“What are you hiding for him? Helen looked around, as though someone might be listening in. “Drugs?”
“No!”
“And now you’re telling me you’re just going to run off with this bum?” Helen snapped.
“His name is Pete, for the hundredth time,” Valentina said slowly, patiently.
“I don’t care if his name is Michael B. Jordan.”
Michael B. Jordan? I mouthed to Jake. The basketball player?
He smirked and shook his head slightly.
“I’m going with him,” Valentina insisted.
Helen pursed her lips and crossed her arms. I’d been the recipient of that look so, so many times in my youth. “You’re not going to finish college?”
“Oh, what do I need a degree for?” Valentina sassed back.
“For God’s sake, Tina! A job, maybe?”
“I don’t need a mountain of student debt. No, thanks.”
Helen huffed. “No, but you need to run off with this bum.”
“Pete. He has a name!”
“Why, Tina, why would you do this?” Helen rubbed at her forehead. “Josie’s gone… At least she wants to do good, a medic in poor communities. But now you too? You just want to go?”
Valentina smiled. “I love him. I’m in love with him.”
“Of course you are,” Helen taunted.
“You’re not changing my mind. Pete’s my future.”
“Then why does he want you to run away with him? Why not stay here? Josie’s talking about going to God knows where and—”
Valentina held her hand up. “Some people are…after him.”
“What?” Helen’s outburst was loud, even for her.
People turned to stare, and Helen meekly looked around the room. I ducked lower so she wouldn’t see me.
“People are after him?” Helen demanded.
“Yeah.”
“What, druggies? The mob?”
Agents and borgs.
Valentina giggled. “The mob? Seriously? No.”
“I want no part of this. I want your things—his…contraband out of the house.”
“Helen, come on. Please. It’s not hurting anything sitting in the attic. It’s just odds and ends that he doesn’t have room for at the moment.”
“I want it out of my house. I can tell something’s up, Tina. I’m not stupid.”
“Never said you were.”
“Ever since Mom and Dad passed away, you’ve been acting suspiciously. Ever since you met this bum. Who knows what kind of crimes he’s mixed up with.”
“I know what he does. He’s not the bad guy. Trust me.”
“I can’t trust you, Tina. And that’s final. If you’re running off with him, I refuse to let you use the family house as a storage unit.”
“Helen, you’re making too big of a deal out of this.”
“Do not tell me I’m overreacting. I want whatever you put in the attic gone.”
Valentina’s lips set in a firm line. “I never should have told you it was his stuff I was storing up there.”
Helen scowled. “Just as well, I caught you in the act of sneaking in with that box then.”
“Listen, he’s a good, decent man. He’s just got some…acquaintances who think he’s got something of theirs.”
“Oh, you mean the stuff you brought over for him?” She growled. “No. Now trouble will come to me at my house.”
Actually, that was true, like she was foretelling the future.
“No one will even know his stuff is there. We’ll move, and maybe I can come back again later someday. When things are…calmer.”
I checked a glance at Jake. He frowned, and I bet he was thinking the same thing I was. Pete wanted to move Valentina because agents were on his tail.
“My life is calm.”
“Lucky you. Pete wants to make sure I’m somewhere far away from his, uh, old acquaintances. For my safety, just in case. For a while, until it boils over.”
Helen shook her head. “I can’t believe—”
Jake tugged my sleeve, interrupting me from what Helen was saying.
“We gotta go.”
I looked in his direction and saw Freddy marching up the steps of the library.
I did a double-take. The vision of the tall blond on campus was something my brain had stored plenty of times. Not now, though. Here, in the wrong year.
Dammit.
His tense stare, zeroed in on Valentina and Helen, was something unique too.
No more lazy smiles, goofy laughs. He wasn’t a college classmate with lame jokes, but the enemy. And he was coming right for my relatives arguing about vials Pete likely had hidden at Aunt Helen’s house.
“Run,” Jake said, urging me to get up and go toward the side doors.
