CHAPTER ELEVEN
DAY 14. 4:40 A.M.
I rubbed my hands together, bringing them closer to my mouth, and attempted to warm them by blowing hot air on them.
“Damn, it’s freezing.”
Dad nodded his agreement as his eyes scanned the forest in front of us. We were both early to arrive and waiting on Stewart, Mason, and Blake. The rest of the crew was staying back since this was a test run. An exploration of the potential point of escape.
“Still feeling okay today?” Dad asked, looking me over as carefully as possible in the dark.
“Yeah, I think so. Other than Holly’s being ticked at me. Again.” I removed the gun from the back of my pants and aimed it at the forest. My hands trembled slightly and I let out a frustrated sigh before putting it away again. “I really wish she could have been kept out of this.”
Dad shook his head. “Me, too.”
“Do you think she was already in the CIA—like part of Eyewall—when we were doing Tempest training and you were getting updates from your secret source?”
“Absolutely not,” Dad said firmly. “Somewhere between my last contact with my source and the point when you first saw Holly in that NYU bookstore, the world had been altered. Not enough change for us to pick up on right away, apparently. But that’s because it was all a carefully orchestrated plan. Eyewall was born right in front of our eyes and we never saw it coming.”
I could barely wrap my head around that concept because my time-travel experience had rarely been so circular. But that was what people thought of as the normal method of time travel.
A wave of grief swept over me. “If only Holly could have been kept out of all of this. It would be so much easier to live with.”
“Speaking of Holly…” Dad cleared his throat and glanced back at the cabins. “I haven’t had a chance to ask you what was going on yesterday morning in the technology building?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head, releasing another frustrated breath. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing.”
“I guess it was something,” I conceded. “But not the something I want from her. Not that I deserve anything from this Holly. I have no claim on her, no past with her. I just … she won’t even talk to me. She’s got a lot of shit to deal with and she won’t talk about it.”
He inhaled a long, slow breath and nodded. “I’ll take a stab at it, okay? Grayson thought she might have some issues, too. He’s worried about her. Especially if we’re going to give her the responsibility of taking down the force field with her fingerprints. Grayson doesn’t like to force anyone to do anything. He’s pretty serious about all of us retaining our free will while we’re trapped here, as much as we can, anyway.”
“Well, I’m all for that,” I said, hoping I could stay as true to this conviction as Grayson had. Holly deserved it. More than anything else, she deserved free will.
Stewart, Blake, and Mason joined us, passing around the disgusting meal bars we had boxes and boxes of here. We had just started talking strategy and looking over the map Blake had drawn when we heard arguing coming from the cabin area.
A flashlight pointed at us from a couple hundred feet away. Dad squinted and then Blake shined his own flashlight at the people approaching. My stomach did a few flips when I saw who it was.
“Holly’s coming with us?” I muttered to Blake.
“Yeah, I thought you knew,” he said. “We need her to test out the access.”
“Aren’t we just looking at it?”
“I’m going with you,” I heard Courtney say to Dad.
Dad shook his head. “No.” His tone was firm, like the time he denied her pleas for a fifth hamster.
“I tried to tell her that,” Holly said.
I glanced in Holly’s direction and tried to meet her eyes. She looked away, keeping her agent face on. Blake handed out flashlights to everyone while Courtney and Dad continued their argument. Eventually, Stewart cut in and ended it.
“Grayson said there was nothing dangerous,” Stewart told Dad. “I don’t see why she can’t come. They don’t need her help back there.”
Dad narrowed his eyes at Courtney. “If I tell you to go back, you will without a word of protest, understood?”
“Yes,” she said.
I watched my sister’s gaze travel to Mason, and I didn’t miss the triumphant smile she flashed in his direction. I glared at the back of his head and pushed my way to the front of the group as we entered the woods.
“Mason and I will take the lead,” I said. “Courtney … you stay in the back with Holly.”
“Who put you in charge?” Courtney muttered, but she did what I said and stayed next to Holly.
I gave Mason a shove from behind, putting a good amount of distance between us and the others. Stewart joined me on the opposite side of Mason.
“Are you conspiring with my sister now?” I snapped at him.
He held his gun at his side, glancing in every direction. “She won’t shut up about those stupid dots. I just figured if she came with us, she could see whatever it is she wanted to see.”
“That’s great.” I glared at him, pulling my own gun out. “Let’s drag the untrained, unarmed, fourteen-year-old girl into the woods to an area we haven’t even explored yet. Seems like a fabulous idea.”
“Blake is untrained and unarmed,” Mason said. “And your sister can kick some ass. I showed her a few moves. She’s good, really good.”
Complete and utter rage went through me at the idea of Mason’s wrestling with my sister, and I nearly pummeled him right there in the woods but Stewart must have sensed my mood and jumped between us.
“Not now,” she snapped at me.
“We wouldn’t have a problem if Mason would do what I told him to do,” I said.
He lifted his free hand up in surrender. “I didn’t touch her!”
Leaves crunched under our feet as we walked with only the glow of flashlights to guide us.
