Tempest. Part 4

As in dead. By his own hands.

Obviously he didn't know it was me. And he had the CIA following the younger me around just to prevent my death. The craziness of that alone was too much to grab on to at the moment. Someone knocked lightly behind my head and I jumped, completely startled.

That's when I realized I had just been leaning against the door of Starbucks. Again.

In 2007. Exactly where I had left from.

The girl from behind the counter, and from my high school, poked her head outside and stuck something in front of my face.

"You left your cell phone on the counter," she said.

I took it from her hands and stared at her for a long moment. "It's 2007, right? Senior year?"

The panic in my voice was such a contrast to the people all around me, strolling the streets of Manhattan on a Sunday morning. Didn't they know the world had just flipped upside down? Or that it might end in some catastrophic event preventing me from ever returning to the future?

Of course not. Only my world had turned over. Not anyone else's.

"Yep, it's 2007," the girl said to me with a bewildered smile.

Obviously she thinks I'm nuts.

"And that's a cool phone. Where'd you get it? I've never seen that model, and my sister works for-"

"It's just a prototype. I've got a few connections. Shouldn't even have it out in the open." I stuffed the phone in my pocket. "Um ... I'll see ya later."

The rain had slowed to a very light drizzle, so I took off running across the street and toward the park. Nothing could make anything about the last few hours seem normal. The only activity I could do to keep from panicking was to write it all down. Just like I had promised Adam.

Adam. If only I could see him now. Or Holly ...

I walked a little ways until I found a tree to sit under and pulled out my journal, hoping to calm myself down. But the thought of those two names had sent my heart racing. Especially the last one. I tried not to think about her ... tried to focus on the details. The scientific facts. But the truth was, since the first day I met Holly, when she ran right into me, dumping her smoothie all over my shoes, I hadn't been able to stop thinking about her. Something I'd never really come right out and admitted.

At first, Holly was just the girl I couldn't have. Not only did she have a very devoted boyfriend, but she had a million smart-a.s.s comments about the rich, privileged kids we were in charge of. At least she did until she found out I was one of them. That shut her up for a while.

People always want what they can't or shouldn't have. That alone seemed to pull Holly and me together like a couple of magnets. And I know it wasn't just me gravitating toward her. It went both ways.

I had to get back to 2009. My eyes closed and I forced myself to focus every ounce of energy on where and when I needed to be.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Hours later, I was right back in my spot by the tree, writing down everything I could manage. It was a desperate attempt to stay connected, grounded to reality. Plus, this way there'd be a written explanation of my recent adventures for Adam or the future Adam, if someone found me lying dead somewhere.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2007, 6:30 P.M.

In the last forty-eight hours, I've made seventeen attempts to get back (or forward, actually) to October 30, 2009, and they all failed. The second attempt threw me back to February of 2006, outside in the middle of a snow shower. I nearly froze my a.s.s off. Everything is jumbled in my head. Sometimes I feel alive, and other times I'm convinced this is some freakish purgatory. There's too many dates to remember, too many times. Do I even exist anywhere? Am I actually someone if I don't have a home base?

With all the attempts, I ended up in some random past date. Then I came back here. As if there's nothing in the future. Like September 9, 2007, is THE END OF THE WORLD. Right now, I'm so exhausted I can't even think about time travel. Maybe if I just close my eyes for a few minutes ...

"Hey, kid. Get up."

Someone shook my shoulders, then jabbed a finger into my chest.

I sprang up from my spot in the gra.s.s and nearly plowed into the two police officers standing in front of me. The sun had completely set while I slept.

"You can't sleep here," one of the officers said.

"Sorry." I s.n.a.t.c.hed my black bag off the gra.s.s before shuffling toward the sidewalk. I wanted to throw the stupid bag in the Hudson. It felt symbolic of my selfishness. My stomach twisted in knots again. This was my punishment for ducking out. For leaving her there to die. I pressed the heels of my hands over my eyes and forced myself to focus. Stay sane. Curling up in a ball of grief two years in the past wouldn't get me a step closer to saving Holly. Or figuring out what the h.e.l.l was going on with my dad and that weird trip back to 2003.

I crossed the street and walked into a diner. Every step was agonizing. Something must have happened, to drag me this far into a state of complete exhaustion. And pain. Like knives poking me all over.

Food. I needed sustenance of some kind to keep me going, even though eating was the very last thing I wanted to do right now. This was like a bad case of the flu, the feverish, delusional state my mind was in. A mix of physical and emotional, and I didn't know what dominated.

"Is it just one?" the hostess asked.

I nodded and followed her to a table near the door. I ran through the nightmare again in my mind. Not the craziness that followed leaving 2009, but the event just before. That was my nightmare and it was still crystal clear.

Who were those men in Holly's room? Why were they asking about my dad? About government people approaching me?

That's him, one of them had said. And could they have somehow known what I can do?

"Can I get you something to drink?" the waitress asked.

"Coffee, please. Oh, and where is your restroom?"

She pointed to my left. I stumbled into the bathroom, leaned my back against the wall, and closed my eyes.

Please let it work this time.

CHAPTER NINE.

Exhaust fumes filled my nostrils, horns honking all around. I opened my eyes and stared at the front b.u.mper of a bright yellow cab.

"What the h.e.l.l!" someone shouted.

I leaped off the road. "Sorry, I ... tripped."

"Idiot! You coulda been killed."

Only in New York City could someone materialize out of thin air and get no more than the usual angry driver reactions.

I raced to the safety of the crowded sidewalk, s.h.i.+elding my eyes from the blazing summer sun. Not easy to get your head around, when you're exhausted and just came from a cool, dark evening.

I leaned against a light post to catch my breath. I could still picture Holly's face as the bullet ripped through her. The image I had just tried so hard to focus on. Obviously, it didn't work. Again.

