Hourglass (25 page)

Without another word, they were gone.

The second the front door closed, Michael rushed toward me and wrapped me in his arms.

“I thought he was going to take you with him.” He covered my face with kisses. “I was more terrified of that than I was when Cat pushed that gun against my throat. Are you okay?”

I couldn’t remember what Jack had shown me.

I buried my head in Michael’s chest and nodded. Holding on. Just holding on.

“Michael, you’ve got to get to a hospital. Those cuts—”

“They’re fine.” He held me tighter. “They’re small, already stopped bleeding. But we do need to get out of here. We need to tell Liam that Jack’s out of the bridge—that he’s got the computer disk with the formula.”

“He doesn’t.”

“What?”

I pulled away to look up at him, shaking with triumph.

“If I did it right, they don’t have the formula for exotic matter. They have the formula for Kaleb’s emotion control meds.”

Chapter 55

T
he second Thomas laid eyes on me, he grounded me indefinitely.

That’s not true, exactly. He hugged me first. But the grounding occurred shortly thereafter.

The couch became my new base of operations. I still wore Grace’s duronium ring, and I could see the veil to the bridge too clearly to be comfortable in my room. Forget sleeping in it. I’d also shoved a bookcase in front of the door and forbidden anyone else to go in. Thomas didn’t say a word.

But he did start perusing local real estate listings.

The nightmares started on the sixth day of my sentence.

Flames. Bright and hot, licking around me, as I lay powerless, forced to watch. My parents with their eyes open. Unblinking, cold and dead.

That night I woke up screaming. Thomas came to my bedside and sat with me, holding my hand until I calmed down. But I didn’t go back to sleep.

The next day I watched a marathon of animated movies, craving a fix of fairy-tale endings. Characters in Disney films mostly started out just like me—orphaned, defeated, alone—and they all triumphed in the end.

Unfortunately, I dozed off sometime shortly after Ariel’s misidentification of a fork.

This time I dreamed more than images. I smelled burning flesh, the sickly sweetness of a mass of flowers covering two caskets, the sharpness of hospital disinfectants. I felt shock treatments traveling through my nervous system to my brain, a jolt as a hotel shuttle bus wrapped around a tree. I heard the whine of metal as it broke away and slid down the side of the snow-covered mountain.

I didn’t remember any of these things actually happening to me, but I knew in my gut that they did.

I drank two pots of coffee that night.

When Dru woke up the next morning and caught me trying to stay awake by rocking back and forth in a chair and reciting “Casey at the Bat” from memory—backward—she put her foot down. I could hear her arguing with Thomas in their bedroom.

“You can’t isolate her right now, Thomas. She might have given us the basics of what happened, but she didn’t tell us all of it. She’s hiding something. At least let her call Lily. Even prisoners—”

“Prisoners are in prison because they’ve made poor choices. I’m proud of her for saving Liam Ballard, but damn. Was it really worth it if
that
is what she’s turned into?” He lowered his voice, but I’d stopped rocking and had tiptoed over to press my ear against their bedroom door. “I can’t watch her be reduced to a … shell of herself. We just got her back.”

“Then let her make contact with someone,” Dru pleaded. “Someone she feels comfortable talking to about whatever it was that happened to her.”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “Do you really think that will help?”

“It’s worth a try.” More silence. “I have Michael’s number on my phone. I could call and ask him to come over.”

Talking to Lily would have been spectacular—I’d only been able to make contact to tell her I wouldn’t be at work—but talking to Michael would be heaven.

Thomas and Dru hadn’t allowed me to see or talk to him since the day he’d picked up his stuff from the loft and returned his key to Dru. Even then I’d gotten only a quick hug and a kiss on the forehead, and enough conversation to learn that all interested parties were now back at the Hourglass, trying to figure out how to start over.

Even Ava.

My heart leapt at the thought of seeing him now. So did my feet. Thomas entered the living room to find me curled up in a blanket and absently singing the ABCs.

I’d do whatever it took to talk to Michael. If that included serving up some extra crazy with a side of sauce, so be it.

“Babe?” he called over his shoulder to Dru, watching me with wide eyes as I kept singing, twirling my hair around my finger. “You might want to hurry.”

The nanosecond Michael’s black convertible turned the corner, I launched myself off the front steps. Before he had it in park, I’d opened the door and jumped across the seat into his arms.

I never thought I could be reassured by someone’s presence, simply by knowing and being known. When I looked into Michael’s eyes, I centered. He cupped my face in his hands and lifted my mouth to meet his. The kiss consumed every breath, every thought, burning my raging fear down to a smoldering ember.

