by Jill Cooper
“We have to stop her. I know this must be hard for you, but—.”
Old Lara holds up her hand and chuckles. “I almost forgot what you were like. Always rushing off, but fear not, Cassidy. We will stop her, but first we need an ally. I need to see the one person I’ve been staying alive to see for the last one hundred years.”
I shake my head, unsure what she’s talking about.
“Lara James.” Her smile light’s up her face. “I have something she needs.” Old Lara holds out her wrinkled hand and cups it. A burst of light shoots out from her palm and in it, dust caught in the stream freezes and starts to move counter-clockwise.
I suck in my breath. “You want to give her your power.”
“It’s what’s kept me alive this long.” Lara releases her hand and gathers up her cane. “Future Mike and Morgan trapped me in the past, long ago. My powers came back but not strong enough to bring me where I needed to be. So, I built a life. I kept trying. I made a sizeable fortune that kept my medical care top notch. But…” Old Lara sighs, “this body grows brittle and weak. The power of time travel is the only thing keeping me alive.”
I rise to stand beside her. Everything she’s said circles in my head. I want to help her, and I feel for her. Feel my part in Old Lara’s suffering and downfall. “If you give it to Lara….”
“I know where it will lead me, but it must be done. That’s why I took you. Despite how angry Lara is with you right now, she’ll always come for you. You’re like her sister. You’re like my sister.”
Her words strike me hard and emotion wells up in my chest. “So basically…I’m bait.”
Old Lara wipes tears away from her eyes. “Bingo. But I’m going to need your help, Cassidy—one last time for me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Lara
When I arrive at the clock repair shop, I find the front door open, but the lights aren’t on. It’s dark and as I creep inside, I’m overcome with how vulnerable I am without my power. My headache is raging and won’t go away. There’s something wrong with me, more than just the inability to travel in time.
I know it. I feel it.
I’m not myself and I don’t think anything will ever fix me again.
I come to the countertop that’s covered in clocks. There’s a note on the top in the same blue paper that seems to haunt me, follow me, wherever I go:
We’re in the back apartment. Don’t try anything foolish, dear Lara.
It sounds like Rex, but is it? The old woman had sent the text and sent Lara a photo of Cassidy, but could someone as aged with such impaired mobility really get the jump on Cassidy? Something else is going on here and I’m terrified I won’t figure it out in time to save Cassidy—to protect myself.
Still, I make my way around the counter and head to the back. I head into the back with caution. The hallway smells of vanilla candles, the exact same scent as the one in my apartment, and there’s a light glowing from beneath the door.
I put my hand to the door when I’m overcome with a thunderous pain in my head. I groan and grab my temple. My mouth falls open and I’m unable to breathe as flashes of light assault my vision. It’s like a golden hue lit up in the sky and almost like glitter it floats back and forth, gliding like it has a mind of its own. Beneath it is the bridge.
“Lara,” Donovan says even though I can’t see him. Where is he? Then I spot him down below, beneath the golden glitter that I’m caught within. “That can’t be Lara.”
“She’s time,” Molly says, “pure essence. We’ve lost her.”
“We have to fix her. We can’t lose her.” Donovan’s voice is so ripe with emotion it scares me. The passion he wields sometimes like a weapon, and right then the sound of his voice is nothing short of heartbreaking.
The vision fades and I’m back in the back hallway about to face an old woman, free Cassidy, and I’m wrapped up in what I had seen. What was it? Was there any truth to it?
Had I somehow been hurt, and I don’t remember it?
I hold my breath as I push open the door with my foot. “I’m here.” I try to say it with power, but I sound smaller than I want to. Inside the studio, my eyes fall onto Cassidy who stands in the kitchen. She looks unhurt, but there’s something not right about the way she’s standing.
“Are you all right?” I run over to her despite the pounding in my head.
She nods as she takes my hands. “I need you to be strong, Lara. Stronger than you’ve ever been. Can you do that? Can you hold onto how much we love you?”
