by Jill Cooper
“That’s…incredible. You’ve given no indication of having a power or being able to access it. Does anyone know that you can do that?”
I think back to Don and what he’s thinking about being in a suddenly empty penthouse when I had been there only a second earlier. “Don, maybe, but I don’t think he suspects I can manipulate time. I mean, how would he?”
“Cassidy,” Miranda says softly, compassion rich in her voice, “because he knows. Everyone at Rewind does.”
I back up from her. “You’re saying that Donovan James…what? That he knows Rewind went into the future and kidnapped me? Brought me back here?”
“He’s Patricia’s right-hand man. Always has been. That’s why…he’s been grooming you to follow Patricia from the first day you woke up in the lab. The mind alterations are hard to fight against, but your mind has been fighting to remember since day one. If you can do what you say you can, you’re stronger than most. The memory splicing will only hold for so long.”
I blink and take a deep breath. “That can’t be true. He…loves me. We were to be married. I’m even wearing a…” I gaze down at my hand and realize I’m not wearing an engagement ring.
But I had been. Just a few short hours ago. Hadn’t I?
“Nothing you remember of the last few years is real. You were stolen from a timeline that mirrors this one in almost every way. In that time line….” Miranda gazes at the floor with tears in her eyes. “Don opposes his mother and he’s not in love with you. He’s in love with…Lara.”
Miranda’s daughter and my what? Distant cousin?
“That’s why you went along with all this. A timeline where your daughter is alive? Happy?”
“They were supposed to go back and get her. Bring her to me, but something happened. Something went wrong because of Rex. Nothing is what we think. Even what I just told you might be a lie built on top of another lie. Rex creates confusion, it’s how he’s able to keep us separate. It’s how—” A bullet tears through from the back of her head and she falls on her knees beside me.
I scream as I catch her before her face hits the floor. “Miranda!” I cry out and lay her on my lap. My purse is out of reach and I stretch for it to grab my phone.
Miranda peers up at me with fading eyes, I watch life run out of time as if liquid through a broken glass. “Run.”
The front door breaks open. “Freeze! Put your hands up, Ms. Winters!”
I gasp with fright at the sight of the police officers coming at me. I lift one hand to them, feeling that energy growing in my chest.
And I freeze them. They’re moving forward, but slow, as if moving through molasses. I peer back to Miranda and see she’s still with me. In her hand, she clutches her all access security pass to Rewind.
I snatch it from her, and a moment later I’m running toward the window where the shot had come from. A second later, I’m outside, downstairs on the pavement. Not only can I freeze time, but I can move through it, almost like telesporting from place to place. Location to location.
Moving through the seconds, skipping between the minutes.
Across the street on another high rise, there’s someone running along the balcony dressed all in black.
Miranda’s killer.
I grit my teeth and run toward them. I run through the air, using time as my cushion and I jump onto the balcony before he has a chance to get away. He’s wearing a ski mask and beneath it, his eyes widen with surprise.
Ripping the mask off, I reveal it’s none other than Donovan James. The look on his face is one of sheer horror and it’s the same in the pit of my stomach. I shake my head. “How could you? How!”
“You can’t say no to my mother. You know it’s true.” His words are more than just heartbreaking. They’re soul crushing and I doubt I’ll ever feel okay again.
“You killed her!”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Don whispers. “Now, you’ll have to go down for it. All of this has to go away, Cass. I’m sorry. But when I told you I loved you, it was true.”
“Then come with me. We’ll go to the police. We’ll—” I’m reaching for straws. He’d go to jail if we go to the police and that’s not what he wants. He wants nothing more than to stand by his mother and help her get the power she’s so desperate for.
Don places his hand over my face and pushes me toward the balcony. I stumble, grab his wrist and then I scream as I flip over the railing. Slowly, I descend toward the road and I scream as the ground rushes up to meet me.
