by Jill Cooper
I shake my head. “He has a different system. Based on someone else’s brain pattern. He as much as told me yesterday in the security booth.”
Marcus’s eyes can’t get any wider and his face flushes red. “Who? How?”
I can’t tell him that. Some secrets I just can’t give away.
Cameron nods as people applaud. I must’ve missed something he said. “Thank you. Thank you. Together with my wife, we’ll petition Congress. A slow process for sure, but the future for the TTPA is very bright. Stockholders, investors, we’re all going to make out very, very well.”
He can’t lay it on thicker if he tried.
He extends his hand to someone off stage and I wait to see who this wife is. A beautiful blond in a red dress smiles at him and takes his hand. Even before she gazes out at me, I know who she is. My heart pounds and my skin shivers.
The wagons are circling. I’m trapped, like an animal.
Cassidy presents her cheek to Cameron and he kisses it daintily. Well, how nice. How quaint.
***
She’s the answer. She’s the problem. The solution is easy, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to do what needs to be done. She needs to be stopped, but I remember such a different person. I remember when she had been my friend.
I can’t breathe and the ground rushes up to greet me. More than one person screams my name, but it’s Donovan who grabs my arm. “Lara!” he holds the back of my head as he lays me down, “Hang in there, Lara. Hang in there,” he touches my cheeks and growls to Marcus, “Get her some water.”
I blink. With each blink, the room changes. Florescent lights replace the chandeliers overhead. The regal ceiling is replaced with glass panes. Everyone in the room disappears. The colors flow together, flying and reforming in front of me.
Blinking one more time, I roll over and gaze out of a plexiglass wall.
I’m in a cage. I’m in that damn cage.
Chapter Fourteen
It can’t be real. I touch the plate of plexiglass with my fingers. Sure enough, it’s smooth and cold against my fingers.
I’ve gotten out before, I can get out again. I glance down at myself and see my party dress is gone. I’m dressed in white scrubs and matching sneakers. My limbs shake as I rise to my feet, but I can’t go far because the cable attached to the back of my neck keeps me tethered to a machine on the opposite side of the cage.
With a grunt, I grab it and try to pull it free, but pain assaults my brain and a flash of colors blurs my vision. I can’t get it out. I’m stuck.
“Oh, Lara. When will you ever learn….”
The voice jars me and I take a step back. It’s Rex with his deep, posh British accent. He’s back. The monster I had killed long ago. A light turns on outside of my cage and he’s standing in his fine-pressed suit, but it’s not Rex at all.
It’s Cameron, but his smile is as smug as it’s ever been. No one may have believed me when I’d said they are the same person, but I had known and now I’m vindicated.
Cameron steps forward and puts his hand on the glass. “Dear Lara, it’s such a pleasure to have you back where you belong.”
My insides heave with so much anger; I’m not sure where to direct it. “How’d you change your face?”
Cameron waves his finger back and forth. “A magician never reveals his secrets. Let’s just say, there are infinite choices when you have an infinite amount of timelines at your disposal. New technologies. New surgeries on a micro level. I was able to…cultivate what I wanted from each place. The future is as miraculous as one can imagine.”
Cameron paces in front of the cage but never takes his eyes off me. “And then I went back in time. As far back as I could, to leave a trail for Cameron Kincaid to pick up. Money. Power. Everything I learned in the future, I used to amass wealth,” he grins at me, “And sell to your boyfriend. A willing, but an ignorant pawn.”
He won’t get away with this. I will stop him. I will find a way.
“I must confess; I was surprised at how fast you were onto Cameron. Onto me. It was genius though, wasn’t it? The look on your face when you first heard my voice at that initial meeting,” Cameron steps forward and puts his hand on the glass, “Perfection.”
Full of himself as usual. “How did you travel in time? You’ve never been able to travel in time. I killed you.”
Cameron shrugs as if it doesn’t matter. “There were a hundred different timelines. Different choices. Different reactions. There were timelines in which you still live in a cage.”
I refuse to believe it. “I closed the timelines. I looped them all back into one.”
