Timesurfers (29 page)

Jonah
knowing
her
was becoming extremely annoying. “Shouldn’t you be training Zach
for the GTs? He’s going to need a
tonne
of work.”

“He doesn’t need to train Zach, because
Mortez doesn’t make her people take the GTs. She attends them all,
of course, to identify potential recruits.” Rose patted the log
next to her. “Come and sit, Jonah.”

He strode to the fire and assumed his
arms-crossed commando stance. “I’ll stand.”

“Of course you will.” Rose pointed to Cate.
“You’re making me uncomfortable. Park your backside on the
ground.”

Every
fibre
in Cate’s body had a different curse word to
yell at Rose, but she sucked it up and sat. “So Zach gets out of
the GTs because he’s with Mortez?”

Rose nodded. She looked at Jonah. “How did
you make the monumental gaff of planting a bomb under a bus that
Cate would be on? Didn’t you research it?”

Jonah shrugged. “I researched it far more
thoroughly than I’ve researched any other mission. She shouldn’t
have been there. Someone or something altered her path. It was
timed perfectly. A sneaky wizard put a popularity charm on Zach. I
think that started the ball rolling.”

“I knew Zach’s sudden popularity and his
cheerleading girlfriend weren’t right!” Cate exclaimed.

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Rose rolled
her eyes at Cate. “Any wizard suspects?”

Jonah scratched his head. “Catherine did a
search for wizards in that area for me but it came up clean. Which
is weird because I know Elias is there and I suspect there’s at
least one other wizard present as well. Elias could have cast the
spell, but he still would have needed someone close to Cate to
manipulate her movements to that spot and the timing was so
perfect.”

Cate’s mind ticked over. The paintball trip
had been a total last minute decision. Eve insisted they join the
last game of the season instead of going on their planned trip to
the movies.

“Mortez has her pretty well covered.” Rose
tapped her chin. “Maybe it was purely a coincidence she was
there?”

“Unlikely. I don’t have a time tube for
anyone to track, so how did they know the exact moment I’d be
there?” Jonah turned to Rose. “How did Naitanui know I would be
there?”

“That’s classified. I could tell you, but
then I’d have to kill you, so you couldn’t identify the mole we’ve
had embedded in Mortez’s team for nearly a decade.”

Jonah shook his head and grinned. “Well we
certainly wouldn’t want that!”

Rose touched Jonah’s arm. “I’m guessing
Mortez made you bleed and killed a few relatives for that
mistake.”

Jonah’s shoulders sagged. “Three. The child’s
heart was still beating when Mortez lobbed it on the ground.”

Cate gasped.

“The last thing I saw was the heel of
Mortez’s boot. I woke up to a frantic Zach. He said Mortez fed them
to the fire ants and was terrified we were next.”

Rose laughed. “Word on the street is Zach
fainted when he surfed the first time.” Jonah gave her two thumbs
up, and for a moment they were two old friends sharing a joke.

“How come Zach could travel to the future,
when he’s one of Mortez’s minions, and I couldn’t? The magic booted
me back with multiple fractures and broken bones.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Think it through.”

It was infuriating how dumb she made Cate
feel. The answer to the Zach thing was
tantalisingly
close. It flitted in and out of her
head a few times before she was able to catch it. To have no aura
in the future at Mortez’s Command he would either have had to have
defected to Naitanui, runaway or...died. Rose would have killed
Zach if he defected to Naitanui and Mortez would have had Jonah
hunt him down and kill him if he had runaway. “Is Zach dead?”

Rose gave a noncommittal shrug, and Jonah
shuffled uncomfortably. Their silence was as good as a
confirmation. “How did he die?”

Jonah’s face looked drawn in the firelight.
“The magic won’t let us say.”

“I hate magic more each day! Nearly as much
as I hate preparing for your stupid GTs,” Cate muttered.

“You chose the GTs.” There was a
matter-of-fact tone to Jonah’s voice.

“I’m only doing them so Naitanui helps me
find Xavier.”

“How does that make you feel, Jonah?” Rose
asked.

