Chase (ChronoShift Trilogy) (26 page)

The man's mind was made up.  Mark didn't blame him, it was the only decision left to him in a feudal system like this.  Mark was just frustrated by his own impotence to fix the problem.

Abbie hoisted a couple of the bundles onto her shoulder.  Hardy and Ty followed suit, grabbing saddle packs to help Robert load them onto his mule.

Once the family was loaded and ready to go, everyone said their tearful goodbyes.  Elisa was a good woman, a strong woman.  She was taking her exile in stride.  Robert was a lucky man.

Last of all, Mark said goodbye to young Robyn.  He took comfort in knowing that, if nothing else, they'd saved this young man's life.

"Goodbye, Robyn Smith.  It was a pleasure knowing you." Mark said.

 His father interrupted, "We are Smith no more, my friend. 
Hoode
.  His name is now Robyn
Hoode
," he said, winking conspiratorially. "We must begin getting used to our new names."

The full import of who young Robyn must be hit Mark like a slap in the face.

Robyn Hoode.

***

October 4
^th
2013, Boston, MA

Late afternoon light gilded the rooftops in lonely warmth as the sun drew nearer to the tops of the building in its descent.  She'd come up here to think, to get away from some of the modernity in the building below.

She was not only suffering severe future shock, but culture shock to boot.  She did her best to hide it from the others.  They'd been overly kind and considerate, attempting in every way to make her feel at home.

She came up here a lot, staying away from the roof line as Mark had warned her.  These isolated sunsets let her escape, even if just for a moment.

If she squinted just right, instead of asphalt roofs lined by brick kicker walls, she could see the thatched roofs of her village, plumes of cooking smoke curling up before the sun, and imagine her
dah
sharing the view next to her.

She missed him.  Too much at times.

What
was
God's will for her?
 
Was she supposed to have come here to the 21
^st
century?  What if she was supposed to be back at home?

"So, this is where you got off to."  Mark had come up behind her.

Abbie turned and smiled.  "Yes, I came up here to think."

"Sorry.  Didn't mean to interrupt."

"Oh, that's okay.  I was about to come down anyway."

"Abbie, you really shouldn't get so close to the roof line.  We've got a truce with Rialto, but you never know."

"I know.  I try to stay out of sight."

Over the past decades, Rialto had made sure Carpen's headquarters was constantly under surveillance by normal "mortals", i.e. men without shifters.  It usually required no more than two or three hired thugs at a time who were given an apartment on the second floor of the opposing building.  These thugs took shifts watching and noting any activity at the headquarters visible from the outside.  They were armed but had orders not to fire unless given new orders.  For the time being, at least while the truce was in effect, they simply watched and reported.

If the truce were ever broken, Rialto would send his men back in time to specific moments where the three men had been seen together in public and take them out simultaneously.  Frustratingly, there had been virtually no appearances of the men outside the building.  They were using some unknown method for entering and exiting which he had not yet discovered.

His hired investigators, however, had no understanding of his grand scheme.  All they knew was they were supposed to watch the place and tell him if they saw anything.  Rialto paid them a good bit of money for basically doing nothing, so they didn't complain.

The particular thug up at bat at the moment was Tony Cardoza.  He'd grown up in Brooklyn.  His parents had divorced at an early age and he'd dropped out of school before reaching the 10
^th
grade.  He'd dabbled in drugs and their sales to wealthy suburbanites for a time before he got hooked up with the mob in an official capacity.

That had been fun, but this job beat all.  Working for Rialto, he made as much money or more than he'd ever made then, and he wasn't doing anything illegal that could send him to jail.

Still, it was
boring
.  There were days he thought that if he had to sit in front of this window for one more minute staring at some brick building which might as well be empty for all the activity going on, he'd have to slit his own wrists just to end the boredom.  But then he would remember the pay, bite his lip, and sit up a little straighter.  It was only eight hours or so per day, after all, unless Ringo showed up late that is, which unfortunately he did all too often.

So, when he saw the tall figure of a man standing on the roof of that building, excitement coursed through him.  At last.

Something
different
.

Something was going on other than an empty, brick wall with windows you couldn't see through.

The sight set his finger to itching.  He was inspired to
do
something different.  Seeing something different required doing something different.  The cocaine rushing through his veins didn't help.

C'mon Tony, you're going to screw up this cush job.

He couldn't help it.  The temptation was too great.  He raised his rifle.

Abbie let out a little scream as something slammed into Mark's chest and knocked him backward.  Blood poured from a large wound under his back and from a smaller one in the front.

Reacting instantly, she leapt from her chair and crouched low.  She scrambled to the two foot brick wall which marked the edge of the roof and dared a peek over it.

There was a man visible in an open window of the second story of a building across the street.  He was peering out like a fool to evaluate his success as a killer.  Her blood boiled at the sight of his ugly, leering maw.

A whirring from behind her caught her attention.  Mark's watch was loosening from off his wrist.  That could only mean one thing.  Her heart rent at the thought.  She scrambled to his fallen body.

Without thinking, she slipped the watch on her own wrist.  Whirring once more, it constricted itself.  She'd seen him work it enough times to know how to operate it.

