Time's Divide (The Chronos Files Book 3) (26 page)

“And you expect me to just trust that you’ll release them?”

“You don’t have any choice, Kate. And hell, I’m a nice guy. Give me what I want, and maybe I’ll even protect all of you from our little . . . event . . . that’s coming up. And the aftermath. I’ve looked ahead, and it’s going to be
interesting
for a few years.”

So he knows we know about the Culling.

But he doesn’t know we have a vaccine. Not if he’s offering to give it to us
.
One tiny island of good news in a sea of catastrophe.

“Why would you give us protection?”

“Who said anything about
giving
it to you? Consider it a trade. The flock is going to freak a bit while things are . . . leveling out. I need a spare Sister Pru to help them stay calm. The one I’ve got isn’t very reliable. You help me, and we’ll find a nice safe spot for the fam. Maybe even the boyfriend, although he’s got a little payback coming for this scar on my forehead.” Simon runs one finger across the spot where Trey whacked him with a tire iron in the previous timeline.

And this is how I end up in Rio.

Simon knows I won’t just walk away—not when he has Mom. Not when he has Katherine. Not when he’s threatening everyone I care about.

I won’t simply offer up the keys. There’s too much at stake. But what if we can’t stop him? If we’re stuck with a world where Cyrists call the shots, I’ll do anything I can to keep those I love alive and safe within that nightmare.

“If I agree to this, you’ll bring both of them to the same place. I give you the keys, I come with you, and you let Mom and Katherine go.”

“Sounds fair.”

“Where?”

Simon looks confused, so I repeat it, spitting the word at the camera as another wave of coughing hits me.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll find you. But . . . Katie, you really might want to take care of that fire. Looks like it could get out of hand.”

The monitor goes dark.

Simon’s last words are an understatement. The carpet near the books is once again ablaze, and Connor is only a few feet away. The fire extinguisher near his head is empty. Wrenching the other one out of his hand, I point the nozzle toward the carpet near the burning books. It blasts for a few seconds, and then it’s empty. Hopefully the fire department will arrive soon, because there’s no way I can get Connor downstairs on my own.

I can, however, get him out of this room. I’m just grabbing his feet when I hear, “Katherine! Connor!”

My voice comes from the other side of the house, followed by the fire alarm in the hallway, and I remember no one has actually
called
the fire department yet.

I look at the gadgets in this room and beyond them at myself in the hallway. Was calling the fire department a good idea? The jeans in my sink are covered in the blood of a woman the police will soon find murdered in her office. And how would we explain this library? The odd contraptions? Or the information on the computers they’re likely to find if this is treated as arson, which I suspect it will be.

“Oh my God! What happened, girl? Where are Connor and Katherine?” I watch the earlier version of me run downstairs and get a queasy feeling totally unrelated to the smoke.

Because I’m about to do what Katherine told me to avoid at all costs.

I drag Connor to the doorway and run to the banister. Earlier-Kate is almost to the kitchen. Daphne’s in her arms, looking pathetic, and my mind suddenly connects her injured leg to Simon’s bandage and the rips in his jersey.

Good girl, Daph.

“Kate! Don’t call 911! And don’t . . . turn around.” I should have said the last part first, although I’m not sure it would have mattered. The double memory starts coming in, coupled with the strangest sensation, sort of like a feedback loop.

Pulling my eyes away from the me below, I say, “Get Daphne outside! Don’t call 911. When you’re done, get up here and keep pulling Connor toward the stairs. Simon has Katherine. He also has Mom. I’m going to get help.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket—
the phone she’s also holding right now
—and call Dad.

“Hey, sweetie, what’s up?” R.E.M.’s “We Walk” is in the background, the song Dad always sang to me as a kid when he was trying to lure me up the stairs and into bed
.

“Dad, turn around and go back to Grandma Keller’s house, okay? Stay there until I call.”

The music clicks off. “What’s happened?”

“They’ve got Mom. Katherine, too. Julia—with the Fifth Column group I mentioned?—she’s been killed. And someone’s set fire to Katherine’s library. I’ve called the fire department . . .”

Which is true, although I’ve just uncalled them, so I guess it’s also a lie.

“You won’t be safe here, Dad. I’ve got less than six days to fix this. I just need to know you’re
safe
.”

“I understand.”

I breathe a big sigh of relief, followed immediately by a coughing fit, because any deep breath right now means a lungful of smoke.

“Get out of there, Katie.”

“I will. Love you.”

Earlier-Me is standing in the kitchen doorway looking up at This-Me. It hurts to look at her, so I pull my eyes away. But then I realize she’s holding a fire extinguisher.

