Redux (The Variant Series, #3)

by Jena Leigh

  Realization dawned.

  “O’Connell!” he said, his tone accusing. “You’re that stock boy’s sister, aren’t you?”

  The man’s face went a bit gray in the low light.

  Annnd cue realization number two, thought Brian, amused.

  He turned his attention back to Brian. “So that would make you…” Jesse dropped his hand. “You’re John Grayson’s boy.”

  Kenzie let out a breath that was mostly a groan.

  She was afraid Jesse was going to rat them out.

  She needn’t worry. Judging from the deer in the headlights look on Jesse’s face right now, telling the Grayson patriarch about this little incident was roughly the last thing on the planet that he wanted to do.

  Instead, Jesse walked to the front entrance of the bar, unlocked the deadbolt and yanked the door open. A blast of cold air worked its way into the room.

  “Go home,” he said, holding the door for them. “Now.”

  Kenzie seemed surprised by Jesse’s reaction, but recovered herself quickly. “You heard the man, Brian. It’s time to go.”

  She snagged Brian by the elbow and shuffled him quickly out and into the night.

  “If I ever catch you in here again,” Jesse called after them, “I’m calling the cops.”

  With that, he slammed the door shut and the deadbolt slid home.

  Kenzie stomped off in the direction of Declan’s parked motorcycle.

  Brian surveyed the woods one last time, running a finger over the smooth surface of the billiard ball in his pocket. He hadn’t found the future version of Declan tonight, like he’d hoped he would, but he still knew more now than he had earlier.

  Declan had arrived safely.

  And he’d left in the company of his friend, Trent Marsden.

  “Hey, Red?” Brian called, making his way slowly toward the bike.

  “What, Brian?” Kenzie yanked her helmet off the handlebar where she’d hung it earlier, and slipped it over her head.

  “Can I see your cell phone for a sec?”

  “No.”

  “Red, please—”

  “No. And don’t think that pouting, calling me by my nickname, and batting those big blue eyes of yours at me is going to… to…” She growled in frustration and unzipped the outer pocket of her North Face jacket, fishing the purple case of her cell phone from its depths. “You have absolutely no idea how much you owe me right now. We’re talking months of chores and early morning coffee deliveries.”

  She handed him the phone and he turned it on, opening up a web browser.

  “And just who the crap are you going to call at two forty-five in the freaking morning, anyway?”

  Brian didn’t answer.

  A white pages search for Trent Marsden’s residing in their zip code brought up only one result.

  He pressed the blue telephone link and the cell began to dial.

  After a few rings, a man’s voice answered with a gruff, barely understandable, “Thehelldoyouwant?”

  “Sorry for the late night call, but can I speak to Trent, please? It’s an emergency.”

  That earned him an odd look from Kenzie. He turned his back to her and walked a few paces toward the woods as he waited for a reply.

  There came the sound of shuffling and a labored grunt as the man got to his feet and, presumably, went to find his roommate.

  Nearly thirty seconds passed before Brian heard the man clear his throat.

  “He ain’t here.”

  The line went dead as the call was cut off. Brian walked back toward the bike, retrieving his helmet from the seat, and handed the phone back to his sister.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Well, what?”

  “Are you ever going to tell me what all this was about?”

  Brian slid the helmet over his head and climbed onto the back of the bike as Kenzie started it up.

  “Someday,” he called over the Ducati’s throaty rumble. “Someday I’ll explain all of it. I promise.”

  She might have sighed, but all Brian could make out was the slow movement of her jet black helmet as Kenzie shook her head, revved the bike’s engine, and pulled out of the gravel lot.

  In three hours, he would have a second call to make. One that he’d been waiting almost two months to place.

  The rush of icy air against his face was bracing and helpful in fighting off the exhaustion that threatened to overtake him.

  There’d be no rest for Brian for a long while, now.

  With the arrival of Declan and Alex, all of the pieces were finally on the board.

