Vortex: A Tempest Novel

by Julie Cross

  Normally I would have thought his reference to “we” meant Tempest. Now I wasn’t so sure. Now that Dr. Melvin was dead and Dad and Marshall just happened to be missing. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I could have gone back if it wasn’t supposed to be like that.”

  Holly’s eyes darted from me to Healy as if to say, What the hell are you guys talking about?

  “You couldn’t have gone back.” Healy shook his head. “We wanted the boy who could truly jump through time, but you weren’t ready to have that knowledge. Not all at once.”

  Holly gasped beside me and I waited a second to see if she knew something or was piecing ideas together.

  “So, you and Dr. Melvin and Marshall and my dad knew I could do Thomas-jumps … complete jumps?” I had a strong desire to turn my gun on Healy.

  Healy snapped his finger and an Eyewall agent I recognized from the ball appeared. “Take Agent Flynn to the other room … She’s been held under gunpoint long enough … fooled by Agent Meyer … manipulated.”

  The agent pulled her by the arm away from me, and I didn’t resist because her glare shot right through my heart. He led her carefully down a separate hallway, asking her if she was okay.

  Healy began speaking again the second Holly and her companion were out of sight. “The first night I spoke with you, I knew that you wouldn’t risk time travel for the sake of your job. You’ve always been a stubborn, self-involved, irrational child. And the training had changed you … which would have been helpful to our agency—”

  “Oh, yeah? Which agency is that?” My anger had thickened. I could feel the tension building between us, the threat of something worse to come.

  Healy turned his back to me and ran his hand along the wall under the photos, leaving me waiting on purpose. I had a gun in one hand and no backup whatsoever. Quickly, I snuck a hand in my pocket and called Stewart’s number, leaving it on, hoping she’d figure out where I was.

  “There is no Tempest, Jackson. Not in the future, anyway.” Healy snapped around to face me. “I’ve taken over this division and I’ve been using it as a method of testing the capabilities of agents under unique circumstances. For example, we tested your father … his emotional stability when it came to serving the government. He chose your sister over his job … over you. And on a whim … something irrational and unproven … just like that, he was sold.”

  “Where is he?” I said, grinding my teeth together.

  “Exactly where I said … the future … working for Eyewall.” Healy’s eyes narrowed and he stepped closer to me. “We have no idea what to do with you, son. So much power, so much ability, but you’ve broken every rule. Lied. Turned against your own agents. And you don’t even care, do you? All the people you’ve hurt, the damage to the future you alone could save … and none of it matters to you?”

  I sucked in a breath, squeezing my free hand into a fist. “A lot of things matter to me.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Yes, and I’ve used all of them on you, trying to force you to practice, to hone your ability and be able to use it freely. When I found out about your connection with Holly Flynn and Adam Silverman, I altered their lives, certain that you’d realize the power time travel can hold.”

  My gun dropped to my side. “You … you did that? Put Holly and Adam in the CIA?”

  “I have a partner who performs the alterations for me … a job I had hoped to eventually give you.”

  “Thomas,” I said under my breath.

  “No, Jackson. Not Thomas.”

  Healy stepped even closer, his gray hair and sweater-vest such a contrast to the intimidating power he held. “Why didn’t you do it? After Mason? One short complete jump and you could have saved him. I was sure you would. Then I decided to send Agent Flynn to riffle through your belongings … let you in on Adam’s death, and she hated you after that … and still, you didn’t change it.”

  I clutched my chest with one hand. Sweat trickled down my forehead, my arm, making my fingers slide from the trigger of Holly’s gun. “You did … all that?”

  “Yes,” he said firmly. “And I’ll keep doing it until you understand what your responsibility is to this world.” His expression turned from stern to livid in two seconds flat. “You have no idea, do you? The timelines … what you’ve worried about all along … you’ve made one alternate universe. One other timeline. That’s it. That’s all there is. For anyone. None of the others can do that and you probably will never do it again. You may travel to that other timeline, but it’s just a parallel world. The power to change anything and everything is right at your fingertips and you have no desire to follow anything that resembles orders.”

