CHAPTER FIVE
DAY 11. MORNING
The world seemed brighter this morning, sharper, more focused. I noticed small movements and the difference in size in every object in the room in a way I couldn’t remember experiencing. It must have been the whole near-death episode that made me see, smell, and measure even more acutely.
I set out to find Blake to continue where we had left off yesterday. It wasn’t like I had anything more interesting to do.
He was outside by the lake with Holly. They were standing beside the water. Blake had Holly’s pistol pointed at a thick tree stump with a white T-shirt pinned to the front of it. She angled herself partially behind him and partially beside him. Her hands covered his, her arms around his back.
I couldn’t help thinking the first thought that popped into my head … the reproduction room … and then I wondered what had gone on during the ten days I was injured and stuck in bed. I froze in the grass, still quite a ways from them. Intense fury pumped through me. I squeezed my fists open and closed several times, trying to compose myself. Jealousy was not an option without doing what I swore to myself I wouldn’t do—tell Holly about us. Instead, I took in slow, deep breaths, calming myself down.
I was nearly under control until she reached down and touched his right leg, moving it back several inches.
“Bend your knees a little,” I heard her say as she returned to holding Blake’s hands. “Choke up on the gun more.”
“Choke up?”
“Slide your right hand higher,” she said. “When you fire it, the gun’s gonna twist sideways and then try to point up. You want to keep that from happening. This will give you a better grip.”
They stood still for several seconds and then finally Blake sighed and shook his head. “I can’t do it … I’m afraid of missing and the ricochet off the tree…”
So I was right about Blake’s not having any kind of agent training while working for the government in his present. Although with memory gas around, maybe they didn’t need guns in the future.
Holly took the gun from his hands and stepped sideways. “It’s okay. It’s hard for everyone the first time. I’ll show you one more time, okay?”
He watched her carefully as she took her stance, held the weapon out, and fired three times in a row, knocking three perfect holes through the center of the white T-shirt.
Blake ran his fingers through his hair. “It makes perfect sense. I’ve got the angles and distance all memorized, it’s just getting myself to actually pull the trigger.”
So his brain worked like mine. That was how it was for me the first time I picked up a weapon. I could measure the distance, see the angles, and project where it would land. It was like this door had swung open revealing a whole new layer to the world.
She smiled at him, causing me to scowl. “You’ll get it. I know you will.”
I’d had enough of this cozy moment and felt a strong need to break it up. “Nice shooting, Agent Flynn.”
They both jumped and then spun around to face me.
“Jackson … hey,” Blake said. “How are you feeling today? Still good?”
“You know…” I eyed the tree stump, staring at the bullet holes. “I’m not too bad of a shot myself if you’re looking for some help. They wouldn’t let me handle much else besides a gun in Tempest.”
“Is that right, Rambo?” Holly said.
My eyebrows lifted up, sensing a challenge. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Talk is cheap, Agent Meyer.” She slapped the gun into my palm and stepped out of the way.
“How are we doing on bullets? Are we going to run out?”
“We’ve got plenty of bullets. I’m not sure how, but your dad has a very generous supply, though it doesn’t appear that we’ll be putting them to any real use anytime soon, other than this pissing contest that I will most definitely win,” Holly taunted.
I laughed under my breath, knowing I was actually pretty damn good at this. But when I took my stance and held the gun out, there was an unmistakable tremble in my left hand.
Holly reached out and set her hand on top of the gun. “Don’t. It’s too risky. If you miss—”
“Yeah. I’m not stupid.” I let out an angry breath and handed the gun back to her. “Guess I know who’s getting picked last for the next mission.”
Holly rolled her eyes. “Come on, your brain practically exploded. Give it some time. I’m sure that screwed with your nervous system or something.”
Blake frowned. “Maybe it’s the medication?”
“It’s weird,” I said, looking at Blake and then Holly. “Because I feel better than ever, more observant. Like my aim should be better, but my hands aren’t on the same page as my head.”
“We should ask Grayson,” Blake said right away, frowning.
I shrugged. “I’ll ask him later. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about yesterday’s stuff.”
