by West, Shay
That last part made Alex turn around. “Blindness? Are you sure?”
“That’s what it says.”
“Do you know what this means?” Alex asked excitedly.
Jenn stared at her, eyes darting to the right where Chandon stood. “Yeah, it means the guy’s blind.”
“That’s right. Which is exactly what he deserves.” Alex mentally chided herself.
Chandon squinted. “What’s going on? Alex, you were way too excited at the thought that this guy might be blind. I know he hurt you and I don’t necessarily regret whacking him upside the head but even my stomach feels queasy thinking about what I did. How can it not bother you?”
“Because it’s not the first time he’s come after me!” Alex snapped.
“What do you mean it’s not the first time? You need to let the cops know so they can put him away for even longer.”
Alex turned and walked away from Stygian’s room. This was not a conversation she wanted to be having but she’d spoken out of anger and frustration. Chandon had no idea what she’d been through.
She stopped short when Chandon grabbed her arm. “I risked my neck coming after you and I am the one who did that damage to Stygian. I think I have a right to know what’s going on. It’s way more complicated than him being some rogue Marine out for a joy ride to come kill you, isn’t it?”
Alex tried to look away but the concern in his brown eyes rooted her to the spot.
“You’d never believe me even if I told you,” she said.
“Try me.”
“Look, we’re attracting an audience. Let’s go back to the room and wait for your mom,” Jenn suggested, pointing to the nurses taking notice of the trio.
Alex walked back to her room, rehearsing what she would tell Chandon in her head. No matter how she tried it, she feared he would laugh at her and walk away. And she’d never see him again.
But if I don’t tell him he may walk away.
She breathed a sigh of relief when her mom walked into the room just moments after they returned.
“Thanks for the snacks, Mom.”
“The doctor said you can go home just as soon as I fill out some more paperwork. I’ll be right back, okay?”
Once her mom was gone, Chandon turned on her.
“Out with it. I mean it, Alex. I deserve to know what’s going on.”
Alex looked and Jenn, who only shrugged.
“Okay, but you have to promise me that whatever you hear you don’t say one word to anyone, even if you don’t believe me. Got it?”
Chandon nodded and sat in the chair, and didn’t say a word. Alex took a deep breath and began to tell her story.
CHAPTER 42
ALEX TOOK A DRINK of water. She had hurried the story of her ability to time travel as she didn’t want her mom to walk in right in the middle of it. She searched Chandon’s eyes for any sign that he believed her or if he thought she was crazy but the expression on his face never changed.
“So that guy Stygian was the one coming after you in time?” Chandon asked, speaking for the first time since they entered Alex’s hospital room.
“Yes, but he has a Master, someone who he was taking orders from. He’s someone very high up in the Marines,” Alex said.
“Won’t he come after you?”
“I don’t know. In all the rush to get away from Stygian, I never thought to ask Uncle Mark about Max Poder.” Alex met Chandon’s eyes. “You’re not running away screaming or rushing off to tell people I’m nuts.”
“Well, you are nuts. Mainly for keeping this a secret for so long. Stygian could have killed you and you chose to face him alone. I’d say that’s pretty nuts.”
“I’m not alone. I have Jenn, and Sean and Gavin. Besides, most people would never believe me. Why is it you do?”
“I don’t know exactly. I just do. It’s like that feeling I get that I have known you forever. Which isn’t possible because I only just moved here. I can’t explain why I believe you any more than I can explain why I know you, you know?”
Alex laughed. “I do know, yes.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Go home and sleep for a week. After that...” Alex shrugged.
“I vote sleeping for two weeks,” Jenn said, her jaws creaking as she yawned.
“The whole blindness thing totally makes sense now,” Chandon said.
“Without being able to see, Alex won’t have to worry about traveling back in time anymore,” Jenn said.
Alex’s mom returned with the doctor.
“You’re free to go but I want to see you back here in a few weeks. And I also recommend that you talk to someone. A trauma like this can come back to haunt you,” the doctor said.
Alex nodded absently, having no intention of talking to anyone about this but the people who already knew her secret. They would help her through what was to come.
She said goodbye to her friends and followed her mom to the car. Everything looked strange to Alex. The sky was the same blue, the mountains still surrounded the valley, the cars still made their way on the same roads, the air smelled the same and yet it was all different. Alex felt as though she was an intruder and that the world was grinding along, hoping to shake itself free of her presence.
The world’s not different. I am.
“Your uncle’s friends left for their hotel room but wanted to talk to you as soon as you were released,” her mom said.
