I shrugged. “We’ll figure out when they killed Katherine—and then I’ll warn her and try to get her to return to CHRONOS headquarters before it happens. I’m sure they had—will have?—some sort of emergency return-to-base protocol. We haven’t really gotten that far.”
“You said the guy on the Metro—the one that mugged you—was armed.”
“Yeah, I think so. At the very least, he wanted me to believe he was armed.” I paused. I was torn between kind of liking the fact that Trey sounded protective and not wanting him to think I was totally helpless.
“But if the Metro hadn’t been crowded,” I continued, “and if I hadn’t suspected he had a gun, I would have tried to flip him. I’ve been taking karate since I was five. I have a brown belt. Or at least I had one… I guess that disappeared, too.”
“Really?” His voice was serious, but his eyes were clearly laughing. “Think you can flip me?”
“I could,” I teased. “But on a marble floor? You’d crack your skull when you hit. And we would scare poor Daphne. She’s still looking a bit concerned from… earlier.”
“I want a rain check, then. You don’t look like you could flip anything much heavier than Daphne. No offense.” He grinned at me. “Prudence Katherine Pierce-Keller, time-traveling ninja.”
“Oh, ho… funny.” I laughed and then faked an angry look. “Lawrence Alma Coleman the Third clearly likes to live dangerously.”
Trey’s smile lingered for a moment and then his eyes grew serious. “No, Kate, not really,” he said. “And I think I’d be happier if you didn’t have to, either.”
The next few weeks fell into a pattern. I spent my mornings reading the mission diaries that seemed the most likely targets for Katherine’s murder. In the afternoons, I would focus on memorizing the stable points, and by the end of the second day, I had begun trying to pull up visuals of local stable points while holding the CHRONOS key. On the occasions I managed to hold the focus steady, I could see a holographic display. If I moved my eyes carefully, the medallion picked up those movements and I could adjust the digital display to set a date and time.
Within a week, I’d become pretty good at locating the specific stable points and even setting the time display. I had also learned how to set a new location—in this case, two points within the house—although this was, Connor said, not something you wanted to do unless you knew for certain that those points would remain stable. Otherwise, you might materialize over an empty elevator shaft or in the middle of a busy freeway.
Katherine said I was making incredible progress, but I found it frustratingly difficult to maintain focus with the medallion. At first, while holding it, I found myself repeating what had happened in the kitchen, when Dad was there—I would zip through a series of scenes, overwhelmed by sensory input and the absolute clarity of what I seemed to be seeing and hearing. On several occasions, I was again in the field with Kiernan. Watching him, feeling his warm skin beneath my fingers, was downright unnerving and I immediately put the CHRONOS key down and moved on to a different task when this happened.
And even though it was probably irrational, as the days went by, I found myself feeling disloyal and a bit angry at myself when Kiernan’s face appeared. Trey’s visits were the only thing I had to look forward to, especially since Katherine and Connor were adamant that I wouldn’t be leaving the house at all for the time being. Trey came by most evenings and on weekends as well, and we would work on his homework or he’d bring DVDs. There was no TV in the house, so we ordered pizza and watched the movies in my room on the computer—at least Katherine wasn’t a prude and allowed us some privacy. Even Daphne had begun to relax a bit in that regard.
Trey was funny, smart, and handsome—everything I would have looked for in a boyfriend. (Although, as a little voice in my head that sounded a lot like Charlayne pointed out, I had rarely given guys with hair as short as Trey’s a second glance.) It was wonderful to curl up next to him, watching the Man in Black and Inigo Montoya battle left-handed atop the Cliffs of Insanity, or laughing at Shrek and Donkey or some silly comedy Trey had rented. He was clearly picking movies that he thought would make me smile and, at least for a short time, help me escape my present reality. I eventually satisfied his curiosity about my karate skills by flipping him—after setting out a pile of cushions and making sure Daphne wasn’t around to object. Trey then pulled me down beside him when I tried to help him up and discovered my own personal kryptonite—terribly ticklish feet.