“Like hell you didn’t,” I said, leaning around Stewart to point my light at Mason’s face. “Oh Courtney, let me show you some self-defense moves. Everyone knows that game, Mason.”
“Just because you were a sleazeball at seventeen doesn’t mean I am, too.”
I dove around Stewart, reaching for Mason’s shirt, but she jumped between us again, gripping the front of my jacket and shoving me backwards. “Enough! Get in the middle with Blake.”
Staring right at Mason, I said, “We’ll finish this conversation later.”
I shuffled next to Blake, who looked mildly amused. “I’m starting to get the impression you don’t play well with others.”
“Not when they keep insisting on messing around with my sister. She’s freakin’ fourteen. Seriously.” I glanced at Blake and then shut my mouth, remembering his weird relationship with Kendrick at several different ages. At least I never had to encounter an infant Holly or even any version younger than seventeen. Blake looked over his shoulder and then back at me. Holly and Courtney were quite a ways behind us. I could hardly make out who was who. Dad was even farther back, bringing up the rear.
Blake reached a hand toward my ear and then quickly stuck something inside it. He lifted his eyebrows. I opened my mouth to respond and then I heard Courtney’s voice coming through my ear.
He’d bugged my sister? When? Maybe Blake has more skill than I realized. And maybe this was a less violent method of finding out what was up with Mason and my sister. Of course, leave it to Saint Blake to come up with the peaceful solution. Then again, he did express a desire to cause a deadly explosion at Eyewall headquarters. That totally doesn’t count as peaceful.
“I don’t care if Jackson’s pissed off at me,” Courtney said. “He needs to chill out. He’s, like, so intense all the time. I don’t know where it’s coming from. My dad’s being overprotective, I can understand, but not Jackson.”
“Uh-huh,” Holly said dismissively.
“Do you have any brothers?” Courtney asked. “Or sisters?”
“Nope, just me.”
“Maybe you’re lucky then. It’s like he exists for the sole purpose of agitating me,” Courtney said. “You know, he used to make these Lego dynamite minefields and steal my dolls and then leave ransom notes in my room. Not to mention the fact that he killed my hamster. Now he’s taken up the hobby of controlling my life. As if I don’t already have a parent to do that.”
Blake kept his eyes straight ahead, watching Mason and Stewart as if he was giving me privacy while I invaded my sister’s.
“Didn’t look like you hated him all that much yesterday when you were cleaning up after him, watching him vomit buckets of blood,” Holly said, her voice low and free of any emotion.
“You’re right. I didn’t mean that.” Courtney was quiet for several seconds, then finally spoke again. “So what’s going on with you and my brother?”
“What’s going on with you and Mason?” Holly’s response was such a quick reflex, it was like she couldn’t turn off her inner agent anymore.
“Mason is…” Courtney said, and my hands balled up inside my pockets. “Really interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like him before. He’s super smart but not about everything.”
Yeah, like believing me when I say that I’m going to kick his ass if he messes with my sister.
“So Jackson’s overreacting about you guys?” Holly asked.
“Totally,” Courtney said. “Now tell me what’s going on with you and my brother? Don’t say nothing. I know it’s not nothing.”
How did she know?
“It’s not nothing,” Holly said.
“I knew it!” Courtney squealed. “I’ve seen how he looks at you. I don’t care what he says, it’s more than friendly.”
“That’s how guys look at you after they’ve seen you naked,” Holly said.
What?
“What? When?” Courtney asked.
Finally, some emotion broke through Holly’s voice and she laughed. “I’m kidding.”
“Okay, not funny.” Courtney laughed, too, though. “But seriously, he’s pretty cute, right? He plays guitar, too, like really well. And sings.”
What the hell is she doing? Fixing me up with Holly? The irony was almost hilarious.
“I’m sure he’s a regular rock star,” Holly said. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from Jackson.”
Hmm … not sure what that means …
“You should see him at fourteen. He’s kind of short, but my best friend, Kelly, has a megacrush on him. I’m paranoid every time she sleeps over that she’ll sneak into his room and steal some underwear for her shrine to Jackson or something.”
Uh … what?
“Kelly,” Holly mumbled. “She lives in the building on Eighty-seventh Street, right? Blond hair, big boobs…”
“Yeah…” Courtney answered slowly. “Maybe not the big-boobs part.”
“Well, she’ll get them,” Holly said. “She’ll buy them, actually. And if you do make it back to your present, you can tell Kelly to hold off on the shrine because Jackson will come around eventually. May of 2007, if I remember right. They’ll hook up and it’ll last about two weeks.”
Shit. She wasn’t bluffing yesterday when she said she knew my history.
“Oh. My. God,” Courtney said, enunciating every word. “You have to tell me more! What else do you know?”
“Apparently not everything,” Holly said with an edge to her voice. “Hold up a sec, Courtney … you’ve got something on your back.”
I heard the plastic crunch against the ground and then a high-pitched squeal ripped through my ear. “F*ck!”
Blake’s head snapped in my direction and then Mason and Stewart stopped in front of us, turning quickly and pointing guns at every empty space. I yanked the spy gear from my ear and pressed it back into Blake’s hand.
