He sighed, then hissed in another breath of pain. “We shouldn’t need to be here long, anyway. I hope.”
We? He intended to…to, I didn’t know, transport us again?
I opened my mouth to speak, but he’d already focused on walking forward again. Instead of that speedy clip, he hardly ambled, favoring his left side. His leg didn’t bend well at the knee, and his arm clutched at his side.
“Whoa.” I darted closer to help hold him up before he crashed to the ground.
“Are you…uh…” He shook his head. “You’re okay?”
My turn for my brows to shoot up. Me? “You’re the one staggering around like a drunk.”
Hey.
Wait.
I’d woken up so sure I’d been wasted too.
“This morning…” I whispered, more to myself.
He nodded, his hair falling over his eyes more with the move. Coupling that with how he hung his head down, I could barely make out his face, but I could bet he was grimacing with that low groan.
“Oh. Right. You’re probably fine by now.”
“Sure. I’m dandy, but I don’t belong here.”
He snorted. “Florida’s not that shabby.”
No, not here, geographically. Timewise.
As he straightened from staggering again, he tugged at his tie. “Just be glad I accidentally sent you to 2020 instead of something earlier.”
“You sent me here.” It should have been a question as bizarre as that statement was.
Swallowing hard, he nodded, just barely meeting my gaze. Gone was the steely, firm intensity he’d blasted my way in the coffee shop. I wouldn’t call anything about this stranger soft, but he wasn’t as rough-hewn. Not as rugged because he was weakening with every footfall he managed.
We’d covered a couple of slow steps now. A snail’s pace compared to how we’d first fled. Once more, I glanced back and around. No cops chasing or passersby checking us out.
An indecipherable mumble left his lips. So close as I was to him now, I noted the bloodied, cracked flesh on the bottom one. He slipped, and I grappled to hold him upright.
If he conks out on me… Dammit, I’d slap him awake for answers.
“I…” He shook his head, likely trying to stay alert from this sudden fatigue. “I just needed to get you out of your time. Last night. Before they…before anything bad happened.”
I sidled up closer, wedging under his arm to assist him more. He leaned on me and nearly took us both down. Grunting, I hefted him up and took charge of our hobbling along.
“Anything bad like what?” I resisted the urge to feel my stomach again. I’d already checked, right? No blood, no injury. Yet, I knew I’d been hurt somehow. Stabbed. I’d been stabbed. I was sure of it.
Was he implying I could have been maimed more, though? “And what’s wrong with you?”
“Just…too much. Too soon.”
Booze?
Narcotics?
Black market stimulants—the bootleg stuff?
What could he have indulged in?
“Too much of what?”
I twisted my fingers into his black suit jacket, wringing for a sense of sanity rather than keeping him from falling. Desperation for answers, for some suggestion of realistically jumping time… Throw me a frigging bone! Answer me!
“Too much of what?” I nearly shouted it that time.
He swayed toward me, his chin knocking into my temple. “Wrong…”
“Wrong what?” I slapped him with my free hand while hoisting him up and trying my damnedest not to topple with him. If he weren’t so tall and solid. And somewhat sober—
“Wrong year,” he griped.
Then he exhaled a harsh breath and passed out.
Chapter Five
“Dammit!”
I hugged him as he fell into me fully. My arms caught him under both armpits, but with the momentum of his weight crashing into me, I managed a strange swirling embrace.
There was no way I could hold him. Or drag him, haul him in any way. I spun with the force of his body plowing me over and then lowered him without smacking his head.
I kneeled on one knee next to him, panting and staring at his sleepy face. Brown hair lay in a mess, nearly concealing his eyes, and I brushed his face free. Squinting, I lowered my gaze to his chest, double-checking his chest still rose and fell.
“Now what?” I slapped my hand to my thigh.
Sprawled out on the sidewalk as he was, there was no way pedestrians could easily maneuver around him. God, was he freaking tall. I scanned his long legs splayed out, one arm against his side and the other limply reaching out toward where we’d come from.
