Bad Blood (Book 4 of The Warden series) (21 page)

39

Cori arrived in the freight elevator in much the same place she had the first time around on her redo. It seemed to be her new reset point. The time between her beginning and end was getting shorter. She needed to make the necessary changes while the time bubble fragment was still functional. The last thing she wanted was for the juice to run out before she had her ducks in a row.

Efrat was panicking about being caught. “Don’t freak out,” she said from the floor. “I got it under control this time.”

“This time?” He wailed.

Cori took the clip out of her gun and stuffed it in one of her many pockets on her cargo pants. She didn’t want to give up her gun, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t give up her bullets. Pleased with her plan she gave Efrat another round of calming speech before the doors opened.

This time she didn’t even wait for Duke to politely ask. She instigated her surrender with Efrat in tow. They stepped into the room and allowed the guards to surround them. Duke of course asked for her gun. She said she would surrender it after Belus and Danato were present. He agreed and didn’t press the matter.

Danato arrived cussing her out about her behavior and demanded her to give up her gun. She agreed to give it up as long as Efrat was allowed to return to the upper level unharmed, and without the involvement of the military.

Danato grumbled for nearly a minute about protocol, before he looked to Belus. Belus gave a small shrug that said, “What choice do we have?”

“Fine, Efrat can return to the upper level after you give up your gun,” Danato caved.

Cori was out of time and back in before she even recognized the change. Her hand held her gun. Belus and several guards were ducking and she was on the floor again.

“What the hell are you doing?” Danato ripped the gun from her hand, this time without dislocating her finger. She started laughing when she saw Belus standing alive before her unharmed. No one was attacking. No one was yelling, aside from Danato, and that was just normal.

“Oh, thank god.” Cori repositioned on to her knees with relief. “I’m so glad this is over. I will explain everything. I promise.”

Danato eyed her up and down. “We need to get you checked out.”

“Fine, anything, poke and prod all you want. Belus is alive. I’m alive. Efrat’s alive.” She exhaled feeling the stress lift.

“Go with Belus to the infirmary. I’m taking Efrat back to the military.”

Cori looked up at him. She sensed the determination in his tone. “You agreed not to tell them Danato. You remember?”

“I’m sorry sweetheart, he is a prisoner.” His voice was apologetic, but his eyes were not. “He can’t just be roaming the halls.”

“I knew it,” Efrat said as two guards flanked him with elemental weapons. “Fairytale fucking world, kitten.” He shook his head at her disappointed, but for once, she was in agreement with him.

“Danato, the General will kill him.”

“I doubt that.”

“I don’t.” She stared earnestly at him, but he didn’t understand how much trial and error it took to get to this point. “I’ve been trying to get this day to end with everyone alive. I promised him that you would do the same.”

“Cori,” Danato stepped closer as if to spare Efrat the details of his demise. “There isn’t a redeemable bone in his body. It’s a waste of time and energy to get wrapped up in protecting him. The General will figure out what is best for him. He is not our responsibility.”

Cori watched as they dragged Efrat away with Danato following. She couldn’t believe Efrat was still going to die after all. She hoped that this future would turn out different, but that was unlikely.

“Danato…” Cori pleaded once again, but he waved her off.

“Enough. Report to my office after the infirmary.”

Danato headed around to the passenger elevators with them. Belus approached to take her with him to the infirmary, to get poked and prodded, while the remaining guards scattered to return to their normal posts. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m trying to do the right thing and every time I’ve got it right, it’s wrong.”

“What’s going on?”

“The short version,” Cori raised her brow to him. “I’ve been changing the timeline to save your life. I’ve done it, but it always ends with someone else getting killed.”

He looked her over trying to decide how serious she was. She gave him a stern look that normally might have been reserved for a child, but his query vanished and he nodded. “I’m not sure what you’ve gone through, but it seems to me, you’re fighting an unwinnable battle.”

“Possibly,” she looked him over. It was a cruel fate for Efrat, but Danato was right, she couldn’t rationalize losing Belus for him. “But my mentor taught me to fight even when the odds were against me.”

A smile perked at the corner of his mouth. “He must be a very wise man.”

“He is.” She smiled content that the right choices had been made.

As with any contentment in life, it was short lived. Yelling and gunfire hailed from around the corner, she could feel the tangible static in the air. Belus ran to help, but being unarmed a bolt threw him across the room.

Cori closed her eyes and cursed. When she opened them, Efrat was coming around the corner. He walked the few steps to put her in range of the pistols at high noon duel and stopped. For a moment, all she could do was stare at him.

She knew Belus was probably dead. Danato was probably dead, along with the guards. It wasn’t a guess based on Efrat’s power, but more of a Murphy’s Law hypothesis. Save Belus: she dies. Save Belus again: everyone dies. That seemed to be the natural order of time travel. Maybe Belus was right after all. Some events are just meant to happen.

“You said you were going to save me.” Efrat began when she didn’t plead for her life or chastise him for killing her family. She was too tired to play that game, but at least she finally understood the rules.

“I tried. I’ve been trying. In fact, you are the only reason any of this has happened. You started my time jumps by electrocuting me while I was entering the time bubble. I shot at you just as a dipped in, but it fractured my timeline and sent me momentarily out of time and space. Belus was the unfortunate recipient of my attempt to defend myself. He just got caught in front of me when my body linked into the latter part of my day. You should’ve been shot, not him. I tried to save Belus, and you got me killed. I tried to save him again and you killed everyone.”

His eyes stared back at her as coldly as she stared at him. “You do realize you’ll die anyway?” She continued. “You’ve accomplished nothing. I hope I have another time jump left because now there is nothing to stop me from shooting you in the face.”

