The Rewind Series Boxset

by Jill Cooper

  Curse them. Curse all of them.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath and hear the curtain draw back from the clink—tink noise of the curtain ties at the top of the rod. Soft footsteps interrupt my swirl of dizziness and my eyes snap open.

  The face is fuzzy at first, but I see a white nurse’s uniform framed with brown curls that resemble mine. It makes me think of Mom and my heart aches.

  I turn my head and mumble, “Go away,” and close my eyes. My legs shift as she touches my arm, but I stop short of pushing her off.

  “It’s okay, Lara. Just remain calm.”

  But I don’t want to remain—my eyes snap open and my head lurches up. “Mom? Mom!”

  Her eyes don’t register any sort of recognition. She just places a hand on my chest and pushes me down. “Careful, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

  My heart pounds inside my chest and I can’t catch my breath. “Mom?” I wheeze out and yank forward, and something yanks at my skull like I am tethered to the wall. I reach up and feel a cord running from the USB jack at the base of my skull. I am tethered; I am still plugged into whatever system they have planned for me.

  “Help me,” I beg, tears in my eyes.

  All around me the machines start to go off. Mom strokes my head, but she doesn’t look like Mom at all. She looks like a mindless drone. Why is she doing this? Why won’t she help me?

  Over her shoulder she calls out to someone. “Her blood pressure is dangerously high. She’s going to start seizing again.”

  Someone steps from behind her as my vision begins to dampen. Rex smiles at me cruelly and puts a hand on Mom’s shoulder like he owns her. “Give her something then, dear Miranda. We can’t have the subject uncomfortable, can we?”

  My eyes close. I can’t keep them open any longer. “You bastard,” I whisper and feel the cold, hard needle slip beneath my skin.

  ***

  Time passes but I am unaware of how much, just that suddenly I am conscious again. Though I’m not fully awake, I am able to think and able to remember.

  Remember.

  The pain of the last events hit me hard. I’m thirsty and my head aches with a dull pain, but it’s certainly hurt worse. Still, I don’t want to ask for water or see if someone can help me, not if it means opening my eyes to see my mother no longer cares about me, that all Mom wants is to complete her experiment even if I am the lab rat.

  But none of that makes sense. I haven’t known my mom long, but I’ve known her long enough to know she loves me. So why would she do this? Maybe she is under duress. Maybe she is doing it all to save Molly too, just like I am.

  My mouth is so dry I can’t help but moan and shift in my bed. When I do so, the pain is much worse. My eyes pop open and they are dry like sandpaper. The ceiling above me is white and my fingers stretch, looking for the nurse call unit. The cool plastic is between my fingers and I trace the outline of the button before I push it.

  It isn’t long before the patter of soft feet come into the room. “You’re awake,” she whispers and I know the voice. I know it’s Mom.

  “Water?” I croak out.

  “Just a second.” She hurries off to the sink and I listen to the thap of the cupboard as she gets a cup, the whizz of streaming water in the sink. Once it’s filled, her hand cushions under my head to help me sit up high enough to sip through the straw.

  All the while I study her face, looking for signs of stress. I look for signs she is upset, just like I am, but I can’t find any. Her face is neutral. It’s not happy, but it’s not sad either.

  “Thanks.” I lay back down and she inclines my bed to make me more comfortable. She tucks her hair behind her ears just like I’ve watched her do a dozen times, but she’s so calm. I can’t believe the woman who cried at my hospital bed last year could be acting like this now. “Don’t you remember me?”

  She picks up the clipboard at the front of my bed and flips through the pages. “I remember you from last week, if that’s what you mean.” Mom scribbles some notes on the pages.

  Last week? I’m losing so much time. I’m growing up in this damn prison even if my prison now is a hospital bed.

  “But nothing before that?”

  Mom glances up at me and our eyes lock. Slowly she shakes her head. “Should I?”

  The words are so callous my eyes fill with tears. “How can you say that to me? How?” I whisper.