Her words terrify me, and I rip my hands away and turn. The old woman is in the living room, smiling at me like she has something to say. I return my focus to Cassidy. “What is this?”
I feel like I’m caught in a trap, a snare. It’s not a feeling I like having.
“You have to listen to us,” Cassidy says gently, “okay?”
I shake my head. “You’ve been different. Acting different for days. No one will tell me anything.”
“I know,” Cassidy’s voice is ripe with pain. “I had to be different to protect our secret, but I’m not protecting it anymore. It’s time for you to know. It’s time for us to fix the mess we made.”
“She did protect the secret, at first. I needed to hear what she had to say. You do, too, Lara.” The old woman said.
I don’t want to listen and as the old woman approaches, hobbling forward on her cane. I back up toward Cassidy. My friend puts her hands on my shoulders to calm me, steady me.
“The future is ever-changing,” the old woman says. “It’s the truth I’ve spent my life watching. What you do now, influences what happens to the extent that a future Cassidy’s life in the future will be radically different. No Rex. No pain. Only a good, happy life. Not for this Cassidy but one that will be born someday. We’re always changing the future, Lara.”
Who is this old woman that she knows so much? I stand up a bit straighter and step gingerly toward her. Her words are terrifying, but she’s a brittle old thing. Why should I fear her?
“That is the life I want for you, Lara. I want you to be happy, build a good life, but it’s not for me. It’s for you, the version of me who came after.” Tears rim in her eyes and it all becomes clear. So clear my heart wells with pain.
Oh God.
It hits me all at once who she is, what she’s saying. My knees go weak and my body wants to give out on me. It’s like all the air has been sucked out of the room and I’m going to faint. The old woman laughs—this version of me who is more experienced than time itself. “I think you might need my cane more than I do, dear.”
Cassidy grabs my arm as I start to fall and helps me steady myself. Slowly the feeling comes back in my legs.
“You know how this all ends, don’t you?” I scowl. “You know what lies before me and Don? All of it.”
Old Lara nods. “And I wish to change it. I wish to make things right. Make things better. For you, our family. But that’s not all.” Old Lara gazes down at my stomach as if there’s something I should know. Like I’m carrying something precious.
I gaze down too, and I touch my flat stomach and with a kind of horror, I glance up at her. “I’m not…”
“Too soon to tell yet, but things are beginning to take shape. I want you to be happy. I want our family to stop tearing each other apart, Lara. You need to fix things, regardless of how angry they make you.”
She sucks on her bottom lip and tears shine in her eyes.
“Donovan and I are falling apart,” I whisper, and I can barely see past my tears. “We’re falling apart and you’re saying I’m going to be pregnant? You’re saying I need to forgive him?”
“If you want to save your daughter.”
My daughter? Just the idea…the notion that I could be someone’s mother terrifies me. I’m a mess.
Old Lara cocks an eyebrow. “There’s more. Mike and Molly are right now being held against their will. Morgan, our daughter, will do whatever she can to take their power from them and give it to herself. She believes it
’s her birthright. One that was stolen from her by Future Mike when he…when he helped put us back together.”
Put us back together? “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
When Old Lara steps forward, I recoil. She holds her hand out to me and her fingers turn blue, electricity dancing from tip to tip. “You will soon. I have what you need and I’m going to give it to you. Hold onto yourself. Remember that what I’m about to give, I do not give just to save you, but to save them.”
She touches my forehead with her fingertips and the electrical pulse rockets through my brain. My muscles, go rigid like I’ve never felt before. My mind is flying through time and space. It’s like my body has fallen away.
I’m no longer in the old apartment. Now, I’m sitting on a hospital bed in what appears to be the bridge. I’m not alone. Donovan sits beside me and has his arm over my shoulder in a supportive, but not a romantic way.
