Tempest. Part 29

"What experiment?" I asked immediately.

They all stared at me and finally Dad spoke up. "It's a confidential project we were discussing. Nothing you need to worry about."

Seriously? Did they think I was five years old or just a complete idiot? "Maybe you should take the grown-up talk somewhere else if you don't want me to listen."

"What exactly did you hear?" Marshall asked.

My hands balled up into fists. "All of it ... and someone needs to explain this experiment. Now."

Dr. Melvin jumped up from his chair and walked over to me, staring at my eyes like I had a concussion or something. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I glanced over his shoulder at Dad and Marshall. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine, but he's a little surprised that you were able to eavesdrop on our conversation, given the fact that we were all speaking Farsi," Marshall said.

"What?" I asked, backing away from Melvin. "Farsi?"

"It worked in one night! This is incredible," Dr. Melvin said.

Marshall lifted his eyebrows in Dad's direction. "Finally. Millions of dollars spent on Axelle and we may actually be able to benefit from it."

Axelle?

This time I heard the difference in sound. He wasn't speaking English. My palms were sweaty and I had to wipe them off on the dress pants I still had on from last night. "What the h.e.l.l did you guys do to me? Some kind of weird brain-frying electromagnetic s.h.i.+t?"

Dr. Melvin rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a pair of tweezers. He came closer to me, pointing them right at my eye. "Hold still for one second."

I froze in my spot and he stuck the tweezers into my ear and pulled out a tiny piece of metal. I stared at it like he had just removed a c.o.c.kroach from my ear. I felt dirty. Tainted.

"It plays sound in your ear while you sleep. I programmed it to play foreign language lessons. Nothing but audio copying," Dr. Melvin said in the calm voice I knew so well from years of childhood memories with this man. "This is just like the picture diagrams you looked at yesterday ... the photographic memory ... only it's auditory."

"But ... how can I understand a language I haven't been taught? I can't say anything in Farsi. It didn't even sound different until you told me it was." I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to focus on getting information. Absorb now, process later. Panic later.

"You can't speak the language because speech is a motor skill. You have to practice forming words just like you practice throwing a baseball, or riding a bike when you were six," Melvin said.

"It just means you can absorb the information like a sponge. You can't learn things you haven't been taught. You have above-average intelligence, but not a genius IQ or even close," Dad added. "There's a difference."

"That's a relief," I muttered. "So, is that the experiment ... Axelle or whatever you called it ... you just play stuff in my ear?"

Melvin glanced at Dad, who was staring at Marshall, who looked at his watch before saying, "We don't have time for this. Let's watch and see if he worms his way out of this situation."

"Who? Me?" I asked. "What situation?"

Dad jumped up from his chair. "I heard something coming from down the hall."

I took off running before any of them had a chance to move, but I heard several feet pounding behind me. Holly came stumbling out of the TV room, rubbing her eyes. She stopped when she saw all of us. "Oh ... I was just going to see where you went," she said to me.

Something about her expression didn't look right. She felt around with her hand until it landed on the wall in front of her, then she rested her forehead against it. I put my hands on her shoulders. "Holly, are you all right?"

"Huh?" she mumbled.

"It's the drugs," Melvin said.

"What drugs?" I demanded, trying to turn around, but Holly tilted sideways and I had to hold her in place.

"This is just protocol for her protection," Marshall said.

"I don't care if it's protocol!" I glared right at Dad. "I can't believe you let them do this."

I scooped Holly up off the ground. Her eyes were barely open and she was still feeling around with her hands. Her fingertips brushed over my face and eventually stayed pressed against my cheek.

I turned my back on them and walked toward the TV room with Holly.

"She's the next name, Jackson," Dad said so quietly I barely heard. "The next name on Marshall's list."

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Slowly, I turned around. "Someone wants to hurt her? Why Holly?"

"We just found out ... that's what we were discussing when you walked in," Dad said.

Marshall spoke up first. "The girl is just a device to get to you. One device. I'm sure there will be other methods. My theory is that you set them off in 2009. One of your time jumps revealed your abilities. Before that, we had them convinced that you had turned out completely insignificant ... normal."

My legs turned into Jell-O and I stumbled toward the couch to set Holly down before I dropped her. She mumbled something and then curled up with her face against the cus.h.i.+ons.

