Timesurfers (27 page)

“This is just as hard for me as it is for
you. I miss you more with every breath, every day, but I’d rather
see you alive with Mortez than live in a world without you.” Rose
glared at Jonah.

“And of course the fact my joining Mortez was
such a plus for you never entered your head?” The venom in Jonah’s
voice was unmistakable. He paced back and forward along the wall
his fists clenched at his sides.

Rose grabbed Jonah and spun him around.
“That’s unfair. There are no words to tell you how grateful I am
you can also help protect my family from Mortez. No one else could
or
would
do it.”

“I don’t want your gratitude or pity.”
Jonah’s voice was filled with anguish and bitterness. His hands
pulled at his chocolate coloured hair. “I hate what we have.”

Rose stumbled back as if Jonah had struck
her. “I
never
asked you to help protect my
family from Mortez.
You
chose to do
that.”

“You
will
let me
help train Cate. You owe me that.” Jonah and Rose stood chest to
chest, wrists touching. To say they had a complicated relationship
would be the understatement of the century.

“Fine.” Rose reached into one of the bags and
produced a shiny black gun. She twirled it around her palm.

“Arrgh!” Cate shrieked and flattened against
the wall. “What are you doing?”

Rose grasped Jonah’s outstretched wrist and
pressed the gun to his skin. A clatter like a stapler sounded. A
red welt the size of a grain of rice appeared on the inside of
Jonah’s wrist. Rose pressed the gun against her own wrist and fired
it again. She dropped the gun back into the bag and pressed her
hand against the mark on Jonah’s wrist for the briefest of seconds.
The welt vanished.

“Quantum microchip.” Jonah showed Cate his
wrist. “It’s a GPS chip. When the gun fires it activates a dormant
quantum charm infused into the metal of the chip. It’s like a
historical beacon. Magic and science coming together. Clever
hey?”

“Sure. What do they actually do?” Cate poked
at where the red welt had been on Jonah’s arm.

“Rose and I can track one another’s
locations. I will use the location details to travel to wherever
you two are training. Don’t kill each other before I get
there.”

“Come on, Apprentice.” Rose tugged at Cate’s
arm. “Naitanui!”

Their surroundings started to spin.

***

“You’ve got ten minutes to pack a bag and
return.”

A decent shove from Rose sent Cate stumbling
toward the painted blue door of her house. “Or what?”

“I’ll come, grab your atrocious rainbow hair,
and drag you down the steps to this very spot. Then I’ll make you
commando-crawl along the road for a mile.”

Cate trudged to the house contemplating how
she’d like to rip out the violet highlights in Rose’s mermaid hair.
Maybe even rip off a few of her perfectly manicured silver
fingernails. She opened the door. “Hello.” Silence shouted back.
She charged up to her bedroom and yanked the wardrobe doors open,
searching frantically for her floral duffel bag and backpack. “Hmm.
What to take?” She skidded down the hallway into the bathroom,
grabbed her toiletries, and started throwing clothes in her bags.
“What am I forgetting? Ah.” She popped Flopsie the white rabbit in.
She couldn’t leave him.

Her phone beeped with a text from Rose.

“3 MIN WARNING!”

That gave her an idea. She pressed speed dial
number one as she forced her duffel bag shut, balancing the mobile
against her ear with her shoulder.

“Where are you?” Eve shouted down the line.
“I came by this morning for our first solo outing in the car, and
no one was home. I had the entire day planned out.”

“Shush,” Cate whispered.

“Why are we whispering?” Eve whispered back.
“Have you got Austin or Jonah with you? I’m not sure if
I’m
emotionally ready for you to jump into
anything with either of them.”

“Eve! Shut up. They’re not here.”

Eve grumbled down the phone.

“I’m going with Rose to train for a
Timesurfers initiation thing. The GTs.”

“What the...?”

“You can’t tell anyone. I just wanted someone
to know I was going.” Cate cursed and ran to her wardrobe. She had
forgotten boots and socks.

“It sounds like a dreadful idea.” Eve was
still whispering. “Do you want me to come with you? I can be there
in less than fifteen minutes, ten if I steal a bike. I don’t know
if I can even still ride a bike.”

