Timepiece, Page 3

  It didn’t happen in slow motion, more like stop motion. I felt no fear or anxiety coming from Poe at all, just a dark resolve as he lunged, knife pointed directly at me.

  Emerson jumped forward to block him. Before I could react, he grabbed her upper arm and jerked her into the veil.

  The same one Jack Landers had used.

  Em kicked to find leverage so she could do damage, but Poe was holding her off the ground. She growled with the effort, her fury hot. I kept my eyes on the knife. “Let her go.”

  When he shook his head, I launched myself at the veil.

  And slammed against what felt like a rock wall.

  I hit the ground, landing on my back, disoriented, my ribs screaming in protest. Something that looked like water shouldn’t be so solid. I tried again, putting my shoulder into the attempt this time. Still no give.

  There was only one way for Poe to get into the veil. He was a traveler.

  I pushed at the veil with my palms, hoping against hope that it would somehow give way. “You can’t travel with her. You don’t have what you need.”

  “Who says I’m a traveler?” His voice sounded slightly muffled.

  I pulled my head back. What the hell? “How did you get through the veil?”

  He shrugged and smiled.

  “Let her go,” I repeated through clenched teeth, punching the veil with each word. “And I’ll deliver whatever you want.”

  Keeping his eyes on me, he lowered Em enough that her tiptoes touched the ground. He kept one arm around her neck, the knife pointed toward her chin. Her fury cooled as fear started to set in. “The Hourglass has made some very poor choices.”

  “People make poor choices every day,” I said, throwing his words back.

  “People like Emerson. Michael. Your father. Jack.”

  “We aren’t responsible for what Jack did.”

  “Your father is.” Still the monotone voice.

  “My dad wasn’t alive when Jack betrayed us,” I argued, his lack of reaction sparking a bigger one from me. “Because Jack killed him.”

  “But he was alive when Emerson went back to save Michael. Jack didn’t throw the continuum off by himself.”

  “She was tricked.” I dug at the veil with my fingers, but it remained as unyielding as stone. “Cat purposely misled her. Em didn’t know what she was doing when she went back to rescue Michael. Dad didn’t know she was …”

  The words died on my lips. All of Em’s anger was gone, and she was pulling frantically at Poe’s forearm.

  He was cutting off her air supply.

  “Time,” Poe said, “the natural order of things, is not something you can alter. I believe Emerson knew that there would be consequences.” The tip of the knife touched Em’s throat, just under her ear. An ominous prickle slid down my spine. “The pattern woven into the fabric of time is changing, and we know exactly where to place the blame.”

  “It’s not her fault. We can fix it.” I kept talking, not fully aware of what I was saying, unsure of whose fear was the strongest, mine or Em’s. Hyperfocusing on the point of the knife and the fact that Em couldn’t breathe. “The Hourglass will fix it.”

  “The Hourglass can’t fix it.”

  My hands formed fists as I spoke through clenched teeth. “We can try.”

  Em gasped for air, digging her fingernails into Poe’s flesh. Now there was no emotion coming from her. There was nothing coming from her at all.

  “No,” Poe said, entirely too self-satisfied. “You can’t fix anything.”

  He moved so slowly, so deliberately, that if he’d been outside the veil, I’d have had him pinned to the ground with my elbow in his throat in less than a second. But he was inside, with Em, and he knew he could take his time.

  He met my eyes, smiling, and executed one swift slice with his blade.

  Across Em’s throat.

  Everything went quiet.

  Chapter 4

  Blood seeped into the neckline of Em’s white sweater before spreading like the ocean across the sand, darkening everything it touched. Even though Poe held her up, she listed to the left, her feet dangling like a small child’s. Red liquid pooled in the hollow above her collarbone.

  “No!” The scream came from my very center, tensing all my muscles, making me shake. I attacked the veil with a vengeance, pounding my fists against it so hard I could feel the blood vessels bursting. “Emerson! Emerson!”

