine a scenario where we don’t get them back.

  Kiernan finds his voice first. “Any idea where Simon might be?”

  “No,” June says. She keeps looking at me, like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to solve. “But he’ll be coming back this afternoon. I told him to give it a full twenty-four hours, which would be around dark, but . . . you know Simon. He never listens. I’m guessing he’ll be back by three or four at the latest. He’ll probably have Patrick with him. And I doubt he’s going to be happy to find you working with Pru, since he seems to think you’re on his side in this whole schism mess. In fact . . .”

  She glances over at the tub as her voice trails off. Whatever she’s thinking, she decides not to say it.

  “I’m not on anyone’s side.” Kiernan must notice that June’s eyes keep drifting toward me, because he takes my arm and pulls me a step forward. “June, this is Kate.”

  “I already know her name, kiddo. I’m just trying to figure out why she’s here . . . and how she’s connected to the near carbon copy Simon has handcuffed to the bed in my clinic.”

  I don’t follow Kiernan into the room. I don’t even go inside the building. This is private, between him and . . . her. It felt like a giant intrusion of Kiernan’s privacy just witnessing the expression on his face when he realized what June meant. It’s like his entire heart and soul were there in his eyes.

  And, to be honest, I’m also out here because I’m a little worried about my continued existence. Kiernan said this isn’t the same thing as the extra version of myself in the library. That was a splinter, two versions of me from the same timeline with the same key who crossed paths. The Kate inside the clinic—Kiernan’s Kate—doesn’t belong in this timeline at all. But on the off chance that she and I are carrying the same key, and on the off chance that Kiernan is wrong about any little part of this, I’m keeping my distance.

  Because this time, I’m the later version. If either of us goes poof, I have a feeling it will be me.

  There’s a little garden about twenty yards from the clinic with two chairs and a wrought iron bench. I feel a bit more protected over here on the bench than I did on the clinic steps. Squat, barrel-shaped palms surround me on three sides, along with lush, tropical-looking bushes. Birds are chirping everywhere, and even though I can’t see the water, I smell it on the occasional breeze—a faint, salty tang in the air. It would be pleasant if it wasn’t already too hot and muggy for comfort. And if I wasn’t sitting with a rifle across my lap, watching for Simon and Conwell.

  The door of the clinic opens and June comes out, carrying two glasses of orange juice.

  “Thought you could use a drink out here in the heat,” she says. “In this same spot back in 1903, a July morning would have been maybe five degrees cooler on average. You’d still get the occasional scorcher, but nothing like what you see now. Hoped that might change with the last time shift, but Brother Cyrus says it takes a while for the earth to heal itself.”

  On closer inspection, it’s not orange juice . . . it’s slightly pinker and sweeter.

  “Papaya,” she says. “With a few other fruits thrown in. It’s one of the few things your twin in there keeps down in the mornings.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “More or less. Pregnancy doesn’t suit her, although it might’ve been easier if she wasn’t worried half to death and being forced to jump constantly. We’ve had two close calls with miscarriage already, so I told Simon she had to have a full day of rest between each jump from now on. That’s why he’ll be coming back this afternoon. Guess there’s some other damned thing he needs her to do.”

  June sits down in the other chair and adds, “I also thought the two of them could use a moment alone, which I’m guessing is why you’re out here, too. Kiernan explained things, more or less. And Kate—the Kate who is in there, that is—has already given me her version of what she thinks Saul and Simon . . . although I guess it’s just Simon now . . . are up to. She’s talked about pretty much nothing else for the past two weeks.”

  She doesn’t seem to expect me to answer, and I really don’t know what to say, so I just drink my juice and let her talk. I’m scared I’ll make a misstep, and Kiernan clearly knows June far better than I do. They look at each other like they both want to apologize for something and don’t know how.

  “She seems to think everything we’ve been working for here at Estero is based on a lie. That Brother Cyrus’s goal was never about bettering humanity in the long run. Never about restoring balance to the earth, like the people have been trying to do here on the Farm for well over a century. She says he’s nothing but a murderer, a genocidal maniac.”

  “What do you think?”

  June takes a sip from her own glass and stares at the clinic door for a long time before responding. “I’ve seen too many accidents here over my lifetime not to realize Brother Cyrus is more than willing to . . . sacrifice . . . for the greater good. Sometimes those sacrifices didn’t make much sense to me.”

  She nods toward a large house a few buildings away from the clinic. “The woman in the big house over there scrubbing her father’s blood off her body? Technically speaking, she’s my mother, but I was ten years older than her when I met her, and I’ve probably got twenty years on her now, so . . . maybe our roles have gotten a little reversed. I watched the two of them—Brother Cyrus and, later, Simon—push that poor girl through time in so many directions it’s a miracle she remembers her name. I brought her babies into this world through the bodies of thirteen different mothers—women who viewed it as the highest honor to help bring about a new world, a world where men and women live as equals, where the races live in harmony, and where we no longer pillage the earth we live on. Where there’s no war. Kiernan’s mother, Cliona, was one of those women, you know. She died believing that she’d served a higher purpose. I even let Saul convince me it was her time to go. I could have jumped forward. I could have gotten medicine to save her—there’s a whole cabinet of out-of-timeline meds in that clinic. But Saul said he’d had a vision. That it was forbidden.”

