West (History Interrupted Book 1) Page 24

  “Indian?” Nell raised her shotgun. “You’re trespassing on John’s lands!”

  I shoved her hard enough for her to fall to the ground and darted towards Fighting Badger. “We need to leave!” I cried, grabbing his arm. “Now!”

  The first blast of the shotgun went off like a mini-explosion. I braced myself but didn’t feel it hit.

  Fighting Badger dropped, nearly taking me with him. I released him with a quick look towards Nell. He struggled up. A flash of lightning revealed the hole in his abdomen, and I froze, horrified.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Josie.”

  My gaze flew up to see her aiming the weapon at me this time. “Nell! You don’t want to do this!” I cried. “I didn’t even tell you what John told me.”

  “I’ll ask him myself when I see him again.”

  “Wait, Nell. Just … wait!” I was starting to cry again, my hot tears mixing with the cold rain. I needed time … my mind wasn’t working. I didn’t do well with stress when it came to tests and I did even worse with a gun pointed at me. “Can I have a minute to … pray?” Think, Josie, think! I screamed at myself.

  Fighting Badger pushed at me, wanting me to run.

  God, how I wanted to. But how did I leave the man who took out two people to protect me? How did I keep them from killing one another?

  “Very well,” Nell said without lowering the weapon.

  “Thank you.” I wasn’t religious at all; I was desperate. I was stuck in the past, almost two hundred years from home, living in a house where four people had been murdered, John had died, and in a time where people like Nell and Fighting Badger existed.

  I had never known how dark the world could get, and it hurt me to acknowledge it. Even so, I wasn’t going to let Fighting Badger die alone or end up tossed in a well. In a place without much good, what little comfort or light I could provide was needed.

  And I couldn’t think of anything else to do right now. I was about to hyperventilate, two seconds from breaking down into sobs.

  Kneeling beside him, I peeled off my coat and pressed it against his abdomen.

  “You … must run,” he wheezed.

  “No. You helped me. I’ll help you.” Maybe I can give him the peace he’s never known, if only for a minute or two.

  “You have ‘til the count of ten, Miss Josie,” Nell warned.

  If I were a braver, stronger, smarter person, I’d charge her or run or figure out how to do something. I shifted uncomfortably next to Fighting Badger, stifling sobs while mentally running in circles. Cold rain drenched us while lightning lit up the skies.

  My cold hand hit one of the wooden boards Nell had pried off the well in anticipation of tossing me in. Choking on a sob, I moved my weight off it and lifted it. It wasn’t going to help me with what I needed – a distraction – but if I had the chance –

  “Josie!” Taylor’s voice followed a crack of thunder. “Josie, where are you?” He sounded like he was headed towards us from the direction of the house.

  Oh, thank god. He was always there when I needed rescuing. “Here, Taylor!” I shouted. “It’s Nell! She’s got a gun!”

  Nell whirled to face him. Staggering up, I lurched towards her with the board and lifted it. She started to turn just as I smashed it into her head.

  “Josie!” Taylor rounded the corner.

  Nell dropped, and the board fell from my hands. I’d never hit anyone in my life, and in that moment, no part of me regretted it.

  “Taylor!”

  He flung his arms around me and hugged me hard, his familiar scent and heated strength overwhelming. For once, I didn’t care if I could breathe in the damned girdle. “Are you okay?” he asked urgently.

  “Yeah,” I breathed. “I’m so glad to see you!” In that split second, I loved him enough not to care about spending my life in the past with him. I knew it was adrenaline speaking, that I wasn’t in love with him, but I’d never been as grateful or happy to see anyone as I was Taylor.

  “What the hell happened?” he demanded. “I found both deputies dead in a stall when I took my horse in and –”

  “Nell was a traveler like us. She went a little crazy when the real Josie died, and killed off the other girls who came before me.”

  He drew away. “The real Josie is dead?” he asked, startled.

  I didn’t tell him. The story was too sordid for me this night. “We can talk about it later,” I said. “Fighting Badger is hurt bad.” Twisting out of Taylor’s grip, I hurried back towards the native bleeding out next to the well. “We have to get him inside!”

  The man was still conscious and wheezing. I squeezed his arm in reassurance before checking his wound. From what I could make out, it was bad.

  “Taylor?” I called and looked over my shoulder.

  He had frozen in place, staring towards us.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He moved slowly at first then closed the distance between us with haste and knelt.

