Bring Me to Life（Time Walkers 1）(22)

Zerek whistled low. “You’re scary without the threat. Honest, anyone with eyes can see she’s off-limits. What am I dealing with, really?”

It was Caleb who answered. “If this woman dies, you’re forever assigned to a post-apocalyptic world.”

“Oh, so he’s the other Wraith, not the happy one.”

Caleb growled. “Shut-up! You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

“Too late,” Vincent said as he grabbed Caleb by the back of his neck, forced him down onto the crate-like seating and leaned over with a snarl. “Start talking or I start removing organs.”

Bryna curled her hand into Vincent’s shirt with a light tug. “It’s obvious.” Or at least it was to her. If she didn’t have to live instead of die the way she thought, the only other option was Vincent’s life. “We need to go back and save you to fix this mess.”

Vincent snapped around. “I can’t. I’ve already told you that. It kind of defeats the purpose of death if a person can easily go back and fix it.”

She didn’t want to believe it. “But you’re supposed to save my life.” She had no idea what this Zerek knew, but she didn’t care if she let them know things they weren’t supposed to know. Vincent was going to listen to her about this, even if he proved to her that she was wrong about it, she had to say it. “My life is crap without you in it. I might not die, but if you’re really supposed to save my life, we need a redo.”

“Oh shit,” Caleb said in a miserable tone as he sat on a crate next to Zerek. “Felix is going to string me up and feed my innards to harpies for the next one hundred years.”

*

But Vincent was no longer paying any attention to Caleb. He swiveled around so that he was facing Bryna. This was hurting something fierce, and as much as he wanted to go back and smack sense into his seventeen-year-old self, it wasn’t allowed. Dead was dead. If one could simply time walk back and fix it, there would be an awful lot of people running around who really were better off dead. He stooped down in front of her and tilted her head back so they were looking at each other. “I was told to protect you, nothing more.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Then how do you know you’re supposed to save me? Protecting is a hell of a lot different than spending an endless amount of time looping through the same events until you figure out how to keep some hopped-up vampire from butchering me.”

“Look around you!” he yelled. His muscles were stringing tight. How couldn’t she care about what she was seeing? Part of him had hoped she’d see this and want to live just to stop it, but she wasn’t buying what he had to sell.

“I am.” Her face was as stark as the landscape. “And I am trying to think of a way to stop it, but really, without you—”

“You’re being selfish,” he snapped out.

Her back went straight, and she closed her eyes as she slowly counted to ten before she opened them again. “Am I? You want me to live, and I am trying to help you figure it out. I’ve already died three times.”

“Actually,” Caleb said as he slipped off the crate and started backing up slowly. “It’s more like one hundred and ninety times.”

Bryna’s face twitched and then shook her head once before she nodded. “There you go, Vincent, one hundred and ninety times one of you guys tried to save my sorry ass, and they all failed. I die. It’s fated and no matter what you or Felix or the prevention of the end world wants, I keep dying. That should tell you something.”

“It just says that I wasn’t here to keep your ass from being stubborn,” he bit out. “You have no idea how much I would love to go back and make sure I wasn’t a fucking jerk to fix this all for you, but I can’t.”

*

“Or won’t,” she countered. Once again she had this horrible feeling she was some cross between being despicably selfish, and having the most brilliant idea of the century. If Vincent had lived, everything would have been different. The totality of her existence led to death. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. She’d been steadily working toward this end in a self-induced death sentence for causing Vincent’s death. No matter how innocent he’d proven she was of the crime, it was too late to stop the lethal injection.

“That’s not fair,” he said between gritted teeth. “I have a responsibility to make sure—”

She put up a hand when her entire body started with a prickly heat. She shuddered with the need to itch. “A demon’s coming.”

Everyone in the room was in motion then.

“How do you know?” Vincent moved in close, his body preparing for battle. “I can’t feel them until they are almost on me.”

She gave a wobbly smile even as she worked to build her charge. It wasn’t that difficult. Her fear was a powerful thing, and it had been mounting since the moment Wraith talked to her in the cemetery. “It’s a gift. We have to get out of here. It’s a powerful one.”

“We’re leaving,” he said. “Caleb, contact your brothers. Let them know I will find them, but she’s not safe here either apparently.”

“You’re sure? I might be able to help,” the other man said as he stood up.

*

Vincent looked around at the men and women of a time he rarely visited. It wasn’t something that set well in his gut, but then, he figured it wasn’t supposed to. The world wasn’t supposed to end up like this, and it was why he did the job he did. His eyes fell to Bryna. She was looking up at him with those beautiful eyes, but they weren’t the same ones he’d looked to every chance he got when he’d been alive. He cursed low. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to save her no matter where he took her. It seemed some demon felt her and didn’t want her here. “No,” he said to Caleb, his eyes still on Bryna. “I’m going to take her hopping. Let me know if you figure anything out.” He paused for a moment and glared at him. “Or decide to give up any of the information Felix won’t let me have.” Then he looped an arm around Bryna and pulled her into him. He knew where to take her and what to do to prevent this whole horrible mess. She wasn’t going to like it, but he was quickly running out of options. “Close your eyes.”

She turned her face into his chest. He moved them through time and space.

Bryna was gagging when they got to his destination. She coughed a few times and then stepped away from him. “You’d think we could at least move for me to get motion sickness, don’t you think?”

He looked down at her with a lifting of his brow. “We did.”

*

“Where are we?” she demanded as she looked around their new surroundings. It was nighttime, but the surroundings were way too familiar. There were two garage-like buildings. Someone was inside one of them swearing as he worked on a car. Her body stiffened as Vincent went to a pile of junk and started to rummage through it. “Vincent, what are you doing?”

“Changing history. It’s the best I can do.” He came up with a crowbar.

Then she knew where they were. It was old man Berton’s garage. The person inside was making noises like he was about to come out. She threw herself at Vincent, fighting for all she was worth to get the crowbar off him. They rolled and tussled on the ground. She bit and kicked and did everything she could think of to get the damn thing from him, but he wouldn’t let it go, no matter how mean she got.

The back door opened as she fell on her butt in front of the teenager. She shot up and used her little body to block a seventeen-year-old Vincent. “Don’t you dare. I’ll never forgive you if you do.”

“What the hell is going on back here?”

Bryna and young Vincent looked up to watch Wraith lift up the crowbar. “Sorry, baby, but if you don’t know me, I can’t fuck up your life with my death. Whoever is sent to save you will succeed.”

Bryna turned and used every ounce of energy she had to shove young Vincent out of the way. Damn brat! He wouldn’t budge, but he was able to duck Vincent’s swing. His hand wrapped around her wrist, and he yanked her into the building with them and slammed the door.

She stared up at the exact image of what she remembered. She was going to be sick. “Damn it.” Vincent was going to kill himself, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop it. “Move!” she yelled just as Wraith blinked into the car bay with them. The crowbar went up. There was no way anyone was going to be able to deflect that blow. Bryna jumped up, and wrapped her arms around the kid’s neck and her legs around his waist as she used her body to block his vital organs and his face. She waited for the blow to slam across her back.

It never came. A heartbeat later there was a crash on the other side of the room and Wraith was swearing.

“Whoa,” young Vincent said. “We need to get out of here.” His arm hooked around her, and he managed to get them outside and put her down. “Who are you? And if we get on my bike, I think we can make it to the police station.”

Her face crumpled. “They can’t help you. He’s…he’s a dead assassin. I’m not sure we’ll be able to save you.”