by Jessica Gunn
He leaned in and kissed me again. My toes curled as his lips trailed my jaw and neck. “I don’t want to be interrupted this time,” he said. His words tickled and a chill ran through me, igniting a feeling that pooled much further south.
His hands reached around to the front of my jeans, and for one sweet moment, I thought he’d undo the button and do away with them. He tugged out my phone instead and turned it off before tossing it onto the counter behind me. I grinned.
He scooped me off my feet. I wrapped my legs around him, holding on as he moved us to his bedroom, his hardness straining between us. He laid me down and hovered above me, trailing kisses as he went. He wasn’t aggressive but firm, a change of pace that both surprised and excited me. We tugged off our clothes in wild, uncaring movements punctuated by the sound of foil unwrapping.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. His eyes raked over my skin, hands following their path.
I sat up and yanked him to me, crashing my mouth to his. He growled against my lips as he sank into me. Josh moved slowly at first, a blinding, tortuous slow burn that scorched me from the inside out. His named rolled off my lips, adding kindling to the fire blazing to life between us. It sent Josh into an animalistic pace. Ecstasy starburst behind my eyes and I dug my fingers into his back as he dove off the cliff with me.
He rolled over, pulling me with him. I nuzzled close and ran a hand up his chest. His strong arms pulled me ever closer, and I fell asleep grinning from ear to ear.
y brain throbbed in an intense, aching rhythm. I’d never had a headache like this before.
Maybe I’d died.
Flashes of a cloudy blue haze comprised my mind’s eye. Weird blue objects were connected by lines and numbers to other shapes far into the distance. I had to be dead. That was the only explanation.
A wave of nausea swallowed me whole. Maybe I wasn’t as dead as I thought.
My eyes shot open. Bucket. I needed a bucket. I didn’t find one. All that greeted me were sobering plastic curtains, and IV machine, and some other hospital contraptions. The nausea disappeared, dissipated by panic.
Think, Boncore. Think. What happened?
Flashes of an artifact cache lined like a grocery store rushed me. Something glowed red. Then pain. Then nothing.
I tried to sit up. Everything felt like molasses. Thick, heavy, painful molasses. I swore and sunk further into the thin mattress beneath me with every breath. I turned over and saw one of those “call nurse” sticks next to the bed. I pushed the red button and a beep sounded.
From beyond the curtain, despite foggy eyes, I saw someone approach. They came through the plastic curtains and stood beside my bed. “It’s nice to see you awake,” Sophia said.
“I called for a nurse.”
She smiled. “You don’t need one.”
Even if she didn’t think I needed one, I wanted one. “I feel like hell.”
She smiled again. Why was she smiling so damn much at my pain? “It was touch and go for a while there. Luckily for you, whatever illness you contracted from the Link Piece—which we determined to be from the future, by the way—was close enough to the bubonic plague that we were able to treat it. You’re going to be fine.”
“Bubonic plague?” I sunk further into the bed, a heavy cold sweat coating my body. What the hell happened?
I groaned as another wave of nausea hit. I wouldn’t throw up. I would not do that in front of Sophia. I gripped the bed sheets until the wave passed.
“Trevor?” she asked.
“You told me I contracted the Black Death. Give me a second.”
She touched a hand to my arm. “You are already on the way to a full recovery.”
The fluorescent lights fed my headache, but at least the nausea was gone for now. My grip on the bed sheets loosened. “I remember the Piece glowing red. Why was that?”
She lifted her hand from my arm. “We’ll discuss it when you’re feeling better. For now, rest.”
I groaned, frustration taking the place of nausea. “Sophia, please.”
She stood firm. “No. Rest up, then we’ll debrief you.”
I lay my head back in resignation. “Fine.”
I made it to the briefing room a few hours later. Wheelchair-bound, but there. Maybe I shouldn’t have left the Infirmary, but I wanted to know what had happened. Pike watched me with narrowed, worried eyes like he expected me to break in front of him. Or like maybe he wanted to wheel me back to the Infirmary himself.
