Timesurfers (23 page)

She took an enormous breath and was overcome
by a coughing fit. After a few seconds, she gave him a sheepish
smile and took a less enthusiastic breath.

“Mortez,” he called with a final shake of his
head.

The world tilted and dropped out from under
her feet. The disco ball that hung from the middle of her ceiling
began to spin around her. A loud whoosh escaped her lips as she
jerked to a halt and hovered in the velvety blackness. Jonah’s
hands grasped her shoulders. His fingers dug into her skin. She
tensed, anticipating an almighty thwack from behind.

A sharp snap followed by an agonising spear
of pain tore through her chest. Her screams ripped through the
darkness. There were more snaps down her left side as she dangled
in torturous pain. Something smashed its way down her right side,
and bone splintered. After an almighty jolt, it felt like giant
suction cups had attached themselves to her and were fighting to
wrestle her skin from her body.

Forgetting to hold Jonah, she clawed at her
body with her fingers, attempting to relieve the pressure on her
skin. Jonah cursed and tightened his grip on her. She streaked
backward and smacked onto a wooden floor, a crumpled ball of agony.
Locked in the fetal position, she sobbed.

“Catherine!”

She peeled one eyelid open as Jonah tried to
straighten her out. She took a breath to tell him to back off, but
the searing pain from her head to her feet silenced her.

“Hold still,” he hissed.

She took another excruciating breath. The
world slid out of focus, and nausea rolled through her.

“Don’t move!” There was exasperation in his
voice. “I’d knock you out, but I can’t channel your healing power
if you’re unconscious.”

Unconsciousness sounded delicious. The pain
made it impossible for her to struggle when Jonah straddled her.
Hell, she could barely breathe.

“It’s okay.” He manoeuvred his body over her
and attempted to hold her arms and legs flat on the floor. “I’ll
make the pain go away.”

The pain faded at the same time that the
colour drained from the room and everything blurred like someone
had wiped a cloth over a damp oil painting. “I think it’s working,”
she mumbled.

“I haven’t started.” His voice came from way
in the distance. “Stay with me!”

She wanted to reply, but her mouth didn’t
respond to her brain’s request. The weight of Jonah across her
chest disappeared, and a door slammed.
Did he
leave me?
Her confusion and pain evaporated as a comforting
darkness settled in.

***

“Jonah, what have you done?” A familiar voice pierced
the darkness and danced around the edge of her brain.

“I tried to heal her, but she passed out. I
need you to do it,” Jonah breathed.

“What were you thinking? It’s far too early
for her to be surfing,” said the irritatingly familiar voice.

A blanket of darkness surrounded her as a
delicious warmth like the morning sun spread through her bones and
radiated outward.

“Austin took her to the Break the other day.”
Jonah’s voice had a forced calm to it. “She got her wings this
morning after surfing with him to a balloon ride.”

“He makes bold choices, that one. I can’t say
I’m happy he’s here. What were you trying to do?”

“I was proving it was impossible for her to
visit...future Mortez. She’s bloody pigheaded.”

“You sound surprised. She certainly got a
good shot in by the look of your nose.”

Who is that woman
speaking?
Even her perfume is
familiar.

Jonah sighed. “I know I shouldn’t be.”

The warmth faded, and the darkness washed
away.

“I’m done.” The familiar voice stated.
“She’ll be brand new in a minute. I’ll make myself scarce.”

Cate struggled to open her eyelids, desperate
to identify the owner of the voice. Strong arms under her shoulders
and knees lifted her from the floor and pulled her to warm skin.
She nuzzled toward the heat.

“I know it’s you, Jonah. You smell nice. All
spicy and woody,” she mumbled. There was a slight creak as he
placed her on the bed. His arms loosened.

“No!” She locked her arms tight around his
neck and squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t let me go yet.”

“I have all the time you want.” His voice was
soft as he cradled her on the bed.

***

Cate stretched her aching arms and made contact with
something soft and warm. She jerked back and blinked her eyes open.
“What...?”

“Steady,” Jonah called. “You women are so
fickle. First it’s, ‘Stay, stay, you smell so nice,’ and then
you’re smacking me in the face.”

