by Jill Cooper
I can’t give in. I can’t even pretend I want to give in. I shake my head, my eyes moist. “Without my mom. Dad? Jax, all the rest?”
“I can show you vids of them if you like. Even make it like you were there.”
Gritting my teeth, I rage. “Been there. Done that. Won’t do it again.”
He holds his hands up and I notice they’re shaking. “Alright, alright. I concede that wasn’t my finest idea. But we could find a spot here for you. Something to reward you for everything we’ve given you. Even a front row seat.”
“Why not just kill me?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“Oh, Lara,” he squeezes his arms around my shoulders. “I’ve never wanted to kill you. I’ve only ever wanted to understand you. And now I do.”
“How?” Finally, I get to the question of the hour. If I could, I’d take notes.
Daniels smirks as if he’s won and I let him keep on thinking that. “Let me show you.”
“Sure.” I swallow hard and gaze up at the clock. “I’d love to know how my brain helped you do all this.”
He hobbles over to the desk and hits a button on his phone. “Monroe, she’s ready for the beginning of her introduction.” He heads back over to me. “He’ll be right here. It’s just the beginning, but I think when you see him, everything will become crystal clear.”
I sigh and cross my arms. When the door opens, I ready a witty comeback, but it dissolves when I turn and see his face.
There’s an old scar down the left side of his face from the eye all the way down the cheek. The time travel assassin, the one I battled is standing right in front of me. Except, instead of a spry thirty-year-old, this guy is an old shriveled man.
My mouth falls open and I stare at him.
His legs shake as he takes steps toward me, but his eyes are as angry as they were that day. “When you left, I got trapped there. I spent the next seventy-five years in a time I didn’t belong in. My family. My friends.”
“Getting off topic, Monroe.” Daniels tries to bring everything back on point.
“Sorry, Sir.” Monroe puffs up his chest as much as he could. “Mr. Daniels didn’t send me back to kill Jax Montgomery.” I move to argue and he holds up a shaking finger. “At least not this one. I was sent from a different timeline. One where Jax turned the diaries over to the authorities and I got stuck in this timeline.”
Jumping timelines?
“You see, Lara?” Daniels says even though I clearly don’t. He puts his hands on my shoulders. “You jumped forward in time thanks to my harness messing up your brain signals. You saw the future and warned Jax. He gave you the diaries which is something he wasn’t going to do before so when he did that, he created a new parallel timeline that runs alongside the one our friend Monroe is from.”
“It was too late for me.” Monroe refuses to look at me, as if somehow I’m the guilty party in all this. “I was already in this timeline. Trapped. I could never get back.” He shakes his head.
“When I discovered that changes in time, like the ones you are so famous for, create new timelines I realized, there is no such thing as changing the past. It’s just the creations of new time alternate universes. A world where Lara Crane’s mother is still dead. A world where she’s still stuck in that damn cage.
“And a world,” he stops forward and sneers, “Where Patricia James won. Beat you. Every change you’ve made created a new world. You’re not changing anything, Lara. You’re jumping between worlds. Alternate realities. That’s the power I learned to harness from you.”
My eyes fall to the floor and every bit of confidence, believe in myself is gone. What I know, what I think I know, is shattered.
“How did you…” my voice is so small that I stop to collect my thoughts, “how did you know I saw Jax murdered and went back in time to fix it?”
“Easy,” Daniels smirks. “You told me.”
15: Future Cassidy
Lara takes the boat and paddles off. When I first saw her name in Reynold’s computer, I never thought I’d meet her. Never pictured her so young. Strong or stubborn. I’m sure if we had a chance to get to know her, there are things about her that would drive me crazy Right now, I’m just mournful that if we succeed, I might never remember meeting her at all.
When she’s out of range, I turn and pull myself up the old wooden dock. Cameras are going to be looking for me. Officers are going to be full-on alert, so if I want to keep moving, I’m going to need to be fast.