  And this game was only just beginning.

  “I’m not sure which of us is more deserving of the lobotomy, here,” said Trent, sawing into a plate of bacon and eggs that had long since gone cold in front of him. “You, with this crazy ass story of time travel and an impossibly powerful girl… or me for wanting to believe it.”

  Declan drummed his fingers on the tabletop, staring out into the fog that had engulfed the world outside the 24-hour roadside diner where he’d teleported them.

  Rosie’s Diner was a little hole-in-the-wall joint on the side of the highway, roughly halfway between Grayson’s cabin and the Corner Pocket. One that Declan had passed a million times growing up, but never visited prior to tonight.

  A place where he was almost certain to avoid his former self—and any other member of the Grayson clan who might have found reason to be out and about on such a frigid fall night.

  Declan wasn’t sure what would happen were he to meet his younger self in the flesh, but he wasn’t about to tempt fate by trying it out. He’d watched enough late night sci-fi to know that universe-ending paradoxes were probably something he was going to want to avoid.

  Trent shoveled a forkful of runny eggs into his mouth and mumbled something that sounded like, “Either way, we’ll probably both end up getting fitted for straitjackets.”

  The diner was mostly empty, but Declan’s alert gaze conducted another sweep of the room anyway, just to ensure that no one would be able to make out their conversation over the sounds of East Bound and Down blaring from the jukebox behind them.

  They were fine, for now.

  The only other patron was an exhausted trucker seated at the bar on the other side of the diner, guzzling coffee and fighting off sleep. Through the pass through behind the counter, he could just make out their waitress eagerly chatting up a bored looking man in a white apron who stood scraping the greasy remains of the night’s entrees from his cooktop.

  “So I really go missing tonight, huh?”

  Declan returned his attention to the twenty-two year old sitting across from him. The question was oddly void of emotion. Trent was miles away, staring into his glass of water as though it held all the answers to the questions he hadn’t thought to ask yet.

  “Yeah,” said Declan. “You really do.”

  Trent frowned and took a drink.

  “You’re sure there’s no one that you might have pissed off?” asked Declan, for what felt like the millionth time.

  Setting down the water again, Trent huffed in amusement. “Honestly, Decks. You want me to make you a list? I work in a bar full of drunken idiots every night. Like I told you. I piss off new people daily.”

  Declan shook his head. “This is serious, Trent. Is there anyone you can think of? Anyone you owe money to? Anyone with a serious grudge?”

  “No,” said Trent. “I mean, Christ, man, I ain’t a saint, but I’m not a freaking moron, either. I’ve never been desperate enough to get in deep with the wrong kind of people, and I can’t think of a single person who’d be mad enough to kill me.”

  Trent tossed his napkin back on the table and shifted in the booth, stretching his long legs out across the seat and positioning his back to the window. He leaned his head back against the glass and stared up at the diner’s ceiling.

  “There’s Tori, I guess,” he said, scrutinizing the faded white tiles above their heads. “I mean, she did go a littl
e nuts after we split. Broke into my apartment and trashed some of my stuff. Sliced the tires on my car.”

  Declan raised an eyebrow.

  “But that was almost six months ago,” said Trent, dismissing the possibility. “And in her defense, we only broke up ‘cuz I slept with her sister.”

  Typical Trent.

  He sighed. It just didn’t make any sense.

  When Trent had gone missing, their boss, Benji, had been absolutely certain that foul play was involved. It had always been his belief that Trent had fallen in with the wrong sort of crowd and then paid the price for it.

  They’d never found his body, but then, they never found him alive again, either. The cops closed the investigation barely a week later, when the last of their meager leads ran dry.

  “Back when you first disappeared,” said Declan, “Benji had us all convinced that you’d been ganked by some low life. The old man made it sound like he’d seen you hanging around with the kind of guys that would just as soon slit your throat as look at you.”

  Trent didn’t answer, just stared back at Declan with a wrinkled brow. He drew up a knee and draped his arm over it, eyes glazing over as he searched his memory.

