Tempest (28 page)

She yawned and relaxed her muscles again. “I’m so … tired.”

I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was only eight forty-five. Watching her eyes close again, knowing she would drift off soon, sent
me
into a panic. Even though I knew what was coming. I mean, I’d already seen my sister lying in a casket … but still, I wanted to stop it. Or at least delay it. Give her a little more time.

“Courtney! Stay awake … please. Please.” I shook her shoulders lightly, then pressed my forehead against her hair. “Just a little longer.”

She touched her hand to my face and wiped the tears off my cheeks. “You have hair on your face … it’s prickly.”

I laughed. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“I love you, too.” Her hand slid to my neck, like she didn’t have the strength to hold it up. “You still haven’t promised me … marry the smoothie girl, have six kids and maybe a dog.”

“I promise,” I whispered right in her ear, so I knew she’d hear. Her face broke into a huge grin. “What should our wedding song be?”

“Hmm…”

“I know what you’d pick,” I teased before singing her favorite song, “
I see the bad moon arising.
”

“Yep,” she said. “Not really a wedding song, though…”

I could already feel the shallowness of her breath. I wanted to be brave. To keep talking and hold it together for Courtney, but I couldn’t. She was headed somewhere far away from me and I felt more alone than ever.

I wiped my nose with my sleeve and lifted her chin to make sure her eyes were still open. “Courtney, does it hurt? Anywhere?”

“I’m okay.”

She was lying. I could see it written all over her face. “Courtney, tell me the truth.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she finally nodded. “Yes … it hurts … everywhere … and trying to stay … that hurts the most. Like holding on to the edge of a cliff and my fingers keep slipping.”

That’s
why she’d hung on for two more hours the first time. She was waiting for us. For someone. I squeezed her tighter and felt the tears falling twice as fast. “I’m sorry. It should be me. It should be me.”

“No, Jackson. Don’t say that, ever.” Her voice came out with more life than it had this whole time.

I drew in a deep shaky breath and forced myself to stop crying. “It’s okay, Courtney. You can sleep now. It’s okay. No more pain.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

And I could almost see it, a clear picture in my mind: her knuckles white, fingers gripping around a rock, and then the instant relief of letting go. Free-falling, feeling nothing but air, no weight. No pain.

I combed my fingers through her hair and watched with silent tears until her breath came in short spurts and then it just … stopped.

The beeps turned to one long beep. Several pairs of feet pounded against the tile floor of the hallway. I whispered one last good-bye and closed my eyes, thinking of nothing but Holly, lying on her dorm room floor, bleeding and alone. That’s where I needed to be.

I heard Dr. Melvin’s voice just before I jumped as he uttered a loud but confused, “Jackson?”

*   *   *

I didn’t even open my eyes when I tagged up in 2007. I felt myself being pulled back together. Chief Marshall’s hands had dropped from my throat. Nothing but air surrounded me, but I was sure they were all still close by, ready to make a move. I heard my dad’s voice just before I attempted the full jump back to October 30, 2009. Again.
Please let it work this time.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Icy water splashed over my face. I coughed and sputtered, tasting chlorine. The air was thick and humid and dissolved the chill I had gotten from the hospital.

And that jump. It felt like nothing. No pulling-apart sensation. A full jump. I finally did it again. But to where? And it totally felt too hot to be October 30.

“Maybe he’s drunk,” a voice said. “Want me to dump another bucket on his head?”

“No, it’s swine flu, I know it is,” another voice said.

I opened one eye and was nearly blinded by the sun. Then the six or so pairs of little eyes leaned closer.

“Why are you dressed for winter?”

I shot up and all the kids jumped backward. “Oh, no.”

“Jackson? Are you okay?” a little girl asked.

I stood up from my chair and nearly walked backward right into the pool. “Um … what year is it?”

All the kids giggled and then one spoke up. “2009. Yup, he’s drunk.”

2009. I did it. I actually made it back here. Well … at least I hoped it was the same timeline I left.

“Hunter, nobody’s drunk,” a familiar voice said from behind me.

I spun around and came face-to-face with Holly. I clutched her shoulders. “What year is it?”

