A Rip in Time (Out of Time #7) (31 page)

She looked at him sadly. What could they do? She couldn’t let Vale kill Alfie. She might kill them all anyway, but if there was something, anything Elizabeth could that might save his life, she had to do it.

“It’s all right,” Elizabeth said to Alfie as she raised her hands in front of her and slowly stepped forward.

“Elizabeth,” Simon said in an anguished voice, but she knew he wouldn’t argue with her; couldn’t argue with her.

Elizabeth crossed the final few steps to stand in front of Vale and Alfie. She knelt down. “Go to your brother,” she said with a pleading look to Vale.

Vale released him and he hurried to Freddie’s side.
 

Roderick came up behind Elizabeth and stuffed a kerchief in her mouth, jerking it tight and then tying the ends behind her head. The coarse fabric dug into the corners of her mouth and she gagged.

Simon took a half-step forward, but Vale raised her gun.

Elizabeth looked at Simon, willing him not to move, not to do anything stupid. If they were both alive, they had a chance.

Roderick pulled her arms behind her back so hard that Elizabeth let out a small gasp. He bound her hands so tightly they were already beginning to tingle.

Her heart raged in her chest and her mind whirled. What was Vale doing? Where was she taking her?

She looked at Simon again and forced a small, brave smile to her lips. I’m okay, she tried to tell him, but they both knew it was a lie.

“Inside,” Vale ordered and Roderick shoved Elizabeth up the step and into the carriage before climbing back up to the driver’s seat.

“What do you want?” Simon asked, desperately.

“This,” Vale said and she pulled the trigger.

As the gun went off, Elizabeth screamed and her heart leapt into her throat.
 

Out of the window, Elizabeth could see the bullet had hit Simon in the chest. Shocked, he stumbled back from the blow, but there was no room, nowhere to go. He lost his balance against the balustrade and fell backward off the bridge, and plummeted into the night.

E
LIZABETH
SCREAMED
,
BUT
THE
sound was hoarse and muffled by the gag stuffed into her mouth. She tried to push her way forward out of the cab, but Vale shoved her back and leveled the small double-barrel derringer at her.

“I have one more bullet,” she said.

Elizabeth didn’t care. Simon was dead. What did it matter?
 

And then a little voice inside her head called to her. No, he wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead. He would find a way, she told herself. It’s what they did. She had to believe.
 

The carriage pulled away and Elizabeth moved back in her seat as far as her bound hands would let her. She had to stay alive. She had to stay smart. Simon would need her and she wouldn’t let him down.

Vale smirked. “That’s a good girl.”

She reached into a small doctor’s bag and took out a syringe.
 

Elizabeth cringed back and Vale shook her head.

“Don’t worry. It’s just a little something to calm your nerves.”

Elizabeth doubted that and kicked at Vale, nearly knocking the syringe from her hand. But Vale was stronger than she looked and had the advantage of not being hog-tied. She pinned Elizabeth back into her seat.

Elizabeth felt the sting of the needle piercing her skin and stopped struggling. She tried to say something, but whatever was in the needle was already working on her. Her head began to swim and her eyes droop.

“That’s it,” Elizabeth heard as she started to slip away. “Just close your eyes. It’ll all be over soon.”

~~~

He was cold. So damned cold his mind was numb from it. And tired. All he wanted to do was sleep. To let go and sleep. With Elizabeth.

Elizabeth.

It was deep and dark where he was, but the thought of her pulled him up. Finally, he took a gasping breath and choked on a mouthful of water. He lifted his head and spit out the fetid water.

He was in the river. And, he realized, looking around him, moving downstream quickly. With all the strength left in his body he started to swim. His shoulder screamed in protest and his ribs ached. He vaguely remembered being shot. And falling. And Elizabeth.

He saw the silhouette of the bridge disappearing behind him and the wharves on the shore slipping past. In the distance he could see the construction for the Tower Bridge. How far had he drifted? His mind couldn’t make sense of it. He must have blacked out at some point. It didn’t matter, he told himself. He had to get to shore. He had to get to Elizabeth.

He swam and swam, but the current carried him away. He dug in harder, ignoring the searing pain in his side and shoulder. Slowly, he made progress. It was small, but it was something. He could just make out the muddy shore near the wharves. He swam harder and harder and the world grew darker and darker with every stroke. Until, finally, everything went completely black.