“To stop Xavier Daniels?” Cameron’s eyebrows rise at the look of shock on my face. How could he know that? “Ahh…from here I can watch everything. I can see all the choices and changes you made. And dear Lara, my unlucky niece, you did everything you claim, except you didn’t take care of me. I’m the anomaly.”
The anomaly? I don’t understand what he means and I’m desperate to hear him out. “Rex….”
“We’ve talked long enough for now.” Cameron smirks as he steps away from the cage. He snaps his fingers and a moment later, light’s flick on in a row in the outer room. One after another, the lights illuminate one glass cage after another, after another.
In each cage, an unconscious person lies, hooked up to a monitor just like me—except I’m awake.
Dad. Molly. Jax.
And the one closest to me stills my breath. Rick. It’s Rick. When was the last time I had thought of him, when was the last time I had seen him?
I gaze out at them and I want to doubt what I know, what I’ve seen. But I don’t. I know what’s real. Cameron can’t take that from me. Whatever is going on here, it’s a nightmare. A bad dream. It can’t be real. It can’t be…
“See to it she lies back down and gets back to sleep.”
“Yes, Mr. Montgomery.”
The sound of Mom’s voice jars me. I back away from the door as she enters. “Mom?” But she doesn’t respond, she only puts her clipboard down and picks up a syringe.
“Hold still, Ms. Crane. It’ll only take a minute.” Her eyes have a dull sheen to them. She’s drugged, under Rex’s control. She doesn’t remember me, just like…
It can’t be the truth.
“Mom!” I beg her and grab her arm as she comes at me. She pushes and I sit down on the bed, unable to keep my numb legs working. “Mom, please!”
She only smiles as she slips the needle beneath my skin. “I don’t know why she always calls me that.”
My head feels heavy and it falls onto the pillow. Everything’s going dark. My lids can’t stay open anymore and I wonder what’s real. What’s true.
Will my life ever really be mine?
Chapter Fifteen
“She’s waking up.”
Marcus says the words, but it’s someone else’s hand that grips me. When my eyes finally snap open, I recognize the sofa I’m lying on. The leather is soft and there’s a hand-crocheted blanket thrown over my lap.
This is Marcus’s office. Beside me, Donovan perches on the edge of the coffee table. The look on his face is weary as he leans over me. “Thank God, you’re okay. When you went under—.”
“It’s the stress.” Marcus sighs as he paces the expanse of the wide office. He stops at the rear wall of bookcases only to turn around and start over again. “Everything Cameron Kincaid gave a speech about…”
Cameron. The cage.
I bolt up, into a sitting position and I’m struck by a wave of nausea. Groaning, I grip my forehead. It feels as if a freight train had slammed into me, but I ignore it and search out the hands on the ticking clock. They’re going the right way, but what if I can’t trust that, anymore?
What if I can’t trust me, anymore?
“Lara.” Donovan slides beside me onto the couch, “What’s the matter?” His hand on my knee is supposed to calm me, but instead it only makes me jitter more.
“The cage.” I pull
my hair out of my face and realize that I’m back in my dress. My shoes lie on the plush carpet beside the sofa and my ring sparkles on my finger again. “I was back in the cage. I never got out.”
Donovan’s face relaxes. “It was just a dream.”
“A bad one.” Marcus agrees.
“Cameron was there,” I swallow hard, “my family, everyone—they were all in cages,” my mouth falls open, “You were dead, Don. Dead.”
“I’m not dead,” he touches my face with both his hands and I can’t deny the warmth that passes between us, “I’m right here, Lara. Right here.”
I pull myself away from him and stomp off to the bookcase. Grabbing a random book, I flip through looking for a blank page, but words fill it cover to cover. Every single one. Frustrated, I throw it on the ground and go after another book and then another.
Their stares beat down on my back, but I have to be sure. I can’t live a lie. What if I’ve been living one for over six years? What if nothing has changed. It’s always been my greatest fear.
“Cameron’s gotten inside your head,” Marcus says, “that’s all it is, Lara.” He places a hand on my shoulder and I throw a glance at him. Something about his steady gaze reaches me. Like an anchor, it slows me down.
