Golden Blood (11 page)

“Still can’t find her?”

“What’s she doing? Spending her lunches
hiding in the girls’ locker room?”

“Quite possibly.” Courtney twirled a curl
around her finger. “Maybe you could try…”

The girl’s brown eyes sparkled as she pointed
behind him. Harrison whipped around and glimpsed Gemma as she spun
on her heel and ran in the opposite direction.

“Gotta go.”

“Good luck.”

Harrison sprinted down the hall and around
the corner. Gemma had already disappeared, but he wasn’t ready to
give up. Ducking around people, he headed in what he thought was
the right direction. The next hallway was empty. He dropped his
head with a sigh then heard the click of a door.

He looked towards the janitor’s closet and
frowned. Surely she wouldn’t go to those lengths.

A grin jumped over Harrison’s face.

“Oh yes she would,” he whispered.

Opening the door, he stepped into the dimly
lit space in time to see Gemma take a deep breath and
disintegrate.

“Gemma!”

Pushing the cleaning cart out of his way, he
knelt beside the pile of clothing left in her place. With shaking
hands, he collected them up. His heart thundered in his ears as he
re-captured the image of gold dust particles spiraling into the
air.

Rapid breaths punched out of his lungs as he
tried to wrap his brain around the impossible.

Would she come back?

Was that the last time he would ever see
her?

The loss was intense, but not enough to
over-ride the mix of horror and wonderment churning inside him.

He wasn’t sure how long he crouched in muted
silence before the room suddenly grew still. He jumped from his
spot and held his breath. A moment later Gemma stood before him. A
grimace of pain crossed her face before she opened her eyes.

“Oh!” She quickly pulled the cleaning cart in
front of her.

“Gemma.” Harrison licked his lips. “Gemma,
what… what just happened? You disappeared. You… you vanished! And
now you’re here. You’re… you’re here and you’re… you’re…
naked!”

“Give me my clothes!” She reached through the
mop and broom handles and yanked them from his grasp. “Would you
turn around, please?”

Shaking his head, he spun on his heel and
stared, wide eyed, at the shelf of cleaning agents. He listened to
the rustle of clothes being yanked on. His breathing was still
irregular. He ran a hand through his hair and quelled the urge to
pace. There wasn’t exactly room.

“Okay, you can turn around.”

She pushed the cart to the side and ran a
hand down her hair. It was draped over her shoulder. He’d never
seen it down before and he took a moment to admire it before
shaking his head and getting back to reality.

Reality? What a joke!

“Harrison.” She reached for his arm.

He flinched. “Don’t…”

She dropped her hand. The resignation in her
eyes was heart breaking.

He took in a few deep breaths and scanned the
room, unable to make eye contact. “I take it you’ve done… this,” he
pointed his finger at her and around the room, “before.”

“Once or twice,” she almost chuckled.

“Is this what you do every time you take off
to the bathroom?”

“Not every time.” Her voice was small.

“Where did you…? What happened to your body?
I mean, how...?”

Gemma bit the inside of her cheek.

Let me guess, you can’t tell me.

He pinched his temples between his thumb and
forefinger. Maybe if he squeezed his brain out, he might be able to
re-scramble it in order to comprehend this bizarre discovery.

“I… I don’t know what to do with this.” He
turned and reached for the door.

“No, wait!” Gemma grabbed his arm. “Harrison,
listen to me. You can’t tell anybody about this.”

“Gem,” he scoffed, “who would ever believe
me?”

“Please.”

The panic in her eyes surprised him. Sudden
understanding followed.

“This secret’s a dangerous one, isn’t
it?”

She nodded.

“Life and death dangerous?”

“So I’ve been told.” She looked scared.

It knocked the breath out of him. Against his
will, he was falling for a girl who played on death’s doorstep.
This wasn’t real!

“I’ll guard this secret with my life. I
promise.” He felt the words were a little cheesy, but his voice was
solemn. He knew he would do anything to protect her, no matter how
weird she was. “I just have one condition.”

She bit the inside of her cheek.