Suck it up and try again, Jackson.

I finally glanced around and recognized the streets of Manhattan. I knew where I was, just not when. The newsstand outside my building had no customers, so I stepped up to make a purchase, keeping my eyes on the revolving front door that my father almost always used.

The doorman, Henry, glanced in my direction, squinting into the sun. I s.n.a.t.c.hed a Mets cap from the rack and threw it on, pulling the front way down, concealing my face.

"I'll take this hat and The New York Times." I handed the man a slightly damp fifty from my wallet.

"Mets fan, huh? Well, I guess I'll forgive you." He boomed with laughter, and it must have drowned out the footsteps of the other person approaching.

"Wall Street Journal, please," a very familiar voice said beside me.

I turned my back to my father as quickly as possible, then s.h.i.+fted my eyes to the newspaper clutched between my fingers.

July 1, 2004.

How the h.e.l.l did I get so far back again?

All I could do was keep my back to him and head in the other direction.

"Hey, you forgot your change!"

Luckily, Dad didn't run after me. It was safer to take the long way around Central Park before heading to my usual spot. Time travel was kicking my a.s.s and I had to rest. Even though I felt great now, the second I jumped back to 2007, I'd feel like h.e.l.l again. Like I had the plague or swine flu.

A flash of red hair came out from behind a tree. Long skinny legs stuck straight out. My feet moved twice as fast. It was like chasing water in the middle of the desert. Like she would disappear if I didn't get to her quick enough.

"Courtney?" I said, but my voice was constricted.

She kicked off her pink-and-green tennis shoes and leaned back against the tree, a book resting in her lap.

"Courtney!" I said again, much louder this time.

Her head poked around the tree and she squinted into the sun, probably trying to focus on my face. Then she tossed her book onto the gra.s.s and stood up slowly. "Yeah?"

I froze to my spot, staring at her in amazement. She was really here. Alive. But the irony of the situation was gut-wrenching.

My girlfriend, who should be alive, was dead (or dying) in 2009, and my sister, whom I'd already lost once, was sitting in the gra.s.s here in 2004, sunbathing and catching up on the latest Harry Potter book. She wasn't even sick yet.

As she walked closer, this tiny voice hidden in the back of my head spoke a little louder. Adam's voice, running through the pros and cons of me talking to this younger version of my sister. Was this something that would potentially end the world?

At this point, I had lost the ability to think rationally and all I wanted was to grab on to something real and familiar. So I did, probably, the most idiotic thing possible.

With a few long strides, I closed the gap between us and pulled her into a tight hug, squeezing her around the arms, making sure she was actual solid matter. I was absorbed in my special moment when her loud, piercing scream went right into my ear. Then she lifted her leg and kneed me in the b.a.l.l.s, before wiggling out of my grip and backing up slowly.

"Calm down, Courtney," I gasped, putting my hands up in the air. I could tell by the way her eyes darted around, she was about to run. "Please ... don't go. Give me a minute."

Her green eyes were huge orbs. "Just leave me alone. My ... my dad's coming ... any second." She pointed behind me. "Look, there he is!"

Stupid me fell for her trick and I looked over my shoulder. She started to run past me, but I grabbed her around the waist. I needed to tell someone. To make them believe me.

"I promise I'm not going to hurt you," I said, right into her ear. Then I pulled out my wallet and stuck it in front of her face. "Take this. Look through it. I'll let go of you and sit by the tree. Deal?"

Her whole body stiffened, but she didn't fight me. Then I remembered the man called Agent Freeman following us to school in 2003. Was he watching her now? Maybe he was slacking on the job. "I know you have every penny of your allowance from the last three years under your mattress despite the fact that I've told you it'll all burn up in a fire and Dad will never let you buy a motorcycle when you're sixteen, even if you pay for it yourself."

Her breathing hitched for a second, but she didn't say anything. I tried something else, pointing at a nearby tree. "You watched me fall out of that tree and break my arm eight years ago."

I released her and walked slowly backward a few steps before sitting down in the gra.s.s by the tree. She spun around to face me. "Jackson?"

"Yeah," I said. Then I tossed the wallet over to her and watched as she riffled through it, pulling out picture IDs, credit cards, photos.

Her eyes dropped down to the gra.s.s to meet mine again. "Oh, my G.o.d, you're ... big ... and..."

"I can ... time-travel," I managed to sputter out, knowing the reaction it would bring.

To my pleasant surprise, her feet stayed planted even as I lifted myself off the ground. I spent the next thirty minutes explaining exactly how I got here, but I left out some details. Like what happened to Holly and that part about Dad and the mysterious CIA agent. Courtney just stood there, wide-eyed and listening, until I finally stopped talking.

"I fell asleep, didn't I?" she asked.

I smiled for the first time in what seemed like forever. "No, I promise this is real."

She took a step closer, her nose wrinkling as she scrutinized my face. "You ... look like my brother. Just ... older."

I laughed. "I thought you would have taken off running by now."

"I haven't ruled it out," Courtney muttered.

She touched my cheek and patted it gently. "d.a.m.n, it is you. It has to be."

"When's the last time you saw me? The younger one."

"Four days ago. You're supposed to be at baseball camp in Colorado." She reached up to touch the top of my hat and pulled off a tag.

"Dad was at the newspaper stand right next to me. I had to hide my face a little."

"So you can really time-travel?"

I nodded.

We both stared at each other for a minute longer until she finally spoke again. "Aren't you going to explain a little better, like the science part? This is really freaky, you know."

"Right, okay. I'll try my best." Both of us sat down by the tree across from each other. Courtney folded her legs underneath her, looking much calmer than I would have expected. "So, 2009 is my present year, okay?"

"Yeah," Courtney said.