My arms flail and a moment later, my fall slows. My body rotates toward the ground and I feel like I’m flying. My feet touch the ground and around me, the stop-lights are frozen. I gaze back at the building and while it’s so far away, I see Don standing with his hands on the railing, a look of terror frozen on his face.
I need to get out of here fast. I need to help Molly and break her free so we can find a way to fix all this. We need to find Lara.
I try. I picture Rewind and Molly sitting in that bed when I had first seen her. But it’s like ramming into a wall repeatedly, over and over. My brain aches and blood flows from my nose. I want to travel backward, but can’t. I can see the scene, but I can’t get there.
As though something is blocking me.
I have to find a way to unblock it, and that means visiting Rewind. If anyone can answer the lingering questions I have, it’s Molly. No matter how much I’m growing to hate that place, I have to return.
All the answers I seek are there.
****
This had all begun when I’d been in the hospital room with Molly, and I have to believe she’s the important key in all this. Getting to her room won’t be easy. The secret hospital wing of Rewind is well-protected and security is tight.
I should know, I’d put it all together.
Sneaking into Rewind’s main building is easy enough. I time shift through the glass doors while the guards are on rounds. The glass wobbles like an ocean wave for a bit as I slip through the stream of light onto the other side. It sort of hums as I run away toward the elevator.
I slip inside before any guards see me. Using the key I’d stolen from Miranda, I send the elevator to the thirtieth floor. It has a special bridge leadings to the hidden lab beneath the city, and that’s where I need to be.
Inside the security office, I jam the door shut and use the computer to bring up Molly’s location. The room she’d been in before is empty and there’s no record of where in the building she might be. I grab a white lab coat that’s draped over the back of a chair, and slip it on. When someone calls to check my credentials, I just keep going.
“Come back here! Miss!”
He chases me and I speed up, jumping through time to hop a few steps ahead—more than I should be able to—and I enter Molly’s room.
Or what had once been her room.
Inside, the bed is made. There are no flowers or get-well cards. The room is vacant, as if no one has been here in forever. It’s like Molly has just been erased from existence, like she has never been here—just like the records on the computer.
I tear the bed apart, pulling the pillows from their pillowcases, searching for some hope that Molly has been here before. The bed has nothing. I go through the cabinets around her bed and I check every drawer. Not even a page from the stocked Bible is out of place. It’s as if I am crazy.
In the bathroom, I check inside the tissue box and the medicine cabinet. Someone’s knocking at the door now and I ignore it as I continue to search the bathroom for clues. The wastepaper basket is filled with tissues. I go through them and one of them isn’t empty.
It’s wrapped around something.
Hurriedly I unwrap it, even as I hear someone enter the room and call out. “Hello? Did you run in here?”
It’s a locket wrapped in tissue. My eyes widen When I open it, I’m and I gasp at the picture is of me and Molly, with the infamous Lara Crane who everyone is so fixated on. This is proof of the other timeline. Someone
is going to a great deal of trouble to keep us separated from one another. I have to find Molly, have to find a way to put time back the way it is supposed to be.
I slip the locket in my pocket, tossing the tissues back into the waste paper basket when I realize there’s writing on one of the tissues. I spread it out thin and my eyes widen at the message.
He’s coming for you. Get out.
I don’t know if Molly left the note for me, or if it was someone else, but I spring into action. The security guard stands by the bed and the surprise on his face ranges from fear to the comical. Pushing him out of the way, I sprint over the bed and slam through the doorway. Back in the hospital wing, I run for the elevator.
It dings before I get there and Rex gets out. He walks with calm precision toward me, a small smile on his face, as though he’s not worried at all.
Backing up, I concentrate on freezing time the way I’ve done before. Sound echoes in my ears, I spin on my heel and dash for the stairway. But the stairwell door opens and another version of Rex steps out, this one in a slightly different suit than the other one.
I back up and draw my pistol, aiming it at the first Rex and then the second. “Stay back. The both of you.”