He moved his lips to the space just under my ear, and his mouth formed the shape of a smile against my skin. “I missed you.”

I almost laughed when I realized the needle for the parking meter at the curb was spinning around like a rotary fan set on high. “I missed you, too. But my reprieve is only for two hours.”

“I’ll take every second of it I can get.” He sat up and wrapped me in his arms, cradling my head against his shoulder. “I broke at least ten traffic laws on the way over.”

“I can’t stop worrying about what’s going on, how everyone is dealing with the fallout. Any word on Cat or Jack?” Saying his name made my chest hurt.

“No. Dune hacked into their e-mails and bank statements. Jack made a huge cash withdrawal in New York City. He purchased two plane tickets to Heathrow with a credit card, but the trail went cold after that. Liam has feelers out, but they haven’t been seen.”

Jack and Cat, somewhere in the wind. The knowledge hit my subconscious and started brewing up new nightmares.

“What about the Ballards?”

“Liam only comes out of his office to spend time with Kaleb. And to sit with Grace.” A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows.

I reached up to smooth it away. “No change?”

He shook his head. “We all hoped bringing her home—letting her hear Liam’s voice—would change things. I don’t know how he’s doing it. I can’t imagine how I would deal if it was you. If that isn’t enough for him to worry about, it seems the Hourglass is going to be held responsible for Jack and Cat’s actions.”

“By who?”

“The infamous powers that be.”

“Cat mentioned those.” I put my arms on top of his and tucked them more firmly around me. “But why? None of that was Liam’s fault. He wasn’t even
alive
.”

“I don’t know all the details, but things are pretty bad.” Michael held me tighter. “Liam looks like he hasn’t slept since the night we rescued him, and Kaleb is actually behaving.”

“How is Kaleb?” It felt strange to ask, but I wanted to know. Needed to know.

“He’s having a hard time. Doesn’t understand why he couldn’t feel what Cat and Jack were up to.”

I tilted my chin to look up at him. “How’s Ava?”

“Managing. Dune found e-mails and texts between Jack and Cat that confirmed what Liam suspected. They used Ava, in terrible ways, the worst of which was forcing her to do things against her will with lies and threats, and then taking the memory of them.” Michael’s mouth straightened into a thin, angry line. “She had no idea she was the one who blew up the lab.”

My stomach turned. I wondered what Ava’s dreams looked like.

“What about you, Em?” he asked, reaching up to stroke my cheek with the back of his hand. “We didn’t get a two-hour pass to talk about everyone else. Dru told me you aren’t sleeping. Why?”

“Well.” I stared at the dashboard and reminded myself that I
wanted
to talk to him about what was happening. “When I sleep, I dream.”

“About Jack?”

“About all the things he showed me.” Tortured me with. “I think my realities are bleeding into each other, Michael. Half the time I don’t know which one is real.”

“Give me details.”

“Sometimes I dream about things that I’m sure happened, but that I don’t exactly remember. They’re so real—I can smell things. Feel them. They have to be from the reality he showed me.” As if he left traces of them to spread like slow poison.

“Do the memories ever come back when you’re awake?”

“No.”

“Good.” Michael nodded, but the worry in his eyes didn’t fade.

“Except for one—from a recurring nightmare. It’s about Jack, and in it he whispers over and over that … that I owe him.”

“You don’t owe him
anything
.”

“Don’t I?” I pushed away from him and sat up. “As sick and wrong as Jack is, if he hadn’t interfered in my life, I wouldn’t have a life.”

“That’s not—”

“What if he can find another way to manipulate our circumstances? He’s got Liam’s files—what if he finds a traveler who has no idea what he or she can do? Someone he and Cat can manipulate.” I tried to control my anxiety, but now that I was voicing all the things that had haunted me silently, I couldn’t stop. “We don’t know what he’s done to the continuum. We don’t know what he’s changed, or who he’s changed. We’re all balloons balanced on the point of a needle. There will be consequences for what I did—giving him the wrong formula. He’ll be back.”

“You saw what kind of shape he was in physically. He could be dead by now,” Michael argued. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

“You know that’s not true. He’s already done so much damage. Ava, Grace …” I finally confessed the thing that had been pressing down on me. “Michael, what if he finds a way to give those terrible memories back to me—and not just in my dreams—and then doesn’t take them away?”

