by Megan Crane
‘Tommy dies, the Wild Boys become legendary, I collect,’ Richie said matter-of-factly. ‘Even a lunatic should be able to grasp that.’
‘Yeah, well, this lunatic is wondering what you’re going to do with his body,’ Jenna said, sounding as if she was discussing some random pleasantry. Like the weather, or her groceries, rather than his murdered corpse.
‘That’s a nice image,’ Tommy said. ‘I think I’d like to be cremated and thrown in the faces of my enemies, now that we’re discussing it.’
Jenna continued to ignore him. Richie, on the other hand, was staring at her.
‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.
‘You can’t plan to leave it in the street, can you?’ Jenna continued in that same brisk voice. As she talked, she eased the strap of the messenger bag from Tommy’s shoulder, and let it drop to the ground in front of them. Maybe she was getting ready to run? ‘And you’ll have to shoot me too, of course, which means you can’t claim it was his crazed stalker who did it. They’ll ask, you know. I mean, you can try to say it was me who shot him, but it will be your word against mine and I won’t be the one with gunpowder residue on my hands and five million dollars in debt. I’m just saying.’
Richie gaped at Jenna, then at Tommy.
‘I don’t know,’ Tommy said, and shrugged. ‘She’s always thinking. It’s her fatal flaw.’
‘I’ll figure it out later,’ Richie said, his voice grating. ‘Crazy bitch.’
‘Watch the way you talk to her,’ Tommy suggested. Without much heat – after all, the man was pointing a gun at him. Still, it was the thought that counted.
‘You’re about to be dead, Tommy,’ Richie sneered at him. ‘So you might want to give up on the hero crap.’
Richie raised the gun again, but as he did, Jenna exploded from her frozen position. She let out a noise Tommy had never heard, like a banshee howl, and she swung his bag with all her might at Richie’s head.
There was a loud BANG.
Tommy dove to the side, even as he heard a crash and the shattering of glass from the car behind him. He heard Richie shout something, and as he rolled over, he saw Jenna winding up with the bag again while Richie was sprawled over the hood of a nearby car, shaking his head in a daze – but with his attention fixed on Jenna.
It was time to take control of the situation.
Tommy lunged to his feet, and let Little Tommy Searcy out – the scrappy no-account trailer-park rat who had used his fists before he could walk. It had been a long time, but Tommy still knew what to do. Some things never left you.
He hauled Richie up by his collar and smacked the gun out of his hand. Then he socked him a good one, right in the face. Another punch in the gut, and a knee for good measure, and then he dropped Richie to the ground.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, holding out a hand to Jenna, who was crouched next to her stoop and panting, his bag clutched in her hands. Along the street and up above them, windows were lighting up. They had to move if they wanted to avoid being seen, and they had to move now.
Richie was already coming round.
Jenna grabbed Tommy’s hand, and let him propel her to her feet. She looked pale, but determined. A surge of feeling for her rolled through him, making him more emotional than he would ever admit.
He dropped a hard, fast kiss on her mouth, and then tugged her with him as he began to move.
Away from Richie. Away from that gunshot. Away – though he didn’t know where he was going.
‘I think he’s going to chase us,’ Tommy said as they rounded the corner. He cursed himself – he should have taken the gun, at the very least.
Up above, the sky split open. Lightning zigzagged across the night, and moments later, thunder boomed. Jenna stopped moving. Thinking the storm had frightened her, Tommy turned back to her – but she had her head tilted back and was staring up at the sky, and she didn’t look in the least afraid.
‘It’s okay,’ Jenna said, rain running down her face. She made no attempt to avoid it. ‘I have an idea.’
‘An idea?’ Tommy had a lot of ideas, and most of them involved getting as far away from Richie and New York City as possible. And fast. ‘Please tell me it’s something more substantial than Penobscot Bay.’
Jenna made a face. Up above, lightning crashed and illuminated her triumphant smile – though why she should feel triumphant at the moment, Tommy couldn’t begin to guess. It seemed to him that a bad situation had just gotten significantly and inarguably worse.
