As we slid around the building I noticed on the other side - way below me were crowds of brightly coloured people like a concerned mob of ants. I found myself rolling my eyes. The rebellion wasn’t a threat. Prospect held too much power and we could easily eliminate them if need be.
CHAPTER 6
Time: Present
Location Prospect
I slept for what seemed like only half an hour when in reality it was the whole day. I woke up to the sun setting and a persistent voice.
“Super-Nova!” It squealed with a high pitch.
I wondered hazily out of my bedroom and into the kitchen and the lights immediately turned on. I looked over to where the elevator sat patiently. Inside were Fynn and his daughter, a young girl, with the same curly brown hair and brown skin.
I slid open the doors to reveal not only the two of them but also his wife, Mia with a large pregnant belly and her dyed red hair curled around her tanned shoulders. She looked normal - and by normal I meant anything but the average Prospect citizen. No dramatic clothing statements and no facial enhancements or bright tattoos. That’s why Fynn loved her so much I presumed. Not only because she was wonderful but also because she reminded him of the past we’d gotten so far from.
“Hey, there superstar.” I held open my arms to Star and she eagerly jumped into them as I hauled her up on my hip and swung her about.
“You’re getting big,” I commented. She let out a high-pitched giggle and wrapped a finger around one of my silver strands.
“Star wants her hair to be just like yours.” Mia stepped forward and kissed me in the cheek.
“You look amazing,” I told her. “But no - you don’t need your hair to look like this. It’s become basic.” I rolled my eyes.
“Guess you set a trend,” Mia laughed and followed me to the sofa. Fynn went and grabbed us a bottle of something delicious.
“How come I don’t set trends?” he called from the kitchen.
“It means you’re unique,” Mia called back. Star giggled again and jumped from my lap onto her mother who let out a groan.
“Careful sweetie - don’t hurt the baby.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Any day now hopefully. We’re eager to meet her,” she began to say before trailing off. Her words set in and I let out a loud shriek.
“A girl? Oh my gosh, I’m so excited for you!”
Fynn handed me a glass and rolled his eyes. “How come you didn’t tell me?” I accused him.
“We’ve just been... busy - I don’t know,” he fired back.
“Huh,” I grunted, narrowed my eyes at him and took a long sip - I needed it.
“Sorry, I thought he’d told you.” Mia smiled wearily and placed a hand on her stomach.
“Apparently not. No worries I’ll just be extra hard on him during training.”
Mia grimaced. “Don’t hurt him too badly, last time he was a wreck-”
“Okay! We get it,” Fynn interrupted with a roll of his eyes. “Nova can fight.”
“Nova’s the best in all the universe,” Star interrupted, grinning brightly at me.
Fynn narrowed his eyes and ruffled her brown curls. “Hey now you. What about Daddy?”
“Meh.” She shrugged. “You too.”
I let out a bark of laughter and reached across to pat his arm. “Maybe one day you’ll defeat the unbeatable Super-Nova.”
“Or maybe the Raven will,” he teased and I rolled my eyes. As if.
“What’s a Raven?” Star asked instantly and I felt my heart drop, she would never see a real-life Raven, only ever in pictures.
“It’s a type of bird,” Fynn explained.
“Commonly associated with sadness. And death,” I continued, finding myself snort.
Whoever this guy was he must have had a lot of sadness in his past lives - if you believed in that.
But then again, why wouldn’t you believe in it if time travel were actually possible…?
“That’s sad. Poor Raven,” Star pouted her bottom lip.
“Not poor Raven - stupid Raven,” I mumbled under my breath. He’d unknowingly given us a pretty big clue on how to find him in the past. Now, all we had to do was take it in turns to wait for him to show up.
Easy. Hopefully.
“Honey, why don’t you go put on something to watch?” Mia whispered into Star’s ear. She eagerly jumped up as though she were no longer sad for this Raven and made her way over to find something to watch. I watched the curly-haired beauty from across the room and smiled. She had a beautiful mixture of her parents in her: Their dark skin, Fynn’s amber eyes and Mia’s face shape.
