I ran down the stairs, through the hall and into the kitchen.
I was not alone.
Sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, a gun resting on the table in front of her, was Lauren.
I stopped in my tracks. Katkin struggled and jumped out of my arms.
‘Hello, Eden,’ she said.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out except a strangled, ‘What?’
‘Sit down.’ She nodded at the chair opposite her, a nod that managed to acknowledge her gun as well as the seat.
I glanced at the open door. If I ran, she’d have time to pump several shots in me before I crossed the threshold. But what if I screamed? Called attention to her. She wouldn’t like that.
‘I suggest you do as I say. Any other choice will not lead to a good outcome.’
I hesitated.
She picked up the gun.
I sat down.
‘I’m going to make this simple for you,’ she said, putting the gun back on the table. ‘You have a choice. You can lead me to Orion Westland . . .’
‘Never. I’ll never do that.’
‘Or I will kill everyone who has ever mattered to you.’ She reached behind her and pulled the slip of paper with Miranda’s contact details from the fridge. ‘Starting with your aunt. And then your friend, Connor. And I will continue killing your friends until you lead me to Orion.’
I stared at her. ‘What are you going to do with him?’
‘Take him back where he belongs. 2123. I won’t harm him.’
‘You won’t harm him? What about me?’
‘You will have to come with us. To 2123. You know too much to be allowed to remain in this time.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘Then I will have to kill you.’
I rubbed my head. Could I trust her? She was a cleaner.
‘It’s a simple choice,’ said Lauren. ‘You and Orion come to the future with me and you get to be together. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
I looked at her.
‘Or you refuse to help me and everyone you care about will be killed.’ She stood up. ‘What’s it going to be?’
He was in the kitchen, cutting a slice of bread, when I walked in.
‘Hey,’ he said, smiling.
‘Ryan,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
He looked confused for a millisecond. Then, when the knife clattered to the counter and he raised his hands above his head, I knew she’d come in as well.
‘Why?’ he asked Lauren. ‘Why do I matter? Why can’t you just let me run? I won’t affect the timeline. You know that. You’re from the future.’
‘There’s a bounty on your head, Westland. Three million credits. Can you match that?’
He swore and looked away.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.
‘It’s not your fault. This is what she does.’
‘Actually, you were very hard to track,’ said Lauren. ‘My research told me that you would spend your first couple of weeks in the Perran area. After that you would disappear.’
‘That’s why you came so soon.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What about Eden?’
‘She’s coming with us. She knows too much.’
Ryan lowered his hands. ‘You know I won’t run. You have Eden. But please, can I leave some of our stuff on the beach? So it looks like we drowned. Just to give some closure to Eden’s family and friends.’
‘Go ahead.’
Ryan took our beach towels, hoodies and my backpack and left to plant them on the beach. I watched him through the window.
‘Who put a price on Ryan’s head?’ I asked.
‘Ryan’s father is a Guardian of Time. You don’t get that powerful without making a few enemies along the way.’
I watched him walk away, along the small sandy path that led down to the beach. He disappeared behind a chalet and then he was gone.
Two boys, dressed in wetsuits, boards under their arms, ran past the chalet towards the beach. Seagulls swooped from the clifftops and then hovered, almost stationary, in the uplift. A palm tree bent in the sudden gust of wind.
I heard a car driving along the road. A small plane travelling overhead.
Would I ever hear such things, see such things again?
High clouds raced across the sky. Out at sea, white foam sprayed from the breakers. 2012 clouds. 2012 waves. My sky. My beach.
My home.
Two hours later we arrived at an isolated farmhouse on a remote part of the moor. Like Ryan, Lauren had hidden her ship in a barn. It was black and almost circular, with legs that held it off the ground, like a four-legged spider.
‘Get in,’ she said.
‘Aren’t you going to wait till dark?’ said Ryan. ‘We always travel at night.’
Lauren gestured around her. ‘Who’s going to see us here?’
I walked my last few steps across the springy moorland grass, breathed my last few breaths in 2012. I didn’t want to leave my time. This was where I belonged. Something glinted from amid the purple heather and I stopped. It glinted again, a copper eye blinking up at me. Crouching, I parted the heather. It was a penny. Tarnished and weather-beaten, but still bright enough to catch the sun. I slipped it into my pocket for good luck. ‘Goodbye,’ I whispered to the world around me. My blood thickened and slowed, and a leaden dread filled me as I mounted the metal steps that led up to the hatch.
The inside was tiny. Just a cramped cockpit with a huge and complex-looking instrument panel and one row of seats behind it.
Ryan went first.
‘Watch your feet,’ he said.
Lying across the footwell was a body bag containing Travis. As I climbed into my seat, I was careful to avoid stepping on it.
Lauren sat in the cockpit. She tapped the console in front of her and the whole ship began to vibrate. A circle began to appear through the cockpit window. It began as a pinprick and gradually expanded until it was about three metres across. I could still see the moorland through it, though it was slightly opaque, like looking through cataracts.
‘Stabilised,’ said Lauren, checking her instruments. ‘Are you both ready?’
For a few seconds it felt as though we were moving backwards. The moor retreated into the distance. Whether this was an optical illusion or we really were travelling backwards, I couldn’t tell. The moorland began to distort until everything was curved. And then we were moving forwards into the circle, which – it became clear – was a tunnel.
No one said a word. Lauren appeared to be concentrating very hard on keeping the ship in the middle of the tunnel.
‘Ninety seconds,’ she said, reading the instrument panel in front of her.
I glanced sidelong at Ryan. He smiled and reached for my hand.
The edge of the tunnel was now completely black, while the centre was brightly illuminated. It reminded me of stories people told about near-death experiences – about travelling towards the light.
‘Sixty seconds,’ said Lauren.
It felt like the ship itself was holding its breath. I remembered Ryan telling me that portals through space-time were unstable and could collapse in on themselves and that travelling through portals this close to each other was like playing Russian roulette.
‘Thirty seconds,’ said Lauren.
Ryan crushed my hand with his. Suddenly the tunnel we were travelling through began to narrow and curve. I could see the blackness of deep space, the farmhouse shed we’d left behind and a bright green field all at the same time, as though looking at a marble. A light on the dashboard began to flash and an alarm began to sound. My nausea started to grow and I slammed a hand across my mouth.
‘The portal’s collapsing!’ Ryan shouted.
‘Hold on!’ said Lauren as she frantically tapped away at the screen on the dashboard. ‘We’re going to have to make a slight adjustment.’