Immobilized with his unconsciousness, fear snuck in again. Because I couldn’t leave him now. Whatever smidgen of reassurance this stranger gave by saving me vanished. I surveyed the cityscape, thankful there were hardly any people walking along, and still, no law enforcement after us.
But…those two guys with the light guns had disappeared into thin air. If they can go away like that, what’s to say they can’t reappear just as easily?
I swallowed hard and slapped at the man’s face.
“Come on, wake up.”
His chest still rose and fell.
“Come.” I slapped harder. “On.”
Nope. He was out.
How, though? Crouching closer, I spread his jacket apart, looking for blood. A wound. Something. How could he have been so strong and able-bodied in the café, defending me, fighting those two vanished men, and then running—and now lie on the sidewalk stone-cold?
Nothing marred his clothes. I checked for a tear, a slice, blood, bruises… He looked normal—if hotter than hell was the norm. His lip was cut, and dampness on his shirt hinted he’d been sweating, but that was all my investigation could yield. I had no clue how he’d fallen like this, especially since he’d been so damn strong forcing me to the floor, determined and raring to go at the other guys.
“He fell?”
I turned at a man’s voice, someone coming down the sidewalk. He pushed a strange metal grated box on wheels. A…basket? Clinking cans and bottles rattled and danced as he neared me and this time-hopping guy. A hump of a canvas bag rose at the side of his back.
My hand hovered over my stranger’s cheek as I held back on another slap.
“Um…” No. Not that I’d seen. This guy wasn’t on the ground because of a fall, he’d simply passed out. “Sort of.”
“He fell from the sky.” This newcomer bobbed his head vigorously, his matted, stringy hair shuffling with the jerky movement. Rolling his eyes, he grinned and nodded slower. “From the sky. He fell from the sky!”
Well… Putting it like, maybe? I hadn’t witnessed this suited guy appear, so perhaps he did just shoot out of the clouds and into today.
A shrug was the best I could offer. “He, uh, he sure came with a bang.”
“Fell from the sky,” the ragged man insisted again. “The sky’s falling, too.”
Narrowing my eyes, I bit my lip. No…as far as I could tell, it wasn’t. Then again, my grasp on reality was debatable today.
“Need help?” He looked past me, then jerked his head to the left to glower at…
I guessed he was glaring at the stop sign. No one and nothing stood there except that post.
A car slowly cruised down the road, and I couldn’t help but gawk. On the road, not in the air.
“Need help?” he asked again, glaring at the stop sign.
His question jolted me back to focus. “Me?”
“Fallen from the falling sky. Need help?” he asked, snarling at the stop sign.
Like watching a laser disc match, I volleyed my face from the stop sign to the man a couple of times, back and forth. Was he talking to me?
“Need help? Need help?”
He sounded like a broken parrot, one of those robot things kids begged for Christmas, seeing as the natural species died out sometime in—
Hey! I bet there’s still a lot
of birds here.
“Need help? Need help?”
His repeats jarred me from my wandering curiosity about wildlife. Stop daydreaming. It didn’t take much to distract me.
Stiffly rocking back and forth, I stared at the man and realized he was talking to me, even if he couldn’t make eye contact. I wasn’t sure what he could do, but yeah, having some kind of assistance would be nice.
“Need help? Need help?” More rocking, and now he scowled at the stop sign.
“Walt!”
I leaned to the side to peer past this interesting man who had an issue with the stop sign. Someone else ran up to us. “Walt,” she called out again.
“Need help? Need help?” the stop sign hater echoed.
“Walt,” the woman said with a long huff of an exhale from the jog. Her blonde hair was bunched into a tight ponytail, such a long length it probably took hours to care for. How impractical. Wearing something of a uniform, she smiled brightly at me before patting the man on the shoulder. “Walt. You didn’t take your food. Or the medicine.”
“Fallen from the sky. Fallen from the sky. The sky is falling!” he repeated, shouting now.