“I’ll call when I get home.”
“Maybe you should wait until tomorrow. The doctor said you have to rest your voice.”
“If I feel fine later I’ll give them a quick call.”
“All of this is still so strange, like it’s happening in a movie or something.”
“Tell me about it.” Alex reached up and rubbed her throat, certain she could feel Stygian’s handprints pressed into her skin.
“You’re lucky Chandon was there. If he hadn’t been, I don’t...”
Alex reached out and patted her mom’s arm. “But he was, so let’s not even think like that.”
“You’re right. You’re fine, Chandon is fine, and that guy is most definitely not. What do you say we call Karen, C.C., and Bruce and have them over for my famous spaghetti dinner?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Alex retreated to her room as soon as she and her mom got home. She could tell her mom wanted to talk, or perhaps just keep Alex close but Alex needed to be alone to process what happened. And she needed to call Gavin, despite her mother’s warnings to wait until tomorrow.
“Alex! I still can’t believe what’s happened. It’s a miracle that Chandon was there.”
“If he hadn’t have come to see me and followed us, Stygian would have killed me.”
It was the first time she had said the words aloud and they terrified her. She reached up to her neck and tried to hold back the flood of tears threatening to fall but they would not be denied. Gavin said nothing as she sobbed into the phone, trying hard to be as quiet as she could so her mom wouldn’t hear.
She apologized to Gavin when she regained control. Alex told him what she had read on Stygian’s patient chart.
Gavin whooped into the phone so loudly Alex had to hold the phone away from her ear.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. You’re free, Alex. You can finally put all of this behind you.”
“Can I really? What if his sight returns and he starts traveling again or what if he just pays someone to come after me?”
“He will be in prison a long time so I don’t think you have to worry about him being able to pay someone to come get you. From what your uncle says, he was a loner and only spent time with Max Poder.”
The mention of that name sent a shiver down Alex’s spine. “What’s to stop him from training someone else? Maybe the connection isn’t between me and Poder, but between me and whoever Poder trains.”
“You won’t have to worry about him either.”
***
Max Poder
stood staring at the pictures of his ancestors, hand reaching out to gently caress the glass. When he’d received word that Stygian had fled the base and that he was wanted for murdering a man in the civilian world, he knew it was only a matter of time before his own involvement would be questioned.
He walked calmly to his desk, opened the bottom drawer on the left hand side, and grabbed his firearm. Poder fixed his eyes on the pictures as he cocked the gun and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER 43
ALEX DID HER BEST to ignore the whispering and stares as she walked down the hall. She had hoped the months since the attack would lessen the attention but it seemed like it her attack on the Monument was still the talk of the town. Or at least the school.
Why couldn’t he have attacked me after school was done?
She buried herself in school work, glad there were only a few months left to go until the end of the year. Her mind wandered as the teacher began the lesson. Chandon had asked her to prom earlier that day and she was imagining the dress she would wear.
Alex gazed out the window at the perfect spring day. The sky was brilliant blue, as only the sky in the desert can be. She had nearly completed her driving practice requirements and would be allowed to get her license at the beginning of summer. She had an amazing boyfriend, one she was able to share everything with, and a best friend who had stuck by her side through the worst of times. Things should have been as perfect as the beautiful day outside.
Yet a shadow still enclosed Alex’s heart. She had hoped the nightmares would only last a few nights but they persisted for weeks and then months. Her mom wanted Alex to see someone but the only people Alex needed to talk to already knew about her ability to travel back in time and knew the truth of who Lane Stygian was. Alex knew Gavin was worried for her even though he always had a cheerful tone of voice when they spoke on the phone. Alex knew she needed time to believe that the nightmare was finally over. As each day passed with no changing of the reflection in the mirror, the more she began to believe that she may yet have a normal life.
It was still hard to believe that Stygian’s Master had killed himself. She had called her uncle just to make sure Gavin had told her the truth.
“It’s true, Alex. I saw them wheel him out of his office. Didn’t leave a note but the powers that be are already linking him with Stygian. Since he killed a civilian, he is going to be left in the hospital and tried in a civilian court rather than being transferred back here to base. Our prisons aren’t exactly the place for someone in Stygian’s condition,” Mark said.
“So he’s really blind and still in a coma?” Alex asked.
“Yes, and likely to be there for some time. Doctors say there is no sign of him waking up any time soon. But when he does, he’ll be tried for murder and theft and will be put in prison for the rest of his life. He will never be able to hurt you again.”