I didn’t need, or want, his coddling. I’d be fine, bubonic plague or not.
Bubonic plague. Only I’d be lucky enough to catch that. But didn’t Sophia say the Piece came from the future? I shuddered. If that was the future, I didn’t want a part in it at all.
Dr. Hill hid behind a stack of files, shifting them every few seconds until one held his interest long enough to read in its entirety. Sophia walked in with General Holt, talking excitedly about something. Pike stood and acknowledged the General, then everyone took their seats.
General Holt nodded my way. “How are you feeling?”
“Like someone hit with me with a bus after giving me swine flu, but I’ll be fine. Doctor Hanney gave me a three-day base restriction. No leaving, no work, and no missions. Then I’m good to go.”
General Holt didn’t look convinced. Doubt worked its way into his aging features. “That’s great to hear, don’t misunderstand. But are you sure you’ll be up for work in three days?”
I was sure I’d been worse, but I couldn’t remember. The achiness could be solved with Advil. Doctor Hanney could prescribe me something for the rest. And given how this last mission turned out, odds were that General Holt would wait for Chelsea to return before sending us on another Link Piece hunt again, even if that was three months from now. “Yeah, right now I’m more interested in what happened than my health.”
“Reassuring,” was Dr. Hill’s muted response. Pike coughed. Dr. Hill looked up at him. “What?”
“He contracted the Black Death. Show a little concern,” Pike said.
Guilt swarmed Dr. Hill’s eyes. “You know what I meant, Trevor.” He’s probably been swamped since we got back, which I’d been told was a few days ago.
I nodded. “I’m good. And Sophia, you said once I felt better you’d tell me what happened. Here I am.”
Sophia sucked in a long breath before saying, “We believe the Piece you found was manufactured somehow, which was why it appeared red both on the scanner and to me.”
“To you?” I asked. She nodded. Chelsea had always described the Pieces appearing in shimmery blue, not red. “What do you mean by manufactured?”
“Given the disease you contracted in conjunction with the time period we were supposed to have landed in, the only explanation is someone traveled with the statue in their possession from a future time period, using a different Link Piece that’s probably in the cache somewhere,” Dr. Hill explained. “They must have been there recently enough that the contagion lived on the piece until you picked it up. Therefore the red could have meant either it was manufactured—not a natural Link Piece—as well as having a disease attached to it.”
“That’s a whole lot of coincidences right there,” I said. Beginning with the fact that the statue had to have been put there in less than twenty-four hours, maybe less. It also required me picking up the one infected artifact in the room, one thrown casually onto the table and left for naught. Why? Even we brought back our Launch Pieces if we could, since they traveled with you. “That doesn’t seem right.”
Shadows stormed in Sophia’s eyes. “No. It doesn’t.”
A nervous doubt released inside me. “We’re being watched,” I said. “Played. Someone knows what we’re doing.”
Maybe that someone thinks we’re close to finding SeaSat5. I squashed the surge of premature hope accompanying the thought. We needed evidence first.
“Thing is, the Lemurians have always known that TAO travels through Link Pieces,” Pike said. “And that w
e’re searching for SeaSatellite5. That’s why they try to stop us whenever they can. They think us attempting to control time travel is ridiculous. Entertaining.”
Funny, ‘cause so did I. This was so far above and beyond us; we were lucky to have any successes with time-travel at all. “What good would the Lemurians get out of killing one of us?”
I shouldn’t have had to ask. General Holt’s response cut through me, mocking my stupidity. “If Chelsea and Sophia are taken out of the equation, we lose our greater access to the Waterstar map as we now know it. We also lose our ability to add to what we have.”
“And find SeaSat5,” I said, heart dropping. “How did they know we’d be going there, though?” I couldn’t deal with another mole situation after Valerie and Dave.
A sharp pain in my chest set off a bout of lightheadedness. SeaSat5 was gone. And now so was Chelsea.
“Trevor?” Pike asked.
