Free Edge of Time by Susan M. MacDonald Page A

been truly frightening. She’d barely managed to hold onto her control. If he tried it again, could she resist him?
    Most shops were still not open, but more cars had appeared, and delivery trucks, diesel engines belching fumes, idled here and there. She glanced at her watch, grimacing in annoyance. The digital readout was blank. She yanked her cellphone from her pocket and thumbed the on switch. Nothing.
    â€œElectric things don’t teleport well,” Darius said.
    She frowned but kept silent. He might think he’d won, the smug alien creep, but he hadn’t. She was not going to get on Bjorn’s boat. She was going to go home. She just needed change for a public telephone, if there were any anymore.
    She ducked into the convenience store on the corner. It was more of a mini market than anything, she remembered, selling fruit and vegetables and cans of single-serving prepared foods for people who couldn’t cook. Bjorn was already piling a hand-held basket with bread and cheese and fruit. Alec was loading up his arms with several jumbo bags of potato chips. He gave a sharp “hey” as Darius plucked all but one from him.
    â€œHealthy food equals a healthy body,” Darius said, dropping the chip bags onto a shelf before sweeping over to the dairy case.
    Within minutes they were leaving, a veritable feast divided into three white plastic bags swinging from Alec’s hands. Darius was holding his orb, Riley noted, as they turned towards the ocean and proceeded along the wooden boardwalk, away from the historic section of town. Just seeing him holding it made her uncomfortable.
    She hadn’t gotten change for the phone while in the store. She just couldn’t seem to make herself go up to the counter and speak to the cashier. The female clerk watched Darius hungrily from the moment they entered the little store to the moment they left. She hadn’t even noticed Alec swiping a chocolate bar. Darius, the swine, had encouraged her, grinning winsomely, winking and giving her the kind of long smoldering looks found in romance novels. Riley stalked out of the store, infuriated.
    She still had her wallet, and there were a couple of credit cards her father had arranged for her, just before she left, as well as a few twenties and at least one loonie. She could grab a taxi, if she saw one, and get home. The housekeeper would let her in.
    Darius was walking directly beside her, within arm’s length, rolling his orb around carelessly in his hand, and staring with unabashed interest at the harbour. But his lack of attention towards her was a ruse. When she tripped slightly over an uneven boardwalk slat, his hand was at her elbow, gripping her almost before she’d even noticed she’d stumbled. And they both knew he was waiting for her to bolt.
    Around them, seabirds cried and wheeled overhead. Joggers sweated past and a constant parade of mothers, babes in strollers, trundled by. The day was already warming, despite the early hour. It would be blisteringly hot in a few hours.
    In front of her, Bjorn and Alec were chatting away about motors as if they’d known each other for years. She tuned the conversation out, concentrating instead on her plan. If she couldn’t talk to anyone and get money for the phone because Darius had put some kind of weird voodoo hex on her, well then, she’d have to think of something else.
    And soon. The marina was only a block away.

12

    A lec pulled apart the sealed opening to a bag of all-dressed chips and helped himself to a mouthful of breakfast. Sure, it wasn’t the sort of meal his mother would approve of, but he was starving. And besides, in Toronto, it was afternoon. Or at least it had been an hour ago.
    Alec was still trying to get his head around everything. They’d been attacked, some kids had been killed and his own brother was now missing. In addition, he’d somehow brought everyone to Nova Scotia. And changed time.
Without