“Then how did they get access to travel through time?”
“They weren’t always bad, Martin. They received access just like you are now, and made decisions for the worst. This ability comes with great responsibility, and some people just can’t handle it. Perhaps it’s my own fault for bad judgement, but that’s what they say about hindsight, right?”
“What’s your angle with all of this?” Martin asked. “Why not hold on to this ability for yourself? Why do you share it, and what do you want out of it?”
Chris leaned forward in his chair, the smirk returning.
“I’ve told you already what I want out of it. I need to feed myself, and I feed off human emotions. I’ve always had this ability. I’ve been around throughout the existence of time, you see. It’s like I live in the same world as you all, but not really. I’ve lived in all of the worlds, and it gets lonely. That’s why I started to share this gift with others, so there could be other people in my world.”
Martin locked eyes with the old man and thought for a moment that he could see the thousands of years of history brimming behind those gentle, blue eyes. Maybe he was telling truth. He’d never know, but he was sold on the opportunity.
I’ve lived through time-travelling, and how sweet it was.
He thought of the bank account waiting for him, loaded with money from his investments made in the past, thought of meeting Sonya and having his life changed forever. A lot of good had come from time travel.
“If I agree to this, what happens next?” he asked, prompting a slow nod from Chris.
“It’s quite simple,” Chris said. “You go home today with your Juice, and continue living life. There’s really no strings attached aside from the pain I’ll bring to your soul.”
“What about Sonya? Can she have the Juice?”
“She can drink it but nothing will happen. It’s created specially for you. She can always travel with you the same way. So, tell me, Marty, do we have a deal?”
Martin sat in silence. How bad can the pain be? I’ve been to hell and back. Me and Sonya can see the world.
He wouldn’t have given two shits about having life experiences before his journey into the past, but now it felt as if a thousand doors of possibilities opened in unison.
“Deal,” Martin said, and stuck out his hand instinctively. Chris grabbed it quickly, and Martin felt the coldness of the old man’s flesh.
“I’m happy to hear that. Please, let me grab your Juice so you can get out of here. I’m sure you have lots planned with your beautiful lady.”
Chris skipped across the office and disappeared into the dark corner where his laboratory waited. The sounds of glass bottles clanging against each other echoed around the room before Chris let out a grunt followed by, “I found you!”
He appeared in front of Martin in chilling quickness with a glass canteen filled with purple liquid held out in front of him.
“Here you go, old friend. 128 ounces of the finest time-traveling Juice your soul can buy. All you need is a single drop on your tongue and it works the same way as the pills.”
“How do I choose where to go?” Martin asked as he grabbed the heavy bottle of purple liquid.
“Simply think about it. You’ll be transported to the same location of your current body, though. So if you want to visit, say, ancient Rome, you’ll need to first travel to Rome and then take the Juice. When you fall asleep and wake up, you’ll be rubbing elbows with Julius Caesar himself!”
Martin studied the bottle that felt no different than an over-size bottle of wine.
“So this is it? I’m free to go and wait for some tragic thing to happen to me?”
“Don’t bother waiting. It will happen when you least expect it.”
“Will I still see you around?” Martin asked, knowing he never planned to come back to this godawful store again.
“I’ll drop by from time to time. But don’t worry about me, get out of here. The world is yours!”
Martin nodded toward Chris and gripped the bottle tightly in both hands. Outside the office door waited the world in 2018 as he knew it, with a woman he loved, and a life that had finally moved on after his daughter’s tragic murder by his ex-wife.
More adventures waited outside the walls of the Wealth of Time, along with a lurking shadow in his soul that waited for life-altering pain.
Martin left the back office for the final time and didn’t look back. He grabbed Sonya from a nearby aisle and they departed the store as quickly as they had arrived. A long future waited ahead for them, and he had never been so eager to start the rest of forever, with her by his side.
Acknowledgements
This book came to light thanks to my kids. Raising two little ones isn’t easy, but memories are constantly being created with each passing day. I’ve found myself in the middle of these moments, wishing I could stop time, so we could just keep playing without worries of bed time, or having to go to work in the morning. This sparked the idea to start a story about a man who could freeze time, but I found there wasn’t much to do with that quite yet, so it evolved into this time-travel thriller. The freezing of time is an element that appears later in the series, though, so stay tuned for more on that! Long story short, I want to thank Arielle and Felix for inadvertently sparking this story idea.
Big thank you to Dane Low for creating another masterpiece of a cover. I look forward to plenty more to come.
Behind every book is an editor working just as hard as the author. Thank you to Stephanie Cohen for making this the best finished product it can be, I can’t wait to see how the rest of the series goes!
For all of my Advance Readers, your enthusiasm gives me the drive to keep going, so thank you for being every book’s first audience.
Lastly, and never least, thank you to my wife Natasha for being the first reader and giving the honest criticism up front. Hopefully this series is the launching pad we’re looking for to take our life to the next level.
Andre Gonzalez
Jan 15, 2018-Feb 4, 2019
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Also by Andre Gonzalez
Books are listed on order of most recent publication:
Wealth of Time (Wealth of Time Series, Book #1)
Erased (Insanity Series, Prequel) (Short Story)
The Insanity Series (Books 1-3)
Replicate (Insanity Series, Book #3)
The Burden (Insanity Series, Book #2)
Insanity (Insanity Series, Book #1)
A Poisoned Mind (Short Story)
Followed Home
About the Author
Born in Denver, CO, Andre Gonzalez has always had a fascination with horror and the supernatural starting at a young age. He spent many nights wide-eyed and awake, his mind racing with the many images of terror he witnessed in books and movies. Ideas of his own morphed out of movies like Halloween and books such as Pet Sematary by Stephen King. These thoughts eventually made their way to paper, as he always wrote dark stories for school assignments or just for fun. Followed Home is his debut novel based off of a terrifying dream he had many years ago at the age of 12. His reading and writing of horror stories evolved into a pursuit of a career as an author, where Andre hopes to keep others awake at night with his frightening tales. The world we live in today is filled with horror stories, and he looks forward to capturing the raw emotion of these event
s, twisting them into new tales, and preserving a legacy in between the crisp bindings of novels.
Andre graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver with a degree in business in 2011. During his free time, he enjoys baseball, poker, golf, and traveling the world with his family. He believes that seeing the world is the only true way to stretch the imagination by experiencing new cultures and meeting new people.
Andre still lives in Denver with his wife, Natasha, and their two kids.
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