CHAPTER TWENTY
DAY 19. LATE EVENING
I stood outside Eyewall’s electric fence, huddled in the evening cold with Blake and Marshall. I was trying hard not to think about Dad, Holly, and Adam right now, tiptoeing their way to the gate and gaining access for all of us after Adam performed his computer magic and hacked into the system. We were all counting on the Eyewall guard chips attached to our bodies to help us fly under the radar for a while. Adam and Emily had both said it wasn’t uncommon for Eyewall guards (aka time-travel-clone experiments) to teleport somewhere and have to return to headquarters on foot due to their brains needing a rest—something I could totally relate to from my own time-jumping experiences.
Three days of planning this mission, three days of walking and sleeping outside, and we were all mentally and physically fatigued, not to mention battered and bruised. I knew Holly had sprained her ankle during that fight when we first stepped outside the force field, I’d seen her limping toward Adam, but she refused to admit the injury existed and had kept on walking with a determined pace for the past three days. Adam said it was the former gymnast in her that knew how to push through the pain. She and I had hardly spoken since I’d given my guilt-ridden public apology, but there was no more tension. She’d sat with me and Adam and Stewart or me and Courtney and participated in conversations with none of the hot-and-cold mood swings I’d seen since arriving in the year 3200. Maybe it was the last memory-gas episode or Adam’s arrival that finally got her to break through that barrier between her and everyone else.
“Any minute now,” Marshall said.
The building was just as Blake had described in his memory file—one and a half stories aboveground. A fence surrounded the perimeter about fifty yards away from the building. Trees were planted all around the fence as if to conceal the building.
“I hate this place,” Blake muttered from my other side. “It’s everything that’s wrong with the world contained in one single architectural structure.”
“So what’s the deal with the explosives?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “They’ve just been sitting on Misfit Island for all those years for what reason?”
“Actually,” Blake said, staring through the trees at the building, “I made the bomb myself from supplies in the technology building.”
“Seriously? How do you know it will work?”
He shrugged. “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
I groaned to myself but didn’t complain otherwise. Now wasn’t the time, and if Marshall, Grayson, and Dad had agreed to this plan, then they must have had faith in Blake’s ability to build weapons. Even though he couldn’t fire a gun to save his life, nor did he fit the prototype for garage bomb builders. Quite the opposite.
We squatted behind the trees for another couple minutes. Only our pounding hearts and uneven breathing invaded the eerie silence. When I felt a tap on my shoulder, I literally jumped into action; Blake reacted the same from beside me. I had the newcomer pinned facedown into the dirt and pine-needle-filled forest floor in half a second.
“Jesus, Holly!” I said when I realized my mouth was full of blond hair. I released her immediately and helped her up as she dusted off the front of her shirt.
“You guys are freaks,” Holly said, still breathless and spitting out dirt. “I didn’t even see you move and then I was eating dirt.”
“Quiet,” Marshall hissed, before glancing at Holly. “They’re in?”
“Yep, Adam’s messing with the computers now and Agent Meyer’s guarding the door.” Holly scooted between me and Blake and sat on the ground, looking out at the building. “I passed the east-side entrance on my way back here. Stewart, Grayson, and Sasha are in position. Mason’s ready to follow them inside.”
I already knew that Lonnie, Emily, and Courtney were hiding out in the woods, waiting for us to return, much to Courtney’s disgust.
“Good,” Marshall said with a nod as he glanced at the stopwatch in his hand. “The thirty-minute mark passed four minutes ago…”
“Right,” Holly said. “I got held up after leaving the south entrance. Memory gas.”
I turned my gaze to her, my stomach plummeting. We hadn’t run into memory gas since the day we found Adam. “You okay?”
She met my eyes, giving me a sad smile. “Yeah, I’m okay. It was just like you said, I moved on to something new.”
Part of me felt relieved and part of me panicked that maybe she’d moved on to something worse and that would be my fault for getting her to talk about it. “Better or worse?” I asked finally.
