“Even I don’t!” Vix exclaimed angrily, I held my arm out to him and looked at the others expectantly.
“And Mr Tweety Bird-”
“I thought he was called the Raven?” Halo spoke up.
“Whatever,” I snapped. “The bird or whatever has already been messing up my past lives and watch out - he likes to leave souvenirs and tries to kill you. In 1944 I found this wooden toy bird on a payphone, then got into a car chase with some twat trying to kill me and stop me achieving my mission.”
“Well, that’s just rude,” Aeron mumbled.
“I know!” I exclaimed. Finally somebody saw what I saw: a threat.
Halo sighed. “A wooden toy and someone chasing you don’t necessarily mean it was this Raven person. And why call themselves the Raven?” Everyone turned to watch me expectantly.
I snapped. “Can everyone stop staring at me like I have the answer to all your problems?”
“OK,” grunted Cedrix and we all turned to face the boulder. He smashed his fist onto the table leaving a slight crack in the glass, we all groaned.
Well, at least we had someone willing to help.
“How do we find him?” Landon asked. Yeah... thanks for presenting a logical question I don’t actually know the answer to.
“Well, we can find him when he goes into the past... if we work out how to do that first...” I slowly turned my head towards Vix with my puppy dog eyes.
He pursed his lips and nodded. “I’ll do my best to help. I have some theories that need testing as long as you’re all willing to help.”
I looked around the room expectantly before Halo let out a long sigh. “Alright.” Nobody asked you – okay - sorry she could help.
Aeron jumped up from the chair with his fist in the air and yelled out. “Woo! Let’s get this shi-”
Fynn grabbed his long pope coat by the gold hem and yanked him back down until he fell into the wheelie chair. “Yeah, I’m in too.” Fynn sounded less enthusiastic. I’d never really thought he enjoyed this life, he’d much rather be with his wife and daughter than with us lot partying and earning money by doing… not so good things.
Everyone turned to face Ace who was staring intently through the glass table. His face had turned a chalk white and I coughed awkwardly.
“Don’t worry Ace, I don’t expect you to.”
“Why the hell not?” Fynn asked, narrowing his eyes. “He’s a part of the team. He doesn’t just get to sit back whilst we do the dirty work.”
Ace’s lip turned down into a sneer and he continued to look at the glass, I sighed loudly.
“Come on Ace mate, it’ll be fun,” Aeron prodded, elbowing Ace’s side.
“Oh come on, you’re the one who loves existing the most.” Halo rolled her eyes, crossing her arms in front of her chest watching him expectantly.
Just as everybody was about to burst into a discussion I interrupted. “He can’t.”
“Why not?” Landon watched on curiously. Ace’s head snapped up suddenly with wide eyes, he was about to shake his head when I continued.
“Ace lost his Totem, he’s being taken in.”
Silence.
Ace stared at me in shock - like he thought I would have understood - and I did. But he couldn’t just keep it a secret before disappearing for a while. Besides, it wasn’t like it was his fault he’d lost it, and the others deserved to know.
“Well shit,” Aeron suddenly said, shortly followed by silence. I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked away from Ace. It was lucky he liked me because if it were anybody else he would have seriously done some damage to them.
“Watch your language...” Fynn mumbled, looking down at the glass and tapping his foot.
It seemed nobody knew what to say.
Apart from Ace - he apparently had a lot to say.
“What the hell Nova,” he growled standing up abruptly, it seemed like the whole room came alive as everyone stood up, ready to defend me and keep him where he stood.
Landon had a hand against Ace’s chest pressing him back whilst Aeron and Fynn stood either side of me. Halo even stood, feet in a wide stance and flicking her gaze between the two of us.
Cedrix, however, continued to sit with his feet on the table. “Ha!” Cedrix grunted watching the encounter as though he were at the movies.
Vix was the only one not shouting over one another and instead leant against the wall rubbing his temples.
Suddenly he shouted out. “Stop! All of you!”