Her forehead wrinkled as she looked me up and down. “What are you wearing? When did you change clothes?”

“I don’t know,” I answered slowly.

I was still wearing the thick sweater and dress pants I had worn for my dad’s fake party in 2007. I could already feel the sweat running down my back. The temperature had to be at least ninety degrees. Adam walked up behind Holly and his eyes were huge. “Uh-oh.”

“Adam, thank God! What year is it? How long have you known me?”

Holly laughed, but there was a hint of nervousness. “Is he okay?”

“Um … must be the heat.” He grabbed my arm. “Let’s get you in the shade. And it’s August 2009. You’ve known me since … March.”

Okay, it’s the right timeline. He doesn’t remember meeting me in 2007
. I got the year right, too. Just not the month … or the day … but if this worked like it did when I jumped to 2007, the slightly younger me should have disappeared. Which meant that I might have time to fix things. Or, more important,
to prevent things.

I followed him away from the pool and under the protection of a tree. I fell onto the grass and lay down, looking up at the swaying branches. Holly knelt down beside me and pressed her hand to my forehead. “Do you need water?”

I grabbed the front of Adam’s shirt. “I don’t know if I’m really here in … you know … home base.”

I heard his breath catch. “But you’re sweating … you can feel heat … it has to be—”

“I know.”

“We should get some help,” Holly said, panic filling her voice.

“No! It’s just these … vitamins I made with herbs from the greenhouse. Jackson offered to test them out. I think he’s having hallucinations.”

“Lots of them. Like weeks’ worth of hallucinations,” I said.

“Damn,” Adam mumbled under his breath.

Holly shoved him, hard. “Are you crazy? You can’t just make stuff and give it to people. What if you poisoned him?”

Adam pulled me up so I was standing. “He’ll probably be fine. It’s all-natural ingredients. Maybe we should go to the hospital just in case.”

He was pulling me farther from Holly and I couldn’t stand the thought of having her out of my sight. “Wait! I just need—”

“You need to come with me, now!” Adam said.

I pushed him out of the way and dropped down in front of Holly, who was still sitting in the grass. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed tight. “I missed you so much.”

“Seriously, Adam, what did you give him? He’s really messed up.”

I released her and held her face with both hands, then touched my lips to hers. “I’m so sorry I left.”

She gently pried my hands from her face and stood, glancing at Adam. “I’m going to round up the kids. Help him, okay? Use Mr. Wellborn’s car.”

I flopped back onto the grass and closed my eyes. A minute later, Adam shook my shoulders. “She’s gone.”

“I had no idea you were so puny at sixteen.” I shot up like the building was on fire. My plan … Dr. Melvin’s experiment. “We’ve got to do something … go somewhere.”

Right now, in this timeline, no one in the CIA knew about time-traveling Jackson. They were completely unsuspecting and I had to act fast before that changed.

I quickly filled Adam in on Marshall’s mention of the experiment, which I thought would fascinate him, but he couldn’t get past the CIA stuff and being stuck in 2007 to ask the most important questions.

“I can’t believe your other self just disappeared in 2007. That’s so freaky! Never in any of my time-travel research did I expect to hear that,” he said.

“The weirdest part is that they totally freaked when I told them about seeing my other self … in the half-jump or whatever. It was like they’d never heard of that, and Dr. Melvin’s supposed to be some kind of expert on this messed-up gene or whatever.”

Adam shook his head in disbelief and then let out a huge breath, like he’d been holding it in for the last few minutes.

“We should go,” I reminded him.

“I’ve got extra shorts and a T-shirt you can change into. You’ll die of heatstroke in those clothes,” Adam said, already heading in the direction of the camp office.

“Wait!” I said. “Where was the other me … before I ended up here? We should make sure he’s
really
gone … what if going forward or sideways or whatever is different? I can’t have two of me running around.”

Adam stopped and turned around to face me. “You were by the pool watching your group during swim lessons.”

Just to be sure, Adam radioed every single counselor in the camp to see if they’d seen the other me, the one that was actually dressed for work … and for August weather. We couldn’t take a chance not knowing for sure, but I had never left my group of kids alone during swim lessons, and my other self’s bag with wallet was abandoned by the pool. Something else I wouldn’t have done.