Blake’s eyebrows lifted. “Right. We should continue that.”
I glanced at Holly, then back at Blake. “And I think we should let Holly join us.”
“Why?” Blake said.
“She’s one of them. I’m guessing you’re going to show me how your roommate went to the dark side and she needs to see who she’s working for.”
“I’m one of who?” Holly asked. “Care to fill me in?”
“Eyewall,” Blake said with a defeated sigh.
I hadn’t really given him much of an option, but I knew this was the right choice. Holly put on a positive face most of the time, but I’m sure she was extremely conflicted given what Dad said last night about us not knowing what kind of hell Eyewall had put her through.
“Come on,” Blake conceded. “No one’s in the reproduction room right now.”
Holly and I followed Blake and she hissed in my ear, “Did he just say ‘reproduction room’?”
I shrugged and kept my eyes on Blake’s back. “I don’t know, maybe it means something else in this year?”
Let someone else explain that one to Holly.
AUGUST 3, 2874.
MEMORY EXTRACTED FROM HOST.
1987 looked just the same as I remembered from my first and only trip here with Thomas. Now I was here again on my first solo mission. This time I landed a week after my last visit. I ignored the pounding in my heart and the fear rushing through me as I weaved my way across the street, into the hospital, and down the stairs to the lab where Grayson worked alone.
“Blake! Good to see you again,” he said with a genuine smile. “How long has it been for you?”
“About six months,” I said as my heart slowed down, relieved to be in a near-empty and silent room.
“I thought you looked taller. Sixteen now, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.” My eyes swept over the lab, looking for brewing experiments or anything remotely interesting to make this first solo mission a little more exciting.
“What brings you to 1987 this time?” Grayson asked.
I jolted back to reality, remembering I was here for a reason. I reached into my coat pocket and removed the vacuum-packed bag of vitamins, holding them out for Grayson.
“Ah, B-29 supplements, of course.” He waved his gloved hand toward a cabinet against the back wall. “Would you mind stowing them away for me? I’ve just scrubbed up and don’t want to contaminate the specimen.”
I walked over to the cabinet and opened the metal door, eyeing rows and rows of medical supplies and pills. An entire shelf was filled with unopened bags of B-29 supplements identical to the one in my hand. “Do you not have access to B-29 here?”
Grayson glanced at me through his safety goggles. “Actually, B-29 hasn’t been discovered yet. Not until 2048. And won’t be widely used for another fifteen years after that.”
I had learned about the necessity of B-29 in health education in school but hadn’t known it was a more recent discovery. In my present, it was received as a vaccine once a year on the first day of school. I knew B-29 was an emotion regulator, but I had never thought about what would happen if people went without it, since it works to keep the mind focused on calm, rational thoughts and actions. Not that anger, fear, and sadness no longer exist. I’ve definitely experienced my share of fear and anger growing up with three older brothers. But was the lack of B-29 in 1987 the reason for the noise and chaos in the world? Did quiet places exist outside New York City?
“So, do you give them to people here?”
Grayson shook his head. “No, we don’t tamper with the past unnecessarily.”
“Right.” I swung my arms back and forth, not sure how to maintain a conversation with this much older time traveler and not sound like an immature child. I’d rather he think I was mature and responsible, following orders the United States military had given me. “Um, Dr. Ludwig said not to come back right away. Since I’m alone this time. My mind needs rest.”
Grayson’s eyebrows knitted together. “Yes, it’s very risky, indeed, that long a jump.” He pulled out a stool and pointed at it, indicating I should sit, which I did right away. “Let’s give you a quick check, all right?”
I nodded and allowed him to shine a light in my eyes, listen to my heart, and measure my pulse. Grayson seemed very different than the others I’d come to know. He seemed more expressive and full of secrets that he couldn’t hide completely. Somehow this made me feel calm and secure, probably because a lot of times I felt the same way. Like I couldn’t keep my feelings from showing on my face. That’s probably what delayed Dr. Ludwig from letting me jump on my own. He could tell I was scared to try even if I didn’t say it out loud.
“I think about two or three hours’ recovery time will be just fine,” Grayson finally said after his thorough exam. “Probably best if you hang out here, stay out of trouble.”
