The first bullet took me in the lower right hip, the second square in the belly and the third right under the ribcage on my left…and far too close to the heart.
I fell forward. The concrete surface of the alley was cold and damp. It smelled of gasoline and rubber.
Someone shouted for the police. The voice was far away.
I saw the thousand-dollar sneakers sidle past me and disappear. “Run, run!”
“We gotta finish her off now, man! She’ll talk!”
“She’s dead either way. Run!”
Then nothing.
Breathing got hard. The bullet in my ribcage had probably perforated my lower lung.
Perversely, growing colder reminded me of Portland, and walking in the blizzard.
…promise me that when the day comes, you will turn to us for help.
Rafe’s voice. A tiny whisper in the back of my mind.
I reached for my phone. It took damn near an ice age to get my hand up high enough to pull it out of my coat. Then I had to put it in front of my face, because I couldn’t lift my head.
Every tap took enormous strength to complete. I still had Aran’s old texts and just had to reply. It took all the energy I had to write two simple words.
help me
I hit send just as the first concerned neighbor rushed up and dropped beside me to shake my shoulder and make me groan with the agony that flared through me. I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t breathe.
“Let me through. Let me through, please. I’m a doctor.”
Aran. I would know his voice anywhere.
Hands under me. Lifting me.
“Hey, should you be moving her?”
“Where are you taking her?”
The rhythmic jostle of walking.
“Hold on a few moments more, Jesse,” Aran breathed in my ear. “I know what to do.”
I believed him. Absolutely and without question—just as I had believed and relied upon my brothers in arms.
I closed my eyes.
…and opened them what felt like only a second later. Bright lights in my face, someone giving medical orders, the beep of monitors, and the cold flood of fluid in my arm from an injection, racing along the veins.
“There she is.” Rafe’s voice.
“Jesse! Jesse! Look at me.”
“Give her a moment, Aran.” Alex, sounding sharper and curter than I had ever heard from him.
“I’ve re-inflated the lung.” Sydney’s voice. Calm and quiet.
I could breathe again. It hurt like hell, but I could draw in air.
I blinked, trying to pull things together. They were confused. Mixed up.
Aran leaned over me. “Jesse. Listen to me. I’m going to take you back in time.”
“You can’t!” Alex protested. “Is that why you insisted we bring her around?”
“Shut up, Alex,” Sydney said, her tone just as curt. “He’s right. He has to take her back.”
“Back?” I might have said it aloud, or just in my head. I don’t know.
Aran leaned over again, so all I could see were his eyes and those stupidly long lashes. Thick brows and the cold slate determination in his gaze. “I’m going to lift you. You must direct the jump, Jesse. Think of a time before the mugging. Only a few minutes. It has to be a lateral jump for this to work—don’t worry about the details. Just think of a moment before the mugging and hold it in your mind. I’ll do the rest.”
“You’re kidding…a lateral jump?” Alex said. “Right back into her own body again?”
“No, he’s right. It’s the only way,” Rafe said. “Help me sit her up, so Aran can jump with her.”
Hands on me. Under me. It hurt like hell.
Arms around me.
“Think of the moment, Jesse. Think of it.”
I thought backward to my stroll along Mercer. Enjoying the sounds of early evening. The rustle of new leaves overhead. The hint of green things in the air. Lights from shop fronts spilling onto the uneven pavement. The next chapter of my book.
Then I heard the little yap-yap dog barking in a living room window as I passed by. Actually heard it. For I was walking along Mercer again. No wounds. No pain.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out. It was Aran.
Keep walking. I’m right behind you.
I put the phone away, my heart pistoning. That’s the problem with knowing the future. It makes you dread it.
The five of them came up behind me—how the hell did I miss it the first time? They weren’t even subtle about it. The shepherding began. Then the alley and the pushing.
This time, I shoved back.
“Hey, hey, she’s got some claws!”
Another, harder shove which sent me stumbling.
“You should probably let the lady go.” Aran’s voice.
“Fuck, where’d he come from?”
I managed to turn about. Aran stood in the entrance to the alley, his feet spread. I recognized the ready stance and my heart gave a little blip of delight. I settled my own feet and sized up the men closest to me. I could reach two of them, no problems.
I put out two of my fingers, on my left hand.
Aran’s gaze flickered to my hand, as the dude with the semi-auto cocked it. “You better back away, man,” he told Aran. “Just turn and walk away and we’ll let you live.”
“I don’t think so,” Aran said. He still sounded like he was discussing his lecture schedule. His left hand, down by the long side of his coat, shifted. The two outer fingers curled up, leaving three digits pointing straight down.
I might have argued the toss. Three men? Without a weapon, with a semi-automatic trained on him? He wasn’t even military trained. It was sheer stupidity to rely on him taking out three of them.
There was no time to question it further. Aran shifted, starting his turn to the left, as advertised, which forced me to spin and take out the asshole with the gun. The other one was the solid-set spokesman. The one who assured them I was dead either way before leaving me lying on the concrete.
He outweighed me by maybe a hundred pounds. I spent fifteen years learning to overcome the weight differential, which is a fact of life for me.
Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I turned to deal with the third one, if Aran hadn’t managed it.
All three of them were on the ground, groaning, or knocked out. One had a bloody face.
Aran shook his fist and examined the broken skin over the knuckles. “Fabulous,” he said, his tone dry.
“What now?” I asked. It was fantastic just to be able to speak and breathe. My blood was fizzing with adrenaline overload.
“Back to the apartment you’re sitting,” Aran said.
I turned and headed down the alley. I’d learned in the last two weeks that it was a shortcut back to the apartment building.
“Where are you going?” Aran called.
“Back to the apartment.”
He shook his head. “No, you must go back to your subjective time. That’s about thirty minutes ahead of this moment. Come here.” He waved me over with his bloodied hand.
Deep reluctance made me slowly pace back. “I was nearly dead, thirty minutes from now.” I wasn’t completely ignorant about bullet wounds.
“And now you won’t be.” He tucked his arm around me. “Think of the apartment,” he said and jumped, before I could demand an explanation. I hastily thought of the book-lined living room, then saw it appear in front of me.
The carriage clock on the middle shelf showed I had lost about thirty minutes. Exactly on the money.
And I was still breathing. And standing.
Aran let me go and stepped back to look at me. He lifted a brow. He knew I had five thousand questions. Dammit.
So I didn’t ask any. “I will scalp someone if I don’t get a coffee in the next fifteen minutes,” I said, instead, and went back into the kitchenette to put on the kettle.
After two sips of fresh black juice, I felt slightly better. Aran sat back in his chair, turning hi
s cup around, his long legs crossed, looking completely at ease.
“Okay.” I put my mug down. “Why did you do that?”
“I should not have saved your life?”
“I’ve spent over a year listening to your fathers—Veris in particular—raging about changing the timeline, of messing with the past. You did exactly what your fathers have spent your entire life telling you not to do, so why?”
“You asked me to.” He shrugged.
“You shouldn’t have!”
“Why not?”
“I’m nobody, Aran.”
“You save the world.”
“Exactly. That’s in the past. The reason everyone changed time for me has gone. I already saved the plane. You changed time for no reason.”
Aran got to his feet. “I didn’t change time. I jolted us into a different time line, one where you fought off the muggers and lived to tell the tale. The only people who know about the change are now in this room. In a few hours, even you won’t remember about the way it first happened, because that isn’t what happened in this timeline.”
“What about Alex and Sydney and Rafe? They know.”
“They won’t remember, either. Not unless they write it down and Sydney will make sure neither Alex nor Rafe record anything about it.”
I stood, too. I didn’t like having to crane my neck to look up at him. Standing didn’t help me find anything better to say.
Aran pushed his hands into his pockets. “You earned a break, Jesse. Enjoy it.”
“I still don’t know why you did it.”
Aran smiled. His black eyes danced. “Because I like the world with you in it.”
Then he jumped away, before I could ask any more questions. Which proves he was smart right then—I had thousands of them.
Just because I didn’t want to forget what had happened the first time around, I spent the rest of the evening writing out the events as they happened in the other timeline. The next morning, I found the document open on my laptop and read it, and it was like reading fiction. None of it was left in my memory. Only, there was a sense of familiarity about the descriptions and events, which convinced me I wasn’t trying to gaslight myself.
Nothing else changed except that single thirty-minute period…and I suppose, everything which happened afterwards, because I’m still alive, instead of being dead from three gunshot wounds after a simple mugging.
I keep reading my essay about the mugging every now and again. After today, I will read this essay to remind myself of what would have been.
Is that why I owe Rafe? I suppose, because of what he said, I did ask for help when I really needed it. Only, wouldn’t I have asked, even if he’d said nothing? Or am I so stubborn and so independent, I would have mulishly died in a puddle of blood in that alleyway?
That’s what I can’t figure out. Something deep in my brain has decided I owe him, for some reason I can’t fathom. I just can’t pin it—
More Time Kissed Moments
[8]
Canmore, in the Rocky Mountains, Alberta, Canada. A few minutes later.
Jesse!” Marit said again.
Jesse jumped and looked up from the screen of her laptop. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
Marit hid her smile. The distant look in Jesse’s eyes reminded her of Brody, when he was writing a song…only that hadn’t happened for a long time. “Espresso, or blonde roast?” Marit repeated.
“Oh, espresso,” Jesse said, her tone distant. With a firm swing of her hand, she shut the laptop. “I can finish it later.”
“Blonde roast has more caffeine in it than espresso,” Marit pointed out.
“Blonde roast doesn’t remind me of Paris.”
Startled, Marit said, “When were you in Paris?” She didn’t think the Navy had seen action in France lately.
“I wasn’t.” Jesse put her chin on her hand. “Are you going to reach out to David?”
Marit turned to check the kettle, to hide her jumpy reaction. “I must suck it up and talk to him, I suppose. For Uncle Rafe.”
“Is the man really that horrible?” Jesse asked. Of course, she hadn’t met him, yet. Although, Marit admitted to herself, everyone else seemed to find David fascinating.
