Timesurfers (12 page)

“Language!” Rose interrupted.

“I dropped her because someone told me to. I
didn’t want to. I just...had to.” Rafe slammed the table and kicked
his chair over.

Cate shuffled her chair and busied herself
smoothing the pleats on her green school skirt. Cold fear trickled
down her shoulder blades. She was pretty sure she had made Rafe
drop Brittany
.

“I don’t remember Rafe making any attempt to
catch Brittany.” Rose tapped her teeth. “Are you saying someone
compelled you to drop her?”

Rafe shrugged. “My brain told me I had to
throw her in the air and walk away—so I did.”

Naitanui steepled his fingers under his chin
and contemplated her. “I believe Cate inadvertently compelled Rafe
to drop Brittany.”

All eyes turned Cate’s way. She drew a circle
in the dirt with her toe, squirming under everyone’s gaze. Her eyes
fixed on the red flecks of dirt swirling through the air and
settling on her shoe. She had wanted Rafe to drop Brittany. It was
just a stupid thought. She didn’t mean for it to actually
happen.

Rafe glared at Cate. “But it’s impossible to
compel other Timesurfers.”

“Mortez has gone to enormous trouble to hide
and protect Cate. It’s no surprise she’s a little different,”
Naitanui said.

She detested the idea of being different.
Only mothers thought different was a good thing to be. Serial
killers were always referred to as being
different
when they were children. “Mortez didn’t hide
me. Two covert international agencies collaborated to do that.”

Naitanui waved his hand. “I’m aware of the
witness protection. It has no impact on my records. Mortez hid you
using powerful magic.”

Cate plonked her face on the table and rested
her hands on her head. More magic.
Please let
this end.

“Oh, come on! Buy a vowel. It has to be her.
That’s why I brought her here.” The flashing lights highlighted
Austin’s scars as he paced. They were an exact match to the crimson
checks on his shirt.

“You have all these magical powers. How
damned hard can it be for you to identify me?”

“The magic Mortez used to cloak you from my
instruments is ancient and powerful. It’s
unravelling
little by little, but there are
many layers to it.” Naitanui ambled over to stare at one of the
cubes. “Until I confirm exactly who you are, my Timesurfers will
stay with you.”

What could she have done or become that was
so damned important to everyone? She needed to stay close to the
Timesurfers to find out.

“Austin, take her back.”

“But...” Cate and Austin chorused.

“That’s an order,” Naitanui said quietly.

Cate shrunk back into her chair. This guy you
clearly didn’t mess with.

“Fine.” Austin took a brutal hold on Cate’s
arm. “Again, this will be uncomfortable.”

Chapter 9

Jonah

C
ate closed her eyes as the world spun. Fireworks
pierced her eyelids like a thousand hot needles as she hovered in a
dark void. She tensed, knowing what to expect this time. Smack!
Cold, hard metal smashed into the base of her spine. As she hurtled
through the darkness the burning started. Boiling blood had nothing
on this new pain. She wanted to claw her skin open and release the
fire from of her body. If she fainted she would escape the
excruciating pain. Her brain remained defiantly clear and focused
on not letting her lose consciousness. The pain was bigger and she
was more aware this time.
Someone kill me now!
PLEASE!

She landed spread eagled on the ground. The
damp grass sent shivers down her spine, but soothed her burning
cheek. She spat out the grass and dirt that somehow ended up in her
mouth.

“It gets worse before it gets better.” Austin
helped her up. “Watch your thoughts. Think before you,
well...think.”

She tugged her arm a few times, trying to
escape the death grip Austin had on her. “If you’re rifling through
my brain with your little Time-Jedi tricks, stop it.” At this rate
she wouldn’t have a brain to rifle through, it was taking such a
beating.

“I can’t read your mind, happy?”

She was light years away from happy. “How do
you travel through time like that?”

“It’s a combination of magic and science.
Your body
dematerialises
–”

“No! You look like you’ve stepped from one
room to another.” She smoothed her hair and removed a few stands of
grass. “I look like I’ve be pulled through a tornado.”

He chuckled as he plucked random plant matter
from her hair. His broad shoulders blocked the sun, which outlined
him with its silver glow. As his hand ran over her hair, tingles
shimmered over her scalp.

