The Time Travel Chronicles Read Online Free Page B

think I know that?”
    “I know you do, Kae.”
    “Then why?” I struggled not to shout. “After what happened to Taylor, why would Abi come to Crask willingly?”
    Zoe smiled sadly. “I think you know why.” And then the world snapped back like a rubber-band, accelerating suddenly to normal speeds. My head reeled as I re-matriculated with the flow of time.
    I clenched my fists at my side and forced my breathing to slow.
    “Hey, Kae?” Maddix voice broke in. “What are we waiting for?”
    “Sorry,” I said stiffly, carefully avoiding Zoe’s worried gaze.
    BLINK
    “Maddix,” I said, quickly assimilating future memories. “Stay out of 3013B.”
    “Why?” Maddix’s voice was high-pitched and strained with effort. “Don’t tell me I got shot again.”
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    THEN
     
     
    The giggling betrayed her.
    The over-stuffed vinyl recliner, worn thin from years’ worth of aggressive relaxation, was cracked and spilling gray cushioning onto my office’s gray carpeted floor. It creaked under my shifting weight as I perked an ear at the peculiar sound of youthful bliss drifting down the hall.
    Central—a place where Chronos not suckered in by Crask’s religious dogma could serve a home and country that didn’t entirely want them to begin with—was the military-sponsored alternative to the Farm. Lots of getting shot at by bad guys and even more paperwork, which didn’t leave much room for bliss.
    “Just try it,” a girl said. “I dare you.” Feet scuffled in the hall followed by a squeal and another bout of giggling. Then some moderately deeper giggling. A boy.
    “You’ll pay for that,” the girl said again.
    I couldn’t hear the boy’s response—his voice didn’t carry down the hall very well—but it must have been terribly funny judging by the girl’s reactions.
    Then it all abruptly stopped, replaced by an intense flurry of whispering just beyond the threshold of my office door.
    “You might as well come in and introduce your friend, Abi,” I said, putting down the binder of resource allocation spreadsheets and operational logistics I’d received from Administration that morning.
    Abi’s head popped into the doorway, her eyebrows raised in shock at having been discovered. “How’d you know I was here?”
    “Were you trying to be stealthy?” I asked, genuinely confused. “Because tickle fights—at least that’s what I assume is happening out there—are not, by their natur—”
    “Kae!” Abi’s cheeks turned a shade of red bordering on purple. She was dangerously close to death by embarrassment. To the young, there were worse ways to die, but not many.
    I waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, stop that. You have a boy. Good for you. Now bring him in here so I can vet him.”
    Abigail stepped into the office, shoulders slouched as though she were compressed beneath an impossible load. The red-haired boy followed a step behind with his chin up and shoulders back as though he were marching to meet Hannibal’s invading horde.
    “Hi, Agent Kwon,” he extended his hand and then froze, possibly debating whether he should salute, shake my hand, or offer some hybrid form of a thumbs-up.
    Oh, to be young and awkward again.
    ***
    The elevator shuddered to a stop and deposited Abigail and myself at the Ward. “Taylor seems nice,” I said.
    Abigail bounced along beside me like a rubber ball with legs, any lingering feelings of embarrassment having long since dissipated.
    “He’s all right,” she said, trying to play it cool. Unfortunately, she did a poor job of concealing that dopey grin indicative of puppy love. “But he is pretty cute, huh?”
    I made a point of letting her see my eyes roll as we pushed past a couple of swing-styled doors into a waiting area guarded by a single stern-faced old man wearing a smattering of time-earned wrinkles as though they were Purple Hearts. He was absorbed in a vintage comic book with a red blur streaking across the cover.
    “Hey, Kevin,”