Time Break

by Jill Cooper

  “I'm home." I slide my keys onto the hook beside the door and head into the living room.

  Donovan sits on the ottoman and stares out the window. He’s bent over and his elbows rest on his knees as he gazes out through the blinds at the sun.

  "Don?" I’m not sure the last time I've seen him look so distraught. That's when it hits me, this is the day that we lose everything.

  My fingers stretch out to him and stroke his forearm." "What's wrong?"

  For a brief moment, Donovan looks up at me. His eyes are bloodshot, as if he's been crying, which is very unlike him. For a second, he looks as if he might say something but then he shakes his head. "It's nothing. Just a headache."

  As he stands up from the ottoman, my hope that things will be different dissipates. He holds my hand before he drops it and heads off to the bedroom. "I want to sleep this thing off." I stand there in silence as he walks into the bedroom.

  Do I let him go? I only think about it for a moment before I chase after him. “Don, if something’s wrong…”

  He shakes his head as he takes his belt off. “I really need to be alone right now, Lara.”

  “Because of your headache?”

  “Sure,” Donovan sits on the bed and holds his head in his hand, “Because of the headache.”

  He’s in so much pain, suffering so much, but instead of reaching out for me, he shuts me out. My heart breaks to know what he’s going through and I should just tell him I know. But if he won’t tell me on his own… It’s an impossible test and maybe I’m wrong to put him through it.

  “I’m here for you if you need me.” I touch his arms and bend down in front of him, but Donovan won’t look at my eyes. He’s hurting and feeling guilty, but how can he not see how much I want to help him? How much I love him?

  “Thanks.” It’s all he can say before he shuts me out again. I can’t push him, so I head for the door.

  “Maybe some dinner later?”

  He nods, but it’s as if he can’t even hear me. I leave the room and shut the door. Leaning against it, I sigh. Our small apartment has become a lonely, echoing tomb.

  ****

  The days roll on and Donovan is quiet and sullen. Then one day, he's upbeat. Cassidy must have made contact, and she must be ready to offer him the deal. I sit on the sofa and my textbooks are open all around me. But I'm distracted, I bounce the tip of the pencil off the paper. Donovan is whistling as he comes out of the bedroom. He’s in his suit and tie—something I haven't seen in a couple of days.

  "Where are you going all gussied up?" I cross my legs underneath me as Donovan leans over and kisses my cheek.

  "Just out to make sure that you never need to worry about anything again."

  I grab his hand at the last possible moment and kiss it. "Are you sure you couldn't stay here with me just a little bit longer? I want to talk about something with you."

  "Later. I promise, but there's something I have to do." He leaves and slowly shuts the door after him. I stare at the door and will him to come back. Will him to give up this foolish mission, but he doesn’t.

  And I won’t give my mission up either.

  With a sigh, I grab my jacket from the armrest of the sofa. It's time for me to witness destiny.

  ****

  From a distance, I follow Donovan to a small bookstore. He goes down to the Economics section and begins pulling books out, but is disinterested. He barely even glances at them as Cassidy walks down the row to greet him. I hide behind the bookcase, but I can see she's in a comfortable pair of jeans, rugged brown boots, and a jean jacket. I've never seen her so casual, or looking so comfortable.

  "I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show," Cassidy says.

  Donovan shrugs. "I wasn't sure I was going to. I should have known that night I saw you in the coffee shop you were up to something," Donovan nods, "That's right, I recognize you. So why don't you tell me what this has all been about?"

  Cassidy reaches into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulls out an envelope. "I know you had some…let's say…financial trouble. Bad investments. Trusting the wrong people. Can happen to pretty much anyone." Cassidy taps the envelope in her hand. "What I have here can change all that. You’ll never want for money again."

  "You're just giving it to me?" Donovan snorts and shakes his head. My fists clench and I hold my breath. Come on, Don. Walk away. You can do it, I know you can. Just believe in us a little bit more, please.

  He wants to walk away. I know it. He doesn’t want to make a shady deal.