“Sure.”
He pulled up another stool and sat across from me. “Tell me about your family. How are they handling things so far?”
“I haven’t really talked to them much,” I admitted. “My mother called on my birthday. Thomas said I wouldn’t be able to go back home, too much of a security risk, I guess, and it would be easier if I just let them go.”
“Easier for whom?” Grayson asked, then shook his head. “He’s partially correct. Since your identity and ability have been revealed worldwide, there are all kinds of possible terrorist threats, and targeting your family, who aren’t as well protected as you are, is a definite concern.”
I looked down at my hands, trying to hide any fear. “That’s what President Healy said, too.”
“Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“Three older brothers. I’m the baby of the family.”
He smiled. “What are they like? Do you get along?”
I spent three hours talking to Grayson about everything from my oldest brother’s new wife and daughter to the girls at my old school and my mother’s inability to remember which kid was named what whenever she got angry with us. He said that parents had very similar experiences in 1987 and that increased brainpower and technology over time wouldn’t change family dynamics. Some things were just human nature.
It made me miss them all over again, and after returning to the present, I decided to contact my oldest brother, Henry. Seeing my little niece toddling around on the screen after all these months had passed caused me to feel sadder than I have since I first left home last December.
* * *
“So what’s the deal with this B-29 stuff?” Holly asked before I had a chance to.
We had also listened to and read the text of the memory files Blake showed me yesterday for Holly’s benefit.
“It’s not what you think,” Blake said. “Honestly, I think it’s probably a very useful and important supplement. What you guys have to realize is that the world I lived in, before everything started changing, before Project Eyewall, was a really great place. I’ve spent a lot of time in your present and I can make an accurate comparison. The future was a better place to be than the past. The forward motion was mostly positive, as it had been in the history you two probably studied in school.”
I leaned against the wall, watching Holly twist back and forth in the only chair in the room. “But what changed for you? And what kind of forward progress happens between my present and yours? I know the Tempus gene evolves and people become smarter, a few time travelers appear, but what else?” Holly asked.
Blake folded his arms across his chest, his forehead wrinkling like he was deep in thought. “Well, there’s a broader acceptance of differences—race, religion, politics, sexuality.” Blake’s eyebrows shot up and he returned his hands to the control panel. I noticed pink creeping up his neck toward his face and wondered what kind of filed-away memory would cause him to turn red like that. “There’s also the Plague of 2600. It was a dark time but the government did what they had to for humanity to survive. Basically, there was a very deadly disease spread by skin-to-skin human contact. For nearly thirty years we fought it, and the population of the United States decreased by half.”
“By half?” Holly and I said together.
“Yes. It was devastating. Many people covered their hands and faces at all times. Reproduction happened in a lab for most families. And while the government worked to come up with a vaccine, they offered drugs that blocked certain responses in the brain such as … libido,” he finally said, and I had to assume that was the reason for the red face. “Nothing was mandatory, it’s just people were panicking and there was no vaccine. They had to do something. Of course, there were the rebels who were against people taking the inhibitors. They called it mind control, but no one wanted to control people, it was the disease that needed controlling. Anyway, they finally managed to produce a working vaccine, lifted all the warnings, and no longer coordinated couples genetically based on their immunities to the disease.”
“Wait,” Holly interrupted. “They coordinated people? That seems really weird and very communist or something.”
“Like I said, it was a desperate time,” Blake answered with a shrug. “And the government went into huge debt over developing the coordination system and funding all the fertility labs. They couldn’t wait to get rid of it. They even had to borrow money from China.”
This was like the most interesting history (or future, I guess) lesson I’d ever heard. What would people in 1900 have thought of everything that happened between then and my present? I bet it would seem just as crazy.
“So it didn’t spread worldwide?” I asked.
Blake shook his head. “Nope. As soon as they discovered the transmission, there was no foreign travel allowed. No crossing borders. Nothing. And even though the government went to great lengths to encourage people to live and take risks once the vaccination program had been implemented nationwide, people were still conservative, kept all the same precautions for a long time. Once you see a loved one’s skin rot and fall off in a three-day period, it’s hard to shake those habits. So, even in my time, some of that still lingered just a little, and that’s the reason certain items legal for consumption in your present had been outlawed for decades in my present. Which you’ll see in this next entry.”