  Nothing changes on her face. Nothing. She squeezes my foot. “I need to alert Mr. Montgomery of your condition. I’ll be right back.” Mom moves to leave the room and sweeps the hair off the back of her neck. That’s when I see it. That’s when I know what’s going on.

  A USB port just like mine. She’s been plugged into the system. And my guess is they have deleted Mom’s memories. She doesn’t remember me at all.

  I grip the sheets in anger and toss my head to the side. The pain in my chest isn’t just emotional, it’s physical. My ribs ache like they are going to crack and the machine around me beeps in a fast heartbeat. I feel like I’m on the verge of a heart attack.

  My own mother has no memory of me. Somehow they’ve removed them all.

  And for what? For what?

  “I told you I’d explain if you gave me half a minute,” Rex says from the foot of my bed.

  “You.” I huff and twist my wrists. If I wasn’t strapped down to this bed, I would strangle him. “Are you trying to torture me, sending my mother in here?”

  “Truthfully? Yes.” Rex moves closer and sits down in a seat. “We needed a top scientist to complete the system, someone who knows it inside and out. Miranda was our only option, but through the first six months she was uncooperative. She refused to help us read the data. We had no choice.”

  My eyebrows raise. “You could let us go!”

  Rex laughs. “Oh, darling Lara. Don’t you know me well enough now to know I will never let you go? Miranda will study you, take care of you, and in the end our system will be functional. It won’t be long now. We have several test subjects who will prove whether we have been successful.

  I don’t trust it and I can’t believe it. I roll my head to the side. Test subjects? I don’t even want to think on who they could be.

  “If successful, we will have little use for you if you continue to prove so difficult. Think on that, Lara, for the next time I come to you with a request.”

  Rex stands up to leave the room. I glower at the back of his head. My eyes narrow and I think of time traveling straight out of there. The room warbles around and my head pierces with so much pain that I expel a breath. My head rolls back as the pain punches in stronger. Faster with each punch.

  His head smirks at me over his shoulder. “We know you well enough, Lara. We knew you’d try. We made sure you wouldn’t be able to. You’re on time travel lockdown until further notice. Until you become … trustworthy.”

  His heels click as he leaves the room, but I don’t look. I don’t cry. All I do is stare up at the ceiling and sink deeper into my hole, deeper into despair.

  No one will ever find me.

  There’s no way out.

  I don’t have a future. This is my future.

  And my new warden is my mother.

  Chapter Eight

  Everything I’ve tried failed.

  Everything I’ve done hasn’t panned out.

  Now I’m not sure what I am left with, but I am getting stronger. Mom takes me for walks and pushes me through the hall in a wheelchair. I can walk, a little, but not enough to go outside or get some sunshine.

  I’m allowed in the courtyard and the sight of the birds, the blooming blue and white flowers, stills my soul. It’s the only thing that can anymore. Sitting in the shifting breeze, I stare up at the slowly gliding clouds above. Somehow there has to be a plan for me other than this. Somehow there has to be something better than being a prisoner.

  Somehow I can figure it out, but if I can’t travel in time that means leaving Mom, Molly, and poor deceased Donovan behind. Is tha
t something I can live with? Or can I find a way to do what Rex wants me to do so he will remove the shackles holding my brain hostage?

  Mom sits beside me on the white bench and unfolds the paper bag on her lap. As she works, the lab coat she wears shifts and I see the scars on her wrists. I suck in my breath as she hands me a blueberry muffin.

  “Those are your favorite, aren’t they?”

  I nod that they are. “How did you get those marks? On your wrists?”

  She glances down and rubs her wrist. “You know, I’m not sure. They were just always there.” Mom shrugs.

  I take a bite of my muffin and enjoy the buttery taste mixed with cinnamon and ripe blueberries. If it’s possible to taste color, I’m pretty sure I just did. It distracts me from my thoughts about Mom’s wrists. I’m sure she got those in captivity, fighting against the restraints.

