Losing Time (Lost Time, Book 1): A Time Travel Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

I squeaked. Carrie still didn’t move. And Sergei Ivanov simply smiled.

  Then Jack appeared out of nowhere, shoving me aside, grunting with the force of his actions, just as Ivanov pulled the trigger.

  The Lunik door closed, the Vehicle disappeared in a star-studded blue and green and gold cloud, and the roar of rockets met my ears, mixed in with the distinct sound of gunfire.

  I landed on my side, breathless, aching, already crying, as silence reigned and Jack fell to the ground. Hard.

  It took a second. Maybe two, and then I saw it.

  Blood. So much blood. And it wasn’t mine.

  Don’t Leave Me, Jack

  Jack

  Bloody fucking bollocks, but that hurt like the blazes. I sucked in air and let out a wretched breath, feeling every muscle burn as oxygen coursed through my aching body. The world spun lazily around me, the ground warping in and out. I swallowed back bile, willed my heart to stop thumping its way out of my chest, and tried to blink my vision clear.

  “Jack!” Mimi cried. She sounded frantic. I struggled to sit upright, trying to reach her, even though, for the life of me, I couldn’t see a bloody thing right then. But if Mimi was shouting my name, she must have been in trouble.

  “Oh God, Jack,” she said, this time as though the words were wrenched from deep within her.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “Where does it hurt?” My hands found her; I scrabbled to get closer; somehow I managed it. My fingers running over her short skirt, finding smooth skin underneath, unblemished, and moving on in a heartbeat to her torso and chest, and finally her face. I cupped her jaw, my vision finally clearing, and saw the tears streaking down her cheeks.

  “Shh,” I murmured. “It’s all right. You’re all right.” Damn it all to hell, why did she have to be in danger like this?

  “There’s so much,” she whispered. “What do I do? What do I do?”

  “It’s OK,” I murmured, wanting to hold her. The world tilted slightly. I shook my head. “We need to call the Orion.”

  “Oh, yes!” she cried, relief coursing through her entire frame. I watched on as she reached for her shirt hem, pressing the communicator inside.

  “Well done,” I offered, wanting to give her encouragement. Wanting to apologise. Wanting so much right then. I thought perhaps the apology was for our atrocious conversation on the pier. And then I thought it might well be for the fact that Clive Crawford had embroiled her in this mess because of a bloody fucking dream. And then I wondered if it was instead because I was such an arse and I was always making her cry.

  “Lie down,” she ordered.

  “Why?”

  An amusing growl emitted from the back of her throat and I thought her adorable.

  “Just do it, Doctor.”

  “Doctor is it?” I said smiling.

  A ripping sound reached my ears and then something was pressed into my side. Oh, bloody fucking hell that hurt.

  “Sorry!” she squeaked.

  “Don’t, Mouse,” I whispered.

  Space warped. Time jumped. The dimensions collided. And then everything went dark for a while.

  When I opened my eyes, I was on a cot on the floor of the Orion. Rafe was sitting off to the side, watching, a look of concern and impatience on his face. And Mimi was leaning over me, checking something on my side.

  “It looks good,” she said, but I realised it wasn’t to me she was speaking. “That’s truly very impressive,” she added. “Why can’t we carry that fix-it thing with us when we leave the Vehicle?”

  “Gotta preserve Time,” Rafe mumbled.

  “What if you hadn’t come when you did? He could be dead.”

  “He’s tougher than he looks, Mouse.”

  “Well,” she said, sitting back on her knees, “I don’t want to test that theory.”

  “I sure as hell do. He was an arse.”

  I blinked, my lids drooping. Neither noticed I was awake. I smiled to myself, and closed my eyes, listening to Mimi’s soft voice gain an edge to it.

  “Don’t be so hard on him, Rafe. Something has clearly happened.”

  “Something like getting out of the wrong side of the bed, you mean.”

  Mimi laughed. “Yeah, well, he was a bit of a grouch.”

  “Arse, Mouse. Say it.”

  She giggled. That was quite enough of that.

  “Is there a reason why you’re inciting insubordination, Dr Hoffman?” I asked.