“I want to know what I’m protecting.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“After school today, you tell me
everything.”

Her eyes worked through a plethora of
emotions as she formed her next sentence. He couldn’t be sure, but
he thought he spotted a flutter of relief.

“Anastasia State Park. Meet me on the beach
at four.”

“I’ll be there.” He gave her a curt nod then
turned on his heel. Stepping into the hallway, he tried to stop his
head from spinning as he contemplated what awaited him at four
o’clock on the beach.

Chapter Eleven

Anastasia State Park,
Florida - 2011AD

By some miracle, the beach was empty. Gemma
buried her toes into the white sand as she sat waiting for her
imminent doom. The water wavered out a peaceful lullaby, but it did
nothing to soothe her tattered nerves. She had to admit that being
able to finally spill her truth was going to be a relief, but how
would he take it?

History had been torture. She figured she may
as well go today, but wished she’d pulled another sicky. She’d been
blaming period pain all week and the nurse hadn’t even questioned
her, just handed her a heat pack and sent her to lie down.

Harrison hadn’t looked at her once during
class. When Mr. Lomax dismissed them he had bolted for the door.
She’d raced to the beach, not wanting to keep him waiting, but he
hadn’t been there. In some ways it was good. It gave her time to
think about what she was going to say. She started to wonder if
he’d turn up at all, but was too afraid to turn around and
look.

Eventually the sand beside her moved as
Harrison took a seat. She didn’t want to look at him, but couldn’t
resist a quick glance. He rested his elbows on his knees and
entwined his fingers. She saw straight through his casual posture.
His shoulder muscles were bunched for her reveal. She felt her gut
plummet. He’d never want to speak to her again after this.

She drew in a breath.

“Before you say anything…” Harrison ran a
hand through his hair. “I need to tell you that... Look whatever it
is that you are, I’m pretty sure it’s not a witch. I don’t feel
cursed.”

He still wouldn’t look at her. Gemma was
almost grateful. She was sure her birthmark was glowing right now.
She rubbed the spot on her collarbone and cleared her throat.

“So what do you want to know?” She had toyed
with the idea of making up a story, even spent most of history
running through some plausible ones, but after his sort of apology,
all she wanted to do was tell him the truth.

He let out a deep sigh, brushed a thick
strand of hair behind his ear and sent his piercing gaze her
way.

“Let’s start with the basics. What are
you?”

“Okay.” She licked her lips. “I’m human. I
just have extra abilities. No one knows exactly where our kind came
from. The electus, that’s the chosen seven, they arrived about 150
BC. They just appeared on earth and were found by this couple,
Lucia and Quintus. They took them in and raised them.”

“The electus?”

“Yeah, according to the legend, they were the
first of the spatia spiritus.”

“The what?”

Gemma shook her head and frowned. “Spatia
spiritus. It’s Latin. It means… time spirit.”

“Time spirit?”

“See, I can…” She closed her eyes, steeling
herself against the urge to run. “Travel through time.”

Harrison’s eyes grew wide. “You can...” He
blinked slowly then laughed. “Time travel’s not possible,
Gemma.”

“It is if you have the right blood.”

“The right blood.” He nodded and looked out
to the horizon, his face colored with disbelief. “Time travel.”

Gemma nodded.

“Like Back to the Future?”

“Not exactly. For one, I can’t go into the
future, I can only travel back in time and secondly, I don’t need a
Delorion.”

The joke was completely lost on him.

“You’re serious.”

She nodded again and he turned to stone. He
stared at the ocean, his eyes wide, his lips partially open. Gemma
held her breath expecting to see him stand from the sand and run
screaming back to his Stingray, but he just sat there like a
gob-smacked statue.

“You may want to think about breathing some
time soon,” she said, anxious for his health and an end to the
ominous silence.

“Just give me a second here.” Very slowly he
drew in a deep breath, held it for way too long, then released it.
“So you are capable of breaking your body down into gold dust then
re-attaching it back together in another time?”

Gemma nodded, too afraid to speak.

