I couldn’t tell if he’d meant it as a corny jeer. My blush warmed anew at the innuendo of it regardless. He’d said it, I thought, as more of a promise. An invitation to go with him.
Could I? Just travel time like he does? As a tagalong? Assistant? Sidekick? I wasn’t game for violence, and I doubted I’d master the weaving complexities of how time bent for jumpers, but…
Could I?
I swallowed an unchewed lump of taco and coughed until I teared up.
“I know they’re awesome. But jeez.” He patted my back, chuckling. “Here.”
I took the water he offered me, ignoring the shock of it in a plastic bottle.
“So, Tina. Tina something,” he said, placing his food aside and reaching for the phone he’d stolen.
I drank fast to clear my throat, resolved to clear these tempting ideas of embracing wanderlust from my mind too. At least for now. “Her last name isn’t something.”
“Right.” He tapped and scrolled on the phone.
I was too hungry to watch over his shoulder. The slant of his brows and the way he gnawed on his lip suggested he was in the zone, concentrating. Questions filled me to the brim, but I planned to fill my stomach with food before I launched an inquisition.
What was he looking at, exactly?
How could he know how to investigate so seamlessly? Because he had learned to adapt to any given decade of technology? Envy swarmed again, and I wished I could experience his challenges.
“You were born when?” I asked.
“In 1995.”
“But you’re thirty-three?”
“Yeah.” I tried to do the math and gave up.
“How do you know so much about this time? Phones, the internet…”
“I grew up with the technology and came back to this time often. Tried to see what people I used to know were up to.”
“Old lovers?”
“Old enemies.”
Ooh. Got it.
“Okay. Here we go. Tina—Valentina, actually—Marien Olson. Date of birth November 2nd, 1994, in Sarasota, Florida.”
I clutched his arm.
“Ow.”
I loosened my grip, so I didn’t dig my nails in as much.
“Everly?”
Chewing twice more, I swallowed carefully, avoiding the mistake of almost choking again. I cleared my throat. “What did you say?”
“She was born in 1994, in—”
“Her name.”
“Valen—”
Oh, my God. “Val.”
He squinted at me. “Huh?”
“I found myself in Val Marien’s apartment yesterday morning. That’s whose phone I had on me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jake stared at me, and I couldn’t guess what he was calculating.
Valentina Marien. I’d woken up in her bed, her place. I’d taken her phone.
Swallowing hard, I felt my pulse speed up, excited at this connection. Or, I hoped it was a link to something that would make sense.
That café guy. He’d recognized me too—as Val—Valentina.
“Tell me exactly what you remember when you woke up yesterday,” Jake stated. So direct.
I let the taco wrapper fall to the paper tray. “Um, I woke up in a bed—”
“A bed?”
“All right, if you want me to tell you something, I need to be speaking, not you.”
He frowned. “Yeah, yeah. Go on.”
I opened my mouth, then paused. “Why wouldn’t I be on a bed? That’s where people sleep.”
“You should have been on the street.”
I gaped at him.
“I jumped you through time on the street. When you travel through time, you end up in the exact spot on earth from where you were sent.”
Okay…but…
“You jump time, not space. I’d found Freddy asking you for the marces in the alley near student housing on campus. You had to have ended up in that same damn alley.”
I wiped my fingers off and shook my head. “All right. You’re the expert. I landed in the alley. Whatever. You asked me what I remember when I woke up, and that’s what I’m telling you. I woke up in a bed, in what I presumed was Valentina’s apartment. I found her phone, thinking it was my tab. Then I walked around—”
He narrowed his eyes as he asked, “Did you talk to anyone?”
“No! I walked around, found that café. Never did get that ‘real’ coffee.”
“You’re missing out.”
“Gee, rub it in, huh? I went there to, I don’t know, think, and the café guy asked if I wanted my usual, thinking I was Val. Only Val must have long hair. Then I sat, had to pee, and then…” I flashed my hands at him. “There you were.”
“He thought you were Valentina?”
I nodded.
He stared at the table then sucked in a breath. When he faced me again, he peered at me. Gripped my chin and really looked close.
“What?”
I’d just barely caught how he’d masked a blip of surprise. “You’ve got…pretty eyes.”
“What?” Was he shifting into flattery? Now? Why? “Huh?”
My eyes were the only thing I secretly felt vain about. A bright green, not the grassy or mossy duller tone. Like a…electric green almost.
“I mean, thanks, but…”
“Anytime.” He’d returned to the stolen phone, scrolling again.
“Why not just enable Val’s phone again?” I asked. He’d stuck it in his back pocket, seeming to have forgotten about it since he’d disabled it.
“Edward’s gotta be tracking it. There’s nothing to trace us to this one.” On and on, he scrolled and tapped.
I drank more water, eyeing him suspiciously. If he thought to lie or hide something from me…
“Wait. If you end up in the exact same spot when you jump, where did you go after you sent me to this year?”
He sighed. “I chased Freddy down, trying to get his jumper. We weaved through the streets and ended up in an old warehouse. That was where I had to jump to avoid getting shot by a blaster.”
“So where’d you appear?”
