Timebound (48 page)

“So—did we have a game plan? Before, I mean.”

“Yes,” he said. “And we’d actually made some progress before you… disappeared. It’s conceptually pretty simple. We just need
to go back and convince the CHRONOS historians to steer clear of Saul and Prudence and give up their keys.”

“And if they won’t?”

“We take them anyway,” he said with a crooked smile. “So far, you’d persuaded twice and stolen twice.”

I gave him a weak chuckle. “So I get to play repo man? Great.”

“You once said you were going to get a T-shirt printed with ‘CHRONOS Repo Agent’ on the front.”

“Poor Kiernan. Listening to me must be like being around my dad’s uncle—he never remembers he’s told you the same joke a dozen times.”

“I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s interesting to see you from a different… angle, I guess. And a lot of what we were doing was really more detective work than repossession work. The first few were easy—Katherine already knew exactly when and where those historians landed.”

“Why do you remember all of this, and Katherine doesn’t?” I asked.

“You’d have to ask her,” Kiernan said. “But I’d think the only logical answer is that something happened when she wasn’t under the protection of a medallion.”

“Was she still alive in my other timeline? When I was eighteen?”

“Yes,” he answered. “And aside from a touch of arthritis in the winter, she was quite healthy.”

“That’s…,” I began.

“Confusing,” Kiernan finished. “I know. Katherine’s cancer isn’t a given in the timeline, even though you’d think it should be. Another thing to puzzle out after we’ve both gotten some rest.”

I nodded and started to get to my feet, but Kiernan pulled me back down. “Probably not a good idea, love. I’ll get your things. That medicine I gave you is pretty strong stuff and I doubt you’ve had much to eat.”

He was right. Even the slight movement had left me a bit dizzy, so I leaned back against the cabin wall. Kiernan walked over to the pile of cloth that had been my dress and held it up for my inspection. I wrinkled my nose. It was clearly a lost cause. “I do need to get the little booster cells that Connor put in the pockets and hemline—he might be able to reuse them, I guess.” Kiernan removed several small silver rectangles and stuffed them into my bag.

“Anything else?” he asked.

I shook my head. “If the dress doesn’t disappear when I leave, toss it in the fireplace.”

The boots, unfortunately, seemed to have survived without a scratch. He placed them and the bag in my lap and then knelt down in front of me. “I’m sorry—I know you had a bonnet, but I couldn’t find it.”

“I’m not worried about a stupid hat,” I laughed. “You were trying to get me out of Hotel Hell in one piece. And I don’t think I ever really said thank you.”

He gave me a sideways grin and squeezed my hand. “Actually, love, I believe you thanked me very thoroughly just a few minutes ago. But I wouldn’t say no to a second round.”

A blush rose to my cheeks and I looked down into the bag in my lap, trying to avoid his eyes. I fished out the CHRONOS key and had just pulled up the interface when he touched my wrist, breaking my concentration.

“This Trey,” Kiernan said, his voice rough. “Does he treat you well? Does he love you?”

“He does… or at least he did,” I amended, my mouth twisting into a wry half smile. “He seems convinced that he will again. That all I have to do is smile at him or something and everything will be as it was.”

“But you’re not convinced?” he asked.

I shook my head, and looked up into his eyes. “Can you recreate the same magic the second time around? I don’t know.”

Kiernan stared at me for a long moment and then leaned over, kissing me gently on the corner of the mouth. “But you have to try, right?
Slán go fóill, a stór mo chroí.
”

I didn’t have the slightest idea what the words meant, but it was clearly a farewell. He squeezed my hand one last time, and then I looked down at the key and closed my eyes.

24

I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of a computer monitor a second before Connor even realized I’d arrived, so I fully understood his look of shock. The entire right side of my neck was bandaged. There were two red patches just above the hairline. Several other red marks dotted my shoulders and there were even a few holes in the petticoat.

Connor stared at me for a moment and then his lower lip began to quiver. I couldn’t tell if he was about to laugh or cry and I’m not sure that he could tell, either.

“We simply can’t send you out to play in nice clothes, can we, Kate?” he said finally. “What on earth happened to you? Are you—”

Whatever else he was going to say was drowned out by a crazed volley of barking from downstairs, followed by the sound of the doorbell.

“You,” he said, pointing. “Do not move.”

I knew it was Katherine before Connor reached the door. That wasn’t Daphne’s stranger bark. It was her welcome-home bark, the one with a little “I missed you” whimper in the middle.

Katherine’s voice drifted up the stairs. “How did I end up in the yard without a CHRONOS key, Connor? Or a house key, for that matter?”

I lay back on the floor and closed my eyes.

The next thing I remember was waking up in my bed. The floral arrangement Trey had sent to Katherine was on my dresser. It seemed an eternity ago, and yet the flowers looked as fresh as when they’d first arrived. Daphne was curled up on the rug next to my bed and Katherine was sitting on the sofa near the window, reading what appeared to be a historical romance—the sort my mom sometimes referred to as a bodice-ripper or lusty-busty. It was the first time I’d seen Katherine reading anything that wasn’t on a computer screen or inside a CHRONOS diary.

She glanced over after a few minutes. “Oh, Kate. I’m glad to see you’re awake, dear. I was beginning to worry.”

“The little blue pills,” I said, my head still quite fuzzy. “In my bag. They’re… nice.”

