Timesurfers Read online

  For now, she would play along. It was time to be herself, not the manufactured bland girl who blended in that witness protection required her to be. She chomped on her hamburger and stared at Brittany and the other cheerleaders.

  Rose tapped Brittany on the shoulder. “So, Brittany, being a cheerleader must be really fun?”

  Austin groaned. His fingers brushed Cate’s neck as he laid his arm along the back of her seat. Rose glanced at Austin’s hand and shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  “I’m not a cheerleader. I’m the cheerleader. Cheer captain,” Brittany replied with a tight smile.

  “Impressive,” Rose said. “I’d love to try out for your team.”

  “You’ve missed tryouts.” Brittany flipped her hair.

  The buzzing started in Cate’s ears again. She heard a soft snick and the static disappeared. Rafe’s voice came in loud and clear, inside her head.

  Let Rose try out. Insist she bring her friends along. Having Cate and Eve on your cheer squad is a lifelong dream.

  “Over my dead body,” Cate muttered.

  Austin’s hand squeezed her shoulder, wrapping her in a blanket of tingly warm feelings. He bent his head and whispered to her. “So you can hear Rafe doing his thing now? Interesting. I know you couldn’t hear him this morning, because he kept throwing in requests for you to flash your boobs at him, and you didn’t smack him.”

  Cate kicked Austin hard in the shins under the table.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Brittany said. “I’d love for you to try out. Bring Cate, and Eve with you.”

  Eve spat her drink over the table. “You cannot be serious!” she spluttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The other cheerleaders stared in astonishment.

  “I never joke about cheerleading,” Brittany replied. “We meet on the oval Thursday after school.”

  “Nice going.” Rose high-fived Rafe.

  “I aim to please.” Rafe winked.

  “So Eve, are you up for some cheerleading?” Rose smiled. Red crept along Eve’s latte cheeks as she stared at the table, pushing strands of white-blonde hair behind her ears.

  Eve has such a crush on Rose! Cate thought.

  “You two are prettier than all those cheerleaders; how come you aren’t on the team already?”

  “Well”—Eve preened as she spoke—“I am gorgeous but disliked because I hang with Cate, who is more gorgeous than me, but has a foul temper she often has trouble controlling. People keep their distance. So pretty yes, but popular, not so much. I’m also extremely uncoordinated.”

  “Cate!”

  Well, well, well. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to say hi,” Zach replied.

  His eyes were puffy and his blonde ringlets rumpled. That could be his new popular style though. Her desire to smack him around dwindled as she took in his shabby look. She still wanted to get even, but not like that.

  “Oh,” she replied. “Well, hi.” Zach’s eyes followed Austin’s fingers, which had begun to trace circles on her neck. Cate’s entire body below the waist filled with butterflies. She was surprised and a little pleased at how unpleased Zach looked. She snuggled a little closer to Austin. Hello, new boyfriend!

  “Well, bye,” Zach finished.

  “Bye.” Cate mustered the brightest “I am so over you” smile possible.

  “Bye, Jack,” Austin called.

  “It’s Zach,” Zach replied.

  “I always get that wrong. Sorry.” Austin didn’t look remotely sorry.

  Zach’s eyes flashed with anger.

  “Eve, could you be a dear and get me a glass of water?” Rose asked with a dazzling smile. “I feel a little warm.”

  “On it!” Eve’s face lit up, and she zoomed to the servery.

  Austin’s hand dropped from Cate’s neck as Zach sat next to Brittany. “That would be our cue to report back.”

  “I have questions,” Cate said.

  “And when we confirm who you are, we’ll consider answering them.” Austin stood and hoisted his leg over the back of his chair. “Oh, Cate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess we’re an item now.”

  She took a deep breath, but the three of them were already halfway to the door.

  “I really like them.” Eve’s face beamed as she watched Rose leave. At five foot five, Eve was three inches shorter than Cate and far more slender. Her lack of curves and boobs was a constant source of angst. “So you and Austin looked cosy. Now you two together makes far more sense than you and Zach ever did.”

