Vortex (41 page)

Three years ago, I still hugged my mother. I’d tell her I loved her and the weird
thing is, she already knew. I didn’t need to say it then, but now, she might not be
sure and I should tell her. But I haven’t for a long time. Two years ago, I was the
girl who studied obsessively for the SATs, saved every penny, and dreamed of living
in New York, being on my own and loving every minute of it. I craved the freedom and
endless possibilities. I wasn’t afraid of the unknown. I hated ordinary.

Now, I wake up every morning as the girl who only has one goal: Survive today. Make
it out alive and everything will be okay. But lately, I’m wondering why I should keep
doing it. Keep surviving. So I can spend another day afraid of not making it? Thinking
about how much worse tomorrow will be?

There’s so much uncertainty that I think I’ve stopped feeling things, like how warm
the sun is at noon, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the scent of my mother’s perfume—something
I’ve remembered forever. Until now.

I always thought life burst from every direction after a person has a brush with death,
or when they feel it coming. The world is supposed to come alive and make you want
to stay so badly you’ll do anything. But it just keeps getting darker and I can’t
see colors anymore. Everything looks, smells, and feels … gray.

And I’m so tired, I could sleep forever.

That’s who I am now. Someone who just wants to sleep and never wake up. But I can’t
because I have to rewrite this essay since I could never tell anyone this much about
me. Or this little. Depends on how you look at it.

I stared at her notebook page long after I had finished reading. My chest physically
ached when I drew in a breath. Everything made sense and seemed more terrible all
at once. Whoever had planned this twist of events, this new path Holly’s life had
taken, whoever decided to put her in Eyewall as a method to torture me—maybe Thomas—knew
exactly what they were doing. Unlike Holly, I had several reasons to get up in the
morning, to face the day, whatever might come with it. Keeping her alive … that was
my biggest reason for a long time. And Dad, being his only family. Now there was Stewart
and Kendrick … and Emily.

Whoever made this plan needed me to have someone … several someones. All this time,
I had thought it was just the opposite. That everything was being taken from me until
I had nothing left. That needing someone made this job so much harder.

All along, I’d been devastated that Holly didn’t know me, didn’t know how much I loved
her, but now that didn’t matter. Not even a little bit. It only matter that I knew.
That I
know
. If Holly was in my position and had loved someone and let that person go, she’d
have something to write about. She would be someone with a good reason to keep going.

After answering another question on Holly’s laptop, I laid my head on my arm, right
next to her, and drew in a deep breath, recognizing her scent immediately. Her mouth
had opened, and every time she took a breath she inhaled pieces of loose hair. I gently
moved her hair off her face and rested my fingertips on her cheek.

I hated reading the desperate, depressing words she had written, but at the same time,
it made me realize that Holly would always be Holly. Stewart had been wrong about
this … It wasn’t the fact that she looked the same as my Holly that made it confusing
to me. It had nothing to do with appearance. You could take everything from her, change
her entire life, and I think, deep down, she’d still have the same soul. The one that
belonged to
my Holly
. Just like Emily, who had been surrounded by people telling her I was bad, that she’d
never want to be like me, and something inside of her resisted that. She could be
wherever and whenever and she’d always be Emily.

And the 009 Holly I had left … if she had died when Thomas threw her off that roof,
she would have died knowing I loved her, but more importantly, knowing she could love
someone that much.

There are worse things than death
.

She didn’t even need to know how I felt. Ever. Telling her I loved her would just
be about me. She would have to take that journey on her own. With me, with someone
else … Maybe she had moved a little in that direction tonight, with her mom.

That didn’t mean I’d forget my mission to help her or that I’d forget about what Agent
Carter had said to her, what she wrote in her answers about him. No—I still wanted
to break him into a million pieces.

I picked up her calculus book and the unfinished worksheet lying next to the book.
And then I started completing her homework, one assignment at a time.

Around ten, Stewart called me. “I just did something really stupid … really, really
stupid.”

Oh, God. “What?”

