“Let’s see what they do.”
“At this rate, we’re going to arrive at the camp,” I replied hastily. But watched as the man in the car stuck out another gun and pointed it at my own gun. We shot at the same time, only I missed and he’d punctured our tire.
“Damn it,” I hissed, as the car rolled and skidded in the snow, there was another shot and then the other tire went.
I hit the dashboard with my fist as the car finally stopped and Robert rested his head against the wheel with clenched teeth.
The car continued to follow the train shortly, before pulling off to the right, so they were just there to stop us? Bastards. I climbed out of the car, coming face to face with a Raven.
A surge of anger bubbled and I aimed the gun at the bird shooting it directly between its eyes.
“Woah, woah!” I heard Robert exclaim from behind me but I was still staring at the bird, its beady eyes looked into mine briefly and my mouth dropped open in shock. I had hit that bird. So why wasn’t it dead? My heartbeat increased as I watched it cock its head to the side and caw before taking off in a flight towards their car.
“How did they know?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, looking up at the black Raven flying away. I climbed back into the car and turned to attend to his arm with stitches now the mission was a failure. My aim hadn’t been off… the enemy was just a better shot.
Typical that I failed the one mission that wasn’t to do something horribly corrupt and awful. I failed at being good - only I could fail at doing something good.
Robert and I made it back to the town as I pretended to inform my boss of the failed mission, which wasn’t really a mission sent from him but Robert needn’t know that. Once that was all cleared up, Robert and I went our separate ways to our next stops. I followed my Totem home.
I awoke with a headache - a bad one.
“How was it?” Vix asked.
“A failure.”
Vix raised his eyebrows surprised, as I hadn’t failed a mission since I was fifteen, which was 4 years ago. I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger. However, this was out of the ordinary for me.
“I’ll return the money to him and let him know,” Vix said, continuing to type before handing me a log.
I filled it out in detail, explaining what must have been changed in the past. Something had happened, perhaps in my last mission, a butterfly effect from killing Mitch that somehow led to those men following the train. Not to mention the sculptured bird. Who had put it there? Had one of us Time Benders gone back to change events?
I was incredibly confused.
As I was climbing the floors to meet Gia, my makeup artist, I rested my head against the window of the pod. I really did not feel like having a party tonight. My client could be there and if he saw me he’d know I hadn’t completed the mission because nothing would have changed. Not to mention how embarrassed I was.
The pod slowed down and I felt my heart drop as I turned to the doors and Ace walked in urgently. I groaned. “I’m so tired and I need to get ready. Gia will be here soon to do my makeup and-”
“I’m being taken in,” Ace interrupted and I felt my body turn cold. I turned to face him sharply.
“When?” I whispered.
Ace looked sharply to the camera in the corner of the pod and turned to face the doors instead. When they slid open I followed him wearily into my apartment.
As soon as we entered, the curtains covering the windows slid open to reveal the city. I walked over to the bar and grabbed us a drink. When I turned to face Ace he wasn’t anywhere.
“Ace?” I called - two glasses in my hands. His head poked into the room and I realised he was standing on the balcony.
“When?” I repeated the question, he grabbed the drink and chugged it down. Then he placed both hands on the glass balcony, giving a forlorn look across the skyscrapers surrounding us. Lights twinkled across the city and a blanket of darkness and artificial stars covered the city. I rarely ever saw Prospect in the day, as it was usual for me to sleep in the day unless I was working.
I leant against the balcony and faced him.
“A week, maybe two,” he sneered and when he turned to face me I could see how distressed he looked. He ran a shaky hand through his black hair and leant back.
“Don’t tell the others, I only told you because you’ve been taken in before.”
I nodded my head. “What happened?” I asked cautiously. When I was taken in it was to stop me from going back into past lives because I’d made a minor mistake. It was a kind of prison they they called a ‘retreat’ where you were made to ‘reflect’ in. I was there for only a week as I’d had fans stand outside protesting for me. I didn’t doubt that he would also have hundreds of teenage girls fighting for him.
“I lost my Totem. I’m on this new drug Vix fixed me on but they want to make sure I don’t go back,” he laughed coldly. “I can’t go back without my Totem anyway and I don’t see how chemicals are going to get it back.”
I placed a hand on his shoulder, watching him thoughtfully. It was some kind of unspoken thing between us about our Totems. We never really speak about what each of ours is. It was like that with a lot of things we’d discovered.
“What- what’s your Totem?” I whispered, almost as though I thought the whole world might be listening to our ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’.
He gazed down at me and my throat tightened. “The moon,” he mumbled, his tongue flicking against his lips. In a haze of emotions, I leant into him until our chests were pressed against each other. His eyes widened and he looked down breathing in sharply.
“What’s yours?” he whispered I felt our bodies drawn in a way I couldn’t explain. Like an effect of telling a secret: an exhilarating rush of excitement.
“It’s a blue light.”
His hand came up and cupped my cheek, holy crap were we going to kiss? Sixteen-year-old me was screaming but nineteen-year-old me had a reputation to uphold: hard to get.