  Behind them, the jukebox began playing Separate Ways and Trent barked out a laugh loud enough to make the half-comatose trucker seated at the counter across the room start, spilling his coffee. The man sent Declan a dirty look.

  “Woodrow?” Another laugh. “If Woodrow is Benji’s idea of a gang-banger, then the old man really needs to get off the mountain more often.”

  “Hang on. Who’s Woodrow?”

  “He’s an old friend of mine from back in Cali.” Trent explained. “Has a bunch of family here in New York. A couple months back, he flew out to the East Coast and spent a week with his brother and some of his friends camping here in the Adirondacks. They got drunk as hell at the Corner Pocket and crashed in my living room for a night, before heading out to their campsite the next day. Actually, Decks,” Trent grinned. “You met him.”

  “I did?”

  Trent nodded. “Big guy. Black. Covered in tats.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Declan, “Woodrow… wasn’t that the guy who spent like, an hour giving me all those workout tips while he kicked everyone’s ass at pool? The personal trainer?”

  “Yeah. That’s him.”

  At over six feet tall, with a voice deeper than the rumble of a rock slide, more muscle than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and the same undying love for ink as Trent, Woodrow definitely cut an imposing figure.

  He could almost see how Benji had mistaken Woodrow and his friends for something more sinister.

  Had Benji actually spoken to the man, however, it quickly would have become obvious that Woodrow wouldn’t hurt a fly. The guy didn’t have a mean bone anywhere in his obsessively maintained body.

  “You know,” Trent began. “Ever since you explained who you were… that you weren’t from, you know, now… it’s got me thinking.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Trent turned his head to face Declan. “I’m thinking maybe I don’t actually die tonight.”

  “What?”

  “I’m thinking that maybe I leave with you instead,” he said. “That maybe I just skip town and help you find this girl of yours.”

  Declan ruminated over the possibility. What if Trent did leave with him tonight?

  The thought had already occurred to him, but he had been hesitant to give it any credence. If Trent left with Declan tonight, then maybe he was always meant to leave with Declan tonight. Maybe he was never meant to die after all.

  The line of thinking made his head swim—and it worried him.

  Because if Trent left with Declan tonight, then Alex’s hope of altering the past in an effort to bring about a better future could prove to be nothing more than a pipe dream.

  It might mean that time, as a whole, was fixed.

  That it couldn’t be changed.

  That everything they did here in the past had already happened before. That no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn’t be able to alter their future.

  “Well?” asked Trent. When Declan didn’t reply, he sighed. “Look, man. I see this as playing out one of two ways. I can stay here tonight and end up deader than disco, or I can put this town in my rearview and take my chances on the road. Either way, I’m a ghost.”

  Trent punctuated his last sentence by waggling his fingers through the air above the table… and then summoned a Variant ability that caused his entire right arm to disappear with only a subtle ripple in the air between them.

  The guy was a ghost, alright.

  Declan rubbed his forehead and grimaced at his friend’s lousy pun. “Alright, Trent.”

  “Alright?”

  “Yeah. We’ll leave New York together… just as soon as I finish my coffee.” Declan frowned. “Something tells me I won’t be getting much sleep until we find her.”

  Nine

  Sleep was proving impossible.

  Alex shifted on the narrow couch, rolling onto her side as she pulled the quilt closer to her chin. The microwave display glowed bright in the darkness of the loft’s tiny kitchen. It read 1:58.

  How could she rest, knowing that Declan might be out there somewhere? What if he was injured? What if he needed her help?

  She’d asked as much of Aiden and Nathaniel earlier as she’d forced down the pressed turkey sandwich and cup of soup Nate had brought back from a nearby restaurant.

  The discussion that followed had left her disheartened and exceedingly frustrated.

  What could they do?

  The answer, unfortunately, was not much.

