“But how did Gran know?” Sarah’s confused face and tapping foot betrayed her nerves.
“Her great grandmother, Anne, was the first of our line to show up in this time. She arrived in 1864 and stopped two assassination attempts on President Lincoln.” With that bombshell, the two women left. The front door slammed seconds later.
“What the hell is going on here, Sarah?”
“I don’t know.” Sarah stared at the mystery box, then back at him. Sun shown down on it through the window, lighting the container with an unearthly glow. She hesitated, hands shaking, as she sat on the bed and pulled the box onto her lap.
Sarah sat in heart-rending silence.
“Open it.” Tim walked over and locked the bedroom door, then sat next to Sarah on the bed. She held the box, unopened, shaking fingers tracing her name written in elegant script on the lid of the box in black marker. “It’s her handwriting.”
“You okay?”
“I don't know. How could my grandmother do this to me? She knew. She knew and never told me.”
“Open the box. Let’s find out exactly what she did and didn’t know.”
A journal lay in tissue paper, plain black leather. Sarah opened it and he peered over her shoulder to see Sarah’s name and the Mark of the Shen drawn in thick black ink. Sarah turned the page and read aloud.
“Dearest Sarah,
“I am sorry I couldn’t tell you more. I knew you would be Taken from me. I had the vision when you were five years old. Before you get angry, please ask yourself what good would knowing have done you? You would have worried, and cursed your fate instead of living and growing into a healthy and happy human being. I chose not to tell you and I hope you can forgive me. I knew, and I died a little inside each day counting the minutes until you would disappear from my life. I did not want that pain for you.
“I must tell you now that I know you will ride the storms, child. And what an amazing gift that is. I have shared dreams with you riding the wind more than once and each time I wake filled with joy. I have also seen the hard-looking soldier destined to be yours. He has a good heart, a bit broken and scarred, but I’m sure your sunshine will heal his soul.
“I do not know what your particular mission will entail, so I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. I do not know when or where you will have to complete the task the Archiver will assign to you. I know you were always fearless and strong. You are not the type to give up or succumb to defeat, so I have a deep and abiding faith that you will be successful. The only thing I know for sure is that you will find your way home, to this book. I have foreseen you sitting with your soldier reading this book with sunlight in your hair and a heavy heart. I’m sorry, lovebug, but you must leave this city as soon as you are able. There is a Timewalker in need and you must be in place to help her.
“My grandmother shared her life with me, and I’ve placed her story in these pages. She, too, had the gift of sight. Her story is for another time and is contained in the back of this book for you to read once you are safely on the beach in Bermuda. Her story is interesting, but does not affect the burdens placed on your shoulders. She is simply a fellow sister and traveler through time.
“This I know, you will read this book and the following spring a dark-haired Timewalker will wash up on the beach in Bermuda. She will need a sea-worthy boat, money, and your assistance. I do not know her mission or her name, but her Mark is on her left shoulder should you desire proof. If you are not able to help her, she will fail in her mission.
“I also know that you will need to run, that you will be hunted for your power. So, my child, kill two birds with one stone. Change your name and flee with your soldier to a new home. Do not tell the Archiver what you plan to do. There is a war going on, child, and I’ve seen some very strange things. Timewalkers and their mates are the only ones you should trust.
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.
“Be safe, lovebug. I love you. I’m proud of you. And somewhere in time, I’m holding you in my arms, always.
“Love, Granny T”
Tears flowed freely down Sarah’s face and Tim wrapped her in his arms, absorbing her sobs as she dropped the book to the bed and curled against him.
Hunted for your power.
Yes, the Rear Admiral would never stop looking for her. Right now she was an enigma to him, a strange woman with a bit of power. After the storm, the final battle, she’d be godlike in the Weasel’s eyes. A weapon unlike any other. She’d never be safe in the States again. Every camera and software bot out there would be looking for her. Sarah’s identity may not have been discovered yet, which could buy them some time, but the Rear Admiral knew Tim well enough. His home, his money, his identity could all be used like a blood trail to find Sarah.
“Shit.” He took the cell phone out of his pocket, pulled the battery out, and shoved the mess back in his pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Disabling the GPS.”
“What’s GPS?”
“Global Positioning System. It triangulates your position anywhere on Earth using satellites. They could track us within a few feet of our position anywhere on the planet.”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t belong in this world. In this time. I’m like a three-year-old, and the things I don’t know are going to get you killed.”
“No, Sarah. No.” He tipped her chin up to look in his eyes. “I know for both of us and I’m not leaving your side.” She leaned in and rested her forehead against his, staring into his eyes and straight through to his soul. He hid nothing. “You do your thing tomorrow, you blast that ship out of the sky, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
She took a slow, deep breath. “Okay.”
“Trust me, Sarah. I’ll take care of you.”
