by Holly Hook
“Go!” Isabel shouts. “I'll run behind you.”
“Don't.” I pull her towards the street. We have to run to the Branch. It's the only way we're going to get out without shots being fired. Does Isabel's father have any idea how to get there? Or can he follow us? I catch a glimpse of the SUV in the driveway. He'll drive. He knows how. And he'll shoot. He just learned that he knows how to do that very well. How many innocent people has he shot in his life? How many kids has he killed without the slightest remorse?
“ISABEL!” he shouts.
I don't look back. I know what he has and what he wants to do to Simon and I. Hell, he might even try to kill his daughter, too, since she knows what a monster he is. Things will never be the same between them again.
“To the Branch,” Isabel breathes. “We have to get through before he finds us.”
We run. It's all we can do. The street stretches out long ahead of us. The Seven Eleven with its glowing sign, where Isabel and I once went through a rift. The border that marks the East Side and divides us, rich and poor. The corner that leads to Happy Rabbit's daycare where I used to work.
“Go,” I urge Monica. I know he's not after her, but will be care if he shoots another person? He knows he's not from this time and could probably find a way back to his if he wants. If he follows us and knows where we found a rift, he doesn't have to go to jail.
“This way.” I pull Isabel and wave Simon down an alley that leads to the next street. A motor starts up. Isabel's father is taking the SUV to come after us.
We tear down through the alley, dodging garbage and boxes and puddles of disgusting water. Lights shine up ahead. We're almost in town. I look back to see the mouth of the alley opening up to the street we just left. It's wide enough for one vehicle.
And then he appears.
Hunched behind glass, Isabel's father turns the SUV and roars towards us.
"GO!" I repeat.
We're out. The engine's so close that it sounds like it's going to run us over. We're in downtown Trenton, close to the school. He's going to run us over. That's the only thought in my head. "Get in a store!"
Most of the lights are off. The only place still open is the bar. We have to take that. It's our only chance.
I tear open the door and the four of us pour in. The bartender looks up and raises his hand to stop us. Outside, the SUV grows louder and I know Isabel's father has made it to the main street. He won't drive into the building--will he?
"Sorry," I shout as we run. People turn on their stools to face us. Loud music plays. There's a back door that leads into another alley. The bartender yells at us and says something about us not being twenty-one, but it doesn't matter. I push open the door and make sure we have everyone. Simon runs out into the second alley next to me, pulling Monica. Isabel's panting. At least we're all here.
"The Branch," Isabel breathes.
We're alone in this alley, stuck between a wooden fence and a row of buildings. Isabel's father will figure it out. We have to move. There's a hole under the fence that leads back to more yards and houses. "That." I point.
"Isabel!"
He's here. I look. The SUV is parked at the mouth of this alley. It's too narrow for him to drive down, but he leans out of the driver's side, ready to push open the door.
"Go," Simon urges.
Why isn't he shooting at us? I don't care. Simon pushes me under the hole in the fence and comes through after me along with Monica and Isabel. We're in another neighborhood, one with low ranch houses and small yards. I spot the red and green lights of the intersection through the trees. Beyond it is the Branch. I run, closing my hand in Simon's. We crash through the yards and out onto the street. Our destination waits at the corner. I'm out of breath, but I run up to the door and open it. The sound of a motor gets louder behind us. Can Isabel's father see us right now? I don't want him coming in here where there are kids and families having fun.
The Branch is still open. Only a few teenagers skate around on the floor and the DJ is playing some heavy metal now. All the younger kids are gone at this hour. We stop and I face the wall on the far side of the skate floor. Through my panic, I realize something.
We've got to pull Monica through before Isabel's father gets here. He might try to hurt her or torture her to get to us, even if she can't help him. And she won't help him. I know her too well.
“Monica,” I breathe. “You ready to see the Hub for real?"
“What?” She faces me, eyes huge. “See that in real life? That place looked freaky.”
“We need to go through the rift that's in that wall.” I point to it. I take the hair clip from my pocket and strap it on. I have to record these new memories or they'll be lost when we jump into a new time. I tap the butterfly and my scalp tingles. “Your other option is to get shot.”
Brakes screech outside. He's here. We didn't lose him after all.
The door to the Branch bursts open, and Isabel's father comes running through. He holds a pistol in one hand. With experience and confidence, I notice. I have a feeling he would have remembered that even without gaining his memories back.
I squeeze Simon's hand. “Now!”
The four of us bolt across the Branch and across the skate floor. “Duck!” I tell the two guys still skating around.
“What?” One calls after me. They're going to see us disappear into the wall, but I don't care. I'm making another escape with Simon
“ISABEL!” her father calls again. “Halt!”
A shot fires out and sparks fly next to my leg. He's shooting at us all. Actually shooting at his own daughter. Isabel screams and I push her forward towards the rift. She holds up her hands as if to block herself, but she goes through, vanishing into thin air.
“Now!” I yell at Monica.
“Are you serious?”
Another shot rings out, deafening. Something squeals and one of the guys curses.
“Now!” I repeat. Simon and I shove her forward at the same time.
Monica sails for the wall and screams. She vanishes as if some doorway has opened up in thin air and swallowed her. She's in the Hub now.