Chapter 22

It’s Time

E
ach night Cate fell asleep on unyielding rock as
Jonah and Rose whispered by the fire. Her plan to eavesdrop was
foiled as exhaustion and a surprisingly comfortable swag forced her
into a dreamless sleep in minutes.

Tonight as she floated in the
cosy
space between wakefulness and
sleep, the warm glow of satisfaction wrapped around her. Today her
foot had grazed the front of Rose’s designer black singlet. She
also came tantalizingly close to messing her perfect mermaid hair,
not once, but twice. Cate’s first quantum indicator had also
finally appeared.

The days had begun to blur together. Each
morning she ran five miles in the soft, white beach sand, which
squeaked under her feet it was so clean, followed by sparring and
board breaks with Rose. Next, there was an hour with her
blindfolded, standing knee deep in the ocean as she attempted to
get a hand, foot, or even a fingernail on Jonah. The water stopped
her from ending up unconscious every three minutes. The wet clothes
and wet hair sucked, and so did having sand in all the wrong
places.

During Jonah’s sessions, Rose reclined on the
pristine white sand with a soft, wide brimmed straw hat to protect
her fair skin, looking very demure until she opened her mouth with
a few choice words of encouragement for
Jonah
.

After lunch Cate threw assorted weapons at
targets, scaled the jagged limestone cliffs, and ran another five
miles in prickly scrub that made her hands and legs bleed. To end
the day, she sparred against Rose and Jonah in a ten foot by ten
foot metal cage. That was her least
favourite
thing. There was nowhere to hide.

Jonah and Rose
analysed
her form and barked corrections. No matter
how hard she tried, she couldn’t stand straight enough, engage her
core enough, or use those eyes everyone seemed to think she had in
the back of her head. Whenever she wanted to scream that she was
concentrating as hard as possible, she bit her tongue. If more
concentration would help her smash Rose, she would concentrate
more. There was also Xavier. This was all about finding him.

Jonah’s responsibility was to kick her butt
in new and interesting ways, as Rose so eloquently put it. Always
the perfect gentleman, he helped her off her butt each time he
knocked her down. To finish tonight, Rose drew ten little black
crosses on both Cate’s and Jonah’s bodies, and asked them to each
hit as many as possible in three minutes. Jonah hit all ten, twice.
Cate hit one.

Rose’s melodic voice floated through Cate’s
comfortable sleep haze. “Having her around is doing my head
in.”

“You’ll survive.” The slight gravel tone to
Jonah’s voice complemented his drawl perfectly. Cate loved his
accent as much as she detested Rose’s posh English one.

“Having
you
around
is doing my head in more.”

“Right back at you.” Jonah gave a relaxed
chuckle.

He was probably lounging on the ground, one
arm behind his head, drawing circles on the ground with his other
hand. That was the position he assumed each night as she went to
bed. Cate concentrated on steadying her breathing and strained to
hear their conversation.

“Have I told you how much I hate this?” Rose
asked.

“Let me think...”

There was scuffling followed by a loud thud.
She risked opening an eye. Rose and Jonah lay on the ground, arms
and legs tangled around one another. Both of their hair still
perfectly styled. The firelight highlighted the angles and planes
of Jonah’s beautiful face. Rose’s ebony hair and perfectly shaped
black eyebrows were such a contrast to her alabaster skin and
vibrant red lips. She was exquisite.

Jonah brushed a thumb over Rose’s cheek with
a tenderness that made Cate’s heart contract. He bent his head and
placed a lingering kiss on Rose’s neck that made Cate blush.
Watching old people canoodling was so gross and uncomfortable. She
let out a relieved breath as Jonah planted a fleeting kiss on
Rose’s forehead and helped her stand.

Rose fidgeted with her hair and then clasped
and unclasped her hands. “Are you sure you erased everything about
Austin’s relationship with Catherine from his mind, Jonah? Austin
said Cate looked familiar at the bus stop.”

“Yes.” Jonah sounded certain. “I did it
because I was terrified what Mortez could make him
and
Catherine do if she had discovered their
relationship.”

What type of relationship
did Catherine have with Austin?
Cate wondered.