  Please, Don…

  Cassidy gives Donovan a slow seductive smile. "Nothing is that easy, Mr. James. I will give this to you now if you promise to do one little thing later. Introduce a friend of mine to a friend of yours. Easy. A simple introduction to Delilah Chase. That's all you need to do."

  I can't tell what Donovan's expression is, all I can see is the back of his head. "That's it? Just an introduction?"

  Cassidy nods, for a brief moment her eyes seem to meet mine and I duck further behind the bookcase. "What harm can an introduction do? And your girlfriend never has to know."

  There's a pause. A moment in time when I think Donovan will turn and walk away. That's the moment I want, that's the moment I'm looking for. Instead, his hand reaches out and he takes the envelope from Cassidy.

  My heart breaks and might as well be scattered on the floor of the bookstore. All my hopes and dreams shatter into dust.

  Donovan takes the envelope and tucks it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. I'm disheartened. I want to float away and dissolve into nothing.

  Donovan nods. "Let's make sure she doesn't." His tone is angry and bitter for someone who just made the deal of a lifetime. Maybe there’s more Patricia in him than I realized.

  As he turns to leave, I freeze time so he won't see me. He's frozen in midstride, and his eyes are on the ground but I can make out a small smile forming on his lips. He thinks he’s won. He thinks he’s found a way out.

  Oh, Don. If only…. If only you’d chosen us.

  Part of me wishes he had. I move on and hide behind a stack of bookcases on the other side of the floor. Once there, time speeds up again and I lean my back against the case.

  “Sorry it couldn’t have gone better for you.”

  Cassidy’s voice startles me and I jump. Forcing myself to smile, “Can’t think about that now. What happens next?”

  “We do what needs to be done. I go to Cameron as planned, to give him the good news. He’ll think he’s won, and I’ll get him on the bridge. You bust in and we’ll trap him.”

  “What about the orderlies? A few of them seemed to really love torturing me.”

  “Some will be loyal to me, most work for Cameron because he coerced them, blackmailed them. The few that did like hurting you…I’ll take care of them.”

  I grab her arm before she leaves. “The Cassidy I know wouldn’t suggest killing someone just because it’s inconvenient.”

  Her eyes narrow. “I’m not that Cassidy anymore. I don’t even know who she is. I barely remember my family, Lara. He took me when I was…young.”

  “I’m sorry. But we’ll fix it. Once we have Cameron, you can use the bridge to go back to whenever you want and…start over.”

  “Yeah.” Cassidy glances far off at the other side of the library, but I see the look of pain in her eyes. She doesn’t intend to go back.

  She doesn’t intend to start over.

  When my phone rings it jars me. “Hello?”

  “Lara, Molly and Mike…my babies…they’re gone.” Mom’s voice is shrill on the other end of the phone.

  “Gone?” My eyes dart back to Cassidy.

  “Gone!” Mom practically screams at me, “She was in school, in her class, and right before everyone’s eyes, something happened. No one knows how to explain it except…” Mom sighs, “it was like the school room was split in half and…”

  The room split in half? It must be the bridge. Cameron was on the bridge a
nd that meant he knows everything Cassidy and I were up to.

  “Mom, I can get them back. I know I can, but please, slow down. Who took them?” Cameron took Mike too? Why did he do that? What was going on that I didn’t know? Did he grab Mike because he didn’t have a choice, or was it something worse?

  “How can you?” Mom’s voice strains, “Lara, they say it was Cameron Kincaid. But how could he…”

  “Hang tight, Mom. Get with Jax. Don’t go anywhere or do anything until you hear back from me.”

  “Hurry,” Mom’s voice fills with the sound of tears, “I need my babies, Lara, but I need you too. Please don’t… Do what you have to, but be safe. Be careful.”

  I’ll do the best I can.

  When I end the call, my expression is grave, but so is Cassidy’s as she shows me her phone. A picture of Mike and Molly, each tied down to a metal table. Their eyes shut, their faces frozen in fear. Their arms dangle from the table as they grip each other’s hands.

