Time Thief

by Jill Cooper

  “What’s this?’ The second EMT swipes Molly’s hair away from her neck and there’s an abrasion, two puncture marks on her neck.

  That man…red hot fury fills my vision. What had that man done to her? More importantly, who the hell was he?

  “Someone did this to her?” Mom asks no one in particular. “Who hurt our baby?” she cries and Jax wraps his arms around her middle, draws her in. Their grief joins them together and their sorrow is the only time they have really been able to connect in recent times.

  The EMTs prepare to move Molly and I step back, walk purposefully over to Cassidy. “Someone did this. Someone wants to hurt her. Or me.”

  “I’ll head to the bridge,”—the space between the timelines that exists outside of normal time—“we’ll comb through the timelines, see if we can figure out what’s happening, who is doing it, and why,” Cassidy says.

  “Hurry. I know pushing you aside isn’t fair…”

  Her lips press together and the Montgomery fire lights her eyes up. “Nothing about what’s happening is fair. If I can help…that’s all I ask.” Cassidy hurries away toward the bar and rounds the corner, sneaking between couples that stare and watch. She can’t open the gateway to the bridge with people watching, she needs somewhere private.

  The EMTs usher Molly out of the room. Mom and Jax aren’t far behind. Donovan slips his arm around me. Finally, he’s able to talk and I’m so grateful that at least his presence has been with me. “I’m so sorry, Lar. She’ll be okay.”

  We don’t know that, but he’s trying. He needs to say something, and I understand. “I’m just glad I have you and that we’re married. What’s happening to Molly doesn’t change anything.”

  I appreciate his words even if my heart knew all that. I lean closer into him.

  He squeezes me tighter and then I look to Mike. With his hands still in his pockets and his head tucked down low, he’s a lost little boy despite the fact he’s a teenager. I put my hands on his shoulders. “We’ll get you to the hospital so you can be there when she wakes up. She’s going to need you.”

  “She’s going to need all of us,” Mike says sadly and his words, his tone, haunt me. If he knows something, now isn’t the time to pressure him. We all need to be together in this.

  For Molly.

  Chapter Four: Lara James

  Mom and Jax are in with Molly and the doctors in a private room at the ER. The rest of us loiter in the waiting room. I sit with Donovan and we hold hands while he talks baseball and other sports to Mike, keeping the boy’s mind off whatever might be going on with Molly.

  My own mind goes off in all directions, and inside I’m a cluster of nerves.

  I have boundless energy. Sitting is the last thing I want to do and the pull to time travel is strong, but first I have to know what’s happening to Molly and if she’s going to be okay. It’s no longer a question about if I’ll travel through time.

  Now it’s only a matter of when.

  The thing about time is it’s always there, waiting. Whether I time travel now or when I know more, it’s all the same. It’s all just a matter of time.

  But it’s better to go in with more information and not less.

  My dad leans against the wall—his bow-tie loose around his neck—nursing a cup of coffee. He’s staring out the window at nothing and I excuse myself from Donovan to go talk to him. I lean on the wall beside him and cross my arms, peering up at him.

  “Just think of all that cake Molly is going to help you eat when she wakes up, huh?” Dad tosses his empty cup into the nearby waste paper basket, making a slam dunk.

  “Nothing better than a heaping spoonful of frosting.” I pause to take a breath and shift gears. “This is hard on you too, Dad. You probably wish you were in there with Mom.”

  Dad shrugs and I can tell it’s true. “Much as I’m fond of Molly and Mike, they aren’t my kids. Jax and your mom, they have to do this together. No matter what I think of—” His eyes fall on Mike and he frowns and clamps his mouth shut. “Relationship status: It’s complicated. Right?”

  I grin. “Look at you, getting all up with the social media.”

  “Been out of jail long enough now to get jiggy with all the latest and greatest. Maybe I’ll start making my own grumpy Monday cat-memes.”

  I scowl. “Oh Dad, please never use the word ‘jiggy’ in a sentence like that again.”

