Tempest. Part 42

"The other you. 007 Holly."

"Oh, of course. Makes perfect sense ... Did I even like you in 2007?" she asked.

"No, then yes, then no again, then yes again."

"So it's just like this year?" she teased.

"I guess it's possible we were just looking at that Holly, but older maybe," I said, still not believing it.

"I'm trying not to think about what we just saw, but I have a feeling therapy is in my near future," she said.

I realized then that we had reached the top, near the flat part of the roof. Holly had creatively distracted me from the height thing.

"Do you think that evil dude is still up here?" she asked.

"I guess we're gonna find out." Right now my anger overpowered fear and I wanted to seriously kick Thomas's a.s.s.

We climbed over the edge and Thomas was still there. His head snapped in our direction and a grin spread across his face.

"Maybe we should jump off the roof again," Holly said from behind me.

I shook my head. "He's not going to touch you. I promise."

"Amazing! Your abilities exceed ninety-nine percent of the other time travelers," he said.

There was no sarcasm or anger on his face, just pure amazement. Didn't mean he wouldn't kill us.

My fists balled up as I approached him. "I thought you people didn't believe in careless murder. What if I hadn't been able to jump?"

"Yes. The poor girl. But she's disposable. She'll always be disposable," Thomas stated in a flat tone.

I ground my teeth together and forced myself to focus. The only thing I really wanted to do was toss this freak off the roof and watch his bones break into a million pieces.

Holly gasped as Thomas drew a pistol and pointed it at us.

"I think it's too risky for me to let you go anywhere alone. Maybe people like you are the real danger," I said.

Thomas stared at my face like a curious child eying someone in a wheelchair. Emotions were crippling. That's what he had to be thinking.

I easily knocked the gun from his hand before he could even react. Adrenaline rushed through my veins after hearing the sound of the weapon hit the hard floor of the rooftop and slide out of reach.

From the corner of my eye, I watched Holly dive behind the pole she had been pressed against earlier.

I grasped the front of his shirt. "You're not going anywhere without me. Go ahead and try if you want."

His forearm made contact with my face and I felt a wave of pain rush through me. His fist made a quick jab into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. The second I doubled over, he was free again. Free to jump to the future and figure out his next move. I sprang forward and wrapped my arms around his legs. It should have thrown him face-first into the ground, but he twisted midair and ended up right back on his feet.

My fingers barely held his wrist. I just had to keep holding on to him, so he couldn't go without me. I used all my strength to pull on his arm and get him down on the roof in a hold tight enough to keep him from getting out.

I had him pinned to the roof and was staring right at his face, but I had no clue what to do next. Reach for the gun and shoot him? I wasn't sure I could ... but the image of Holly being flung off the roof played in my mind again and my fingers were already reaching for his weapon.

"Fine, we'll do this your way," he said with a devious grin. "Hope you don't mind the intensity my kind of jumping can bring on. Your head will feel like it's ready to explode, so much that you'll wish you were dead."

"Jackson, just let go of him ... please," Holly said from behind me.

I shook my head at her and stared down at Thomas again. "I'm not letting go."

In one swift motion, he head-b.u.t.ted me. I squeezed my eyes shut as my vision blurred. My fingers loosened from him and he lifted his leg enough to kick me hard in the stomach. Holly screamed as I flew back and hit my head against the metal pole.

Thomas leaned over me and grasped the front of my shirt. "You asked for it," he said.

I winced, preparing for the pain he had described so vividly.

The confidence in his face faded. "What are you ... doing?"

Me? I wasn't doing anything but waiting for intense pain.

His fingers tightened around my shirt, but he closed his eyes and his whole face scrunched up. It was at that moment that something occurred to me: maybe he couldn't do it if I didn't want him to ... or if I wanted to be here, now?

I only hesitated for a second before mustering up every ounce of energy to get him down on the roof again.

He let out a cry of pain even though I wasn't doing anything but pinning him down.