Eve’s offer was a testimony to what a true
best friend she was. “Thanks, but no. When these guys time travel,
they can bring you back to the exact moment you left. I’ll be back
before you get here.”

“You’re time travelling?” Eve screeched.
“What will you wear?”

Cate’s phone vibrated with another text from
Rose.

“1 MIN”

Crap!
“Got to go.”
She snapped her phone case shut, grabbed a bag with each hand, and
headed downstairs. As she charged out the front door, she came to
an abrupt halt.
Am I doing the right
thing?

Polka Dot shot across the cream pebbled
driveway and crouched under the lavender bush waving in the slight
breeze near Rose. His yellow, unblinking eyes glowed at Cate. She
had to do this for Xavier. There was no other choice. She hoisted
her bags more firmly onto her shoulders and, with her head held
defiantly high, marched toward Rose.

“Naitanui!” Rose called. Her fingers bit into
the flesh near Cate’s tricep.

The world swirled. Stars exploded and fizzed
across the black velvet canvas. In less than a minute her feet sank
into soft, warm ground. She blinked against the glare. They were at
the beach. The blindingly white sand squeaked under her boots.
There were no beaches in Tempus Falls, just trees and hills. “Where
are we?”

“The beach.” Rose marched her supermodel body
up the sand dunes, weaving her way through the sparse vegetation
with the grace of a dancer. If she had been wearing a bathing suit,
it would have been the perfect
Sports
Illustrated
cover picture.

“So helpful.” Cate tugged her jacket off and
tied it around her waist. The heat from the sun stung her arms.
Layer upon layer of plump, fluffy clouds hung in the sky. Cate
wanted to reach out and hug them they looked so soft and pure.
There was ocean, beach, clouds, and sparse scrub as far as she
could see. “Where are we going?”

“Shut your mouth, save your strength, and
keep up.”

Cate’s ankles and knees were scraped and
bloody through her leggings from brushing against the thorns and
sharp leaves. The sun was directly overhead, so it had to be around
noon when they reached a sparse clearing the size of a baseball
field. Soaring limestone cliffs curved around one side. Black human
outline targets lay scattered on the ground. Piles of sandbags,
drums, and logs littered the grey sandy floor. Four lookout towers
accessed by rope ladders, connected by rickety wooden footbridges,
bordered the clearing. Two rolled up swags and a few battered
looking pans sat at the foot of the cliff.

“This is us,” Rose said. “I’ll start a fire
and make lunch. Roll out your swag, change, and stand up all the
human shaped targets and those round archery targets on the far
side of the grounds. Don’t go past the limestone cliffs.”

Cate tapped her watch a few times, confirming
it was broken. “We’re sleeping outside?”

“We’re doing everything outside.”

A mosquito the size of a golf ball landed on
her arm. This was not going to be fun. She changed into black
drawstring cotton pants behind a large boulder streaked with red.
Please let it not be dried blood.
Her pink
singlet with “Suck it up, Princess” emblazoned across the front in
sparkling silver earned her a basilisk stare from Rose, which made
Cate very satisfied indeed.

The dry scrub crunched under her boots as she
stood up the targets. They were heavier than they looked. Spears,
swords, knives, arrows, and some razor-edged spinning disks
littered the ground. A warm breeze brought the sharp scent of salt
and something else that made her mouth water. She jogged back to
camp and peered into the battered billycan Rose was stirring. “That
smells awesome. What is it?”

“Stewed seagulls, with wild rosemary and
eucalyptus bark.”

Cate’s stomach lurched and somersaulted. She
was hungry, but not
Survivor
hungry.

Rose rolled her eyes and snickered. “It’s
chicken with coriander and bacon.”

Cate loved anything with bacon, however, Rose
had sewn the seed of doubt. What if it was seagull? She shuddered.
“I used to go to a beach like this on vacation each summer.”

“This won’t be a vacation.”

There had been no family vacations since they
relocated. Repetitive
behaviour
was frowned on when you were in witness
protection. There was also no summer break at her mum’s school
because crime never took a vacation.

Rose put a lid on the billycan. “All right,
while that’s finishing up, give me a quick demo of those fierce
black belt skills you touted the first day we met.”

“What? Now?” Frankly, stewed seagull was more
appealing.