Freddy pulled something from his pocket, and I froze, watching his arm raise. Behind him was another man. A borg.
“Run, Everly. Now!” Jake shoved at me again.
I stood and darted off.
“Ever—” Freddy’s yell cut through the din of the lobby space. “You!”
I looked back to see Jake blocking my aunt and mom from Freddy’s way.
“Get her,” Freddy ordered the borg.
Crap. Why didn’t I keep that stupid crowbar? I ran, sprinting around tables and chairs, ignoring the clatter of fallen books and cups as I knocked into people and furniture.
A gun went off. The normal kind. Not a light blaster.
I skidded to a stop and turned back, gasping for air.
Across the room, Jake held his shoulder, watching me as he winced. “Run, dammit!”
Freddy backpedaled and twisted to run. For me.
A borg and an agent on my tail. Just my luck.
I took off for the open courtyard of the campus.
My foot burned with every hard slam to the ground, and a stitch crept in my ribcage.
“This way.” Jake panted next to me, having caught up from the side.
I flung my hand out, and he grabbed it, steering me toward the road and away from the pedestrian walkways on campus.
Another gunshot went off, and I couldn’t help but duck. Jake didn’t yell at an injury, so I took faith that Freddy had missed.
Hisses rent the air next, though, and purple light beams shot ahead.
“This way!” Jake urged, running harder.
Did he even know where he was going? Did it matter as long as it was away?
Footsteps sounded closer and closer, heavy, thudding stomps. Too close. Too loud. I whipped back to see the borg running harder, nearly behind us. He jumped, leaping for Jake.
They tumbled to the ground, knocking into me and sending me sprawling with them.
My knees burned, and my elbow bent roughly. I held my breath—why, I couldn’t say—as I rolled away.
Jake’s guttural grunts pained me, hating how he was beaten again in the line of rescuing me.
I shoved my hair from my face, shaking as I righted myself to my hands and knees. Just like—
Just like I’d remembered when I woke up in Valentina’s bed. How I’d been attacked, stabbed for whatever the hell Freddy wanted from me. Intel on where the marces were? My life as leverage?
“I don’t think so,” I mumbled to myself.
I pushed to stand, feeling off-balance. My palm didn’t press on the grass or pavement, but a smooth block.
Valentina’s smartphone.
Was it made of metal?
I caught sight of Freddy, speaking to a cop in the distance, shaking his head. He glanced back, probably checking his borg partner was keeping us down.
I pushed to stand then ran for the borg straddling Jake while he choked him.
I dove at them, raising the phone, and landed as I hit. Bashing the small smartphone over and over, I aimed at his head. The skin had to be thinnest there. Right? Maybe? Over and over, I struck, hoping I was messing with his metallic interior.
Someone screamed in the distance, but all I cared about was that the borg l
et go of Jake. He staggered back, away from me. His left hand raised, as though warding me off, while he groped at his waist with his right.
What was he looking for? A weapon?
“The jumper!” Jake pointed.
It lay next to his thigh.
The borg and I lunged for it at the same time, but Jake sat up enough to kick him further off.
I grabbed the slim rod and handed it to Jake. He pulled me back to him, hugging me with one arm as he breathed hard.
“Hold on.”
To what? Him? I clutched at his neck, staying close.
I watched him pressed the button, and I closed my eyes tight.
Then we were gone.
Chapter Fifteen
“Everly!”
I moaned, vaguely aware I was rolling over.
“Everly!”
Jake. J-ake. His name rolled around in my head on repeat, slurring the sounds as I struggled to find my grounding. Jake. Jake. Jake.
I’d known him for such a brief time, but his name, bold and curt, was imprinted in my head. Not altogether in a bad way, but why the hell was he yelling so damn loud when I felt so miserable?
“Come on, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. I felt my lips lazily curve. I loved when he called me something that couldn’t be. Sweet? You sure about that? I wasn’t only capable of being nice when the urge struck. I had my mean moments, too, just like anyone. And if I was his heart…wouldn’t that mean we’d be together?