  “You still think we shouldn’t kill the son-of-a-bitch?” Cassidy’s eyebrows rise as she asks the question.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Cassidy opens a passage to the bridge. We step through into the command station, but it’s empty. All the computer consoles and monitors are unmanned. As we walked through, we note the eerie silence that has fallen over the place. The monitors flicker and show images of times long past, and things from the distant future. In one of them, I view myself. I’m older, with wrinkles around my eyes, but I never stop smiling as I reach for someone… Small?

  A child? Could it be…

  Cassidy grabs my arm. “I know this place can be mesmerizing, but can we be mesmerized later?”

  Good point. We hurry down the hall and come to a set of double doors. I push them open and peer inside at what looks like the prison. I can see the edges of the plexiglass cages lining the walls. This is where I had been when I had spent time in the bridge. Now we can free my family and friends, who had been stolen from different timelines.

  But as we step through, I’m horrified. Each of the cages hold someone special to me–Jax, Rick, Dad—and they are all sprawled on the floor, or on a bed, and there’s blood dripping from their ears; it puddles on the metal bed frames or the tiled floor.

  They’re dead. All dead.

  Cameron killed them all so I could find them? Somehow, this seems too cruel, even for him. I rush over to the plexiglass cage to where my dad lies on his side, his eyes staring at nothing. This was him, this was my dad, the one Other Lara had sacrificed herself to save. He wasn’t just a random John Crane. He was my dad. Mine.

  I fall to my knees with my hands up against the glass. “Dad?” He’s dead. He can’t hear me, but I can’t stop from calling out his name and wishing…begging for him to wake up.

  Cassidy is beside me before I realize it, her hands on my shoulders. “We have to press on, Lara.” Her voice is softly comforting, as if she doesn’t want to intrude on my grief—but how can it not? Even my breathing intrudes. Everything we had done had been to bring him back, to save him. And now I’m lost.

  I lost.

  My lip quivers but I can’t take my eyes off my dad. “We’ll rewind time. We’ll stop this. We’ll bring them back again.”

  Cassidy shakes her head, her refusal to try enrages me. “We're on the bridge. It exists outside of time. There’s nothing to rewind here.”

  No. It can’t be true. I’m so angry that I shove her. “You can’t know. You don’t know what I’ve done, how I feel about him? We have to try...I’ve already ruined so much.”

  She grabs my hand and holds it steady as tears pool in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Lara. So sorry.”

  My chest rises with a sob and I swallow it back so it won’t consume me. Just then a voice breaks out over the intercom. “Lara?” Cameron’s singsong voice interrupts everything as it toys with me. “If you want to find your little pets, you’re going to have to come find me. I dare you.”

  Mike and Molly--I’ve almost forgotten that was why we had come. I sit back on my heels and wipe may face. As much as I don’t want to move on, I need to. “Where would he…where would he be holding them?”

  Cassidy swallows hard. “If they’re not here, then he would’ve taken them to the main lab. That’s where I took you and wiped your short-term memory.”

  The lab. “What’s he doing to them?”

  “I only know what he tells me.” Cassidy resists telling me the whole truth, I can tell from the look on her face.

  “Cass—” my voice rises in anger, “This is no time to keep secrets.”

  “He’s trying to unlock time travel. He knows what Molly becomes, and I think you do too.”

  There’s no time for me to argue, or wish the truth away. Instead, I rise to my feet and Cassidy and I make our way out another set of double doors and into the hallway. I remember the way to the cafeteria, and for a split-second I remember what it had been like, to be there and see all my family and friends. Now, they are all dead. Killed in their prisons as Cameron fried their brains.

  It is a bad way to think. I can’t let such thoughts into my head as I race to face Cameron one more time.

  As we get to the door of the lab, Cassidy pulls out her gun but keeps it low against her thigh, her finger hovering on the trigger.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  Cassidy nods and I push the door open. The lab comes into view as we step inside. Mike and Molly are each strapped down to their own metal tables. There are straps across their foreheads and tubes running into the back of their heads and into their arms, most likely a liquid IV to keep them hydrated and alive.

