Vortex (15 page)

“I remember.”

I tried to look right in her eyes, so she’d know it was the truth. “I almost said
it then … I love you … but I wasn’t sure because I’ve never said that to anyone. I’ve
never felt like this with anyone else.” The words nearly caught in my throat as they
tumbled out. “That sounds really cheesy and cliché, doesn’t it?”

She shook her head but didn’t say anything. For some reason, her lack of words made
me nervous and unsure.

“What about you?” I asked.

She kissed me quickly, then pulled away, just enough so I could see her face. “I couldn’t
have slept with you if I didn’t love you. Not that I expected it to be the same for
you … I didn’t … I don’t. It isn’t like some rule of mine or anything. It’s just that
I know I won’t go through with it … unless I love someone. But that’s just me.”

My arms circled around her, pulling her closer, not caring about the sticky sweat
sliding between us. “It’s me, too … I mean, it is now. There’s no going back.”

She laughed. “Are you always going to be this sappy?”

I wanted to think of a clever comeback … to redeem my manhood, but all I could think
about was the fact that she knew … before our first time, she knew she loved me, and
that’s why it was so great.

*   *   *

I was jolted back to reality as quickly as I had left it. My sudden, acute awareness
of the nearly naked girl on top of me caused a slight overreaction on my part. I shoved
Stewart to the side, sliding farther away from her.

“What—?”

The confusion on her face was so rare for Stewart that it threw me off even more.
“Um … I … just give me a minute.”

I spun around and spotted the bathroom, then dove inside, locking the door behind
me. I leaned over the sink, splashing cold water on my face, a poor attempt to wash
the memory from my thoughts. My heart pounded and my mind was tackled in this bizarre
combination of lust, warmth, and the horrible, painful ache of losing Holly all over
again. I lifted my eyes, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, and I knew this
no-strings-attached thing with Stewart wasn’t going to happen.

I had said those words to Holly that night …
There’s no going back
. And unlike then, now it felt like a curse. I’d been damaged beyond repair and was
no longer capable of one-night stands or even looking at someone as beautiful as Stewart
and feeling a significant amount of attraction.

God, this sucked.

When I finally talked myself into leaving the bathroom and facing Stewart, she was
sound asleep, curled up on her side in the middle of the bed. I pulled the comforter
up to her shoulders, covering all the exposed skin. A bottle of pills on the nightstand
caught my eye and I quietly picked them up to read the label.

And just like that, I had a way to get through the night without doing something stupid.
Sleeping pills
. Without making a sound, I took two from the bottle and swallowed them dry, then
I went into the living room and collapsed on Stewart’s couch. Within twenty minutes
I was out cold, in a heavy dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER NINE

JUNE 12, 2009, 8:20
A.M.

After orienting myself in the morning, remembering that I had crashed on Stewart’s
couch, I lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what I felt in this
moment. I thought it would be guilt I’d wake up to in the morning. Guilt for cheating
on Holly. But the logical part of my brain dominated and I knew there was no reason
to feel guilty. Not because we hadn’t had sex … We
had
done other stuff that would be classified as cheating under normal circumstances.
What I felt was worse than guilt. Complete emptiness.

Maybe this was how the EOTs felt? Or maybe the logical part of their brain dominated
even more and they didn’t have to worry about irrational things like love or revenge.
Wasn’t that what Dr. Melvin had told me?

I heard the shower turn off down the hall, in Stewart’s bedroom, and I got up to retrieve
my shirt from her floor. The bathroom door was slightly open. I could see in through
the crack. Stewart stood facing the door, just a towel covering her. I nearly turned
around and left her alone to get dressed, but she wasn’t moving, just staring into
space. And I could tell something wasn’t right.

I kept watching her as I moved closer, and eventually opened the door all the way
and walked in. “Stewart?” I said, snapping my fingers in front of her face.

She shook her head and finally focused on my eyes. “Huh?”

“Are you okay?”