I sat right on top of him as he lay on his side, gasping for air. The barrel of the gun was now pressed to his temple.

"Wait! Don't shoot," he said with a strained voice.

I pushed the gun harder into his skin, feeling my anger thicken. "Why shouldn't I?"

Dad burst through the roof-access door, breathless. "Jackson, thank G.o.d!"

I turned my head for a split second and Thomas reached up and yanked out a chunk of my hair. I jerked away from his hand. "Seriously? I have a gun to your head and you pull my hair?"

"This is plan B." A slow, careful grin spread across his face as I stared at the chunk of brown hair in his fingers.

f.u.c.k. DNA.

Dad's footsteps barely distracted me from piecing together a load of clues acquired in the last twenty-four hours.

"Jackson, get up. I'll do this," Dad said.

"You know, don't you?" Thomas said to me, lifting one eyebrow.

"Jackson! Get up!" Dad said again.

But all I could do was stare at my hair in this horrible man's fist. They weren't trying to make me. They wanted to make something completely different. Something even better. Everything they could ever want.

Emily.

Sweat trickled from my palm to my index finger, causing it to slide a little on the trigger. I couldn't kill him. He couldn't die. Or she wouldn't exist. Emily's words came back to me then.

Trust yourself to make the right choice. It's not as hard as it seems.

And I knew then that I had already made the decision because she had come to me. She existed. Whether it was right or wrong, I could never erase that child or prevent her life from forming.

I stood up from my seat on top of Thomas, but stepped hard on his stomach in the process, feeling a small amount of satisfaction from his loud groan. Dad looked at me questioningly as I stood in front of him, blocking his shot.

He didn't get a chance to ask me anything because Raymond, the shoe-print guy who had killed Eileen, appeared on the ledge right behind him, gun pointed at his back.

"Dad! Look out!" I dove forward and knocked Dad to the side just as the man on the ledge fired. I barely felt the sting as the bullet hit my arm. I watched the man fall from the ledge after getting hit with Dad's perfectly aimed shot. Seconds later, the thud of Raymond's body slamming into the ground reached us through the rain.

Dad immediately spun around, looking for Thomas, who now stood on the ledge like the other man had.

"We'll see each other again, Jackson."

Then, just like that, Thomas turned and jumped, milliseconds before Dad took another shot. No thud followed his jump and I knew he had vanished long before his body hit the ground. He was free of my hold and his powers were intact again.

Dad swore under his breath, then rushed over to me, forcing me to sit. "d.a.m.n it, Jackson! Do you ever listen to me?"

I smiled a little and leaned my head against the wall. "At least we got three of them. Progress is progress, right?"

Holly crawled out from her hiding place and ran over to us. "Oh, my G.o.d ... Someone shot you!"

She dropped in front of me and started unb.u.t.toning my shirt.

"He'll be fine. I promise," Dad said.

"Who shot the blond chick from the ground?" I asked Dad.

"Agent Freeman."

"He got away, didn't he?" Holly asked while gently pulling my arm out of my sleeve. "The evil dude?"

I nodded and closed my eyes as the stabbing pain ran down my arm. I rested my good hand against Holly's cheek. Her eyes met mine and I impulsively whispered, "I'm sorry, Hol ... I'm so sorry. This never should have-"

Her fingertips touched my lips and she shook her head. "Stop ... you do not get to apologize for saving my life. That's completely twisted. I still don't know how the h.e.l.l you did that roof-jumping, time-jumping thing..."

She choked up a little at the end of her sarcastic response and then leaned closer and rested her cheek against mine.

I kissed the side of her neck and said, "Amor vincit omnia."

"Latin?" Holly asked, touching her forehead to mine. "What does it mean?"

"Love conquers all," Dad answered as he pressed a torn piece of my shirt against the bleeding wound.

Holly brushed her mouth across my forehead. "I can definitely live with that."