“Em—”

“And you … us. I know you’d stay with someone you were committed to no matter what the cost. Even if that person was—”

I stopped before the word came out.

Michael’s face, so full of compassion, hardened. “Why won’t you say it?”

“You don’t like it when I refer to myself as crazy.” I closed my eyes.

“Because you aren’t crazy. After everything you’ve learned about yourself, I can’t believe you almost said that.”

I slumped back against the passenger-side door. “But you don’t know what it was like, even after Jack changed my true reality into one that was slightly better. How bad things were … how sick I was. What if I end up with memories of both?”

“It wouldn’t change how I feel. Damn it, look at me.” He wrapped his hands around my upper arms and pulled me toward him. My eyes flew open. “I love you—broken in pieces, whole, however. No matter what the future brings. No matter what was in the past.”

“I’m scared. I don’t want to be, but I am.”

“That’s okay.”

“Is it? Aren’t I supposed to be brave, fearless? Isn’t that what the world expects?” I didn’t feel like a superhero or the star of an action movie. I felt out of balance and terrified.

“Screw what the world expects. Think about all the things you’ve faced. You cracked, but you didn’t break. You’re still standing. I’d call that fearless. You’ve already conquered so much.”

“That all depends on which reality you’re referencing. The original or the Jack Landers version?” I asked wryly. “Because there’s a difference that involves lucidity and basic human functioning.”

“Pick one.” Michael dropped his forehead to touch mine and lowered his voice. “No matter what your reality looks like, you’re the girl I’m in love with today, and the same girl I’ll be in love with tomorrow and all the days after that. Not just because of who you
are
, but because of who you
were
.”

The tears I’d been holding back finally escaped.

“It’s all part of your story, Em. And I want to be a part of your story, too.”

I felt it then, the stirring of hope.

“It’s okay to be afraid, but you don’t have to give in. You have what it takes to fight it.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.” He pointed at my heart. “It’s right here. And right here,” he continued, touching my temple. “And you have backup when you need it.”

He was right.

I had the determination to conquer my fears.

I had the Hourglass, everyone connected to it—Kaleb, Liam, Nate, Dune—people who understood my life and my abilities. I had Lily, who had stuck by me through everything … I had friends.

I had Thomas and Dru, a niece or nephew on the way … I had family.

I had Michael, who wanted to be part of my story … I had love.

It didn’t matter what Landers had done in the past, and in that moment it didn’t matter what he could do in the future. It didn’t matter who I had been or what I would become.

I had everything I needed.

Chapter 56

W
e sat together in a wrought-iron chair on the patio, wrapped in each other’s arms, watching the sun set behind the redbrick buildings of the town square. The clock in the tower chimed eight times, echoing through the chill in the early autumn air. The sound equaled comfort.

“Before I forget, I wanted to give you this.” He leaned back to pull something out of his jeans pocket. “Hold out your hand, please. Oh, and close your eyes.”

I obeyed. He slid Grace’s ring off my finger, only to replace it with another. This one felt heavier and had a slightly wider band.

“Open.”

I opened my eyes to a shiny duronium ring with a row of interconnected, hand-carved infinity symbols encircling the band.

“Michael, it’s beautiful. I love it.” I placed my hands on his cheeks and the replica gas lamps flickered above us. I whispered my next words—savoring the first time I said them out loud. “And I love you.”

“Remember the night we sat here, and I fed you all the clues the future Em had given me to convince you I was legit? The bluegrass, the belly ring—”

“The designated hitter?”

“Yes.” He grinned.

“Hmph.”

“What else did I tell you?”

“That you had a teddy bear named Rupert.”

He rolled his eyes. “About you, and the first time I saw you.”

Answering made me feel shy, but I did it anyway.

“That I said I would take your breath away the first time you saw me.” I was still holding his face, and he reached up to put his hands over mine.

“You did it then. And you just did it again.”

His kiss was sweet, soft, and easy at first. I felt urgency stir just under the surface, but I refused to let the desire to hurry things interfere in the moment. I wanted to savor every single one.

We had all the time in the world.

My brother’s voice floated down from the open window. “Emerson!”

Well, as soon as my grounding was over, we had all the time in the world.

“Be right up!”

I stole one more kiss before walking Michael to his car. After I watched him drive away, I approached the steps that led up to the front door, my fingertips on my mouth, lost in my thoughts of him.

I looked up just in time to avoid running into the hoopskirted Scarlett O’Hara wannabe with the silk parasol.

I guess I could have gone through her.

But this time I went around.