The room suddenly crawled in on itself and we all took a step away from one another, silently crawling back into our chairs. We all respected Vix.
“Ace, I understand why you didn’t want to tell the others, that’s why I didn’t. I respect your decision. But now it’s out, there’s nothing you can do. We’ll get you fixed up when you’re taken in.”
Vix understood why he didn’t want to leave and probably wanted to help him rather than him being taken away. However some things were out of his control and it was his job to inform authorities if a Time Bender was at risk of doing damage to himself, or to existence.
“When are you leaving?” Halo finally asked.
“Whenever they decide to pop out of nowhere,” Ace grumbled. He refused to look at me and I felt a flicker of regret - quickly I suffocated it. It was for the best. I’d done him a favour.
“Don’t worry mate, you’ll get your Totem back... somehow,” Aeron contributed, not so helpfully.
“Nova’s been there before, she survived so it can’t be that bad,” Landon added reassuringly, Ace looked up with a fierce glare.
And I thought because he liked me he would be easy on me.
“Back to the mission,” Vix interrupted and we all turned to face him with serious expressions.
“I want you all in the lab tomorrow - 6am sharp.” There were groans of protest. “There’s a way I think you’ll be able to follow other Time Benders and I’d like to test it. I’ll see you then,” he said.
We all stood with sour expressions, tomorrow was going to be a long day if Vix had more than one theory. It usually took him hours just to try one theory. And no doubt I’d be doing all the hard work since I had the most lives.
As we all clambered into the pod and it set off I noticed Ace watching me. I didn’t look at him but said goodnight to everyone else as they got off.
When it was just Ace and myself I finally looked at him. “Ace-” I began to say but I stumbled on what I was going to say next. I’d never really been used to saying sorry and honestly, what was I even apologising for? I’d done the right thing by telling them.
“I should have at least been the one to tell them,” he said.
“You were never going to do that.”
“That doesn’t make it okay for you to Nova,” he said tiredly. I bit the inside of my cheek. Then his tone went cold. “I told you because I thought you’d understand. Clearly not.”
He left the pod and I watched through the glass as he slammed his fist into the wall and turned to face me with a tired but nonetheless scary glare.
He’d get over it in the morning…
CHAPTER 5
Time: Present
Location: Prospect
I was right. Ace got over it pretty quick but he was still a little moody with me… OK, he was very moody around me. And being moody didn’t help with trying to get his Totem back by a strange technique Vix called meditating... I know. Apparently punching and blowing things up wasn’t going to get it back. Crazy.
Actually, you know what was crazy. I hadn’t eaten at all since that morning because I’d been doing what Vix said all day: Running tests and ‘meditating’. I could already tell there was going to be some peer pressure for me to do all the hard stuff.
Needless to say, I was right. I arrived back at the White Room last. And by last, I meant the only people taking part were Vix and Fynn. Who knew where the other four were?
“Where are the others?” I asked as I resumed my position on my p
od and lay on my back. I turned my head away from the blue light beckoning me to step into the past.
There was a loud yelp followed by the sound of a grunt. “Did you just pinch me?” Ace appeared in the blue-lit doorway, gripping Aeron’s ear.
“No,” Aeron snapped back. He jammed an elbow into Ace’s stomach. He didn’t flinch.
“Look who I found.” Ace let go of the purple clown and shoved him forward.
“I was going to come,” he grumbled and feebly waved his hand whilst shuffling his feet towards his pod. “I don’t see why we all have to be here. Nova has the most amount of lives so out of everyone she has the highest chance of catching a glimpse of his Totem.”
“What if he has more lives than her?” Ace asked. I felt a bubble of anger build up inside me. I chose to ignore it. If he had more lives than me then I’d know.
Vix pinched between his eyes. “None of that matters unless we can find a way to locate him, and the only way we can do that is in the past-”
“Providing he’s real,” Fynn pointed out.