She dragged him to the other corner of the roof behind a low wall where neither of them would be visible to their former selves.  Then, she grabbed his lifeless wrist and shifted his body back in time with her to a few minutes to before the shot struck home.  She didn't know why she brought his body along, but she couldn't just leave him lying there.

She peered over the roof line again and saw the ugly man preparing to shoot.

Mark had gifted Abbie with a long, black, cylindrical carrying case, the kind businessmen normally use to transport large blueprints or artwork.  She popped the cap off and withdrew her longbow.  In spite of the century, she preferred it to a gun and never went anywhere without it.

The would-be killer never saw the silent missile as it sailed through the open window and struck his throat.

Confident the gunman was out for the count and would now never take the shot, Abbie returned to the other side of the roof.  Behind her, Mark's body had disappeared as if by magic.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Mark stood in the same spot as before he'd been killed.  Now, his mouth hung agape, as if he'd been interrupted in mid-sentence, and his eyes were full of confusion.  Abbie had just disappeared from the chair in front of him and reappeared on the other side of the roof.

The shifter was back on his wrist.  Off of hers.  The way it should be.

"Abbie...uh...why do you have your bow out?  What happened?"

"It's nothing," she answered, "Why don't we get off of this roof?  As you said, it's probably too dangerous."

I wake up in tear drops, they fall down like rain

I put on that old song we danced to and then I head off to my job

"
These Days
"

                    ~ Rascal Flatts

April 14
^th
2014, Swansea, MA

"Mark..."

Her fingertips brushed the skin of his cheek lightly, sending tingles down his spine.

They stood in an isolated copse of birch trees, their trunks bright, like tall, white sentinels of the forest.  Warm sunbeams shone through their lime-green leaves as they flitted and danced in the breeze, and the small clearing was carpeted with the short blades of a plush, vibrant grass.

Abbie had invited him here.  She'd left a note asking him to meet, with specific directions leading him to this hidden hollow among the birches.  She was already waiting when he arrived.

He tried to remember her as she'd been when he'd first met her, but it was difficult.  Today, she wore a tan leather autumn coat, a silk white blouse, and jeans.  Her current attire bore no resemblance to the dress of Puritan New England.  Then, her hair would have lain long, falling evenly across her shoulders. Now, it was pulled back into a pert pony tail and held in place with a red scrunchie.  Not a very sophisticated look, just straight forward and simple, like everything else about her, which was a big part of her attractiveness.

Why had she invited him here?  This place was close to where her village had been back in 1675.  His nerves fluttered as his mind debated whether this invitation would end in the breaking of his heart or the beginning of new joy.  That she had something serious to tell him, one way or the other, was not in doubt.

"Mark..."  She dropped her hand, pulling her eyes from his.

He reached for her fallen hand and took it in his own.  "You said that already."

"Mark, I...I want to go back home."

Her words hit him like a ton of bricks.  He'd always feared the feelings he had for her were not reciprocated.  She'd never allowed the momentary, romantic sparks between them to fan into the flames he desired.  He had tried to chalk her reticence up to her conservative upbringing, but apparently it had been more than that.

"Why, Abbie?  There's nothing for you back there.  What about all the good we're doing with these shifters?"

Reaching up, she touched his cheek again, smiling as she gazed into his eyes.  "There's no doubt
you
are doing good, Mark. You're a good man.  It's just not for me."

"Don't you want to help people?"

"Of course I do, but I don't believe the Lord wants me to live in this century."

First Ty, now her.

He was sick of this God talk.  God had taken his children from him.

"If God wanted me to help you," she continued, "He would have given me a shifter too."

"What are you worried about?  Being a burden to us, having to depend on us for safety?  Don't.  We'll never abandon you.  I'll never abandon you."

"I know, Mark.  That's not it."

"What then?  Just because we don't have another shifter doesn't mean God doesn't want you to help us.  I mean, think about my dreams.  Why did I dream of you so much?  Why was I led to come and save you?  Didn't God give me those dreams?"

She ignored the last question.  "It's not only that I don't have a shifter.  I feel...well, I should say, I
know
what God wants me to do.  He's spoken to me very clearly."

"God
spoke
to you?"  Mark's tone was more than a little sarcastic.

"Not in my ear.  In my spirit."

"How do you know it was Him?"

She laughed lightly, not mockingly, but with gentleness.  "You are an adorable man, Mark.  A good man.  I know you have feelings for me, but...I cannot return them.  I do not belong in this time...in your time.  I belong back where you found me, with my people."

"But..."

"You cannot come with me, Mark.   You belong here.  You are doing what you were destined to do."

He blanched at her phrasing.  Destiny was a traitorous word.  He loathed that word.

"What will you do?  Where will you go?"

"I will find a new village, a new home.  I'll be fine.  It's home to me there."

She saw him resisting the tears welling in his eyes.  One escaped and she wiped it away with her finger, breaching his emotional dam.  Quickly, he turned his face to hide his pain as more followed.

Grief built within like an ocean swell before a hurricane.  The wounds deep inside, the wounds of his wife's abandonment followed by Laura's caustic infidelity had never really healed.  If he didn't maintain control now, Abbie's leaving would hit even deeper.