“Nothing, but your freedom from your time jump.”

“What?”

“I thought of it, as Danato’s goons were taking me away. You said you’ve been jumping between this morning and now. That means this is the end of your time loop. You’re stuck on a record replaying the same few hours, albeit in the wrong order.” He came forward to conversational distance. “I think if I electrocute you again at the exact time that you shoot Belus, which will technically be your first schism into this time flux, it will stunt it. Complete the circuit if you care for the electrician lingo.”

Cori narrowed her eyes. “You want me to shoot Belus.”

Efrat looked back at Belus’s unmoving body. “You’re right that I am the cause of everything, but I am also the solution. If you kill me, you don’t stop jumping through time. If you don’t find a way to protect me from the General, I will fight and I will kill. I’m not going to die for Belus, Cori.”

“I don’t imagine that you would scuff a shoe for Belus.”

He moved forward slow at first, but increased at the last second to get grab her throat. She didn’t do her best to hide her fear, but his hand shifted up, leaving the pressure to pull her chin up rather than block her air. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve been through. Forgive me if I’ve lost my sympathy for the people taking money for my unlawful incarceration.” He pulled her forward. She gripped his wrists so tightly she thought she might at least be bruising him. “It may not look like it now, but this is me being sympathetic to your cause. Fix this for all of us and we all get to walk away.”

“What about Belus?”

“That’s between you and your bullets.”

40

Danato clenched his teeth as the elevator took him and Belus back up to the part-time level where he asked the men to unload Cori and Efrat. He didn’t know how things could go so wrong so fast. Cori was fine that morning, but somewhere between her being giddy over planting her crops and when Duke found her with Efrat, she had gone off the deep end.

He wanted to trust that what she was doing had some purpose, but how could she team up with Efrat for anything. He was a cold-blooded killer and nothing more. He was honestly surprised that Efrat hadn’t just electrocuted her when he came upon her in the first place.

It wasn’t long after they had broken out, when he got the confirmation of their location. Cori should have known better than to think she could hide from him in his own prison. He knew all the little nooks and crannies. It was only a matter of time before his men found her in one of them.

When the elevator doors
ponked
and opened he jumped out barely using his cane. His leg hurt like hell, but he was far too angry to pay attention to that now. Belus even struggled to keep up with him, and not for a lack of trying.

When he rounded the corner from the elevators into the back hall of the part-time section, he saw his men surrounding her. He noted that she was still armed. Efrat was standing not far behind her his hands dangerously sparking with static blue. “Cori, what the fuck is going on?” He probably should have approached her like a hostage negotiator, but he wasn’t interested in discussion. He was about a heartbeat away from telling his men to shoot them both in the leg, and be done with this whole thing.

“I…” She stammered, before catching sight of Belus. She didn’t bring her gaze back to him until he spoke to her.

“Cori, why are you helping him escape?”

“It’s a long story. One which I will explain when we are all through with it, but unfortunately it’s not over.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” He ground the words.

“It means you need to shut-up, calm down, and listen up,” she announced as if she were…him. He wasn’t nearly as taken aback by her words, as he was the look on her face. Less than an hour ago, she seemed disoriented and worried, but now she had found her grit. Even her stance matched the sturdiness of her guard captors. With the black cargo pants and boots, only her white t-shirt and long blond hair separated her from his men. “I met up with Efrat this morning. We had a very short interaction that has led me to be tangled up in my timeline. Apparently, his electricity and the time bubble don’t mix. We should probably note that somewhere in the handbook.

“I’ve been jumping in and out of the last three hours trying to make sense of things.”

“That’s not possible,” Danato interjected prepared to explain the many reasons it was indeed not possible, but she didn’t let him finish.

“It is possible when the original time bubble is what is actually causing my shift. My movement doesn’t alarm the system because I am essentially still in it. Or at least my consciousness has attached to a fragment of it.” His previous objection was overruled. If she was correct, the system would not be alarmed by the same time signature, no matter where it occurred.

“I’ve been through the ringer: PET scans, straight-jackets, you’re over protective bullshit, Efrat’s psychopathic need to create chaos.” Cori looked back at Efrat giving him a firm glare, which oddly enough made him look away and place his hands behind his back. “I’m sick of it.” She turned back to him, her face no softer than his was. “The only person in this chaos who has made any sense is Belus.”

Belus perked up hearing his name. He glanced over at him as if he might know what he had said to get through to her. Cori’s face softened as he looked at him. “I’m taking his advice and letting this play out as it was originally intended.” Her eyes lingered on Belus another second before she turned back to him.

The hard stare she put on him was surprising. He had already forgotten about his anger. Maybe it was the shock of her audacity, or maybe he was just impressed by her fortitude. No matter what it was, he could see the stress that had been weighing on her. A stress, that for some reason, she had not been able to share with him.

“This is my last round of time jumps, Efrat will ensure that.” She nodded back to the elemental. Danato caught his eye, but he didn’t see anything more in him than he ever did. Why did Cori want him here? If he was able to stop her time jump, why hadn’t he done it all ready? “No one in this room is to shoot anyone!” She turned pointing at each and every guard. She did a full spin. “No one,” she said quietly to Efrat. He held her eyes this time and nodded.

“What is this all about?” he asked wanting mostly to break the connection between them.

She turned back. “This about me watching Efrat die; me watching you and Belus die; me feeling myself die. This is about me having yet another unpredictably bad day on the job. But mostly it is about you trusting me, which is going to be really hard for you in another thirty seconds.”