by S. E. Babin
Lila’s gaze sharpened. “I missed that. She just had this look about her and I noticed her clothing was a few years out of date. Plus, her cell phone conked out when she tried to use it. It was a Samsung.” Her mouth pursed in distaste, as if Samsung was responsible for all the world’s problems.
That stung. “Maybe I just like outdated technology,” I retorted. I yanked once again, hoping I could break Aaron’s death grip. He released my hand, only to grab me by the upper bicep.
“One of the amateur rules of time travel is to dress according to the time you’re going to and make sure your technology matches what’s current. Otherwise,” she nodded to Aaron’s hand around my arm, “you’ll out yourself and come to our attention.”
I was extremely confused and getting more annoyed by the second. “Whose attention? Who are you people?”
A dry drawl interjected. “The Coalition of Time Operatives, or, as they like to call themselves, COTO.”
Watson was here and based on his expression, none too happy to see the predicament I was in. Aaron’s grip tightened so much I knew I was going to have a handprint on my arm once he let go. However, his voice stayed calm. If I were a smart woman, which my college grades and IQ said I was, I’d say Aaron was intimidated by Watson. Who wouldn’t be? Dude was scary.
“Watson.” He nodded.
Watson sighed. “Aaron, fancy meeting you here. How’d you hook up with Penelope?”
Aaron shrugged. “Skydiving. Easy pickings, Watson. Perhaps you should train your Wardens a little better.”
While this statement annoyed me, Watson didn’t even bat an eye. “She’s new, what can I say? How about you unhand her and turn her over to my custody?”
Lila’s gaze narrowed as she studied my rescuer. “She broke the rules. We have authority to take her in.”
Watson snorted. “So she has the wrong shoes on? Please.” He took a step toward Lila, who backed up. His height was imposing when you weren’t standing next to him, but as the object of his ire, it felt like he was twelve foot tall.
Lila’s throat work as she swallowed. “Under Directive 87904, the COTO has the right—”
Watson pulled out a gun and held it at Lila’s nose. “Shut up.”
Aaron’s grip fell from my arm, and I scrambled over to Watson. Aaron attempted to pull a weapon from his waistband, but Watson pulled another gun and held it at eye level. “You really should work on that draw, Aaron. Now, I’m going to take Penelope here and you are going to walk away.”
The noise on the street died down and people were slowing to watch us. It wouldn’t be long before we attracted the notice of the authorities.
“You’re breaking fifty different directives,” Lila protested.
Watson bowed. “As always, Lila, it was a pleasure seeing you again. It’s a shame you’re always so focused on the rules.” He gave her a heated once over, causing my stomach to twist in something I hoped wasn’t jealousy. He turned to focus on Aaron. “Our First Level Wardens are off limits. You both know this. They do not fall under your silly directives. Screw with one of my Wardens again and this will end messy. Are we clear?”
I didn’t know what a First Level Warden was, nor did I care since it appeared to be getting me out of this sticky situation. A muscle in Aaron’s jaw worked and he nodded once. “I didn’t realize she was First Level,” he said after an awkward moment of silence.
Watson holstered both of his weapons. “Perhaps you should ask more questions then.”
Lila’s burning gaze met mine. There were questions in her eyes, much the same as mine. She stared at me for a long moment, a myriad of emotions flickering over her face before her face went blank. Regardless of what she’d just done to try to detain me, the blankness in her face terrified me more than any anger she had shown. It told me she was going to figure out who I was. And then she was going to try and destroy me.
Watson gripped me by the same arm Aaron had, causing me to hiss in pain, and led me down the road. People quickly dropped their eyes and got out of our way, perhaps sensing Watson wasn’t someone to be messed with. After a few moments of walking in silence, he pulled me into an alley and shoved me up against a wall, his body pressing against mine.
It was an intimate position and might have even been sexy if I couldn’t see the fury blazing in his eyes as he lifted me so we were nose to nose.
