CHAPTER EIGHT
DAY 12. NOON
“This sucks.” I pointed my gun at the tree-stump T-shirt target. The slight tremble in my left hand still prevented me from actually firing.
“What sucks?” Holly asked. “The fact that you still can’t shoot or the fact that we’ve just been shoved away like little children being excluded from the adult conversation?”
“You don’t think they’ll do anything to Stewart, do you?” Mason paused midreload and waited for Holly, Blake, or me to reply.
“Dad won’t let them,” I answered right away, hoping it was true. Like Dad, I didn’t want Stewart trapped here either, but I couldn’t say I wasn’t the slightest bit happy to see her. Besides, she said she had a plan.
And I’d learned to trust Jenni Stewart in moments of stress. She had yet to let me down. I also knew she was strong enough to withstand any interrogation Grayson, Lonnie, and Dad might be throwing at her in the reproduction room right now.
“I don’t think there would be any concerns about her safety if she’d just tell us who brought her here,” Blake said.
“If she said she can’t tell, then she can’t,” I snapped. But really, I wanted this information, too.
“And why does everyone insist on showing up unannounced with weapons?” Sasha said. “It’s like they’re asking to get killed.”
Holly laughed under her breath and was then awarded with a killer glare from Sasha, who still seemed pretty bitter about the fact that Holly had tackled her to the ground. “Did you really think you would have hit her on the first try? Considering the fact that you’ve never used a gun before?” Holly asked Sasha.
“I can time-travel, unlike you,” Sasha said. “I don’t need firearms as a crutch to keep me alive.”
Holly snapped the trigger into place on her gun, eyebrows lifting way up. “Really? How’s that working out for you right now?”
Sasha grumbled something incoherent to herself and then Holly sighed and turned to face her. “I’m not trying to insult you, I’m just saying that learning to protect yourself might not be a bad idea, given the circumstances.”
“She’s right,” Blake said, kicking Sasha’s shoe playfully. “It couldn’t hurt to have a better defense ready.”
The wait was killing me. I had to do something constructive while Stewart got picked apart in private. “I’m gonna go chop some wood,” I said before walking off.
“I’ll go with you.” Blake jogged after me. “Think Holly and Sasha will be okay without us?”
I picked up my pace, hoping to keep anyone one else from joining in on my distracting activity. “I think Holly will be okay.”
We walked farther than I’d ever been on Misfit Island, all the way to the edge of the thick woods, the complete opposite end of the lake. Blake handed me an ax and picked one up for himself. Large pieces of tree trunks lay scattered around our feet. I picked a thick one to start on and hit it several times before making a dent.
“Was Holly correct the other day?” Blake asked after a good ten minutes of perfect silence, only the sound of metal hitting wood having passed between us. “When she said you’re keeping stuff from her? About her?”
I threw something extra into my swing, splitting a piece of tree trunk into two perfect halves. “I’m keeping a lot of stuff from Holly. We were enemy agents, you know? It’s not like she’s told me much about her life in Eyewall.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Blake stopped chopping and stacked up his firewood pieces. He already had a good-sized pile compared to my two pieces to contribute thus far. “I understand why she might feel entitled to have this information, but she can’t possibly know what it’s like to time-travel, like you and I do. She can’t comprehend the anxiety it causes us to know things that happened a certain way and watch them change. It would be like if we had the ability to read minds and then we were ridiculed and hated for not telling people what went on in the heads of their own family members and loved ones.” He wiped sweat from his forehead, staring off into the distance. “It isn’t fair to accuse us of anything when we can’t help having this God-given ability.”
“Your ability might be God-given,” I said, wiping my own sweaty brow. “But mine sure as hell isn’t. I’m completely man-made.”
“Regardless,” Blake said. “The origin has nothing to do with you. You didn’t ask for this.”
“Those are all valid points,” I conceded. “Why don’t you try explaining that to Holly?”
As if it were that easy.
“I will,” Blake said, looking dead serious.
Suddenly I felt that tiny bubble of jealousy boiling to the surface again, threatening to spill over. I didn’t want Blake alone with Holly long enough for him to have this talk with her. I didn’t want Blake alone with Holly at all.
“She was my girlfriend,” I blurted out against my better judgment. “Before I went back and erased us. Then everything changed and what I did, the sacrifice I made to keep her safe, meant nothing. Her life went completely to hell and I can’t just tell her, oh by the way, I’ve succeeded in getting two out of three versions of you to fall for me, so the probability that it could happen again is very high.”
I channeled the aggression into chopping and split another large piece of tree trunk in half. Then I wondered what kind of hidden anger Blake must have to be so damn good at chopping wood.
“I’m not going to tell her,” Blake said quietly after several long moments of silence. “And I already knew that you were in love with her. It’s pretty obvious.”
My arms were ready to fall off so I dropped the ax and lowered my hands to my side. “I want to deny that so badly, to tell you that I was in love with a different Holly in a different universe, but before we left 2009 there was something … something that made me realize that although she’s different now, the core of her, the basic foundation that makes up a person … it’s always going to be the same no matter what happens. And that’s what I love. That’s who I love.”