She swatted his hand away. “I can do it.”

“I’ve been surfing for longer than you’ve
been alive.” He dropped his hand. “It takes practice.”

“What, so now you’re a century old, immortal,
magical time
traveller
who’s frozen forever at sixteen?”

“Whoa! Big leap there. I’m nineteen, but I’ve
been Timesurfing since before I could walk. My mum, who is an
immortal, hid out in a different time each week until I was five.
She had a relationship that went bad.”

“Your mother’s an immortal?”

“Keep up. I’m off. Eve’s headed this way from
cheer practice. ETA, two minutes.”

“But we’ve been gone for ages.”

“Perks of time travel. Spend as long as you
want in my present—only lose a few minutes in
your
present. That’s
my
past.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got that. When you were
talking to Naitanui before, who did you think I was?”

“The magic won’t let me say.” Austin’s impish
grin frustrated her. He pushed all her buttons so effortlessly with
his infectious boyish charm and the promise of an uncomplicated
good time.

“You know I’m going to tell Eve
everything?”

Austin shrugged. “It’s you risking the
frontal lobotomy. Naitanui!” He flickered and disappeared.

“Hey you!” Eve half skipped and half ran
across the grass.

“How was cheerleading?” Cate asked, already
knowing the answer.

“Funny, you.” Eve prodded Cate with her
toe.

“I want to know. Did you have fun?”

“Now you’re just being weird.” Eve grimaced.
“There is nothing I am more likely to
not
be doing than cheerleading.”

“But you’re still head girl?”

“They can’t revoke my head girl badge for a
continued commitment to not being a cheerleader.”

Eve was oblivious to ever being at
cheerleading practice. Rafe had altered everyone’s memories. “Do I
look different to you?” Cate asked.

“Different how?”

“In any way?”

Eve tugged a packet of chocolate biscuits
from her canvas backpack. “No. You’re acting very strangely.”

“I’ve had the weirdest day ever. If I don’t
tell someone, I think my brain’s going to implode.”

“There’s a nasty visual.”

“I’m serious.”

“Hit me with it.” Eve plonked cross-legged on
the ground and looked up expectantly. “Can you hurry? I’m getting a
damp butt.”

As much as she wanted to blurt everything
from the bomb at the bus stop to bringing Brittany back from the
dead, she needed Eve to believe her more. After contemplating how
much to censor the events of the past few days, she went
exclusively with the altered time line today and her trip to the
future with Austin. The rest she could weave in when, or if, Eve
was onboard.

Eve never broke eye contact as Cate explained
her day from renovated house and overnight popularity to her fiery
trip with Austin.

“Well?” Cate pushed.

Eve chewed her lip and held up her hand. “I
need a minute or so more.”

As each minute ticked by, Cate’s anxiety
ratcheted higher.

“I always expected time
travellers
to arrive in a burst of
lightning. Naked and crouched in the terminator pose, like Arnold
Schwarzenegger,” Eve said finally.

The story sounded far-fetched even to Cate,
and she’d lived through it. “So you don’t believe me?”

“I
want
to believe
you.”

“But?”

“You’re my friend. If you’re sick, I want to
help you.”

“I’m not sick.”

Eve pinched the bridge of her nose. “I have
always thought I was destined for bigger things. And I pride myself
on being extremely open minded. If you
are
making this up, you’re beyond help and I’ll lose you to a
psychiatric ward forever. Better to keep you around as long as I
can. I’ll keep notes. That way my million dollar book deal can pay
your future medical bills, which, let’s face it, might be
substantial.”

While Eve couldn’t hide her anxiousness, she
had taken this better than Cate could ever have imagined.

“So a quick recap.” Eve ticked off each item
on her fingers as she said it. “You have confirmed Austin, Rose,
and Rafe are Time...what were they again?”

“Timesurfers,” Cate said. “Jonah too. But
he’s from a different group.”

“So there are different Timesurfer gangs to
be in. You travelled to the future with Austin, and it’s been
suggested you are a Timesurfer—”

“Quite a special one,” Cate broke in.