“Better, I guess,” she whispered. “I broke my neck when I was fourteen. I fell off the uneven bars at gymnastics camp.”
“Shit.” I shook my head. “Want to talk about it?”
She laughed a nervous laugh. “Maybe later.”
I stared out at the building again, letting her words sink in. What if we didn’t have later? What if this was it? I leaned in closer to Holly and inhaled the scent of her hair. “Why does your hair still smell the same?”
“The same as what?” she asked. “007 Holly? The other 009 Holly? Me before getting trapped in 3200?”
“All of it,” I said. “It’s always the same.”
Marshall glanced at his stopwatch. “Fifteen more minutes.”
Fifteen minutes of Dad on the inside and us stuck helplessly out here would feel like an eternity. Fifteen minutes of Holly’s uneven breathing beside me, her body heat colliding with mine. I wanted to take her hand and tell her I loved her. I wanted to hug her and make her go hide out in the forest with Lonnie, Courtney, and Emily. But instead, I just sat in silence trying to convince my own heart to slow down.
“Time’s up,” Marshall said finally.
“Who’s testing the fence?” Holly asked.
I reached my hand out, but Marshall swatted it away and wrapped his fingers around the fence.
Nothing happened.
Blake stood and tossed the bag over his shoulder. “We’re in.”
Holly started up the fence first, climbing twice as fast as the rest of us. I stayed close behind her and landed on the concrete ground inside the perimeter about twenty seconds after she did. We waited another minute for Marshall and Blake to touch ground. The darkness made me squint and wish for night goggles.
“You two head that way.” Marshall pointed toward my right. “Holly and I will let the others know they can cross through.”
Before I could take off with Blake, I reached out and squeezed Holly’s hand. “Be careful, Hol.”
She gave me a tiny nod but wouldn’t meet my eyes. I had no choice but to follow behind Blake as we ran around the dark building and entered through sliding doors. Under Adam and Emily’s directions from earlier today, Blake and I dove into a small closet full of brown coveralls. We both quickly stepped into a pair and fastened them closed. I reached for the doorknob.
Blake grabbed my arm. “You know that ring Emily brought to you in 2009?”
“How do you know about that?” And why the hell are we talking about that right now?
“I read about it in your journal last night,” he admitted. “The replicated pages that Emily made.”
“Maybe we can talk about it later.” I moved for the door again, but he stopped me.
“Do you have it with you?”
“It’s in my bag,” I said. “With Courtney and Lonnie.”
“Describe it,” he demanded, squeezing his eyes shut, his face so intense it scared the hell out of me.
I took a deep breath. “It’s a gold band with a small diamond in the center and then two tiny diamond studs beside the larger center stone embedded into the band.”
“Is there an engraving inside?”
“Yes.” How the hell did he know about this? “It says J + H forever. You don’t … you don’t know where that came from, do you?”
“I do.” He finally opened his eyes again. “It’s Lily Kendrick’s mother’s ring … Jacquelyn and Henry.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “What? Why do I have it—” I shook my head. “Forget it, we gotta get moving. I’ll think about that later.”
He slung the bag of homemade bombs over his shoulder again. “Promise me you’ll give it to Lily? I know she’d want to have it.”
My hand froze on the cold doorknob. She did want to have it. She’d told me that once. But I needed to focus on the mission so I told Blake what he wanted to hear. “Sure, I’ll give it to her.”
We shuffled out into the hallway, passing a woman in brown coveralls. I held my breath as she gave us a curt nod and continued on. I exhaled, moving with more ease down the tiled hall. A shrill alarm pierced the air. Red lights flashed. An automated voice shouted a warning. “Doors closing. Please verify and account for presence of all experiments.”
“Shit.”
Blake took off in a jog and I followed behind him. “They know we’re inside. They know the system’s been penetrated.”
He looked over his shoulder for a second, probably taking in the panic on my face as I searched around for signs of Dad, Adam, Holly, or any of the others. “I’m fine, Jackson. Go look for them if you want.”