  Poe didn’t watch me, he observed me, as if I were an animal in a cage. His expressionless calm was as unnatural as a walking corpse. Then he dropped her to the ground and carelessly dusted off his hands.

  Grief and rage scrambled for purchase in my chest. Neither won. I tried to scream Emerson’s name again, but it caught in my throat, choking me. I kicked the veil repeatedly, over and over, until I hit the ground on my knees.

  She lay unmoving at Poe’s feet, blood pouring from her throat. Her eyes were open, but empty.

  Tiny. Helpless.

  Gone.

  “You need to deliver a message to your father.” Poe’s expression was blank. He reminded me of a robot, programmed for a specific task and nothing else. “Find Jack Landers.”

  “Come out here. Come out here and bring her with you.” I held my fists down by my sides, speaking through my teeth but still trying to sound calm. I thought about his knife, and how I would get it away from him. Then gut him. I wanted to see his blood spilled, along with everything inside him. I wanted to grind his heart into the floor with my heel.

  “If Jack is found, there’s a chance that everything that’s happened can be repaired. Then the Hourglass can choose the time line on which it would like to continue. If the request is refused, or not met, time will be rewound.”

  In. Out. In. Out. I had to breathe. I had to make Poe think I wasn’t a threat so he’d come out of that veil. He had to come out of the veil so I could destroy him. “I don’t understand.”

  “Time will be rewound, and your time line will be chosen for you.” Poe looked at me as if I were dense before he continued, speaking slowly. “There’s only one way to clean up the mess the Hourglass has made without consequences.”

  “There are already consequences.” The flow of blood from Em’s neck was starting to slow. It just touched the edge of Poe’s shoe. He’d track her blood out of this restaurant and down the streets of Ivy Springs if he walked away.

  But he wouldn’t be walking away.

  “There’s a great possibility the continuum can be repaired without consequences to your personal time lines, and there are several time lines from which you can choose. The one where your father is a pile of ash or the one where he’s restored. Same goes for Michael. And Emerson could be in a mental hospital, or she could be part of the Hourglass.” It was as if he were ticking off something as unimportant as a grocery list. “You choose, or we will.”

  “Why bother mentioning Em’s time line as a threat? She’s dead.” And you’re next.

  “Is she?”

  Poe extended his arms, still holding the blade.

  The blood went from dark and dry to shiny and wet.

  Em rose from the ground in backward motion, returning to Poe’s arms. The stain on her sweater faded from the bottom up, the pool of blood in her collarbone disappeared, but the life was still absent from her eyes.

  Poe stopped then, staring at me. “You’ll pass on my message?”

  “Yes.” My voice was a pleading whisper. “Please, yes.”

  Slowly, so slowly, the knife made a return path across Emerson’s neck. The blood disappeared completely, and her hands once again pulled at Poe’s arm.

  I froze, afraid to move. Afraid Poe would kill her again.

  “You have till October thirty-first. Midnight.”

  Poe lowered Em to her feet and smiled.

  I shook with the desire to jump him and peel his face off. When they stepped out of the veil, I snatched her away and pulled her to my side. Her skin felt cold.

  “Oh, and one
more thing. Anything taken can be returned. Anything given can be destroyed,” Poe said, still smiling, walking backward to the exit. “Teague said your dad would understand.”

  With that, he turned on his heel and left the Phone Company.

  Em shook her head, looking confused. “What just …”

  I grabbed her and squeezed her so tightly that now I was the one cutting off her air supply. She smacked at my arms, and I loosened my hold.

  “Kaleb?” Her voice was muffled, her breath warm through the thin cotton of my pirate costume.

  The shirt had seen entirely too much action, and not the good kind. When I got home, I was going to burn it.

  “You’re okay?” A flood of relief replaced the anger in my blood as I released her, looking her over from head to toe. “You feel okay?”

  “I don’t remember what happened, exactly. I thought … I thought Poe was going to stab you, so I jumped in front of you—”

  I wanted to hand in my man card and cry. “Which was insanely stupid.”

  “Protective instinct?”

