by JL Bryan
A clear plan finally solidified in her mind, replacing vague thoughts about how she might change him from one kind of man into another. It was a plan that would take the rest of her life to complete. Knowing the future course of history, she also knew just where to throw up the critical roadblock, how to stop the megacorporations in their bid to seize direct control of the government of the United States through their chosen dictator.
I'm not returning to my own time, she realized as she watched Logan scale the cliff toward her. I have to stay permanently at his side. Until death do us part.
She took pictures of Logan climbing without a rope while his friends watched in fear.
When he reached the top, Raven helped him up over the edge, worried he might slip against the final smooth stretch of rock and fall to his death. He crawled up with her help, then turned and sat with his legs dangling over the long drop below.
"Why didn't you use a rope?" she asked.
"Ropes slow you down. I don't need one for a face like this. Not when I'm climbing toward a face like yours." He smiled, his live-wire green eyes seeming to glow. She raised her camera like a shield against his face.
"You're very sweet, aren't you?" she said, taking a picture.
"Sometimes," he said.
"And the other times?"
He shrugged. "Maybe you'll find out."
"Get up," Raven said. "I want pictures of you against the sky."
He stood and smiled with a thumbs up. She took the picture.
"Don't pose," she said. "Just walk around, be natural. Do whatever you would normally do here."
"So I should pee down the back of the cliff?" he asked.
"Sure." She kept taking pictures, enjoying the distance the camera gave her. She felt bold enough to pry into him a little.
"What do you want to do with your life?" she asked him. His smile was instant and radiant.
"The Vendée Globe," he said.
"The what?"
"The hardest sailing competition in the world. It only goes through the roughest waters of every ocean," he said. "They hold it just once every four years. I want to win that."
"Are you serious?"
"Why not? I'm pretty good. I need a lot more practice, though. We're talking about the ultimate race. You're out in parts of the world where there are literally no human beings for thousands of miles. Sailing solo. It's the ultimate danger, the biggest challenge, something most people would be too terrified to do. Think about it."
"Is that what interests you? The danger? The risk?" she asked.
"That's what it's all about! That huge risk, the one that sends the ordinary people away screaming. Taking that chance, pushing that boundary." He nodded. "That's it."
"Like...Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon?" she asked, thinking of her assassination book and Julius Caesar, stabbed to death by a gang of lawmakers on the Senate floor. "Taking control of Rome just because he could?"
"Sure, yeah, if you want to go all ancient Roman with it. You really get me, don't you?" He looked at her with what she hoped was deeper interest.
"I'm afraid I do," she said, and he laughed.
"This way. The grand tour of the peak. Oh, there's the other side already." He took her arm and escorted her to the far edge of the slab, out of sight of his friends on the ground. The girls yelled to Logan again, while the guys whistled.
"What about you?" he asked. "You don't talk about yourself enough. History, that's your thing? Then what?"
"Law school, I'm sure."
"Why?"
"I want to change the world," Raven said. "Make it a better place for everyone. Don't you?" She looked down a jagged drop to the broken rubble below.
"You're cute," he told her.
"So are you."
He touched his finger under her chin and turned her to face him. When he kissed her, she closed her eyes, feeling the cool wind ruffle her hair. His hands took her around the waist, and suddenly she felt she was floating away from herself, watching from a distance as Logan kissed this artificial person she'd created. This was the person she had to be from now on, she thought. She would give up her own life to save countless others.
The kiss lasted a long moment, and it was not as horrible a moment as she might have expected. It was tolerable. Even jackals and hyenas are cute when they're young, she thought. He finally pulled back and looked her in the eyes.
"I'm happy you came with us," he said quietly. "I've been thinking about you a lot."
"I'm happy, too." She leaned against his chest, listening to his heart and letting him embrace her. She looked down again at the long drop below her feet. After a quiet minute, she said, "I suppose the others are waiting for us."
"We can make them wait. I like being alone with you."
"We won't really be alone until we get rid of them, will we?" She looked up at him, and he grinned at her.
"I'll take care of it. Ethan and Chandler will want their turn to climb. Think you're ready to belay? I don't think they'll want those other girls for the job."
"I can do it." Raven took his hand as they walked back to the other edge of the slab and looked down at the four people below. All she had to do now was keep putting one foot in front of the other.
As she rappelled down the cliff, she did exactly that, jumping from one foot to the next, trying not to fall too fast or too far.
Chapter Eighteen
Raven and Logan let Chandler and Ethan have a turn climbing the slab, and then they moved on to the much higher, more treacherous main cliff. For that climb, Raven had to lay her own protection, setting temporary nuts to hold her rope against the cliff in case she fell. Logan climbed beside her, guiding her. At the top of the cliff, they kissed again to reward each other for the difficult ascent.
Macey did not attempt climbing again. She sulked on the boulder with Sophie and watched Raven and Logan scale away up the high cliff together.
Night had fallen by the time they dropped Raven off at home. Logan carried her camera bag upstairs for her, and she invited him inside. He nodded at the irregular walls and corners of the apartment, the sagging old timbers supporting the sloped ceiling, as though he agreed with the odd construction and shape of the apartment.
