My stomach took a dive at the sound of my mother’s name.
“Why does Teague want Jack now? How can he repair the damage he… we did to the continuum?” Em focused on a spot on the floor. Pain. Sadness. But not one hint of regret. Michael took her hand.
“Poe didn’t say that Jack could repair the continuum.” I nudged Em’s knee with my elbow. “He said if we found Jack, there was a possibility the continuum could be repaired. You were kind of… out of pocket for that part.”
“Oh yeah. I was on the ground bleeding to death.” Em laughed halfheartedly.
No one else did.
“Can Jack fix the continuum?” I asked.
Dad put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the bookcase. He was hiding so much. I could feel it, but I couldn’t explain any of it. “I don’t think that’s why Teague wants him.”
“Why, then?” Em asked.
“That’s not for you kids to worry about.” He was protecting us. He was also terrified. After pausing for a moment, he seemed to make a decision. “I’ve already said too much. The message from Teague was for me, not all of you.”
“What? That can’t be it. We still have questions.” I pulled myself to my feet, angry. “You have to let us help you.”
“No, I don’t.” Dad shrugged with an air of finality, and then stepped forward to shuffle papers on his desk.
“Yes, you do.” I spoke firmly, enunciating, letting Dad know that I didn’t plan on backing down. “Everyone in this room was part of the plan to bring you back. If that doesn’t give us full rights as Hourglass members, then something is way wrong.”
“I have the help I need.” Dad’s words didn’t give the answer away, but Michael’s emotions did. I spun around to face him.
I shook my head in disgust. “Why doesn’t somebody just make you a freaking superhero cape?”
Michael’s expression didn’t change.
“Son. Michael’s an adult, and he’s capable of making his own decisions.”
“He’s nineteen.”
“I refuse to put anyone else in jeopardy, especially if they’re underage. What happened last year almost ruined us.”
“Oh, what, you mean how enrollment at school dropped after you blew up in your lab?” I laughed bitterly. “Or when it dropped after you came back from the dead? I can see why you’d jump to Michael for help, considering what an ‘adult’ handle he had on that situation.”
“All of this falls squarely on me,” Em spoke up. “Jack compromised the continuum because he wanted my ability to travel to the past. It’s not right for me to sit safely and act like I’m not responsible.”
“Jack didn’t kill me because of you, Emerson,” Dad assured her. “He wanted the Hourglass, and after that was his, he got greedy. He tried to use you as a tool for some grander scheme to change something in his past.”
“Please, Liam.” Em scooted to the edge of the couch and leaned forward, staring until Dad met her eyes. “I want to be a tool for the right reasons. Let me help.”
“Michael and I can handle it,” Dad insisted, his eyes shuttering any emotion. “I only wanted to catch you all up to speed. Oh, but I do need one thing. Someone to tell Ava that Jack is back.”
Everyone looked at me.
Chapter 6
I didn’t believe in delaying unpleasant tasks. I went straight from Dad’s office to the stone gatehouse on our property and knocked.
“We have to talk,” I said, when Ava answered.
She tried to slam the door in my face.
I stuck out my foot to block it, glad I was wearing boots. It bounced off and swung open. “I’m serious.”
“I’m serious, too. I don’t want to deal with you today.” Ignoring me, she went to the couch and picked up the television remote. When she pressed a button, a scene from nineteenth-century England disappeared from the TV screen. “Besides, there’s nothing we need to discuss.”
She wore a tank top, and I could see every detail of her shoulders and collarbones beneath the tiny straps. Too skinny to begin with, she was starting to resemble those runway models who ate cotton instead of real food because it was chewy and calorie free.
“Actually, there’s a lot to discuss.”
“Go home, Kaleb,” she said, with barely concealed disgust.
A couple of weeks ago, Ava and I had run into each other after school. Physically ran into each other. I’d tapped into her emotions against my will. She’d been wound so tight I went against my better judgment and asked her if she was okay. One word of kindness, and she’d spilled her guts. We’d ended up huddled together on the floor while she cried until all her tears were gone.
Jack Landers did terrible things to her that no one deserved. Things she couldn’t remember, but could still feel.
Until that day, I’d had no idea. We weren’t exactly friends now, but we weren’t enemies, either. I didn’t call her The Shining anymore, but things were at least twelve shades of awkward between us.
I pulled at the roots of my hair, glad I’d started growing it out so I had some to grab in frustration. I tried again. “I know you don’t like me-”
“And I’m your favorite person?”
I stood my ground.
“Fine,” she said. “Why are you here? Have you added sadomasochism to your list of extracurriculars?”
“No. It’s about Jack-”
She raised a long, skinny arm and pointed at the door. “Get out.”
“Stop cutting me off,” I yelled, instantly sorry when she flinched. I tried again in a lower voice. “You have to hear this. We called a truce, remember? All I’m asking for is a few minutes.”
Her face remained blank. “I’ll give you three.”
“He’s back.”
She stared at me, her face going paler with every passing second. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him? With your own eyes?”
I nodded.
She seemed to lose the strength to stand, and slid down the arm of the couch onto the cushion with a soft thump. “Where?”
“Last night. He showed up at the masquerade party, but he was gone before I could get to him. Popped in and out. Not before he tried to take a shot at me. With a gun.”
Across the room, a mug on a sideboard rattled and then jumped before slamming into the wall. Black coffee dripped down the patterned wallpaper.
I stared openmouthed. I’d never seen any evidence of Ava’s ability in person.
“What do you mean ‘popped in and out’?” she asked, ignoring the splattered coffee. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I tried.” I explained Chronos and the ultimatum, but left out the part about Em and the throat slashing. “We have until Halloween to find Jack. Or we’re at the mercy of Chronos.”
When she shivered, I handed her a sweater from the back of the couch. She pushed her arms into the sleeves and wrapped herself in it.
“Hey,” I said in what I hoped was a comforting voice, “it’s going to be okay. He won’t get to you again. We won’t let him.”
“How? Is someone going to be with me twenty-four/seven?” The remote rattled on the glass end table but stayed put. Ava closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. “Not just me, what about Emerson? What about about your mom? He worked here, for years. He knows this place inside and out.”
Dread.
“You’re alone out here,” I said in sudden realization.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
One of Ava’s roommates had graduated; the other two didn’t return to the Hourglass school for the year. Probably because of the whole “the school’s founder blew up in his lab and then came back from the dead and, by the way, your classmate killed him” thing. I made a snap decision. “I think you should move into our guest room.”
“What?” Ava snorted in disbelief. Shock. A little bit of hope. “Are you drunk?”