“Or what?” the first Rex says.
“You’ll shoot?” adds the other. “We don’t think so.”
“We have a surprise for you dear, Cass. One that we’ve been waiting to give to you for some time.”
“Patience,” the other Rex scolds him. “Your impatience is what’s led you to this place. If…ahh, here he is.”
The stairway door opens and a stranger enters. I stare him down. “Who the hell are you?”
A piercing noise assaults my brain as this young man squeezes his fingertip together, and the world around me starts to swirl. My knees tremble and I can’t take the noise anymore. I grit my teeth as my vision splits. I don’t see a hall anymore.
There’s a cage.
“Two places at once,” Rex says. “Impressive, isn’t it? That you can be there, yet here at the same time? His power might be stronger than all the girls put together. He can’t just time travel, he can change time. He can rewrite the timelines, merge them together, create new realities out of whatever he wishes.”
He sounds like an abomination. Blood drips out of my nose as I stare up at him. Shock stiffens my muscles. He’s nothing more than a kid himself.
How is it possible? I search for options.
Rex’s voice breaks through my shock. “If I have been the master who holds the strings, then he’s the messiah who writes the game.”
Another Rex glares at another. “You sound crazy, you know that? Do we always sound so crazy?”
“Why don’t you tell dear Cassidy your name?” Rex asked.
The man gives me a smug smile before turning to Rex. He looks to him with adoration, the way a boy might look up to his father.
“Mike,” the young man smiles as if this answer should mean something, “my name is Mike.”
Rex laughs. “And that, dear Cassidy, is how villains are born.”
Chapter Twenty-One: Molly Montgomery
I yank on my hands which are cuffed to the passenger-side door of the van, but it’s no use. I can’t get free. I’ve been trying for days to find a way out of this altered timeline, but with the drugs Patricia has been feeding me…. There’s no way around, out, or sideways.
The only way out is through.
Through the mess my sister Lara helped create, even if she hadn’t mean to. Even if she hadn’t understood, but I understand as I gaze at Rex, or one of the many versions of Rex who have distorted reality. He drives the van and he barely gives me a passing glance.
He thinks he—and his multiples—have won. Rex thinks he can’t be beat since he’s pulled so many versions of himself into this timeline.
It has broken the bridge. It has torn Lara away. And now, everyone’s memories are twisted just the way Mike…my twin brother Mike…wants it to be. He’s been tricked by lies and deceit. I’m sure of it. If I can get enough time alone with Mike, I can show him the truth.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Rex says quietly as he watches at me out of the corner of his eye.
“What am I thinking?”
He speaks in a high and squeaky voice. “You’ll never get away with it, Uncle Rex. Lara will save me.” Rex waves his hands in the air—an imitation of a little girl, a baby—and he laughs. “But I already have. Lara’s gone. No one remembers her except for you. Me. And Mike.”
Little does Rex know that isn’t true. Cassidy’s had flashes about Lara, and Donovan talks in his sleep about her. My poor mother is desperate to have Lara back and even Delilah Chase, Patricia’s receptionist and Lara’s old friend, has nightmares about her. They are, of course, only one path on the timeline.
I see the timeline where Lara believes she’s guilty of murder and where she sees what her life would’ve been if she hadn’t time-traveled. I feel what life will be like for her and Donovan when all this is fixed and how hard it will be. I see what life will be if we fail, and I see all the infinite choices that follow.
I see a great time-travel war between a set of twins who once adored each other. They battle and fight to come up on top. Me, I fight to keep the timeline safe. But Mike fights from a place of pain. A place he’ll never leave if I can’t convince him now. A path that leads to the fabric of time unfolding with pockets of timelessness punched through it like the holes in Swiss Cheese.
All of that reveals itself to me in the instant it takes Rex to turn the corner.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see.” Rex smirks, a bit of a singsong note in his voice.
