Authors: Julie Cross
“But nothing in between?”
“Correct.”
“So then, Adam was on to something. Those pictures are important.” I sank back into
the couch and had to lean forward and put my head between my knees for a few seconds.
It hurt to say his name … to remember him bleeding … dying.
“What’s wrong with you?” Stewart asked, flicking the top of my head.
“Time travel … lots of it.”
“And…?”
I lifted my head, slowly sitting up again. “And I suck at it.”
Stewart tried to hide the disappointment on her face, but I saw it. She wanted me
to save Mason. I knew she’d been thinking that ever since I’d told her what I could
do this morning, but she’d never say it out loud. She’d never ask me to do it because
that would mean admitting how much she cared. “I bet you don’t suck at it … You’re
just a little too pampered. Not enough experience with mental toughness. The rest
of them are full-bloods, so they don’t have the average-Joe genes in them. Probably
lowers your IQ about two hundred points.”
“Thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes.
She sank down beside me and turned her head, showing off the dark circles under her
own eyes. Holly’s diary rested in her hand and she passed it back and forth between
her hands several times. “Maybe if we got someone to throw me off this building you’d
have more success…?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
Her expression faltered for a second and I snorted back a laugh. Catching Jenni Stewart
off guard was a rare occurrence and I had to appreciate it. Of course, that cost me
a hard punch in the shoulder. I got up from the couch and stretched out across my
bed, already feeling like I was half asleep. My bones ached and my teeth had started
chattering as if I had a fever or chills. I wrestled myself under the blanket, knowing
I’d have to rest before anything else could be fixed or figured out.
“Hey,” I said, remembering where the conversation with Kendrick had left off. “Have
you heard of this Vortex theory?”
Stewart shook her head so I explained what Kendrick had just revealed and that it
was possibly from Eileen’s notes.
“I think we should talk to Dr. Melvin.” Stewart fell next to me on the bed, shaking
the mattress and causing another wave of nausea to hit me hard.
“I figured,” I mumbled. “But I need to think about the best approach. He’s easily
scared off, and then he shuts down and won’t tell us anything.”
“Yeah, I know.” She rested her head on the pillow next to me.
“What are you doing…?”
“Sleeping. Something I haven’t done in twenty-four hours.” Her voice already sounded
muffled and sleepy. “I’ve been too busy helping you with all your issues. If you get
to sleep, so do I. We’ll be better prepared for Dr. Melvin.”
“Or Eyewall trying to kill us,” I added.
“That, too.” Stewart scooted closer to me, and the warmth of her body kept me from
protesting. My blanket wasn’t nearly big enough to stop my teeth from chattering.
“What’s it feel like?” she asked after a couple minutes of silence.
“Like the worst kind of flu … like I have a fever of a hundred and five,” I said,
closing my eyes again.
“No, I mean time travel … the actual jumping part. What does that feel like?”
The warmth of her body heat continued to fill the space under the covers and my teeth
finally stopped chattering. “The half-jumps feel like everything is being tugged in
two … and then when I come back, it’s like the worst kind of jet lag. All this time
has passed for me, but not for anyone else in home base.”
“I don’t know if it will ever stop sounding crazy to me … unbelievable might be a
better word.”
I laughed. “Yeah, me either.”
She scooted even closer, barely resting her cheek against my chest. “Mason and your
dad and I had this really long debate one night … I think it was last year and we
were doing fourth-line surveillance for a mission in Costa Rica. Mason was going on
and on about some wacko paradox theory and was convinced it wasn’t possible to survive
seeing your other self in a complete jump … that the shock alone would kill the person,
both of them. Your dad said something and I didn’t think much about it then, but now…”
“What?” I asked, feeling my eyelids getting heavier.
“He said people can handle much more than anyone ever thinks … not in a cheesy perseverance
kind of way, but just that we’re made to adapt to our environment. Humans are survivors.
I know it seems like basic secret-agent pep-talk stuff, but I got this feeling like
he knew from experience, like maybe he had to face himself at some point.” She yawned
and leaned against me even more. “Never mind. I’ll explain it better after I get some
sleep.”