~~~

Elizabeth’s head throbbed and her tongue was thick and coated. She tried to swallow, but couldn’t, her mouth too dry. She opened her eyes and the bright light that shot into them was so painful, she closed them again immediately. More cautious now, she opened them, and the light dulled, but the world around her wasn’t right. It blurred along the edges, every image smeared slightly.

She blinked a few times and tried to focus, but her mind was just as blurry. Vaguely she remembered what had happened. She’d been drugged and—

“Simon,” she said in a coarse voice as she tried to sit up. He’d been shot and she had to get to him. There was still time, there had to be, but she had to hurry.

Part of her body listened to her, but the rest ignored her, and all she could manage to do was roll her head to the side. It ached and she lifted a hand to it, but her arm wouldn’t move.
 

She looked down at it. It stretched out impossibly far along the bed. She was lucid enough to see that she was bound. It wasn’t with the ropes, but leather cuffs attached to a bed.

She rolled her head to the other side and tried to concentrate. The walls and the floor were white tile and the room was empty except for a metal tray and her bed. Was she in the hospital? Why would Vale take her there?

Elizabeth coughed and her head felt like it was going to snap off her neck. She used the pain to focus, to center herself. She was still groggy, but the blurriness was slowly fading.
 

As the fog in her mind began to thin, she realized that her room wasn’t just a room, but a cell. There were iron bars on the one small window and a heavy metal door. The bright light that had assaulted her earlier was a dim gas lamp and it flickered high above her.

She looked again down at her wrist and tried to wriggle it free from its bond, but it was no use and she laid her head back down. A chill ran through her and she realized the layers of clothing she’d been wearing were gone. All she had on now was a thin white cotton shift. Even her feet were bare.

Then she heard a scream. A terrifying, soul-wrenching scream. It echoed down the hallway. Another, lower in pitch, followed and then another and another, like a pack of animals calling out, a chorus of screams came.

Elizabeth closed her eyes. She tried to shut them out, but they kept on. Kept on screaming.

Finally, she heard someone yell. A deep, male voice, and the cries stopped. And she shivered in the silence.

A few moments later, she heard metal on metal, a key going into a lock. She lifted her head and watched the door open. Katherine Vale stepped inside.

A familiar, stout man wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard walked in with her and closed the heavy door to a long corridor behind him. Blackwood. Elizabeth’s shock turned to horror and she knew. She knew she wasn’t in just any hospital.

She was in Bedlam.

S
IMON
SLOWLY
OPENED
HIS
eyes. The world around him was murky and he was so cold, so tired, so willing to close his eyes again and embrace the peace that the nothingness offered.

“Please, sir,” a small voice said and it tugged Simon back up through the haze.

A small, dirty face looked down at him with big round eyes. A boy. He knew his name, but couldn’t find it. His mind was swampy and slow.

But one constant, one solid thing remained—Elizabeth.

Simon tried to sit up, but the boy protested.

“You should stay down,” he said.

Simon shook his head and instantly regretted it. The world swirled around him and he nearly collapsed back onto the ground. The hard ground.

Just a moment to rest, he thought. He needed a moment.

Slowly, he lay back down and turned his head. The river rolled past. Small boats and large floated along the surface like thoughts he could not grasp. And the darkness came again.

 
When consciousness came the second time, Simon’s mind was sharper, but his body ached even more.

Alfie, that was the boy’s name, looked down at him with big, worried eyes.

“I thought you was dead,” he said.

“Not yet,” Simon said, and then coughed. More river water worked its way up and he turned his head to spit it out. The sun was just beginning to rise.

“What time is it?”
 

The boy shrugged.
 

Simon had to get to Elizabeth. Vale had taken her God only knew where. He swallowed down the urge to vomit and slowly sat up.