  He laughs and then I do too, happy to have a bit of the ice broken. “What happened back there? We were doing the conga and then I saw you separate from the pack and then—well I’m not sure what I saw.”

  I lift my head away from the wall, wondering what exactly it was he had seen.

  “You knew something was wrong and knew something was going to happen. That much is clear.”

  “Just an instinct. A feeling. Someone was with Molly and I didn’t like the look of him.”

  Dad’s eyes crease with surprise. “You think someone did this to her? Who was he?”

  I wish I knew. “That’s the question of the hour. I couldn’t see his face and what happened after…it wasn’t like anything Molly’s ever done before.”

  Dad nods. “I saw, but I couldn’t move. Everything was stuck. Worst thing I’ve ever felt watching you fighting to get to Molly and unable to. And I thought prison made me powerless.” Bitterly, he laughs, but laughter is the last thing I see in his eyes.

  Cassidy had been frozen too. What if all of the guests had been frozen, or even more throughout the building—the city block—if word got out that time can be manipulated in other ways than just going forward and backward, a mass panic could erupt. Maybe even one that goes beyond the city limits of Boston.

  I need to get ahead of this and talk to the TTPA, but at that moment Jax sticks his head out of Molly’s doorway. His face is bright, relieved, and he gestures for me. “Molly’s asking for you, Lara.”

  She’s awake and alert. That’s a good sign. I squeeze Dad’s arm and then hurry over to Jax and he leads me into Molly’s room. It’s not the first hospital bed I’ve seen her in, but she still looks small beside all the equipment and wires. Frail.

  Mom’s bent over her, stroking her head and whispering against her ear. I go to the other side and put my hand in Molly’s. She gazes at me and bites her lip. Her eyes say things words can’t and I’m overcome with a feeling of protectiveness.

  “We’ll be outside,” Jax says and leads Mom by her waist.

  “No, I want to stay. Jax….” She takes his hand but twists her head to look back at us. She’s desperate to be with her baby girl and I understand, even as I desperately need her to go.

  “Give them some time. Okay?”

  Mom gawks at me, a warning in her eyes. She’s not angry with me but she’s protective of Molly and I can’t say I blame her.

  When they’re gone, I sit on the edge of Molly’s bed. “First, how are you feeling?”

  “Jumbled.” Molly’s answer sounds confused and her eyes flit around the room, as if she’s not sure where she is. “Things are coming in waves, faster than ever.”

  She might have been talking about multiple timelines and its infinite choices. “Talk me through it.”

  “You’re in the ballroom,” Molly draws a shaky breath and her chest expands, “you’re wearing your dress and a man is coming for you. I step in…There’s a gun. It goes off. No, Lara!” Suddenly she’s upright and hyperventilating. I ease her back down slowly.

  The choices Molly sees in the timeline used to upset her a few years ago, but we’d worked through it so she only saw it as an option. A fantasy. They had stopped bothering her, but now it seemed a though Molly had forgotten what we’d worked so hard to teach her. “Easy…easy. It didn’t happen, whatever you saw. It’s not happening here. There wasn’t a gun. You were the one in danger, not me. Okay?”

  She answers me as if she hadn’t heard what I’d said. Her brain processes information too quickly and it comes spilling out of her mouth. “He’s coming for me. His hands are o
n my shoulders and I’m terrified. I can’t look away. Something pierces my neck.” Molly touches the injury on her neck as she says it and winces. “I can’t move. Time is going funny. It’s backward and forward, I can’t think. I collapse. Donovan, he’s dead and Cassidy’s at fault.” Molly rushes to swallow and takes multiple rapid shallow breaths.

  I stand up and lay my hands on her arm. “You need to take a break. You’re pushing yourself too hard. Breathe, Molly. Breathe.”

  The machines beep; Molly’s heart rate is spiking. One-twenty-three beats a minute and it shows no sign of backing down. Her eyes are wide and her forehead dampens with sweat. “Mike’s in danger. No one notices him, I don’t notice him, but he’s in trouble. Big trouble. He’s back. He’s here. Now!”