I shook my head and kept following. Blake pointed his finger to the right, counting doors as we ran. Finally, he stopped in front of a door with a huge red warning sign—DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE. He grabbed the door handle and swung it open. Of course, we’re going in this room. The only one that screams: Enter and you shall die.
“Stand guard at the door while I set up?” he asked.
“Yeah, go.” I stood in the hallway while he went in. Suddenly, people in coveralls rushed into the hall, doors flew open along the length. I removed my gun and held it behind me. I spotted Dad and Stewart way at the far end of the hallway, but before I could make eye contact with either of them, someone appeared behind me, pressing something into my back, causing my body to freeze, my brain to fog over.
“Jackson.”
I recognized the voice
The hard object dug deeper. “Of course you’re right in the middle of this,” Thomas said.
I opened my mouth to warn Blake of Thomas’s presence but I wasn’t sure any sound came out. I did, however, take in the image of Stewart kicking the hell out of Thomas and then Thomas, hunched over on the ground obviously in a great deal of pain, vanishing before he could finish me off and probably Blake, too. The world swirled around me and it reminded me of the time I tried ecstasy at a party when I was sixteen. The only illegal drug I’ve ever used in my entire life. I processed images and blurred movements all around me, but I couldn’t bring myself to care, let alone take action. Yet somewhere amid the haze, a thought formed in my mind. Maybe Blake would blow up this place with Thomas in it. That was a bonus we hadn’t counted on.
I knew time was passing but I was unable to react. The alarms kept sounding, people kept running, and I leaned against the door and stared into space.
* * *
“Is it under his nose?” Adam asked.
Something cold and metal tickled the inside of my nostrils and then I heard a clank as metal hit the tile floor. Seconds after the device was dropped to the floor, I finally felt a sense of urgency. My body sprang from the wall, my gun aimed at nothing but readied regardless.
“It worked!” Stewart said.
I shook my head and looked back and forth between the two of them. Stewart had a huge bruise on her cheek and blood running down her face from a cut on her forehead. Adam had dirt all over his face so I couldn’t tell if he’d been in a fight or not. “What happened? Where’s everyone else?”
“We don’t know,” Stewart snapped. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
“They’ve got guns,” I accused, aiming my words at Adam. We had not counted on anyone at Eyewall having a gun.
“I never saw a single weapon while I was here, I swear,” Adam said.
As if on cue, gunshots sounded from the floor above us. “Get out of here! I’ll get Blake.”
Stewart looked at me for a long moment and then grabbed Adam’s arm and took off, dragging him along.
I found the door Blake had disappeared through and saw him bent over some complicated device full of wires. “Blake, we gotta go! Plan’s changed.”
He stood up and looked right at me. “Go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
My heart raced as I heard more gunshots coming from unidentifiable locations. Where were Dad and Holly? Did they leave already? I could only hope. “You don’t even have a gun, come on!”
I grabbed on to his sleeve but he shook out of my grip, yanked up the leg of my pants, and swiped my spare gun. “Now I do.”
“You don’t even know how to use it,” I snapped. “Let’s just go.”
I waited while he reached into the back of his jeans and removed a white envelope, holding it out to me. On the front, in careful script, was a name: Lily.
When I didn’t reach out to take it from his hands, he lifted my shirt and stuffed it inside my waistband before stepping back farther into the small room. “I’m not leaving, Jackson. I was never going to leave.”
Something twisted in my gut and my heart sped even faster. “What the hell, Blake? Why can’t you set the damn thing and go?”
“They’ll find a way to turn it off and we won’t get another chance.”
“No, no way.” I exhaled and squeezed my hands shut. “Give it to me, then. I’ll do it. I’ll do it, Blake. You go.”
He gave me a sad smile. “I’d never let you do that, Jackson. This is my fight. This is my chance to make amends for what happened to Lily and her family. You’ll get your turn soon enough.”
