Vortex (38 page)

My entire existence revolves around this exact spot.

She removed the goggles from her face and glanced at me. “You okay?”

I shook all thoughts of Dr. Melvin from my head and focused on the newly acquired
information. “Uh … yeah. But we need to—”

“Right,” she said, catching on to my distress. “Two minutes.”

It only took her one minute to finish and then we took the journey aboveground in
silence, not wanting to take the chance of anyone hearing. The second we were on the
sidewalk outside again, I yanked her into a crowded restaurant and started spilling
the whole story.

JUNE 20, 2009, 11:00
P.M.

“I don’t know why he’d keep his time-traveling skills from you,” Kendrick said as
we walked through Central Park.

After a dinner that neither of us ate, I decided we needed to give the secret room
inside Dad’s apartment another look.

“Seriously, it makes so much sense now … even though I’d never want to trust Agent
Collins. But the matches from that bar that closed fifty years ago or whatever it
was … and the records, the books. It’s almost like he wanted me to find out.”

Stewart had texted us during dinner to tell us what she had found out about Billy’s
Tavern, and none of us knew what to think of that. She found tax records showing the
bar closed in 1959.

“Yeah, I agree with you. Collins wouldn’t send you on this kind of hunt if he wasn’t
also concerned with the same thing. Most of the present-day Eyewall agents probably
don’t even know about time travel. Maybe not any of them,” Kendrick said. “Collins
came up with this on his own time.”

As we walked through a deserted part of the park, something on my far right side caught
my eye. Something that sent my heart beating faster. What I saw wasn’t an Eyewall
agent … or an EOT … or even an adult … It was a little redheaded girl stumbling through
the dark park, alone. I grabbed Kendrick’s sleeve and pulled on it. “Oh, God … you
won’t believe this—”

“Wait … is that…?” Kendrick asked, now looking in the same direction as me.

“Emily,” I whispered.

“Is it her?” Kendrick asked again.

My eyes returned to the child, now sifting through a large trash bin. “I’m not sure.
Usually she finds me … like she’s on a mission.”

Kendrick kept her eyes on me and lifted her phone to her mouth. I hadn’t even seen
her dial a number. “Stewart … meet us at Senior’s place, okay?”

I walked in the direction of the little girl and could feel Kendrick following me.

“She looks smaller … too small,” I mumbled.

“How will we know if it’s her?”

The tiny head popped up from the trash bin, clutching the remains of a bagel. I couldn’t
see her face clearly in the dark, but neither of us needed to. The white of her eyes
were visible and her trembling voice spoke in jumbled, frightened Farsi.

“Yeah, I don’t think many homeless kids in New York are fluent in Farsi,” Kendrick
whispered.

“Not ones with pale skin and red hair, anyway.” I moved closer and little Emily backed
away, gripping her dirty bagel pieces. “I don’t think she recognizes me.”

“Emily?” Kendrick said, moving next to me.

She instantly turned around and started running.

“Emily, wait!” I called after her.

“She’s not jumping,” Kendrick said as we took off in her direction. “Maybe she can’t.
We’ve got to stop her, even if it means tackling her.”

And tackling this frail child was exactly what Kendrick did. We didn’t have a choice.
The police would find her, or someone more sinister than the police. She kicked and
wiggled for a minute and then gave up, tears streaking down her face.

“Speak to her in Farsi,” I said to Kendrick.

I knelt down in the grass, looking her over. She was so tiny. The other versions of
Emily had been thin, but this child was sickly thin. I knew Kendrick had to be worried
about Emily’s health, too, because she could probably feel the bones nearly poking
through the little girl’s skin.

“Emily, we won’t hurt you, I promise,” Kendrick said in Farsi. She nodded her head
toward me. “Do you know him? Do you recognize him?”

Emily shook her head vigorously.

“What year did you come from?” I asked.

Emily didn’t speak. Instead she lifted her hand and held up three fingers.

“Three?” I asked.

“Does she mean—”

“Three two zero zero,” Emily said in Farsi.

Kendrick and I both sucked in a breath. “Damn,” she muttered, releasing Emily and
sinking back onto her heels.

The kid didn’t miss a beat. She leaped up from the ground and started to run again,
but she must have been too scared or dizzy, because seconds later she fell down on
her hands and knees, panting.