But then again, he was not a woman who supposedly leapt about through time, saving random singers along her way.
‘It’s okay,’ she said again, as if she knew what he was thinking and found him silly. She held out her hand. ‘I know exactly where we’re going.’
31
Everything made sense.
Finally.
Jenna didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her sooner, but she supposed that fleeing for her life down First Avenue was as good a time as any to realize that everything was wrapped in a bow. It was the pattern she’d been searching for this whole time, but she’d never thought to look for it in quite this way.
She and Tommy were keeping up a gruelling pace, running as fast as they could, trying to put distance between them and Richie. And they were running out of time.
‘I think I see him back there,’ Tommy grunted, looking over his shoulder. ‘Don’t stop!’
‘We have to get to my office,’ Jenna panted. Thunder rumbled up above. ‘Before midnight!’
Time travel. Tommy’s missing body. Her unnecessary overload of knowledge about what had happened on the night Tommy died. All of these things taken together added up to exactly one possible answer.
She had to get Tommy out of here.
Out of danger, and out of 1987. Lightning flashed across the sky, punctuating the thought.
Thunder crashed – as loud and as terrifying as a gunshot.
‘Watch out!’ Tommy yelled. ‘He’s gaining on us!’
Meaning … it had actually been a gunshot.
Jenna ducked around a hapless pedestrian, and pumped her arms for greater speed. Richie could not shoot them on the street, could he? Surely someone would notice that those sounds weren’t thunder – wouldn’t they?
A store window shattered beside them, and Jenna had to gulp back her scream of terror.
‘Run!’ Tommy shouted.
Like she needed encouragement – there was flying glass!
And besides, she’d finally figured it all out. They couldn’t die now.
She had to take Tommy back to Video TV, to that damned supply closet. They had to be there as the clock struck twelve, just like Cinderella, because that was when lightning struck the building. She remembered thinking about it the night she’d come back in time, and then, somehow, never again.
Lightning. It has to be the lightning. It knocked out the power and sent me here. It can send us both back. Why didn’t I think of this earlier?
She might not have thought of it at all if it hadn’t been for Tommy’s theory that the car was supposed to be empty. She ignored her screaming lungs and aching legs and kept moving. If Tommy hadn’t died, he’d either kept himself hidden away for twenty years, or something else had happened, and Jenna was the best something else she could think of.
It had to be the lightning.
‘Don’t lag behind!’ Tommy cried, and Jenna pumped her arms and legs harder, desperately tired and winded but afraid to stop. Afraid to look back.
Another loud crack. Richie? Or the storm?
Jenna kept hauling ass.
It was a matter of life and death and naturally there were no cabs anywhere. It was easier to travel through time than it was to find a taxi in a torrential downpour in New York City.
Some things never changed, no matter what year it was or how bad the storm might be.
‘Keep going, keep going,’ Tommy called, almost as if he was chanting.
Jenna tucked her chin down, ignored the stit
ch in her side and the lack of oxygen in her burning lungs, and kept running.
They made it to Video TV’s iconic building as the clock in Times Square announced that it was 11:55.
‘Do we have enough time?’ Tommy panted at her.
‘We have to move fast,’ Jenna managed to say, trying to force air into her lungs. She smiled at the security guard – desperately trying to look calm despite the fact she was both sopping wet and sweating from exertion – and headed for the bank of elevators.
Inside, they both slumped against the walls, pulling in gulps of air, but neither one of them spoke. Hell, they’d just run across Manhattan, dodging bullets all the way. Jenna, for one, was exhausted.
‘What’s the plan?’ Tommy asked softly. He raked his fingers through his wet hair, shoving it back from his face.
‘Time travel,’ Jenna said, and grinned a little bit at his expression. ‘Destiny.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Just trust me.’
‘You got it,’ Tommy said, and shook his head. ‘I am all about trust. Obviously.’
‘Let’s face it,’ Jenna said. ‘At this point, that’s pretty much all you’ve got.’