“Um … yeah, it’s nothing, I just … remembered something,” she mumbled, still half
in a trance.

I only knew she was out of it because the tone of her voice was completely calm, free
of the usual attitude. “What did you remember?”

She stepped around me and walked back into the bedroom and she flung open a drawer.

“I think you found out a long time ago … about your dad … the CIA,” she said.

My heart threatened to beat out of my chest, but I forced it to slow down. “It was
a few months ago. You know that.”

She shook her head right away. I turned my back to her while she got dressed, which
provided me an opportunity to compose myself before she caught on to my near-panicked
reaction. “I can’t put my finger on it … not yet. I just have this feeling that you
knew and I knew that you knew … but then it’s blank after that.”

I prepared myself for the human lie detector test she would probably give me. And
what the hell was she talking about anyway? Maybe Kendrick was right to question her
mental stability, especially now that I had heard what she’d done before the CIA.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, trying to stall until I could calm myself down.

Her head emerged from the shirt she had just pulled on. “Don’t you get it? We were
drugged … memory-modification drugs!”

Okay, maybe she isn’t accusing me of lying.

But was she having some kind of episode of paranoia or something? Well … I knew one
thing for sure. There was no way in hell I’d be the one to tell her she might be crazy.
Like,
actually
crazy. Leave it to Chief Marshall to recruit a complete nutcase right out of prison.

And leave it to me to almost share a bed with the nutcase.

“I never thought your dad would do something like that, to either of us,” she said.

I totally wanted out of there, fast, but I couldn’t just leave her in this moment
of distress. “Maybe you can ask him about it … when he gets back?”

She looked at me and took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably the best
plan. I have to go … meet Mason somewhere.”

I sighed with relief. “Me, too. I mean, I have somewhere to go.”

She slipped on a pair of shoes and headed down the hallway, but just before reaching
the front door she glanced over her shoulder at me. “And quit acting so fucking weird,
Junior. I told you this was no big deal. In fact, I’ve already forgotten every detail
about last night.”

I let out a breath. “Okay, so we’re cool?”

Before Holly, I had asked that question of a few girls and they always said they were
okay, and then I’d get bitched out by their friends for hooking up and then never
calling. But this was Stewart … She didn’t have any friends.

“We’re no different from yesterday, if that’s what you mean.”

I snatched my shirt from the floor and tossed it over my head. “That’s good … I guess.”

During the elevator ride, I racked my brain for a plan. If Marshall and Dad were unreachable,
who could I tell about Stewart’s lack of mental stability or whatever just happened?
I could tell Kendrick, of course, but she had no authority to do anything. The thing
with Senator Healy was too weird for me to feel comfortable giving him any inside
information. Freeman would just say he had to wait and see what Dad or Marshall thought.

The only person left was Dr. Melvin.

*   *   *

I paused in front of the door to Dr. Melvin’s office. The last time I’d been here,
Adam and I had stolen information from his computer. Adam … he’d know what to do.
If Dr. Melvin couldn’t help me, I might have to break my rule and pay him a little
visit.

No!
Ever since I ran into Holly yesterday, the hard agent shell I’d worked so hard to
build around me had slowly been chipping away.
Pretty soon I’ll be following her around and trying to ask her out
.

I knocked lightly and heard the chair roll across the floor. Dr. Melvin opened the
door while still seated in his chair, laughing. “Jackson, how are you?”

“I’m okay.” I closed the door behind me.

Dr. Melvin turned off his computer monitor and pointed to the exam table.

I could never get away with visiting him and not at least have my vital signs checked.
I waited for him to wrap the blood pressure thing around my arm before speaking. “I’ve
always wanted to ask this: Do you have other patients? Like, regular people?”

He smiled and put the stethoscope in his ears. “I have plenty of patients, and they’re
quite convincing at being regular people.”

“So, it’s just the Tempest agents?” I concluded. “What about Stewart? Do you ever
see her?”