  “Oh, and he’s back in the land of the living. Super!” Rafe muttered.

  “I’m so glad you care.”

  “How are you feeling?” Mimi asked. My eyes found hers. For a second I couldn’t think straight.

  “I’m fine. You?” I finally managed.

  “You gave me a scare.”

  “Just a scratch, Miss Wylde.”

  “We had to dig the bullet out,” Rafe advised.

  Silence met his words.

  “Ah, well. I see,” I muttered.

  “He shot at you, Jack,” Rafe persisted, his own voice gaining an edge. “He shot at a Novitiate.”

  I gingerly sat up, feeling the bandage on the side of my chest. My shirt had been removed. A sheet was all the cover I had. I let it fall to my waist, too tired to wrestle with it. But even tired I enjoyed the way Mimi’s eyes widened slightly and the fact that she was unable to look away.

  I leant back against the cabinets and let out a slow breath, feeling exactly like I’d just been shot. There was only so much a med-device could do. Seal the wound. Rebind tissue and muscle. Stop the bleeding. The pain, not so much.

  Surgeons avoided painkillers; they tended to make the dreams too vivid.

  “He’s out of control, I agree,” I said, my eyes closing as I battled fatigue.

  “The bullet is out of time,” Rafe offered quietly.

  “Fuck,” I muttered. How careless was Sergei getting? No wonder rips were appearing across the dimensions. Most of them were due to Lunik.

  “What does Crawford say?” Rafe asked. “You must have talked to him about all of this.”

  My fists clenched and I gritted my teeth. I did not want to discuss Clive Crawford.

  “He’s aware,” I ground out. “He’s put certain actions in place.”

  “What actions?”

  “I can’t discuss them.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Rafe spat. “How the hell are we to do our job if Crawford keeps playing with the chess pieces behind the scenes?”

  I almost defended him. I would have defended Clive in the past. But my lips remained sealed. I was too fucking angry with the RATS Chief Surgeon to back his actions right then.

  My eyes opened, and I found Mimi. She was watching me. Intelligence sparked behind that clear blue gaze. Putting the puzzle pieces together?

  “So, what’s the plan?” Rafe asked, giving me my silence on the matter. That’s why I liked flying with Rafe Hoffman; he knew when to shut up.

  “I need some time to recover.”

  “Do we go back to RATS?” Mimi asked, both Rafe and I shook our heads.

  “The less we travel the dimensions, the easier it is on our bodies,” Rafe offered. “If we’re to rescue Orion Two, and trap Lunik while we’re at it, we need to plan our next flight accordingly. Traipsing to and fro through space waves only causes havoc.”

  “I’m at a loss as to where we could pick his trail up next,” I admitted.

  “Orion Two went missing around this time,” Rafe replied. “I’ve checked the link; it’s severed. And I can’t locate them at our last rendezvous point as well.”

  “Bloody hell,” I muttered, running a hand over my face, scratching my scar. “Where could they be?”

  “Beats me, Jack,” Rafe replied. “And if Sergei has them, he’s not using the ace up his sleeve.”

  “He doesn’t have them.” I was sure of it. I knew Sergei Ivanov, and not gloating over such a coup was impossible for the Russian. He’d have been dangling Orion Two in front of our faces by now if he’d had them. Not fir
ing potshots at our heads to scare us off instead.

  No. Something else had happened to Orion Two. Something unpredictable. Something that caught them, and us, unawares.

  My eyes found Mimi again. The unpredictable event slap bang in the middle of this.

  Where did this all fit in? And when did Clive have that dream about Carolyn Wylde? Was she with Sergei in it? Or was she safe and back home in her own time?

  I rested my head back against the cabinets and closed my eyes; I couldn’t reason this all out. And Clive’s penchant for the mysterious was only adding confusion to the midst. Rafe was right. We couldn’t operate on such limited information. But returning to RATS would increase the danger to our dreams. The more we dreamt, the wilder the dreams became, the more chance of the future being altered to suit our dreamscape.

  It didn’t matter what school of thought you were in, it all boiled down to one thing. Dreams affected us. Psychologically. Emotionally. Physically. It was unavoidable. And the bane of our existence.