I grab Simon's hand and we make the leap. We're falling, falling through a world that blurs and screams. The last I hear of the Branch are footfalls racing towards us.
Chapter Eleven
I land on red crystal and two different pairs of shoes meet my eyes. Monica's shoes. Isabel's brown 1940's ones.
Isabel's crying. Monica's silent. Simon helps me up. The four of us stand in the corridor, surrounded by bloody fog. It's just as bad as it was before we went to Nancy's time. Worse, maybe? I can't tell. All I know is that Isabel's father just found a way to get out of Nancy's time—and to come after us. He saw us vanish. He now knows where there's a rift. We don't need Frank trying to kill us anymore. Now we have some Nazi freak.
“Away from here,” I order, facing the rift that leads to Trenton. “Any other rift. Now!”
There's no time to waste, no time to give Monica a welcome. I grab her arm and pull her towards a random archway. Simon shoves me and Isabel lets out another sob.
We pile through just as someone else's feet hit the floor.
We fall again and I swear I'm going to puke. The world blurs and brightens, and then my feet dig into hot sand. The sun blazes down and blinds me. Hot wind blasts against my face and I straighten up.
Nothing but sand dunes spread out as far as I can see. There's no sign of civilization. Where are we?
How on earth did I get here?
“Where?” A dark-skinned girl with curly hair turns in a circle next to me. She wears pants and a purple shirt. “Where?” She's freaking out. I've never seen her before. Next to her stands a blond girl in a gray dress. She's catching her breath and her eyes are red like she's been crying. Next to me stands a young man in overalls. He's practically dancing, trying to get his feet off the scorching sand. He's not wearing any shoes—only stockings.
I know I should remember something, but
my memory's sinking into a vast ocean of nothingness. I reach up to scratch my head and brush my fingers along a metal hair clip.
My head pains and it all comes rushing back, including the new memories of Isabel's father chasing and shooting at us. He saw us go through the rift and must have followed. We narrowly escaped. He must be standing there in the Hub, gun ready and wondering where we went. I hope that whatever rift he checks isn't this one.
And now I've brought Monica into this mess.
“Everyone,” I say. “I know that you don't know why you're here, but I can give you your memories back. Well, mine. It'll explain everything.” I take off the clip and motion to Simon. “Sorry. I know you hate this.”
Once I've restored everyone, Simon sits and lifts his feet off the sand. “I'm guessing we're somewhere in the Sahara Desert.” He manages a grin, which I'm glad to see. “Just a little hot, isn't it?”
“Really?” Monica faces me, reeling. “Did we just really travel through time?”
“And space,” Simon says.
“No one move,” I say. “The rift is close to here, but if we go too far, we'll never find it again.” I look around. There's a messy spot in the sand where we all landed, about twenty feet away. The rift must be there, but the wind will erase all evidence of us in not too long. We have to stay here.
“But my father!” Isabel protests. She's hoarse from crying. “He might come through to here.”
“We just pray that he didn't see us jump into this rift,” I say. “If we leave this area, we die in this desert. And if he does come through, Time will wipe his memory. It's the same if he goes into any other rift that he's never been in before.”
“I can't believe I forgot about that,” she says. “I can't think. I don't want to think.”
We wait in silence. Every muscle in my body is a spring, ready to jump into action. Simon has his fists up. He turns in a circle. But no one ever appears. It seems that we jumped through the rift just in time. If we're lucky, Isabel's father went through another rift and lost his memory again. If we're not, he's running around in the Hub, hunting for us.
We have another guy trying to kill us. Fantastic. But at least he's out of Nancy's time. He probably won't have the ability to find that rift ever again. I can send Monica back home and he won't be there anymore.
I grab Monica's arm. She's breathing fast, and not just because of the jump through the rift. She almost got shot. I swear, I'm going to murder Isabel's father if I see him again. And Isabel stands there, facing a tall dune. She's crying again. I can tell from the way her back heaves up and down. Her father just tried to shoot her, too. Sure, she tried to kill him, but it must still hurt. I want to comfort both her and Monica, but it looks like Isabel wants to be alone for a while. Besides, we had better stay here for a while if her father is still out in that corridor. We don't want to burst out if he's standing there, calling for us. No one's going to help us in the Hub. The Timeless are probably too busy to even help themselves.
“Well, what now?” I ask.
“I think we should sit tight. Give Isabel's father some time to move on and look for us somewhere else,” Simon says.
“And I need to get my sanity back for a minute,” Monica says. She sits at the foot of a dune.
I join her. The sand is blazing hot through my dress. “I agree.” Sweat prickles the back of my neck. “It must be a hundred and fifty degrees here. We can only stay long enough to not get heatstroke.” My dress hangs on me, heavy. It's the dark brown one. Why didn't I throw on something lighter?
Isabel turns back to us at last. “Well, I can feel a lot less guilty about trying to stab my father now,” she says. There's black hatred in her voice. “Looks like we're even.”
“Isabel.” I rise. Monica does the same and turns as if she can't believe she's actually awake. I'm sure she must think she's in a dream. But if we set things back to normal in her world, she'll never have to experience this at all.