Except for Veris, although his prejudice was that of a protective father. Which was what made his request that Marit reach out to the man even more extraordinary.
“Shouldn’t you be doing that, instead of making coffee?” Jesse asked. Her tone was kind enough, even though the question was provocative.
Marit unplugged the kettle and poured water into the two French presses. “There’s no rush. It’s early morning for me. I need to wake up more before I talk to him.”
“What if Rafe is under duress?” Jesse asked.
“You’re forgetting about time shifts,” Marit told her. “I could wait a week, and David could still arrive here three minutes ago.”
“Isn’t that…cheating?”
Marit looked at her, surprised. “Cheating who? And what rules are we breaking?”
Jesse considered. “I suppose time travel itself is one great hack. After that, it doesn’t matter.”
“Survival is the only rule maker,” Marit added.
“Hear, hear,” Jesse murmured.
“Oh god, fresh coffee! Could I have a cup? Please?” Alannah moved into the kitchen with slow steps. She wore sunglasses, and her heart-shaped face was pasty white beneath the black lenses.
Jesse wrinkled her nose as Alannah fell onto the other end of the bench. She turned her head and waved her fingers in front of it. “Bourbon,” she said. She got to her feet. “Dry toast and water, too,” she said decisively. “Do you think there will be bread here?”
“Mom keeps a loaf in the freezer, just in case,” Marit said. She glanced at Alannah. “A cold shower would do you more good, sis.”
“What cat dragged you through a hedge, ‘lannah?” Aran asked, from the door to the living room. He moved over to the table, paused and sniffed. “Never mind. I’ve got my answer.” He sat where Jesse had been sitting. “Maybe you should go back to Boston, Alannah. You won’t be any use here.”
Alannah lifted the glasses, as if she intended to glare at him, then thought the better of it. She put her hand on her hip. “I’m here to help Rafael.” Her voice was scratchy and used.
“You haven’t shown a skerrick of interest in the family for months,” Aran said. “Why start now?”
Jesse threw the twins a startled glance.
Marit was used to their bickering, although she listened as Alannah answered Aran in Latin. Latin was useful if one wanted a really pungent insult and Alannah didn’t hold back.
Aran’s face turned red.
“Wow,” Jesse breathed, by Marit’s shoulder. “Whatever she said, it sounded super impressive.”
“Umm…” Marit pressed her lips together. “She made an observation about Aran’s, um, abilities in bed. The lack of them. Only Latin is slippery, so she was also telling him he was pretty much impotent in all things he did.”
Jesse laughed. “I thought they knew each other better than that.”
Alannah got to her feet and paused, her fingertips jammed against her temples. “I think I will have that shower.” She shuffled through the other door, which led to the dining room, then to the back hall and the main stairs.
Jesse glanced at the two slices of frozen bread in her hands. She shrugged and put them on the shelf in the fridge. “They’ll be there later,” she said.
How to Survive Time Travel
[iv]
From How to Survive Time Travel—A Practical Handbook, by Veris Gerhardsson, PhD, M.D.
Learn classical Latin.
If you don’t acquire Latin through a lateral time jump—which would work for damn few travelers—then learn it the hard way.
I visited Portugal in the nineteenth century. There, I watched a Portuguese fisherman, a Spaniard, a French Legionnaire, and a Sicilian privateer have a conversation about ships a
nd cargo hauling. The remarkable thing was that none of them spoke a common language.
They all used their own language, and because they all spoke one of the Romance languages, they all made themselves understood.
Latin is the grandfather of half the worlds’ languages and dialects. If you know it, you can grasp what the locals of the here-and-now you are visiting are saying—which is critical when they’re urgently telling you to duck.
More Time Kissed Moments
[9]
Canmore, in the Rocky Mountains, Alberta, Canada. A few minutes later.
Brody looked up as the workshop door swung open again.
Alex stepped in. “May I interrupt?”
“Stupid bloody question,” Brody said. He pushed away from the bench.
Alex moved down the wide corridor between Taylor’s bench and the wall of drawers and hanging tools. “Is it?” he asked, not smiling. “You’ve been in here since you got back from Canmore.”
“Staying out of the way,” Brody said, his tone even gruffer. “There are too many chiefs out there already.”
Alex settled his hips against the bench and crossed his ankles, facing Brody. “I’m feeling as if someone slapped me around with a pillow dosed in low-grade tranquilizer. So many people…everyone, really…everyone wants to be part of the crew which retrieves Rafe, when we figure out where he is.”
Brody smiled. “That surprises you?”
“Humbles me,” Alex said. His smile flickered into life. “Makes me proud, too.”
“It should. You’ve got a fine man in your life, doc.”
Alex’s smile faded. “Only, you haven’t asked to be included in the crew.”
Brody tossed the bolt he had been turning over in his hand onto the bench. It clattered heavily. “Of course I want to be part of it. It’s Rafael.”
“Only, you didn’t ask. Or demand. Or presume it was your privilege.”
“That last one was Veris, right?”
More Time Kissed Moments Page 14