Now don’t get ahead of yourself. Just because I had a soft spot for Fynn’s family - it didn’t mean anything. Everyone else could evaporate into dust and I’d stretch my arms out at the extra room - but these people meant more to me. I wasn’t a complete sociopath… I liked to think of myself as morally grey - don’t laugh. Fine, we’ll go with light black.
“So what are you guys doing about this?” Mia finally asked.
Fynn opened his mouth to speak but slammed it shut when I flashed a fierce glare in his direction.
“Yeah... that’s confidential. Sorry babe,” Fynn replied. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed the crown of her head.
“Oh sorry, I understand.” She took a small sip and let silence engulf us.
It was an awkward silence frankly. I didn’t really have anything to say to her since nothing was going on in my life that wasn’t confidential.
I didn’t particularly know why they’d decided to come to see me considering they only ever got to spend a couple hours a week with each other. It was a wonder she was even able to come here with everything that was going on.
“So... have you decided on a name?” I finally asked. Phew.
Mia immediately perked up and grabbed her husband’s hand. “Well, almost. I want to call her Moon since Star and Moon,” she giggled.
Hell no. You couldn't call your daughter Moon after calling your other daughter Star. “What does Fynn want to call her?”
“Emily.”
My body turned rigid and I swivelled to face him. My eyes went wide and my mouth dropped open. He looked up at me through his dark lashes and grimaced.
“It just seems too out-dated,” Mia continued. “I understand that out-dated is your guys’ thing, but you can’t keep living in the past. Life must go on.”
Emily was a special, sort of intense name for both Fynn and I. We’d known her before we took her from existence.
A client had ordered Fynn to kill a man in the year 2075. What he hadn’t told us was that the man had a daughter, named Emily.
Long story short - Fynn couldn’t do it and brought me into the mission without telling me it would end an entire generation. I could only go into the year 2065 before the girl was born because I’d die before 2075 from an incurable disease. And I killed him. Without knowing I’d been the one to wipe out an entire generation of people.
I came across Fynn’s logs a month later and read about a girl named Emily on a mission he’d gotten me to do. And it all made sense. Then I was taken in - specifically because of Fynn.
“Why would you do that?” I mumbled angrily.
“I - I... Sorry.”
“Yes,” I replied hotly. “Go with Moon.”
After that, the conversation pretty much died and we found excuses in talking about Star and how well she was coming along in school. Then they decided it was late and left.
Once I saw the pod float away I angrily hit the glass with my fist and poured myself a glass of wine. I hated wine.
But then again no amount of the new fun alcoholic drinks could take away the simplicity of a bottle of wine and I needed something simple.
So much had changed over the years. I remembered when the light bulb was first invented, albeit I barely remembered anything past the 19th century. Mainly because I hadn’t been to those lives since... well since I lived them a
nd recorded that I had a life there.
There was no reason to go back other than that... I mean who wanted to catch the plague nowadays anyway? Or crap into a bush? Or - oh god... not brush your teeth ever. And I really didn’t fancy somehow being accused of a witch before I was supposed to die in that life.
Then that would mess up all my other lives from an early stage and it would just annoy me to the max.
Too much could go wrong and I had no way of knowing what I was supposed to do in those lives. They were so far back I had no memory of them at all.
It was too big a risk for even me.
Besides... what was I doing anyway? Oh yeah. Drinking.
At some point in the night, I stood up from lying flat on my back staring at the LED lighted ceiling and floated over to bed wondering when the sky had become artificial too.
I woke up in the early hours of the morning with the taste of blood. Stumbling over to the bathroom and flicking the lights on I groaned.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sudden white light and when they did I felt my heart drop.