A high-pitched scream erupted from the hallway. I skidded out the door and saw Emily being carried deeper into the building by two men, a woman trailing behind them. She fought and kicked, trying to get away. Blake was right behind me, watching over my shoulder.
“Get her and get out of here,” he said firmly. “You’ve got exactly three minutes.”
I felt like my chest had caved in. I had no idea what lay outside this building. Had anyone else made it out? Regardless, Emily was here and I could save her. I knew I could.
I spun around to face Blake. “Look—”
“Go!” He pointed toward the screaming Emily. “I know you’d never let anything happen to her, Jackson. Go! Just do what I asked, for Lily?”
I let out breath and looked over at Emily. “Okay … okay.”
That was it. My decision had been made and all I could do was take off toward the men and woman trying to stuff Emily back in that room again or worse, “eliminating experiment 1029” as Thomas had basically tried to do by dumping her in the wilderness with the rebel experiments.
With my adrenaline rush and my newfound superhuman powers, I kicked one dude to the ground, knocked out another with my elbow, and shot the woman in the thigh with my pistol. Emily screamed as she and the woman fell. The woman clutched her leg, red seeping into her brown clothing. Before I could scoop Emily up, half a dozen more people appeared in front of us, guns aimed at the tiny little girl with flaming red hair. Her eyes bulged and her entire body froze. I dove forward, reaching for her waist, and barely took in an unfamiliar blurred figure, someone much younger than the other Eyewall workers, who seemed to stumble forward, accidentally flinging himself in front of the six bullets that released simultaneously, hurtling in Emily’s direction. I had no idea what exactly had just happened but regardless, relief swept over me.
I grabbed Emily, jumped to my feet, and ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life, not taking a second to glance back. We burst outside into the cold night, Emily’s face buried in my shoulder, and her fingers digging into my back. The second we passed through the gate connected to the electric fence, the entire structure exploded behind us in a cloud of fire, dust, and smoke. I forced the thought of all the people inside out of my mind and focused on my feet hitting the ground over and over again. The woods were so dark I could hardly see a thing, but they were miraculously free of the choking smoke. Emily lifted her head and pointed at several people, off to the right, standing frozen, watching the explosion. I slowed my pace, setting Emily down, clutched my sides, and tried to catch my breath.
My eyes zoomed in on the waiting people … Courtney, Adam, Lonnie, Marshall, Stewart, Mason …
“Oh thank God!” Dad shouted.
Before I could even begin to panic, Holly was right in front of me. She threw her arms around my neck, nearly knocking me over. She had caught me by surprise, so much that I almost cracked a joke about her being my enemy. But I felt her shaking, tears landing on the side of my neck. I froze for a second and then wrapped my arms around her, squeezing her tight.
I turned my head, burying my face in her hair, running my hand over it. “Blake made me leave him,” I whispered. I needed to tell someone. “He wanted to set off the bomb himself. To make sure they couldn’t stop it. He wouldn’t leave, I couldn’t…”
She lifted her head, eyes meeting mine. “Maybe he planned it that way all along?”
I fought off the blurriness in my eyes, the lump in my throat, and finally released Holly, stepping behind her, and got pummeled right away by my sister.
“I would have killed you if you didn’t make it out,” she said, crying much harder than Holly. Dad was bent over, like he was still trying to catch his breath from making his own run out here.
Lonnie had already picked up Emily. She looked at me, eyes still a little hopeful. “Blake?”
I just shook my head and watched as tears filled her eyes. “Where are Grayson and Sasha?”
“They were shot before we got out,” Dad said. “I’m not sure who shot Sasha, but Grayson went after Thomas … he just took off, and there was no stopping him. Believe me, I tried.”
I knew exactly what he meant. Blake had been just as hardheaded. We turned to face the smoke and fire that used to be the Eyewall headquarters and stood in silence. My arm was slung around Courtney’s shoulders when Holly brushed up against my other side. Our hands collided and our fingers linked together. We all stayed there for a long time until Marshall broke the silence.
“The smoke will start drifting this way more heavily. We should move farther away and set up camp or decide to jump back.”