That conversation had made her feel so much better. She’d only woken up from a nightmare once that night.
Maybe it really is over.
After her last class, Alex met Jenn and Chandon in the parking lot. Her heart skipped a beat when his eyes locked onto hers. It was like he could see right through her. When his arms wrapped around her, the worry about the future melted away. Chandon broke the hug and he stroked her face with one hand. When his lips met hers, the whole world fell away. Alex didn’t even notice Amy, Paul, Simon and his new girlfriend arrive.
“Break it up you two. Us girls got some serious shopping to do,” Jenn said as she poked Alex in the side.
Alex laughed and mumbled hello to her friends.
“Where’s James?” Alex asked, just now noticed Jenn’s boyfriend was absent.
“He’s at work but said he’d meet us later tonight. We’re still on for skating, right?”
“Sure, as long as you girls don’t take all evening to find your prom dresses,” Simon said, giving his girlfriend, Jasmine, a hug.
“Just be lucky we aren’t dragging you with us,” she teased.
“The last thing you want is boys cramping your style.”
Alex basked in the warmth of her friends, both the ones she had met when she first moved to Grand Junction and the new ones she’d met along the way. Her life had been anything but normal since she had first spotted Aine in the mirror in the fast food restaurant restroom but she had prevailed, she had beaten the bad guys and lived to tell about it.
And in a few short months, she would be going to her junior prom.
Just like a normal girl.
EPILOGUE
DRIFTER TRIED TO OPEN his eyes. Something was dreadfully wrong. Every instinct screamed that something very bad had happened but he couldn’t remember. Memories flitted through his mind with no coherence, no time line.
His arms wouldn’t move either. Strange.
“He’s moving around. Get a doctor,” a strange voice said.
Obviously in the hospital. He could hear footsteps leaving and after a moment, several sets of footsteps returning. Hands touched him, checking God knows what. Part of his brain started to panic. Why can’t I remember?
“Nurse, monitor his vitals and increase fluids. Officers, I want the Marine base notified immediately.”
“Yes, doctor,” a voice said.
Officers? Marine base?
One set of footsteps left the room. Drifter couldn’t say how long he lay there in the darkness, uncertain of who he was or how he had gotten here. The officers spoke in whispers as the nurse moved about the room, eventually leaving after she was finished.
Small bits began coming back to him. His name, his rank, and soon after that, the face of Max Poder. It all came back, his time traveling gift, the girl, the mountains...
His muscles clenched when he remembered someone hitting him with something heavy across the face. My eyes! He strained against the restraints, wanting desperately to touch his face.
“Easy there, you’re not going anywhere. Best rest easy so you don’t hurt yourself.” The gruff voice spoke on his right.
Drifter forced himself to relax, but the fear was still there. He opened his mouth to speak and his lips brushed against something that felt like gauze. He cried out, desperate for answers, more afraid of this darkness than he had ever been of anything in his whole life, including his drunken father on one of his rampages.
“Are you trying to say something?” the voice on his right asked.
“Help me, please.”
“Sounded like he said help me,” the voice on the left replied.
“Nothing we can do for you, son. That kid did a number on your face, and the back of your head took a beating as well. You’re lucky to be alive,” right voice said.
“What’s on my face? Take it off so I can see.”
“Sorry, pal, but even if we did, you’d never see anything. Docs had to remove your eyes right after they brought you in.”
My eyes?
“Why? Why would they do that?”
“The kid hit you with an old fence post covered in barbed wire. Busted up your face pretty bad and the wire shredded your eyes. They couldn’t leave them in or risk you getting an infection.”
My eyes.
“I see. How long have I been asleep?”
“Let’s see, I think pretty close to 6 months or so, give or take.”
“Six months? Why am I still here? Why aren’t I on base?”
“Your base has turned you over to the civvies. See, you killed a man and that means you’ll be tried in a civilian court and put in a civilian prison. Guess the Marines are too worried about having you in a military prison in your condition.”
“I think they want to forget he even exists. I mean, look what Major Poder went and did. The military is good at covering up embarrassments,” left voice said.
“Master? What did he do, what happened?”
“Shot himself right there in his office. Master? Never heard anyone use that term for a CO before,” right voice said.
Poder’s dead?
&nb
sp; Drifter knew it was over, the girl had won. It seemed impossible. He had killed so many Masters and yet one girl on her own, with no Master to guide her, managed to stop him? He wanted to throw something or hit something or shoot something but since he was tied down and couldn’t see, he would just have to settle for grinding his teeth and planning his revenge.
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