Timebound(125)

“And there were only a few seconds where I could act,” he continued. “If I made a wrong move, I couldn’t take it back—all I could do was add on. I mean, if I tripped him that first second and the gun went off and shot you, I couldn’t undo that, aside from coming back earlier and stopping myself from tripping him. I also couldn’t risk interfering until Katherine was fully out of the window.”

He let out a long, slow breath and closed his eyes. “I watched you die over and over again, Kate. I watched him shoot you point blank fourteen times before I could see any way to change it.”

“The lights!” I said, sitting up fully. “Oh my God—that was you? I thought… my head—I hit it really hard when I fell. I thought that’s why I was seeing little blue flashes. But it was you!”

He nodded. “I finally did trip him, to slow him down, but he had the acid—I thought at first that he was getting it from the bottles near the cots against the wall. I was pretty close to one of those cots and I think he’d used acid on the woman who died there. But he had the bottle in his coat pocket. I thought it was the sound of his foot against the glass that reminded him he was carrying it—I even removed the bottles once, to see—but I guess it was just being there, where he’d used it once before that triggered the memory. I had to time it just right. The first four times I tripped him you were still facing forward. The acid caught you full in the face; two of the times your eyes were open.”

I flinched, remembering the scorching pain when the acid hit my neck and realized how very much worse it could have been.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Part of me said to keep trying until I got it entirely right and you left there without injury, but… I couldn’t keep going. I’m pretty sure you’ll have a scar on your neck, but I don’t think it will be very bad. I’ve put an advanced hydrogel on the burn. I put three more tubes in your bag.”

“My bag!” I said, looking around. “I didn’t…”

“No,” he said, reaching over to his right. “But I did. You dropped it when you fell. The hydrogel inside is from 2038, so you won’t get anything nearly as good in your time. I just wish your hair had been down—it would have shielded you a bit more.”

I smiled gently, thinking of the way he’d pulled the band from my hair in the Metro. “You always wish my hair was down, if I remember correctly.”

“Guilty as charged,” he said. “It reminds me of that time when we were at…”

Kiernan’s voice trailed off, and then he closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly. After a moment, he opened them again and gave me what he clearly hoped would be a cheery smile. “So who is this Trey person?”

“Trey?” I looked down, unable to meet his eyes. “He’s a friend—or he was a friend before…”

“Kate.” Kiernan’s voice was soft and so full of understanding that tears rushed to my eyes. “You called his name in your sleep, love. He’s more than just a friend, I think.”

It was so unfair for this to make me feel that I was betraying Kiernan. But it did.

He tilted my chin up ever so slightly and I looked into his eyes, as wet with tears as my own. “You cannot hide from your heart, Kate. It always finds you. And, sadly, I cannot hide from mine.”

He pulled me into his arms and kissed me—softly at first and then with a passion that shook me to my very foundation. I was carried back to the wheat field just as clearly as I had been when I first looked into the medallion. There were at least two blankets between us, not to mention clothes, but the memory of the earlier kiss was so strong that I could almost feel his bare skin against mine. A slow delicious burn rose from deep inside me as I kissed him back, wrapping my hands in his long black hair.

I’m not entirely sure who broke the kiss, but I don’t think it was me. I turned away and just sat there for several minutes, eyes closed, face flushed. I was stunned, confused, angry at myself, angry at Trey, angry at Kiernan, and all of that was competing with the very strong temptation to pull Kiernan’s mouth back over mine and forget everything else, if only for a little while.

I could feel his eyes on me, but I couldn’t make myself look at him. Finally, he pressed his lips to the top of my head and held them there. “Ah, Katie,” he whispered, his breath warm against my skin in the cool morning air. “I’m being selfish. You have to go back—you need rest. I was so afraid you would go into shock last night. I kept the fire roaring so high it’s a miracle I didn’t torch the cabin. And I can’t stay here much longer either—I’ve pushed myself to the limit already. Even these short hops are a strain.”