I scooped her up and she didn’t even fight me. Her head bobbed, like she was losing
consciousness. “Do you think it’s the time jump? Side effects?”

Kendrick held her wrist as we walked, pressing her fingers to it. “Her pulse is racing
and she’s halfway out of it … and look at her … she’s skin and bones. Probably dehydration,
malnutrition.”

We kept walking quickly toward the path that would lead to Dad’s place, our original
destination, though we had no real plan.

“Kendrick?” I finally said.

“I know … you wanna take her to the hospital, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We can’t … I mean, we can, but Healy will find out and they’ll have their own personal
lab rat to study … or worse.”

“I know, but—”

“Jackson, I know more than most doctors,” she said firmly. “And she’s a time traveler.
She might not even be around very long.”

Emily fell asleep or passed out and didn’t wake up until we were safely in the soundproof
confines of Dad’s place.

“God … how long do you think she’s been here?” I asked Kendrick. “If she can’t jump
back to the future, for some reason, maybe she’s been stuck here wandering around
New York for days.”

“Well … someone hasn’t fed this child in weeks,” Kendrick said, her voice shaking.

I flipped on the light before setting Emily down on the couch. She stirred and started
to open her eyes. With the bright light on, I could see her better now. Pieces of
twigs and leaves were tangled in her hair. Her black shirt and jeans were torn. And
looking at her emaciated body made me nauseous.

Kendrick returned from the bathroom with an armful of supplies. She handed me a wet
washcloth and I held it up to Emily’s face, but she jerked away.

“Maybe she’s hungry?” I suggested. “She was digging through a garbage can.”

Kendrick sat on the couch next to Emily. “Do you want something to eat? Food?” she
asked in Farsi. Emily looked hesitant and then finally nodded. “Okay, then you have
to let us help you. No running away … or leaving any other way, all right?”

Emily nodded, and more tears ran down her cheeks.

“Maybe we shouldn’t bribe her like that. She’s still scared.”

Kendrick held up a hand to shut me up. “Get her some food.”

I dug through the fridge and took out a can of Coke and a container of leftover sushi.
When I returned to the living room and handed the stuff to Kendrick, she rolled her
eyes at me and got up, stomping into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong with Coke?” I asked when she returned. “Sushi’s healthy.”

“Imagine not eating for days and then stuffing your face with a bunch of sushi and
carbonated beverages. She’d be puking her guts out in five minutes.” Kendrick handed
Emily a small container of Gatorade and half a slice of pita bread.

We watched as she nibbled the ends of the bread and then started taking bigger bites.
Kendrick drilled her with questions while I tentatively wiped her face with the washcloth.

“How old are you, Emily?”

“Three thousand one hundred and ten days,” she said with her mouth full.

I glanced at Kendrick, who said, “Eight … she’s eight.”

“Do you think she speaks anything besides Farsi?” I asked.

“I speak everything,” Emily said in perfect English.

“Do you know what time travel is?” Kendrick asked her, holding up the bottle of Gatorade,
encouraging her to drink more.

She took a long sip and nodded. “I just did it, didn’t I? Dr. Ludwig said I couldn’t,
but he’s wrong.”

“Dr. Ludwig?” Kendrick and I said together.

She pulled herself upright and looked from one to the other of us. “I don’t want to
tell you any more.”

“Okay,” I said immediately. “You don’t have to tell us anything, and we’ll let you
stay here and you can eat anything you want. That’s how it works in this time period.”

“In 2009,” Kendrick added with a smile, “we actually feed children.”

“Children?” Emily asked.

“Yeah.” I held my hand up a few feet above the carpet. “You know … little people,
like you.”

“The undeveloped?” she asked, sounding less frightened than earlier, and the bread
had already disappeared.

Stewart arrived before we were forced to fully describe our version of the difference
between adults and kids. After Stewart’s brief but shocked reaction to Emily, Kendrick
took her to the bathroom for a bath. Before turning on the bathwater, she rattled
off a list of items we needed from the store and ordered me and Stewart to both go.
Probably so we could discuss our options for hiding this child from the CIA and mostly
from Tempest.

That is, assuming no one came for her. Or came after her. I wasn’t sure which it would
be.