  I note the sneer in the last sentence. I also note the fact that she called him Saul this time, not Brother Cyrus.

  She tosses the last few drops of the juice onto the lawn. Her voice is tense when she continues. “I picked up the body of a nine-year-old boy whose neck had been snapped and repeated the lie that he fell from the second-floor railing. I repeated it, maybe even believed it a little, because I didn’t want to accept that eve
rything I’d practiced my entire life might be a lie. We all knew Saul was a little crazy, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t telling the truth. If you look back through history, most visionaries are one step away from madmen.”

  I give her a hesitant shrug. “I suppose. But Saul never wanted to help anyone. He didn’t want to create a better world. He just wanted to win. To be proved right. And I think Simon might be the same.”

  “Anything Simon is, Saul made him,” June snaps. “The fact that Saul’s own cruelty came back around to bite him on the ass may be the closest thing I’ve ever seen to evidence that there’s justice on this earth.”

  “But . . . you said you were thinking of going back to stop him?”

  “Not for Saul’s sake. For Simon’s. I should never have told him Saul was here earlier this week. If he’d been forced to go looking for Saul, maybe he’d have had time to cool off. The boy has blood on his hands now, and it’s partly my fault.”

  From what Kiernan has said, I suspect Simon’s had blood on his hands for a very long time, but I don’t correct her.

  “‘The earth belongs to those who follow The Way and glorify their inner power,’” she quotes. “‘Those who falter cannot be blessed.’”

  Despite the heat, I feel a tiny shiver. “From the Book of Cyrus?”

  June nods, a defensive little wall going up behind her eyes. “Chapter eleven, verse thirteen.”

  “What does it mean?” She gives me an odd look, and I add, “I understand the words. I just wondered what they mean to you. How do you interpret them?”

  “You have to find your peace from within. That’s your inner power. Murder isn’t part of The Way, and striking Saul down means Simon will never know peace.”

  It’s an interesting interpretation, although it’s not the first one that comes to mind for me. I can think of at least a dozen other verses from that little book that could be used to justify murder as the strong taking their rightful dominion over the weak. I wonder how June interprets those verses. Does she twist them into something she can accept? Or maybe her eyes just glide past them as she reads because they don’t fit her personal interpretation of her faith?

  I’m tempted to tell her what Tate said, that the Book of Cyrus was written as a joke when he and Saul were stoned out of their minds. But I’m not sure she’d take it well, nor am I sure it would serve any real purpose, so I shift to something concrete.

  “Do you think Simon will know any peace if he’s responsible for the murder of nearly a billion people? Because that’s what happened with the last shift. The one you say erased most everyone here at Estero.”

  She considers it for a moment. “I don’t think he’d see it as murder, so . . . I can’t say. But he loved Saul at one point. Worshiped him, even. And there’s some good in Simon. Otherwise Kiernan would be dead by now. Simon passed a test of loyalty—not to Saul, but to Kiernan—that I failed when I let Cliona die. I can’t sit in judgment.”

  June looks up from her empty glass and adds, “I suspect Simon’s also the only reason that another version of you is in that clinic with Kiernan now. How do you feel about that? Are you in love with Kiernan, too?”

  “No.”

  I can tell by June’s expression that she doesn’t quite believe me, so I go on. “I could’ve been. It would have been really easy to fall in love with him. But there’s already someone else, and . . . I guess my heart was spoken for. Good thing, right?”

  And it is a good thing, because there’s a part of me that is still a little possessive where Kiernan is concerned, still inclined to corner my Other-Self and tell her that she’d damned well better be good to him. That she’d better not ever break his heart again. Which is stupid on several levels. Leaving him wasn’t exactly her choice. And if I feel that way about Kiernan when I’m in love with Trey, how much more must she feel—married to him, carrying what I really, really hope is his child?

  We both sit there, lost in our own thoughts, until Kiernan comes out, slamming the door behind him. “We’re leaving, June. I need to find some tools to remove those cuffs and get her away before Simon arrives.”

  “That’s not a smart plan, and you know it. If Simon shows up and she’s not here, he’ll just backtrack and stop you from leaving.” She nods toward me. “While you both have guns, he’ll be armed, too, with at least one other jumper tagging along, probably Patrick. And if something tips them off that you and Pru are here, this place will be crawling with a hired security team, so I really hope Simon jumps in without winding back to check the comings and goings today. Pru yanking Saul’s medallion wasn’t the smartest move, either. Simon will know I wouldn’t have handled it that way.”