He looked at the phone, frowning as he answered. “In a goddamn ballroom. Some fancy party. I played it off as though I was a waiter, knocked out some idiot getting sucked off in a closet, took his clothes, and then started back to the alley where I’d jumped you through time.”
“Ah.” That explained his roaring twenties clothes. But not the time gap. He’d sent me through time at night. He’d appeared the next morning.
“But on the way, the two borgs I’d accidentally brought to 1920 with me—”
I leaned closer so he’d look at me. “Accidentally brought?”
“Yeah. They’d been touching me when I hit the button on the jumper. So they came with me.” He shrugged, returning to whatever he was checking out on the screen. “They gave chase again, in 1920, and we got arrested on the street for a civil disturbance. In the morning, the cop got too close, and they disarmed him, escaped their cell, got their jumpers from the desk, and came here to get you. Then I snuck out after them, got my jumper, and came too.”
Staring wide-eyed at his shoulder, I zoned out and tried to convince myself this wasn’t a book or a movie. That, all of that, had happened. Oddly enough, I could wrap my head around it. Maybe bouncing back and forth in time wasn’t as crazy of a concept as I’d originally thought.
“Oh…shit.”
Screw asking any more questions, I shoved at his arm to scoot closer. He wasn’t hiding anything from me, damn it.
He moved the phone, so we could both see the screen.
“What’s that?”
“Valentina’s feed.”
“On Tikok?” I leaned closer to see the logo.
“TikTok. Videos. Mostly about dances…it’s— Just look.”
I watched short clips of her partying at a club. It had to be her. She looked like she could be my sister! Long brown hair, the same slanted eyes, my lips were fuller, but�
�
“Oh. Shit,” Jake whispered as he watched with me.
The next clip was of her walking down the alley. Text boxes popped up through the chopped clips of the streaming vid.
“I was walking home tonight. No more DUIs for this girl,” I read aloud. I faced him for a second. “What’s a DUI?”
“Shh.”
“Then I found this poor thing passed out,” I read as the next box showed.
The phone switched from selfie mode to show the camera what was in front of her.
“That’s me!” I held my breath. Oh, my God. She’d found me passed out on the sidewalk. The camera went blurry as she’d likely rushed up to me, the view lowering as she must have crouched to me. Large, scattered chunks of dirt lay around me—probably part of the ground that had been jumped back in time with me when Jake had used the jumper on me on the ground.
The next text strip showed, and I read it aloud again, “And I found my doppelganger!”
The video flashed a dual screen of her face and my sleeping one. Minus the drastic hair length difference, it was like looking at clones.
“No ID, so if you know who this is, I’ll have her at my place,” I read.
Jake thumbed the screen, but nothing new showed. “You had her phone. That’s why she couldn’t have had anything new posted. And her sharing this online last night gave Edward a way to find you to send borgs after you. Dammit.”
I rubbed at my temple. “All right. So she found me.” And Edward, I guessed. “How the hell did she get me upstairs and in her bed?”
He shrugged. “You don’t remember? Maybe she woke you up, and you staggered upstairs?”
I shook my head. “Lemme watch it again.” After we viewed it again, my heart raced faster. “My mom…found me.”
“Yeah. That’s why I said, oh shit.” He gathered our wrappers, standing now.
“Why does it have to be a bad thing?” I rose, following him as he hurried to a garbage can nearby. “I think it’s kind of cool.”
I’d never met my mom, but I’d always felt a kindred bond to her. Other than the obvious mother-daughter blood tie. Aunt Helen had never failed to compare my behavior to hers, usually as a critique, and it made me feel less…alone. I’d grown to give up asking my aunt about my mom since it seemed like such a closed topic, but I’d always wondered what happened to her. Why she’d left me with my aunt, if she was alive, where she had gone…
Closure. I’d never had it, and now, I had an insight into something about her.
Jake smirked at me. “Cool? She saw her daughter as an adult.”
“So.” I winced. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
Why couldn’t I remember that rule? “Grandfather paradox…”
“Exactly. She could change her views about you when you’re born. Or…anything.”
He walked slowly enough that I could see what he was doing on the phone.
A feed of images instead of videos.
“Hey! Instagram!” I recognized that one.
“How about, hey, Dad!” He held the screen up more. “That’s Valentina.” He pointed at her.
“Damn, are those eyelashes creepy.”
“It’s the trend right now.”
I pulled his arm closer to squint at Valentina, smiling with her arm around some hot guy’s shoulders. “What?”
“Fake lashes,” he clarified.
“Like…a spider-look or something?”
“That’s beside the point!” He tapped at the guy.
“How do you know that’s gotta be my dad?” My stomach lurched as I noticed the man’s eyes. Bright, vibrant-bright, green. Sort of looked like mine, come to think of it.
That was why he’d been staring at my eyes. He’d noticed the color.
“Because it’s Pete.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jake groaned and rubbed at his jaw. “Pete wasn’t telling me that he left something with the Olson girl. He’d left someone with the Olson girl.”
“Me?” I’d stumbled to a stop, too shocked to walk. Where the hell were we going, anyway? My foot ached. My head was a fog after too many revelations too soon…
He doubled back, taking my hand. Not in a follow your leader grip, but softer, gentler. For comfort.