“People do unspeakable things for love.”
Jonah’s voice was flat and tired. “Too late, they
realise
their exquisite love has
turned insidious, devouring all that is good and pure in them from
the inside out. Look at me. I choose to risk dying a slow, tortuous
death every day because I can’t stop myself being in love with you.
I won’t even try to be happy with Catherine, because we would both
be settling for second choice. She deserves someone who loves her
completely, and that can’t be me because of you.”

So Jonah and Catherine weren’t together, but
they had a complicated thing going on too.
My
life must be emotionally exhausting
. Cate was strongly
leaning towards never having a boyfriend ever again. She wanted to
slap her future self and remind her that there were more important
things in the world than boys. She would also like to ask her
future self what on earth she was thinking when she made the
unfathomable decision to get on board with Mortez and her team
evil. There had to be a story about that.

The colour had drained from Rose’s face. She
pressed a hand against her chest. “If you love Catherine, you
should be with her.”

“Catherine is my best friend. Of course I
love her. Every minute I spend with her it becomes more tempting to
settle for what the two of us could have. But I’m not in love with
her, and she’s not in love with me. She and Austin protected their
clandestine relationship for months. Catherine’s still oblivious to
the fact that I know about them and I regret telling you about
them,” Jonah hissed.

Right! Future Cate and
Austin had that type of relationship.

“I never asked you to tell me about their
relationship, just like I never asked you to help Naitanui protect
my family from Mortez,” Rose whispered fiercely.

“Because you knew you didn’t have to, Rose. I
was always going to feed you covert information about any plans
Mortez had to harm your family. What sort of man would I be if I
sat by and did nothing when the family of the woman I love was in
danger? Each time I assist Naitanui to relocate your stepmother and
sisters, I wonder if this is the time Mortez will be waiting to
kill me slowly when I return, because she’s discovered I’m helping
Naitanui protect your family that she’s devoted to killing as
revenge for your indiscretion with her husband.”

Rose’s head dropped into her hands. “I didn’t
know Daniel was married to Mortez at the time. I don’t regret what
I did. Austin is the most beautiful thing in my life.”

“The only person I love more than Austin in
this world is you. I’m the only father he has ever known. Each time
Mortez murders an innocent who is my family by blood in some
horrific way, it’s like another dagger is plunged into my soul. But
I keep going because staying with her is the best way to keep you
and Austin, my true family, safe.”

“I pray it won’t always be like this,
Jonah.”

“Not as much as I do.”

The fire hissed and crackled through the big
silence that followed.

It was mind blowing how messed up Jonah and
Rose were. They had betrayed Austin in the most horrible way. If he
found out they had wiped his memory he would be devastated.

Branches cracked, and a large black mass
moved through the scrub toward them. The moon, round and full, came
out from behind a cloud, highlighting their campsite. Cate’s heart
jumped into her mouth and her stomach turned to water as she leapt
to her feet.

“Everyone up,” a familiar voice commanded
through the darkness.

“Stay, Cate,” Rose ordered.

“I’m not a dog,” Cate replied. She didn’t
move though.

“Go, Jonah,” Rose whispered.

When Jonah reached to hug Cate she backed
away. “Don’t touch me. Ever again.”

Jonah dropped his arms, clearly confused.
“Good luck.” He flickered and vanished.

The group was close enough for Cate to make
out Naitanui in the lead. Her stomach flipped when she saw Austin.
She blinked a few times, taking in his familiar swagger, low-slung,
tattered jeans, and orange and black checked flannel shirt. The
group halted as they reached the fire. No one else looked
familiar.

“Hey, Beautiful,” Austin said.

The hairs on Cate’s neck stood up one at a
time when his breath washed over them. He casually brushed her
shoulder, then shoved his hands into his front pockets and slouched
against the limestone cliff Cate had climbed each night. With his
arms flexed and killer smile in place, he looked amazing. She could
watch him forever.

“Okay.” Naitanui motioned to the people
surrounding him. “Take Cate to the holding area.”

Cate froze. “What?”

“You’re in lockdown until the GTs commence in
six hours.”

“But I’m not ready,” she stammered.

Naitanui smiled. “No one is ever ready. Take
her.”