“He won’t be able to block me forever. Sooner or later, Rex, and I’m going to be able to time travel again. He can’t block the three of us indefinitely.”
“You don’t think so?” Rex pulls the van into an alleyway behind a series of warehouse buildings. I peer through the windshield; the place doesn’t look very safe or secure. Certainly, no safer or more secure than the secret labs of Rewind.
From the outside, my door opens and Patricia unlocks my handcuffs. “Little thing like you causes a lot of trouble. Get her out of the van,” she orders and a few of her bodyguards grab my elbows and force me from the front seat.
I throw Patricia a nasty glare. “In my timeline, Lara beats you. You’re in a orange jumper and in jail for the rest of your miserable life.”
“Shut your mouth.” Patricia squeezes my cheeks together and I struggle to rip away from her. “Lara never should’ve beat me, nor should have taken my son. She poisoned him against me and now, I’m going to reclaim my place. I’ll never lose again.”
“She’s beat you so many times. She’ll do it again,” I promise. “And this time, I’m going to help her.”
“Brat.” Patricia shoves me and I fall down onto the wet asphalt. When my hand splatters into a puddle, it ripples in time and it’s not my face, but Lara. Where she’s trapped, where she is, it’s upside down from my timeline.
How can I help her? How can I get her out?
“Is this really necessary?”
I gaze up with happiness at the sound of Donovan’s voice. He’d never hurt me, he had never hurt me before. Now he stares his mother down with a cold look, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Don,” I whisper with hope. He can end this, if only he could realize how strong he really is.
“It’s as necessary as keeping the bitch you’re engaged to in line,” Patricia says, wiping the corner of her mouth.
Donovan’s face twitches. “She…won’t be a problem anymore.”
What does he mean? What has he done with Cassidy?
Patricia smiles with satisfaction. “Move her inside before I lose my temper and permanently shut her up.”
Patricia storms off toward a waiting car and inside, I’m desperate as Donovan grabs my arms and forces me up to my feet.
“Don’t do this,” I
beg, my eyes imploring him. “Don, please. You know me. Reach back, remember. Don’t let them manipulate you like this.”
“Don’t make this worse than it has to be, all right?” He sighs as he leads me into the warehouse. When we step inside, the lights turn on. The place is fitted with white sterile lab walls and in the center is an all-glass cage.
And just like the one Lara has been trapped in for two years, there’s a bed and a virtual-reality machine that is plugged into her head. I resist and push against Donovan. “You’re stronger than this!”
Donovan doesn’t answer, he just continues to march me toward the cage.
“You can’t put me in there. You can’t! It nearly killed my sister. It nearly killed her!” I’m not as strong as Lara. I won’t survive.
I push against Donovan with all my might and he puts his hands over my face to push me back down. He’s gentler on me than he needs to be, but that’s little consolation. “It’s just to keep you busy. Give you something to do while my mother finishes what needs to be done.”
Rex and his doubles pull my arms behind my back and pull me back toward the cage. I kick my legs hopelessly as I’m dragged backward. “And what’s that? Think about all this! Don, wake up! This isn’t the way anything is supposed to be!”
They drag me inside the cage and throw me down onto the bed. I struggle to get up to my knees and start to crawl away toward the door. Before I reach it, Donovan shuts it and I whimper in desperation. “Don, no!” I extend my hand toward him, but his just stares at me, eyes sad, unflinching.
“Mother always gets what she’s after, kid. It’s best if you just came to terms with that now.”
“And what is it she wants? Think about it, Donovan! What is it you want?”
I cry and kick, fighting against the men as they strap my arms and legs down. “Don’t do this.” I shake my head back and forth. “Please. Don’t do this.”
My body shakes as desperate sobs rip through me, and I’m helpless as they tie my head down, a thick strap across my forehead. I know what’s coming. The same thing they did to Lara all those years ago. Those years didn’t exist to us, but for Lara, she carried the scars with her wherever she went.