She gasped when she saw Jonah’s injured nose.
It had bruised and swollen significantly while she was unconscious.
“Does that hurt?”

“The pain has increased exponentially every
minute you’ve been asleep. A lesser man would have fainted, or at
the very least dropped you.”

“Why didn’t you fix it?”

“That would have been a little
presumptuous.”

She disentangled herself from him. “I feel
like a steamroller spent the day rolling backward and forward over
me. I’m sure your belt buckle is embedded in my back. What
happened? I have wings. You said I could surf pain free.”

“I also told you I couldn’t take you to
Mortez and proving it would hurt. I believe I used the word
‘immensely.’” He ran a hand through his hair. “You wouldn’t listen.
Magic isn’t politically correct. If you mess with it and survive
the near death experience, it’s a lesson learned. Otherwise you’re
dead.”

“You Timesurfers are a callous breed.” She
sank on the bed next to him.

“Yes.
We
”—he
motioned between the two of them—“are.”

“It’s worked each time Austin’s taken me. Is
he better than you at taking people with him?”

Jonah looked supremely unamused. “Austin’s
success had nothing to do with prowess. It’s all about the
magic.”

“I’m not liking the magic thing.”

“The magic stops a Timesurfer travelling to a
place there is any probability they could run into their past or
future selves. It either beats you senseless, attempts to kick you
to a parallel time line, or a combination of both.” Jonah tapped
his temple. “Think about what I’m saying.”

She rolled her aching shoulders and dropped
her head into her hands. “I’m too shattered to think.” She peeked
up at him. “Surely a near death experience gets me some sort of
concession?”

Jonah shook his head. “I think I see that
badass you choose to use sparingly crouched in the corner crying
like a baby.”

“You’re mistaken.” She fluttered her eyelids.
“It’s on vacation in Tahiti, celebrating kicking
your
ass earlier.”

“I didn’t fight back.” He rested his hands on
his head. “I think we’re getting off track. I can explain the
rules, but you have to interpret them.”

“I still broke your nose.” She flopped across
her bed and pulled the glittering mosquito net over her face. Since
she was ten, she’d made flowers and butterflies from shiny beads
and attached them to the net. It calmed her after those horrendous
fire ant nightmares which had become more vivid and frequent over
the years.

“Are you making any attempt to figure this
out?” Jonah interrupted her thoughts.

“Yes,” she lied and traced the outline of the
latest purple daisy she had made with her finger.

“At least try to be convincing.” He stood and
stretched.

Her mind whirred as she tried to the think of
the name for those super cool, triangular low stomach muscles that
guys had near their hips. Awesome abs seemed to be a Timesurfer
trait. She sat bolt upright. “Who healed me?”

“You healed yourself, with some help from
me.” Jonah met her gaze calmly as he lied.

“No. I heard a woman. Her voice was
familiar.” Her brain struggled to grab the wisps of conversation
she heard. Her mouth was trying to say the name; she was so close
to pinpointing it.

“You’re mistaken. There’s only been you and
me here.”

“Jonah...”

“There was only me and you. Can you not for
once accept my answer and move on?”

The curtness in his voice sent alarm bells
shrieking through her head. “What were you saying about the magic
before?”

“Timesurfers leave an aura everywhere they
go. Once you’ve been to a particular time and place, you can never
travel back there again. It’s called an aura clash.”

“Okay.” She pinched her nose. “So you can
only travel back to a particular place in time once.”

“And...” Jonah prompted.

She scratched her head. “You can’t travel to
a place you’ve lived or are living in, because your aura will be
there and that would cause an aura clash.”

He gave her a thumbs up. “Zach hasn’t worked
that out, and he’s been mulling it over for a week.”

She rubbed her temple. There was only one
logical conclusion why Jonah couldn’t take her to Mortez, but
Austin could take her Naitanui. “So I’m definitely with you and
Mortez in the future. I’m with the evil one?” She flopped back on
the bed, arms covering her face. Numbness crept through her mind
and slid over her body. She had no emotional reserves left to give
that piece of information the enormous reaction it deserved. Was
there even a right reaction to discovering you would choose team
evil?