“I see,” Katherine replied, a hint of a smile touching the edges of her mouth as she sat on the side of my bed. “And where did you
get
the nice little blue pills? Connor filled me in on the day before you left. I’ve told him what I
now
remember from our adventure at the Expo. But neither of us know what happened to you after I climbed out that window.”

My lips were very dry and I asked for a glass of water first. After a few sips, I put the glass back on the nightstand. “Kiernan,” I said. “He gave me the medicine. He got me out of the hotel.”

“But how?” she said. “He was a very bright little boy, but I don’t see how that hotel could possibly have been standing when he got back. All of the historical accounts that I read—”

“He
was
a remarkable little boy,” I interrupted. “And he’s a remarkable young man.”

I gave her a brief synopsis to fill in the missing pieces, having to pause repeatedly to keep my brain on track. It felt like I was reaching through fog to find phrases to string together, and they never came out quite the way I’d planned. I must have dozed off for a few minutes at some point, because when I opened my eyes,
Katherine had returned to the couch and was again reading her book.

“Where was I?” I asked.

“You were explaining Kiernan’s plan—or was it your plan?—for repossessing CHRONOS keys, when you drifted off between words,” she said, setting the book aside on the sofa. “After what you’ve been through the past few days, I was a bit afraid you might decide that you were done with us. You’ve got your life back for the most part and Prudence seems to have given you at least a limited degree of—immunity, I guess. You could walk away, you know.”

The thought hadn’t really occurred to me, but now that she’d spoken the words aloud, I was surprised that it hadn’t. I could return to my life before Katherine showed up with the medallion. Mom was back, Dad was Dad again—

“Charlayne?” I asked.

Katherine looked confused for a moment and then shook her head. “I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure nothing has changed for her.”

I asked her to bring me the computer, and after a brief search I pulled up the same wedding photo, the Cyrist emblem clear and distinct against Charlayne’s dark skin. Saving Katherine had fixed my life, but whatever happened with Charlayne’s family was entirely separate.

I pushed the computer to the side and looked back at Katherine. “Connor’s kids? They’re still gone, right?”

She nodded.

“Then you’re wrong—I really
don’t
have a choice.” The truth was, even if no one I cared about was personally affected in this timeline, I knew that I could never just sit by and watch as the Cyrists drew more converts and moved closer to some sort of mass genocide. Walking away wasn’t an option.

“So—what about you?” I asked, shifting slightly in the bed. The medicine was fading, which was both good and bad—words
were less slippery, but the pain was also returning. “Do you remember anything from the day after the shift… after Simon?”

“I remember holding out the medallion to that foul cretin. And Trey…” She stopped, giving me a sad smile before continuing. “Trey’s car had just pulled up. I didn’t see any choice other than to have faith. Faith that Trey would move any mountain he had to in order to save you from Simon. Faith that Connor would work his magic with the boundary. Faith that you would be able to fix this timeline. I’ve never been good at that—at giving up control to others—but it seems to have worked this time.”

“But you remember being in the hotel and running from Holmes… and everything that happened that night. Isn’t that… disconcerting? I mean, you have two sets of memories.”

“It
is
a rather odd feeling,” she said. “But all of that happened so long ago. I do remember wondering whose daughter you would be—Deborah’s or Prudence’s—when the two of them were small. My bet was on Prudence, given the resemblance, until she disappeared.”

Katherine fell silent for a moment and then asked, “Prudence wasn’t in on it, then? She was trying to save me?”

I debated lying to protect her feelings, but I knew it wouldn’t serve much purpose. “She was saving you in order to protect herself, Katherine. And maybe to protect Mom. It definitely wasn’t out of any sentimental ties to you, or to me, for that matter. I got the feeling she thinks you traded her off in some sort of a custody battle. But I do think she’ll keep them from going after you again—at least until she finds out I’m still trying to stop the Cyrists.”

Katherine bit her lip but nodded. “Which means we’re going to have to move very carefully this time.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

I was quiet for a moment, not sure how to broach the subject that was nibbling away at the back of my mind, but I finally just decided to tackle it head-on. “You handled it okay, didn’t you?
Having two different sets of memories? So how can you be so sure that Trey wouldn’t have handled it, too?” I could hear the petulant tone in my voice and didn’t really like it, but it was hard not to feel a bit cheated.

“I can’t know anything for
certain
,” she admitted. “But Trey doesn’t have the CHRONOS gene. And with me, we’re not talking about recent memories. Even something as vivid as being trapped in a burning hotel with a serial killer hot on your heels fades after a while, so it’s not quite the same as two conflicting sets of memories. It’s more like reading an old diary and remembering things you’d forgotten you knew. Or remembering both the truth about an event and a lie you’ve told so many times to so many people that both versions seem equally real. Does that make sense?”

“No,” I admitted. “Not really. But I’ve kind of gotten used to things not making sense. I’ve decided the only way to stay sane is to just roll with the punches.”

“I’m afraid that reconciling the past month will be a more difficult task than reconciling the distant past. Connor and I have been talking about the best way to adjust our own little slice of the timeline. The only reasonable thing is to have you go back to the day of the time shift—otherwise, your mom and dad are going to be very worried.”

Mom. Dad.
It felt unbelievably good to hear those words and be reminded that I was back in a world where I had parents again.