“I’m sure of it.”
“So…what does that mean?”
He rubbed at his face, looking anywhere but at me.
I gripped his upper arms and shook. “What does this mean?”
“I have an idea.”
Why couldn’t he make eye contact? I took his chin between my thumb and forefinger and forced him to face me. “A bad idea?”
“More like a bad hunch. The crew figured Pete had said that as a message to retrieve marces, he’d likely left at Helen—no, Valentina’s place. I don’t know. Maybe he’d gotten starry-eyed and thought he was in love. More likely, he’d thought he could settle with her and live happily ever after. Give up time jumping but keep some marces handy at home just in case.”
I licked my lips as he paused. “But his daughter…if any of Edward’s agents found out, they could take you hostage. To get Marcel to give over all his supply of jumper equipment. None of the Ravens—except for Marcel—had kids. It’s…you’re probably leverage.”
“Me?”
“Just a hunch.”
I staggered back. Leverage? I’d be used again?
He caught me and held me close.
“So this means…”
“Stakes are kinda higher.” He framed my face, worry lining his brow. “But I won’t let them get you.”
I quirked a brow.
“I swear.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
He kissed me. A slow and tender press of his warm lips that I wanted to tear up. Where was his impatience? His urgency? The hot demand to acquiesce and match up to his desire?
“No.” I shoved him off. “Don’t kiss me like that. Like…like it’s a goodbye, or a delicate…memory to hold on to.” I licked my lips. “Like defeat’s inevitable.”
His gaze sharpened, and he might have smiled. I couldn’t tell because he’d pulled me close once more and truly kissed me. Hard, insistent. He demanded entrance, and I tasted him as he devoured me.
A hard curve pressed at my back, and I vaguely realized he’d walked me back, leaning me against a tree.
“Get a room!” someone hollered in passing.
“A room of what?” I mumbled when we broke for air.
Panting, he laughed once. Twice. “He means a hotel room. To hook up.”
“Oh. Been there, done that.”
“Hey.” He kissed me once more, on my cheek. “That’s usually my line.”
I smiled at him, taking faith in the fact he’d have my back. Well, a tree was at it right now, but…
“I could be wrong,” he said, taking my hand and encouraging me to walk with him again.
“Nooo,” I drawled.
“It happens, it happens.”
“Hmm.”
“If Pete was referring to marces, not you.” He rubbed his hand over his hair. “I can’t believe… He wouldn’t have kept you a secret. He’d have known what a risk it would be to you. That’s why they—we—all make sure we use protection. Bringing a kid into this fight isn’t fair to anyone.”
“So maybe Pete doesn’t know I’m his kid.”
“Which means the agent was sent to you on the assumption you’d be a way to Helen Olson.”
“When that lead was just directing everyone to the wrong sister. So Pete could have hidden marces at Valentina’s place.”
He pulled my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “You catch on fast.”
“Sometimes.” Being potentially endangered for leverage sure kicks my ass into thinking on my feet.
“I looked at her class schedule and calendar.”
I reared back to face his profile. “On that teeny phone? When?”
“While you were eating. I ch
ecked her emails first.”
“Oh.”
“She’s supposed to meet with Helen at the library on campus in an hour. We could eavesdrop. See if we can figure out where the marces would be.”
At Aunt Helen’s, the ancient mausoleum of a residence she lived in still, or would, until 2071. Or Valentina’s apartment, where I’d already been.
Too bad I couldn’t have known to search for marces when I was there.
Hindsight’s 20/20.
I smirked at my own ridiculous pun.
“You don’t think it’s a good idea?” he asked.
“No, I’m game. It’s gotta be a start, right?”
“Just…make sure they don’t see us.”
Uh-huh.
Jake and I didn’t arrive at the library until ten minutes after Valentina planned to meet Helen. My foot slowed us down some, and then we’d gotten a bit lost at a turn toward campus. Jake insisted we couldn’t go the route I suggested, stating the roads had changed in the years between 2020 and 2071. They probably had. But detour signs weren’t reliable guides no matter the time because I was right, and he was wrong.
Hence, we showed up tardy.
Put him in a grouchy mood and me in a more than peeved one. Go figure. The time traveler hated being late.
Hardy.
Har.
Har.
We found them easily enough, arguing at a table in the lobby space outside the library.
We used a couple of magazines as props to hide behind, sitting a couple of tables over. Close enough to hear them, but hopefully far enough, they wouldn’t think we were.
“Stop staring,” Jake hissed when I’d risen above the edge of my magazine again.
Aunt Helen was…gorgeous! Sure, she was in her seventies, too, but my God. In her youth, she was stunning. No worry lines. No sagging shoulders. I loved this woman with all my heart, despite our differences in personality. But I couldn’t get over how beautiful she was as a twenty-something.
“Tina, let’s get this straight. First, you asked if you could keep some of his stuff at the house, in the attic.”
Tina—Valentina rubbed her neck. Huh. I did that too. When I was nervous. “Yeah. Security’s not, um, so great at my dorm.”
In the Wrong Year (Double-Check Your Destination Book 1) Page 11