“What’s your recurring theme?” I blurted out and suddenly his hand was by his side and he’d turned his back on me.
When he turned back around his lips were pursed and he shook his head. “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to figure out what my recurring theme is.”
How was that possible? We all had a recurring theme. That’s what made us so unusual. It’s what made fate seem real and thus justified our actions. It was the only thing we couldn’t change.
He laughed bitterly. “I guess that makes me even less of a Time Bender. No recurring theme and no Totem. I’m basically human.”
I opened my mouth to ask him more but he sent me a forced, almost cold smile, which warned me not to push further. So I didn’t. But I should have. I should have pressed him for answers because it couldn’t be true. He must be lying. But why lie about it? What was so terrible about his recurring theme that he was afraid to tell me?
CHAPTER 4
Time: Present
Location: Prospect
The pod doors opened and Gia walked through with hair straighteners in one hand and a suitcase of colourful crap in the other.
“Oh, Ace!” she exclaimed as she waddled her way over to us in the tightest dress imaginable. Ace shot her a charming smile and held her hand to his lips.
“You look stunning Gia.”
If you called Prospect fashion stunning then you were certainly correct. Her dress was a neon green, and her hair a vibrant purple fluffed out on top of her hair. Gia’s eyelashes were also something and I wondered how she could even see through them they were so long - like large spiders attached to her eyelids. Gia had a different look every day but this one was certainly one of my least favourites. It was like looking into a sci-fi film with aliens - except they were still human.
“Nova darling, I was thinking about that silver dress the other day - I have the perfect shoes for you to go with it. Please wear it for me?” Gia asked as she took both Ace and me by the ha
nd and into my bedroom. The lights turned on as she stumbled on her heels into the walk-in closet.
“Shouldn’t you go to your own stylist?” I asked Ace over my shoulder.
Gia groaned. “Oh god, don’t even get me started on how annoying Juno has been all week!” She produced a silver dress practically transparent and I sighed.
“She’s hot though,” Ace smirked as he looked at my dress and back at me with a suggestive look.
Gia smirked. “Well aren’t you lucky then because she was chatting the whole way here about her plans with you-”
“Can we not.” I rolled my eyes at Gia and Ace’s gossip. “Can you leave?” I glared at Ace and pressed a panel so the bathroom door closed behind me. Then I pressed another button to turn on the shower.
“There’s no need to be jealous, Nova,” Ace smirked and I felt my stomach dip. “As if I could forget what just happened between us,” he called from my bedroom. Gia gasped and I felt my face grow hot with anger.
“We never did anything!” I snarled loudly from inside the shower. Already I felt a sense of dread settle onto my shoulders. Gia would spread that like wildfire and before I knew it I would have nothing but reporters trying to find a way into the building and screaming fans ‘shipping’ us again.
Soon enough I was in the short sparkly dress that left very little to the imagination. But compared to past lives, there was no need to feel self-conscious. There would be more than one person who came to the party wearing barely anything but shoes. At some point along the line, being in your birthday suit became fashionable - it was a shame I hadn’t been around to see how that came about...
Don’t look at me like that. I still had some decency from my last lives.
At the entrance to level 35, the music was blaring and reporters were scattered in a staggered line. I made my way over to them as part of the routine. They took my picture more times than I could count and began asking questions.
“Nova! Tell us what’s been happening between you and Ace?” I flashed a smile and tucked a silver strand of my hair behind my ear.
“Don’t you guys ever get bored about asking the same questions?” The group of reporters and myself all laughed. Another faceless person snapped a picture and shouted amongst the commotion of reporters. “What are you going to do with the growing threat of the rebellion?”
My eyebrows raised in response. I’d heard about them, a rebellious group outside the city who fought against Prospect. But they weren’t anything out of control.
“Yeah! And the Raven!”
I felt a chill cross over my spine but I plastered a smile over my face and raised an eyebrow in question.
“Perhaps I’ve gotten too caught up in past news.” They all laughed. “Who is calling themselves a Raven?” I rolled my eyes.
“There are rumours of another Time Bender with more lives than you. 210.”
I rolled my eyes again. There were always rumours. I moved on thinking nothing of it and gave an uninterested shrug. If it didn’t worry me then they had nothing to worry about. It’s what they wanted to see. They didn’t want to see a concerned Time Bender. But 210 lives? Even if it was 2 more than me it still made my brow twitch. Rumours. That’s all they ever were.
“Nova!” shrieked Aeron. His purple hair had been curled into a flick on top of his head and he wore a jacket lined with gold that reached his knees. He looked like a pope - a very colourful one.
“Looking great.” I smiled tightly, accepting the pink drink he held in front of me.
“Is this-”
“You betcha. Drink up.” He winked, and took a sip until a bubbly smile appeared in his face. I also took a sip of the mysterious drink and immediately felt my face lift into a grin.
I was sure I looked like a madman.
But hey it tasted good and you didn’t get this kind of drink in the 1920s.