“Thomas would disagree with you on that,” Blake said. “And to some extent I agree with him. Holly’s life might have changed, if she went from a normal eighteen-year-old in 2009 to being an Eyewall agent, but her childhood hasn’t changed at all, has it?” I shook my head, knowing she had the same mother, the same house. “The way she was raised didn’t change. But if that was altered somehow…”
I let that concept sink in for a minute or two, and then Blake and I were interrupted by Dad. Finally.
“Stewart is still insisting that she can’t reveal her partner in crime or the plan will backfire,” Dad said. “But she’s ready to tell us her idea.”
* * *
All eleven of us crammed into the small reproduction room minutes after Dad came to find us. Emily and Courtney sat on the floor. Stewart occupied the chair. She looked a little rattled but overall okay. The rest of us leaned against the wall. I took the spot next to Stewart’s chair.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” I whispered to her. “What did they do to you?”
She shrugged. “I’ve had worse. And why the hell are they so serious about every damn thing? Are we starting a political system here? Will there be an election later?”
I glanced down at her and grinned. “I missed you.”
“Of course you did, Junior.”
Grayson clapped his hands together. “Agent Stewart, you have our attention.”
It was very subtle and maybe only I could see it because of my proximity to her, but Stewart drew in a nervous breath before speaking. “The invisible field, the one that doesn’t allow you to leave the area, it’s controlled from only one location and that’s on the other side of the woods—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “You mean the woods here on Misfit Island? Isn’t that where the perimeters end?”
Everyone stared at me like I had brain damage. Which might be true. Then Courtney’s face lit up and she looked over at Grayson. “He wasn’t here. He wasn’t conscious when you showed us the maps of the area.”
“Right, Courtney. I forgot as well.” Grayson pushed himself off the wall and started tapping buttons on the control panel. A map appeared on three different screens hanging on the wall at eye level. Everything was there. The cabins were clearly identifiable, and just beyond the thick section of trees, there was more grassy land and images of tents scattered everywhere. Around the tents were tiny black dots, some of them staying in place and some moving. Grayson’s finger touched one of the screens and moved from the technology building through the woods, through the area with tents, and stopped just before reaching another thick mass of trees. “That’s where the perimeters of the force field extend.”
“The force field gets taken down more than you think,” Stewart said. “But they hit you with memory gas to stop anyone from leaving. Think about it, they can cross into the area without taking the field down, it’s just getting out that’s the problem.”
“So the controls are on our side?” Grayson asked.
I could already see him, Blake, Lonnie, and Sasha all exchanging glances, possibly believing Stewart for the first time. Then Grayson shook his head. “Even if we found this box, there’s no way we could gain access. All the Eyewall workers have identity chips, fingerprint access—”
Stewart pointed her index finger at Holly. “Good thing we’ve got one of their team members to help us gain access.”
Several people started talking at once, trying to disprove or encourage exploring this theory. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on Holly, who also remained quiet.
“Okay, okay,” Grayson said. “It’s possible this could work. She is in the system. The retina scanner identified Holly as an Eyewall member. But Eyewall guards will teleport in as soon as the field drops.”
“True,” Stewart said, nodding and obviously stalling like she might be afraid to tell us the next part. “The electromagnetic pulse will go up as soon as the field is down. The only point of access for time travel is just outside the Eyewall headquarters. All we have to do is take out the guards who come charging in after the field is dropped, remove their identifier chips, implant them on our own bodies, walk to Eyewall headquarters, at least to the point of access, then time-jump the hell out of 3200.”
“Is that all?” Sasha said, sarcasm falling from every word.
Grayson and Dad both kept their expressions as blank as if they were jacked up on B-29. Dad spoke first. “Let Grayson, Lonnie, and I discuss this more in-depth. There are some logistics to work out. It’s a long journey to headquarters.”
We all filed out of the room, knowing there wasn’t any reason to argue or discuss it further until they made a decision. I grabbed Stewart by the shoulders from behind and gave her a squeeze. “Nice job. Honestly, I figured you had no idea what you were getting into. It’s a good sign that they’re even willing to talk about it.”
Once we were outside, near the fire pit, Stewart turned around to face me, grief filling her expression. “It’s my fault you’re here. If I hadn’t dosed Healy with the truth serum, Emily wouldn’t have been alone long enough to start her little quest and Healy wouldn’t have trapped you so soon. He would have waited longer and we’d have figured out that he was trying to trap you…”
I didn’t know how to respond. I was sure there was some truth to what she was saying but still, so many factors led to this entrapment. No way could we pin it all on Stewart.
“Did you know Healy is the President of the United States in the future?”
Stewart’s mouth fell open and I laughed, steering her toward a log to sit down on. “Let me fill you in on everything you missed.”
“You don’t think I have any good gossip to share?” Stewart said. “I was hanging out in 2009 for three whole days before coming here.”
I sat down beside her on a log and Mason, who’d been listening in from Stewart’s other side, joined us. “You can’t possibly top Healy as President in the future.”
“Okay, maybe not.”