So Close to You (So Close to You - Trilogy) (32 page)

He gives me a half smile. “Not fate. It will be my choice to go back; I just haven’t done it yet.” His smile fades. “But the point is that it’s impossible to hide from the Montauk Project. It’s an organization that has informants all over the world, across all of time. I can’t expose you like that. I won’t.”

“I just want you to have a chance at a normal life.” I close my eyes, take a breath, and take a chance. “And I want to be with you.”

His hands tighten on mine. I open my eyes slowly. He’s staring at me, his mouth slightly open.

“I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I didn’t know I could feel this way. I think … I’m falling in love with you, Wes.”

His eyes are liquid black. He pulls me against him. My arms wrap around his neck and then his lips are on mine and he’s shifting me even closer, one hand hard on my hip, the other curled into my back.

He tears his lips from mine and kisses my cheeks, my chin, my eyelids. I bury my face into his neck. “I can’t lose you,” I whisper against his skin. “You have to come back with me.”

“The guards are coming,” he says hoarsely, pulling away. I’m sitting on his lap, not quite sure how I got there. He lifts me to my feet as the door swings open, hitting the opposite wall with a bang.

The guards grab us roughly by the arms and yank us into the hallway, two men escorting us each. We’re pushed down a long corridor and through a doorway. It’s difficult to see where we’re going; the overhead fluorescent lights are dimmer than they were before, as though a dark film has come down over the entire Facility.

Wes and his guards are somewhere behind me. I know he could easily overpower them and I wonder why he doesn’t. Then I realize he’s probably trying to protect me from getting hurt in the struggle that would follow.

The guard holding my arm turns a corner and stops so fast that I run into him. He opens a door on the right and shoves me inside. I stumble forward and catch myself on a low desk. I hear a shuffle and turn to see Wes pushed in behind me.

I straighten from the desk. Wes is already beside me, and he wraps an arm low around my waist. I glance around as I lean into him. We’re in a small, dark place and I recognize it immediately: the two-way-mirror room looking down onto the time machine. Wes and I are alone in here—the two doors on either end have guards stationed outside of them.

I’m trying to figure out why they brought us here when I see lights flicker through the tinted window in front of us. Guards in black uniforms and scientists in white coats filter into the time machine room. There’s a flurry of activity as the monitors are turned on and the guards position themselves strategically. We can’t hear what’s happening in the opposite room, but we can see everything.

Dr. Faust enters. His white lab coat flaps open as he rushes to one of the desks. A wide, rounded screen is mounted to the back of it, and a large keyboard sits in front. Faust hits a button and the lights dim. The glass top of Tesla’s Machine starts to flash and spark. The dull metal body vibrates and hums.

General Lewis enters the room, followed by two guards. They’re dragging Dean between them. He looks barely coherent. He’s been beaten badly, and I wonder in horror if he’s the man we heard screaming in the cell. I jerk forward, and Wes follows, keeping his arm curled around me.

“They’re sending him back in time,” I whisper.

Wes doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have to. It’s obvious what’s going to happen, and we can’t do anything to stop it.

Dean lifts his head with visible effort and turns to face the two-way mirror. I freeze. He seems to know that we’re behind the glass, though I have no idea how. He bobs his head up and down, and tries to smile. Red blood drips from the corner his mouth, falling to the white floor. He’s mouthing a word at us, but I can’t see what it is. I lean forward.

“Peter,” Wes whispers into my ear. “He’s saying Peter.”

I press my hand over my mouth. Tears start to fall down my cheeks.

Dr. Faust says something to the guards holding Dean, then points to the machine. The guards drag Dean forward. He can barely move, but he still tries to twist away from their hold. It’s no use—they relentlessly push him into the TM. He falls down and collapses on the floor of the machine, no longer struggling.

One of the scientists pushes a button and the silver doors of the TM slide shut. Dean disappears inside. The room quiets as the lights dim again. A low, throbbing light starts shooting out of the glass top. It builds and builds, until it’s a continuous swirl of color, hovering just over the machine.

I suck in a breath. Wes tightens his grip and I turn into him, so that my back is to the time machine room. I picture my grandfather as a little boy, telling me about his father, the war hero. My grandfather the man, reading to me from his father’s diary. This is the moment it all starts and ends.

Even with my face against Wes’s shoulder, I feel it when he goes. The room fades to black, everything seems to freeze, and then there’s a pulsing flash of light, bright enough to burn.

I slump down to the floor of the observation room. Every time I close my eyes I see Dean’s battered face trying to form the word “Peter.”

I hope that means he doesn’t blame me for what happened. Maybe, in the end, he was just happy to know that his son would grow up to become a good man.

Wes crouches next to me. “We need a plan to get out of here alive.”

I swipe at the tears on my face and sit up. “What are you thinking?”

“They didn’t kill Dean, which means they’re not going to kill us. They’ll take us to the TM.” He sits back on his heels and peers over the bottom ledge of the two-way mirror. “There are three scientists in the room, including Dr. Faust. Then there’s the general and five guards. The scientists won’t fight. They don’t care about us; we’re just guinea pigs to them.” He looks back at me. “I can take out the guards. The general is the only wild card.”

“I’ll distract him,” I offer.

Wes is silent for a moment, watching me. “Okay. But be careful. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”

“I will,” I say. “But you need to be careful too. Swear it.”