Every part of his body ached. His head throbbed, his shoulder was stiff, and his ribs protested every breath he took. He tried to stand, but his head spun. He had to get moving, had to start looking, but his body was not ready to move quite yet.

“Where are we?” he asked looking around.

Alfie looked up from the muddy shore toward the wharf above them that was busy with men loading and unloading. “Stanton’s.”

One of the men looked down at them as he and another lifted a heavy crate. But he turned away and continued with his work. Perhaps a near dead man on the shore was a common occurrence here.
 

“How did I—”

“Me brother and I fished ya out,” Alfie said with profound pride. “Biggest thing I ever caught.”

He owed his life to them. “Thank you,” he said, knowing it was poor payment for what they’d done. How the two small boys had managed to get him to shore, he couldn’t imagine.

“Where’s your brother?”

“He’s gone to look for your friend. He’s been gone hours,” Alfie said, sounding worried.

“My friend? Do you mean my wife?”

“I think he means me,” Victor said as he appeared on the muddy shore, young Freddie running along side.

Simon hated to admit it, but he was very glad to see Victor. He needed the man’s help. Now.

“Elizabeth—” Simon started.

Victor nodded. “Freddie told me what happened.” He looked down at Simon. “He said you were shot.”

Simon frowned. He’d almost forgotten about that. “I was,” he said and then looked down at his chest, expecting to see blood.

He patted his chest with his hand and felt the hole in his jacket and something beneath it.

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his journal. Embedded in the pages, mushroomed from the impact was a small caliber bullet. Beneath it, the ink smeared but still legible were the words he’d written a lifetime ago:
She loves me
.

He felt a lump form in his throat and swallowed it down.

Victor shook his head in disbelief. “You have an angel on your shoulder, Cross.”

“Let’s hope he’s got one more miracle in him,” Simon said.

“Can you stand?”

Simon wasn’t sure, but nodded. With Victor’s help he managed it. He looked up into the sky, squinting against the light. It had to be past noon.
 

“Do you know where she is?”

“Roderick was there,” Simon said.

“Blackwood’s man?”

Simon nodded.

“What’s Blackwood’s connection? Do you know where he lives?” Victor said.

Simon straightened his back and took a deep breath. Pain shot through him and he grunted, but he could deal with it. He would have to.

Victor sensed that he was testing himself, testing his body.

“You are in no condition to do this. Tell me where to go.”

Simon looked at him, one man to another. “If it were your wife…”

Victor looked like he was about to argue, but closed his mouth. Instead he shook his head. “All right. But we only have a few hours.”

Simon frowned, confused. “A few hours?”

He looked around and realized that it had gotten darker, not lighter. The sun he’d seen rising had actually been setting. He’d lost nearly an entire day.

“It all happens tonight. We cannot afford to miss it. It will be Vale’s best opportunity to kill Graham. And that must not happen, no matter the cost.”

And that cost would be Elizabeth’s life. “You do what you have to,” Simon said, willing to risk the fate of the world. “I’m going to find my wife.”

~~~

“What’s going on?”
 

That’s what Elizabeth had intended on saying, had tried to say, but all that had come out was mumbled gibberish. She tried again, but her mouth wouldn’t form the words.

“Here’s our patient,” Vale said as she smiled down at Elizabeth.

Blackwood looked up from his chart and arched an eyebrow. “Your cousin?”

Vale shrugged. “As good as any lie.”
 

She looked back at Elizabeth with mock pity. “Poor woman is lost to us. Simply gone mad. And you, Doctor,” she added turning back to Blackwood, “are our only hope.”

Blackwood’s eyes narrowed. “We’re moving too quickly. Drawing too much attention—”

Moving where? Elizabeth thought.

“We have an agreement, Doctor,” Vale said coolly and then smiled sweetly. “You have a problem that I can solve and I have one you can solve. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“You’re blackmailing me,” he said.

She shrugged again. “Incentive for you to hold up your end of the bargain. I will take care of Miss Stride, and you will take care of her.”