  Mike is unconscious and Molly’s eyes are closed, but she’s whimpering in distress. Her forehead is wet and her small hands are clenched in tight fists. She’s in pain, that’s the only thing I can think of as I step forward and stare into Cameron’s smug face.

  I don’t get a word out before Cassidy fires a shot straight at Cameron. But the bullet stops, suspended in midair and everything wobbles around us. Like water that has turned to blue slime. It’s like being beneath the sea, except I can still breathe, but I can barely walk. In her sleep, Molly tosses her head around as if fighting a horrible dream.

  Cameron laughs but it, too, is in slow motion, it sounds deeper and angrier than I’ve ever heard before. It’s as if the speed on an old-fashioned record player has been turned to the slowest setting. “She’s doing this. She can slow down the bridge. She’s more powerful and unique than you ever could be,” Cameron drawls, “I don’t need you anymore, Lara.”

  “Scum,” Cassidy snarls at him as the goo we stand in begins to bubble in reverse, and then disappears. The bullet that had been suspended in midair shifts, and instead of going forward, flies backward and hits Cassidy square in the chest.

  When she gasps, I stiffen. I grab her before she falls to the ground, and I can’t help but notice the spray of blood coming out of her chest.

  God no. Not Cassidy too.

  “Molly can’t control it yet, but she will soon,” Cameron says.

  I don’t look at him, I see only Cassidy lying on the ground, our hands gripping each other’s. “Hang in there. Don’t you—.”

  She struggles to take a breath. Despite my words, I know that I can’t save Cassidy. She’s going to die and at least I can be with her. “Stop him. Stop him.” Her head turns the side; she might not be dead, but she will be soon.

  “Sorry, dear Lara,” Cameron’s behind me and he pushes the butt of Cassidy’s gun into the back of my head. “This is how it ends. Everyone you love is either mine or dead. You're obsolete. A little girl who died a long time ago. Say good night, darling.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. There’s a rustling behind me. Molly? Is it possible that she could be awake? I prepare myself for what is about to come and take a deep breath, then with a grit of my teeth, I shove my elbow into Cameron’s chest and twisting myself painfully around, I grab his forearm. Cameron screams and places his open palm on my
head, forcing me to be still.

  As I stare down the barrel of his gun, he fires. My gamble hadn’t work, and in an instant, I’ll be dead.

  A horrifying scream rises from the end of the metal table, it jolts me backward. Cameron too is on his back on the opposite side of the room. I charge at him as a brilliant white glow encompasses Molly. The room fills with blue again, like an ocean made of gel. This time, I can move through it, except now I’m doing so backward. I’m not in control of my body; it’s as if someone else is controlling me. I am being rewound.

  Molly is rewinding not just me, but time itself.

  I watch everything play in reverse. Cassidy is standing beside me at the open door and the bullet goes back into her gun. Then time rights itself. Cameron stands in front of us slackjawed, a confused expression on his face.

  “It’s not possible.” He shakes his head and backs up, only to say it again.

  There’s so much I could do but instead, I stand back and let Cassidy step forward. When she raises the gun, I look away.

  “You think you can kill me?” Cameron asks. “If you do, another one of me will rise up. From a different world, a different timeline. You’ll never be rid of me. This never ends.”

  “I know.” Cassidy’s voice is hollow and flat. And then a gunshot rings out, but I care too much about Mike and Molly to spend any time grieving over the son-of-a-bitch who had done this. I rush over to them and see their hands are still clasped, and not only that––their hands are glowing.

  I don’t know if it’s coming from Molly or if they were able to do this together. In either case, I have to get them out of here. With Cassidy’s help, I unstrap their heads and unplug them from the machines. Molly is the first one to awaken. Slowly, she blinks and then she trains her eyes on me.

  She gives me a sleepy smile. “Is it over now, Lara?”

  I think of everything Cameron had said. “Yeah, it’s over.” I hold her to my chest in a deep embrace while Cassidy meets my eyes. I see the depth of her pain, but right now, there’s nothing else I can say. I give her a nod and somehow she understands me.