  Cate gave a noncommittal shrug.

  ***

  She stewed through the afternoon about all things Austin. Eve left straight from school for an appointment, so Cate headed to homework club to finish a pesky essay. She left school at a different time and from a different building each day. Witness protection frowned on routine.

  As the sun disappeared behind the buildings, she shoved her books away and headed home. She’d make a loop around the boarders’ house for the required deviation as she left the school grounds.

  The minute she stepped out of homework club, the short hairs on her neck stood up. She put her head down and power walked to the iron gates and hesitated. After checking behind her, she deliberated whether to call her mum to collect her.

  “You’re being paranoid,” she muttered, crossing the road at a jog. A huge ginger cat raced past her. It looked like Polka Dot, the neighbourhood stray. She glanced behind again. Someone with a tangle of white-blonde hair disappeared around the corner.

  The shadows from the old boarding house started dancing, extending dark, damp fingers her way. One particular shadow held her attention. It crept along the ground toward her. She froze. Was that someone breathing in the shadows? She gulped. The tip of the dark shadow slid closer. She made a decision.

  Chapter 4

  Infuriating Twerp

  Cate ran the entire way home.

  Her heart was about to burst from her chest as she slammed the bedroom door and collapsed against it. “Get a grip,” she gasped. “No one followed you. You’re on edge after...well...everything. Aarrgh.” Three loud bangs on the bedroom door made her scamper to the window. She could absolutely jump from one floor up. The doorknob twisted, and her heart took off like a helicopter. She fumbled with the window lock.

  “Cate, you in here?” A blonde head poked around her door.

  “Geez! Xavier.” She grabbed the nearest thing and hurled it. “GET OUT!”

  “Again with the pathetic throwing,” Xavier called, as Flopsie the stuffed white rabbit landed on the floor a foot in front of him.

  Eyes closed, she growled through her teeth, so tense she thought she might explode. Sagging onto her bed, she took three deep breaths. “What do you want?”

  “Mum called. An unexpected meeting with some super important person came up. I’m ordering Thai food for dinner.”

  “Fine. I want wontons.” Her eyes swept the front yard before she closed the window. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and a shiver trickled down her shoulder blades. Her spider sense tingled. The lingering feeling that someone followed her home remained. She jumped as her phone beeped with her 6:00 p.m. reminder.

  CATE: “HOME AND JUST ORDERED THAI FOOD”

  PIP: “? YOUR DAY?”

  CATE: “FINE”

  PIP: “STILL SINGLE?”

  CATE: “NOPE!”

  PIP: “TART”

  Cate smiled and deleted the conversation.

  ***

  With her stomach full of delicious Thai food, she felt calmer. The doorbell played “Waltzing Matilda,” a little reminder of Australia. “I’ll go,” Cate said.

  Xavier just stretched on the couch and patted his belly contentedly.

  She hesitated as her hand grasped the doorknob. “Who is it?” she called, purely to set a good example for Xavier, and certainly not because she was worried. Her hand shook as she flipped the porch light on.

  “It’s me. Ope
n the door...please.”

  She groaned and flung the door open. “Get off my porch, asshat!”

  “Can I come in?” Zach asked.

  “Nope.”

  An enormous ginger cat was curled up on the porch chair with one eye half open. Polka Dot was the neighbourhood stray. He had unofficially adopted Cate’s family as his owners of choice. A hiss conveyed his contempt for the proceedings which had disturbed his sleep. Zach was only an inch taller than her and a stocky build. His blue eyes were flat and lifeless, and his normally pleasant, round face was drawn. She wanted to take the high road and be all magnanimous, but she couldn’t. Zach dumped her by text. Some things were unforgivable. “Did you get lost on your way to see Brittany?”

  “Can we talk?” Zach raked a hand through his hair. Ringlets were hard for a sixteen-year-old boy to pull off.

  “Why not send me a text?” she hissed. “That seems to be your preferred form of communication.”