*   *   *

Rite Aid was pretty much the only place open at this hour. Stewart and I split up
and dumped items in separate carts. Mine was filled with vitamin supplements, children’s
pain relievers, and electrolyte solutions. Stewart came up behind me while I was sifting
through the medicine aisle.

“Should I get the gummy vitamins?” I asked Stewart.

“Those are the best.” She grabbed three bottles and tossed them into the cart. “So,
what are we going to do with this kid? Assuming she hasn’t time-jumped herself out
of there by the time we get back.”

“Healy’s really our only concern now.”
Now that Dr. Melvin is dead
. “But I did have an interesting conversation with Agent Collins.”

She looked up at me, curiosity filling her expression. “All right, you’ve got my attention.”

I filled her in on my strange interrogation with Agent Collins and the photo of Dad
and his grandfather. She looked as flustered and confused as I felt. “So … yeah, my
dad’s apparently in the future … and in the past with some man who died decades ago.
Seriously, how fucking crazy is this gonna get before we figure out where he really
is?”

Stewart was lost in thought, not really having any answer yet. The only response she
gave me was, “Let’s go back to the secret room later on, see if we can figure out
anything else.”

When we returned to Dad’s place, lugging several bags full of stuff, Kendrick had
tucked Emily into the bed in the guest room. Emily looked like a tiny wet rat, passed
out with red hair sprawled across the pillow.

“I sedated her,” Kendrick said right away. “I was afraid she might jump accidently
and—”

“And maybe she should,” Stewart chimed in. “Who knows what it’s doing to her to stay
here … coming from
that
year?”

“Three two zero zero,” I mumbled under my breath. All of us were quiet for several
seconds, absorbing the impact of
that
year. We had all wondered—everyone in Tempest—where the EOTs came from, or
when
they came from. None of us had ever considered it would be that far in the future.

Kendrick fiddled with a bag of clear liquid dangling from the side of the bed. “I
had to sedate her to put in the IV as well. She’s severely dehydrated. I also added
a nutrition supplement that will help her gain weight rapidly.”

Stewart’s arms were crossed, eyebrows raised. “What are you doing, Kendrick? Are you
gonna raise this kid until she’s Junior’s age and starts time-jumping on purpose?
She could be putting us in a lot of danger. She’s some kind of freakish clone of Jackson.”

“Chill,” I said to Stewart, holding an arm out in front of her to keep her closer
to the door and farther from Emily. “We don’t have to decide anything right this second.”

Stewart groaned and pointed at Kendrick. “She’s already decided. We both know that.
She’s like one of those people who rescue dying birds with their heads falling off.”

Kendrick stood up, her expression completely livid. “Fine. You can wake her up and
send her back outside and let her wander around eating out of garbage cans. I’m sure
Emily will figure out exactly how to get back home before she dies of malnutrition
or gets mugged … or worse.”

She shoved Stewart out of the way and stormed into the hallway. I glared at Stewart
and then followed Kendrick into the kitchen. She didn’t even look at me … just leaned
over a notebook on the counter, scribbling furiously. I hung back for a second, trying
to muster up the courage to talk to her when she was this pissed off.

“Stewart’s just letting off steam. I told her about Agent Collins tonight … She’s
got a lot on her mind,” I said, finally.

Kendrick sighed and her pen stopped moving. “Yeah, I know.”

Her dissolving anger gave me a little more courage. I set my hands on her shoulders
and turned her around. “This is what we had to do. I don’t know if it’s gonna be okay
or not, but keeping Emily here is the only option we have at the moment.”

“She’s right, you know. I
was
a kid who rescued dying birds. I probably exposed my family to a dozen diseases by
dragging wild animals into the house.” Her eyes met mine, searching for something.
“She’s worried about you, too, that your night with Agent Flynn is gonna make you
do something stupid or even … join Eyewall.”

I rubbed my eyes and felt the renewed Holly-anxiety hitting with full force.
Where is she right now? Is she okay?
“I don’t think either of you get it … what it’s like to stare at someone you once
knew so well and she looks the same, has the same mannerisms, same sarcasm, and know
that you’re supposed to see her as a different person. Sometimes I can do it with
no problem, and other times she does something that’s so much like the Holly I knew,
and I can’t just make those feelings go away. It’s not like I’m trying to be sneaky
or become a double agent or whatever.”