He shook his head. “No, she’s been cleared to see a regular physician as needed, assuming
she’s somewhere with access to another doctor besides myself. I’ve never had any reason
to study her medically.”

“Just me,” I said. “Because I’m a freak of nature.”

He chuckled lightly, pressing the end of the stethoscope to my back. “If by freak
you mean one-of-a-kind, then yes. But I monitor almost everyone else.”

“Except Stewart?” I pressed.

He stuffed the stethoscope into the pocket of his white lab coat and sat down on his
chair. “Is this why you’re here? To talk about Agent Stewart?”

“Yeah … I would have asked my dad, but he’s on that mission with Marshall.” I paused
and watched Dr. Melvin’s face tighten for a second. He was too readable. Too easy
to get information out of, and I had to be very careful what I revealed, because there
was no guarantee it wouldn’t get unintentionally passed along. “She was acting really
weird this morning. Weirder than usual, anyway. She kinda freaked out about something
she remembered. Basically, she thinks I found out about the CIA a long time ago and
both of us were given memory-modification drugs.”

The way Dr. Melvin shot up from his chair sent butterflies flapping in my stomach.
“Did she remember a specific event … or conversation?”

My heart pounded and I ignored it because there was no reason to hide anything when
Dr. Melvin looked just as worried. “So, it’s true? She was drugged … or
we
were drugged?”

“No,” he said right away. “It’s worse than that … maybe … I can’t be sure.”

“Is it true about her being in prison and everything?” I asked.

“Yes, but I’m surprised she told you that.” He flipped through folders in his file
cabinet until his fingers rested on one and it was removed from the drawer.

“I was just wondering if … well … maybe she’s not mentally right?”

Dr. Melvin shrugged, with his nose buried in the folder full of papers. “I’ll admit
that her behavior was a bit extreme in her teen years, but she was bored and underchallenged.
Never given a creative outlet. And lately … well, she’s showing some signs of depression …
mild ones, which isn’t uncommon in her line of work, but it was concern enough that
Marshall asked that she attempt to form some real companions.”

“Marshall wanted her to make friends?”

Maybe that was what Senator Healy intended when he asked me to spend more time with
her? The message
was
supposedly
from Marshall.

The old doctor plopped down in his chair, and, the way he stared at me, the intensity
in his face, I knew the subject was about to change to something much more serious
than Jenni Stewart making friends. “Do you remember the first time you told me how
you could time-travel? The very first time.”

“You mean in 2007? That other timeline?”

He nodded. “Did I ever ask you if you saw yourself during a jump?”

I was totally confused. He already knew this. Dad and I had told him everything back
in March. “Yeah, but you know exactly how it works.”

“I was sitting on the edge of a coffee table … in the secret headquarters. You were
on the couch, wearing a blue shirt,” he recited, looking over my shoulder. “Is that
correct?”

“Uh-huh, but why—”

“You and your dad would have never bothered telling me what color shirt you were wearing.
The two of you gave me all the information in a ten-minute cram session.” His eyes
widened to the size of hail, like his giant brain had just provided him with an answer.
“I’m remembering events from another timeline … and so is Stewart.”

“What? How?”

“I had this vision two days ago and I just brushed it off, thinking either you or
your dad had told me the story … but I think part of my mind wouldn’t let it go and
I’ve been analyzing these half-jumps. The ones the others can’t do.”

Except Emily. She could do a half-jump.

“Yeah?”

“Well, you understand how a true full jump works, right? A complete jump. The kind
where you don’t create a new timeline or jump to a former timeline.”

“I think so … things can change … instantly, right?”

“Your father and Marshall have been concerned with giving you too much information—for
your own well-being, of course.”
Of course
. “Thomas is the only one we know who can do it without it killing him. If you were
able to do this, like Thomas, maybe jump five years in the past … you would see yourself.”

“I thought the other me disappeared in a full jump.”

“Correct.”

“Wow, so it
is
like Hollywood … if you do it that way,” I muttered.