  I was sinking in quicksand … fast and without air. Eileen had been right about the alternate timeline, about giving me a way out. “Wait … who’s been sending me the stuff … the diary? You said I erased it.”

  “Also me,” Healy snapped. “Your father had a record of it on his memory card from the future and we replicated it. Her handwriting, everything.”

  “Did you kill Dr. Melvin?”

  Healy’s quick movement was completely unexpected. He moved like a blur around me, and in one breath my back slammed against the metal bars and Holly’s gun was pressed to my head, his fingers curled around the front of my shirt. “Are you listening to a word I’m saying, son? I’ve been to the future … I came from the future … and if you don’t control yourself, it’s going to crumble to bits … literally.”

  I sucked in a breath, staring right into his eyes. “I saw it … all of it … Emily…”

  He looked at me, anger turning to desperation. “I’m trying to fix it, Jackson. And you aren’t helping. You’re supposed to help. Agent Kendrick is supposed to help.”

  “Help with what?” I’d never been so completely lost and unsure in my entire life.

  “Your father,” he croaked. “We need him … someone needs to get him. He’s been captured … kidnapped.”

  The gun clanked against the floor and Healy stumbled back away from me. I couldn’t keep up with his shift in emotions. It was almost like he was under some spell and fighting his way out. “Why is this other me here?” I asked pointing at my other self. “Why did you keep him here?”

  “To show you,” he said as creases popped up all over his forehead. “And if you don’t help … the EOTs will use him to answer a question.”

  “What?”

  The EOTs, Tempest, Eyewall … who belonged to who, and what did any of them really do?

  Healy sank to his knees, looking so shaken I thought he might be having a heart attack. “A paradox theory we have yet to test.”

  It hit me hard. All at once. “Shoot him, a younger me, and see if I’m still alive.”

  Healy’s eyes grew to the size of golf balls. “Yes. And they’re coming. Now. The rest of Eyewall. They don’t know everything, but they know to kill the prisoner.”

  He’s insane. No, he’s manipulating me … a trick. But why?

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, kicking one of his legs to try to startle him back to normal.

  His hand lifted to touch something behind his ear. The expression on his face turned to absolute horror. So much so that I found myself leaning over, looking behind his ear. A shiny silver circle the size of a dime seemed to be buried or implanted under his skin.

  “They got me…” he whispered. “Mind control.”

  “Mind control?”

  Those people in the perfect future … walking around … nothing bad ever happened. Did someone control their minds somehow? My head spun. This was way above my comprehension level. And yet, I found myself kneeling in front of Healy and letting him grip my shirt again.

  “You have to get him … they’re coming. Now.”

  “I can’t jump to the future!” I said desperately. “I don’t even know the year!”

  “The girl knows.”

  “Holly?”

  He shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment. “The little one. She escaped
… somehow … I don’t understand…”

  “Oh, no,” I groaned. “She’s here? Emily’s here?”

  I didn’t wait for his answer. I jumped up from the floor and ran in the direction Holly had been led to earlier. I opened the first door on the right and walked into what looked like a conference room. Bright lights filled the room.

  The first face I saw was Mason Sterling … Mason. Looking just the same as the last time I’d seen him. I gasped out loud and then saw the person standing next to him. I stopped breathing. Forgot what I was supposed to say or do.

  “Courtney…? How…?” She looked just like she had that time I’d seen her in Central Park. Fourteen, probably. I walked right up to her, placing my hands on her shoulders. The last time I saw her, she was taking her last breaths, and now … now she was so very much alive … again. “Courtney … I can’t believe this…”

  “Oh, man … this just gets weirder and weirder,” she said, studying my face, which I was sure looked so much older than the last me she had seen.