I sank down onto the floor beside Holly's head. It was my fault. Getting stuck. Everything that had happened to Holly. Not Karma, but an actual, concrete reason. If I hadn't kept doing those stupid experiments with Adam, if I had told someone ... I could barely speak but I forced out a few words. "Why did they ask me to come with them ... if any government people had approached me...?"

I stopped talking and stared at Marshall, who was still calm yet nodding like he knew I had just answered my own question.

"They want me on their side," I croaked. "The Enemies of Time."

Dad spoke up next. "Yes, but we're not going to let anything happen to you, Jackson ... or Holly. Now that we know what's going on."

Melvin's eyes got really big all of a sudden and Dad and Marshall both whipped out guns and pointed them behind the couch. I jumped up from the floor and came face-to-face with a woman. The first thing I noticed was her hair.

Flaming red ... just like Courtney's. She was like a middle-aged version of my sister. For a second, I lost hold of my surroundings, the danger, and nearly said Courtney's name aloud. Could she be time-traveling, too?

Then I had to remind myself that Courtney had never reached her fifteenth birthday.

I shook the thought from my head and saw the man to her right. Shoe-print guy. And a tall, dark-haired man stood on the woman's other side.

None of them had weapons out like Dad and Marshall.

"We didn't come for a fight," the woman said, holding up her hands. "Just a message from Thomas."

Dr. Melvin tugged on the back of my s.h.i.+rt, pulling me closer to him and farther from the five people facing off. Marshall and Dad both walked around the couch, forcing the three intruders to the far side of the room.

"You have five seconds, Ca.s.sidy," Marshall said.

Ca.s.sidy. I tried to etch the name and her face into my head so I wouldn't forget.

"We're here to take the boy back to where he came from," shoe-print guy said.

"That's not happening," Dad answered.

"He's drifted from his main path and Thomas believes this could be detrimental to all of us," Ca.s.sidy said.

Who the h.e.l.l was Thomas? CEO of the Enemies of Time?

For the first time ever, I watched Marshall's face falter a little. Fear. He believed them. The theory Jenni Stewart told me about timelines merging and the world ending or brains exploding came swimming back into my head. Somehow, I doubted Marshall was too worried about my brain rupturing. But the other option sent my heart into a full-out sprint.

And could they really take me back there? To 2009? Without thinking about what the h.e.l.l I was doing, I pointed right at the shoe-print guy. "What were you doing there ... in Holly's room? Why did you ... I mean, why did that other guy..."

I couldn't say what had happened to Holly out loud. The shoe-print dude nodded from across the room. "All of us were under the impression that you were a threat. We realize now that her death was a mistake. That you were unaware of our existence."

The room had become so silent, I heard Dad's finger move over the trigger clear as day.

"Agent Meyer, you will work under my orders only," Marshall said quietly but firmly.

Shoe-print guy kept his eyes on me and very slowly pulled something from his pocket. I walked closer to him as I stared at the image of Holly and me, in our swimsuits, sitting by the camp pool.

Me and 009 Holly.

"Where did you get that?" I demanded.

"I took it myself," he said. "I thought you might need a reminder. This is where you belong."

It scared me that he wanted the same thing I did. Like I was already on their side. But honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to be on either side. Maybe it wasn't good and evil, but a whole bunch of gray area. Like gangs fighting gangs.

"But-" I started to say, before the man interrupted me.

"Don't believe everything you hear about us. We're not so bad. I thought maybe you would come looking on your own, but I guess Dr. Melvin's little Frankenstein only knows what he's been programmed to think."

I stepped closer and lunged for the photo in his hand. For some reason, I hated that he had it. He blocked my attack so quickly, I didn't even see it coming.

"They don't want you to know how to jump for real. That would make you a threat. I can show you how to leave anytime you want. I can tell you when and where you can be with her, safely, both of you." He stuck the picture of Holly right under my nose.

He was probably just as capable as Dad and Marshall, if not more capable, of killing someone fast and easy. But he wasn't doing anything like that. Just making an offer.

"I believe I have a say in his well-being, given the circ.u.mstances," Ca.s.sidy said, turning her eyes on Dad. "Much more than you ever will."

Dad's face twisted with anger, but the dark-haired man who hadn't spoken a word dove forward and wrestled the gun from Dad's hand before getting him to the ground. I immediately jumped over the back of the couch and landed on Holly, covering her completely. I lifted my head for a second and watched Ca.s.sidy and the shoe-print dude vanish.