  Without knowing where Declan might have appeared, finding him would be like hunting for a needle in a hay stack the size of Texas—a needle that might not even yet exist in this time.

  After that realization, Alex had sipped quietly at her cup of tomato soup and begun brainstorming ways Declan might try to find her. If he was here, now, he’d almost certainly be looking for her as well.

  Where would Declan go, if he wanted to find Alex?

  Alex’s home in Bay View? The cabin in New York? The breezy fields of the O’Connell’s former home in Kilkenny?

  She didn’t know.

  She couldn’t stake out all of those places simultaneously.

  She’d thought about traveling to London, about hunting down Ozzie’s apartment outpost and enlisting the bespectacled recluse to help her locate the missing O’Connell.

  The trouble with that plan wasn’t just the fact that she’d need a plane ticket and a forged passport to get there, but that she also had no clue where in the city Ozzie’s apartment was located.

  Without her jumping ability, finding Oz could prove just as complicated a task as finding Declan.

  And besides, what would meeting the tech guru now do to their timeline? She was all for changing things if she thought it would somehow benefit them in the future, but she wasn’t sure meeting Ozzie a couple years early would do anything but complicate matters.

  No.

  When it came to finding Declan, they’d be on their own.

  The soft sounds of Nathaniel’s breathing drifted toward her from his makeshift pallet on the floor a few feet from the couch, his exhalations slow and rhythmic.

  Aiden’s apartment here in Seattle was only a one-bedroom unit. When the time came to sleep, Nate had grudgingly offered Alex the couch, choosing to sprawl out on the rock hard floor instead of waking with a kink in his neck from a night spent in Aiden’s equally uncomfortable recliner—the only other usable piece of furniture in the room.

  Apparently, Nathaniel had planned to find his own place here in Seattle upon completing their job aboard the Misty Rose, but that plan was on hold now that their pay day had been compromised.

  A situation Alex was feeling increasingly guilty about.

  Across the room, a pinprick of light caught her eye.

  Sitting on the edge of Aiden’s entertainment ce
nter, a soft white light pulsed slowly in the dark. Alex stared at the tiny light for a long moment before realizing what it actually was: the glowing status light of a closed laptop.

  That gave her an idea.

  Slipping out from beneath her quilt, Alex padded silently across the hardwood floor, tightening the drawstring of the too-large sweatpants she’d borrowed from Aiden. The rolled cuff at her right ankle had come undone with all her tossing and turning and she was careful not to trip as she made her way around Nathaniel and toward the other side of the room.

  Picking up the laptop, Alex moved as far from Nathaniel’s sleeping form as she could manage, depositing herself cross-legged on the floor beside the sliding glass door.

  As she opened the laptop, light flooded her corner of the living room. Alex shot a worried glance back at Nathaniel.

  He hadn’t moved.

  Good sign.

  Returning her attentions to the laptop, she breathed a silent thank-you at her good fortune—the computer wasn’t password protected. She’d be able to use it.

  Opening up a web browser, Alex did a keyword search for the phrase “red lightning.”

  Overwhelmed by a number of unrelated sites about sports and a similarly named rock band, Alex limited the search results to only news articles.

  She sighed.

  Her search had garnered seemingly thousands of football and hockey related articles, but nothing at all about weather anomalies. She’d need to find a better keyword to search for if she hoped to find anything.

  Three more search attempts returned millions more unrelated articles.

  If Declan had arrived in a storm filled with red lightning, it obviously hadn’t made the news.

  She was about to call it quits and return to her bed on the couch when a sharp sound cut through the silence, causing Alex to jump. In the middle of the screen, a gray VidChat request had appeared, displaying a green phone to accept the incoming call and a red phone to decline.

  Startled, Alex hurried to locate the sound controls and silence the nerve-jangling trill of the ringing phone.

  After disabling the laptop speakers, Alex cast a quick glance to where Nathaniel had been sleeping soundly across from her. His face was still lost to the shadows, but from the looks of things he hadn’t moved.