After we convinced the camp director my medical condition required attention, but not in the form of an ambulance, and we were on the road headed to Dr. Melvin’s office in the hospital, I finally explained things in more detail.

He took my story with a lot less shock than most people would, but that’s totally Adam.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” I said as my plan formed in more detail. “Since we know Dr. Melvin did some kind of wacky experiment that involves me, and let’s say the data is stored in his computer somewhere, could you get it out? Copy it or whatever genius computer hackers like you do? I’d like to do this without a time jump, if we can pull it off. I don’t want to risk exposing my abilities.”

Assuming I haven’t already.

“If it’s in there, I can get it. There are very few networks I haven’t been able to breach,” he said.

“Damn, the CIA would love to get their hands on you.” I grinned at him and then remembered the most important part. “They called it Axelle … I don’t know if the file would be named that or not, but Dr. Melvin is bound to have done more than one experiment in his life.”

“Got it,” he said with a quick nod. “I think the real question is … can I do this without somebody killing me?”

“And without my superpowers.” I thought about this for a minute before answering. “I need to fake an injury.”

“You could run into a pole, get a big bump on your head,” he suggested.

“No, nothing that might require brain scans of any kind.”

“Right … forgot about that. When was the last time he did a full-body scan?”

I let out a breath. “June. Right before my birthday.”

“So … you think … he knows?”

I looked out the window. This was something I thought about a lot in 2007. “He knows something. He has to. Maybe it doesn’t mean he did something bad with the information, but the signs sure point in that direction.”

“So, basically, you have no clue who’s good and who might want to kill you?” Adam concluded.

“Yep,” I said. “From now on, I’m on my own side.”

Adam nodded and his expression was full of sympathy. “I think you’ve always been on your own side.”

He meant that in a good way. I was certain he did, but to me it just reiterated the fact that I was alone in my own universe. My own timeline.

The ride up the elevator to Melvin’s office was like that day in 2007, when Dad and I went to see Melvin. I decided on faking a back injury because lots of people have that without anything a doctor can physically see.

Melvin came right out of his office to meet me. “What happened, Jackson?”

“He fell off … um … a diving board,” Adam said.

“Actually, it was more like I fell
on
a diving board,” I added.

Dr. Melvin hurried me into an open exam room. “You’re still walking, that’s a good sign.”

“Do you mind if my friend waits in your office?” I asked.

“No, not at all,” Melvin said.

I nodded to Adam, who ducked into the office and closed the door.

*   *   *

“So, how did you even know which one it was?” My stomach dropped just thinking about the rest of my question. “Or did you read it already?”

We were driving toward my apartment in Mr. Wellborn’s car and Adam was practically giddy with excitement at this big scam we’d pulled off. Before I left 2009, I would have thought this was pretty big, too, but after the many life-threatening experiences in 2007, fooling Melvin was like kindergarten to me.

“I was able to log on to his computer and find a bunch of encrypted files. According to the computer, they haven’t been accessed for at least a month. I copied the files over to a thumb drive. I might be able to decrypt them once I get home.”

He pulled up to the circle drive in front of my building and turned to face me, the amusement dropping from his expression. “I know you want to go after your dad and try to get answers or whatever, but I think you need to be careful. Give me some time to decrypt these files, and in the meantime, get Holly out of town, go somewhere and stay there until we know more. It’s kinda freaky that the EOT dude in 2007 had her picture from 2009.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Now all I have to do is convince her.”

“She’ll go, I know she will.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got, like, ten minutes before the camp bus gets back to the Y and then she’ll head home in a little while. It’s better if you catch up to her now.”

I jumped out of the car with my bag from this year. The one that hadn’t made the journey back to 2007. But at least I had a cell phone and credit cards from this year. I didn’t need a repeat of my arrest in 2007. In the wallet I brought with me to this year, I also had a false FBI and CIA badge that 007 Adam had made for me. To me, it looked pretty authentic. At least enough to fool an average person or the state police.