  “Cate...” Zach raised his blonde eyebrows and stared.

  She imagined slamming the door in his face. Instead, she stabbed at the stop clock on her wristwatch and folded her arms. “You’ve got three minutes.”

  “Let me come in.”

  “There’s absolutely no chance of that. Not a good use of your limited time.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  She snorted.

  “You’ve fallen in with a pretty rough crowd.”

  “What are you waffling about?”

  “Austin and his friends.” Zach shoved his hands into the pockets of the low-slung, faded denim jeans he now favoured instead of his usual dark blue chinos.

  Austin had certainly got Zach’s attention. “What’s it to you? What do you know about them anyway?”

  Zach dragged his hands down his face. “I just...don’t like them.”

  The purple shadows under his blue eyes reminded her of when he was recovering from the infamous broken nose she gave him her first week in Tempus Falls. He looked dog-tired.

  “I think it would be better if you gave them the flick.” Zach hung his head, his shoulders hunched.

  “And I don’t care what you think.” Her voice was hard and flat.

  “Look, I know that things have been confusing the last few days.”

  He dumped her. Nothing confusing there. Did he somehow know about the other stuff going on in her life?

  “I’ve given it some thought, and I think it would be better for you if we forgot about the breakup. I’m prepared to take you back.”

  Imagine that. HE was prepared to take HER back. She would need to hold off on turning cartwheels with excitement. “Are you insane?” she hissed, fingers drumming her hips. “I will never, EVER be your girlfriend again.”

  “Be reasonable. I made a mistake. I’ve apologised. Can’t we go back to how it was?”

  He was a tosser, but if he was in danger because of her, she should help him. “Are you in some kind of trouble? Has someone scared you or threatened you?”

  “No. You need me. Be my girl again.”

  She felt zero guilt in her next words. “Didn’t you hear me say I would never ever be your girlfriend again? For a supposedly clever guy, you’re clueless. Did they remove the thinking part of your brain when they made you all popular?”

  “There are worse things than being popular. I can get you there by association. After all these years of being ostracised to social Siberia, I would think you’d be gagging for it.”

  Cate’s mouth moved, but so many words flooded her mind to describe the kind of massive wrong Zach was she couldn’t pick one.

  “Leave now,” she said through her teeth. You infuriating twerp.

  “Come on, babe.”

  “I’m not your babe.” Anger dripped into Cate’s chest, pulsing toward her fingertips with each heartbeat.

  “You can’t afford the luxury of being choosey.”

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” She fixed a steely gaze on Zach. Did he know about her witness protection and the boyfriend requirement? Or was he just being a jerk?

  “Every girl needs a boyfriend. They’re pathetic and lonely otherwise.”

  He was just being a total jerk. “Did your ears actually hear what your mouth said? What complete crap, you misogynistic imbecile.” She flexed her fingers; the anger leaching through her body had reached a dead end at her fingertips, and it wanted out. She punched Zach directly on the nose.

  He staggered back, blood trickling through his fingers. “Geez.”

  “FYI—a boyfriend is not a necessity!” she said quietly. “Now get the hell off my porch.” She slammed the front door. Zach had nothing to say she wanted to hear. His sucking up did give her a sense of having the upper hand though. She could see how people became drunk on power. It was terrific. Her phone beeped.

  PIP: “NO MORE FIGHTING. EVEN IF HE IS A DICKHEAD”

  CATE: “RECEIVED AND RELUCTANTLY ACKNOWLEDGED”

  She went to delete the conversation but hesitated.

  CATE: “CAN’T YOU HAVE HIM KILLED?”

  PIP: “NEGATIVE”

  She smiled and walked up the stairs. Zach would have a damn sore nose.

  Chapter 5

  Wizard Magic

  “Enough whining, Zach. You deserved a broken nose. That was abysmal. Your goal was to convince Cate to take you back. I didn’t see an ounce of grovelling.” Each time Jonah looked at Zach, he was reminded the guy was scum. The terrible thing Zach would do to Cate was unforgivable. Letting him live long enough to allow history to take its course was killing Jonah inside.