“Gave Healy truth serum,” she croaked, panic already flooding her voice.

“Why?” I asked, and then lowered my voice to a whisper. “What for?”

“I don’t know how much time I have to explain, so you’re gonna have to do this quick.”

I could hear cars zipping by in the background. She must have been outside running.

“You need to do a half-jump to … October twentieth … 1952.”

“Huh?”

“Just do it, Junior! You owe me, remember,” she pleaded. “It’s about your dad. Remember
Bill’s Tavern?”

I listened to her describe the street and the exact corner I needed to be on and then
hung up the phone. I had no idea if I was capable of jumping this far back, even with
a half-jump, but I had to try.

1952 … this should be interesting
. But just before I managed my half-jump, I felt my cell phone go off.
Too late now … I’m already half gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

OCTOBER 20, 1952, 12:28
P.M.

The jump had been more disorienting than ever. The city was amazing in this year.
To see it, to feel it … how had I not done this before, just for the experience? I
found Bill’s Tavern after walking a few blocks, but going inside was a different story.
Since it was only a half-jump and I wouldn’t change anything or truly harm someone,
I didn’t feel guilty at all about the jacket I swiped from a picnic table after an
old man had set it down and then bent over to tie his shoe.

As usual the half-jump dulled the sensation of cold but my very modern T-shirt wouldn’t
help me fit in. I zipped the jacket up to my neck and tried to pull the bottom of
my jeans over my shoes, so they wouldn’t stand out too much. The rest of me seemed
okay for 1952.

But the second I saw the dark-haired guy walk out of Bill’s Tavern, I no longer cared
about fitting in. I wanted answers. Now.

Right here, in the middle of the sidewalk, strolling comfortably under the midday
sun, was my dad. A very young version of him. Younger than I’d ever seen in real life.

I kept my feet as quiet as possible, trotting behind him to keep up with his much
more purposeful steps. He knew where he was going. He wasn’t a lost time traveler.
Or was he? He had an old worn navy-blue jacket on over his khaki dress pants and wore
black dress shoes. His hair was parted and combed to one side.

He walked about three more blocks before turning into an alley between two buildings.
He slowed up a little and then suddenly snapped around quickly, drawing a gun and
pointing it at me. “Hands up!”

I lifted them quickly in the air, stunned to see his face up close. “Wait—”

“Why are you following me?” he demanded, taking two steps closer to me.

He looked me over briefly and his face faltered a little, giving away his surprise.
“Who the hell are you?”

The gun was tucked away immediately.

“Uh … Jackson.”

Dad’s face revealed mild panic. “Sorry … but you shouldn’t sneak up on people like
that.” He patted the back of his pants, where the gun had been stowed. “It’s not even
loaded, so don’t go calling the heat.”

“I … I won’t.”
Whatever that means?

“If you had my job, you’d do the same thing. The phrase ‘don’t kill the messenger’
doesn’t seem to be widely known. I’ve got guys going ape on me every day. Can’t just
stand there defenseless.”

“You’re Kevin, right?” I croaked. “Kevin Meyer?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Do I know you?”

“Um … maybe … from
somewhere,
” I said, then remembered that none of this mattered.
It’s a half-jump
. I just needed to know how he got here. “Actually, I might know you … We just haven’t
met yet.”

His hands lifted to his face and he groaned. “Oh, God … this isn’t happening again.
Where the fuck is Melvin when this shit goes on?”

“Dr. Melvin?” I asked.

Dad laughed, looking way more freaked out and threatened than I did. “I wouldn’t exactly
call him a doctor. That would require medical school. Considering he’s seventeen.”

It could be
the
Dr. Melvin … that would be about right. “Does he study you … or help you time-travel?
What year did you come from?” I asked.

He stared at me blankly and then finally said, barely above a whisper, “Is that why
I keep running into them … you … people like you? They don’t think I belong here?
Or that I’m hiding out like Superman or something?”

“Are you … hiding your abilities?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I don’t have any time-traveling powers.”

