Before.
Sugar Beach.
Lance took a breath and calmed himself and tried to rationalize. Remembered that at this very moment, he was no longer viewing the present. Not seeing current events. The image of the orange-and-white Volkswagen bus was not something tangible directly in front of him, but something like a projection, a recreated memory of the Universe. Just like everything else Lance had witnessed since he’d stepped across the threshold of his motel room. It was part of a story he was meant to see. A clue in the mystery he was being forced to live through.
And something—instinct, intuition, gifts, abilities, take your pick—was tapping Lance on the temple and saying, This is it. This is why you’re here.
Everything. The past, the present, and somehow the future, all seemed to culminate right here in front of this motel room. A grand collision for which he was responsible.
But why? What was he—
Lance gasped, sucked in a sharp breath and let it out with a cry, doubling over and clutching his head. Searing pain had shot through his mind, like a bolt of lightning across the sky. No, that was too quick. It had been more like a blowtorch, a hot, explosive flame charring a path across the horizon of his thoughts. Burning away, working to remove something. To destroy.
Again.
This time, Lance went down on one knee, his hands viselike on either side of his skull as another blast of heat tore through. A buzz saw of pain grinding, slicing through with sparks flying.
But this time, something different. This time, in that moment when the pain had struck, Lance had felt … like he wasn’t himself. Not in the sense one usually uses such a phrase—like when they act out of character or are feeling a bit under the weather—but in the truest sense the words could possibly be interpreted. A momentary transition of consciousness. His mind—his active thoughts and all his memories—was not his own. Lance existed not as Lance, but as somebody else.
In that moment, that brief flash of agony, Lance had become the boy—Quinten.
And Lance had seen it all. Not the boy’s entire life, his past, but Lance had learned the cause of the pain.
They had him. The Reverend and Surfer had Quinten right inside room six, right here and now, and they were ripping apart his mind. Searching. Tearing apart the boy’s defenses, sifting through the rubble and trying to locate—
“Me.”
Lance said it aloud, and though he didn’t understand, couldn’t fathom, how Quinten could have known about him in whatever year Lance was witnessing, he accepted this truth completely. The Reverend and the Surfer’s pursuit of Lance had started long, long ago. And they’d been ruthless in their efforts from the very beginning.
Quinten was suffering because of him.
How many people had suffered, how many had died because of Lance Brody?
Why did he deserve to live and they did not?
Lance felt anger begin to boil. Anger mixed with such confusion, a melting pot of unanswered questions. He would kill just to be able to ask, Why? Why me?
But right now, he had to save the boy. They were in the room only a few feet away, the Reverend and the Surfer. Lance didn’t know what powers they would have against him in the state he existed in. Didn’t know if the Surfer could see him in the future the way Lance would see him in the past.
Lance had gotten rid of them—with the help of some friends—on the shore of Sugar Beach. Temporarily, at least. Because Lance was under no delusion that they would be gone for good. Would not allow himself that sense of peace. Because even if not them, there would likely be others. Others who would pick up the trail and start where the Reverend and the Surfer had left off.
But for now, Lance chose to believe that the two were temporarily nonexistent in the present, in the modern day in which, somewhere, Lance Brody was living and breathing. He hoped that whatever barrier existed between the present and the past would be enough protection.
Lance regained his footing, standing upright again and staring at the orange-and-white Volkswagen bus while his thoughts slowed and he prepared himself for what he had to do. The boy needed him, and he would not let him down. Quinten was suffering because of Lance, and Lance would do all he could to make it end.
Lance was about to turn around, head for the door to room six, when the strongest feeling of déjà vu pushed away all other thoughts. His eyes slid across the Volkswagen bus from the front to the back, and then out across the snow-covered parking lot until his focus reached the road, empty and quiet and lonely-looking with the clouded night sky stretching far and away. He searched for sights of the familiar, trying to reconcile why the feeling that he’d seen this all before—had lived this all before—had hit him with such force.
And then his eyes fell on a particular spot on the road, just across the threshold of the parking lot. The pieces snapped together to complete the puzzle. The circle completed.
He had seen this all before. The Volkswagen bus hadn’t been part of it, hidden, for some reason, the other time, but the scene playing out with Lance standing in front of room six, about to make his entry, had already burned a place into Lance’s memories.
He’d seen it all from the other side, as the other him. Lance of the present and not Lance witnessing the past.
Lance looked directly at the spot in the road where he knew he’d stood in the dream he’d had, where he’d witnessed the boy and fuzzy-television people and then watched himself turn to enter room six before he’d jolted awake and had started this unfathomable mission that, up until this point, had not had a clear objective. He marveled at how, right here and now, though he felt completely in control of his mind and body, free will driving his every action, on some level, this had all been predetermined.
In a gesture that felt so out-of-body, so foreign and unnatural, Lance raised a hand and waved to the spot on the road where he’d stood. Waved to himself in another dimension.
He wondered, just like he had when he’d witnessed the action before, if it truly was a wave of goodbye.