He smiles slightly. “I swear.”

“So what happens after we take out the guards? Can we both travel in the TM?”

He shakes his head. “Not at the same time. You’ll go first. I’ll program it to the exact same time and date you went through before—June 15, 2012, at 5:09. I’ll make sure I’m programmed to arrive at least ten minutes before that time. With any luck, this older TM won’t malfunction.”

My heart races. “What happens if it does?”

“Don’t think about that,” Wes says. He leans down to look me in the eye. “The important thing is that I get to the future before you do. The Facility in twenty twelve isn’t like it is in nineteen forty-four. There aren’t any air vents to crawl through. There are alarms and cameras everywhere. If you travel back there on your own then they’ll kill you the instant you step out of the machine.”

I put two and two together. “You’re going to create a diversion.”

He nods. “I’ll cut the power and open the door to the bunker. The TM doesn’t need power to run—it uses natural magnetic energy. You’ll have exactly four minutes to get through the Facility and out of the bunker.”

Wes is creating the diversion to get me out of the Facility on the exact day and time that I discovered the open bunker. Which was only open because he created the diversion in the first place.

I was lured in by a disturbance that was originally created to get me out. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Do you remember how to get out of the Facility through the bunker?” Wes asks.

I think of all those identical white walls, and I shake my head.

“Remember this: right, left, door, right, door.”

“Right, left, door, right, door.”

“Good.”

“Wes.” I take his hand. “What about us? Are you coming with me?”

He’s silent for a beat, then gently pulls away from me. “Someone needs to make sure you get through.”

“Then after. Create the diversion and come find me.”

But he won’t answer. I try to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

There’s a scratching sound at the door and it starts to open. Wes stands quickly.

General Lewis is in the doorway holding a small gun. He looks at Wes. “I’ve seen you fight. You know what you’re doing. But you have a weakness.”

He points the gun at me. “The girl. You don’t want her to die. So play nice.”

Wes stiffens, his eyes on the gun. The older man gestures us forward. Wes holds out a hand and pulls me to my feet. I press into his side as we approach the doorway. As soon as we’re close enough, the general grabs my arm and puts the gun to my head. Wes breathes in sharply.

“Walk,” the general says.

We leave and walk to the door leading into the time machine room. Wes opens it and instantly moves to stand by my side. The general tightens his hold on me but doesn’t comment.

Wes was right about who’s here. Five guards are scattered at different points, and two young male scientists sit in front of the monitors.

Dr. Faust approaches us. “The machine is almost ready,” he tells General Lewis.

“What’s the date?” The general cocks his head toward the metal tubelike structure.

Faust grins, revealing small, slightly pointed teeth. “Nineteen twenty. Same as Bentley. Did you find out who these two are?” He nods at Wes and me.

“Don’t care,” the general replies. “They’re dead anyway.”

The doctor gives us a curious look, but the general is impatiently eyeing the TM in the middle of the room. “Let’s get this going,” he says.

Wes is silent and watchful. I look at him. He senses my gaze and turns his head. When he gives me a tiny nod, I know I need to be on alert.

Dr. Faust approaches one of the monitors. General Lewis pushes me forward.

I feel Wes’s fingers brush against my side and then he’s gone. He chops his hand across the general’s forearm and the gun falls away from my temple. It clatters to the floor. But Wes is already flying across the room. He kicks a guard in the chest, jabs another in the neck, and throws a third against the wall. All three slide to the floor. It takes less than a minute.

The general jerks next to me. He lunges for the gun. I kick his right knee and he stumbles. I throw myself onto his back. We both fall, and the general’s head hits the floor with a hollow thud. His body goes limp. I sit up cautiously, but he’s definitely out cold.

Wes has already incapacitated the final two guards, one of whom had a gun. He picks it up off the floor and spins in a slow circle, stopping when his eyes find me. He scans my body for injuries. Once he sees that I’m all right, he points the gun at the two younger scientists, huddled against the desks. They’re both slight of build, and both shaking as they stare at the gun in Wes’s hand.

“Leave,” he says softly. They scamper from the room. Dr. Faust stays. During the fighting he didn’t move at all, but I noticed that his eyes never left Wes.

“I said leave. Now.”

“You are one of them,” he whispers. “You’re one of the trained children. I can see it in your movements.” He looks Wes up and down as though Wes is a science experiment he’d like to take apart. “You are what they can all become.”

He grins, and I recoil at the sick look in his eyes.

“Leave or I shoot you in the face,” Wes says, refusing to react to the doctor.

Faust reluctantly moves to the door, glancing back at Wes one more time before he finally exits.

Wes locks the door behind Faust. The room is filled with the fallen bodies of the guards and the general. Wes ignores them all as he strides over to one of the monitors. “We don’t have much time. Faust will get more guards and they’ll break the door down. You need to go, now.”

He presses several buttons. The lights start to flash and a loud humming noise fills the room. “It’s time, Lydia!”

I hesitate. So does Wes. He steps forward until he’s standing right in front of me. Grabbing both of my shoulders, he leans down and kisses me hard on the mouth. It only lasts for a moment before he pulls away. I gasp, and his hands rise to trace the edge of my cheeks.

He looks into my eyes, then closes his tightly. He turns away. “Get in.” His voice is strained as he points toward the TM.