I glance up at him. He’s cute, sexy. I could learn to love him if given the time, I know it. But I won’t because soon I’ll be forced out. The other Lara will merge with my body and I’ll cease to exist, but I’m okay with that. My life’s been a waste and hers has been amazing.
I want her to have my body. I want her life to continue and maybe when that happens, perhaps a small part of me will stay, too.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Lara
There was another Lara.
I’m in her body but she’s not gone. She’s in me, changing me, and morphing my personality so we’re becoming one more than I’m overriding her.
There was another Lara and now I’m me and her together. The merge comes all at once and the pain cripples me. I can’t see the apartment anymore as I fall to my knees. I think I scream; I hear a shrill sound. And the heat in my head is almost more than I can stand. She’s part of me now, as I am part of her, and I remember.
Everything she did. I took her place in the apartment with Rick. I tried to clear her name and she’s grateful—so grateful to know that she wasn’t really a murderer. Somehow, this releases a curse for her, that she wasn’t doomed to fail. Knowing that I’m a possibility for her, fills her with purpose. A Righteousness.
Joy. A joy she’s never felt before.
Her essence moves through me as we lock in place. My memories are now hers. She was with me in the alley when I first saved my mother and I can feel her joy. Her sorrow is mine when Rick turned his back on us and betrayed me. I feel her elation when we first realized how much we loved Donovan.
Oh, Donovan. How could he keep this from me?
Other Lara knows, and her memories fill me in. He wanted to tell me about her great sacrifice, so I’d live on in a flesh and bone body, but Mike had said he couldn’t. Mike had said I might separate from this body, but he’d lied. He didn’t want anyone to know what he’d taken from me and given to his future self.
Mike’s a rotten egg. Mike needs to be stopped despite the fact he’s my brother. If he’s not stopped, he might destroy more than our family. He might unravel time itself.
I open my eyes. I’m kneeling on the carpet and beside me laying on the floor is Old Lara. She stares up at the ceiling and her lips are parted. She’s unconscious after giving me her parting gift. She was at once me and the Other Lara, living together in harmony but going through life alone.
No husband. A daughter who betrayed her. Never able to love again.
She gave me her memories and now I’ll carry those with me. The memories of past choices usually haunt me, but now I feel empowered. I’m strong, I will endure, no matter what it means for me and Donovan. I know I could do it on my own.
If I have to. If I want to.
My cupped hand is powering a small portal to the bridge. My power is back thanks to the old woman. I want to thank her, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get the chance now. She changed the course of the future by giving me her power and that means I may never find her again. Whatever had happened to her, will never come to pass.
I’d be grateful for that. Maybe. In the future.
I rise and search for Cassidy. She stands along the wall, tears in her eyes. She knows what I know and she’s waiting for me to scold her for her choices, and maybe I will. Later. It’s hard to be angry while feeling the presence of the Other Lara inside of me. It was her choice as much as theirs.
I wish I had gotten one.
The Other Lara’s attitude and life experiences may color my choices for the rest of my life. What will that make me? Will I never really be me again?
“You forced this on me. You. Molly. Donovan.” I can barely say his name without trembling with rage. Old Lara regretted never getting back together with him and I try to keep that in mind. I try to remember her sorrow and how Other Lara looked at him like he would one day be her husband.
Cassidy nods but looks sadder—more lost—than ever before. “We lost you. You pushed your power to the brink and you became energy. Your body disappeared and you were nothing more than the essence of time. What should we have done?”
There was a question I couldn’t answer, not with a clear conscience. “Maybe it was time to let me go, maybe it was time to say good-bye. Maybe this isn’t the life I had wanted for myself.” I’m angry with her because she hadn’t thought about what she was doing. She hadn’t been strong enough to let me go.
But, would I be strong enough to let her go? At one point, I thought I’d do anything to save my mother, damn everyone else. I’ve finally come to realize this pain isn’t worth it. This life of continually trying to fight those who want my power, my family’s power, isn’t worth the struggle. I can no longer close Pandora's box. Time travel is loose in the multiverse and there’s nothing I can do to close the loop.