I tried to get a grip. Who here would sell the organization out? I chuckled. As if that were an easier question than who would’ve sold SeaSat5 out. I knew Valerie probably would have, but no one had expected Dave. “It could have been an accident,” I said. But even I didn’t believe it.
“We’ll go careful from here on out,” General Holt said. “Trevor, I want you to focus on resting until Doctor Hanney lets you off base restriction. I don’t want you working at all, no computers, no Waterstar map work.” He looked to Major Pike. “You, Dr. Hill, and Sophia are cleared to go this afternoon.”
They’re not going to wait for me?
“Didn’t you say we should go careful?” I asked. Being down two people when we’re the only ones who travel the Link Pieces seemed like a bad idea, especially now that we were most likely being watched.
Dr. Hill exchanged a look with Sophia and Pike. “We have a time-sensitive lead we want to check out, and you’re not exactly going to be back in time-jumping shape right away.”
No one spoke. Rage ignited my veins as I realized exactly why they’d leave now, before Doctor Hanney cleared me, and it wasn’t because of my health.
I swallowed my anger.
“I’m not in on it,” I said as flatly as I could. Not defensive, not angry. They must have thought my past caught up to me again. “I have no idea what the Lemurians are planning. I haven’t spoken to anyone, even my own family, since they took SeaSatellite5. And in case you’re wondering, my parents disowned me months before the hijacking even happened.” I clenched my fists. It was like Chelsea accusing me of working for Thompson all over again. “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of that after two years of working with you guys, and after watching the Lemurians take the only place I’ve ever called home.”
I stood on shaky legs and glanced at the wheelchair. It wouldn’t be a dignified enough exit. I forced my feet to guide me, my legs to hold me, until I got to the elevator bank. I hit the UP button and collapsed against the wall until it arrived. When the doors slid open in front of me, I entered the elevator with uneven breaths and a sweat-caked brow. I hunched over and tried not to puke from exertion.
I am not the mole. But I will find out who sold us out again.
But the fact my family may be up to something didn’t surprise me as much as it should have. I just didn’t think they’d ever come at us through the Link Pieces. If it wasn’t safe to go to temples a hundred miles outside rudimentary civilization, where was safe?
Family.
My eyes flew open. I forced them to focus on the elevator’s control panel. It reminded me of the Lift, which reminded me of SeaSat5, of Valerie and the first day we’d set foot on the station. Of her last instruction: Go to Abby.
Visit her.
still had a grin plastered to my face when I awoke curled up against Josh. I could feel it sitting there on my face like an ad to the world saying: best night ever. And it was true. But the blaring of Josh’s cell phone drove the smile away.
Josh groaned into my shoulder.
“You have to get that,” I told him.
“I know,” he said, his voice thick with sleep. “I don’t want to.”
He sounded so much like a child that I couldn’t help but laugh, which only caused him to laugh as well. The rumble echoed in his chest, and I felt it where my hand laid against his ribs. I rolled over and kissed him. It was meant to be sweet, motivational, but instead it grew into a passionate blaze the answering machine said we didn’t have time for. When the apartment’s home phone rang, he growled against my lips and pulled away.
“Stay here,” he said.
He didn’t need to convince me otherwise. It was too cold outside of the sheets to ever want to leave. Instead, I reached over the side of the bed to pick up my tank top and throw it on. Josh’s voice carried throughout the apartment, but I couldn’t make out what he said, so I laid there, staring at the ceiling with a smile on my face. Josh. My heart swelled just thinking about him, about his confident, firm approach to making me—
“Hey,” Josh said, peeking his head into the room. He thumbed at the kitchen and left again.
I took that as a sign to get out of bed. The search for my clothes was short, and I enjoyed the sight of Josh still not in his as he paced back and forth, grinning at me.
I threw him his boxers and mouthed, “Put some damn clothes on.”