“Sorry, stubbed my toe,” I said to Stewart and Mason.
Stewart rolled her eyes at me and then continued on with our hike. I rubbed the hell out of my ear, trying to get rid of the ringing sound. She knew. Holly knew I was listening that whole time. Great.
“Game over,” I mumbled to Blake.
He glanced wearily at me. “Maybe it was a bad idea anyway.”
We walked in silence for a good thirty minutes. Just as the sun was starting to lift over the horizon, allowing us to conserve our flashlight power, Dad, Courtney, and Holly caught up to us. Holly walked between me and Blake, keeping her eyes forward, giving no indication that she’d caught us spying on her and Courtney. “It’s too quiet, Jackson, you should sing us a song. I hear you’re pretty good.”
“He’s too busy telling everyone what to do,” Courtney said from my other side.
I decided to keep my anger under control because Holly had made a good point earlier. I tossed my arm around my sister and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I never did say thank you for yesterday, for cleaning up my bloody mess and staying with me.”
Her shoulders relaxed like she couldn’t hold on to her anger either. “You would have done it for me.”
I closed my eyes, fighting a dozen emotions, knowing that I was never brave like that at Courtney’s age. She should know that. Why did she make it sound like I was this great person when I wasn’t? I hadn’t been then, and now … I’m still a work in progress.
Since I couldn’t confirm Courtney’s declaration, I pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into her hair.
She looked up at me, questions in her eyes … sorry for what? I shrugged and shook my head and she didn’t ask me anything else.
Dad’s gaze was on us, I felt it without even looking over. Then he cleared his throat and pointed through the trees. “This is the end of the forest here. Let’s scope it out before we walk any farther.”
Without any warning, a gunshot rang through the silent morning air. All of us dropped to the ground. Instinctively, I reached for Holly, tossing an arm over her.
She threw my arm back at me. “I’d kick you in the face again but I don’t think Blake’s had enough time to grow more blood.”
Holly glanced around and then sprang to her feet after seeing Stewart and Mason doing the same.
“Idiot civilians,” Stewart said, looking right at Blake and Courtney. “Stay behind us.” She turned her eyes to me. “Think you can hold that gun steady, Junior?”
“Steady enough to scare someone.”
She exchanged a look with Dad. He nodded, allowing me to stay up front with the big kids. From the corner of my eye, I saw Holly angling her body so it was directly in front of Courtney’s.
“A lot of them don’t speak standard English,” Blake said, moving forward. “Better let me communicate.”
I froze to my spot. “Wait … them?”
Courtney was right. I noticed nearly everyone else staring at Blake, waiting for him to explain.
“Usually they hide…” he said, stuttering through his words. “They’re harmless, seriously.”
“They?” Dad said, through his teeth. I could tell he was more than pissed about being sent on this mission without all the information.
“Basically, they’re rebels but Ludwig calls them rejects.” Blake tugged on his ponytail. “To him, they’re failed experiments. Ludwig keeps them inside the force field, too, but they have implants under their skin to prevent them from entering the forest.”
“Did Ludwig give them guns, too?” Mason snapped.
“It’s probably just a flare.”
I wasn’t sure what to think about this new revelation but there were a hell of a lot of dots on that map Grayson had showed us the other day.
The sky was nearly all the way lit up now as we approached full morning light. The forest came to a dead stop and a huge clearing of dirt and grass stood before us. We stepped out of the forest and into the wide-open world again. Tan-and-green-colored tents stood off in the distance, patched in various places. It occurred to me right then that it was a very strong possibility we were in a future version of Central Park.
As we walked, putting the trees and woods behind us, there was no sign of anyone. Not even the slightest sound of movement despite the flare we had clearly heard only minutes ago.
“Do you think it was a signal? Maybe to tell everyone to hide?” Courtney asked Blake.
“Probably.” He pointed in the distance, where I could just make out a small hill if I squinted hard enough. “That’s where the controls are.”
Dad scanned the area and then did a once-over of our group. “Holly, come with me, we’ll test out those fingerprints of yours. Blake, you, too. Stewart and Mason, follow behind and position yourself at the base of the hill, stay on the lookout.” Dad turned to me and Courtney. “You two stay right here—”
“I’m going with you and Holly,” I said immediately. “Stewart can stay with Courtney and Mason can be on his own at the bottom of the hill.”
“We don’t need a huge entourage crowded around the control box.” Dad lifted his eyebrows, communicating silently with me.
Oh, right. He had said earlier he was going to talk to Holly. Did he mean right now? Was this really the best time?
I shrugged and took my position next to Courtney. I had to trust him, he knew what he was doing. Courtney and I watched as everyone headed away from us. She sat down right in the dirt, stretching out her legs. After a quick glance around the area, I plopped down next to her.
We had only been sitting in silence for about five minutes when Courtney tugged on the sleeve of my shirt.
“Jackson,” she whispered. “Look.”
I peeled my eyes from the direction of the hill—my current focal point—and caught sight of what had startled Courtney. “Holy shit … is that … a baby?”