AUGUST 15, 2874.
MEMORY EXTRACTED FROM HOST.
“I have big news for you,” Thomas said, entering our apartment, Jean and Nora trailing behind him.
He went on to talk about the big committee meeting that afternoon with Dr. Ludwig and several other scientists and government officials and they all determined that I was now allowed one personal time jump per week. There are virtually no limitations on when and where I can explore, just no major alterations without clearing them first. I can use the time to study the past—science and history, anthropology—anything to gain cultural experience and knowledge that will help me blend in with different time periods when I’m on a mission.
It’s a big deal. A huge privilege. I know that, but it’s hard for me to be excited about gaining permission to go back in time and observe strangers in a period that isn’t my own, when I still have this constant ache to go home. To visit people I know and love. I’ve been down ever since I called Henry. Dr. Ludwig must have been able to tell because he increased my B-29 injections to four a year rather than the standard one every twelve months. Maybe Thomas was right. It would have been easier if I had just left it alone.
And I can’t help wondering if this additional freedom I gained today was based more on my lackluster performance and effort lately than on real merit.
“This is so exciting!” Jean said.
For once, I actually managed to meet her eyes, though only for a few seconds, without feeling my face flush.
“You deserve a little fun and freedom,” Nora said.
Somehow, after talking for a few minutes, Nora and Thomas ended up leaving me alone in my apartment with Jean, who produced a bottle of what she called wine from a bag I hadn’t even noticed she’d been holding.
“To celebrate,” she said with a grin. “I got it from 2014. Think it has a long shelf life?”
It was a poor attempt at a time-travel joke, but I laughed anyway because it was, well, Jean. Beautiful Jean.
She used some strange mechanical device to remove the stopper in the bottle and then poured two full glasses.
I took a long sip. It tasted like fruit and water and another flavor that was completely new to me. After several more swallows, it became more than a taste—a dozen emotions, a song I couldn’t recall, something strong and soft all at the same time.
“Good, huh?” Jean said.
“Yeah.” I glanced down at the dark purple liquid sloshing around the sides of the glass. “Why would they stop making this? It’s amazing.”
She shrugged. “I have no idea, but I do know what my next research project will be. During my allotted free time.”
“Let me know what you find out.”
In no time at all, Jean and I had finished the entire bottle and were now seated on the couch, searching my handheld for any information we could find on the history of wine.
For some reason, after sharing the beverage with Jean, I didn’t feel nervous sitting so close to her, laughing and talking almost as easily as I had that day with Grayson. And it wasn’t just emotionally altering. Physically, my limbs almost felt detached from my body or like my bones had thinned and suddenly become more agile, increasing their range of motion. My eyes had trouble focusing on the screen held between me and Jean, but I didn’t really mind the blurriness at all. I didn’t really mind anything. And I didn’t feel sad.
Jean glanced up at me for a split second, those green eyes shining with all kinds of hidden secrets. “I think I might understand now why wine is unavailable in 2874.”
“Uh, me, too.” Then both of us started laughing so hard that my handheld dropped to the floor and my fingers were suddenly free to touch Jean’s bright red hair. Something I’d thought entirely too much about in the past eight months. “It’s so … orangey,” I mumbled.
“And yet they still call it red,” Jean said, laughing some more. “And orangey isn’t a word.”
“It is now. I’ve just named your hair. It’s orangey.”
She reached up and gently weaved her fingers in my hair, sending a jolt through my entire body. “Then we’ll call yours sandy. Have you seen the beach before?”
“I lived near the beach,” I said, feeling the tiniest pang of longing—for home, for summers on the beach. My hands were moving on their own, traveling across her cheek, tracing the outline of her jaw and chin. “I saw someone do this once, in a jump with Thomas a couple months ago, this guy and girl sitting on a bench, right near the street, with all the chaos surrounding them. I think I get it now. Touching is human nature.”