She stopped breathing and he kissed her lightly, coaxing her to relax and draw air back into her body. Letting her go to fend for herself in the world wasn’t an option. He could tell her a million reasons why, and they’d all be legitimate, but the truth was he simply refused to let her go. Love meant nothing to him, it was a word he’d used when talking to his mother, when she kissed him after a skinned knee or when he took a head-dive off his bicycle at eleven and broke his wrist. Love was a weak word and didn’t begin to encompass what he felt for Sarah, watching her cry, watching as she squared her shoulders time and again to face a terrifying destiny no human should have to face, watching her love him despite his anger at the world, give herself to him despite his ugly-ass head and even uglier scars.
Love didn’t come close to this obsessive need he had developed to know that she was happy, taken care of, and safe.
He needed her to understand what he felt, to know beyond all doubt, to her very soul, that only death would drag him from her side.
He kissed her again, and with deliberate slowness, he ran his hand up her arm to her collarbone, then her neck and tunneled his fingers beneath the silky strands of her hair. He left a whispered trail of touch against the soft skin beneath his fingertips, and settled his heated palm over the Mark there and used the leverage to pull her against him into a fast, furious meeting of lips that spiraled them both instantly into a sensual haze.
The empty box dropped to the floor as he pushed her back and followed her down onto the bed until he covered her body with his own. He was already hard and ready, pressed between her legs exactly where he wanted to be. God he loved how tall she was, how perfectly they fit together when he made love to her, as if she was made for him. And perhaps she had been. He liked the idea of that.
She turned her head to the side in a last-ditch effort to restore sanity, but he was having none of it. If he couldn’t have her lips, he’d nibble and taste the other bits. They might both be dead in a matter of hours. He had no intention of wasting this opportunity to taste her one more time.
“Tim!” Her panting plea reached his blood-starved brain and he stopped.
“Yes?” With a smile he resumed his downward journey and li
fted the hem of her shirt out of the way to explore the soft skin of her stomach.
“Shouldn’t we be planning battle strategy or something?”
He pulled her shirt over her head and she let him.
“No.”
“No? But…”
Tim chuckled and dipped his head to taste the hard pink nipples taunting him with their existence. He kissed his way between them, paying attention to as many lovely freckles as he could, his personal roadmap to heaven.
Sarah wrapped her arms around his head, rubbing the stubble he knew must be there. She pulled his head against her stomach and rubbed against the rough edges of his shaved head with a quick moan and shiver.
I win.
“Hurry up and get naked then.” She grinned at him. “We only have a few hours.”
He chuckled and stood to quickly rid himself of his clothes before yanking her shoes and pants off and dumping them into a nice pile with his before covering her completely.
He meant to tease her more, to explore the soft folds of her flesh and make sure she was ready for him, but she reached between them and wrapped her hand around the very tip of his sensitized flesh. He wanted to be inside her. Now.
He settled for plunging his tongue into her mouth in urgent demand as she placed him right where she wanted him, then tilted her hips up, wrapped her knees around his waist, and impaled herself in one decisive thrust.
Instinct drove him to place his hand over her Mark just as the scorching heat of her touch covered his neck. It was like they’d been plugged into a live wire, energy circling and flowing, one to the other and back in a crescendo that wrapped them up in a vortex of energy, and swirled their souls together in the storm. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, could only feel as the energy wound higher and higher, tighter and tighter, until they both cried out in release. He hadn’t moved after the initial thrust and he collapsed atop her, buried to the balls and utterly spent.
The energy flowing between them no longer felt like warm, sticky caramel, it was more like floating in a steaming bathtub of hot water. Fluid. Seductive. And completely surrounding them.
She shuddered beneath him and he raised his head, a lovesick grin on his face to find her oh so serious and with tears gathering again.
“I can’t ask you to give up your life, to move to Bermuda with me.”
“You aren’t asking. I’m going.” He framed her face in his hands and shifted inside her to remind her of who was in charge now. “You stop the attack. Leave everything else up to me.”
“But…”
“No buts, Sarah. Where you go, I go. Forever.”
“You'll have to change your name, give up your house, and Bandit, too. What about Bandit?”
“I’m sure Luke and Alexa can take her. She’ll be happy with a family around her instead of just a grumpy old soldier like me for company.”
“But…”
“No buts. I am yours.” He pulled her wrist up until she took the hint and put her hand over his Mark once more. “And you are mine.” Turning her head to the side with a gentle nudge of his finger, he nuzzled her neck and placed a kiss over her Mark. Instantly the connection hummed back to life and he felt himself harden within her. She moaned and shifted beneath him, taking him deeper, reigniting the flame in both of them.
“But, Tim…”
He was done arguing. He covered her mouth with his own and didn’t let her up for air until she was done fighting him.
A couple hours later, Sarah finally slept, curled next to him under the homemade quilt she’d told him her grandmother had made for her room when she was twelve. It was covered in dancing butterflies and exquisite stitching so detailed the creatures looked like they would fly off at any time. He set the alarm in his watch and drifted to sleep, with Sarah in his arms.
When he woke he knew two things, Katie couldn’t come with them when they left here, and Sarah had been keeping secrets.
Chapter Twelve
Thursday, 10:24 a.m.
Ten in the morning. He had less than twenty hours to figure a way out of this mess or Sarah was going to die.
Tim walked slowly down the hallway and followed the light and smell of hot coffee to the small kitchen. Two sober faces waited with a map and a stack of paperwork beside them.
