“I most certainly did not.” I yank my CHRONOS key out of the leather pouch and pull up the coordinates Kiernan and I agreed upon before I left his cabin. I’d planned on doing this tomorrow evening, after school, when I was better rested and my head was clear, but he’s forced my hand. “We’ll have to finish this conversation later.”
Katherine reaches over and grabs my wrist, causing the display to waver. “Katherine,” I say, “please let go. Kiernan and I need to have a little chat.”
She releases her grip, but as I’m pulling up the stable point again, she says. “I was just going to note that Kiernan made the decision we would have made as a group, Kate. Having him retrieve Moehler’s key in Copenhagen was the logical decision.”
“Yeah, well maybe that’s your view, and Connor’s, but unless I missed something, Kiernan didn’t bother to get input from any of us, did he? This was a . . .” My brain is beyond tired, and I have trouble finding the word for a second. “A rogue operation, Katherine. He didn’t have the right to make that decision, to take that kind of risk, on his own.”
BOGART, GEORGIA
October 6, 1905, 4:00 p.m.
Kiernan’s mouth is set into a thin, firm line, and he’s staring at the stable point. It almost feels like he can see me. Judging from the look in his eyes, he knows exactly how pissed I’m going to be. And he doesn’t care.
My first thought is to play it cool. He’s expecting angry, because his Kate would have been angry. So I’m going to give him calm and collected.
That lasts for maybe two seconds after I jump in. The first thing that I notice is that the left leg of his jeans is unusually tight about six inches above the knee, the fabric straining to accommodate a bandage. At that point, I lose it, spewing forth a string of words that would get me grounded for a week if Mom was in the room.
“Are you finished?” he asks, his voice cool.
“No. I’m pretty sure I’m just getting started.”
“Fine. Since I’d much prefer to discuss this with a rational human being, I’ll just sit here quietly until your childish tantrum runs its course.”
“Childish? How can you call me childish when you’re the one who rushes off into danger without discussing this with anyone? You could have been killed, Kiernan!”
He shrugs. “I wasn’t. And you’d have faced exactly the same risk if you’d been the one who went in. Give me one good reason why the risk would have been any less if you’d gone in rather than me.”
I think for a moment. “I was talking about both of us going in, but actually, yes, it would have been less for me, because I’m a smaller target.”
Kiernan rolls his eyes. “I’ll grant you that. But if you think me taking a risk was stupid, then both of us taking one would be doubly stupid.”
He has a point, even though I’m not inclined to admit it. “You have to agree that the risk to the timeline is greater when you put yourself at risk. I never had kids, Kiernan. Grandkids. Great-grandkids? Connor has sacrificed a lot, you know. He realizes getting his family back may not happen, but you getting killed would wipe out all hope. And we’d also have to keep back one of the CHRONOS keys to avoid having him pop out of existence, right?”
“Connor was quite happy to get Moehler’s key. Don’t put this off on him. This is about you not getting to call the shots.”
It’s nice to have him misread me for once, to have him assume that this is some sort of weird control issue. Because it isn’t. Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure why I reacted so strongly. We’re both taking risks—and so are Connor, Katherine, even Dad. Maybe even Trey and his family. It probably would have been riskier if we’d both gone, and I’m pretty sure he could have convinced me of that point if he’d tried, as much as it would have worried me.
“I don’t want to call the shots, Kiernan. I—”
His right eyebrow is raised, like he’s waiting for me to finish, and I remember the cut on his forehead. It’s entirely healed now. There’s a very thin, faint pink line where the cut was, but the bruise has faded to the point that it’s indistinguishable from the other skin on his tanned face.
I’ve been the first one to jump almost every time we’ve traveled together. With very few exceptions, Kiernan has followed behind me on each jump. And unless he’s the world’s fastest healer, he’s sometimes following several days later.
“How many days since I was here last, Kiernan? When you taught me to shoot the gun? You told me to come back in three days, right?”
He nods, reluctantly.
“And that’s what I did, but it’s been more like a week for you, hasn’t it? And when we jumped to 1911, before we rode the bikes over to God’s Hollow, you had to wait a few days, didn’t you? That cut on your head was pretty fresh when I first arrived, and I noticed when we were talking to Martha and Sister Elba that it had faded. So, I’m thinking you weren’t able to follow me immediately. Am I right?”
I wait for him to respond, but he just looks at me, so I go on. “How far out of your own timeline are you right now? Do you even know?”
His mouth twists. “Of course, I know, Kate. I’m not a bloody idiot. I’m eleven days and seventeen hours off my normal timeline right now. And, yes, there have been a couple of instances where I’ve had trouble with the key. I told you it’s not easy for me. I’m doing the best I can.”
“Yes, but you’re doing things you don’t have to do! What if you’d gotten to Copenhagen and couldn’t manage to get back immediately? You could have been killed.”
His eyes drift away from my face, and there’s an odd downward twitch to his mouth. He pushes his chair back and gets up.
“That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you were shot. You couldn’t steady the interface the first time.”
Kiernan doesn’t answer. He just turns toward the door and walks out, limping. He bangs both the cabin door and the porch door on his way out. Pretty sad for someone who seems to think he’s being the adult here.
I follow him outside to a sprawling oak tree at the edge of the woods. He’s leaning against a limb that swoops out almost parallel to the ground. I walk over and pull myself up onto the bough, a foot or so away from where Kiernan is standing.
We stay like that for a minute or so, just looking out at the woods, saying nothing. I swing my feet slowly beneath the branch, taking deep breaths, trying to rein my temper back in. After my outburst, I suspect Kiernan is reassessing his comment about me being a calmer version of his Kate, but if he was this big of an idiot around her, it wasn’t just Katherine who kept her angry.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
“I can do an average of two round trips a day, more or less, depending on how far in time and distance.”
“Not that. I meant the bullet wound.”
He shrugs dismissively. “Flesh wound on the outer thigh. If it had been two inches to the left, it wouldn’t even have grazed me. Looks more like a gash or a burn than a bullet wound, really. Missed the family jewels, so Connor is theoretically safe. Although I have no idea who the woman is in that picture he showed me. Or even where that farm might be.”
“Connor showed you the two different family pictures?”
“After I asked, yeah. I do like the look of the farm family a lot better than the one where I’m toting around a Book of Cyrus. But judging from the age of the kids in that one, I should have started on that family a few years back.” He slides over a little closer to where I’m sitting on the branch. “And it’s hard to get enthused about starting a family with someone I’ve never met when . . .” His voice trails off when I close my eyes. The words hang in the air, unspoken but unmistakable.
After a few awkward seconds, he shifts the subject a bit. “I did use that Kevlar stuff, you know. You can check up in the loft if you’d like—I haven’t had a chance to take it back yet. Even managed to mostly hide a helmet under one of those stupid-looking fur hats. I wasn’t hotdogging.”