A few minutes later, Adam and Melvin came bursting through the roof door.

Another sigh of relief. But part of me knew Dad never would have let anything happen to Adam, not on his watch. Holly jumped up and hugged him.

He grabbed her shoulders. "Why did I see you jumping off the roof? Do you realize I actually went into cardiac arrest?"

She leaned against him and I could tell the day had caught up to her, and she looked like she might pa.s.s out. Adam set her down on the roof next to me and she curled up against my good side, shivering like it was twenty degrees outside instead of eighty.

Melvin turned his eyes on me, speaking quickly in Farsi. "You jumped with her?"

"You saw?" I asked, glancing at Dr. Melvin, then at Dad. They both nodded. "I didn't even know that was possible."

"We call it Displacement." Melvin leaned closer, and the intensity on his face scared me. "Listen to me. Yes, you can take someone, if you're skilled enough. But the part of the brain you use to jump isn't even accessible to a normal person. If you jumped with her again, right now, there's an eighty percent chance it would kill her. A third jump after that would have a hundred percent chance of death."

I swallowed hard, wishing I had known, but knowing it wouldn't have changed what I had done. I still would have tried to save her, no matter what.

I heard the sound of a helicopter coming closer. I closed my eyes to keep the dirt from flying into them as the wind churned everything into the air. I forced myself to think only of the little girl whose eyes were bright with tears as she left me on the beach. Whatever she was heading back to wasn't pleasant and somehow I needed to help her. Though I had no idea when we would meet again. Sometime in the future. That's the only clue I had.

Dad lifted Holly up and waited for me to climb in before helping her inside. Adam helped him buckle Holly into the seat next to me. Her eyes opened again and she sat up ... alert from the loud noise of the helicopter. I leaned back against the seat, trying to keep my mind off the pain. Holly's hand slipped into mine, her head resting against my good arm.

As soon as we were in the air, I looked down at the hotel. One entire side had collapsed while I had been time jumping and climbing the roof. Emergency vehicles were everywhere.

A man in a paramedic uniform had an IV in my wrist quicker than I thought possible, considering the sharp turns the helicopter took. Whatever he put into my arm dissolved the pain and a hazy fog took over my brain. But just before I nodded off, Thomas's words played in my mind again: "She's disposable. She'll always be disposable."

Holly would never be safe. Not as long as she knew me. And the pain came roaring back, but it was a different kind of pain. The worst kind.

"You were pretty lucky. This is one of the cleanest gunshot wounds I've seen," the resident st.i.tching me up said for, like, the tenth time.

"Yep."

"Will he need a sling?" Dad asked.

"Yeah, probably for a few days," the man said. "But we'll have you out of here in less than an hour."

"What time is it?" I asked Dad.

We had been here all night, except I was knocked out and Holly and Adam had been returned safely home.

He shifted in the chair he sat in beside me and looked at his watch. "Eight o'clock. I promised Holly you would call her as soon as you woke up."

I nodded slowly, feeling the worry and fear sink back in. I waited for the doctor to finish st.i.tching and putting on a bandage before answering Dad. "I don't ... know if I should."

Dad stood and peeked around the curtain, watching the doctor shuffle down the hall away from us. He sat on the end of the bed and spoke in a low voice. "Did he threaten to hurt her? Thomas?"

"Not exactly, but I know he'll do whatever he needs to in order to get to me." I hadn't told Dad about my DNA theory and I didn't plan to tell anyone. Not just because Emily said not to. The CIA would try to stop this experiment from happening and I had already sacrificed so much just to let it happen. I allowed Thomas to escape. Probably for all the wrong reasons. But I wasn't like Chief Marshall. I couldn't always look at the bigger picture, not when I had seen the little pieces.

"We can double the protection we have now-"

Dad stopped talking when I shook my head. "It won't be enough. You've seen how they just appear and vanish. We can't fight that off. Not forever."