Marg limps across the yard and reenters the hospital, swatting at one of the security guards holding out his arm to help her.
I sit on the cold metal bench at the bus stop and stare at the empty street. Vacant faces drift past as I sift through distorted memories of my mother, muddled by time, and compare them to my vivid dreams. I need to know what happened to her, and if the hospital won’t give me the information I need, I’ll find someone who will.
I pull out my phone and enter a number from memory, with trembling fingers. The call goes straight to voicemail, as always.
“Silas, it’s me. I need a favor.”
18Mariella
The sun has set by the time I return to Bromley House, and Anna’s sweater is doing little to combat the chilling evening breeze. I’m a few yards away from the door when shadows shift beside the building, and I freeze. Heart racing, I squint through the darkness at the figure moving toward me. Parker steps from the shadows with labored steps, carrying Rose in his arms. His body’s fading and reappearing, like a flickering lightbulb about to burn out.
“Parker?” I run toward him. Dark red blood is smeared over his and Rose’s bodies. “What happened?”
He looks past me, scanning the perimeter before one of the hands supporting Rose holds out a tattered book. He grunts with the movement. “Take this,” he says. “Keep it safe.”
I tuck the book against my chest and enter the code at the front of the building. Parker tenses with every step on the staircase, but he doesn’t stop moving until we’re inside their apartment. I place the book on their tiny dining table and follow Parker into the bedroom.
“Where’s all the blood coming from?” I ask.
“It’s mine,” Parker says, laying Rose on her bed. He turns toward me and my stomach drops. Slick, dark red bloodsaturates his shirt. The fabric’s torn over the left side of his rib cage like a jagged window to the mangled skin beneath.
Lowering his head, he peels up the wet fabric and I shudder. His tan skin is split, tainted by the blood oozing down his torso. “It’s just a bullet graze,” he says.
Just a bullet graze?“You need to put pressure on that.” I reach for him, but all I meet is air.
He steps away from me. “You can’t do anything to help me, so please, help Rose.” His lips turn upward as he feigns a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You’re losing too much blood. You need stitches,” I say.
“I’ll be fine,” he grunts, and his body fades to a new shade of translucent.
I turn back toward Rose, blood smeared across her forehead. A sweaty sheen coats her olive skin, which has taken on a grayish hue. Underneath her closed lids, her eyes race back and forth.
“What happened?” I ask over the broken, incoherent sentences pouring from Rose’s mouth.
“She traveled, and when we came back, she was like this.” Parker runs his hands through his hair and flinches. “I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen.” He leans down, brushing a strand of damp hair off her face. “You’re safe now, Rose. You did so well,” he says in a low voice.
I avert my gaze to the carpet. “Is it normal to be unwell after time traveling?”
“No. Not like this.” Parker straightens. “But normally you aren’t staying for extended periods of time while carrying another person. She’s never been this bad before. I don’t know if it’s exhaustion or something else.” Parker’s gaze darts to Rose as she draws a stilted breath.
I edge toward her and press my hand to her forehead, while Parker steps back to give me room. “She’s burning up,” I say. “We need to cool her down.” I remove my now blood-stained leather jacket from Rose’s body.Now I know where it went.My mother’s necklace is no longer around Rose’s neck. Did my future self really part with it? Where is it now?
I find a washcloth in the bathroom and place it over Rose’s forehead. Parker sits on his bed and slips a hand into his pocket with a grimace.
“She takes about eight of those a day, so she’ll need something stronger than paracetamol,” Parker says, when I pull painkillers from my handbag.
“Eight? What for?”
“Headaches. You need to remember, time travel isn’t exactly normal. I mean, traveling to a place and back is fine, but extended stays make you sick. And we’ve been here for seven months.”
“Why so long?” I ask.
“Rose hated traveling with a passenger at Neurovida. The first time we tried to come here, she accidentally took us back five years from now. I knew she was exhausted, but she wanted to try again. The second time, we were closer, but still six months off from when McGregor started work here on campus, and he’s the reason we came here.” His face falls. “She needed to rest for a week. Then the migraines started, and we decided it was easier to just wait. But holding me in this time for so long…”
He searches Rose’s face with drawn brows and there’s no mistaking his guilt. I hate that he blames himself for Rose’s poor health and the situation they’ve found themselves in.“I’ve never seen her like this,” he says. “I think she’s losing her grip on reality.”
Rose’s haunted look in the restroom at Tilly’s flashes across my mind and I shudder. “She must be getting better at it—traveling with you, I mean. I only saw you last night.”