"This is an awesome house. I can see why you picked it," he said.
"It has some character," she said. "You can imagine a big fishing family living here a hundred years ago."
"Probably three generations in the house together," he said. "You can almost hear the grandparents shouting downstairs."
"They're arguing about fish again, aren't they?"
"You know Grandpa."
"I do," Raven said. She let him kiss her again.
"They're waiting for me in the car," he said. "I should go."
"The girls are probably scared of getting carjacked again."
"Fear builds character, my Uncle Henry says."
"Uncle Henry, huh?" Raven took his hands. "You...could stay, you know. If you like."
"You'll give me a ride?"
"My ride is the city bus. I'm sure they'll allow you onboard."
Logan smiled. He called Chandler's cell phone to say he would be staying at Raven's apartment. Raven tried to imagine the expression on Macey and Sophie's faces when they heard that news.
Raven played an old jazz record on Audra's vintage turntable, and soon she and Logan were nestled in her small bed under the low, sloping ceiling. She turned out the lights and let him take off her shirt, but she was determined not to let things go too far tonight.
He kissed her again and again, and she ran her hands over the muscles of his torso when he removed his shirt. She tried to tell herself that she wasn't enjoying it all, that she wasn't having even a basic animal response to his hard, warm body or his hands, strong but gentle as they loosened her bra and traced the bare curves of her breasts.
His touch was like fire on her skin. She wondered how long she'd been alone. She'd lived a life so dangerous that loneliness was practically encoded i
n her DNA--she was from a world where getting close meant getting hurt. Everyone died or disappeared.
She felt his fingers on her lower belly, then his thumb trying to unbutton her grimy, dusty jeans.
"No," she whispered. "Slower."
"I'm slow as a turtle." He moved her hands back above her waist, exploring her gently. His fingers stopped at a scar on her stomach. The light was still off, but now their eyes had adjusted to the moonlight trickling in through her window, and he could see how damaged her body really was.
"What happened?" he whispered.
"A lot of things." She began one of the stories she'd prepared. "Some of these scars are from when I was thirteen."
"Did somebody hurt you?"
"I stole my neighbor's motorcycle one night and crashed it pretty bad. I don't know why I didn't die."
"You were a juvenile delinquent. Nice."
"Were you?"
"One time I filled the headmaster's office with cockroaches," he said. "Don't ask where we got two thousand cockroaches."
"Sounds disgusting."
"Okay, so it's not as cool as stealing a motorcycle. Pretty fun, though."
"I bet it was." She traced a finger along his bare chest. "I feel like...I need to know what's inside you, Logan. Does that make sense?"
"Just my heart," he said.
"That's all?" She moved her hand so she could feel his strong, slow heartbeat through his pectoral muscles.
"Plus my lungs, liver, intestines...a bunch of blood and guts. Just like you." His hand caressed her side.
"Oh, good. For a minute, I thought you were being sweet again."
"Not me." He kissed her again. When he stopped, she turned over in the narrow bed, lying on her side with her back against him. His arm held her around the hips.
"This feels nice," she whispered. "Being here with you, alone."
"I was just thinking that, too."
"I could sleep for a week." She closed her eyes, trying not to draw too much comfort from his presence. He's evil, she reminded herself. Or he's going to be.
"I'll get sleepy eventually," he said.
"Stop bragging." Raven couldn't keep herself awake any longer. The day had left her entirely depleted. She drowsed in the arms of the man she'd intended to kill.
***
Drifting in the formless gray area between waking and sleeping, she encountered a new memory that made her shudder. She rode in the passenger seat of a hatch-front Oldsmobile driven by her father's friend, Colin Taggart, a professor of economics who often appeared on her father's news program. It was very late, long past midnight.
She was a small girl, nine years old, and her mind was empty of anything. She'd been terrified into a deep shock, and she was no longer speaking, thinking, or feeling, just absorbing.
"...never expected them to move so fast," Taggart was saying. "I was supposed to take you and your mother to a safehouse tonight...we thought we had more time." His hair and beard were darker, and his body younger and stronger, than when he would visit her ten years later, recruiting her as a trusted foot soldier for a desperate attack on a secret time-travel lab.
Taggart looked grief-stricken as he drove, gritting his teeth as he fought to hold back his tears. He wore a dove-gray suit and dark tie, all of it rumpled as though he'd slept in it.
"You'll be safe," Taggart said quietly. He repeated himself a few times, as though he needed to speak but didn't know what to say. "You'll be fine. You'll be safe."
She could only stare at him. When he looked her in the eyes, he finally let his tears come.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry." He took her small hand in his for a moment.
She was unable to speak.
He drove south, along a highway that wound like a river through vast forests, all the way to Portland, where he brought her to the unlighted back porch of a large, ramshackle house in what looked like a very poor neighborhood. It was still hours before dawn.
The woman who opened the door was middle-aged. She smiled sleepily at the small girl on her doorstep, then cast a questioning look at Taggart. Taggart whispered in her ear, and her expression turned from warm to horrified.
"Come in," she said, looking up and down the narrow alley behind her house. "Hurry."