I couldn't breathe or think for several seconds, realizing what they had just done. Marshall fired his gun into the empty s.p.a.ce they had left behind, but the bullet just tore into the wall. I pressed myself farther over Holly and heard another gunshot, followed by a man's loud cry of pain.

"d.a.m.n it!" Marshall shouted.

I slid off Holly, not sure if I could even stand. The sound of the gun was all too familiar. Dr. Melvin pulled himself slowly off the floor and Dad stood over the dark-haired man with a gun pointed at his chest. The mysterious man had been shot in the leg. Blood seeped through his pants and all the color had drained from his face as he moaned in agony.

The thought running through my head was, Why isn't he jumping? Then I remembered that time in 1996. I was too scared to focus on getting the h.e.l.l out. I a.s.sumed the pain was clouding his ability to concentrate.

My stomach turned over and over as I got closer to the man and his b.l.o.o.d.y leg. Marshall looked up at us and nodded. "Agent Meyer, would you please question the witness?"

Dad kicked the man in the stomach, forcing him onto his back.

I just stood there, my arms hanging lifeless at my sides.

Dad leaned over the man and shouted, "What year did you come from?"

No response.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"His name is Harold," Marshall answered. "One of Dr. Ludwig's sp.a.w.ns."

Who the h.e.l.l is Dr. Ludwig?

"Okay, Harold, what timeline did you travel from? Give us one main event."

The man laughed this dark, insane cackle. "You're all dead. Every one of you. But I'm not going to tell you when." He lifted his head and looked at me. "Except you, Jackson, you're not dead. Think about that. Don't listen to them."

My whole body froze. What did he mean?

Marshall let out an exasperated sigh. "He's useless. I'm done with him. Agent Meyer?"

Dad raised his gun and fired two shots right into the man's chest. I threw my arm over my face as blood splattered on all of us. My survival skills kicked in again when I saw his chest still moving. I dropped to the ground beside the man.

This guy didn't even have a weapon. He didn't do anything wrong except try to take Dad's gun. Maybe to keep Dad from shooting someone. Now he was dying. Right in front of us.

I yanked off my sweats.h.i.+rt and pressed it to the front of his s.h.i.+rt. My fingers went straight for his jugular and felt his faint pulse. "Dr. Melvin! Help me. He's still breathing!"

Dr. Melvin didn't move any closer. "I'm not sure we should-"

"What's wrong with you? You're a doctor. He's not dead." I pressed more firmly on the sweats.h.i.+rt, which was already soaked with blood. The whole scene brought back images of Holly in 2009.

"Jackson," Dad said. "Back off ... now."

I couldn't look at him. How could he do this? Like it was no big deal. He grabbed my arm and I yanked it away. "Don't touch me!"

Seconds later, Marshall was forcing me up against the wall. He towered over me, his dark face twisted with rage. "I was trying to give you a chance to prove to your father what you and I both know you can do. Not only did I not get to prove my point, we've also missed a chance to kill two very important Enemies."

I knew Dad said something to Marshall, but I couldn't process it. The blood pumping all the way to my ears drowned him out. The computer images flashed through my mind and in three quick motions I had him flat on his back, right next to the dying man. "Tell me about Axelle!"

Marshall sprang up from the floor and in one swift motion had his hands closed around my throat. "Perhaps if I threaten your life, you'll prove you're lying about what you can ... and can't ... do."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Dad moving behind Marshall. I couldn't look at him, just at Holly lying on the couch, helpless, and then at Marshall again. His calm, calculated face just inches from mine, his fingers constricting the air from my lungs. I fought to get out of his hold, but it was no use. My gaze locked with Dr. Melvin's. The man with all the answers, the brains behind this mysterious Axelle project, and probably the only one in this room who couldn't kick my a.s.s. If I could just get him alone ...

A plan formed immediately. If I could finally do it. A full jump back to 2009. The same timeline I'd left. I'd keep Holly from getting hurt. Get all the information I needed about this supposed experiment from an unsuspecting Dr. Melvin.

I wasn't going to be used as some kind of weapon. That much I knew for sure. But when I attempted to jump, the shouting coming from Dad and Melvin distracted me and I felt myself pulling apart. A half-jump. And what if Marshall continued to strangle me while I stood there like a vegetable in home base?