“Everly,” he repeated, softer.
His lips pressed to my forehead, and his breath fanned my hair.
It tickled.
I sighed.
“Everly, wake up.”
I was awake. Wasn’t I? Damn, was I wasted.
Fighting off the draw of sleep, I came to more of my senses. Namely, sight, as I worked my eyes open.
Blinking fast, I stared up at him, then past his handsome face.
He leaned over me as I lay…where?
We were in a room? An apartment? No. Prison? That seemed most fitting.
Sitting up, I groaned.
“Not too fast.” He supported me at my back, aiding me.
I set my hand to my stomach to calm the roiling sensation bubbling there. Taking a deep breath, I counted to ten and tried sitting again.
“What—where are we?”
He reached over from where he kneeled next to me. I wiped at my eyes as he handed me the jumper.
The borg’s jumper. I’d grabbed it and gave it to him—
“Uh, when are we?” I asked, instead.
“Look.” He rubbed my back while he pointed at the slim cylinder.
“2051?” I peered at the digits on the readout again. “My birthdate?”
“Really?” He sort of smiled at me.
“Yeah.”
I set the jumper down and studied our…cell again.
Around us were big clumps and blobs of dirt and grass. Whatever we’d be standing on when we’d jumped time. “All right. Where are we?”
“My guess is a construction bunker.” He lowered to sit with me on the floor, shoving aside a bit of dirt.
It didn’t have the squishy, plush rug stuff like in the hotels. There was a bed, more like a cot, off to the side. A narrow door opened to show a shower stall and tub.
“A bunker?”
“While you dozed—”
I winced. “Did I puke?”
He shook his head, tucking hair behind my ear. “No. Just napped for about ten minutes. It’s potent, jumping time the first few trips.”
I frowned at the hole in his shirt sleeve. “You were shot.” I moved to kneel, to help him. That sheet on the cot could be cut to gauze.
“Nope. Not anymore.” He lifted his ruined and bloody garment to show his flawlessly intact skin.
I gaped at him and pried off my shoe.
“Seriously?” I tugged the sock off to find my foot smooth as though I’d never stepped on something sharp. “Whoa.” Lowering to sit again, I marveled at the, well, could I call it a miracle? Other than a queasiness in my stomach, a slight headache, and a stubborn wisp of sleepiness, I was fine. No injuries.
I leaned over to pull his shirt up, checking for the bruise on his chest—gone. And the cuts on his back—vanished.
“Whoa,” I whispered again.
“Told ya. While you napped, I checked out our…um location.” He stood and walked to a small table, more like a shelf or desk with one chair at it. Papers hung in a metal file folder attached to the wall. A pamphlet, actually. Jake plucked it from its spot and showed me the cover.
“Water Block Phase II?” I asked of the title.
“I think it refers to the levee formation.” Thumbing through the pages, he nodded. “Back in the late-forties, they began busting up the pavement to build walls along the coast to counter the rising sea level.”
“Oh…yeah.” I rubbed at my forehead, recalling lessons on that in grade school.
“I think we’re in a bunker for the workers. This thing shows the protocol for what to do if the sites crash. Makes sense, too. We ran off campus, toward the beach, so this is probably near where that construction would have started.”
A bunker for if the walls fell in. I nodded, imagining the start of those massive walls of concrete chunks. For so long, I’d thought they’d made the rumble to build the fortress against the ocean, but now, I realized they’d just busted up all the damnable paved surfaces in the city.
“Are we stuck?”
“Got somewhere else you’d like to be?”
I stood at his tease and wobbled. “Um. Not at this moment, maybe not.”
He came to me and helped me stand steadier. “The protocol thing says to call some number.” I followed the direction of where he pointed to a comms interface on the wall. “I tried calling with that, but it says no one’s in the admin office until tomorrow morning.”
