by C J M Naylor
“Don’t touch her!” I spat.
“Shut it,” Ian said. “Both of you. Let’s go.”
He pulled Bridget with him and they walked away. I stood there, watching them go, while trying to come up with a plan. I had nothing. The only thing I knew was I couldn’t let him kill her. And so, in one hour, I’d be at St. Ignatius’s to put an end to this.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I used my pocket watch to keep track of the time as I made my way to St. Ignatius’s. I couldn’t allow Bridget to die for me, so I made sure I was staying within Ian’s one hour timeframe. I wanted so desperately to go and find Thomas, but I knew that I couldn’t. If I did, he wouldn’t let me go save Bridget. And if he came with me, they would kill her. Eventually, I stood in front of the tall, ostentatious building that was St. Ignatius’s. No one seemed to bat any eye as I made my way into the hospital; the gates had been wide open. I assumed they were all waiting for my arrival. I found my way to Lucinda’s office at the top of St. Ignatius’s knowing that both her and Ian were most likely keeping Bridget there, waiting for me to come and save her. I was right outside the door of Lucinda’s office though, when I stopped breathing.
Screaming filled my ears. I quickly realized they were the screams of Bridget.
“No one can hear you,” Ian said. “So go ahead, keep on screaming. You’re in a mental institution for Christ’s sake. It’s perfectly normal to hear people screaming all the way down the hallways.”
Bridget looked up at Ian and said quietly, “Please let me go.”
I was standing in the middle of Lucinda’s office. Before me was Bridget. She was tied to a chair, tears rolling down her face. Standing before her, waiting impatiently, were Lucinda and Ian.
“Be quiet,” Lucinda spat at Bridget. She looked at her wristwatch and then turned to Ian. “Where is she? You said this would lure her in.”
“It will,” Ian confirmed. “Just give her time.”
Lucinda walked her to the large picture window behind her desk and looked out at the city of San Francisco.
“We don’t have time,” she said while looking out the window. “Her birthday is in one month. The prophecy needs to be fulfilled before then, or it will never come true. Our powers will cease to exist, and we will be forced to continue hiding our true selves from the world.”
“She will come,” Ian said again. “I promise you.”
Lucinda turned on her heel and walked toward Ian, her heels clicking against the floor as she did. She grabbed Ian by the chin and looked directly in his eyes.
“You better hope she does,” Lucinda said. “This could have all been over the first time around if you had done your job right.”
“I’m not the one who put my trust in a woman who was clearly insane,” Ian replied.
Lucinda cackled at that. “Bessie was insane, but she did her job. She went and got herself killed at the hands of Abigail. Which is what we needed. You, on the other hand, could’ve encouraged the girl to save her fiancé. If you had, we would have only needed her for the last part of the process. Instead, we’ve been chasing her down here in San Francisco.”
Ian didn’t respond. He looked away from Lucinda and back at Bridget. She was giving him a pleading look, but it didn’t seem to phase him.
“Why are you doing this, Ian?” Bridget asked him.
He knelt down in front of her and reached out his arm to lightly brush her cheek.
“My sweet Bridget,” he said. “You’ve always been so clueless. You should know that I never felt anything for you. And I know what you are. It hasn’t been difficult to tell. So don’t sit here and act like you felt anything for me either.”
Bridget shook her head.
“You don’t know anything.”
“What are you two blabbering about?” Lucinda spat.
“Bridget here is a degenerate,” Ian said.
Bridget’s entire complexion reddened and she looked down at her lap, attempting to stifle tears that were coming forward.
Lucinda cackled again. Ian smiled and walked away, a smug look on his face.
Suddenly, time seemed to speed up. It was as if the hours were jumping ahead. The room went from being doused in the late evening sun to being shrouded under the darkness of the night.
“Well,” Lucinda said, again standing in front of her picture window, “it would seem the girl is not coming. She knows where Bridget is. I’ve waited long enough; it’s time for our second option.”