  “Who?” I ask as doctors rush in. They push me aside to get to Molly and start shouting medical jargon at one another.

  Molly’s body goes stiff as a board and her head tilts back. Her fingers claw at the air and she shouts, “Rex!”

  The monitors flatline. Her heart stops in cardiac arrest and when the doctors apply the paddles to her body, her body jumps.

  I head out into the hallway. My back’s against the wall again, both figuratively and literally. Mom’s face is wet with tears as she and Jax watch from the doorway. When she glances at me, she wears that look on her face. I’ve seen it before.

  Blame. Grief. None of this would be happening if it wasn’t for me and the things I had done to change time. Molly was born because of what I had done.

  And now she might die.

  ****

  When Donovan hears about Molly he comes and stands with me. I lean against him and stare off at nothing in particular, able to feel the ticking of time in my mind louder than usual. It goes forward and as the doctor comes from Molly’s room, I slow it down. No one else feels it but me, and it gives me the time I need to study his face, see the slight crinkle around his eyes. The corner of his lips turns up slightly as he greets my mother with an outstretched hand.

  Molly will be all right. Thank goodness.

  I blink slowly and time speeds up to the place it needs to be. Donovan rubs my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. “Not the wedding day we hoped for but I’m glad to be your husband, Lar. Finally, and forever.”

  “Forever.”

  As I smile up at him, I catch what the doctor says to Mom. “She’s stable. If we can keep her from getting too excited, we can monitor the condition and get her erratic heartbeat under control.”

  He talks about further treatment—medicine—all the things I don’t want to hear. Molly shouldn’t need any of those things. Instead, she should be enjoying her life like a regular kid, but instead she’s more gifted than any of us. Her ability to feel and predict time in the multiverse is powerful.

  And apparently dangerous.

  Mom thanks the doctor but she can’t stop glancing at me. I know what’s coming and I stand up straighter. Donovan stands to attention, his hand on my neck as if he knows I’m going to need his support. Mom heads over and in her eyes there’s a fury that can only be described as that of a mother bear.

  She’s my mother too but I’m not the one lying in that hospital bed. I grit my teeth to stand up for whatever Mom is going to say. She points a finger at me. “What did you say to her? What did you say that upset her like that?”

  Jax puts his hands-on Mom’s shoulders but she shrugs him off. “I need answers and I need them now. Lara, what did you do?”

  Her words bite but it’s not her fault. Once I’d blamed her for all of it, but I’m older and wiser now and I’m ready to take my licks. “She did all the talking. I tried to get her to stop and take a breath but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Of course, she didn’t.” Mom’s eyes fill with tears. “You’re supposed to protect her. You’re supposed to keep all of this away from her!”

  “Mom…” I whisper, but she won’t let me get a word in edgewise.

  Her chin quivers and her lips crumble into a frown. “This wasn’t supposed to touch her, Lara.” Mom storms off, leaving all of us behind her in the dust. When she gets to the end of the hall, she puts her arms around Mike—who’d been waiting for her—and I want to disappear into the wall.

  We went to great lengths to keep Mom in the dark about how Molly can manipulate time, but if Dad had seen what Molly could do….maybe Mom had too. And now she’s angry and headed into the strongest case of denial I’ve ever seen.

  “She didn’t mean what she said,” Donovan whispers as he strokes my neck. He doesn’t flinch when his finger accidentally strokes the port back there—forever embedded in my brain.

  I nod. “She might not, but she’s right about a lot of it. I didn’t make Molly what she is, but I did set all this in motion from the very beginning.”

  Donovan’s eyes crinkle with a serious frown. “I don’t want to see Molly hurt, but I can’t wish any of this away. What if we hadn’t…I’m glad you’re in my life. I’m glad you’re my wife.” He took my hands and we squeeze closer together for a tender kiss.

  Wife. Husband. I’m a James now, and the joy of being married has been muted by Molly’s injury. For the first time, I let that happiness fill me. “I could never wish us away.”