Then he turned his back on the part of him that existed on the road and moved to open the door to room six.
24
Lance stood before the door to room six, and just as he moved to step forward and allow himself to be transported through it, a quick flash of worry struck.
How can I fight them? How can I help Quinten when I have no physical presence here?
He’d been so worked up after seeing the Volkswagen bus and then getting the look inside Quinten’s head as the Reverend and Surfer tortured the boy’s mind, Lance hadn’t stopped to think what his plan of action might be.
But I do have a presence, he thought then, remembering that moment inside room five after the young girl had left and Quinten had suddenly fixed his eyes on the exact spot where Lance had been standing before, then reached out for him. It might not be much, but if he could see me, maybe they can too.
And if they could see him, maybe they could feel him. Maybe he could impact whatever was happening enough to attempt to stop it.
But if that were true, if he could find a way to interact with the people and objects in the past, did that also mean they could interact with him? Touch him? Hurt him?
Only one way to find out.
Lance gathered his courage and stepped forward, into the door. But he went nowhere. Instead of the normal rush of speed and blurred vision that usually accompanied his moments of teleportation from one side of a door to another, this time when Lance reached the door and took the last step to move through it, it was if he’d walked into a real door. One made of heavy wood or metal, locked and solid and unforgiving. He’d struck the object with too much force and then literally bounced off it. There’d been no pain, which was good, just a quick buzz and then the connection with something solid, a faint vibration through his entire self as he’d been flung backward.
And Lance might have been able to accept the fact that he’d walked into an actual door, that the past was somehow solidifying itself,
morphing from vision to tangible objects, if it hadn’t been for what he’d really seen as he’d struck the door.
The impact had not come as Lance had initially made contact with the vision of the door. No, he’d seen and felt himself begin to move through it, had seen the rest of the world begin to blur and fade away, had heard the rush of speed far off, coming for him to take him away. He had started to move through it, but something on the other side had stopped him.
Lance knew exactly what was happening.
They’re protecting themselves. They’ve put up some sort of defense. I should have known.
And while Lance willingly accepted this fact, another thought came with it. Do they already know I’m here? Do they—in the past—even know who I am yet? Could they capture me in this existence, instead of having to do it again in the future?
The time-travel-metaphysical-dream-world-vision-filled riddle was starting to hurt his head.
And then another blast of heat shot through his skull, another glimpse of a wall being knocked down by the wrecking ball that was the Surfer in the boy’s mind. Lance grunted in pain and was fueled by it. Like a starter’s pistol going off in his soul, the jolt of electricity had at once changed him. Primed him.
He found himself completely consumed by anger. Rage pulsed through him in such a force that he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before. His lungs felt full of something other than air, full of power, full of energy. Full of…
Salvation.
The word danced across his consciousness. Not his own voice, but the voice of another. A voice dwindling with each passing moment.
Lance ran straight for the door, his fists clenched and his shoulder lowered. He charged like a bull, ready to knock over the entire motel if that was what it came to. He closed his eyes and grunted in frustration and made one final push with his legs and hit the door. It exploded inward, the door frame splintering and cracking. And Lance tumbled two steps inside before he stopped himself. He managed to catch his balance and stand upright, his vision clearing and the realization that he’d succeeded spiking adrenaline through his veins.
“Who’s there?” It was the Reverend, standing in front of the bed against the room’s far wall. At the sight of him, Lance flushed with fresh anger. He clenched and unclenched his fists, feeling that anger grow inside him, feeling the energy he was generating with it.
The Reverend looked angry, his eyes narrowing to slits and his mouth pursing into a sour-looking worm, as if asking who dared to have the gall to interrupt them.
He took a step forward, eyes searching the doorway, and Lance knew that the Reverend could not see him.
But the Surfer…
The Surfer, who’d been standing in front of the first bed, his board shorts and cut-off t-shirt looking as tattered and frayed as ever, his long hair not in a ponytail but hanging in splayed fingers down across his face, raised a hand and grabbed ahold of the Reverend’s shoulder as the man had headed for the opened door—headed for Lance.
The Reverend stopped, turned and looked back to the Surfer, asking, “What? What is it?” before taking a step backward and refocusing on the opened doorway.
And that was when Lance felt the first chill of fear begin to weasel its way in again, digging a small hole into his armor of anger and energy and resolution. The Surfer squinted, reaching up and pushing the hair out of his face—Out of its face, Lance corrected himself. For the Surfer was no man, no matter what his appearance might otherwise say. The Surfer’s gaze locked onto Lance, clearly seeing through whatever veil existed between Lance’s world and the present time.
And though the fear was gnawing its way in further, Lance stayed calm. Focused his energy on the things he could control—himself. He needed to test his situation, verify that the Surfer could actually see him. So, he started to walk, taking slow, sideways steps away from the door and across the room. Four long strides until he was right in front of the television stand, directly in between the Reverend and the Surfer.