My face was smeared in blood from a slow nosebleed. Thankfully it wasn’t still bleeding but I did look like I’d just gone on a murder spree. And trust me I knew what that looked like well.
I immediately began scrubbing the blood off of me and into the sink. I watched the red blood mix with the cool water and swirl around the basin before sinking into the drain.
I peeled off the clothes I’d fallen asleep in and threw them into a pile. I stumbled back into the bedroom and gasped when I saw a figure standing by the windows.
I covered my underwear with my arms and crouched down, grabbing a blanket with my foot and quickly hid under it.
“What the hell? How did you get in here?” I shrieked, flicking my eyes between my blood-stained bed and the figure by the window. A crazy obsessed fan?
The person stepped out of the shadows and into some of the light the bathroom provided. I gasped a second time.
An elderly man stood there dressed in a fancy tux, holding a glass of champagne in his hands. But it was no man from the present. It was Williams, live and in the flesh standing in my bedroom, the champagne glass held towards me whilst I crouched down naked.
And that was pretty much all I remembered from the so-called dream after I woke up, still on the floor naked and wrapped in a blanket - a killer headache and blood-stained bed sheets.
It was a catalyst night that set off a whole series of future problems.
CHAPTER 7
Time: Present
Location: Prospect
I’d been kicking Fynn’s ass for an hour before someone finally stepped in to give him a break.
It felt good: letting out all that bottled up anger I’d saved for a rainy day. The bloody lip, bruised jaw and quickly approaching black eye somehow made me feel ten times better.
For once I was looking forward to Gia dressing me up in a couple of weeks like a Barbie doll and strutting my way into the ‘meeting’. Perhaps I’d get to know some new clients by breaking down boundaries and addressing this Raven person finally.
“Oof!” Landon grunted as I flipped him onto his back and held the tip of my blade to his throat.
“Hell, Nova are you trying to kill me?” he wheezed.
I dropped the blade and held out my hand. “I wouldn’t be helping you up if I was trying.”
“He just got out of the infirmary,” Halo sneered. He brushed past me, handed Landon a water bottle and helped him over to a bench.
“Then he shouldn’t be fighting against me,” I sneered back, feeling a familiar sense of wicked triumph watching Landon rock back and forth in pain. “We all know-”
I was cut off by a fierce battle cry as Aeron came charging from behind me in an attempt to catch me off guard.
In one swift movement, I ducked below his arm and swivelled to jab my elbow into his side. Now he was the one caught off guard and backed away winded.
“Oh - come... on!” He gasped for breath, curling into his stomach and falling onto his knees. “How did you see me coming?”
“Your reflection in Landon’s glasses,” I took a swig of water and watched his mouth drop open, “and the battle cry kind of gave it away.”
Aeron stomped his foot to the ground and looked me dead in the eyes. “One day Nova.”
Uh-huh OK purple boy.
The sound of the pod slid open and we all turned our heads to an angsty looking Ace.
“Why are you here?” I used a towel to wipe the sweat off my forehead.
“Vix let me okay?” he snapped with a glare.
Alright moody. No need to get your panties in a twist.
Ace made his way over to one of the dummies on the far end of the hall and our eyes followed him until he began repeatedly punching the doll. Cedrix glanced at Ace from his own dummy and made his way over to us.
“You.” He bounced from foot to foot and gestured for me to step back onto the mat.
“Bonus round.” Aeron cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted before wincing and grabbing his rib with a sharp glare in my direction.
“Can’t I just-” I began to say before Cedrix charged into me. In one fluid motion, I was flying through the air and landed into a rack of weights like a sack of potatoes.
“Oh crap!” I heard Halo exclaim. “That’s got to hurt.”
Actually no - OK - yeah it had really hurt. But I bounced right back up, two feet planted on to the ground. I sprung into action like a flying badass/ninja/assassin squirrel.
Cedrix was busy laughing with Aeron on how I flew through the air and so didn’t hear me as I silently sprang on him, jumping until my foot made contact with his face.