“He didn’t fall from the sky,” I clarified. I don’t think.
At my words, the woman craned closer to see me, now spotting my stranger sprawled on the sidewalk. The rocking guy’s….um, wheeled basket must have hindered her view.
“Oh! What happened?” She left Walt’s side and dropped to kneel opposite me. She pressed her fingers to his neck, feeling for a pulse.
“I…I really don’t know.”
“He fell from the sky!” Walt insisted.
“Walt, it’s okay.” She shot him a calm smile then faced me. “Did he hit his head?”
It was a logical question, but jeez. Did people suffer head injuries a lot around here?
“No. He just…passed out.”
Her hand smoothed around his face, likely probing for something. As she pried his lid open and studied his eye, she said, “I’m a nurse student volunteering at the shelter. Just around the corner.”
A nurse. Hey, that was a help, but I couldn’t accompany this guy to a clinic. They’d raise a stink about me not having the right code tatted to mark me as his spouse, granting legal permission to stay with him while he was examined. I refused to be separated from him until I had some damn answers. Not to mention, if I helped him to a clinic, I didn’t have my tab to pay for any medical—
2020, Everly. That stuff doesn’t exist yet.
“Can you help? Please?”
“I can call for—”
I gripped her forearm. “No!”
A call for help would have to link to a summons to the cops. “I’m—he’s… Um.”
Shit.
Understanding shone clear in her serious gaze. “On the down low. I get it. I got you. But perhaps I can help better at the shelter. My bag’s there, at least.”
“He’s fallen from the sky!” Walt yelled.
The nurse stood. “Walt, it’s okay. Let’s get you back for some food and your medicine.”
Walt nodded, still a violent bob that shook his mangy hair. “Need help. Need help.”
“Yes, they need help,” the nurse agreed calmly.
Before anything more could be concluded, Walt swooped down and lifted the stranger. A squawk shot past my lips—who’s the parrot now?—at his sudden burst of speed and strength. Walt manhandled the guy so quickly, I couldn’t have even reacted fast enough to defend him.
“Easy!” the nurse held her arms out, as though she could catch the man if Walt dropped him.
He held him firmly until he deposited him on the heap of cans in his wheeled basket.
The nurse’s eyes were wide, but she maintained a calm expression otherwise. “All right, not…the, uh, most conventional means of transportation, but this shopping cart is handy. Nice and easy,” she told Walt as he began to turn it.
“You…shop with this?” I asked, walking cautiously at the side of the cart. I held the stranger’s feet so they didn’t bang into the side.
The nurse held up the man’s head on the other side. Eyeing me closely, she replied, “Y—es…”
Dammit. I should look like I know what she’s talking about. Since this was already weird enough.
“Of all the things I’ve seen…” she muttered. She glanced around as though checking for any witnesses. Or maybe fearing she’d be in trouble. “Are you sure we can’t call for help?”
“I thought you were going to help.”
“I will, I am. I can. My commitment to nursing and caring for others promises I will, but if someone’s after you, or you’re in trouble, we can still call the police and help this man—”
I swallowed hard. “Please, don’t.”
Her wince didn’t comfort me, but she shut up about contacting more rescue services.
Just around the corner was this “shelter” she’d referenced. A familiar sight! At last!
Architecture and building material, this was a homeless post. Its size was underwhelming, as was the crowd. Where was everyone?
“What’s this?” I asked as Walt steadily pushed his basket—no, shopping cart—to the entrance.
“Local homeless shelter,” the nurse answered.
“This is a homeless shelter?” I asked, splaying a hand toward it.
“Uh…yes.”
I glanced at her, sure she was joking. “Why’s it so empty?”
Her brows shot up. “Empty? They’re almost at capacity for the food lines.” A sad laugh escaped. “I volunteer as much as I can around classes and work. Going for my grad degree.”
Oooh. Look at you. You know what you want to do in life. Congrats.