“Yeah well, how do we find him?” I asked with crossed arms.
“Don’t look at me, I don’t actually know how it truly works for you. But judging by research... start with looking for his Totem on the timeline.”
“And how are we supposed to know what his Totem is?” I replied in a not so kind tone.
“Fair point,” Ace said from across the room and looked at me with a scornful stare.
“Are you all idiots?” Aeron suddenly laughed, looking at us incredulously. We returned curious expressions, prompting him to continue. “Seriously?” He paused for a moment, not believing we didn’t see what he saw.
“Spit it out,” I said as I placed my hands on my hips and watched him expectantly.
“Raven...?”
We stared at him in surprise, dumbfounded either by what he’d said or that Aeron had said something smart. I then remembered the Raven I’d failed to kill, I’d purposely written it off as bad aim but now I was almost positive. I had found a wooden Raven that wasn’t there before, was ambushed to stop me changing the future and shot an immortal bird. You couldn’t destroy Totems, which would make… the man who called himself the Raven, have the Totem of a Raven. Did you get all that?
“Jesus,” Fynn said under his breath.
“That’s Christ to you,” Aeron replied with a chuffed smile stretched across his face. “So now I’ve done my service to the group can I go back to my personal business?”
Ace narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t know hiding in the VR room to avoid us was personal business.”
Vix spun around in his chair and rested his hands on a control panel. “What’s the point in you guys having a VR room when you could just go to any of your lives?” Vix questioned.
Ace scowled and fired back. “What’s the point in going back to your lives if you can’t do what you want?”
Fynn and I looked at one another and shared the same look of here we go again.
“To earn money.” Vix narrowed his eyes. “You should be more grateful-”
“OK!” I exclaimed and took out a small metal case that rested below my monitor. I fumbled to open it and dipped my fingers into the black gel.
“We ready?” I held up my black covered fingers. Aeron made a grumbling sound and lay down, also opening his case. Fynn had already dipped his fingers in it.
“Bye buddy, hope you find your dad!” I heard Aeron quote a line from an old movie before there was the sound of a grunt and Ace’s fist hitting his stomach.
Vix quickly wheeled over to each of us, handing earplugs so we could concentrate. He gave us a thumbs up and we began to smear the black gel over our eyes.
I don’t really understand why we did it and who and why they’d invented it but it was useful for us to concentrate on seeing all the different timelines we’d bent with our own.
That probably didn’t make any sense to you but it’s okay. You don’t need to understand how it works unless you have the ability, which only a few people do… in this lifetime at least.
At the time I also didn’t see how it was supposed to help us find the Raven but according to Vix meditating or doing whatever this was helped to ‘open our minds’ - as if our minds couldn’t already connect us to a body we lived in hundreds of years ago. I thought our minds were pretty open already.
But not open enough.
A blindfold didn’t work the same. This gel prevented you from opening your eyes, and it separated you from reality or in a Time Benders case - from the present.
(This isn’t an ad I swear - but go ahead and picture it as one of those dramatic perfume adverts).
Anyway, the trick is not to let your thoughts float around aimlessly. You close them off; bury them deep until you become your subconscious. Concentrate not with your eyes (well because you can’t open them) - rather concentrate with your mind, and focus on black. Feel it, sink into it, surround yourself with it. Wrap yourself in the silky strands of darkness, and let it slip between your body - your mind. Then open your thoughts.
What do you see?
The timelines. Everything, every moment, every memory of every life, every path you could have taken in front of you. All parallel beside one brighter timeline: The timeline - my timeline.
And there she was: my Totem right in front of me, a grasp away waiting. She waited for my signal - for me to choose a timeline, a moment. Some timelines were shorter than others - all with different presents that were minutes or years away from another timeline. But all stretched far, far back to my first life. I couldn’t see before then simply because it was so far away.