I imagined his face being slapped to the side in slow motion and I smiled smugly.
Although my satisfaction didn’t last long before he swiped my legs from underneath me and I landed on my back.
We went back and forth delivering strong jabs. I used his slowness to my advantage and he used my significant weakness to his strength - well, it wasn’t that I was weak... it was just he was significantly stronger than me.
There was a reason people called him a Boulder, and today I was getting the tour of how his name came to be.
“Ugh!” he cried when he delivered a painful blow to my cheekbone. He pulled away sharply and waved his fist about in pain. That’s right. My cheekbones were as sharp as a blade. Feel the pain asshole.
“Watch it, buddy. Don’t ruin my face.” I panted, leant back and brought my leg up to kick into his stomach but he grabbed in a swift motion and brought me back down onto the mat. I heard the crunch of my back before the flare of pain. There was a chorus of “Oohs!” from my fellow peers.
“You’re doing great sweetie!” Aeron shouted. I wearily tilted my head in his direction and flipped him off. “Be nice,” he called timidly.
There was no ‘nice’ in the Nova vocabulary. Try ‘beating the absolute crap out of this guy and showing him how I’m way better than him’.
“That’s quite enough.” Landon stepped onto the mat and guided Cedrix away from me.
“Hey...” I panted. “I wasn’t finished with him.” Landon raised an eyebrow and offered his hand to me. “Watch your back,” I said to Cedrix, noticing a familiar metallic taste in my mouth.
“Watch yours,” Cedrix grunted with a chuffed smile on his face.
Show off.
“Chill Nova, we know you could take him if you weren’t being worked to the bones,” Landon reassured me and helped me over to a bench with the others. I smiled tightly and nodded my head.
But still. I should have done better than that.
Aeron grinned. “Alright then... who’s actually looking forward to this year’s so-called meeting?”
“What?” Halo asked suddenly, her eyes fluttering away from Cedrix and then to me. “Oh yeah, I can’t wait. Last year was so fun,” she said with a bright, slightly less miserable smile.
“It isn’t
really a meeting though,” Landon said with a strained chuckle. He used his t-shirt to clean his glasses before placing them back on his nose.
“It’s been nine years and I still don’t understand the significance of it,” I murmured to Landon. He and I had been here the longest and so the excitement of the event seemed to have faded. We also knew best that it wasn’t a meeting. It was just an event to remind us Time Benders weren’t the ones in power.
Landon offered for me to sit down but I knew if I sat down I never would have wanted to get up again. Fynn finally emerged from the target practice room with his knuckles wrapped up in a white bandage. I felt a surge of energy and satisfaction swell up in me.
“How’s the pinky finger?” I raised my eyebrows and smiled proudly.
“Painful. This one works though.” He flipped me off with a triumphant grin.
“I could break all those fingers right now.” I glared and his grin wavered into a grimace.
“Sure Super-Nova.”
“Try me,” I continued with a tilt of my lips.
“Alright, we all know you can fight,” Aeron said, still holding on to his side. “Can you guys check to see if when she elbowed me my kidney went straight through me?” He twisted around and held up his shirt.
“She isn’t that good.” Halo rolled her eyes.
“Bull. Did you not just witness what she did to me? Cedrix is just a Boulder,” Fynn exclaimed leaning back against the wall. “I think it’s safe to say she’s better than me and that’s saying a lot.”
Cocky much but I still held my head up triumphantly pleased with the compliment.
“Yeah but she’s no assassin.” Halo pulled a face and I snorted, seriously?
“Then what do you think our job is Halo?” I fired back. “Oh wait. You aren’t an assassin because you don’t kill anyone. Have you ever murdered someone?”
“You sound proud.” She turned her lip up.
“I am,” I fired back. It sounded slightly morbid when I said it like that – well it sounded morbid any way I said it.
NOVA: The Time Bender Series Book 1 Page 6