Now, this was a party. Not some popular speakeasy with some asshole named Mitch running it. Here in Prospect you could drink what you wanted, dance with strangers and have a great night just for the sake of it.
Which was precisely what I was doing up until someone tapped me on the shoulder. I swivelled to face a guard - one of the presidents to be precise. Of course she wanted me to go back and do something for her. If it weren’t the president asking me something I wouldn’t have bothered following him since I’d just gotten off two jobs.
I sent the guy I’d been dancing with an apologetic look and followed the Guard to a secluded area on the huge terrace overlooking the city.
The president sat on a bench looking across the city with a faint green look on her face. She looked stressed, needless to say. Not how she should be spending her time at a party. She was as corrupt as every other individual here. Her hair had been dyed a light silver and I felt myself smile.
Nova, you trendsetter.
“Ms President.” I bowed my head slightly and took a step forward. She smiled wearily at me.
“Nova, are you having fun?” she asked as though she’d organised the party. There was a certain slyness in the woman’s voice. I’d never really gotten on well with those kinds of people in Prospect, or anybody who ran the place. They didn’t like us Time Benders - they feared us even when we were on the same side as them.
Keep your enemy’s close and all.
She didn’t wait for me to respond before getting to the point. “I presume you’ve heard about the growing threat of the Rebellion?” She scowled at the ground.
Or kill your enemies.
“Yes, I have Ms President.”
“I need a favour from you.”
Oh hell no, if she wanted me to go back in time and erase the Rebellion it wasn’t going to happen. Not a chance. I wanted to sleep first.
“With all due respect-”
“I’m not asking you to go back in time, I need you and the other Time Benders to kill a certain individual in the present.”
I swore if she asked me to go looking for some twat who called himself the Raven I was going to jump off the side of the building.
“There’s a threat.” Oh here we go. “Another Time Bender. We can’t have them going back into the past and doing anything harmful to us now can we? Or else they might take away your precious life here.” I squirmed uncomfortably. She had a point. If there was a Time Bender with the Rebellion then they had a huge advantage, and they probably cared less about rules than I did.
“Alright, so what do you want me to do?”
“Kill him if necessary. I understand you’ve developed a way of following people into the past?”
“It’s... a theory,” I replied cautiously. A theory and a huge risk Vix was only just starting to study - none of us had ever tried it.
“Well find a way to follow him when he goes into the past,” she said shortly. What... she literally just said I didn’t need to go into the past.
“How do you know this isn’t just a rumour?”
“Because I’ve had people studying your logs.” OK what the hell? “And I understand you found a wooden sculpture of a bird in your previous mission, which hadn’t been there before - not to mention the randomness of being ambushed on your mission?” So it was a little weird? Why the hell was she going through private information? That kind of stuff could only be shared between Time Benders.
“How do you know that?” I took a step forward intimidatingly and a guard caught my arm.
“Well nobody had visited before the 1940s since you went there a few hours before. Therefore I have reason to assume this is all strong evidence of another Time Bender. One rumoured to be called the Raven. Tell me it’s not suspicious. He knew who you were in that life and how to screw it over.” She smiled as she finally had me wrapped around her finger.
“This is all a little far fetched don’t you think? It’s not really strong enough evidence of anything and I very well could have changed something in 1921.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Sure. Killing some low life bootlegger ended in having a woo
den bird resembling a Raven on a phone booth in Germany.”
“I never said it looked like a Raven… Ma’am, I don’t mean any offence but-”
“Well, who was shooting you then?”
“I don’t know. It’s over now so-”
“Nova dear, my people have done their research and even if it was all just a slight meaningless change and the Germans happened to see you following that train - this other Time Bender still needs to be brought down.”
I stared at her with my mouth wide open. She smiled bored. “So, bring back his head within the week please.”
A tad bit morbid but OK your majesty.
“Bitch,” I murmured under my breath when I turned away.
“What?” she asked, genuinely not hearing what I’d said.
I turned my head back around. “Nothing.”
That pretty much ruined the rest of the party for both the others and myself. I began rounding them up into the pod to take them to one of the meeting rooms.
They clambered in with annoyed expressions from their night being interrupted so early and sat on the chairs, waiting patiently for Vix to arrive so I could begin telling them our mission. When he arrived he was dressed in sleep attire and had a scowl on his face, similar to the one Landon had from also being woken up.
“Our precious majesty,” I said sarcastically, “wants us to kill another Time Bender who’s working for the Rebellion.”
Some shouts and groans followed shortly as I told them what the president just informed me.
“Well she can shove her request up my-” Aeron started to shout before Fynn interrupted him.
“What do we get out of this?”
Everyone agreed, suddenly turning to me as though I knew the answer.
“Uh well, I guess we get to exist? Guys if you don’t want to kill him fine - I will. If there’s a chance he has more lives than me he’s going down. This dude is going to erase all of us the next time he goes into the past, which by the way he’s already done according to her.” They held expressions of confusion.
“She has access to all of our records and logs.”
NOVA: The Time Bender Series Book 1 Page 4