“Second option?” Bridget asked.
In a moment, Lucinda was quickly behind Bridget and took a blade across her throat. She made the worst sound, and then she had blood pouring forth from her. She was dying. I screamed as loud as I could, but I knew better. No one could hear me in this premonition.
“We’ll send the body as a message,” Lucinda said. “And we’ll go from there.”
I had collapsed just outside the door to Lucinda’s office. I stood up and began to process what I had just seen. According to my premonition, Bridget was going to die. If I walked into that office right now, I would change death’s course. Bridget might still die, but I would interrupt the Time Line, which from the sounds of it, is exactly what Lucinda wanted to happen. They had been orchestrating the entire thing. I was supposed to kill Bessie. It all made sense now. I remember clearly on the bridge that night, it was almost like Ian was encouraging me to kill Bessie. And it seemed she had been unaware of that part of the plan. I remembered the look on her face. She had looked as if she had been betrayed. Ian had betrayed her.
They must’ve known tonight I would be sent a premonition. It was a game of chance, but the game had worked in their favor. And now there was not a thing I could do. Tears cascaded down my eyes as I made my way back down the steps. I had to leave. I had to leave Bridget here to die. I had to leave her to die in the most horrible of ways. If I intervened, time would react, and it would destroy everything as we knew it.
I finally made it to the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner. Standing in front of me was Aldridge. I didn’t even have time to react before he violently hit me in the face, knocking me backward. I hit my head hard against the concrete of the steps. Blood was pouring from nose. My vision was blurry, but I could see the outline of Aldridge standing over me.
“Foolish girl,” he muttered.
Aldridge grabbed me by the shoulders and began pulling me up the stairs, back toward Lucinda’s office. Once he got to the top, he pushed open the door. Lucinda and Ian were in conversation together. The conversation I had already heard.
“We don’t have time,” Lucinda was saying. “Her birthday is in—”
Lucinda stopped speaking, presumably because Aldridge had interrupted them by dragging my body into the room.
“Abigail!” Bridget shouted.
I knew then and there it was done. I should never have come here, but I had.
BOOM.
The entire hospital shook with a violent force, and the glass of the picture window blew out of its frame. Was this time reacting? The entire room started to shake and pictures began to fall from their places on the walls. Books began to slide off shelves. I observed all of this while on the floor, moving my eyes to the directions of the various sounds.
After the shaking stopped, Aldridge spoke up.
“I followed her up here,” he said, “and I waited at the bottom of the steps. She was starting to leave, just as you had expected she would.”
Aldridge pulled me up and into a standing position. He held my hands tightly behind my back.
Lucinda nodded at me, her hands on her hips.
“Of course, she did,” Lucinda said, a smile appearing on her face. “Abigail only wants to do what is right, even if that means her friend has to die.”
“Abigail,” Bridget said. “Did you have a premonition about this? You shouldn’t have come.”
“They tricked me,” I replied. “I tried to leave, and Bridget, I’m sorry I did.”
“It’s okay,”
Bridget said, tears on her face. “I understand.”
“So sentimental.” Lucinda stood watching us, a look of pure evil on her face. But then her face changed, as if she’d just had a wonderful idea. “I wonder…”
Lucinda walked over to the chair that Bridget was tied to and began to untie her. “Ian, help me.”
Ian did as he was asked and soon both Lucinda and Ian had a hold of Bridget. Lucinda began to drag her over to the shattered window.
“Stop it,” I shouted. “What are you doing?”
I pushed my body forward, but Aldridge’s grip was hard to break. If there was one thing my mother and father had taught me, it was to fight any attacker, not give into them. So I brought my foot up between Aldridge’s legs and showed him what I truly thought of him. He yelped in pain and immediately let go of me. I ran forward, just as Lucinda pushed Bridget out the window.