  I’ve no clue about the last part, since I really don’t know her, but she’s definitely right that Simon will have the upper hand if he realizes we’ve been here.

  Kiernan curses softly and runs his hands through his hair. He stares at me for a moment and then grabs June by the shoulders. “Has he had her here the whole time, June? She said she told you who she was! Why in bloody hell didn’t you try to find—”

  Her hand comes up and smacks him smartly across the face. “And why should I? She’s why you walked out on a dying mother—”

  “Don’t you bring my mum into this!” he snaps, but he takes a step back, releasing her.

  June steps forward again so that she’s right back in his face. “You walk away from her, from me, from everyone who ever loved you, from everything you believed—”

  “Because the Cyrists were built upon a bloody lie! And you know it, June. I think you’ve known it for years, so don’t lay a guilt trip on me.”

  Her eyes are blazing, which strikes me as odd since she basically admitted the same thing to me only a few moments ago. Not that the faith was a lie, but certainly that it was built by a deeply flawed leader.

  But she doesn’t back down. “Did your mother think it was a lie? No, she didn’t. If it gave Cliona’s life purpose, then to me, it doesn’t matter if it was a lie. And tell me, how was I supposed to find you? I looked for you when she was dying . . . jumped all over the damned place. Even asked Simon and Pru, and I’m guessing they could have found you. And even after you knew, after you knew she died wanting to see your face one last time, you didn’t even have the decency to jump back and grant her that.”

  Tears stream down Kiernan’s face. “Because she’d have asked me again, asked me if I believed in the truth of Brother-Bloody-Cyrus’s message, and she would have known, no matter what I told her, that I don’t. That I hate everything she found holy. This way at least she died thinking there’s a chance I’ll be among the Blessed, that I’ll find mercy, even if you and Saul couldn’t find the mercy to cure her.”

  June winces, almost as though Kiernan struck her. A flicker of regret crosses his face and he softens his voice a bit, but there’s no questioning his resolve as he speaks.

  “My loyalty right now lies with the woman in your clinic and the child she carries. Cliona’s grandchild. If you ever loved my mum, you’ll help me end this so I can get them to safety.”

  They start to argue again. I step between them. “We don’t have time for this, Kiernan. Did . . . she . . . have any information about when and where we could intercept the virus?”

  He shoots me an annoyed look, obviously aware that I’m trying to get him back to our original objective when every instinct is telling him to get his wife and child out of danger.

  “She never saw all of the vials together. They delivered them to five of the regional temples, but not to North America yet.” He turns to look at June. “She said you never had the vials here at Estero? It seems like the clinic would have been a natural spot—”

  “No, I had the vials,” June says, her voice still a bit shaky. “I ordered them years ago from the medical supply company—four hundred units. But I refused to help Saul with the virus when he came here to pick them up. The oath I took said ‘first, do no harm.’ No matter how necessary this Culling might have been
in the grand scheme of things, I told him I wouldn’t have any role in taking lives, no more than a medic would in wartime. That’s not my path along The Way. If he wanted to parcel out whatever he had in that cryo kit of his to fill those vials, he’d have to do it on his own.”

  “And Saul was okay with that?” Kiernan seems skeptical.

  “Yeah,” she says. “It surprised me, too. I half expected refusing him to be the last thing I’d ever do. Maybe he just didn’t want to get rid of his only doctor who can use the key, but I think it’s more that he was kind of glad to do it himself.”

  “And then Simon got the vials from Saul in Miami?”

  “I guess, Kiernan. What has me puzzled is why you don’t know all this from Simon. He’s been trying to convince all of us for the past six months that you’re back in the fold, the Prodigal Son returned at last. Trying to convince your Kate, too. Said he had you keeping Pru out of Saul’s hair—keeping her occupied, out of trouble, helping her make contact with her sister.”

  My mouth falls open. Helping her make contact with her sister?

  Kiernan avoids my gaze, but his eyes flick nervously toward the rifle in my hands. “Let’s just say Simon’s been . . . judicious . . . with what he reveals to me, and he’s had a great deal of leverage over my actions for some time now. Once I found out he was holding her . . . yes, I did everything I could to make him think I’m on his side. Keeping Pru out of their way was my idea. You know as well as I do that Saul would have liked nothing better than to snap her neck. Even Simon thinks Pru’s more trouble than she’s worth, and I’ll admit there are times . . .” He shakes his head. “Simon swears he’s kept Kate hidden for the past few months—only it’s six and a half years for me and, what, four years maybe for him?—because he was trying to hide her from Saul. That he did it for me. That he was supposed to erase her, but he . . .”

  Kiernan’s eyes slide toward the barn where we found Saul’s body. Whatever he was going to say, he doesn’t finish it.