“Yeah, let’s see if you’re pathetic,
atrocious, or a combination of both. I won’t hit you. Promise.”
Rose crossed her heart with her hand and motioned Cate forward.
“Come on. Show me what I haven’t got to work with. I’ll tie my
hands behind my back if you like.”

The GTs obviously involved combat. Hence the
possibility of death Rose spoke about with Jonah. Xavier had better
appreciate this. She assumed her fighting stance.

“That’s like knocking on the front door and
yelling ‘HELLO! I’m here to fight.’” Rose tapped a manicured nail
against her chin. “Continue.”

She executed a few half-hearted kicks. Rose
whirled and smashed a heel into her stomach, making her sink to her
knees. She struggled to get a full breath. “You said you wouldn’t
hit me.”

“I didn’t hit you. I kicked you. I’ll kick
you again if you don’t fight with some conviction. Those kicks
wouldn’t have bothered a puppy. You must have more than that.”

Anger surged through Cate. She assumed her
fighting stance, and went at Rose with everything she had. She
feigned right and left and kicked high and low. There were a lot
more high kicks than low as she attempted to get dirt on Rose’s
flawless complexion. She punched and kicked with every combination
imaginable. Nothing hit its mark. Rose
was
a freaking warrior-goddess. She had the hair and the fight moves.
Cate screamed toward the sky in frustration.

“Give up?”

The cheerful tone in Rose’s voice and the
fact she wasn’t breathing hard made Cate’s blood boil. She charged
at Rose and ended up headfirst in a very scratchy bush. Her out of
control breathing rasped painfully in her chest. She got to her
feet with a kip-up, spitting dirt and leaves. Rose moved to check
on lunch, and Cate seized her opportunity. A second later, she
landed hard on her butt.

Rose threw her head back and howled with
laughter. “So there is a scrapper hidden under there. Excellent.
You sounded like a train steaming up behind me—the breathing and
stomping. So unstealthy.”

Tears prickled Cate’s eyes. She was tougher
than this. Crying in front of Rose would be the last straw.

“Eat. Then we’ll get into it. What’s your
strongest weapon?” Rose handed her a tin cup filled with stew.

Cate sniffed at the food, stealing a furtive
glance to check Rose was eating. She touched the fork to the very
tip of her tongue, rolling the taste around in her mouth. If it was
seagull, it tasted delicious. “Um...I suppose nunchaku. I’m okay
with a sword or a bow and arrow, but I’m rubbish with knives.”

“That’s not overly useful. Can you use two
pair of nunchaku together? One pair in each hand?”

“Not well. I always end up giving myself a
dead arm.” This was such a bizarre conversation to be having over
lunch. She scraped the sides of her cup. Rose was also a brilliant
cook. Overachievers were so annoying. “What exactly are the GTs?”
She spooned herself some more food. She hadn’t eaten since
breakfast and was ravenous.

“Grommet Trials.” Rose continued eating.

“And...” She drew out the word for
emphasis.

“Timesurfers take the GTs so they can travel
alone on missions. They started when the emperors made people fight
to the death to be part of Naitanui’s elite army. The fights opened
the annual blood sport games. The dead wannabe Timesurfers were
food for the lions used in the games. The lions built up their
strength, and the emperors flushed out and culled the wizards.”

Cate’s spoon clattered back into her empty
cup. “And now?”

“Same deal, no emperors, with a wild after
party.”

“What about the lions?”

“Still there. Austin is proof of that.”

“Oh, come on! You have to explain it better
than that.”

“The GTs are about whether you can and will
kill. A true warrior is prepared to die for their cause. More
importantly, they’re prepared to kill for it. First Timesurfers
will try and kill you with weapons, then more Timesurfers will try
and kill you with their bare hands and finally more Timesurfers
will try and beat you unconscious.”

“Right. And how long does this killing and
beating go on for?”

“A couple of hours.”

“And how many people will be taking the GTs
with me?”

“Normally there’s around fifty.” Rose banged
her cup on the rock. “Enough questions. To be a Timesurfer you have
to step into the unknown without fear. Whatever happens, fight as
hard as you can and don’t die. End of story.”

A sharp crack made Cate leap up. Her cup
thudded on the sandy ground. The cracking continued. Someone was
coming.