  “Brother,” Fighting Badger whispered. “I was … concerned for … Talks to Spirits.”

  My throat tightened. My internal debate about whether to regard him as a psycho or a hero was nowhere near settled, but all I could think about was saving him.

  “I need …sleep,” the native murmured. He sagged against the well.

  “Don’t worry, Fighting Badger,” I told him. “We’ll get you fixed up.”

  Taylor took my hand and squeezed. I smiled and glanced up.

  Lighting lit up his face. He was pale, his gaze haunted.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed by the expression.

  “Josie, I want you to know I care about you, and I’m sorry if I caused any of this,” he replied.

  “You didn’t, and I do know you care,” I said and started to shift away.

  Taylor caught my arms and tugged me closer. “Josie, I …” he stopped.

  Concerned, not understanding what was wrong when we needed to help Fighting Badger, I searched his face. “What is it, Taylor?” I asked, resting my cold hands on his warm cheeks. “Are you okay?”

  “Just know you gave me – and Fighting Badger – the peace we otherwise never would’ve known. You made a difference.”

  I smiled, puzzled. “Okay. Be sad later. We have a lifetime to talk.” I kissed his warm lips lightly and pulled away. “We have to hurry. He’s bleeding out. Take his arms, Taylor. If we can get him to the barn, we can figure out how bad it is, and I’ll send for Doctor Green.” I stood and moved to Fighting Badger’s legs.

  Taylor moved into position. “You remember what I told you about what happened if my grandfather died?”

  “Yes. But we’re going to fix that and free Running Bear, after we get Fighting Badger inside.”

  A groan came from behind me.

  I whirled in time to see Nell climbing to her feet, the shotgun clutched in one hand. I gasped then shouted a warning to Taylor.

  Vaguely, almost too briefly for me to capture, I sensed the presence again, the shadowy figure that had been following Fighting Badger for days. He melted from the shadows of the barn, too large to be anyone I had met here and moving too fast for me to see what exactly he did in the murky night.

  One minute, Nell was raising the shotgun at me. The next, she was on the ground with the immense shadow standing over her. Lightning did nothing to shed light on his hooded features, but it showed me he was dressed like no one I had ever seen before in leather and fur that appeared ancient. He had to be a man by his size, and he was big enough I’d never mess with him. He bore a sword of all things. It was thick and curved and wet with Nell’s blood.

  He fled just as quickly as he appeared, vanishing into the shadows of the night with speed that made me think I hallucinated.

  “Taylor, what the hell was that?” I called. My phone vibrated. Instinctively, I pulled it out while turning back towards Fighting Badger.

  Don’t freak out. We need to talk about this.

  I really hated Carter at the moment. Shoving th
e phone away, I knelt once more by Fighting Badger’s feet then sat back.

  “Taylor?” I called.

  He wasn’t anywhere around us.

  “Taylor!”

  What is he doing? His brother needed help! I bent over Fighting Badger to feel for a pulse.

  There was none.

  “Oh, god.” I sank to my knees beside him, shivering in the cold rain. He’d come to help me and ended up dead.

  His memories whispered to me, and I closed my eyes to hear them. He had died thinking of happier times, of his youth and hunting.

  My phone buzzed again. I looked around, not understanding where Taylor had gone and why when his brother lay dead beside me.

  “Taylor?” I shouted once more.

  Another vibration rocked my pocket. Irked at Carter, I pulled it free.

  Taylor doesn’t exist. His grandfather is dead. He was never born.

  I stared at the note. Taylor had mentioned something like that before Nell awoke. But it wasn’t possible for someone who existed to suddenly … not.

  History should be changed. Both twins are dead, Carter had messaged.

  I sat rereading his notes, the sense of disconnect strong. Sagging against the well, I felt both nostrils ooze with blood this time, and the sharp headache accompanying them took my mind off my shock.

  Taylor didn’t exist. Nothing was making sense, and my emotions were at a stand still, too lost to know how to react.

  “Then how can I remember him?” I typed back to Carter.

  He responded, Because you and I exist outside time. Like how Doctor Who and his companions remember saving the world but the world doesn’t remember it was in danger, because they stopped it before it happened? To the rest of the world, he never existed.

  New tears choked me. I had thought spending my life here in the past disappointing, with Taylor providing the only potential ray of light. But alone? In a home where a father killed his daughter, a nanny killed three women only to die herself and … I just became the reason Taylor didn’t exist?