  “You, protecting me.” I cupped her face in my hands, knowing she wasn’t mine to touch, but unable to stop. “Insanely stupid.”

  She shivered, and when she spoke, her voice shook a little. “I’d call you a sexist pig, but I’m feeling off my game.”

  “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “But you didn’t.” Reaching up to entwine our fingers, she pulled our hands away from her face. “Anyway, he pulled me into the veil, and then things got …”

  “Em? Are you okay?”

  She grabbed the hem of her sweater and pulled it out in front of her, her eyes searching for something that was no longer there. Then her hands flew to her neck. “He cut me … he slit my throat.”

  “To make a point.”

  She sank into a chair. “Which was?”

  “We have to find Jack.”

  Her mouth dropped open and the waves of her confusion and outrage swept over me. Before she could say anything else, the front doors slammed open.

  Concern, then a split second later, fear so fierce it made my teeth ache. Michael.

  “Are you two all right? Someone said a guy with a knife just walked out the back … what’s wrong?” Michael crossed the room in two heartbeats before landing on his knees in front of Em, gathering her hands into his. “What happened?”

  Em looked up at me, and then at my dad, who’d followed Michael in. “I think … you’ll have to get the details from Kaleb. I was kind of busy. Being dead.”

  Chapter 5

  “Damn.” The morning sun flooding my father’s office temporarily blinded me. I pulled my baseball cap down over my eyes.

  For my own safety, I waited for my vision to return before I walked any farther. The office had definitely become messier since Dad returned from the dead. Without my mother to clear them away, coffee mugs littered the top of his huge desk, and a stack of newspapers in the corner grew taller by the day.

  “You’re late.” Em’s voice sounded hoarse, either with tears or with sleep. She and Michael sat hip to hip on the love seat.

  “Didn’t realize it was a party.” I rubbed my eyes to pull the room into focus. Dune occupied the wingback chair in the corner, while Nate sat on the floor. I noticed the fresh neon green streak in his black hair when I dropped down beside him.

  “We used our time wisely.” Dad leaned his head from side to side, stretching the muscles in his neck. Tense already. “Everyone knows about Jack’s appearance last night. And Poe’s, as well as his ultimatum.”

  That explained the fear and uncertainty I could feel pulsing around the room. There was no anger from Michael or Em for having to wait until this morning to get details. That was all me. But something was off with Em.

  “Poe mentioned someone named Teague last night. Who is that?” I asked. Might as well get things started.

  “Teague,” Dad said, and was quiet for a minute, as if he were shuffling through mental files for information. “She used to be the head of the parapsychology department at Bennett University before it was dismantled,” Dad explained. “Her unconventional ideas stripped the credibility of some very sound research and led to a major loss of funding for the department. Once the money was gone, so was she, along with several staff members who chose to leave.”

  Everything from melancholy to fear jumbled up inside him. The past mixed with the present, too tangled for me to sort out.

  “Wait a second.” Nate switched positions on the floor beside me so fast it made my head hurt, and his mind moved as quickly as his body did. “You said that the staff chose to leave. If staying at the school was one choice, what was the other?”

  “Joining Teague.” Dad’s lips pressed together in a grim line.

  “Where? What makes her powerful enough to send an assassin and demand—” I stopped. I already knew the answer.

  So did Em.

  “She’s part of the consequence Cat warned me about before I went back to save Michael.” Em slumped back hard on the sofa. Dust flew two feet in the air. “Teague must be part of the Powers That Be.”

  “The Powers That Be.” Dad nodded. “Chronos.”

  Dune placed his elbows on his knees, and one of his dark brown dreads escaped the leather tie, swinging into his eyes. He ignored it. “I thought Chronos was a myth.”

  “That’s what they want you to think.” Dad’s voice was grim and layered in what felt like years of frustration.

  Dune’s focus drifted toward Dad’s bookcase and his hourglass collection. They were the only things on the shelves that weren’t dusty.