  “Send a probe back,” I said, forcing my eyes open. God, I was tired.

  “What do you want it to say?” Rafe asked, already activating a probe to return through the dimensions to RATS.

  There was no easy way to say this, and if I could have moved and entered the words myself, I would have. But I was stuck on the floor, exhausted, aching, and not just a little fucked off at Clive Crawford.

  Let him fight his own battles.

  “Address it to Crawford,” I said, my voice sounding tired, giving away too much. “Tell him I need to know everything.”

  “Well, that’s not at all cryptic, Jack,” Rafe muttered. “He gonna understand that?”

  He’d choose not to. I smiled, it was no doubt bitter.

  “Tell him; I need to know everything about the dream.”

  Mimi sucked in a breath of air. My smile turned genuine as my gaze met hers. I saw the exact moment her own dream flushed her cheeks pink. I chuckled. It fucking hurt the side of my chest. A grimace emerged.

  “You should rest,” she whispered.

  “You too,” I offered.

  “Get a room,” Rafe muttered, under his breath.

  Mimi rolled her eyes.

  I should tell her. I should come clean. Prepare her for her sister’s involvement. Because sure as eggs, Carolyn Wylde was in this up to her bloody neck. I needed to protect Mimi.

  I needed to protect myself first.

  “Probe sent,” Rafe announced. “Now what?”

  “Now we wait.”

  “Here?”

  “Might as well. Maybe there’ll be something in the reply that will make sense.” It was a long shot, and Clive would be cagey, I was sure. But what else did we have to go on?

  “This rip,” Mimi said softly into the quiet of the Orion.

  “Yeah?” Rafe asked, bringing up solitaire on his screen and shuffling the virtual cards.

  “It started here in 1969?”

  “Sergei’s involvement in the press conference at the Holiday Inn,” I agreed.

  “Is it mended now?”

  “Pretty much,” Rafe added. “Fawkes clearly stitched it before he and his team went missing, ‘cause it’s not out of alignment now.” The sine wave had returned to blue again since Sergei had left.

  “But Orion Two wasn’t here, this second trip,” Mimi offered.

  “Temporal paradox, Miss Wylde,” I said, shifting to get comfortable.

  She nodded her head, clearly working it all out in her mind. Time travel was not easy to grasp. I was impressed so far with her ability to stay abreast of our conversations. There was absolutely nothing slow about Mimi Wylde.

  “Then Sergei won’t be back,” she said.

  “No,” both Rafe and I replied. “Unless he plans to mess with this time again,” Rafe added.

  “Even he wouldn’t be that mad,” I grumbled.

  “May I remind you about the bullet,” Rafe offered, deadpan.

  I just grunted in reply. He had a point.

  “Then staying here is a waste of time,” Mimi said.

  “‘Wasting Time.’ That should be our new RATS motto,” Rafe quipped.

  “Royal Academy of Time Surgeons,” I said. “We don’t just make Time; we waste it!”

  “Sounds like we’re pulverising it with a blaster,” Rafe said on a laugh.

  I chuckled. Mimi offered a small smile.

  “Get some rest, Miss Wylde,” I said. “We all need it. Tomorrow we’ll attack it from another angle.”

  “With blasters,” Rafe offered.

  Mimi nodded and turned her chair away.

  I was watching her, so I saw the second the thought appeared in her mind. Her head tilted to the side, her hand came up to her lips, and then she sat bolt upright.

  “What is it?” I asked. She spun in her seat to face me.

  “The rip didn’t start here,” she said.

  “Yes, it did.”

  “Well, maybe the rip was here, but it started further along the timeline.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head; uncertain. Come on; you can do it.

  “My time,” she said. Rafe stopped playing solitaire. His eyes met mine.

  “The Origin Event’s time,” he said.

  “Yes,” I murmured. Mimi’s Time. Carolyn Wylde’s Time. “The rip didn’t start here,” I said.

  My eyes met Mimi’s. This woman was beyond clever. This woman was miraculous. Ingenious. Marvellous.

  “Set a course, Dr Hoffman.”

  “On it, sir,” Rafe replied.