“Just as well.” I didn’t think I’d be up for moving more than ten feet without a dizzy spell, and this room had to be less than that in length.
“We’ll take it easy,” he soothed, guiding me to the cot. With a firm but tender grip, he assisted me to lie down. He sat at the end, putting my feet on his lap. “You amateur.”
I grinned and thumped him with my foot. “Be nice.”
He removed my other shoe and sock.
“You say that like I should expect another jump in time.”
“You should.”
I frowned at him.
Rubbing my feet, he stared at his hands. “You want to get back to 2071.”
Maybe? Wasn’t that my goal?
I’d focused on getting out of 2020. We had. Not as planned, but it seemed we were still in the wrong year. “As much as I hate this instant hangover stuff—”
“It gets easier.”
Uh-huh. “What happens if I don’t?”
His massage stopped. “If you don’t go back to 2071?”
I nodded.
“You don’t exist there anymore. You live wherever you’ve jumped to.”
Leave Aunt Helen? Just like…my mom and Aunt Josie had?
Would it be so bad? Aunt Helen already seemed to think I’d leave for something other than my half-ass commitment to college and a boring job at the recycling plant. While she’d never encouraged me to strive for a different life, she’d always automatically assumed I’d need to obey my wanderlust someday.
I rubbed my head. Too much to think about. “Why are we in 2051?”
“No idea. That’s what the borg had set up for his next destination. It was already loaded with a marce, and we didn’t even look at the time setting that was dialed in before we used it.” He slid down, lying next to me. His solid warmth grounded me, and I shifted to give him more space.
“But the handle has one more marce. I can take you home, and then once I find the stash of marces Freddy was looking for, I’ll head back to Marcel’s estate to figure out how we’d misinterpreted what Pete said.”
“Why 2051,
though?” And my birthday of all dates?
Smoothing my hair from my face, he sighed. “No clue. Not yet, at least.”
I rubbed my stomach and closed my eyes.
“Sleep some more. It might help with the nausea.”
“Not the dizziness.”
I shivered as he rubbed his calloused palm up and down my arm. Soothing, but something more, too. A heady comfort. Don’t tell me I’m clinging to him…
“Does this help?”
“Yeah.” I pressed closer to him, and he matched my moves.
“I can bore you to sleep,” he offered.
I opened one eye. “I sincerely doubt that.”
“Oh, yeah?” He grinned. “Let me tell you about the time I had to stake out a monk in a monastery in…1690.”
His deep voice, combined with his heavy hand rubbing my flesh, lulled me to peaceful bliss.
I couldn’t tell how long I dozed for, but when I woke next, I ran to the bathroom. Not to puke, but to empty my bladder. Still sluggish, I curled into his hold once more. “Is it cold in here?”
“I think so.” He adjusted the blankets to cover us. “We’re in a concrete box after all.”
“All right. So…that time with the blacksmith and poet.”
And he launched into another tale of his travels.
And another.
Some I napped through, others I stayed alert to listen fully. He mentioned Pete a couple of times too, and even in my slightly tipsy and sickly state, I could pick up on the sadness in his tone. Maybe loneliness of missing his mentor.
At least a few hours had passed until I felt more like myself again.
Hungry, too, and damn, those MRE things stored in here were awful.
“Do you ever want to stay somewhere? In one time?” I asked once we were done and seeking the warmth under the blankets again. The temperature was bearable on the cot, even if it was a tight fit. Being pressed against him, cuddled into his arms, was quickly, stupidly, becoming my favorite place to be—hence my question.
Did he belong to any one place?
“If anyone would have asked me that two days ago, no.”
“But today?” I peered up at his whiskey stare, intent and inescapably on me.
“I don’t know.”
I dropped my gaze, running my hand up from where I’d set them on his chest to frame his face instead. Remembering how much he’d enjoyed it before, I went higher, spreading my fingers through his hair and dragging my nails over his scalp.
In the Wrong Year (Double-Check Your Destination Book 1) Page 12
