by Julie Cross
Jumps where? Now my heart was really thudding. They couldn’t possibly know about … could they?
I took a large step backward, but tripped on the lamp now lying on the floor, and felt something catch around my ankle. Once again, my feet went out from under me.
A booming sound rang in my ears, followed by Holly’s scream. Then everything seemed to stop—my heart, my breath … time.
Holly fell to the ground and I wanted to shout, to drop down beside her, but the second the seeping red blood started to show through her robe, I jumped. This time I couldn’t seem to control it.
But right before everything turned black, I saw it. Her chest rose and then fell again. She was alive and I just left her there.
CHAPTER FIVE
I spit out a mouthful of something strawlike and realized I was lying facedown in the grass. Somewhere. Somewhen. My heart was pounding. It hadn’t even felt like a jump.
The sun warmed the back of my neck. I shouldn’t have felt the heat so much. This was different from a normal jump. Something was different.
It must have been a dream … or I’d hit my head. Maybe I hadn’t even had a fight with Holly? Maybe none of that had happened? Acid churned in my stomach just thinking of the sickening image of her lying in a heap on the floor.
I pulled myself up from the grass and tripped over something, falling flat on my face again. And I felt the painful impact of my body colliding with the ground. Based on how much it hurt, this was definitely home base. My black bag lay at my feet. I must have dragged it with me.
After forcing my eyes to focus, I realized this was Central Park. Right near my building. My legs felt like lead as I stepped closer to the sidewalk. I pulled my phone from my pocket and tilted it so I could see the time. It was completely blank. After banging it against my thigh a few times, I gave up and asked a woman passing me on the sidewalk, “Do you know what time it is?”
“A little after six,” she said as she jogged past.
The aches running through my entire body were so intense, I had to stop and sit down on a bench.
“You okay?” an old man asked from beside me.
“Fine, thanks,” I said, leaning my head back. I just needed to rest for a minute. Right before I closed my eyes, the old man’s newspaper came into focus and I jolted upright after reading the date.
September 9, 2007.
What in the freakin’ hell is going on?
“Is that … um, today’s paper?” I asked.
“Yes, sir,” the man said before going back to his casual whistling.
Nope. Couldn’t be right. Just some weirdo reading a paper that was two years old. I stared at it for a few more seconds. A large drop of water fell onto the date at the top of the page. We both looked up at the sky to see the dark clouds moving in. The man folded his paper and stood.
“Didn’t say anything in here about rain today,” he said before walking off.
Okay, so far all I had was a newspaper that said this exact day was two years in the past. Well … the past for me anyway.
I ran down the sidewalk as the raindrops grew more frequent. I spotted a police officer standing under a tree and raced toward him, not caring in the least about getting soaked.
“Excuse me, Officer. Do you know today’s date?”
“The ninth,” he mumbled, not even looking me in the eye.
“Of September?”
He snorted a laugh. “Yeah.”
“Of 2009, right?”
He rolled his eyes and pushed past me. “Damn kids! 2009?”
The panic that followed his words felt like caffeine being injected straight into my veins. I used the bottom of my shirt to wipe the rain from my eyes and searched for a third source.
Henry, one of the doormen at my building, would be perfect, but was there another me here somewhere? Couldn’t risk it. I took off in the opposite direction of my building, toward the coffee shop.
The raindrops were cold as ice and my teeth chattered as I opened the door to Starbucks. The chick at the counter straightened up and smiled. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”
I scanned the empty tables for a neglected copy of the Times. “Um … yeah. I’ve been busy. With … you know, school.”
She laughed and I turned to face her. She looked a little familiar, but it could just be the uniform. “Come on, you’ve been trampling around Europe all summer.”
I have? “Well, it was just a week in Germany.”
She started working on an order, though I don’t know whose. No one else was standing in line. “So, what about the rest of the summer?”
“I’ve been working a lot,” I said over the whirl of the steamed milk machine.
“Working?” She shook her head and then paused in the middle of stirring. “Wait, didn’t you say you were staying in Spain until December?”
“Uh … plans changed and—”
“So why didn’t I see you in school last week? They gave your locker to some freshman.” She slid a cup across the counter.
I couldn’t move a single muscle. I just stared at the cup on the black marble surface as the pieces snapped together. Lockers, meaning … high school. Europe … meaning senior year … first semester in Spain, senior year.
Senior year … meaning 2007.
“What the fuck?” I muttered under my breath.
I couldn’t even manage a three-day jump and now here I was two years in the past? Beads of sweat formed across my forehead. And I did remember this girl. She was one of a handful of scholarship students at Loyola Academy.
Loyola Academy meaning … my high school. Which I graduated from. In 2008.
Which, apparently, hadn’t happened yet.
“Jackson? You okay?” the girl asked.
She knew my name. My face. I had come here every day—in high school—and paid by credit card. With my name on it. So, yeah. That made perfect sense. All the other shit didn’t. Or it did, but it shouldn’t. My nineteen-year-old self shouldn’t be in the era of my seventeen-year-old self.
I had to lean forward to keep from passing out. How the hell did I get here? “Sorry, I have to go … just wanted to say hi.”