Ruthless.
And above the law.
Everything I promised myself I’d never be.
It’s hard, but I push my thoughts away and run down the street. I use doorways as cover. When the green lights on billboards and on the flying drones activate, I side step and hide behind trees, park benches and the occasional entryway. With a few close calls, I make my way into the Harbor Marriot hotel.
Hotels are crowded, but they have phones almost everywhere. I need one to send word to Jeff, let him know I need help. I require an accomplice for all of this. Someone that can get me in Rewind without any questions being asked, which means finding a phone. I destroyed my comm back at Katie Jackson’s home; if I hadn’t, Rewind would have been able to track me and would’ve been listening.
They’re always listening.
The hotel’s roof is arched and skylights are plentiful. The lobby extends the length of a football field and it is lit with the warm, rich glow from the table lamps. It’s late and few people are loitering around, which means I stick out.
I keep my head low as the front desk clerk looks up. Shoving my hands into my pocket, I duck into an opening elevator and push to the back, hiding behind a cluster of people. I face the wall and rest my forehead against it. I hear the buzzing sound as the green light turns on to scan us.
If it picks me up, I’m a goner.
It doesn’t and I feel blessed. The elevator ticks up a few levels and on the fifteenth floor, I push past the other guests into the hallway.
There’s a security guard at the other end. Big guy, with a beer-gut spilling over the edge of his belt buckle. He puts his hand out as if that’s all it will take to stop me. “Ma’am, you need to be scanned.”
Not so blessed, it would seem after all.
“You’re going to have to catch me first,” I answer with a tilt of my head.
“Ma’am!”
The security guard steps gingerly toward me and I bolt. Pivoting on my heel and I’m gone, running to the other end of the hallway. He screams into his walkie-talkie, “Suspect on the move, I repeat suspect on the move!”
Do they know it’s I? Or, am I just one suspect in an ocean of suspects, drowning at sea? Because here everyone is guilty of something.
Everyone.
I slam into the doorway of the stairwell, my shoulder taking the brunt of the force. I need to find a phone and I know the upper levels will be searched last. I leap up the stairs two at a time, quickly reaching the seventeenth floor. I struggle to take even, deep breaths and peer out the window. If they’re waiting for me, I don’t see them.
Blowing out some air to calm my nerves, I fix my hair and step out into the hall. I nearly bump into a cleaning cart and see a woman down on her hands and knees. She wears an all blue uniform and her body shakes back and forth, as she desperately attempts to get a stain out of the rug.
“Excuse me?”
The lady’s eyes dart up. “Can I help you with something, Miss?” She wipes her hands on the hem of her uniform and stands up. Her eyes are tired and withdrawn. I think she might be new.
“I was making a midnight snack run and got locked out of my room.” I do my best to look sheepish. “Do you mind letting me back in?” I crinkle my nose, try to look extra cute.
Her eyes dart away. “Oh…I don’t know…It goes against…”
“Please.” I put my hands together as I beg her. “I promise I won’t forget again.”
Sighing, she nods and takes the key from her pocket, but then her
walkie-talkie sounds and we both glance at it. “Suspect on the upper levels. Female suspect on the upper level.” Her eyes are suspicious as they meet mine.
“That’s not me.”
She nods, but takes a step back. She doesn’t believe me. Her hand goes for her walkie and I know I have to act fast. So I spin her around and wrap my arm around her throat. Hand over hand, I squeeze my arm tight, but the cleaning lady, doesn’t give up without a fight. She thrashes back and forth. I jerk her back with my arm to get her to settle down.
Finally, her face bright red, she stops thrashing; she’s unconscious. Like a rag doll in my arms, I gently place her on the floor. “Sorry about that,” I whisper and take her key card. I hope the room I pick is empty.
It is.
Curtains are drawn and the queen-sized bed hasn’t been slept in.