  “I didn’t follow Teague,” Dad explained, his expression resigned. “I’d begun researching the time gene, and I was ready to start the Hourglass. Cameron College offered me a position, and Cat and Jack followed me to Ivy Springs. It was past time to get out. She wasn’t completely certain how it worked, but Teague knew about my ability and Cat’s, as well as Grace’s.”

  My stomach took a dive at the sound of my mother’s name.

  “Why does Teague want Jack now? How can he repair the damage he … we did to the continuum?” Em focused on a spot on the floor. Pain. Sadness. But not one hint of regret. Michael took her hand.

  “Poe didn’t say that Jack could repair the continuum.” I nudged Em’s knee with my elbow. “He said if we found Jack, there was a possibility the continuum could be repaired. You were kind of … out of pocket for that part.”

  “Oh yeah. I was on the ground bleeding to death.” Em laughed halfheartedly.

  No one else did.

  “Can Jack fix the continuum?” I asked.

  Dad put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the bookcase. He was hiding so much. I could feel it, but I couldn’t explain any of it. “I don’t think that’s why Teague wants him.”

  “Why, then?” Em asked.

  “That’s not for you kids to worry about.” He was protecting us. He was also terrified. After pausing for a moment, he seemed to make a decision. “I’ve already said too much. The message from Teague was for me, not all of you.”

  “What? That can’t be it. We still have questions.” I pulled myself to my feet, angry. “You have to let us help you.”

  “No, I don’t.” Dad shrugged with an air of finality, and then stepped forward to shuffle papers on his desk.

  “Yes, you do.” I spoke firmly, enunciating, letting Dad know that I didn’t plan on backing down. “Everyone in this room was part of the plan to bring you back. If that doesn’t give us full rights as Hourglass members, then something is way wrong.”

  “I have the help I need.” Dad’s words didn’t give the answer away, but Michael’s emotions did. I spun around to face him.

  I shook my head in disgust. “Why doesn’t somebody just make you a freaking superhero cape?”

  Michael’s expression didn’t change.

  “Son. Michael’s an adult, and he’s capable of making his own decisions.”

  “He’s
nineteen.”

  “I refuse to put anyone else in jeopardy, especially if they’re underage. What happened last year almost ruined us.”

  “Oh, what, you mean how enrollment at school dropped after you blew up in your lab?” I laughed bitterly. “Or when it dropped after you came back from the dead? I can see why you’d jump to Michael for help, considering what an ‘adult’ handle he had on that situation.”

  “All of this falls squarely on me,” Em spoke up. “Jack compromised the continuum because he wanted my ability to travel to the past. It’s not right for me to sit safely and act like I’m not responsible.”

  “Jack didn’t kill me because of you, Emerson,” Dad assured her. “He wanted the Hourglass, and after that was his, he got greedy. He tried to use you as a tool for some grander scheme to change something in his past.”

  “Please, Liam.” Em scooted to the edge of the couch and leaned forward, staring until Dad met her eyes. “I want to be a tool for the right reasons. Let me help.”

  “Michael and I can handle it,” Dad insisted, his eyes shuttering any emotion. “I only wanted to catch you all up to speed. Oh, but I do need one thing. Someone to tell Ava that Jack is back.”

  Everyone looked at me.

  Chapter 6

  I didn’t believe in delaying unpleasant tasks. I went straight from Dad’s office to the stone gatehouse on our property and knocked.

  “We have to talk,” I said, when Ava answered.

  She tried to slam the door in my face.

  I stuck out my foot to block it, glad I was wearing boots. It bounced off and swung open. “I’m serious.”

  “I’m serious, too. I don’t want to deal with you today.” Ignoring me, she went to the couch and picked up the television remote. When she pressed a button, a scene from nineteenth-century England disappeared from the TV screen. “Besides, there’s nothing we need to discuss.”

  She wore a tank top, and I could see every detail of her shoulders and collarbones beneath the tiny straps. Too skinny to begin with, she was starting to resemble those runway models who ate cotton instead of real food because it was chewy and calorie free.