“But I wish I could do more. They’ve just started a welfare program that gets—”
Walt pushed faster, propelling us to run to flank the cart and my stranger. “The sky is falling!”
“Easy! Easy, Walt,” the nurse said. Meeting my stare again, she went on in a quieter tone. “A program to help some like Walt get his psych medication from a psychiatrist who donates his services.”
Huh. That sounded nice. I still couldn’t understand why there weren’t more people in line. From where I came from, the homeless class exceeded shelter limits on a daily basis, but none of them were loony. After the revolutions in the sixties, scads of people entered the poor caste, but they were normal and without mental distress.
Which was better? Fewer poor needing mental help, or more poor without the need for such care?
“Over here, please,” the nurse asked, jarring me from watching the homeless shuffle through a line for food.
Walt steered his cart to the side of the room that we’d entered via wide-open double doors. Along the wall were some couches. No black-market leather here. Shiny, cracked plastic-looking fabric lined the cushions.
What is with all this plastic?
“Do you know of your friend’s medical history?” the nurse asked as she reached beneath a shelf and stood again with a bag.
I don’t even know his damn name.
“Episodes of seizures?” she asked, plucking a strange thing like a necklace with big earplugs at split tubes and a dangling end with a big button from her bag. She slapped it around her neck.
“Uh…no?” I watched as she yanked out gloves and slid them on.
Walt grunted, hefting my guy onto his shoulder.
“Whoa!” I held my hands out, spotting him, and held my breath as Walt slung the man to the cushions. He wasn’t cradling him gently, but at least he hadn’t tossed him.
“Easy,” the nurse said again. “Dr. Warren should be right over there, see?” She pointed to someone in the corner, a man wearing a white coat and holding a clipboard.
A man as a doctor? I bit back a laugh. How unusual. I’d never seen a man take on such a career. Back in—um, forward in?—2071, they were discouraged from jobs that required an understanding of math and science.
His reply was a vigorous nod an
d a grunt. Then he left, pushing his little basket-cart vehicle thing before him.
“Thanks,” I weakly called out to his back.
“I swear, this goes against everything I’m trained to do. We should call the police. For an ambulance—”
“No.” I turned from watching my helper leave.
“Whoa. What’s this?” The nurse peered at my stranger’s back since Walt left him propped on his side. Still, he slept, his chest rising and falling, his eyes closed with a serenity I had a hunch he seldom felt.
Lowering, she narrowed her eyes and pulled at the jacket over his back. A gasp slipped from her lips as she plucked the fabric up from him.
Blood soaked the material, dampness that had already hardened and caked around an opening. Her latex-covered fingertip poked through the hole.
He’d been wounded? Stabbed? Like me?
I yanked the jacket and shirt up, too impatient for her to freeze. Hell, if she was training to be a nurse, she sure hadn’t witnessed much trauma.
Underneath, though, was nothing but smooth, unmarred flesh. Taut, tanned skin stretched, and as he shifted unconsciously, I couldn’t miss the tight flex of muscles toward his side, just above his waistband.
“What?” How—”
I stroked my palm over his back, checking that what we saw was what we got. No injury. Not a single spot of a scar there.
“I— I don’t understand…” the nurse murmured.
Me neither. And I’d woken up so sure I’d been stabbed without any proof of it ever happening. How, I had no clue. This sleeping beast probably could answer my questions.
Come on, wake up!
“Maybe he’s wearing someone else’s clothes,” I suggested, eager to move past this mystery of his lack of wounds.
Her jaw dropped. “Borrowed bloodied clothes? Why?”
Well, shit. I had to convince her I knew this guy, so she couldn’t kick me out or tell me to get lost. “He’s…got some weird habits.” I pointed at my head and gestured a circle with my finger. “You know?”
“Hmm.” She studied me and then rolled him to his back. “All right.” Gripping the odd necklace, she propped the ends into her ears. “Do you know if he has any medical conditions? Diabetic?” She set the button end to his chest.
In the Wrong Year (Double-Check Your Destination Book 1) Page 4