  “Your wrists,” I say after I swallow, “look a lot like mine.” I push the sleeve of my pajama top up and show her the red bruising, the deep lacerations against my skin.

  Mom leans forward and, for a brief moment, strokes them with her fingers. “They do. How—how did you get them?”

  “From being a captive. From trying to get free.”

  Mom pushes up and it’s like I have lost her. She throws the paper bag into the nearby garbage can and takes control of my wheelchair. “That’s enough time for today.”

  My spirits deflate, but maybe some part of me reached her. Maybe some part of her knows the truth. It’s farfetched, but I have no choice to believe.

  I have to believe in something.

  ***

  Seasons change and I watch the orange leaves fall from the trees from my hospital room. I stand and my legs feel strong, like they are tough enough to take me anywhere, but I can’t go anywhere. My room is under lock and key.

  But it’s almost time to start the experiments up again. Rex is getting ready to plug me into the virtual world to keep me distracted, to manipulate me. The pain of all that is lesser than the one who walks through my door whenever she wants to.

  My door buzzes open and I turn to see Mom. She’s carrying my chart and a deck of cards. “I thought you could use some fun.”

  Fun. I don’t remember what fun is anymore.

  It’s hard to trust her when she’s always writing in my chart. Even when we are outside or she is bringing me food, Mom is studying me. Even if it’s just my behavior she is noting, I am nothing more than her experiment.

  But I sit down on my bed anyway and cross my legs. Mom deals the cards and I fan them out as she does so. We play several hands; I win a few and she wins a few.

  On my deal, Mom fidgets and I wonder what she’s going to say. I might be new to her, but she’s not new to me, at least not anymore. “When you first woke up last month, you asked me a question. If I knew you.”

  For a moment I pause and then I deal the last card. “I remember.”

  She leans forward. “I didn’t then, but lately I see your face wherever I go. Even when I dream at night, I swear, even though you’re younger, it’s you.”

  I put the cards down and go through the motions of arranging my hand. It feels like I can’t breathe with the desire to tell her so much who she is to me, but I can’t trust it yet. We aren’t close enough. Rex could be watching, listening. It’s too soon, I warn myself, but the desire is so strong it consumes me.

  “What do you think that means?” I can’t even look up at her.

  “I don’t know. But I feel like you do.”

  I pause. “I’m not sure how I could know. How could I know?”

  She shrugs. “That’s the crazy thing. I don’t know, but I just know.”

  Have you told anyone else about that? Your husband? Family?”

  Mom frowns. “I don’t have a family. Or a husband. Still single after all these years.” Her face is haunted and her thumb strokes her ring finger as if to spin a ring that isn’t there. A muscle memory. If the memory exists somewhere in there, maybe I can access it. Maybe I can trigger a rebuild of her mind.

  Is it possible, or will Mom stay this stripped down version of who she is, where all she has is science?

  There’s only one way to find out. It’s been months since I’ve had a goal, a new plan, and finally I have one.

  “Do you live close to this research lab?” I try to keep the expectations out of my voice as I rearrange my cards.

  Mom throws a card down and picks up another. “I live here. My work is my life. Is that … weird?”

  I lean forward. “Do you remember ever living anywhere else?”

  Her face is thoughtful and then confused. “No. I remember the science. I remember games, but no environments. I don’t even remember how I got here. How … how is that possible?”

  I move to speak, but she grabs my wrist and her hands are ice cold. “Wait,” Mom says. “I remember a small apartment, with brown paneling. It’s cluttered and … there’s the smell of macaroni and cheese.”

  That’s where I grew up. That is the apartment we shared once with Dad, before she was killed. Before Dad is framed for murder in this timeline. There’s a crack in Rex’s system. I need time to exploit it.

  “Tell Rex I’m ready to cooperate. Tell him I’m ready to go back into the virtual reality world so he can study my brain. I won’t try anything. I promise.” I squeeze Mom’s hand.

  And she squeezes mine back.