I pull her into the room, leaving her on the floor; I go back for her cleaning cart. I restrain her in the bathroom, handcuffing her to the towel rod. I won’t be long, but I can’t take the chance that I’ll be caught before I get a chance to help Lara.
Long strides take me over to the bed and I pick up the phone and dial home.
“Hello?”
My eyes close with relief. “Jeff.”
“Cass?” His voice is frantic. “Where’ve you been? Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
Oh Boy, is that a loaded question. “I can’t explain over the phone. You’re going to have to trust me.”
Jeff hesitates and I squeeze my eyes shut. “Please, Jeff. You have no idea how important this is. No idea. A girl is in trouble and I need to help her.”
“Lara?”
So he has pieced some of it together. I nod even though I know he can’t see it. “If you can meet me fast, that’d be great. I don’t know if she has much time left.”
“Where?” Jeff picks up a set of keys because I can hear them jingle in his hand.
“That place where we had our first date. Do you think you can do that?”
“Ten minutes,” Jeff promises.
“Better make it five.” I hang up the phone and give the room the once over. The cleaning lady is awake and jerking on the handcuffs, but when she sees me, her face turns stone white.
I could apologize. I could say a dozen different things, but instead, I turn toward the door. Using the peephole, I can see the hallway is empty. I sneak outside and head for the stairwell.
When I get to the lobby, I peer around the corner. There are three cops pacing in the lobby. I’m going to have to make it across the room and out the emergency exit that faces away from the busy street. Out the front exit, I can see police squad car lights spinning, flashing red, and blue.
No matter where I go, this isn’t going to be easy. I need to find a fast way out and it has to happen now.
With my back to the wall, I wait for one of the guards to get close. My hands are twitching, ready to make a move. I’m anxious and my legs jitter as if they’re Mexican jumping beans. I grab my black electrical stick and pull it free. I spin it as if it’s a baton, just as I used to when I was a cheerleader.
The guard approaches. I sink back into the stairwell so he can’t see me. When he’s close enough, I strike like a cobra. My arm up offensively, I jolt the side of his neck with electricity. His body goes rigid as I hold the baton there long enough to render him unconscious, leaving a giant red welt on his neck.
The other guards’ eyes are on me before his body hits the floor. I reach down and free the other electrical stick from his holster. The guards and I approach each other.
Zot-zot-zot goes the batons as I bang them together.
The blue light sears up the black devices and as I pull them apart, the electrical field grows, breaching the space between them. The further I pull them apart, the wider the net between them. The guards stop as they see me coming. Frozen with fear because of what I’m about to unleash on their sorry little butts.
They should be scared. They’re nothing but rental cops and sure, they do a good job most days, but they didn’t train at the academy as I did. They didn’t zot electrical prods together for the fun of it just to see how many volts you could take before going unconscious.
I’m a damn good cop and I’m a girl, which means I had a lot to prove then.
The fact that I’m only another guilty suspect fuels my anger as I stretch my prods apart creating an electric sail. The field of blue grows between the open spaces like a net, desperate to cling to each other. “Flick of my wrist and this electrical field will run off and just keep running until it hits the wall. The floor. Or you.” My eyes widen for impact and from the way the guards shake; it works.
“Get out of my way. Now. Or you’re going to feel what it’s like to fry from the inside out.” It wouldn’t kill them. It’d hurt for a while, but they’d be okay.
But they don’t need to know that.
The guards back away, keeping their distance. I trot pass them and then spin around. I walk backward to keep my eye on them. I use the monitors on the ceiling to keep an eye on the door.
When a green light sweeps over me, an alarm sounds.
My heart pounds as I rotate and I slam through the glass door, my arms up to protect my face. I’m back on the street and everywhere the cameras are red and alarms are screaming in all directions. They’re pulling out all the stops to catch me.