The mention of my dad seeing another version of himself made me think again of Holly
staring at another Holly. She had indicated a possible need for therapy, but other
than that she was okay.
“We’re both probably doing the exact same thing—analyzing everything he’s ever told
us, like the words are pieces to a big giant puzzle we need to solve.” Without thinking,
I draped my arm around her waist, then laughed under my breath when I realized what
I had just done. “Are we cuddling? I figured if you ever got this close to me again,
I’d either be severely injured or naked.”
“It’s a rare moment of weakness. Pity, that’s all.” She relaxed her muscles, letting
out a deep exhausted breath. “You act like I never touch anyone without either abuse
or seduction.”
“Were any of your college student characters stable and affectionate?” I joked, but
really I wanted to know how far she took those roles. I’d actually wanted to know
this since right after she told me her story.
“Not really. I dated a lot of different guys, but I didn’t usually…” She paused for
a second, then started laughing.
“Didn’t what?”
She scooted away, just enough so we weren’t touching anymore, but I could see her
face now. “Let’s just say I got really good at putting the ax down at just the right
moment.”
“Oh, man … you evil bitch.” I laughed lightly. “Was this method reserved for assholes
only, or did you prey on nice guys, like Michael?”
I expected her to give me a vague smart-ass answer and end this touchy-feely conversation,
but she did just the opposite.
“First of all, Michael’s not a nice guy … he’s a saint. They’re a completely different
breed. A guy like him would never end up with me.” Her face stayed relaxed, but she
seemed deep in thought and void of the usual defensive edge. “It wasn’t about running
over guys or manipulation. It’s just … if you give people everything they want, then
why would they need you anymore?”
Some of the weight lifted from my eyelids and I focused more clearly on her face.
Finally, after all these months, Jenni Stewart made sense to me. Perfect sense. And
the reasons she got along so well with Mason were clear. They had both been rejected.
Not that the rest of us agents hadn’t suffered the loss of loved ones, but grief had
a very different effect on a person than abandonment. Mason and Stewart felt abandoned.
Stewart had been abandoned in her teen years, shipped off to college early to get
her out of her parents’ hair, and then the radio silence when she got arrested and
really needed them. Mason’s mother had supposedly died in childbirth, leaving him
parentless his whole life.
This was exactly why the it’s-not-personal-it’s-business approach had appealed to
me from the very beginning of agent training. But right now, talking to Stewart, having
someone know my secrets, was as comforting as having 009 and 007 Adam know.
Stewart’s eyes had started to close. I shook her shoulders lightly. “Hey … can I ask
you something?”
“Yeah?” She looked right at me, waiting.
The psychoanalytical part of my brain wouldn’t shut off until I got a few more answers
from her. “Why do you think it was so easy for us to … you know … hook up? Or almost
hook up, until I had my emotional relapse. Then it wasn’t easy at all.”
She shrugged and closed her eyes again. “Because we’re fucked up … both of us.”
“So you’ve thought about this, too? Tried to figure it out?” I prodded, hoping she’d
stay with me on this self-discovery ride.
“Yeah. We suck at being friends … with anyone,” she said. “You pull off the act much
better than I do, but it’s half-assed. I watched you for two years before you started
this job. You were never really close to anyone. I don’t think you’re an asshole or
a player, either … You just had lots of lines you weren’t willing to cross.”
She was right. My friendship with Adam was probably the closest I’d gotten to having
a “real” best friend. And I didn’t really reveal too much to him until all the bad
stuff started to happen.
Not until I got stuck in 2007
.
“We suck at being friends,” I repeated, grasping the concept as the words tumbled
out of my mouth.
“Yep … and I didn’t learn this from deep self-reflection or any bullshit like that.
I figured it out after I read Blondie’s diary.” She laughed again with her eyes closed.
“I really wanted to do it to you … get you all hot and excited and then cut you off.”
If I’d had the energy, I would have shoved her off the bed. Instead, I laughed with
her. “Like I said earlier: evil bitch.”
“But you totally threw me off my game by trying to get me to talk. Then I had to make
you stop.”