For some reason, I believed him. “Well … then you’ve been displaced … one of them
dragged you here and—”

“Them? Why not you or your people?” he asked.

Definite interrogation question.
Has he been trained?
“We don’t all work for the same side … at least I don’t think we do.”

“I haven’t been dragged anywhere,” he said with a defensive edge. “If that’s why I
keep getting cornered in dark alleys by fellows from the future, then maybe you can
just give them a message for me: This is my home. I don’t have any information about
future events. Nothing.”

“This is your home
now,
” I pressed, just to clarify. “Like, you’d rather stay here than whatever year you
came from?”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Damn! When will this end? I. Live.
Here
.” He enunciated each word slowly. “I’ll take you to my mother’s house right now.
It was her mother’s house before that. We have documents … This is my father’s jacket.
He died in World War II … My younger brother Gabe is home right now. We have the same
blood type, test us … whatever it takes to make this end.”

Oh. My. God
. He said it … in 1992, to Eileen … and I didn’t get it … didn’t get the meaning.

If I lay here and close my eyes, it almost feels like … like I could be anywhere.

Anywhere? Like forty years in the past?

I had never heard my heart beat so fast. Ever. “So, you were born in—”

“1934.”

My back crashed into the wall behind me as I leaned against it for support. He hadn’t
been brought here by an EOT or another time traveler. He’d been brought … to the future …
to the 1990s, probably. I clutched my chest, gasping for air. He had no family alive …
no one … He had a secret room with all the things that reminded him of what he had
left. Frank Sinatra … record players … old books.

He belonged here. In this year. “Damn … how in the world … I just…”

“So, you believe me?” Dad asked.

“Are you … are you even in the CIA yet? Does the CIA exist in 1952?” I blurted out.

His eyes darted side to side, checking for people strolling by. “I’m still training.
And I don’t know how you got this information, but I swear to God I’ll find you if
it gets out.”

I looked at him, finally catching my breath. “So, you did this job before anything
happened. It makes sense when Melvin said you got in on your own merit.”

His forehead wrinkled. “I’ve been training in secret intelligence and espionage since
I was twelve years old. A little boarding school in D.C. called Dunston Academy …
ever heard of it?” I shook my head and he continued seeming very proud to have information
that I didn’t have. “We’re handpicked from all across the country in grade school.
Of course, the prestigious academic-prep-school reputation is just a cover. We do
fieldwork from year two on, and by graduation we’ve all done international missions
and college-graduate-level courses … fluency in eight foreign languages in six years.
My father was a Dunston graduate as well. I never knew what he did or what the school
represented until two years after he died. Until I was accepted and given his old
dorm room. Well … me and Melvin, anyway.”

All I could do was stare at him …
my dad
 … maybe a few months younger than me right now … and yet he was beyond amazing. A
true secret agent … and his father before him … “Wait … so your dad died when you
were just a kid?”

“I was ten. He died in France … fighting Hitler … or so I’ve been told,” he said bitterly,
leaning against the wall next to me.

“I’m sorry … and you have a brother?”

“Gabe … he’s four years younger than me.” He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket
and offered it to me. I shook my head and watched as he removed a box of matches from
Bill’s Tavern and lit his cigarette, taking a long drag. I’d never seen my dad smoke
before. Ever.

“So, who were these other guys … the ones who came to see you before me?”

He flicked the ashes onto the gravel of the alley and kept his eyes straight ahead
on the building in front of us. “A gentleman who looked a little like you … a cute
red-haired girl—”

“Blue or green eyes?” I drilled.

“Blue. I assumed the little girl was a special child … off her rocker … but now I’m
not so sure,” he said, pausing to smoke some more. “And a tall colored man … bald
head.”

“Marshall.”

“Didn’t get a name from him.” He turned his eyes on me. “Actually, you’re the first
to give me a name … and you look a hell of a lot more surprised to see me than the
others. I got the feeling they had had the same conversation with me a dozen times
before.”