The Surfer’s eyes had followed him the entire way. He was still staring directly at Lance, but his eyes still remained squinted, and Lance would swear that for a moment or two the Surfer had lost him as Lance had worked his way across the room.
He can see me, but not clearly.
Just like the boy had in room five.
The boy…
Lance had been so focused on the Reverend and the Surfer as he’d crashed into the room that he’d not even noticed Quinten. The lights in the room had been off, the snowy white from the outdoors and the overhead lights from the overhang now stretched inside the opened door, giving everything it could touch a cold glow. And now Lance could see him, behind the Reverend and the Surfer, tied to a chair with duct tape, sitting alone in the shadows beside the first bed, his head hung down so that his chin was resting on his chest, his breathing irregular, his body soaked with sweat. Quinten.
And Lance felt the anger begin to swell again. Experienced such hatred for the two monsters before him. They’d killed his mother, a good woman—the best woman, a saint. The person he’d loved more than anything. And now they were going to kill this boy, a boy like Lance, a boy with gifts and abilities beyond the measure of the mortal world, a boy who, like Lance, had done and would hopefully continue doing such great things. Things for those who were hurting, those who were lost and sad, those who needed help in ways nobody but them even knew about. Lance had already seen this—the Backstroms, and the girl, Alexa, from room five—had seen and now understood why the Universe had brought him here, taken him on this trip through the past, to witness all the good that the boy stood for. And to let Lance know that he was not alone.
And right now, it was Lance’s job to let the boy know that he wasn’t alone either.
He would not let Quinten die like this, not at the hands of these monsters. Not today.
These thoughts swirled in Lance’s mind, mixing with his rage, bonding with his anger, pulling in all the energy he could absorb. Lance breathed in deep, opened his eyes, which he’d not even remembered closing, and was stunned at what he saw. He was glowing, a faint red light emanating directly from his pores. But, no, that wasn’t right. He stepped back and saw that it wasn’t he that was actually glowing, but that he was cocooned in some sort of force field, a translucent ball of light, pulsing red with each beat of his heart.
The Surfer stared where Lance stood. The Reverend’s eyes darted back and forth from his partner’s face to where the Surfer was looking.
Lance stared back, feeling strange, feeling an odd sense of out-of-body power that he wasn’t sure what do with, how to control. Growing, growing, growing. The red light getting bright and brighter and brighter.
And then Lance heard laughter. A foreign sound that sliced through the atmosphere of the room. The Reverend and Surfer turned in their spot, toward the source of the sound. Lance’s eyes fixed on Quinten.
The boy was sitting upright, his eyes wide and looking straight at Lance with clarity that must have taken all the energy the boy had left. Lance could feel it, could feel the exhaustion in the boy’s mind and body.
“He’s … here,” Quinten said.
And Lance felt something new. Something like satisfaction and relief coming from the boy’s mind.
The Surfer must have sensed it too, because he turned back quickly, staring back to where Lance was standing, looking like he wanted to do something, needed to act, but wasn’t sure what or how. The Reverend took a step closer to the boy, leaning in and asking, “Who?”
And Lance thought he heard genuine concern in the Reverend’s voice. A sound that was as sweet as anything Lance had ever heard.
“Salvation,” the boy said.
Quinten said the word, and Lance recognized it as the same word he’d heard in his head when he’d been outside the room, preparing himself to make his move. He hadn’t known what it had meant then, and he wasn’t entirely sure he knew what it meant now, but when the boy had spoken, Lance had felt something in
side of himself, a direct line of communication somehow created between him and Quinten, a secret tunnel through which they could pass their messages.
Salvation, the boy had said out loud. But what Lance had heard in his own mind was, Hello, friend. Do it now.
And suddenly there was clarity. Lance felt himself let out the deepest of breaths, a breath not from his lungs, but from his entire being. An expulsion of energy that had been pent up inside, somewhere deep down, growing in intensity and threatening to explode.
So Lance released it. Set it free.
The red glow surrounding him erupted in a million different directions, a bomb of energy that concussed the room in a shockwave of destruction. Both the Revered and the Surfer were thrown across the room, as if the engine of a massive jet had suddenly sparked to life and they’d been directly behind it. Their bodies flew through the air and struck the wall before falling down onto the bed and tumbling to the floor. The framed artwork fell from the wall, crashing to the carpet. The bedspreads and sheets flew up and off the bed, billowing and dancing in the waves of energy like they’d been caught in a tornado, pulled and tugged this way and that, whipping back and forth. The drawers of the nightstand emptied themselves onto the floor, a small black Bible flipping open, its pages shuffling as if being turned by the hands of the Holy Spirit. The lampshade of the bedside light simply folded in on itself, collapsing like a crushed paper cup, the bulb exploding beneath. The television screen shattered, raining bits of glass and plastic around Lance’s feet.
And then the windows blew out, shards of glass mixing in with the wind and snow in the parking lot, sparkling in the air.
“Let’s go!” It was the Reverend, running past Lance and heading for the opened door. “We have enough for now!”
The Lance Brody Series: Books 3 and 4 Page 36