“So, right now, if I wanted to, you could
take me to, I don’t know, Rome, 82 AD?”

“You want to be a gladiator or
something?”

“No, I’ve just always wanted to see the
Colosseum in action.” He sounded wistful.

“Well, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work like
that. I don’t have any control over when I go or where I go and I
could never take anyone with me. I don’t even know if normal humans
could survive the transition.”

“So, if you don’t control it, who does?”

“My Dad. He calls us, sends us, brings us
back home.”

“Us, as in your whole family?”

“The five of us.” She nodded.

Harrison’s head slowly bobbed as he listened.
“You travel through time…. So, not an alien, but still very
weird.”

Gemma’s heart sank. This was it. In just a
moment he’d stand up, walk to his car and she’d never talk to him
again. At least she felt sure, down to her very core, that he
wouldn’t utter a word. She could still picture his eyes from
earlier that day. How solemn they had been. She was going to miss
him.

“So, where did you go today?”

It took her a moment to register his
question. He was still sitting there looking interested. She
swallowed down her surprise. “Calhoun, Kentucky, 1966.”

“Why?”

“Because we needed to help someone. Sano.
That’s why we travel. It means to heal. See my Dad’s an historical
analyst. He… studies history looking for glitches, small things we
could change to make for a better future. Sometimes he’ll see a
problem in today’s society and track back to where it could be
avoided or he’ll find someone in history who he thinks deserves a
second chance at life.”

“So, you go back and fix it?”

“Well, we try.”

“So what was in Kentucky?”

“We had to help this boy. He saw his father
brutally murdered and it snapped something in his brain. When he
hit twenty he just went psycho and ended up killing a whole bunch
of people. He was finally caught, but just yesterday he escaped
from prison, so Dad thought we should head back and make some
changes before anyone else got hurt.”

“How did you fix it?”

“Well, Mom and I got the kid and his father
away from the original murder site and the other three set up the
killer and made sure he was arrested.”

“And you did all that in five minutes?”

She smiled. “No, time is different when we
cross the line. It slows down or something. I think it works out to
be a minute here is about an hour there.”

“So you were gone for…?”

“About five hours.”

“No wonder you always look so exhausted when
you get back.”

She blushed.

“Why did you look as though you were in pain
when you first returned?”

“Because it hurts. My body gets torn into
thousands of tiny dust particles then sewn back together again. It
really stings.”

“So that’s why you’re so strong… and why you
heal so quickly?”

“Yeah, I just wish that when we were sewn
back together the injuries would mend at the same time.”

“Does that happen a lot? You getting
injured?” He looked so concerned. Her heart squeezed.

“Just occasionally.”

Silence descended for a moment as Harrison
stared at his toes wiggling in the sand. Gemma studied him through
her peripheral vision and wondered what he was thinking.

Could we just get this over with? Hurry up
and walk away. I know that’s what you’re going to do!

“So, this father that you saved. How can you
be sure it will make our future better, I mean, what if the son
still goes on his killing rampage?”

Again, he surprised her by staying. Gemma
licked her lips and plucked her voice from the pit of her stomach.
“Have you heard of Felix Winton?”

“No.”

A small smile brushed her face. “Then it must
have worked. His escape made every news channel in the country last
night. You would have known about it.”

“Hmmm.” He looked worried.

“What?”

“I just can’t decide how I feel about people
messing with the past. I think the past is what teaches us and
helps us grow into better humans. You guys going back and making it
all easy… I don’t know.” He shrugged. “That’s kind of like playing
God a bit, don’t you think?”

Gemma frowned. Picking up a stick, she ran it
through the soft sand, drawing random patterns that immediately
disappeared.

“I’ve always hoped that it was God who sent
us in the first place. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess it
makes it easier for me, thinking of it that way. Like I was made
for a purpose rather than just this freakish mistake.”

He chuckled and shook his head.

Gemma frowned. Why wasn’t he pale faced and
shaking? How could he sit there so calmly absorbing this
information like it was just another history lesson? What was wrong
with him?