I take off running. I bank right around a corner and if I don’t stop, I’m going to slam into two Rewind Officer’s standing by a patrol car. I cross the black rods in my hands to form an X. My right leg shoots out high to kick one in the chest while the other one gets the full brunt of my elbow.
At least, that’s what is supposed to happen.
Instead, he catches my elbow as the other officer, Mahoney, deflects my foot. I spin toward the ground and land on one knee. I jump up right and we duel, our black batons meeting mid-air. The charge between us intensifies and spark flies off at random. I spin; they pivot as they try to get their prod against some of my exposed skin. High jabs and low kicks, and one of the guards crashes to the pavement and I rear back, my leg coming high, kicking Mahoney right in the face.
“Uhhh,” Mahoney grunts. Older, his face is flushed pink and there’s sweat on his brow. He holds up his hands, attempting to fend me off but my foot cracks through his feeble defenses and with a defining crunch, catches him right under the jaw.
He starts to fall to his knees and I help him along with a jolt of electricity to the back of the neck. “Sorry, old pal.” I struggle for breath as I step off the sidewalk. Behind me, I leave the wreckage of the two officers, downed like bowling pins. Mahoney is clutching his neck, lying on the concrete with murder in his eyes.
“You leave us here like this and you’re done, Winters. You’re done!”
“We’re all done.” I consider throwing the batons down for impact, but decide to keep one for myself.
I trudge off the curb and run to meet Jeff. I need to keep going. Can’t slow down the pace. If I do, my heart might catch up with me.
And that’s something that can’t happen.
****
When I get to Boston Garden, everything is locked down. I jump the fence and walk across the luscious green grass despite the signs everywhere that say not to. Under the pedestrian bridge, the Swan Boats are locked down for the night.
Jeff sits in one of them.
I hurry over and when he sees me, his eyes light up with relief. He stands and we hug. The embrace is short, far too short. For a brief moment, I hold his face in my hands and gaze into his eyes. Seeing his love gives me everything I need to push on. Devotion.
I just hope we can make it through. I hope if we help Lara undo all of this, that somehow, we’ll still find each other. Somehow, we’ll still have a future.
“What’s going on, Cass?” He’s scared. I can hear it and I’m scared too. I’m terrified.
“Do you love me?”
Jeff’s eyes widen, exasperated with me. “Don’t ask me to pr
ove it again. You know I do.” He holds my chin delicately. “But whatever is going on, it goes far above anything you’ve ever done before.”
“We don’t have time to answer every question you have, but I need you to get me into Rewind. The old Pru towers and we need to do it now.” I pause to let it sink in and I can practically see an exclamation mark appear over his head. “Lara’s there with Daniels and she needs our help. All of our help.”
“To do what?”
“Change the past. Stop all of this from happening.”
Jeff isn’t a convert yet. He shakes his head and wipes his mouth. “This is…crazy. You’ve asked me some crazy stuff before, but never like this.”
“I know and if we had more time I’d tell you all of it. But she’s in there now. Already I’ve wasted enough time. So I need you to take me in there. Tell everyone you’ve convinced me to turn myself in. I don’t care what we say as long as it gets me through the door.”
Unsure, Jeff’s face flickers.
I grip his jacket in my hand and yank him close. “You have to get me to Lara and it has to be now.”
“She’s so important to you? Suddenly, she’s more important than your career? Me? Your life? What you’re asking…”
“Daniels is manipulating everything. Everyone. He’s killing people and using information only he has to cover it up. He killed Katie. Reynold’s wife.” My mouth tastes bitter.
Like bile.
“The news is saying you did that.” Jeff stares deep into my eyes with a question.
A question I can’t believe he needs to ask.
I’m appalled and my mouth gapes open. “You really think I’d do that? After everything…we share a bed, and you believe I’m capable of killing a defenseless woman? Someone I was trying to help?”
Jeff sighs. “No, of course not. I’m sorry. Just…to lose you, Cass? Do you have any idea what they’re going to do to you if you fail at all this?”