  “What will you do?” Donovan asks. “Are you going to go change this? If you do, I’ll support you, every step of the way.”

  His words warm me even though they are unnecessary. Since the last secrets Donovan kept had nearly destroyed us, we had put all the cards on the table. Losing all the millions he’d earned on the stock market has brought us closer together. The last thing I would ever question is his support and dedication to us.

  “I might. First I need to learn more.” The last thing I want to do is make any of this worse. The air in the hall trembles and shakes as the gateway onto the bridge opens somewhere in the hospital.

  The others can’t feel it, but Molly and I both can.

  I excuse myself and follow the vibration to a lone hallway. Cassidy emerges from an shimmering hole. On the other side, is a computer lab where other technicians work at a frantic pace. Panic rises in my chest and I can’t swallow it away. Cassidy’s face is drawn down, severe.

  “Lara,” her hands grip each other tightly, “we have a problem.”

  “How bad is it?” Am I going to lose Molly for good? Of all the infinite possibilities, what could be worse than that?

  “The bridge…the data entries are all blank. We can’t see anything anymore. The only thing I can track is you.”

  Chapter Five: Lara James

  “Me?” My knees shake and I wobble on my feet as if struck.

  Cassidy nods. “There’s no other presents or futures. Only this one. And when I try to move forward further, I can’t. I can hone in on you, but nothing else. It’s as if the bridge has been reprogrammed to only care about you.”

  A chill moves through my skin like a tidal wave. “Who could do that?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, and I’m betting we’re thinking of the same person.”

  “Rex?” I whisper his name, as if saying it too loud might bring him running.

  Cassidy nods. “I killed him, but he doesn’t exactly stay dead. And with a multiverse of options, it could be any version of him.”

  “Molly said he was back, but why would he let himself be seen by her? And how would he get onto the bridge without any of us knowing about it? Someone would’ve reported it in.”

  Cassidy’s eyes widen. “She’s okay? Awake?”

  “She’s awake.” I decide to spare Cassidy the details about what’s happened with Molly. She’ll find out soon enough, but now isn’t the time. “They’re trying to keep her stable but her heart’s been beating erratically. I’m scared that someone did something to her. Molly thinks it’s Rex.”

  “What did she say?” Cassidy watches me intensely. One of her hands sits on her hip, as though she might leap into action at a moment’s notice.

  “Most of it wasn’t coherent.
She’s experiencing…a lot of timelines at once. She doesn’t seem able to pull them apart and identify which is which. To her, they’re all as real as this one.”

  Cassidy stares off in the distance and chews on her lip. The anxiety on her face is what I feel in the center of my chest. It’s like I can’t breathe and I have this innate need to protect Molly, but I also have to figure out what’s going on. Who better than to watch over my kid sister but her future granddaughter? She might have more at stake than I do.

  “What do we do?”

  “I’m going back to the wedding. I want to be closer. See whoever this person is and what exactly he’d done to Molly. If I can catch him and end it now, all the better.”

  Cassidy gives me a gentle hug. She’s not big on affection or touch, so this is a big step for her. “I’ll watch everyone while you’re gone. Of course, I guess that goes without saying. Hopefully we’ll remember none of this when you get back.”

  “Except for Molly.” Sadness overtakes me as I say it. I know the burden of remembering a future no one else does. Life in a cage, a glass box, and the infinite hurt that exists when your family has all but given up on you, time after time.

  But that’s in the past.

  It’s time now to save the future. One step at a time.

  Chapter Six: Lara James

  I remove my veil and place it on a metal cart before continuing down the hall. I gather the train of my dress so I can move faster. I picture the reception from only a few short hours ago, and it sets the hospital walls in motion. They spin like small whirlpools and pixelate into falling dust. As I reach the wall, I step forward into the past.

  So easy, like a reflex that I almost can’t control.

  Almost.

  The reception builds around me block by block. I’m standing by the bar while the other version of me stands with Delilah Chase. Their faces are relaxed, even if they are still frozen in time, just like everyone else in the room.