She led them into a large kitchen with a brick chimney and warped wooden floors, where she dimmed the lights and closed the blinds at the window. She knelt to look the nine-year-old in the eyes.
"What's your name?" she asked, but she only received a blank stare in response.
"Rhea doesn't feel like talking right now," Taggart said.
"Rhea, that's a pretty name. The mother of the gods. My name is Maggie, and this is my home. You're going to stay with us just a while. Do you want some hot chocolate?"
Rhea didn't speak or make any expression, but the woman began boiling water in a chipped red teapot.
"You'll be safe here," Taggart told the little girl, whose name in the dream was Rhea instead of Raven. Her real name. He took both her hands and looked into her eyes, but she was unresponsive. "I wish I could stay longer, but you'll be safer once I'm away. I'm sorry, Rhea."
She looked right through him. She could feel the numbing wall of her shock beginning to crumble, and she could sense the terror and unbearable pain waiting to engulf her. She pushed back, refusing to let herself think.
"This is all I have." He emptied the cash from his wallet and pressed it into her hand. "Be careful with it. I don't know whether I'll be able to send more."
She stared blankly at the money in her hand until he instructed her to put it in her pocket. She did this automatically, without thinking. If she thought about why he was giving her money, she would be forced to face the reason she was here, instead of sleeping safe in her bed at home.
Taggart hugged her, but she just stiffened. She didn't look at him as he left.
The lady called Maggie gave her hot chocolate and tried to talk to her, but she refused to speak or to drink. Eventually, Maggie asked whether she wanted to go to bed, and Rhea nodded. She wasn't sleepy, but she was ready for the strange lady to stop talking to her.
The strange lady took her upstairs to an attic room with a low ceiling. There was no bed, but there were a few heaps of blankets and pillows on the floor. Two piles were unoccupied.
On the third pile, which had been pushed into a back corner, a freckled girl slept alone, her body curled up as though she were being attacked. She clutched a plush rabbit with a plaid hat and matching overalls. Small brass buckles adorned its hat, clothes, and boots.
"I'm sorry for all that's happened to you," Maggie whispered. "This is the safest room in the house. I can hide the door behind a bookshelf. You're going to be safe here tonight, I can promise you that."
Rhea didn't say anything, but she sat on one of the heaps of blankets. Maggie placed a suitcase beside her. It was her own little suitcase, pink with little hearts on the wheels, that she'd picked out herself before their family trip to France two years earlier. There would be no more family trips, she understood, but she refused to think about why.
The lady finally left her alone, and she sat in the dim room, lit only by a Hello Kitty night light in the wall. She pulled her knees to her chest and tried not to think.
After a minute, she heard a rustling. The freckled girl was sitting up and looking at her. This made her feel uncomfortable, so she turned away and stared at the glowing Hello Kitty.
The wooden floorboards creaked. The girl crawled toward her, watching her cautiously, and held out the stuffed rabbit.
"Mr. Buckles wants to say hi," the freckled girl whispered.
Rhea stared at the rabbit, then slowly raised one hand and opened it in a wave.
"You can hug him if you want," the girl whispered, pushing the rabbit closer. Rhea hesitated before accepting the rabbit into her arms. She hugged it tight to her chest.
The girl looked at her quietly for a minute, then whispered, "They took my parents. Did they take yours,
too?"
Rhea gave her a slow nod. Her entire body trembled as the horror began to rise inside her. There was no way to escape it now.
"My name is Kari," the girl said. "Who are you?"
"Rhea," she whispered. It was the first time she'd spoken all night.
Chapter Nineteen
Before sunrise, Raven awoke to a slight movement in the bed. Logan was sitting on the edge of the mattress, tying his shoes.
"Why don't you come back to bed? It's too early," she whispered.
"I've already slept."
"It's not healthy to sleep just four hours a night, Logan. People go insane if they don't get enough sleep."
"Go back to sleep, then. I don't want you turning crazy on me." Logan started for the bedroom door.
"That's not the bathroom," she told him. "That's the way out."
"Yeah, busy day ahead. It sucks." Logan didn't look particularly troubled. "I'm sure you've got tons of stuff to do, too."
"Oh, yep. Tons. You're seriously leaving?" She rose up on her elbows.
"I'll call you." He came back to kiss her, but it was clearly an afterthought. "You're a great climber."
"You'll catch up to me eventually, if you practice," she replied, and he laughed before leaving. She slumped back into her bed when she heard the soft click of the front door, feeling discouraged.
He'd left early. She wondered what she'd done wrong. Maybe he was bored with her already. Either she'd done too much by inviting him over so fast, or she'd done too little for him in bed, she thought. Perhaps it was none of the above, but she thought his interest might be sliding already. He had lots of girls around him all the time, and the strange girl with the scars and burns on her body might not be his top choice. I'm not exactly Grade A meat, she thought.
She spent the day studying her future information about Logan, trying to understand him better. She needed to devise a way to make him like her more.
She watched an event that was recent in her own history, in 2063, after Logan had been Secretary-General for fourteen years. His birthday celebration had caused a minor public outrage, and not only for its extravagance during a time of war and poverty.