“Of all the stupid fucking things to do, you got involved with COTO?” he hissed in anger.
I blinked. “How the hell was I supposed to know who COTO was?” I yelled. He might have been quiet, but I was the one getting yelled at here. “It’s not like you gave me a handy dandy employee’s manual!” I was on a roll now. I ineffectually tried to punch him in the chest, but since he was holding me by the upper arms, all I could manage was a college-girl sissy-slap.
His breathing was harsh and loud in the silent alley. He continued to stare at me, his breath warm against my face. I was pinned like a butterfly, smashed against his body. Warmth spread from my head down to my toes as I realized I could feel every single inch of him against me. My breasts were plastered against his chest and I was lifted so his hips were between my legs.
I swallowed once, trying to control the blush exploding across my body. I was horribly, wildly, and stupidly attracted to this oaf. His gaze slipped to my parted lips and lingered there for a moment. I wanted him to kiss me—hell, who was I kidding? I wanted him to do a whole lot more than kiss me. Even if we were in a dank, smelly alley. Maybe especially so, because we were in the moment. If he slipped just a little bit higher, I would be able feel the length of him against me. And if that happened, it was just a matter of shimmying out of our clothes and…
He abruptly released me and I slid down the wall to the ground in a boneless heap. He wiped his arm across his face and blew out a harsh breath. “Jesus, Penelope. Of all the pains in the arse I could have been assigned, I got Sherlock’s daughter.” He ran a hand through his hair and over his face.
I struggled to regain my dignity, although I was secretly pleased to see from the girth in his pants, he wasn’t so unaffected. I stood slowly and brushed my hair back from my face. I waited for him to recover his composure. He turned his back to me, muttered all sorts of wildly inappropriate things, and finally turned back to me, his face set in a thunderous scowl. “Let’s go.”
He grabbed me by the arm and before I could open my mouth to protest, I exploded in a shower of atoms and particles.
I landed back in my bedroom, sprawled gracelessly on the floor. Watson was nowhere to be found. “Screw you, too, Watson!” I screamed at the empty room. I stood, brushed off my now filthy pants, and stormed into the bathroom to take a cold shower.
Chapter 7
How had he gotten me back without one of those handy dandy watches? I wondered as the hot water sprayed over my sore body. I really needed to start working out if I was going to keep running with this crowd. The light, or lack of, outside told me it was at least eight o’clock. In just a few hours, I would lose my mortality. I would lose my ability to die, my ability to have a normal relationship, my ability to live in the same place the rest of my life...the ability to do lots of things.
While not dying was kind of cool, I thought about how it would feel in a hundred years, when most of the people I knew and loved were gone. It was a small comfort that my mother wouldn’t be one of those people, but my friends and everyone else would die. When confronted with immortality, mortality became a small blip on the radar, a beat of a butterfly’s wings. To someone like my father, it was over before it even began. How did he handle relationships now? Did he even have them? Did he love someone? From his behavior around my mother, I’d say that spark was alive and well, but she was holding a grudge against him the size of Montana. I didn’t see a reunion for those two in the near future.
The shower beat over my head as I lay my head against the cool tiles. And Watson... I sighed. That man was an enigma...like one of those bacon sundaes. He didn’t exactly ma
ke sense, an odd combination of weirdness and grumpiness, but he was oh-so-delicious. If I knew what was good for me, I’d stay far away from Watson when it wasn’t necessary to work with him.
Tomorrow would be a different day. I’d be living with my father, wherever the hell that was, and undergoing Time Warden training—something I probably should have done before he gave me that godforsaken DAR bracelet. I’d need to see if he could make it into something not so conspicuous, lest I catch the grumpy attentions of Lila from COTO. And Aaron. I hoped I saw him again so I could punch him right in his smug face.
I soaped up, washed my hair, and shaved as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my freedom moping in the shower. I had ice cream to devour, Netflix to watch, and maybe...just maybe, I could find a cute guy to kiss before midnight, after my television marathon, of course. It was like my own emo version of New Years and I was going to enjoy it.