  “Jackson, I’m sorry … I didn’t know…”

  I turned my head in the direction of the little voice, which was so pleading and tear-filled. Emily. She was little and thin just like the version I had seen this morning. “What are you doing here? When is it for you?”

  I squatted down in front of her. “It’s the same day, I think … I read your journal and I thought … and then I heard you were here…”

  The lockbox … our matching fingerprints … Emily had access to it while I was in the library with Holly. She must have read all the things I wanted to fix with Thomas-jumps … something she most likely could perform better than me.

  “Fuck!” Mason said, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’m dead, right? This sucks! Completely sucks. I knew it … the second you looked at me like I should be transparent and glowing. Even she looked at me like that.” He pointed to someone over my right shoulder.

  I glanced around the room again. Holly had her back pressed into the corner. “Where’s the dude that brought you in here?” I asked her.

  “Oh, no … you don’t get to ask me a question. Seriously! What the hell is going on?”

  “We have to rescue my dad from the future,” Courtney said to Holly.

  “How did you—?”

  “I told her he was missing. I think she can help us,” Emily said, then her face filled with panic. “I didn’t know where he was before … I swear, Jackson. I’d never keep that from you.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, standing up. “Do you think me and Courtney will be too much for you? How far are we talking about?”

  Emily chewed on her bottom lip. “Close to where I came from.”

  I swallowed hard and realized Courtney was right next to me, studying my face again. “Oh, my God … you look so different … but not really.”

  My hands rested on top of hers. “I can’t believe you’re here … I’ve gone to see you, but it’s different. It didn’t change anything.”

  “So, who’s going to kill me?” she said, attempting sarcasm, but I didn’t miss the tremble in her voice. “Come on, Jackson … I’m getting the seeing-a-ghost feeling from you, too.”

  I just stared at her, unable to speak.

  Finally, she rolled her eyes and shrugged. “It’s all right. I’m here now. Just like this dude over here.” She pointed a finger at Mason. “At least we don’t have another version of ourselves to be imprisoned.”

  Grief and panic took over, and I knew everyone was waiting in silence. Only Courtney didn’t know her outcome. The rest of us knew exactly what would happen. And how much had Emily told her? Seriously. What was she thinking? “Right … you’re here now,” was all I could say.

  The sense of urgency returned. “Emily, can we do it? Can we jump that far? Without killing ourselves?”

  She nodded her little head, the red braid swinging back and forth. Kendrick or Stewart must have fixed her hair. A pang of longing hit me … wanting to have my teammates here to help me through this. “Courtney can do it … she can jump. I just showed her once and she did it, but she can’t go—”

  “Backwards,” Courtney finished for her.

  The opposite of me.

  “Hey, if you guys are going on some rescue mission, I want in on it,” Mason said.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Holly creeping toward the door. “Mason! Stop her! She works for Eyewall … the opposition.”

  Mason pulled out his gun and pointed it at her. “That’s good, because Healy said they’re coming here, and we need a hostage.”

  “Exactly,” I said, avoiding eye contact with Holly.

  Emily gave me a puzzled look, but didn’t ask. “Mason can help us … He’ll be fine … I know he can handle it.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked Emily.

  “I’m already dead, man. Can’t get much worse than that.”

  “You’re not dead—” I started to say, but the door burst open and several agents poured in. I recognized most of them from our recent study of Eyewall.

  “Flynn?” one of them said, looking at Holly in shock.

  I grabbed her by the arm and removed my own gun. One arm curled around her neck and the other held her at gunpoint again. “Stop right there. We’ve got a room full of hostages,” I spat at one of the agents. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mason grab Courtney and hold a gun to her head. She gasped convincingly, which was probably real, because I doubt Courtney had ever had contact with any kind of firearm.

  “Innocent children,” Mason added, nodding toward Emily.

  There were about six of them, all with weapons drawn. We only had a second to make a decision. I saw Mason pick up Emily with one arm and slide behind me. Courtney’s hand curled around my shoulder and Emily gripped my other shoulder.