I let go of Holly’s hand and withdrew my arm from Courtney’s shoulders. “Lonnie?” She turned around to face me, both her and Emily looking right at me. “Are you still going somewhere with Emily?”
“Only if that’s okay with you?” She set Emily down on the ground again and I knelt in front of her.
“I’m gonna miss you, kid.”
She was already wiping tears from her cheeks, sniffling from the drama of what had just happened, the smoke and the future ahead. “Me, too.”
I leaned in closer, and whispered, “Do you know anything about that ring you delivered to me the first time I met you? Is it for Lily Kendrick? Are you still going to bring it to a younger me when you’re eleven?”
She shook her head. “I think we’ve changed too many things for that to happen, right?”
I found my backpack on the ground and patted the front pouch. “So you don’t know why I have this ring?”
I briefly explained Blake’s conversation with me while the others talked and made plans.
Emily listened carefully, and then finally said, “Maybe Blake gave it to an older version of me? I don’t know, but I guess it doesn’t matter so long as she gets it.”
I glanced at the wreckage again and sighed. “I guess not.”
She put her arms around my neck and gave me a squeeze. I hugged her back and then had to ask one more question before she left me for good. “So that pet chicken you mentioned … where exactly—”
“With the people in the tents,” she said right away. “The dots on the map.”
“The electromagnetic field is down,” Marshall said. “I can feel it.”
I could, too, like a buzzing in my fingertips. I could jump right now. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to wait.” I don’t want to think about Emily jumping so far away from me, about Blake being gone … yeah, let’s get out of here quick.
Emily touched my cheek, trying to get my attention again. “Chief Marshall is the best time jumper. You don’t have to worry about anyone’s getting hurt, okay?”
I knew she said that because it was obvious everyone thought I’d overexerted my mind on the jump here trying to protect Holly from injury. Maybe I had, but then again, I’d just done a half-jump to the 1950s prior to my excursion to the future and was pretty spent.
“And remember, Courtney can time-jump, too, so you’ll have plenty of help getting everyone back safely,” she added.
That’s right, Courtney can time-travel. I’d almost forgotten about our arrival in 3200, when those faceless men had attacked us and before any of them could touch her, she kept vanishing and then reappearing like a magic trick. But based on how shocked she was by her own movement, I wasn’t convinced she’d been put in the expert time-jumper category just yet.
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” I gave Emily another squeeze and whispered good-bye before releasing her.
I stood between Dad and Courtney as we watched Lonnie take Emily’s hand and vanish, heading to a time way beyond my present but far from this destroyed future.
The smell of smoke grew stronger and flakes of ashes floated through the air, so we quickly moved deeper into the forest. Even though I was ready to leave right that second, Dad and Marshall both agreed it would be best if we rested for at least a few minutes. Stewart and Mason set up some chairs and started a fire and we passed around bottles of water in silence. Holly came and sat beside me while Dad, Marshall, and Adam were deep in discussion about exactly which point each of us left in 2009.
“Hey,” she said, handing over her half-empty water.
I took a long swig and then handed it back. “What’s on your mind?”
“What isn’t?” She glanced wearily at me. “I just can’t believe they’re gone—Grayson, Sasha … and Blake. I knew he was on a mission and all but I didn’t realize…”
“Me either.” I kept my eyes straight ahead, fighting off tears. I could still feel that moment in the room with him. I could have dragged him out. I could have done the job for him.
“I keep thinking about what he said in his memory files, the descriptions of the rooms full of kids. They’re all gone now.” Her voice shook. She paused and took a breath. “We did that. We…”
“I think that’s the bigger picture Marshall was talking about. We managed to blow up that building, knowing there were experiments … children … inside and despite it all we still had the instinct to survive. Maybe this proves that Blake is a better person than all of us. Was a better person.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Holly agreed.
Courtney joined our conversation and I could tell she wanted to say something so I looked up at her and waited. “I’m so sorry about Emily getting in.”