Jean clapped a hand over my mouth, her eyes suddenly turning dark. “Don’t let them hear you talk like that. Ever.”
I dropped my hand to my lap. “Like what? It’s not going to kill either of us. This isn’t 2600. We’ve been vaccinated.”
“I know but it sounds like Grayson,” she said. “He got so caught up in, well, I don’t know what exactly, but I’ve read his old reports. His philosophies on human nature and the lack of influence from technology are so different from everything Dr. Ludwig preaches. Dr. Ludwig’s goal is to control the future by altering the past based on what we learn over time. It’s smart when you think about it, really. Why shouldn’t we learn from our past mistakes? Why shouldn’t we strive for a better world for the next generation if our abilities make this possible? It’s not like man manufactured time travelers. We’re made this way for a reason.”
I agreed with Jean, I truly did. But at the moment, I didn’t want to talk about the bigger picture or the world beyond our time. I just wanted her to understand what I had felt only seconds ago. There was no fact to dispute it. It just was. I took her hands and placed them on my face, moving them slowly down toward my neck. She stopped talking and drew in a sudden breath, unable to exhale.
“See?” I said.
Until this very moment, I’d never touched anyone unless it was necessary—a planned gesture to display emotion or kindness. That was how everyone was, except for that guy and girl I’d seen in the past. And except for my parents, who I’d seen on a rare occasion unconsciously seeking out contact with the other. This, tonight, it didn’t feel like a plan. It felt more like a desperate need, or a want. I couldn’t tell the difference and somewhere in the back of mind, I knew that there was probably a big difference between the two emotions—need and want.
And yet I didn’t care in the least.
I leaned into Jean and felt the heat of her surrounding me. And then my mouth was on hers … kissing … the most effective way to spread communicable diseases. Logic was losing big-time.
All four of our hands suddenly sought out more skin to touch—bare necks, under our shirts. Eventually it became apparent how much easier it would be to just throw them on the floor.
“Open your mouth,” she whispered after the shirts hit the floor and I kissed her for the hundredth time. “I saw this once…”
* * *
Blake hit the button to stop the recording and his face was bright red again. He kept his eyes on the control panel, and mumbled, “Sorry, I didn’t realize how much detail was inserted into my memory file.”
I glanced at Holly, who looked wide-eyed, but not a trace of the blushing that had infested Blake was on her face. My Holly would have been at least a little bit pink out of sympathy for Blake. Agent Holly seemed to have every emotion under control.
“Okay, so you were drunk,” she summarized. “And people in your present don’t get drunk or kiss, apparently.”
“They do kiss and everything else,” Blake said, finally looking at us. “It’s not usually so impulsive, more careful and planned. You get checked for immunities and cleared by a physician first. That’s how I was raised, anyway, and it’s all I knew. It could be different for some people in my present. I’m not really sure. Obviously, it was the same for Jean, too.”
“If you know all about the Plague of 2600,” I asked, “then why didn’t any of you go back to 2600 and give the government the secret formula for the vaccine or whatever?”
Blake sighed. “The division of government that supervised us wouldn’t allow any jumps to the plague period. It was off-limits. I think they were convinced that it would change too much about the future, that the world would have been overpopulated and too fearless.”
“But they could go around altering people’s genetics?” Holly said. “I think we need to hear the rest of this one. Hit that button or I will.”
Blake eyed Holly’s gun tucked in the side of her jeans and then sighed before starting up both the audio and visual replay.
I did open my mouth, but more to reply than because I wanted to figure out what she was going to do. Her tongue carefully slipped into my mouth and I froze, not sure what came next. She closed her mouth again and started kissing things that weren’t my lips—cheeks, neck, collarbone. Then she grabbed my hand and placed it on her breast. I became so lost in feeling this whole new type of skin, I didn’t even notice the door open.
“Jean!” Nora said. “Blake! What are you…?”
We both jumped apart, reaching for our wrinkled shirts on the floor and banging our heads together in the process. Once my shirt was safely returned to its original spot, I glanced at Thomas, standing behind Nora. His expression was completely unreadable. But at least he didn’t look shocked or angry.
“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he said to Jean.