I was way overdressed for my trip to the grocery store. High heels and a short skirt earned me some appreciative glances, but no one talked to me yet. I eyed a handsome man down the chip aisle who kept glancing at me from the corner of his eye. It wasn’t often you saw a green-eyed, half-dressed, half-Asian girl trolling for Doritos at nine p.m. I sidled up to him as best I could in my four inch heels.
“Hi.” I grinned.
He blinked and opened his mouth. “Umm, hi,” he said, staring at me quizzically.
I held up my chips. “Fancy sharing some Doritos with me tonight?”
His mouth fell open and I waggled my eyebrows, shaking the bag of chips. “Come on. I can’t eat all of these by myself.”
He was a handsome guy—young, lean, and tall. Just like I liked them. He was dressed like he just got off of work, slacks and a button down shirt. I knew I’d taken him by surprise by being so ballsy, but I didn’t want to spend the night by myself.
“Are you a hooker?” he asked after a long moment of silence.
Embarrassment flooded my body and I dropped my chips in disbelief. “No!” I said after a moment of horror once I realized how my behavior looked to the average guy. Tears filled my eyes as I turned and stomped away from him.
“I’m sorry,” he shouted after me. “It just seemed like—”
I extended my middle finger as I walked away, my wounded pride trailing behind me.
I’d lost my Doritos, but still had my rocky road ice cream. After a self-checkout the speed of lightning, I fled the store, got into my car, and banged my head against my steering wheel a few times.
“That was embarrassing,” said a voice I’d come to hate.
Without even looking up, I mumbled, “Go away.”
Watson chuckled and tossed something into my lap. The familiar crinkle caused me to open my eyes.
“I’m more of a Ruffles kind of guy, but to each his own.”
I stared at the Doritos bag in my lap and the threat of tears caused me to swallow a couple of times before I could speak.
“Thank you,” I managed after a moment.
Watson shrugged, carefully not looking at me. “It’s normal,” he said.
I snorted. “What’s normal?” Was he talking about me dressed like a hooker trolling for men in the chip aisle, my pre-midlife immortality breakdown, or my imbecile foray into inexperienced time travel?
“The freak-out the night before.” He turned to gaze at me, his eyes hooded in the dark interior of my car.
How many people did they thrust into this life? Was he the witness of everyone’s night before freak-out or was I just especially lucky? “Did you?” I asked instead.
He chuckled then, the sound like warm honey sliding down my spine. “That I did, Penelope. But it was a long time ago. I found myself buried in booze and willing women. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t realize what happened for quite a while. There was no way for me to tell the effects of the serum until I should have died and didn’t.” He turned back toward the window, the planes of his face shadowed and haunted. “When I finally realized something was off, I tried to kill myself multiple times just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. I jumped off a cliff, stood in front of a mail carriage, got into a gun battle, was stabbed multiple times in a bar fight.”
I winced.
“Anything to see how strong this curse was.” He flicked his hand, as if brushing away the issue. “We are very difficult to kill, Penelope Wilde. If you want out, best do it tonight.”
With those comforting parting words, Watson popped out of my car, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I hoped Watson wasn’t gunning for a second career as a motivational speaker because he seriously sucked at it. I groaned and let my head fall back against the steering wheel.
Suicide was out of the question. And who knew if it would even work? I was a generally happy person, but I wasn’t pleased with the circumstances life was currently throwing at me. I shoved my keys into the ignition and began the journey home before my ice cream started to melt. That was surely more important than my freak out. Ice cream cured all ills, specifically Rocky Road with the gooey kind of marshmallows that stretched out six inches from your spoon once you got it out of the container.
My mother was sitting on my porch when I walked up to the apartment, ice cream and chips firmly in hand. My footsteps stalled as I remembered our last conversation. She’d left without saying she loved me and broke the cardinal rule of our relationship. We always kissed hello and said we loved each other when we left. Of course, it wasn’t every day your immortal husband popped back into your life and announced his presence to his previously unaware daughter, so maybe I could cut her some slack.