I stumbled out the door and leaned against it, catching my breath. Did 2009 even happen? Never, in all my time-travel experiments, had I felt so disoriented. Actually, this time jump, this moment, felt as real as the one I had left. Starting with the aches, the cold raindrops, the heaviness of my legs, my heart.
If I just try and go back, maybe I can fix it? The images flashed through my mind—Holly looking so panicked, Holly bleeding and falling to the ground … Holly still breathing.
But for how long? And it was my fault. All my fault.
I squeezed my eyes shut and forced back tears. The only thing I could do to keep from panicking was try to get back.
Back to October 30, 2009. Which had officially become the worst day of my life. With my back pressed against the door and rain hitting me in the face, I closed my eyes and forced myself to think of 2009.
Right away, I felt the pulling-apart sensation and lost my focus. But it was too late. I was already headed into the unknown.
CHAPTER SIX
My eyes were still closed when I inhaled the aroma of cherrywood and lemon-scented furniture polish. No rain. No sound of people. Or trucks ready to crush my legs. Finally, I looked around and immediately recognized the location.
My dad’s office.
Through the clear glass windows surrounding the large corner office, I could see the traffic on Fifth Avenue. It was either morning or evening. And a weekday, most likely. Adam had always warned me about my lack of direction during a time jump.
“Who knows where the hell you’ll end up?” he had said.
I shook the thought from my head, reminding myself of the next most important task: to find out the current day and time of this location. So I walked over to the computer and turned on the monitor. It was locked up, requiring a fingerprint scan to gain access.
&nbs
p; The phone next to the keyboard had numbers on the tiny screen. Just as I leaned closer to look at them, beeping sounds rang from outside the door. Like a code box for a garage or something. I couldn’t remember my dad’s office ever having a code to get in. The whole building was secure.
Unless this was the future? What if I went beyond October 30, 2009?
I didn’t have time to contemplate that last question because it suddenly occurred to me that if this door opened and Dad or someone came in, there was a chance they’d freak after seeing a version of me that shouldn’t be here. On this day. Or this year. Whatever year that was.
I stepped into the coat closet to the left of the desk just as the door opened. Footsteps echoed across the floor and suddenly an arm was thrust right past my face. I pressed my back against the side of the closet, holding my breath, and watched Dad hang his long winter coat.
Clue number one: It’s cold outside.
I could eliminate a few months. The door swung shut, but not completely. A tiny filter of sunlight streamed through, enough so I could see Dad shuffling around his desk.
A loud buzz sounded through the silent office and I nearly had a heart attack, thinking someone must know I was here.
“Yes?” Dad answered.
The phone. Duh.
“Everything went as planned,” a man’s voice boomed from the slightly muffled speaker.
“Full report, please, Agent Freeman.”
Agent?
It sounded like whoever was on the other end of the line snorted. Then Dad said, “Now!”
“All right, all right, sorry. The two subjects, one male, one female, arrived at the scheduled destination unharmed.”
“I don’t think you understand the definition of a full report, Agent Freeman. Should I dock points from your training exam?” Dad said in a threatening tone.
“Fine. Thunder walked with the usual friends and arrived in time for jazz band rehearsal at seven-oh-two A.M. And Lightning arrived at the scheduled location at exactly seven-fifty-eight A.M. Two minutes before the bell for homeroom. It would have been earlier, but she felt the need to stop for hot chocolate.”
He has to be talking about Courtney and me.
Courtney. Who died April 15, 2005.
But Thunder and Lightning? Code names?
I couldn’t write it down. Not here. So I closed my eyes, pressed my back more firmly against the closet wall, and forced myself to repeat the facts over and over. I’m in a year before 2005. Apparently some kind of agent followed us to school and reported back to Dad.
Yeah, I’ll admit he’s a pretty high-profile guy, being the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company. But having us followed by PIs or whatever the dude on the phone was seemed a bit extreme.
“She walked alone?” Dad asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Yes, sir.”
I could hear Dad pacing the floor now. “What about the girl two floors up? Peyton.”
“I heard from a source she has the flu.”
“And you didn’t feel the need to give me this information? Had I known, I would have accompanied—”
“I’ve done six months of life-threatening missions for the CIA, in the middle of the desert. I can handle a couple of twelve-year-olds walking to school.” There was a pinch of annoyance in his voice.
The CIA followed us to school? Or maybe a retired or ex-CIA agent Dad had hired had followed us to school?
Dad sighed. “My apologies. And thank you for the report. This is my first time not tailing them myself. I didn’t realize handing over the job would be so hard for me.”
What?!
“Stop worrying. You’ve got half the fucking CIA on constant watch. Those kids couldn’t be more safe if you rolled them around in a bulletproof bubble.”
“Agent Freeman, I wouldn’t take any situation lightly. Even walking a couple kids to school. And you understand my most important policy?”
“Never interfere except when no other option exists,” Agent Freeman recited. “I watched Thunder and a couple friends drop eggs from his window onto that Russian man’s car the other day. Didn’t breathe a word.”
Dad chuckled. “That was two days ago, right?”
“Yes, sir. January eleventh.”