Jean’s cheeks were flushed to a beautiful rosy color that clashed with her hair. My eyes bounced between the two of them, trying to understand Thomas’s words.
He just shrugged and picked up the empty bottle on the counter, holding it for Nora to see. “Dr. Ludwig wouldn’t exactly be disappointed if two of his beloved time travelers were caught reproducing.”
“Reproducing?” Jean and I said together.
Then I moved to the opposite end of the couch.
Creating offspring wasn’t exactly on my evening to-do list. Although I knew how it worked. Why couldn’t I have seen that was where we were headed a few minutes ago? I just didn’t think about it. I was too absorbed in the moment.
“He’s sixteen,” Nora said to Thomas under her breath. “He can’t do that yet.”
“Apparently he can,” Thomas said, shrugging again.
Jean scrambled to her feet and headed toward the nearest exit. “I’m not feeling well.”
I sighed with relief the second she was out the door. Now I really wouldn’t be able to make eye contact with her ever again. Not without turning the color of a tomato.
“Did you tell her to do that?” Nora asked Thomas.
“Not that. No,” he confirmed. “I told her to entertain the kid, make him feel more at home here.”
My stomach sank and flipped all at the same time. And then I felt the wine bubbling up inside me, working its way toward my throat.
I barely made it to the kitchen sink before regurgitating the dark purple liquid. “Impurities, right?” I gasped as my head hung over the drain. “In the water … the water used to make wine.”
Nora raced over, standing behind me, and placed a hand on the back of my neck like my mother did when I was sick as a child. She pressed a button above my head, turning the stream of water on, allowing me to rinse my mouth.
“Impurities for sure but also alcohol,” Thomas said. “It’s toxin that was banned decades ago for its negative effects on health and unpredictable behavorial side effects, not to mention its addictive nature.”
Thomas and Nora helped me walk to my bed after deciding my balance was less than a hundred percent. Nora placed a cool rag on my forehead and then left to check on Jean. Thomas stayed in my room, sitting in a chair next to the bed.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Jean was experimenting tonight. I’ve seen how you admire her,” he said quietly, so as not to disturb my upset stomach and pounding head. “I just thought it might help cheer you up a little, spending time alone with Jean. She agreed without question.”
I couldn’t be upset with Thomas for trying to help me, but finding out he had instigated this whole evening made everything seem like just another mission or experiment. Nothing personal. It wasn’t like Jean would have said no to Thomas. Everyone respected him. Everyone knew he’d never ask for something that he didn’t think was important.
His intentions might have been out of kindness to me, but Jean’s were out of kindness and admiration for Thomas, not for me. Only the wine made her look at me differently and enjoy the time alone together.
“I wasn’t completely honest with you, Blake,” he said. “When I told you that Grayson had been injured.”
“He’s not injured?” I tried to sit up and decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
“He spent a lot of time in and around the year 1991 for the Tempus Gene Project and then eventually for his own personal time. The same freedom you’ve just been given to explore the past.” Thomas repositioned his chair so he was facing me and looked me right in the eyes. “He fell in love with a man in 1986. An agent working for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Shock must have filled my expression though I tried my best to conceal it. “He could come back? Anytime? He chooses to live there?”
“I haven’t relayed this information accurately to Dr. Ludwig or anyone else. Grayson was my mentor. He helped me through my early missions and I had hoped if I allowed him some time, he’d realize his weakness and overcome it. A physical injury would keep his record clean,” Thomas said. “But a mistake, a judgment error, would mean his ability could be taken from him.”
“Taken?” I asked, finally able to sit up and lean against the headboard. “How do they take it?”
“I don’t know all the details,” Thomas said. “But trust me, there are ways. I don’t want you to fall into the same trap, feeling too much emotion for your family. That kind of behavior can really make this job difficult. I thought maybe having fun with Jean would help you overcome this. Perhaps I was wrong, and I’m truly sorry if her intentions hurt you at all.”
“It was just the wine,” I said. “I don’t know if it would have been a pleasant experience, spending time alone with her, if it weren’t for the … alcohol. Of course I look at her, think about her that way, but she’s the only female even remotely close to my age that I’ve seen since leaving home.”