“Mom,” I acknowledged as I unlocked the door. I held it open and let her walk in, shaking my head as I took in her attire. She wore one of her five million broom skirts and a white tank top with multiple strands of beads swinging around her neck. Her long, dark hair was pulled into two braids resting on opposite sides of her chest. She looked about sixteen years old. It was obvious she’d stopped taking her aging serum.
She brushed past me, leaving the scent of green tea and patchouli in her wake, and went into the kitchen. “Tea?” she asked, immediately setting about the process of making a pot.
I shrugged, tossed my chips down, and regretfully stuck my ice cream in the freezer. My main squeeze for tonight would have to wait for a while. I settled in at the counter and watched her perform the same ritual I’d watched a thousand other times. She always turned the water on first and filled the teapot. Then she’d carefully measure out one tablespoon of her famous herbal blend and put it in the strainers, careful not to spill any. One for each of us, placed into the old, cheap blue mugs I’d picked up at the flea market just a few years ago.
It was silent as we waited for the water to boil, my mother’s awkwardness filling the air. We’d never had trouble communicating, but that was before I knew she’d been lying to me my entire life. The shriek of the kettle made us both jump, and I watched my mother’s hands shake as she turned the stove off, flipped the lid of the kettle, and poured the scalding water over the herbs. She finally pulled a bar stool over and sat in front of me, her head bowed.
“I don’t know where to start,” she said after a moment.
“The beginning would be nice,” I said. My mother winced and I immediately regretted the tone of my words. I sighed. “Mom, I just want to know what happened, how it happened, and why you thought you had to keep it from me all these years.”
My mother snorted in amusement, but her shoulders slumped just the same. “Can you imagine if you went around telling people Sherlock Holmes was your daddy?” Her eyes crinkled in amusement. “You’d have been taken away from me and I would be in the loony bin.”
I could see that, but it was no excuse for her to continue hiding it from me. I was almost twenty-five for heaven’s sake. “And then, when I was in high school?”
“I was too afraid.” She wrung her hands together, her nails unpolished and cut short.
“Mom…” I was getting annoyed.
“Just...listen,” she pleaded. “I’d spent so many years building this life. Our life. I didn’t want to disrupt it, take it away. In some cultures, they believe if you give voice to something, it will happen. I believe that too. If I talked about him, he would somehow know. I know that sounds crazy, but you haven’t lived with the man. You have no idea how far and wide he sees.”
Oh, I had a feeling, but Mother would be the one who truly knew him. She brushed one of her braids back over her shoulder. “Instead, I waited. I grew content. I continued taking the aging serum, knowing I was running out, not having any idea what I would tell you when I started to reverse age, but I was still content, Penelope.” She lifted her sad, dark eyes to me. “You were happy. We were all happy. But he found you anyway.”
Her face clouded over. “Be wary of him. Always be wary of him. He isn’t a bad man, but he is manipulative and devious. If he sees in you a way to get something he wants, make no mistake, he will do everything in his power to take it.”
At the vehemence in her voice, a chill raced across my shoulders, like someone walked over my grave. My mother sounded like she spoke from experience.
“What about Watson?” I asked against my better judgment.
My mother smiled for the first time since she walked into my house. “Watson is tormented, but a good, solid man.” Her eyebrows knitted together. “You could do much worse than him, daughter.”
“Mom,” I groaned, “I’m not interested in him.”
She gave me a knowing look. “A woman would have to be dead not to be interested in John Watson.”
She was absolutely right, but I would never admit it. I rolled my eyes. She pulled the strainers out of our cups, tapped them against the sides of the mugs a couple of times to drain the excess liquid, placed them gently into the sink, and handed me a steaming mug.
“Drink,” she said, beginning to sound like the bossy Japanese mother I knew. “And I will tell you a story.”