  “Most of this Timesurfing gig is waiting and watching. You made it sound way cooler than it actually is. I don’t give a rat’s ass about getting Cate back. I like Brittany.” Zach glared and unlocked the front door to his house. “Is it really that important to do what Mortez wants?”

  “You saw me unconscious with half my face caved in. You heard the screams when Mortez fed those people to the fire ants. That’s what happens when people fail to carry out her orders.”

  “I was barely conscious at the time,” Zach snapped. “You’d just told me that I was going to be a Timesurfer, you were a Timesurfer from the future, and then I was nearly boiled alive when—against my will—we magically travelled through time to the future. It’s a lot for me to take in. I’m not sold on the idea of being a Timesurfer yet.”

  What a self-involved dick this guy was. Dumb too, if he thought he could choose whether or not to be involved with Mortez. This was an unmitigated disaster. Mortez had sent Jonah to execute a nuclear physicist who would accumulate his fortune selling hand held nuclear weapons to terrorists. There had been no record of Cate being at the bus stop. He had triple checked her location that afternoon because she lived in Tempus Falls on that date. She should have been at the movies on the other side of town with tosser Zach. Well away from the threat of any injury from his bomb. On discovering Cate at the bus stop he had disarmed the bomb to avoid killing her, but in doing so had failed to kill the target. The beating he took after the catastrophic mission came flooding back.

  Blood tinged spots erupted in front of his eyes. Unconsciousness beckoned, enticing him to give in. While his body screamed with pain, he knew he was alive.

  “Jonah,” Mortez crooned, her fingernail slicing through his chin as his knees sagged. She hoisted his limp body off the cold floor and twirled his windpipe between her fingers, giving him the weird sensation of drowning while on dry land. “To say I’m unhappy with your unsuccessful mission would be the understatement of my existence. Your failure to kill your target is unacceptable.”

  His lungs would surely disintegrate soon. Lack of air caused alveoli to explode in a lethal and excruciating chain reaction. Mortez slammed his face into the smooth marble floor, already slick with his blood. Her hot breath licked his cheek as she stroked his face. Her fingernails drew blood with each caress.

  “Bring them to me,” Mortez commanded the guards.

  Straining his tat
tered neck, Jonah saw three people frog marched into the room: a middle-aged couple and a young girl, their faces chalk grey. He didn’t know their names, but knew they were family. Whenever he failed on a mission, irrespective of the reason, Mortez executed one person from his family. Today three stood before her. She was furious.

  Mortez snapped upright and strutted to where his relatives stood. Menace shimmered from her every pore as she snapped her fingers for Jonah’s attention. A guard handed her a boning knife, which she twirled in her fingers. “Eyes on me,” she demanded in a terrifying whisper.

  Jonah stared, horrified at the inevitable, yet unable to look away as with slow, precise movements Mortez sliced off the woman’s and then the man’s ears. Their screams ripped through his heart. The bloodied boning knife clattered to the ground and Mortez grabbed the girl by the throat. Her fist smashed through the girl’s chest, which tore like tissue paper.

  “More will die each time you fail a mission.” Mortez held the girl’s beating heart high above her head, and with a graceful pirouette, tossed it on the floor. “Hear this well. If a mission ever again threatens Catherine’s life it will be your heart on the ground.” She ground her heel into his skull. His pain vanished.

  Jonah shook off the memory. His family was only safe if he succeeded in the missions Mortez assigned him. “If you fail Mortez you’ll be food for the fire ants, Zach.”

  Zach flopped onto a chair and gingerly touched his nose. “All hail the powerful Mort...” He froze and stared at a spot behind Jonah, his face ash grey.

  “Well, well, boys,” Mortez crooned. She held out her inner arm for Jonah to check. The list of four digit blue numbers inked down her arm stopped at 2014.

  Jonah did the same and Mortez tapped the 2017 quantum indictor on his arm. “So I’ve sent you back in time. What about Zach?”