He lifted a fist to block his laugher as he listened to what the other person had to say. “We’ll be there in half an hour.” He turned to a cabinet and took out bagels, holding them up to me. I gave him a thumbs-up. He broke them apart and threw them in the toaster. “Sounds good, Weyland. See you then.” A pause. “Yeah, yeah, buddy, then propose to her already.” He hung up.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Weyland thinks he’s found ‘the one,’ but lacks the balls necessary to do something about it,” Josh said. “But if you meant with all the voicemails it’s because we shut our phones off last night.” He shot me a wicked grin.
“Shame on that.”
“Yeah,” he said, dark brown eyes twinkling. “Shame. Anyway, go hop in the shower. I’ll be there in a second. I hope you don’t mind eating on the go. Apparently Weyland and Eric picked today for your last step.”
“I thought General Allen said I was done.” My last day of training was yesterday. Next week, I’d be off hunting Lemurians in our own place-time.
“Officially, yes,” Josh said. “But we got a little something extra we like to do.”
“What is it?”
A mischievous smirk bloomed on his lips. “You’ll see.”
Anxiety rippled through me. I thought I’d finished testing and proved myself a long time ago, especially to Weyland. What in the world could they have planned for me, short of a SEAL or Ranger course or something?
My throat dropped into my chest and made it hard to swallow. I may have been strong physically, but I wasn’t Ranger strong. I didn’t have the same mental grit.
Josh’s Subaru made short work of the shoddy terrain they called a “road” here. The closest comparison I could think of were some of the roads in Cape Cod, or in Northern New England, but even those came up short compared to this. Josh seemed confident his SUV would make it up to this “lake” we were en route to, although if he called this pavement a road, I’d bet this lake was a pond or a swamp.
“Why do you look so anxious?” he asked me.
I sipped at the coffee in my thermos. “Because you’re driving these trails like you’re on a NASCAR track.”
He laughed. “Not what you’re used to?”
“I grew up outside of Boston, so no. I’m used to driving on streets with pavement or cobblestone. Not driving across sand, sand, more sand, and some dirt, all of it flying by at way too high a speed.” I looked out the window. I wasn’t used to it, but part of me thought I could be. “I mean, I guess it’s a nice change of scenery, minus this dangerous off-roading.”
Josh kept laughing. It wasn’t that I thought he couldn’t keep us safe; it was that I’d never driven on roads this damn sho
ddy before.
“So, what’s this whole thing about?” I asked.
He shrugged, like it was nothing at all even though it sure as hell was something. “This is Eric’s thing. It’s honestly more like hazing than unofficial training.”
Lovely. “Because that makes me feel so much better.”
“Hey,” he said, “it’s difficult but necessary. Trust me. I’ve seen Rangers go through this and cry, but others, people who barely made it through boot camp, scale this thing with no trouble at all. It’s all up here,” he said, tapping the side of his head.
“My head’s had a lot of abuse lately.” Thanks to the Altern Device.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” He still side-eyed me. “It’s classified. But while we’re talking about pasts, were you the crying Ranger or the barely boot camp grad?”
He cringed. I knew it had to have been something rough that landed him at TruGates. Was it the same thing that put Mara here?
“Sorry, you don’t have to answer that,” I said.
“No, it’s okay,” he said. “You’re one of us now, anyway. I’m a Ranger. Did some engineering and explosives before that. This test kicked my ass until I realized what it was about.”
Engineering. Lord, I had a type. But he and Trevor were so completely different. They could have been from different planets entirely.
Josh’s avoidance of the real question forced a frown. I wanted to know, but couldn’t tell if he wanted me to.
“Sounds more fun than my background,” I said. “Archaeology grad turned SeaSat5 lab rat who got recycled into the Army. And now here I am, still a civilian by some miracle of God.”
“Keep it that way. Sometimes joining up isn’t the best idea in the world.”
I glanced over at him. He kept his eyes pointedly on the road in front of us. Whatever he’d done or been a part of must have been dark. Terrible. “I don’t intend on enlisting. I see enough military action as it is, and even if I didn’t, I could never do that after what happened on SeaSatellite5.”
