by Julie Cross
Oh. My. God. He said it … in 1992, to Eileen … and I didn’t get it … didn’t get the meaning.
If I lay here and close my eyes, it almost feels like … like I could be anywhere.
Anywhere? Like forty years in the past?
I had never heard my heart beat so fast. Ever. “So, you were born in—”
“1934.”
My back crashed into the wall behind me as I leaned against it for support. He hadn’t been brought here by an EOT or another time traveler. He’d been brought … to the future … to the 1990s, probably. I clutched my chest, gasping for air. He had no family alive … no one … He had a secret room with all the things that reminded him of what he had left. Frank Sinatra … record players … old books.
He belonged here. In this year. “Damn … how in the world … I just…”
“So, you believe me?” Dad asked.
“Are you … are you even in the CIA yet? Does the CIA exist in 1952?” I blurted out.
His eyes darted side to side, checking for people strolling by. “I’m still training. And I don’t know how you got this information, but I swear to God I’ll find you if it gets out.”
I looked at him, finally catching my breath. “So, you did this job before anything happened. It makes sense when Melvin said you got in on your own merit.”
His forehead wrinkled. “I’ve been training in secret intelligence and espionage since I was twelve years old. A little boarding school in D.C. called Dunston Academy … ever heard of it?” I shook my head and he continued seeming very proud to have information that I didn’t have. “We’re handpicked from all across the country in grade school. Of course, the prestigious academic-prep-school reputation is just a cover. We do fieldwork from year two on, and by graduation we’ve all done international missions and college-graduate-level courses … fluency in eight foreign languages in six years. My father was a Dunston graduate as well. I never knew what he did or what the school represented until two years after he died. Until I was accepted and given his old dorm room. Well … me and Melvin, anyway.”
All I could do was stare at him … my dad … maybe a few months younger than me right now … and yet he was beyond amazing. A true secret agent … and his father before him … “Wait … so your dad died when you were just a kid?”
“I was ten. He died in France … fighting Hitler … or so I’ve been told,” he said bitterly, leaning against the wall next to me.
“I’m sorry … and you have a brother?”
“Gabe … he’s four years younger than me.” He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and offered it to me. I shook my head and watched as he removed a box of matches from Bill’s Tavern and lit his cigarette, taking a long drag. I’d never seen my dad smoke before. Ever.
“So, who were these other guys … the ones who came to see you before me?”
He flicked the ashes onto the gravel of the alley and kept his eyes straight ahead on the building in front of us. “A gentleman who looked a little like you … a cute red-haired girl—”
“Blue or green eyes?” I drilled.
“Blue. I assumed the little girl was a special child … off her rocker … but now I’m not so sure,” he said, pausing to smoke some more. “And a tall colored man … bald head.”
“Marshall.”
“Didn’t get a name from him.” He turned his eyes on me. “Actually, you’re the first to give me a name … and you look a hell of a lot more surprised to see me than the others. I got the feeling they had had the same conversation with me a dozen times before.”
“What did they want?”
He dropped the cigarette onto the gravel and smashed it with his black boot. “To take me back … where I came from.”
“But you came from here,” I said, understanding his frustration earlier. He had started to doubt his own story, maybe.
“Right … it all started when I found those pictures of the Russian man and his family. I swear on every Bible in this state that those pictures were dated twenty years ago, but the man was here, in Billy’s place, having a drink, looking exactly the same. Melvin’s a forensic genius … he said it himself.” He took a deep breath looking at me desperately. “If I hadn’t figured that out … they’d probably be off my back, right? I started something I never wanted to start, and now I’m stuck with it. And who the hell do I tell this to? I’ll be shipped off by the men in white coats faster than you can say Joe DiMaggio.”
You’re gonna be shipped off somewhere … that’s for sure. I could feel myself fading. This jump was so far back, I’d never be able to stay long. “I’m leaving now.”
“What? Why?” he asked, eyes darting around again.
I looked at my hands, and the transparency made my head spin. “It’s not by choice … but I’ll see you again … for sure.”
Blackness swept over me, leaving Dad alone in that alley. Smoking. In 1952.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
JUNE 21, 2009, 10:20 P.M.
I could feel the table underneath me. My sweaty forehead pressed to it. The present day, time, year, were very slow in coming back to me. My phone vibrated from my pocket again. I fumbled around trying to retrieve it before attempting to lift my head. When I saw the glow of the light, I realized my surroundings had become dark. Like someone had turned the lights out in the library. I should have gone somewhere safer to do this half-jump, knowing I’d be leaving my body behind in 2009. Behind and vulnerable to attack. Idiot.
I blinked several times before reading the text … an address. An old apartment building a few blocks away.
“I knew it! The second I saw the two of you at Healy’s ball. Double agents never get away with it for long. She should have known better.”
My heart pounded, the rush of adrenaline giving me the strength to lift my head. Agent Carter stood in the nearly dark library, several feet away, holding out his gun.
Wait … Agent Carter?