Everything happened in a matter of seconds. Neither Ian nor Lucinda attempted to stop me. Either they were shocked I had gotten away from Aldridge, or they truly didn’t care whether Bridget lived or died. I threw my body to the floor at the edge of the window, the shattered glass cutting into my skin and grabbed Bridget’s hand. My other hand clasped the curtain that bordered the window. I knew it wouldn’t last long.
I was suddenly looking down at the ground below. Lucinda’s office was higher than I had thought. Way higher. And Bridget was barely holding onto my hand. Our hands were both sweaty and her hand began to slip from mine.
“Hold on,” I said. I attempted to pull the curtain, hoping that it would allow me to pull Bridget up. But it had the opposite effect. The curtain began to tear from its rod.
“You need to let me go, Abby,” Bridget said.
“No,” I said. “Please, God, no.”
“Abby,” Bridget said, tears pouring from her eyes. “Look at me.”
I looked back at Bridget and for a moment we locked eyes on each other.
“I want you to know,” Bridget said, “that I’ve always loved you. And I know you loved me as a friend, but not that way. But that’s the reason I’ve acted the way I have sometimes, and I’m sorry for it. And I still love you.”
Bridget let my hand go.
“No,” I shouted, letting go of the curtain and watching Bridget falling, falling, falling away from me.
I rolled over on my back to face the ceiling before she hit the ground. I couldn’t see that happen to my friend. I couldn’t bear it.
Clapping and hideous laughter broke me out of my thoughts.
“That was quite intense,” Ian said, continuing to clap and laugh. “Wouldn’t you agree Lucinda?”
In that moment, I let hate consume me. It felt like the worst feeling in the world, but I hated Ian Cross. And hate fueled my body as I grabbed a shard of the window pane that lay next to me, pushed myself off the floor of the office, and brought the shard up to Ian’s neck, but I hesitated, and stopped. Ian wasn’t moving. He was completely still. I looked over to see Lucinda extending her hand toward him; she was using her powers to freeze him in place.
“Do it,” she said. “You know you want to. He deceived your best friend. He deceived you. He deserves it.”
I hesitated, unsure of what to do. I could try to end this all now and take out Lucinda instead, but she would probably expect that. And on top of that, could I do it? Could I actually kill someone? Sure, I had let go of Bessie. But there had been no choice. She would’ve done something much worse if I had pulled her back up.
“You’ve already done it once,” Lucinda continued, taunting me. “Kill him. Kill him like you killed Bessie.”
I dropped the shard. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Lucinda withdrew her hand, unleashing Ian from his frozen state.
“Foolish girl,” she said to me. She held her hand up and I was immediately frozen in place. She walked forward and touched my cheek.
“Eventually,” Lucinda said, “these powers of mine will have no effect on you. I will make you the greatest Timekeeper this world has ever seen. And you will rule alongside your sister. And you will lead us all into a new dawn. A world where Timekeepers will be in charge. A world where we will not hide away and assist the human scum with how to run their governments and what decisions would be best for their country. It will be glorious. Take her downstairs.”
Lucinda looked over at Aldridge. He nodded and quickly moved to take me. I was still frozen, unable to do anything with my body except allow others to do what they pleased with it.
“Be quick,” Lucinda said. “We won’t have much time and we need to get to the American Headquarters so we can use the Time Line to travel to the London Headquarters. From there, we will finalize our plans. I will be along shortly.”
Aldridge carried me in his arms. He led us out the door of Lucinda’s office and down the flight of stairs that would then lead to the spiral staircase into the main building. When he reached the main floor, he gave a story to one of the receptionists, saying he was taking me to the basement for testing. She only nodded at him. No questions were asked. However, there was a man at the receptionist’s counter asking questions. It was Thomas. He looked over when Aldridge spoke and then looked away, but then quickly looked back again when he realized it was me.
I started to feel a sensation in my fingers. Lucinda’s powers were wearing off, as had Bessie’s when she had used the same powers on me. It was because I was an original Timekeeper. I suddenly regained all moving ability in my body and didn’t hesitate to make a fist and punch Aldridge in the nose. He cried out and dropped me. I hit the floor. It hurt, but I quickly got into a standing position, grabbed Thomas’ hand and dragged him along with me.