January 11. And I was twelve. Well … not me, the other me. The other me was twelve. I did a quick calculation in my head, concluding that it was January 13, 2003.
2003? Holy shit!
“I’ll take care of it. For the record, that Russian guy is an asshole, but I certainly don’t condone dropping objects from windows twenty floors up. Especially considering the fact that it’s illegal in New York. That’s all I needed. I’ll expect an hourly update.”
I didn’t even hear Dad’s feet move or any kind of sound to indicate he was approaching, but with one swift motion the door flew open, a hand clapped over my mouth, and he pulled me from the closet by the front of my shirt.
A second later, Dad shoved me against a wall, pinning his forearm against my throat. He leaned his weight forward, leaving me with no escape.
Actually, I had a great escape. Time travel. But seeing my dad’s face, smooth and confident, nearly seven years younger, it wasn’t exactly easy to focus on jumping out of this year.
“You’re younger than the others,” he stated flatly. “How the hell did you get in here?”
What others?
His forearm still pressed against my throat and I couldn’t breathe, much less answer him. Right now I was nearly seven years older than the kid he probably had breakfast with this morning. It made sense he wouldn’t recognize me.
The calm expression remained plastered on his face, but his eyes flickered with anger. Maybe even hatred. It sent a shiver down my spine to see my dad look at me that way.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked. “Gun? Poison? Lethal injection?”
I was literally frozen with fear. He eased his forearm off of my throat, only to grip it tightly with his fingers.
“Or I could kill you with my hands,” he added.
I could almost feel the blood vessels bursting in my eyes. On the verge of blackout, my vision was narrowing to a small window, just large enough to see his face. I didn’t know if he could kill me while in a time jump or not, but the threat alone was a good enough reason to jump out of 2003. So I just left without even saying a word to my dad. A man who apparently possessed the ability to kill someone with his bare hands.
Who. The. Hell. Was. He?
CHAPTER SEVEN
SEPTEMBER 9, 2007, 6:15 A.M.
Rain hit my face again, landing in my open mouth. I felt dizzy, sick … freaked. My father had just tried to kill me.
As in dead. By his own hands.
Obviously he didn’t know it was me. And he had the CIA following the younger me around just to prevent my death. The craziness of that alone was too much to grab on to at the moment. Someone knocked lightly behind my head and I jumped, completely startled.
That’s when I realized I had just been leaning against the door of Starbucks. Again.
In 2007. Exactly where I had left from.
The girl from behind the counter, and from my high school, poked her head outside and stuck something in front of my face.
“You left your cell phone on the counter,” she said.
I took it from her hands and stared at her for a long moment. “It’s 2007, right? Senior year?”
The panic in my voice was such a contrast to the people all around me, strolling the streets of Manhattan on a Sunday morning. Didn’t they know the world had just flipped upside down? Or that it might end in some catastrophic event preventing me from ever returning to the future?
Of course not. Only my world had turned over. Not anyone else’s.
“Yep, it’s 2007,” the girl said to me with a bewildered smile.
Obviously she thinks I’m nuts.
“And that’s a cool phone. Where’d you get it? I’ve never seen that model, and my sister works for—”<
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“It’s just a prototype. I’ve got a few connections. Shouldn’t even have it out in the open.” I stuffed the phone in my pocket. “Um … I’ll see ya later.”
The rain had slowed to a very light drizzle, so I took off running across the street and toward the park. Nothing could make anything about the last few hours seem normal. The only activity I could do to keep from panicking was to write it all down. Just like I had promised Adam.
Adam. If only I could see him now. Or Holly …
I walked a little ways until I found a tree to sit under and pulled out my journal, hoping to calm myself down. But the thought of those two names had sent my heart racing. Especially the last one. I tried not to think about her … tried to focus on the details. The scientific facts. But the truth was, since the first day I met Holly, when she ran right into me, dumping her smoothie all over my shoes, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Something I’d never really come right out and admitted.
At first, Holly was just the girl I couldn’t have. Not only did she have a very devoted boyfriend, but she had a million smart-ass comments about the rich, privileged kids we were in charge of. At least she did until she found out I was one of them. That shut her up for a while.
People always want what they can’t or shouldn’t have. That alone seemed to pull Holly and me together like a couple of magnets. And I know it wasn’t just me gravitating toward her. It went both ways.
I had to get back to 2009. My eyes closed and I forced myself to focus every ounce of energy on where and when I needed to be.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hours later, I was right back in my spot by the tree, writing down everything I could manage. It was a desperate attempt to stay connected, grounded to reality. Plus, this way there’d be a written explanation of my recent adventures for Adam or the future Adam, if someone found me lying dead somewhere.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2007, 6:30 P.M.
In the last forty-eight hours, I’ve made seventeen attempts to get back (or forward, actually) to October 30, 2009, and they all failed. The second attempt threw me back to February of 2006, outside in the middle of a snow shower. I nearly froze my ass off. Everything is jumbled in my head. Sometimes I feel alive, and other times I’m convinced this is some freakish purgatory. There’s too many dates to remember, too many times. Do I even exist anywhere? Am I actually someone if I don’t have a home base?