Then I stare at Donovan and see he nods too.
My back is up against the bookcase and I feel the walls closing in. “How can I know for sure? How can I know?”
They can’t answer me because there isn’t a way to be sure. If they’re real, they’re just as perplexed as I am and if they’re not real—if this is just some sort of game inside a virtual system—they’ll never tell me the truth anyway.
“Come on.” Donovan takes my hand and I want to be led away by him. I want nothing more than to get away from the TTPA—pretend it never even existed—but I have something to uphold. I have a personal responsibility to Delilah and everything we built. I cannot let all of that just go.
“Your mom is waiting for us.” Donovan reaches for the door and opens it, allowing me to exit first. “We can’t leave her with Cameron.”
“Any more than we’d leave her with a pack of wild wolves,” Marcus says with a grin.
****
Mom’s giant squeeze says how worried she had been about me. She fusses with my hair and pats my cheek. Somehow, it makes her feel better, which in turn comforts me. “You all right?”
I nod. “Just a fright, I guess, after everything Cameron said.”
“It’s nothing personal, I assure you.” Cameron’s voice comes from behind me and it jars me. When I turn, he smiles at me. “You’re a fine person, a champion for what time travel can do. We just have…a difference of opinion.”
Crossing my arms, I puff out a breath of air. “Delilah agreed with me. I don’t know how you got that document signed, but my guess is it took some work.” I glare at Cassidy. Cameron keeps her hand in his, a short leash for his attack dog and I know I need to get her alone. I need to talk to her when we aren’t trying to kill each other.
“And I can guess how you got that done.”
Cassidy smiles at me and extends her hand. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Crane—I’m sorry, Ms. Montgomery.” Her smile spreads and I want to rip it straight off her face.
“No apologies necessary.” I don’t shake her hand. Instead, I wave to Donovan and signal I’m ready to go. “Tomorrow, Mr. Kincaid, I’ll meet you in the conference room. You might be ready to get rid of me, but I’m not ready to bow out.”
Cameron’s face hardens into a plastic smile. “Here I thought you’d at least want to leave with dignity.”
Me? Dignity? “A Crane fights to the end.”
He bows at the waist. “Let the best opponent win then. I warn you, Lara, I’m a street fighter. Fighting dirty is what we do best.”
I have no doubts about that. As he leaves, I breathe a sigh of relief. “That was awfully brave of you.” Mom’s eyes widen as she watches Cameron and Cassidy leave. She has no idea what’s going on and it’s best if it stays that way.
“You ready to go?” Jax asks as he comes up behind Mom. I watch the way he rubs her shoulders. Strange for them to be touching. Then, Mom tilts her head and accepts a kiss from him, as if they’re together. As if they’ve reconciled.
How had I missed that?
It makes me happy. I’ve been rooting for them for a while. “Will I see you both here tomorrow?”
Mom nods and she places her hand on Jax’s chest. “They’ll have to throw us all out.”
Good. As I leave her, I meet up with Donovan and Marcus. Donovan slides his arm around my waist and the three of us head out the front door. Marcus flags down an attendant to signal that we’re ready to go.
“Have any lawyers you can call?” I ask Marcus, “I’m not ready for us to be forced out.”
“Oh, I have my ways. Cameron won’t get off that easy, I assure you.”
The limo pulls up and the rear door is opened for us. “See you tomorrow, bright and early then.” I step into the limo first as Donovan shakes Marcus’s hand.
Once Donovan slides in beside me, I sigh as I signal to the driver it’s time to leave. “Well,” Donovan says, “that was quite the…experience. Nothing is ever dull with you, that’s for sure.”
So, he always says. I hope for dull eventually. Just a little dull would be nice for a change.
“Anywhere special you want to go? Just home?”
I check the time on my watch. “I told my dad I’d stay with him tonight. I should swing by.” I give Donovan a flirty smile. “Pick up my stuff for tonight and then maybe we can have that talk.”