“I don't know what to do about him,” she says, shaking her head. “I can't send him back to my mother and my sister. I just can't.”
“Isabel, I don't know what to say.” I can't even be mad at her anymore. This has got to be horrible for her on so many levels. She must feel like she's no better than her father and no better than Frank. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so angry with you back there at Nancy's house.” I stress Nancy.
“I shouldn't have left my father there.”
"What choice did you have? It's not like you shoved him at Nancy on purpose. Nancy loves to take people in and help others who are lost. She always has. That's the way she is. That's why she took me in when I wound up on her doorstep, with no memory of my past life. It was the same situation with your father.”
Isabel breathes out like she's feeling better. I can sense the mountain coming off her shoulders. “I guess you're right,” she says. “But I'm never going to feel good about this. Ever.”
I think of something. “Look at it this way.” The sun beats down harder and I feel the back of my dress getting damp with sweat. The wind snaps by hair into my face. “If we succeed with all of this and Simon and I continue to live like we should in 1912, I'll remember to make sure you don't get on your ship in World War Two. Then, you'll live your normal life and you'll never have to go through all of this. You'll never have to try to stab your father, as much as he deserves it. You'll never go through the guilt of leaving him with Nancy.”
“We also have to figure out a way to preserve Nancy's existence,” Simon reminds us. There's sweat rolling down his forehead. He wipes it away along with a lock of his dark hair. “For Monica's sake.”
“How are we going to do that?" The weight of everything crashes down on me. This whole thing is like some elusive puzzle that I can't solve. What do we do? What about all the other people that are gone now because we saved the Titanic? The ones who died on other ships because there weren't enough lifeboats? Nancy's not the only one. Do we sacrifice them?
“Do NOT kill yourself, Julia,” Monica demands. “I don't care how complicated this all is. And I know how complicated this all this, thanks to that thing we're using,” she says.
I'm glad we have the clip, so we don't have to explain things to Monica every time we go through a rift. It's saved us so much time.
“I won't,” I say, even through there's a growing voice in me begging me to do the right thing, to let history run its course and kill us all. “I won't.” How long will I fight that voice? How long before I let it urge me to stay in bed on that fateful night and go into the ocean like I'm supposed to?
“We won't sacrifice ourselves,” Simon says. He takes his hands from his pockets. “If we do that, we will kill Arnelia. And Isabel.”
“I like Simon's thinking," Isabel says. “We need to find a way to save Nancy's ancestor. But first I think we should deal with Frank. That'll get one problem out of the way, and free us to pursue the rest of our missions.”
“How many missions are we going to have?” I ask. “Will we have ten more after we take care of Frank?”
“That's a good point,” Monica says. She studies the unforgiving sky. “I can't believe I just traveled through time. I don't even know what time this is.”
Simon's feeling through the air, arms outstretched. He heads to the messy spot in the sand, which is beginning to fade as the wind fills it in. “I think the rift is right here,” he says, gesturing ahead of him. “My arms are tingling. I don't want to get any closer. No wonder I never came through this one when I was Timeless. No one's ever here.”
“You don't even have most of your Timeless memories,” I remind him. “So maybe you have been though here. You only have my memories of you being Timeless.”
“I know. That's weird,” he says. “I suppose we should wait a while, just to make extra sure Isabel's father is gone before we head back to the Hub. If we're lucky, he's gone into some other rift and he won't find his way back for quite a while. If we're unlucky, he'll wander the corridors there, s
earching for us until he succeeds.”
I have the horrible feeling that the second possibility is the right one. Isabel's father has our memories. He must know that if he dives into another rift, he'll get another memory wipe.
“I agree,” I say. “We should go and stop Frank first and get one problem out of the way. It's not like saving his life and saving his brother is going to make Time any more sick. It looks like only the big changes do that.”
"That sounds right,” Isabel says. Her skin is getting red in the sun. “Small changes, like someone ending up in the wrong time, never made Time sick as far as I know."
“So what do we do?” Monica asks. “Sit? Because this sand isn't very comfortable.”
“Not in this,” I say. I can feel the heat burning through my leather shoes. The sun grows hotter, making sweat flow down my back. “We shouldn't stay more than another half an hour. I don't want to die from heat stroke. Who knows when we're going to find water again?” I'm already thirsty. I don't envy anyone who's died out here.
“And who knows when this rift dissipates?” Simon asks. “It still feels pretty strong, but I'll stand here and yell if I feel it getting weaker.”
“Thanks.”
We have no choice but to wait. No one speaks. All I can think of is the horrifying thought of going through the corridors of the Hub with Isabel's father stalking around, aiming to shoot us all without hesitation. What if he shoots Monica? I'll die.
And even worse is the thought of heading into the Battle of Gettysburg. I've heard stories of soldiers being mass buried, of limbs sticking out of the ground after the battle. It's not something I want to see. And I definitely don't want to see someone getting blown apart with a cannon.
I have to do this for my family.
Both of them.
At last, Simon stands up all the way. “I think this rift feeling weaker,” he says. “If we don't want to die a horrible death out here, we have to jump through now. It's fading.”