“Have a seat, Tim. I’d offer you whiskey if I had it, but I don’t.”
“Coffee is great. Thanks.” He sat in the chair across from Katherine and studied her face. Now that Sarah was asleep, the women didn’t try to hide their worry.
“What the hell is going on, Katie? I just had a vision with two possible outcomes.”
Katie nodded but didn’t say anything, just stared into her own cup. It was the elder cousin, Molly, who answered. “We call it a Time Crux, a moment where more than one outcome is possible.”
“Okay, well, in one of them, Sarah dies. Tell me how to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I’m sorry. We can’t.” Katie twisted her mug in circles and shook her head. “If it’s a Time Crux, it means she hasn’t made the decision yet.”
“What decision? In both visions she was battling the freak storm over Chicago, and winning. Then, in the first parallel she just…dies.”
Tim hadn’t shed a tear in years, but he found he had to wipe his face with the back of his hand in front of these two women and their pitying stares.
Molly covered his hand with a warm, motherly touch and waited for him to look her in the eyes, eyes strikingly similar to Sarah’s. “There’s nothing you can do, Tim. The moment will come, and whatever is going to happen will happen. It might be Sarah’s decision, and it might be the decision of someone else. But the person who is the cause of the Crux will have to choose.”
“Bullshit. I don’t believe there’s nothing I can do. And who is this other person? How do I find them?”
“Did you have a sense of what she was battling, or what she was thinking about during either parallel of the vision?”
“No.”
“Then you’re just going to have to wait and see. The moment will come. The decision might be hers, yours, or someone else’s entirely. It could be a firefighter on the ground, or the Rear Admiral deciding to help or hinder her. There is, quite simply, no way to know until the moment arrives.” Molly withdrew her hand and leaned back in her chair, lines of sorrow etched in her face. “I’m so sorry. But take hope in Grandmother Tilly’s vision. She saw you two in Bermuda. Keep faith in that.”
Tim wanted to explode, but there was no outlet for his rage. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. He’d take her away from here, keep her off that damn tower, get the hell out of Chicago…
No, he wouldn’t. Even if he could force himself to sacrifice the lives of nine million innocent civilians, which he couldn’t and knew it, she’d never agree to go.
“Okay. So, what can I do?”
“Sign these.” Katie slid a stack of legal documents across the table with a blue pen lying across the top. This is your Last Will and Testament dated three weeks after your parents’ deaths. It leaves everything you own to your long lost cousin and his wife, John T. Davis and Mary S. Davis. They are U.S. citizens who live in Bermuda, but happen to be in Chicago right now on vacation. They’re due to return home in the next three days.”
Tim picked up the pen and stared blankly at the documents. “What?”
Katie kept talking and dumped the contents of a small white Tyvek envelope on the table. “Here are your new birth certificates, identification, and passports. You are now John Timothy Davis, married to one Mary Sarah Davis. Here are your tickets. We’ve chartered a jet that will take you to Bermuda in the morning. The pilot is family so there will be no questions. The flight is scheduled to leave at 9:05 a.m., so we will have about three hours to get you to the airport once Sarah is finished with the attack.”
Tim leafed through the documents before him. Simple, straightforward, and the will named Molly June Higgins, Esquire the executor of his estate. He looked at Molly in surp
rise. “You’re an attorney?”
“Yes. I’ve had these papers drawn up and waiting for the details for years. When Sarah disappeared, Granny T called me in London and begged me to move back home. My husband was gone. I was a widow with nothing to lose. Besides, once she’d shown me the book and the journal of the first Walker in our line, what else could I do but believe her?” Molly blushed, but continued. “Besides, I have a touch of the visions myself. There’s no denying that, is there, son?”
Katie nodded beside her. “We were careful, Tim. We knew you’d need to get out of here, and thanks to Grandmother Tilly, we’ve had years to prepare. We’ve been waiting. Mom’s last name is different from mine. I covered my tracks. The Rear Admiral thinks I was abandoned by a crack-addicted teen at the hospital and grew up a ward of the state of Illinois in the foster care system. I’ve got all the records to prove it, thanks to some well-placed friends. I’ve been protecting our people, the Timewalker descendants, for years now. I’m, very good at what I do. He’ll never suspect a thing.”
“How the hell did you two pull this off? How many Timewalkers are out there wandering around?”
“Timewalkers as powerful as Sarah? None that we know of.” Katie raised her mug in salute. “But weaker descendants, like me? We don’t know for sure, but there are over fifty cousins in our family line, descendants of Anne, and we all have a bit of the gifts. We’ve found several more and either smuggled them off his radar, or placed them in the Casper Project to help me with the Rear Admiral. He doesn’t know who they really are, or how many people we hide from him, he just wants their power.”
Tim digested that bit of information then pointed out the obvious. “One problem, ladies. I’m not dead.”
Katie rubbed her hands together and actually grinned. “You will be. We’ve got it all planned out. All I need is an hour of your time. We’re going to the dentist.”
Tim thumbed through everything, the will, identification, passports. His whole life…erased by what lay on the table in front of him.
Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 Page 16