Free Timestorm by Julie Cross

I couldn’t keep looking at her and not give everything away. What would she do if I told her?
    Don’t. You’ve made the right choice.

 
    CHAPTER SIX

    DAY 11. LATE MORNING
    I found Courtney and Emily in one of the cabins. They both sat on the bottom bunk of one of three sets of bunk beds, sifting through a giant pile of clothes.
    “What’s wrong?” Courtney said as soon as she looked up at me.
    Twin perception. It got me every time.
    “Nothing,” I muttered.
    Courtney looked at Emily and shook her head. “Jackson is a big fat liar. And a hamster murderer, too, apparently.”
    Emily giggled and tossed items from the top of the pile to the floor by my shoes.
    I laughed, too. “Okay, seriously, you need to forgive me for that. We were eight.”
    “Fine,” she said. “Help us find pants for Mason. Something close to a thirty-inch waist and thirty-two-inch length.”
    My guard flew up instantly as I stared Courtney down. “Let Mason find his own damn pants.”
    “That’s nice, Jackson,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “Who do you think dug through an entire supply closet to find jeans in your size?”
    “I was incapacitated,” I said. “Last I checked, Mason was in perfect health.”
    “Don’t be such a jerk,” Courtney snapped.
    I reached into the clothes pile, throwing a few T-shirts to the ground before retrieving some dark blue jeans that looked close to Mason’s size. “There. Happy now?”
    She snatched the pants from me. “Thanks.”
    Emily and I watched as she stomped out of the cabin, probably to go find Mason. “That’s the second girl I’ve ticked off today.”
    Emily sat up straighter, her tiny body barely covering any space on the bed. I took Courtney’s spot on the bottom bunk and leaned against the post and closed my eyes.
    “What happened before this?” Emily asked.
    “Holly’s a little upset with me.”
    “I’m sorry. I know how you feel about her.”
    My eyes flew open again, zooming in on this little kid who might be the one person who could ruin my plan with the Holly issue. “You do know how I feel about her, don’t you?”
    Emily nodded.
    “My journal, right?” That damn journal and damn fingerprint clone. Right after I began Tempest training, Dr. Melvin had given me a lockbox that required my fingerprints for access, and of course Emily being my clone and all meant she was a match. Reading my journal, reading all the things I’d wanted to use time travel to fix, had been the reason we’d ended up here in 3200. She also read a copy of the original 009 Holly’s diary that someone had left in Stewart’s hands before our jump to the future. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to read much of it, but I’m sure Emily absorbed every page. And probably in seconds with her brainpower.
    My annoyance must have been clearly written on my face because before I could cover it, she was crying and trying to hide the tears from me.
    “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have read it,” Emily said.
    My entire gut twisted with guilt. Make that three girls I’d upset in one day. That had to be a personal record for me. I shoved the clothes to the floor and scooted next to Emily, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Hey, it’s not your fault. They would have found a way to trick me. And honestly, everybody I love the most is here and maybe that’s okay.”
    She sniffled a bit more, nodding and wiping her nose at the same time. “But Adam … he’s not here. I almost got him, too, I just didn’t have time.”
    I wrapped my head around the idea of Adam’s being here, alive. Then I really would be okay. “Emily, do you think … I mean hypothetically … if we ever did get out of here and we could go back to the present, a complete jump back, could we land on a date before Adam died and keep it from happening?”
    “You’ve done complete jumps before,” she said, then looked up at me with a sheepish grin. “I read about those in your journal when you saw your