“Your dad?” Donovan’s face pales as he speaks and fear glints in his eyes.
“Umm-hmm. You remember him, don’t you?”
His eyebrows furrow severely. “Of course, I remember him. How could I forget—but Lara…” Donovan rubs his face. I’m not sure what he’s about to say but it’s bad. Real bad. My breath catches in my chest.
“What is it, Don?”
“Lara,” Donovan’s voice drops as his hand squeezes my shoulder, “Lara, honey, your dad’s dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
I back up from Donovan as if I’ve been struck. I rip my hand away and my voice shakes. “What?” When he moves to speak, I interrupt him, “We were just with him tonight. You came over. You brought me the—dress.”
Donovan speaks low and slow as if I’m a child. “I picked you up at your mom’s. You were having cocoa with Jax.”
That wasn’t how it had happened. I struggle to breathe, vomit rising in my throat, but then an image flashes in my mind and I grasp my temples. The pain is so intense, my knees clench tightly together, and I fight the urge to fold right over.
In the memory, I’m sitting in Mom’s old house—the one we had shared with Jax—the one she’d sold after the divorce. Only now, there was no divorce. Jax leans back in a chair and two mugs of cocoa sit between us on the table. On his finger, is a golden wedding band.
When the doorbell rings, I jump. “What am I going to say to him?”
“Be honest, give it time. Just like with your mom and me. Sometimes, time is the only thing that can make a situation right,” Jax says.
The memory fades as the limo slowly pieces itself back together in my mind. Donovan is staring at me with a look of desperation, and all I can think of is my dad. How can he be dead? I’d just seen him. I’d just saved him. I know what the truth is.
And where does that truth lead? Exactly where I might expect.
It leads to the answer; Cassidy changed time. She’s gone into the past and ripped my dad from me.
“Lara,” Donovan leans forward, “you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“Get us to apartment 27 Tremont Street.”
His eyes widen. “Your dad’s old apartment?” he sighs and shakes his head, “Lara…”
“Just do it!” The edge of the world slips out from beneath me in that familiar way. Soon, it’s going to spira
l into a whirlpool I can’t escape. “Please.”
God, please.
Donovan signals the driver and we deviate from our current path. I know he thinks I’m crazy. I know to him, my dad’s gone and buried. Everyone accepts this as fact, but for me, it’s not. I remember the other timeline when no one else does.
I have to make it right.
When we get there, the apartment is all wrong. Donovan pays the new occupant, a lonely old woman, to stand out in the hall so I can have a moment alone. Even he doesn’t follow me all the way in; instead he hangs back on the threshold of the front door. His eyes are on me and I can feel his worry circling around me.
Everything about the room is wrong. The table is a bad knockoff, the sofa is angled wrong, and the kitchen decor is all roosters and chickens. Something I’m sure my Dad would’ve laughed at, or joked about…if he had been here. If he was alive.
Images flash in my mind. I remember helping my dad move in. Donovan had been there, too. Dad had carried in the big boxes and had teased Donovan for being more of a manager than a heavy lifter. Then we sat around, ate pizza, and drank soda. It had been a good day.
Such a good day.
My memories roll over into a new one and it sucks me in as if it is the present. I stand in the kitchen, with my hand on the counter. I’m in a form-fitting black skirt and my heart is so heavy, it’s being torn in two. My eyes are sore and I’m so tired, it’s as if I haven’t slept in days. Against my fingers, a letter in my dad’s handwriting.
I’m sorry, Lara. I tried to move past it all… I tried to build a life without your Mom.
No, no. No. Dad wouldn’t have taken his own life. He wouldn’t have survived ten years in prison to just give up.
Tears fall to the page and I turn to Donovan. “How could he just leave me? After everything I did to get him back?”
But he didn’t. He wouldn’t just give up and kill himself.
With a gasp, I’m back in the present and the memory trail lingers. I can feel the heat from Donovan’s body as he creeps up behind me. “When did he…kill himself?” The words rebel as they come up my throat, but I force myself to say them, needing to embrace them if I’m going to learn enough to fix this.