Tommy’s eyebrows arched up. ‘You said that,’ he pointed out. ‘Not me.’
Jenna was still grinning as they got off the elevator. She walked past the desk where Princess Diana Hair had sat and hated her, for reasons she had never discerned and had forgotten to wonder about. It was one more thing she intended to ask Aunt Jen about – one more thing on a long list. Then it was down the hall past her office – or, in 1987, Peter Hale’s office.
‘I still don’t know who Peter Hale is,’ she said, scowling.
‘I don’t care who Peter Hale is,’ Tommy retorted, shifting his weight from foot to foot and looking over his shoulder every few seconds.
He held his bag, which contained the only worldly possessions he’d planned to take with him. Jenna looked at him for a moment as she stood in front of her old office. He was the man she had always loved, and he was the man she’d fallen in love with – two different men in the same delectable package. He was wearing jeans and sneakers tonight, both of which would have to be discarded on the other side, so that he wasn’t mistaken for Ralph Macchio circa Karate Kid on the street. And that hair would have to be modernized, certainly. But that was cosmetic. The reality was, the man was beautiful. Outside, certainly, but inside, too.
And he was hers.
And she was really going to save him, the way she’d promised herself – and him – that she would.
Take that, fairy tales, she thought proudly. He’s the damsel in distress, not me!
The office was silent all around them. Maybe that was why they could both hear the elevator bell ding, announcing the arrival of a new car. Jenna felt her eyes widen, and forgot all about reassigning gender roles.
‘How could he know where we are?’ she hissed, panicked.
‘He probably watched the elevator go up and noticed where it stopped. It’s easy enough to do,’ Tommy said, his voice tense. ‘It’s time for your plan, Jenna. Like right now.’
Jenna lunged down the hall for the supply-closet door, which was, of course, locked tight.
‘Hurry,’ Tommy warned as she fumbled with her keys.
There was a shout from the end of the hallway. Richie.
‘He’s coming!’ Tommy cried out – unnecessarily, as Jenna could hear the thud of his feet against the royal blue carpeting.
Jenna pushed the door open with her hip, and tossed herself inside. Tommy crowded in behind her, making the space seem much smaller than she remembered. He slammed the door behind him.
‘I’m filled with trust,’ he said in that same low, tense voice, ‘but I can’t help noticing that this feels like a trap.’
‘Hush,’ Jenna commanded him. She remembered the scrape on her palm, the shattered glass. She pointed towards the ceiling. ‘Lift me up.’
Tommy complied, wrapping his arms around her waist and hoisting her into the air as a heavy fist connected with the door from the outside. Jenna winced, as if it was her body Richie was pummelling instead of an industrial office door that would, she fervently hoped, withstand it.
And then she took a deep breath, looked down, and kissed Tommy.
He kissed her back, and for a moment it was almost as if Richie’s hammering at the door was her heart, kicking up its usual fuss at the very thought of Tommy. She pulled away and leaned her forehead against his.
‘I’m about to change your life,’ she whispered. ‘And I don’t think you can ever change it back.’
‘I love you,’ Tommy whispered back, his green eyes clear. No misgivings. No doubts. ‘No matter what happens.’
‘I love you too,’ Jenna said, and then she reached up and smashed the light bulb with her hand.
* * *
Tommy almost dropped her, as shards of glass rained down on him, though the light remained on – only broken.
‘What the hell?’ Jenna yelped. ‘Why didn’t anything happen?’ Then, after a moment, ‘That hurt!’
Tommy was forced to divide his attention between Jenna and the door, which appeared to be buckling beneath Richie’s assault.
‘You broke the light bulb?’ he demanded, setting her on her feet – dropping her, really – and jumping to hold the door. It took all of his strength, and he could hear Richie ranting from the other side. ‘That’s your plan?’
‘Of course that’s not my plan,’ Jenna said, sounding like her teeth were clenched. She started climbing the metal shelves, hoisting herself up towards the remains of the light bulb with one foot braced against the opposite wall. She muttered something beneath her breath that sounded a whole lot like where’s the fucking lightning?