“That depends on your point of view. Mortez
does break the rules Naitanui holds so dear. Sometimes that saves
lives. Other times not so much. Mortez is also big on using time
travel for personal gain and making what she determines is wrong,
right.”

“So I
am
the
Catherine you talk about from the future. I don’t see why you’re
all so interested in me.” She scratched her head. “I must be very
useful and important to Mortez for her to go to all this trouble to
save me from that bomb. I must be incredible at being bad. Is that
why you’re all so interested in me? I’m a brutal badass?”

“I can’t say.”

“Of course you can’t. You are impossible!”
She threw her hands up in the air and then froze. “Naitanui won’t
alter history, so he’s not trying to change my decision. He has his
people here because he doesn’t
know
if I’m
Catherine. He’s tracking me until he can confirm if that’s who I
am. He doesn’t want to risk he might lose me again to that powerful
cloaking magic.”

“I couldn’t even surmise as to any of
that.”

“I’m going to see Eve. She’s the only normal
person left in my life. Except for Mum, unless she’s also a
Timesurfer, and I’m not ready to have that conversation with her.”
She couldn’t hear Jonah, but she felt him follow her down the
steps.

“Will you fix my nose?”

“No, but I give you permission to do whatever
you need to do to fix it. I haven’t recovered from the ferocious
‘denied’ stamp your all powerful magic gave me on our earlier
attempted time travel trip.” She held out her hands. “Where do you
want me to touch you?”

Jonah dropped his head into his hands. “You
need to work on those open ended questions.”

As the meaning behind his words sank in, heat
flared across her face. “Stop with the smartass, or I’ll rescind my
offer.”

He placed her hands against his face and his
nose morphed back into its perfect shape.

“All beautiful again.” Her voice caught in
her throat.

“Thanks.” He kissed her palms.

“No problem.” She thought back to their hand
holding on the steps outside and Jonah’s innuendo upstairs. There
was a way to figure out if they were an item in the future. She ran
her hands along his neck and curled her fingers in his hair to pull
his head toward her.

Jonah’s smile faltered and he pulled back
ever so slightly.

“Ah-ha!” She stepped back and folded her
arms. “You pulled away. We’re not together in the future.”

“You took me by surprise.” Jonah recovered
quickly, but she knew she was right.

“I can be sneaky and manipulative too. I
will
find Xavier and I
will
work out what’s going on. In that order. Also,
how come your feet don’t touch the ground?”

“It protects against the butterfly
effect.”

The doorbell fired up. Another verse of
“Waltzing Matilda” started as someone repeatedly pressed the
doorbell. She paused as her hand touched the door handle. “Which
is?”

Jonah rolled his eyes. “The idea that a
butterfly flapping their wings creates tiny changes in the
atmosphere that could potentially alter the path of a tornado or
delay, accelerate, or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a
certain location. The flapping of their wings represents how a
minuscule change is capable of triggering a chain reaction
resulting in the large-scale alterations to an event. If the
butterfly hadn’t flapped its wings, the outcome might have been
vastly different and the tornado may or may not ever have
existed.”

“You lost me at the butterfly flapping its
wings.” She wrenched the front door open.

Chapter 18

Eve

“H
appy Birthday!” Eve hurtled through the half open
door and bear hugged Cate. An audible hiss escaped her lips as they
both collided with Jonah.

“Steady,” he muttered, righting her and
Eve.

Eve appraised Jonah from head to toe with a
deliberate and unhurried gaze. “You are a true pagan Adonis.
There’s a griminess to you that promises finesse in the wickedest
ways.” She poked a finger on his chest.

He took a hasty step away and a slow blush
crept up his neck. He edged toward the door and stumbled slightly.
This was Jonah. With his fierce predator grace, he was never off
balance. His eyes locked on Eve, wary for the briefest moment.
Something about Eve had spooked the unyielding warrior in Jonah. He
kissed Cate on both cheeks. “Happy Birthday, Cate. It was a
pleasure as always, Eve.” With a nod and tight smile he hurried out
the door.