“I understand,” Thomas said, standing up. “I won’t interfere in that way again. You have my word. And you also have my word that I’ll do everything in my power to keep my head clear and not abandon my position as your mentor for as long as you need me.”
“Did you mean it?” I asked him before he could leave the room. “When you said Dr. Ludwig wouldn’t be upset about two time travelers reproducing?”
He turned his back to me, flipping off the light before saying, “It’s a concept the government is currently exploring.”
“What about the Tempus Gene Project?”
“It’s certainly changing history, showing itself much earlier, but has yet to create the larger number of time travelers intended. President Healy wants to abandon the experiment in the next twelve months if it continues to be unproductive.” He shut the door halfway, leaving me in the dark. “Get some sleep. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”
And because Thomas told me to, I pushed my worries aside for now and fell right to sleep.
* * *
“Huh,” I said. “Are you sure this is the same Thomas that I knew?”
“Yes,” Blake said firmly. “And Grayson didn’t only stay in the past because of his partner. He also began to disagree with Thomas and Dr. Ludwig.”
“Sorry about the girl’s setting you up like that. Totally sucks,” I said to try and make the air in the small space slightly more comfortable for him.
“Yeah, totally,” Holly chimed in. She lifted her feet onto the long desk and leaned back in her chair. “I’ve been there, too. One time I was at this party and this guy I didn’t even know hit on me at the bar and then when I asked him to dance, he was really into it. Turns out he was just another agent trying to get information out of me about my best friend—”
“Wait,” Blake interrupted looking confused. “What—?”
“He’s dead,” she said, jumping back in. “Not the guy at the bar. My best friend. And the guy I danced with … apparently he’s hung out with various versions of me and doesn’t feel like it’s important to give me any details about those encounters.”
I stayed leaning against the wall, staring at Holly while attempting to look like I wasn’t completely in love with her. “That’s a great story, Hol, but—”
“So this guy was a time traveler?” Blake asked. “Who did he work for? Tempest?”
“Supposedly Tempest,” Holly said. “Good guys, bad guys, I’m not sure and it really doesn’t matter. Just another a*shole trying to hook up with me for a mission.”
“He was trying to hook up with you?” I rolled my eyes and let out an angry breath. “If I remember right, you were the one that asked to come home with me. And I said no!”
Blake’s eyes bounced nervously between the two of us. “Um, okay, I’m lost.”
Holly dropped her feet to the floor with a loud thud and leaned forward in her chair, angling it away from me and facing Blake. “Let’s try this a different way. Let’s say another time traveler, one you don’t know very well, maybe not at all, seems to know a hell of a lot about you. And then you find out he or she has been jumping into the past and hanging out with you or doing God knows what with you. Then he or she erases everything and won’t tell you a f*cking thing about what happened, would that piss you off?”
“You know what, Agent Flynn?” I snapped. “I never took you as the passive-aggressive type.”
She spun her chair around to face me. “Oh, I think I’m being very direct.”
Panic crept up inside me, mixing with anger. Why couldn’t she see that I was trying to make things better for her? “What? Am I supposed to relay every single second to you? Seriously? I already told you everything days ago, or don’t you remember?”
She stood up and walked closer to me, arms folded across her chest. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately and too many things don’t add up. If you only knew me through Adam, why did seeing me with Brian at the bookstore piss you off so much? Don’t deny it either, I could tell you were furious. And why did you almost kiss me during that fifty-thousand-dollar dance?”
I held my breath, feeling my heart thud too loud. I swallowed back the words I wanted to say and kept my mouth shut. She was too perceptive to miss the waver that would inevitably be present in my voice.
“You were about to kiss me, I know you were. It was like you forgot that you weren’t with a version of me who wouldn’t think that was weird. Like another version of me would expect to be kissed by you.”
My eyes were locked on hers, nowhere to run. All I could do was say, “Just let it go, Hol, please. It doesn’t matter.”
With that lame reply, I turned around and left the room. I couldn’t keep looking at her and not give everything away. What would she do if I told her?
Don’t. You’ve made the right choice.