There were so many questions and blanks still to be filled in from the last couple hours. “How did she get away from you? And it was just her, not you and Lonnie?”
Courtney shook her head. “It was awful, Jackson. She saw some guy and took off running. We couldn’t get her before … before they did. I don’t know what she was thinking. Maybe she thought it was you?”
I patted Courtney on the shoulder. “It’s okay. She’s fine now. We all are.” I looked at my sister, remembering what Emily had just mentioned. “Do you really think you can do the time jump back? Does it feel like something you know how to do?”
She managed a half smile or maybe more of a smirk. “My brain damage is worse than your brain damage and you know what that means, right?”
“What?” Holly and I both said.
“I’m accessing the area that allows for time travel to a much greater degree than you are.” The smile faded and I knew she’d just recited something Grayson had probably told her. Maybe they talked about it the other day after she’d had her seizure and he’d examined her.
Not wanting to cast another shadow over us right before our big moment, I grinned at my sister, and said, “You think you’re better than me? Game on, then. We’ll see who comes out on top when we get back home.”
Holly gave a little smile then gnawed on her lower lip. “But there’s still so many doors open when you’re dealing with time travel, right? What are the reversal possibilities? When will we know if changes are permanent?”
“Well that’s just lovely to think about,” Stewart mumbled.
“Don’t think about it,” Dad snapped. “I think it’s best we focus on moving ahead, which for us means heading back in time.”
I stood up and reached for my backpack, tossing it over my shoulder. “Let’s do this. I’m ready.”
“You sure?” Dad asked, concern filling his face.
I knew this had to be difficult for him after witnessing my near death from time travel not too long ago and Grayson’s warnings about my possible brain damage, but so far, ever since Dad tried to shoot me in the woods, I’d had these ultrasharp senses that I could literally feel coursing through my body. Maybe that was the buzzing that Emily described when she was in the presence of time jumpers.
“Something we all need to be aware of,” Marshall said. “Because our returns might not align perfectly with our points of departure, you may encounter duplicate versions of yourself.”
Holly’s eyes went wide with fear. “And what exactly do we do if that happens?”
Marshall’s gaze traveled over Holly’s head, not making direct eye contact. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Great,” Stewart and Mason both mumbled under their breath.
The impending time jump provided a good distraction from looking at each person around me and analyzing the possibilities of duplicate selves and the impossibilities due to horrible things that happened before the jump to the future.
We’ll cross that bridge when—and if—we come to it. For once, I was one hundred percent supportive of a Chief Marshall plan.
“We are returning to the exact day and location that Jackson left 2009 because that is the most natural time jump for him to make with the lowest probability of his sustaining a fatal injury. Those of you who were deceased on that day or left on another day, we will take extra precautions for you after we arrive and head to either Agent Meyer’s place or the underground Tempest headquarters, understood?”
We all nodded a yes and then I looked around at everyone, suddenly remembering one other very important detail. “We were all being held up by Eyewall agents when we left. They would have watched us vanish.”
“Dude! That’s right,” Mason said. “Holly was our hostage.”
Tension filled Marshall’s face. “All right then, better play the hostage role, Agent Flynn. Everybody, have your weapons ready. Hopefully, the element of surprise will give us a few seconds to react before they do.”
I drew my gun but turned the safety on. I didn’t want it to fire accidentally if my brain exploded or something. My legs were shaking but I tried to play it cool and reached for Holly, pressing her back against my chest. “Let’s go, Hostage, assume the position.”
She laughed but I could feel the nerves leaking through. “Are you scared?” she whispered.
I leaned down so my lips were touching her ear. “Incredibly.”
“We don’t have to stay enemies, you know,” Holly said. “Even if I am an Eyewall agent.”
A lightness filled my chest, relieving me of some of the more recent pain. “I know. We’ll figure it out.”
After that, I opened my mind, focused on the time and space between here and home. Focused on the moment we left—smelling it, tasting it, breathing it. The world vanished and pulled me into a new oblivion.