“Where did you get that?”

“On the patio. By the grill?”

How did I miss it the first time? Maybe I was looking down at the phone?

“I’m going for help. See what you can do while I’m gone.”

Will she still be here when I get back?

I have no idea. It’s killing my head to even think about it.

N
EAR
D
AMASCUS
, M
ARYLAND

September 12, 10:48 a.m.

“—you could take Estella and go back to Punta Cana? Or down to—”

Trey takes one look at me and says, “I’ll call you back, Dad.”

“Simon has Katherine. And Mom. I need fire extinguishers. The biggest you can find.”

Trey nods, cranks the car, and is already halfway out of the parking lot when I blink to Kiernan’s cabin.

B
OGART
, G
EORGIA

December 11, 1912, 11:03 a.m.

“I spent the past six months hiding out here in the cabin, trying to store up enough . . . I don’t know . . . jump juice, whatever the hell you want to call it, so that I can make the trip to 2305. And now we have a side trip because of a fire? Who set it?”

“Uh . . . Simon?” It seems pretty obvious to me, so I’m not sure why Kiernan even asked. “But it’s okay. I’ll handle it without you.”

I try to sound more confident than I feel, but I don’t think it’s working. “The other me . . . and this me. The two of me will get Connor downstairs. And then we’ll put out the fire.”

He shakes his head and looks up at the ceiling. Then he pulls me into a hug. I kind of wish he hadn’t, because tears sting the back of my eyelids. I bite my lip, willing them away.

“They’re okay, love. They’ll
be
okay.”

“You can’t know that.”

I told him Simon has Mom and Katherine as soon as I blinked in. And about Julia. What I didn’t mention was Simon’s bit about needing a new Sister Prudence. I won’t be mentioning that to Trey, either. Or Dad, or Connor—so yeah, not to anyone. It’s partly because I know they’d try to stop me, but also because I’m not willing to admit out loud that I’m considering it as a last-ditch option. The fact that some future version of me was there in Rio, with Simon, is like a drop of acid slowly eating away at my last sliver of optimism.

“You smell like smoke. Again.” Kiernan’s fingers trace the scar along my jaw, and he looks lost for a moment. “We’ll get them back, Kate. But the first stage of your plan has a major flaw. There’s only going to be
one
of you in a few minutes. If not when you get back, then definitely before you’d be able to get Connor downstairs and put out the fire.”

“How do you know?”

“Watched it happen a few times. I never did it on purpose, but Simon got a kick out of it when we were first fooling around with the keys. The deal is you didn’t spin off an entirely new timeline. You just created this tiny . . . splinter. Kind of like a shard of ice that melts away. That earlier you only exists up to the point where you chipped away at your own personal course of action. She’s wearing the same key as you, so she’ll disappear. You’re the original one, right?”

“What?”

He repeats in a slow voice, like he’s explaining to a child, “Are you the one who jumped back and created the splinter, or are you the splinter that was created?”

“Okay. I get it. I’m the original one.”

“Then she’ll vanish. I don’t know if it’s something to do with two copies of the same key coexisting in the same space and time, or if the timeline sort of . . . repairs . . . or what, but she’s only temporary.”

I feel a rather unreasonable sense of relief that this me is the one that doesn’t vanish. I mean, that other one is still me, so it shouldn’t matter. But it kind of does. I’m . . . unique. I’m the one who
didn’t
see the fire extinguisher by the grill. The one who called the fire department.

Neither of those facts seems to suggest that the continuation of this me and the disappearance of that me is survival of the fittest. But she had the advantage of my warning. Right?

“If she disappears, I’ll jump back and go find some neighbors—”

“Who will call the fire department. Wait. Except the neighbor who lives in the green house. The one with the blue van.”

“The one you hired to spy on us?”

“That would be the one.” Kiernan finds a piece of paper, scribbles something on it, and folds it. “Give this to him. I can’t understand why he didn’t intervene when Simon grabbed Katherine.”

“Why would he?”

Kiernan doesn’t answer. He gives me a strange look—sad, maybe a little disappointed. “Just give him the note. And if you can’t find him or he can’t help for some reason, come back. Six more months in this cabin won’t kill me.”

N
EAR
D
AMASCUS
, M
ARYLAND

September 12, 11:26 a.m.

The parking lot is still mercifully empty when Trey pulls in and parks under the tree. He pops the trunk, and I see six big, fat fire extinguishers.

“Did you know I love you?” I ask.

He gives me a shaky smile. “You’d better.”