Which, of course, was completely insane. But that was par for the course.
‘You think you can hide?’ Richie shouted. ‘You think you can get away from me? This is your destiny, Tommy! This has to happen!’
‘Someone else might be tempted to point out that this kind of proves that you’re crazy,’ Tommy grunted at her as Richie’s attack intensified – the door was bending around the force of his blows, and Tommy doubted the hinges would hold much longer.
‘I am not crazy!’ Jenna yelled at him.
‘Then get something to hit him with, because this door won’t hold much longer!’ Tommy shouted back.
But she didn’t listen.
Like that was anything new.
And then it was too late, because the door bowed open and Richie shoved himself into the gap, his face red and furious.
‘Gotcha, asshole,’ he snarled at Tommy.
‘If you’re going to do something, do it now,’ Tommy threw at Jenna. But he was ready to fight. He’d been born ready to fight, and the fact he hadn’t done it in a long time before tonight didn’t bother him at all.
But he hadn’t counted on Jenna.
She was up above him, hanging off the metal shelf, and he heard her move before he saw her – before her clunky Doc Marten landed square in Richie’s face. Richie made a grunting sound, and then collapsed, hitting the floor on the other side of the door with a sickening sort of thud.
‘That was for Aunt Jen,’ Jenna said proudly. ‘So she doesn’t have to wake up with him in her face.’
‘What does your aunt have to do with anything?’ Tommy demanded.
But she ignored him. She was crouched above him like some kind of goddess – frowning, of course. Ferociously.
She grabbed him around the neck with one hand and he saw her punch out with the other one – out towards the light again – and he knew she was going to fall.
‘You’re falling!’ he yelled – or thought he yelled, but then everything got mixed up and he thought maybe he was falling—
Something buzzed in his ears like a wasps’ nest and something sizzled through him and he thought, is this a heart attack?
There was a loud noise, like a POP—
And he was falling aga
in, through something long and dark, and he couldn’t see anything or feel anything.
Jenna, he thought, panicked—
And then everything went black.
32
Once again, Jenna woke up to find herself on the floor of the supply closet.
Once again, her butt hurt.
But as she rubbed at her eyes and pushed herself into an awkward sitting position, she could feel another body tangled up with her own, and she knew there was at least one major difference this time around.
‘Tommy,’ she said, and shook his shoulder. She watched as his wonderful eyes opened, and then sharpened. He sat up slowly, and blinked a few times. He rubbed the back of his head with one hand.
‘Well,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’m not dead. So there’s that.’
‘Does your butt hurt?’ Jenna asked. She shrugged when he gazed at her. ‘I thought maybe it was a time-travel thing. Aching butt. No? That’s just me?’
‘Time travel might be real,’ Tommy said. ‘And I say might because all I’ve seen is this closet – not a single flying car—’
‘There are no flying cars.’ Jenna tried to look sympathetic. ‘The Jetsons lied. Sorry.’
‘—but that doesn’t mean you’re not crazy,’ Tommy continued. His eyes creased in the corners, the green in them gleaming.
‘Amusingly eccentric, you mean,’ Jenna said, wrinkling her nose at him. ‘I can live with that.’
But she didn’t move.
‘Did we really do it?’ Tommy asked quietly. ‘Can you tell?’
‘I don’t know.’ It crossed her mind that the supply closet could have thrown them anywhere – what made her think it would be the right year? For all she knew they’d just started their own personal Quantum Leap.
‘Only one way to find out,’ Tommy said.
He got to his feet, and helped Jenna get up. They both brushed shards of glass from their clothes – the shattered light bulb, presumably. Though once again, Jenna’s palm was only faintly scarred – not cut. Tommy slung his bag over his shoulder. Jenna squared her shoulders, and opened the door.
Outside, the carpet was grey with age. An excellent sign. Jenna’s pulse began to tap out a rapid beat. She walked the short distance down the hall towards her office, looked at the nameplate, and smiled.