“Thought your little injection trick would work on me, huh?” His vicious grin shone through the dark. “Just like Flynn … don’t have the balls to go for the kill.”
My eyes darted around the room and I realized Holly was still sleeping beside me, but starting to stir, turning her head from side to side. My gaze dropped to the floor a little ways from my feet.
I leaped up from the chair and raced toward the body lying on the carpet. “Freeman!”
What the hell is he doing here?
The nausea and grief rushed over me in one giant wave. His eyes were open. Open. How long was I out in the half-jump? Couldn’t have been more than a couple minutes?
Oh, God … not Freeman, too.
“Carter! What the hell is going on? What happened to the lights?”
I barely glanced back at the table and saw Holly sitting up, trying to focus her eyes in the dark.
“You tell me, Flynn. How long have you been working for Tempest?” Carter sneered, walking closer to Holly.
Her eyes were huge and she sucked in a quick breath. “I don’t … I’m not—”
“It’s a rhetorical question. I already know the answer.”
“You idiot! Is this what you spend all your time thinking about? Seriously,” Holly snapped.
I tried to grasp on to some kind of a plan to get me and Holly out of this situation, but so much was running through my head at once. Like the fact that my dad should be as old as Dr. Melvin right now. And Freeman lying dead at my feet. And who sent the text message … the address? Were Marshall or Dad back? Would they come looking for me if I didn’t show up soon? And then there was time travel … kicking my ass again.
I zoomed in on Holly’s face, which was filled with panic despite the anger dripping from her last words. Play your part, Stewart had told me.
So I did. “I think there’s only one idiot in this room, and it’s not Agent Carter,” I said to Holly.
She stood up fast, drawing her gun and pointing it at me. Just as I thought she would. “Tell him … tell him I d
on’t work for Tempest!”
I glanced at Carter and said, “She doesn’t work for Tempest.”
He smirked at me. “Uh-huh.”
“Think about it, Agent Carter.” I moved closer to Holly with a few slow steps. Her gun lifted a little as she ground her teeth together. “Just a few carefully placed situations, and I’ve turned an agency against one of their own. And I didn’t have to do anything. No messy cleaning up, no bodies to hide or cover stories to create.”
Holly’s mouth literally hung open. “You’re such a liar.”
“So, you are a double agent?” Carter asked her.
“No!”
“Then shoot him,” he said. “Shoot him, and this conversation will be over.”
The pounding in my heart echoed into my ears, making Carter sound far away. I didn’t know what I was more afraid of—Holly shooting me, or Holly not shooting me.
“Do it, Flynn!” Carter repeated. “If you’re working for Tempest, they’ll kill you if you shoot their precious Agent Meyer. But if you do it … I’ll say it was me.”
Holly’s eyes locked with mine and the hatred poured from her to me. She lowered her gun, just a tiny bit, aiming it at my knee.
“Not the leg, Flynn,” Carter said. “Head or chest … you pick.”
She took a deep breath, tapping her finger against the trigger. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, giving me the energy to make a move. I dove for her legs, grabbing her around the knees, causing the gun to fire into the air.
I sucked in a breath as we tumbled to the floor, and the stray bullet shattered a glass light next to us. I wrestled the gun from Holly’s hand and immediately stood and backed away, pointing it at her.
Carter laughed, this booming sound following the drop of silence we had had after Holly’s gun had fired. “This is fun. Not much of a hostage, Agent Meyer. You think we can’t spare a trainee or two … or a dozen?”
“It might not be your decision to make,” I said, reminding him that I was also now armed.
Carter laughed again, shaking his head as he walked closer to Holly and ignored me. “And here I was truly impressed, Flynn … Collins’s little wing girl had actually learned some skills. But unfortunately, that’s just not true. You’re worthless, Flynn … worthless and easy … very easy.”
“Fucking asshole,” Holly said, staring daggers at him.
She looked pissed, but I could see her trembling … see the brand-new wave of fear that swept over her when he said the word “easy.”
“You know that little game we play in our division?” Carter said, taunting her further. “The point system?”
“Cut the bullshit, Carter,” Holly said. “I know the point system … and I know what you’re going to tell me. So, which is worth more? Turning in a double agent or killing a weak trainee?”
“You know what got me the most points so far?” A sly grin spread across his face. “Nailing a virgin spy. Apparently it’s off the charts … easiest points I ever got.”
All the color drained from Holly’s face at the same time that blood rushed to mine as I strung all Carter’s statements together. It wasn’t Brian. She never even said they were together … I just assumed.
“Poor Flynn, your best friend’s dead … need a shoulder to cry on … how about a few drinks, too,” he said, reaching out to touch her hair. She shrank back from him. “It couldn’t have been any easier. And I think I’ll probably go with the dead double agent … just to put my rank up top as it should be.”
Blood pumped through me fast, obscuring any apprehension I may have had. He’s gonna kill her.
The decision was both difficult and easy. In a millisecond, the gun I stole from Holly went from aiming at her to firing right at Agent Carter’s chest. He fell as fast as he had been shot, a puzzled expression frozen on his face.