Occasionally my Totem chose a timeline with a different life to me - it would lead me into the life and somehow it was always the one I desired. I turned away from my Totem and watched for something else. I concentrated deeper and waited. Waited for the flap of wings, a loud shrill cry or something.
But nothing came.
Eventually, my mind began battling itself, my thoughts wanting to resurface, I was tired and my Totem was fading. I knew as soon as the blue light began to fade even more I’d lose it forever.
So I brought myself back to reality. I grasped the darkness - wrapped my hands around and tugged, pulled on its tendrils and felt it slip between my fingers, slipping away teasingly. My thoughts resurfaced. The timeline vanished and I was aware of my body.
I gasped and made a soft groan. Vix had his hand on my arm within a split second, shaking me into reality. The earplugs were taken out and I could hear him.
“Nova.”
“Nova.” Another voice.
“Nova.” And another.
“Hi, bitch.”
I swiped my hand across my eyes, wiped away the gel and blinked vigorously. Aeron bent over me with a grin that stretched across his face. I jumped and accidentally bumped my head against his.
“You were there for a while,” Fynn exclaimed from across the room.
I blinked confused and began looking around the room. Fynn stretched his arms out and had a towel wrapped around his neck. Ace sat directly opposite me crossed legged - meditating or something.
“Did you find him?” Vix asked urgently.
“No. How long has it been?”
Aeron’s face dropped into a concerned grimace. “Nova... it’s been a month.”
“What?” I shrieked. I sat up suddenly and swung my legs over the side of the pod and jumped. My legs crumbled underneath me and I crashed to the floor. Aeron let out a fit of giggles and he too fell to his knees, laughing with tears in the corner of his hazel eyes.
“It’s only been two days.” Fynn rolled his eyes.
Only? Did he just call two days only?
“What...” I replied hazily, accepting Fynn’s hand and he hauled me to my feet. Fynn wrapped me into his brown arms and I felt myself relax.
He rubbed a soothing hand across my back. “I know, even 22 hours takes me out. I can’t imagine two whole days.”
“I
only managed 6 hours. Oh well! Guess I’m no help,” Aeron exclaimed and shrugged helplessly.
“It didn’t really feel like two days,” I mumbled. Fynn helped me sit back down.
Vix groaned and placed his head in both his hands. He swivelled to face me and scooted over on his chair.
“Get some rest and get back here as soon as you’re ready-”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Fynn interrupted. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Look at her. She needs a day before going back.”
Vix flicked his gaze between Fynn and me before sighing. “Okay. But I need you to train after you have a nap. Remember the meeting with all the clients is in two weeks and by then we’ll need to have a plan to bring forth to your clients and the leaders.”
So much for ‘resting’ then. I may as well have just vanished back to the timeline. At least then I’d be doing something productive. He also referred to it as a meeting when in actual reality it was more of a formal, posh as hell party. The closest I could compare it to be was like a red carpet but for politics and we were the main attraction.
“The Rebellion or whatever they call themselves made a statement yesterday night. The rumours about another Time Bender are true and you’re expected to give a speech that will be broadcasted at the event to the city on a news station.”
Ugh - no rest for the wicked.
“Why me?” I groaned, resting my hands behind me.
“Because you’re the one with the most amount of lives,” Fynn said.
“Unless you count the Raven,” Aeron added. I flashed a glare at him and planted both my feet onto the cool ground. Once I’d gained my balance I began walking to the door.
“So who is this Raven? And are we positive that it’s his or her’s Totem?”
Aeron nodded. “Well. Seeing as you were ambushed in 1944 the same day you shot an immortal raven and found a wooden bird. Yes, it’s definitely a raven.”
“We also know it’s a male then,” I said.
“Maybe he’s hot.” Aeron escorted me to the elevator as we left the others to continue ‘mediating’.
I nodded my head, watching him through the glass doors as they shut. When I soared into the air, a bright light suddenly lit up the elevator and I watched the city as I skyrocketed to my level.
NOVA: The Time Bender Series Book 1 Page 5