  “I’ll be with you every step of the way,” Mom says. “I’ll be the one monitoring you.”

  A tentative smile spreads across my face. “I’m counting on it.”

  ****

  Rex is a cocky SOB and I pray this will work to my advantage. He thinks he has me right where he wants me, and Mom too. He’s stripped her memories of me and everything that makes Mom, well Mom, from her mind. Rex is so arrogant he doesn’t doubt this system and lets us spend time together, not even fearing she will remember me on some level.

  But she does. Even if it’s just a small flicker.

  My job is to fan it into a flame.

  I have to pray against all rational hope and logic that there is a flaw in Rex’s memory extraction system and that I will be able to exploit it. If I can’t, well, game over.

  I slide down onto the bed and rest against the pillows. There’s no need to put me in my cage anymore because I can’t time travel so I’m still in the hospital room. Rex turns the machine on and Mom screws the cable into my brain. To say it’s less than pleasant is an understatement. My hands grip each other and I let out a pained gasp.

  “Sorry,” Rex says and backs away. “We are working on ways to make it less painful for you, Lara. Whatever you may think of me, I don’t want to see you harmed. That you must believe.”

  I believe it in the same way I know a jock doesn’t want his sports car ruined. Rex has never seen me as a person and he never will. I’m a means to an end.

  “When you pull me out next, I want to see these others Miranda talked about. The ones you’re unlocking time travel in, just like me.”

  “Why?” Rex’s eyes twinkle with curiosity.

  “I want to see what my brain has done. If they’re suffering, I need to see it.”

  “All right, Lara.” Rex pushes a button on the wall and my vision begins to spin. I close my eyes and moan, gripping my lips together tight.

  The pain comes hard and fast. The images directly download into my brain and I can’t control the swell of emotion in my chest.

  I’m in a church.

  Chapter Nine

  “You may now kiss the bride.”

  Applause erupts around us and Donovan, oh Donovan, lifts my veil. He’s in a fancy tux and it’s a day I’ve dreamt of from the moment he first kissed me—the day he first took my hand and professed his love even though we were far too young to know, to understand. The dream started that day.

  He kisses me and it is sweet and full of promise. The future is before us. My hand grips my bridal bouquet and my other touches his arm to make sure he’s still
real, to make sure he didn’t die in an alley alone while I was whisked off to my own prison. A place of torture and emotional torment; that is the prison I fear.

  But here it’s nothing more than a nightmare.

  Here I’m living the dream.

  I smile, my nose against his, and I can’t deny the happiness and love that spreads over me. Donovan kisses my cheek and we turn to the crowd to see everyone cheering for us. They’re happy, standing on their feet in a standing ovation that is reserved for rock stars—heroes. Donovan and I have weathered all of the problems we have faced. We’ve been to hell and back. Now it’s time to move forward.

  Mom and Jax sit in the front pews with Dad.

  Sweet little Mike is grinning in his ring bearing tux.

  And there’s Molly, my gorgeous little Molly, in a soft, flowing, lavender gown. My little flower girl is holding a woven basket of flower petals. I extend my hand and wiggle my fingers at her.

  She breaks out in a wide grin that shows off her one missing tooth and her adorable twinkling dimples. Molly rushes to me and I squeeze her close. Her smile is so wide I can’t help but stroke her soft cheeks. So innocent and full of such promise, I would do just about anything for that girl. For her face.

  Everything I do is for her.

  I’d risk it all.

  We walk down the aisle and I keep Molly close. She throws the petals down to cushion our steps. Donovan throws the double wide doors of the church open and sunlight streams inside. I gather up my wedding dress in my hands so we can walk down the front steps together. My lover, my husband, Donovan takes my fingers and kisses them delicately. “I love you.”

  I whisper the words back in return and stand with my back facing the crowd. Taking the bouquet in both hands I whip it over my head. The women behind me squeal and there’s the sound of rustling dresses as everyone rushes to intercept. When I glance over my shoulder, I see Mom is holding the slightly crumpled flowers.