  “You can do it … She’ll be fine,” Emily whispered.

  Holly … and she wasn’t telling me to let go of her. She wanted me to bring her. If I didn’t, they’d kill her the second we vanished.

  Somehow, I had to keep it from affecting her mind. Dad survived going forty years in the future. But three two zero zero was a hell of a lot more than forty years.

  “Don’t kill Meyer … or the little kid,” a new voice said, calling out orders from behind the others. Just then I saw the person attached to the voice push through the door and my eyebrows raised seeing Agent Collins, who should have been locked up underground. “Hold your fire, agents.”

  “Collins!” Holly said, hope rising in her voice.

  Agent Collins’s gaze locked with mine, like he was trying to converse silently. He gave me a slight nod when I tightened my hold on Holly, as if saying I should take her … maybe?

  “Agent Meyer is holding some valuable hostages in here,” Collins said. “Let’s take a minute and find out what he wants … follow the protocol like all of you have been taught.”

  His eyes locked with mine again, beaming out a sense of urgency that wasn’t reflected in his voice.

  “It’s the same place,” Emily whispered, probably sensing Collins’s message. “The place I took you before … in the future.”

  She must have read that in my journal, too. Damn fingerprint clone … and damn, not that place. I could feel Emily starting to pull us there and I knew she was right. I could do this if I wanted to, and all along I thought my focus was always on the date or the time, but really it was the senses … smell, feel, weight of the distance … I remembered it because I’d already been there.

  But it was also possible this might kill us. This might be the last time I’d ever see Holly, and I was holding her at gunpoint.

  Quickly, I spun her around and wrapped my arms tight around her, despite her resistance. I buried my face in her hair, breathing her in, as if closeness might hand over some of my abilities. Something that would keep her alive.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, with my mouth pressed against her ear.

  Then everything turned black.

  * * *
>
  When I opened my eyes again, some part of me knew this wasn’t reality … it wasn’t real, but more dreamlike. I was standing alone on a sidewalk, my arm in a sling, pain shooting through it. A second later, the sidewalk vanished and my feet landed on a doorstep. Holly’s house. Before I could allow myself to contemplate the significance of this location, this day, the door flew open.

  Am I dreaming or dead? Dead … ugh. A definite possibility. I lifted my eyes and saw her … Holly. Smiling and tan. Her hair was down and she had on a yellow dress.

  What’s happening? What is this?

  “You’re early?” she said.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but she threw her arms around my neck, standing on her toes. “Holly…?”

  She let go and stepped back quickly. “Oh, God … I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

  I couldn’t do anything except shake my head as she ushered me inside her living room and closed the door.

  “You should sit down,” she said, nudging me toward the couch. “All that pain medicine is probably making you loopy.”

  “Yeah … probably.”

  She sat next to me, lifting my good arm around her shoulders. “I’m so glad you came over. My mom was already freaking out about this weekend and she’d kill me if I left the house again.”

  I lifted my hand to feel my shoulder, the source of the pain running down my arm. “I got shot?”

  This definitely wasn’t real. The portal to this world had been erased forever.

  Holly’s eyes widened and she rested a hand on my cheek. “Yes … Are you okay? You seem totally out of it. Maybe you need to sleep.”

  This was like the Ghost of Christmas Past or something … my life if I hadn’t said good-bye to her.

  She was still scrutinizing my face, but I smiled a little and she relaxed. My good hand moved through her hair and then she leaned closer, light blue eyes locking with mine. I could read her like an open book. Like she trusted me completely.

  And then she kissed me.

  The sling instantly disappeared from my arm and Holly’s mouth was on mine, hands in my hair, on my face.

  It was so good … so amazingly perfect, I could feel tears stinging my eyes. Death … heaven … hell … a dream … I didn’t give a shit. I’ll take it. Whatever it is.