He didn’t think I’d do it. He’s been studying me. My arms, my legs … everything shook. Holly gasped and then looked up at me, a horrified look I’d probably never forget.
Ever.
Play your part, or someone else will assume the same thing Carter had assumed. I grabbed her and pressed the gun to her temple, and the shock and numbness that followed, killing Agent Carter, seeing Freeman dead, was almost welcome. I didn’t know if anyone else was here, listening in and waiting for me to show some compassion toward Holly so they’d know exactly what to do with her. I couldn’t let that be my fault, no matter how much I hated being the villain. “We’re getting out of here, and if you try to run, I’ll find you. I have methods of hunting people down that you’d never be able to prevent.”
There were no tears from Holly this time, there was no anger. Nothing. She walked slowly, a step or two in front of me, as I held her gun to her back, but low enough so no one would see once we got outside. “Where are you taking me?”
I didn’t answer her, because I wasn’t exactly sure where this place was. My fingers gripped her upper arm as I steered her toward the address from my phone.
Both of us acted the part of agents once we were outside in the warm night air, eyes darting around every corner, studying the scene. My pace picked up, forcing Holly forward fast as my toes hit her heels. When I reached the back door to the old building, I tightened my hold on her, letting the gun return to her temple. The door was slightly cracked, so I pushed it open with my foot, not wanting to risk an escape from Holly by using my hands.
We walked into a nearly dark hallway. The dirty wood floor, chipped, cracked, and peeling, creaked under our weight. The musty smell was so thick, I had to breathe through my mouth. My shoulder brushed up against the wall and I felt a large photograph there start to peel off. I stopped to examine it and nearly dropped the gun, seeing the image personified along with an entire row of photos.
It was me … and me.
The first image was a version of me strolling down the sidewalk on Ninety-second Street wearing jeans and long-sleeve blue polo shirt. I loosened my hold on Holly’s arm, practically pressing my nose to the wall. The next image was the same version of me but two strides closer to my destination … and just behind him, turned around, facing the other direction, was another me … one with his arm in a sling and a bruise streaked down the side of his face … and a tear in the knee of his jeans from climbing around a rooftop at a hotel in Martha’s Vinyard.
These were the surveillance photos from March 15, 2009. From the street-corner camera Adam had told me to check. The photos that had mysteriously vanished.
And there it was, plain as day. Proof that I had done a Thomas-jump. Two versions of me in the same photo … But then what happened to him … to me … the other me?
I saw the cell, much like a jail cell at the very end of the hallway, before I could tell what was in it.
Rusty metal bars ran from floor to ceiling. I squinted into the almost-empty space, trying to make out the shadow of a person in the corner.
“Oh, my God … is that—?” Holly whispered under her breath.
My arms fell to my sides as I stared in disbelief. “Holy shit…”
A haunted, dirt-covered, unshaven, and in-great-need-of-a-haircut version of me huddled in the corner of the cell, head leaning against the wall, eyes closed, knees pulled up to his chest.
There was no World C. Just like Eileen had suspected. I really, truly erased me and 009 Holly in the most permanent way possible. A new kind of grief swept over me. All this time I think some tiny part of my brain had hoped that I could jump back to World A … someday. Even if it never worked out, I wanted the choice, and yet some part of me must have known that I’d debate going back … cheating on my promise to myself. Now here I am still in World A, not World C. But the World A I knew and left is completely gone.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from this version of me, even when I heard shuffling feet behind me. But some part of my brain remembered my cover … my plan. I quickly grabbed Holly again, keeping her hostage so she wouldn’t run or become someone else’s hostage.
“Agent
Freeman led you here after all.” Healy … Healy was behind me … and I still couldn’t turn around.
“How … I mean … who…?” My mouth was so dry, I could barely form words.
“How are there two versions of you? And it’s not a half-jump?” Healy said, moving beside me.
A dim light turned on above our heads. The other me in the cell stirred, his forehead wrinkling from the light, but he didn’t wake up.
“You can let her go,” Healy said to me. “She works for us.”
My stomach plummeted and I peeled my eyes from the other me and turned around, dragging Holly with me. “Us?”
“Yes … us.”
Oh … damn. I glanced down at Holly, who looked slightly relieved after seeing Healy.
“Relax, Jackson,” Healy said. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“That I’m screwed,” I spat.
“Now, that … is up to you,” Healy said. “Tell me how it’s possible that you are here, on this side of the cell, and over there, inside it.”
The shaking in my legs returned as his words and the pictures sank in … complete jump.
Healy nodded as if he could read my thoughts. “Yes, that’s right. On March fifteenth, 2009, you landed here from a few months earlier under the impression that you had created a new timeline. But tell me, Jackson, when you left the date August sixteenth, 2009, what was your goal? What did you feel you needed to do?”
Erase me and Holly. But I didn’t say that out loud. My grip loosened on Holly, but I kept my gun pressed into her side.
“You don’t have to say it,” Healy said. “I already know. And we knew the second you arrived and then had to scramble to hide the other version of you.”
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.”