I laughed even harder. “Oh, God … we are fucked-up … especially you. But seriously,
that’s a technique I’ve used many times. Kissing instead of talking…”
“You never told her you loved her,” Stewart prompted. “Does that mean you would have
been better off just being friends?”
I didn’t even hesitate before answering. “I never wanted to be Holly’s friend. And
I did tell her I loved her. Eventually.”
“And you meant it?”
I gave in to the heaviness of my eyelids and let them close. “Yeah, I meant it.”
“But is it worth it?” she mumbled, sounding less coherent than she had a few seconds
earlier.
I sighed, forcing back the empty feeling I’d been stuck with the past few months.
It was a difficult question, because I immediately translated it to:
Is Holly worth it?
Which would obviously be a yes. Holly was worth any suffering I’d ever have to endure.
But I knew Stewart wasn’t asking about Holly or any one person. Just the concept.
I could only imagine how much easier this job would have been had the carefree and
uncommitted Jackson been the one who joined the CIA. Falling in love had ruined me.
Inside and out. It made everything in my life more complicated, and I could never
undo it. Ever. I could erase her memories of being with me, take myself out of the
relationship over and over again, but I’d never be able to change what it did to me.
“No, it’s not worth it,” I answered finally. “Not for people like us.”
“That’s what I thought,” she mumbled. “And this, my friend, is called progress.”
“Meaning … we don’t suck as much as we used to.” I smiled to myself before falling
asleep. Stewart was the very last person I ever thought I’d find to replace the void
of not having Adam around. “Adam … and Mason,” I muttered to her before drifting off.
“I’m gonna fix it … even if it makes me really sick.”
Or worse.
“I’ll make Dr. Melvin tell me how.”
JUNE 19, 2009, 10:49
P.M.
“Guess who’s tailing us,” Stewart whispered, without glancing behind us.
I, on the other hand, did look over my shoulder. Just for a split second. A streak
of a blond ponytail stuck out from the doorway in front of a music shop on Fifth Avenue.
“At least we know she’s okay.”
“Did you think she wouldn’t be?” Stewart asked. “She’s a trained agent. That has to
mean something.”
“I know.” What I really hated, more than anything, was being so close to Holly, physically,
and yet the farthest I’d been from her. Enemies. We’d never been enemies. Even strangers
was better than enemies. This thought had been eating at me constantly, a virus infesting
my blood and turning my insides to liquid …
Holly, my enemy
. I just couldn’t swallow it. And even worse, Stewart, Kendrick, and I had to set
our investigation aside to do some unavoidable work for Healy and Freeman all day
today. Until now.
We rounded a corner, and Stewart stopped and leaned against the wall, fiddling with
something on the inside of her jacket. “She stopped following us and now she’s on
the phone.”
“How do you know—”
I was cut off by Holly’s voice coming through my earpiece. “You tapped her phone?”
“Pretty nifty, huh?” Stewart said with a grin. She began walking again so we wouldn’t
look too suspicious.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I should have told you I quit,” Holly said. “I’ve had so much studying
to do for my summer classes.”
“You haven’t gotten a check from the camp for over a month,” Katherine Flynn’s voice
came through the phone loud and clear. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I’m sorry,” Holly said, frustration leaking into her voice. “Can we talk about this
later?”
“When?” Katherine demanded. “It’s nearly eleven. Where are you?”
“Out,” Holly said firmly. “I’ll be home by midnight, okay?”
The call ended abruptly. Stewart shook her head and glanced sideways at me. “I guess
none of us have to deal with civilian parents. That’s a complication I hadn’t really
thought of before.”
“Lucky us,” I muttered under my breath, but then I remembered Holly’s petrified face
when she was standing in my apartment, waiting for me to attack her. She had begged
me to let her call her mom.
Stewart was convinced that it was a code for her team to know she was in distress,
but now I wasn’t completely sure I agreed.
Both of us were silent the rest of the walk to NYU Medical Center. Even Stewart looked
nervous about this bold move we were about to make. She started biting her nails while
we rode up in the elevator.
“We can totally do this. Just remember the plan. Drop only enough information to keep
him asking us for more,” I whispered as my hand hovered over the doorknob to Dr. Melvin’s
office.