“Mike said—”
I gnash my teeth at her and come close to shoving her. “He lied to you. Lied to me. I was never going to separate. He wanted you distracted, afraid. He stole my power. Gave it to Future Mike.”
Fear and shock roll across her face. “How…how do you know?”
I nod my head down at Old Lara. “She shared her memories with me. I see the devastation. I see the next one hundred years of my life. Cast off in the past, locked away thanks to Future Mike. I’m forced to live in a time that’s not mine. He needs to be stopped. Are you going to help me or not?”
Cassidy nods. “I’m with you to the end, Lara. Whatever you need. Just tell me.”
I may be angry with her, I may be mad with all of them, but that’s at least a good start. Before we go, I kneel beside Old Lara and place my hand onto her chest. I want to say goodbye, and I’m not expecting her eyes to open.
Old Lara gasps for breath, barely clinging to life. I call out to Cassidy over my shoulder. “Call an ambulance! Get someone here!”
Cassidy rushes for her phone and Old Lara’s hand finds mine. She holds it, squeezes it as she gasps for air. I tilt her head back to clear her airway. “Easy, easy, hang in there. Just hold on, we’re getting help.”
Old Lara smiles through her wheeze and struggles for air. A tear rolls down her cheek. “Always such a hero, Lara Crane is.”
She might think so, but I don’t feel it. Time to get that back. Time to get it all back.
Chapter Thirty: Donovan
When I arrive in the parking garage, my car is missing.
Lara’s left. There’s an assassin out there looking for her and she left because she couldn’t stomach the idea of being with me. I’ve pushed her away in my effort to save her, secure our future. I have no one to blame except for the guy who stares back at me in the mirror and I can’t even say I regret the choices I’ve made.
She’s here. She’s alive. I always knew going through all this, losing her was a possibility. I’d hoped for better, but I was always prepared for the worst. Future Mike targeting us for death hadn’t been in my calculations and now all I know is that I need to find her.
Pacing back and forth between empty parking spaces, I pull my cellphone out of my pocket. There’s no answer at Jax’s place an
d I leave him a message. “Hey, Jax. I’m looking for Lara. If you see her, keep her there and have her call me, all right?”
In the next breath, I’m on the phone with Miranda. “No, honey. She’s not here. Are you all right? You sound really worried.”
I don’t want to worry Miranda. She’s been through enough. I make sure that my voice sounds like it’s smiling. “Nothing’s wrong, I promise. We got our signals crossed and I was supposed to meet her downtown. She’s not there or at home. If you happen to see her, let me know.”
“All…all right…. Don…the twins are missing too.” Miranda sighs. “They were supposed to be at the library but when I went there, no sign of them. Have you seen them?”
The twins were missing? Well, that didn’t exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. If Future Mike was up to something, what were the odds that he’d go after the twins?
The odds were pretty damn high.
“I haven’t seen them but if I hear from them, I’ll let you know. I’ll check with Cassidy, how about that?”
“Hold on a second. John wants to talk to you for a second,” Miranda says. John? Great. His over-protective dad senses are probably tingling. I’d rather avoid a conversation with him if I could manage it.
Instead, he comes on the line with one of his profound sighs. “Don, is something going on we need to know about? Something with Lara or Molly? If there’s a problem, I’d think you’d tell me about it.”
Problem? Like the fact your future step-son in the future wants us all dead? “No problem.” The lie comes easier than it should. “You know what life with Lara is like. She always keeps us on our toes.”
John gives a caustic laugh. “That I do, but with everything that happened last week, I worry. There’s not much I can do when it comes to time travel, Don. I’m helpless with this stuff.”
“Most of us are. It’s Lara’s game. There’s only so much we can do.” I rub my forehead, digging a deeper hole as I go. “Listen, I’ll call Cassidy. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