Eve rolled her eyes. “And that is supported
by the fact only you see the alternate time lines each morning
which are revealed when history resets at midnight.”

“That’s it in a nutshell.” The healing thing
she kept to herself. “And Naitanui’s Timesurfers protect history
from magical manipulation.”

“And why is everyone so interested in you?
What makes you special?”

“No idea. My true identity and historical
path are apparently being cloaked by powerful ancient magic.”

“Of course they are.” Eve laughed. “I can’t
believe we had no friends yesterday. You, maybe, but I’m a
delightful person. Who would I want to play me in the book to movie
adaptation? This is all kinds of exciting. It could be
awesome
.”

***

Cate elbowed the blue front door open. “I’m home,”
she yelled, spraying droplets of chocolate everywhere. Hearing
voices from the kitchen, she motioned Eve to follow.

Eve’s eyes swept over the newly decorated
lounge room. “It looks the same to me.”

“Only I can see the changes—it should look
the same to you. You’re not a Timesurfer.”

“So weird!” Eve muttered. “My brain has
always been far superior to yours. Maybe I’m too clever to be a
Timesurfer.”

Cate ignored her.

“Hi, honey. Hey, Eve.” Her mother stood at
the sink, dressed in black training clothes. She pulled a knife
from her leg strap and twirled it through her fingers. She diced
the carrots on the chopping block with ninja speed and returned the
knife into her leg holder, all the while smiling and maintaining
eye contact with them. Her mother not losing a finger while she
cooked was a modern day miracle.

“Evie!” the three teenage boys scattered
around the new kitchen bench chorused. Balthazar’s buzz cut,
Melchior’s shaggy blonde hair, and Gaspar’s scarlet curls were
familiar sights around the house. They were students from Winthrop,
her mum’s school for kids with anger management issues and criminal
records, or “detention centre” for short. When her mother said
jump, these three asked how high.

“Are you staying for dinner, Eve?”

“Thanks, but no, Mrs. Zetrom.”

Her mum gave Eve a stern look. “Eve, what do
I always say? Please call me Emme.”

“Sorry, Emme. Mum’s demanded my presence
tonight.” Eve rolled her eyes. “Family bonding time.”

“I applaud your mother.” Her mum grabbed a
serrated knife from her arm strap, pointing the curved tip toward
Eve. “I insist we sit down to dinner as a family as often as
possible. There’s no better way to keep in touch with a teenager’s
life. It’s so moment to moment.”

“Sure it is.” Cate opened the shiny new
refrigerator door. “Anything to eat?”

“All that sugar so late in the day.” Her mum
tut-tutted at the empty packet of biscuits in Eve’s hand. “Do not
think
of touching the trifle.”

“There’s no trifle in there.” Cate shouldered
the refrigerator door shut and chomped into a chicken
drumstick.

Her mum groaned. “Your brother is having a
sleepover; everyone took something for dinner. Xavier should have
taken that chicken you’re inhaling. He’s taken the trifle
instead.”

“But that was my birthday trifle.” Xavier was
dead when Cate got hold of him.

“I’ll make another trifle,” her mum said.
“Have you ever missed out?”

“Well...no,” Cate grumbled.

“I rest my case,” her mum stated. “I trust
you had a fight free day today. No more of Zach’s blood was
spilled, and you didn’t break any bones in other people’s
bodies?”

Eve snickered and Cate glared at her.

“What?” Eve said. “That’s funny. It never
gets old, even after all these years.”

Well, Cate thought,
technically I did have a fight free day. I also brought a
cheerleader back to life, went on a trip to the future, and
discovered I’m a magical Timesurfer
. “Do you have to ask me
that every day after school?”

“Apparently, I do. I checked on Zach last
night, as I promised his parents I would while they are away. Why
would you punch him again?”

“He asked for it.” Damn her mother and her
good
neighbourly
deeds.
“That was last night, not today, and I wasn’t fighting per se. It
was one punch. I didn’t even break any bones. A nose is made of
cartilage.”

The “do not split hairs with me” glare from
her mother made Cate cringe. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Guy’s a loser! I say well done, you,”
Balthazar called from the table, where he was using a paring knife
to peel a green apple. He never tired of trying to remove the skin
in an unbroken piece.