  I smiled at Mimi. “I guess this means we’re taking you home.” Bloody hell, those words hurt.

  She smiled back. It was tremulous at best.

  I could have sworn I could read the words in her tear-filled eyes.

  Don’t leave me, Jack.

  But I wasn’t sure it was me doing the leaving this time.

  The Beginning

  Mimi

  The second the MPCV touched down, I was out of my seat. But the door to the Vehicle remained resolutely closed when I tried it.

  “Relax, Miss Wylde,” Jack said from the command chair. “We can’t exit until we confirm we’re actually here.”

  “Time matches,” Rafe offered on cue. “Location as well. OE: Alpha 1; Cape Canaveral. We’re in the vicinity of the VAB.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Jack. He just sighed. It had been a tense few hours, but he’d needed time to recover, and we’d all needed rest and to eat, so despite my fervent arguments to the contrary, we hadn’t flown straight away. I’d been forced to remain seated when all I’d wanted to do was rescue my sister out of the clutches of that lunatic.

  There’s only so much pacing you can do in an MPCV.

  But Jack had denied me.

  He was checking a few things on the console now, his eyes darting up to the yellow-green sine wave on the screen.

  “Time has been tampered with,” Rafe commented, his own eyes glued to the sinusoid as well. “But it’s not a rip.”

  “It’s an Origin Event location, it will always be slightly different than anywhere else,” Jack replied steadily.

  “Is he here, though?” I asked.

  “Difficult to say, Miss Wylde. The rip was caused by our previous unscheduled stop in this time, but the rip itself has been repaired. If he is here, and not tearing the dimensions apart, then the wave won’t register a colour difference.”

  The unsaid being, why would he be here at all? The flyby had been unplanned; Ivanov had chosen Cocoa Beach in 1969 as the time to draw an Orion out and deliver his message, not the VAB in my time. It was uncertain if any Orion would have sufficed, or if he particularly wanted Jack Evans’. And then there was the fact that he’d picked up Carrie on the trip through this year, as well. Had it changed his plans? Had he adjusted his strategy to better accommodate that windfall?

  Was she a windfall at all?

  He’d threatened her life, but that had been when he’d thought her on
e of RATS’ own. He’d thought I was too. But he must know better now. And Carrie? She’d been the one to issue the second ultimatum. On the pier at Cocoa Beach. She’d been the one to demonstrate Lunik’s new abilities, picking up Sally and returning her within a matter of minutes.

  Carrie was as much a part of Ivanov’s plan now as I was a part of RATS’ plan to rescue her.

  But we weren’t here for Carrie, I realised when Jack tapped the screen excitedly and said, “They’re here!”

  “Bloody hell!” Rafe added. “Mouse, you’re a genius!”

  No, I was stupid. I was so effing stupid. Coming here wouldn’t bring us closer to Carrie and Ivanov. Coming here simply traced the rip to its origin, thereby chasing down Orion Two.

  Somehow they’d got caught up in the original tear; maybe repairing it had caused this unforeseen outcome. Trapped in my time, just as the Lunik and Orion One had been drawn here. But as they’d been travelling to another destination when they flew through here, they’d simply skimmed the surface of the wave and bounced right off it.

  Orion Two clearly had not.

  Of course, this was all speculation on my part. But it hadn’t failed to register with me, though, that I seemed to have an infinity for all of this. My science degree, no doubt, helped. But I had a sneaky suspicion it was more than that. What exactly, I couldn’t yet say. But my understanding was too swift, too clear, too accurate.

  Even for me, a self-declared NASA nerd.

  My shoulders slumped, just as Jack’s and Rafe’s postures became animated. I stepped aside, allowing them access to the door of the Vehicle. The door I had moments before been only too eager to open. I wasn’t sure I wanted to face Bryan Fawkes and his team now. Facing them would mean one thing.

  It was time to go back to RATS.

  And going back to RATS meant leaving Carrie wherever she was. I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t. And the battle that would surely come between Jack and me when I announced this was going to be epic.

  I wasn’t in control here. I was barely a certified Novitiate.

  And, let’s not forget, I was also out of time.

  “Tether attached?” Jack asked over his shoulder, his eyes on Rafe.