Together, we ran out of the hospital and toward Thomas’ motorbike, parked just outside. We jumped on and I clasped my arms around his waist. He didn’t hesitate to put the bike in gear and speed away.
“There isn’t time to explain,” I said, “but we need to get back to the Headquarters and get everyone out of there. And Lucinda and Aldridge are coming there, so we need to be careful.”
“Okay,” he said as he navigated through the traffic, “but do you ever follow directions?”
“I’m sorry,” I said into him, “but I had to save Bridget.”
He didn’t ask any more questions. Thomas was smart enough to know that I had failed based on the fact that Bridget wasn’t with us.
“How did you know where I was?”
“Alma said you went to look for Bridget,” he responded, “and considering how long you were gone, I assumed the worst.”
Even though I was crying, I smiled at that. Thomas continued speeding through the streets of San Francisco to the nearest entrance for the San Francisco Headquarters.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The closest entrance to the San Francisco Headquarters was the Ferry Building. Thomas quickly swerved his motorcycle into a spot by the curb in front of the building and we both climbed off. He reached out and I took his hand. He dragged me along with him as we ran into the building. As soon as we walked into the main building, we took a sharp right and headed through a door marked Maintenance Only. He took me around a corner and then we went through another door he quickly shut behind him.
As he had done for the entrance through the library, Thomas found a design of a clock on the floor of the room, placed his pocket watch on it, and it began to reveal a hidden staircase. He quickly pocketed his watch and beckoned for me to follow him. As we descended into darkness, the room above quickly closed away as the floor slid back in again, concealing the entrance. We walked in darkness for a moment, lower and lower and lower. Finally, we stepped off the last step and into a narrow passageway. There was one door to the side, but at the end of the passage was the Time Line.
We moved closer to the Time Line and I could tell something wasn’t right. From our view point, at the right end of the Time Line, the line was no longer straight. Instead, the Time Line had stopped and a new line was forming directly underneath it.
“My God,” Thomas said as we walked up to view the Time Line.
“What’s happening to it?” I asked.
“It’s as if it’s resetting itself somehow.”
I looked up at Thomas. “Resetting itself?”
“Yes.” The response didn’t come from Thomas. I turned and found Elijah standing behind us. A look of utter horror was on his face.
“Elijah,” I said. “I need you to tell me everything. I’ve already messed everything up. Tell us what will happen.”
“The world as we know it will cease to exist,” Elijah said, in shock. “Time is going to try and reset itself—and the only way to do that is by wiping out humanity. Think of it like an Ice Age. There will be earthquakes, tsunamis, and devastating weather-related catastrophes. It will start here in San Francisco, and then it will continue to spread throughout the world, like a virus, until the weak are wiped out entirely. Only the strongest will survive; many will be Timekeepers as they will use their premonitions of what is to come to survive. This is the prophecy the dark Timekeepers wish to fulfill. They want to bring in this new age with you ruling alongside your sister.”
I walked up to Elijah and grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket. We both looked into each other’s eyes and then I dragged him over to the Time Line and pointed at the disaster I had created.
“Elijah,” I said, “you’ve always been there to provide me with what I need. I need you to snap out of this and tell me how to fix it, because I am not about to let this woman destroy the world because she wants me to be some kind of ruler. Tell me how to fix this. Please.”
“You need to go to the original Headquarters,” Elijah said. “It’s in—”
Elijah was cut off as he made a terrible, horrible cry of pain. We both looked down to find the blade that had once belonged to Thomas’ grandfather, plunging through his stomach and coming out the other side. The blade was quickly pulled out again and I looked up into the eyes of Council Headrick. Elijah dropped to the floor, grabbing my hand as he did. But his death was quick. He looked at me once more, but before he could get out another word, his eyes closed. My uncle was dead.