  Everyone was gone. John, Nell, Taylor, Running Bear … even Fighting Badger.

  I sent you back to remove Taylor from history, Carter added. It was necessary to reset events I have an interest in changing.

  “Oh, god.” I hunched over, dry heaving, unable to fathom the idea I’d helped murder someone I cared about.

  Taylor had claimed to have been working against Carter in multiple time periods. Carter had outsmarted him in the cruelest way possible.

  I lay in the cold rain for what felt like hours, close enough to Fighting Badger to feel his body cool. The sense of disconnect crippled me, and there was no Taylor to pull me out of it. When I could finally move on my own, I pushed myself up into a sit. My nose streamed blood, my head pulsed, and I could barely see straight from the physical pain.

  It was nothing compared to the anguish building inside me. Taylor had lived ten thousand lives … ten thousand missions to help people … and I just helped erase all of them.

  Everyone was gone but Carter. I picked up my phone with numbed fingers, unable to process anything.

  I can’t stay here. You have to send me home. I texted.

  I was shaking with cold but not wanting to leave this spot. I had last seen Taylor here, and it didn’t … couldn’t be real that he was … gone. Not dead, but gone. It made no sense. I still smelled him on my skin. How did he never exist if I remembered him?

  I can’t, but I’ll take care of you. Trust me, said Carter’s text.

  I began to cry too hard to read the next one that came through.

  The shadow emerged again, and I froze for a split second before all out sprinting away. I tore past the barns, caught myself from falling in the mud between the barns and house and raced up the stairs. Tearing the door open, I didn’t bother to close it but bound up the stairs to my room and slammed the door.

  It was warm, quiet and cozy, and I immediately began to calm. I could almost pretend nothing had happened, that Nell was bringing me tea and Taylor at his office in town.

  The storm beat against the house and roof. I stood for a long moment in the center of my room, wishing it was the first day here again when I viewed this as an adventure.

  Better yet, wishing I was visiting the house as a tourist in the twenty first century.

  I flung the phone onto the bed and wriggled and tore my way out of my clothing until I stood naked in the middle of my room. I opened every drawer and wardrobe, seeking what had to be there. Nell hadn’t thrown away the phones of the girls who came before me; she must have kept my clothing, if not the clothes of all of us somewhere.

  It took an hour of searching, of tossing my room and smashing one wardrobe against the floor. I found my yoga pants and tank top hidden in a cubbyhole in the wall behind the wardrobe, along with the clothing of the other visitors from my time.

  Reclaiming my only connection to my world, I collapsed on the ground, hugging them.

  They were real. They were mine.

  Holding them helped stabilize my reeling emotions, and I sat on the floor of my dressing room, listening to the storm outside. Somehow, the clothes made returning home seem possible. Or maybe it was my desperate attempt to rationalize all that happened, to hope, to not break down into the madness that claimed Nell and John.

  The clock struck three in the morning. Cramped and miserable, I calmed enough to stand and returned to my bedroom.

  More texts lit up my phone screen. It’s your choice. You can stay there or I can send you somewhere else, claimed the first.

  “I want to go home, Carter,” I whispered hoarsely. At the mercy of a madman who thought he was Doctor Who and that I wanted to tag along on an adventure, I sank onto my bed once more and stared at the phone. I debated destroying it and living out my fate the best I could after the crushing events of the past few days. If it meant Carter was out of my life, that I was of no more use to him now that Taylor was gone, it’d be worth it.

  “Josie, are you well?” Philip’s voice came from the hallway. “I’ve been patient with you since your father died so recently. But tonight, we will consummate the marriage.”

  I hate that man. Without Taylor to save me, I had apparently been forced to wed Philip in the new history created by Taylor’s death. I still wore the ring Taylor placed on my finger, though I guessed in the new version of things, it had been Philip who did it.

  I wanted to change history. I had no idea that meant changing my fate as well. Gaze lingering on the door, I sought some response that would buy me time.

  “I want to take a bath first,” I called.

  There was a pause, then, “Very well. Send Nell to fetch me when you are done.” The floorboards creaked as he retreated.

  Any thought I had about remaining here dissipated in light of being married to a man who was going to kill me, if Taylor’s people didn’t get to me first.

  I unlocked the screen of my phone and scanned through Carter’s messages.

  I can send you somewhere further back in time.

  You have to trust me. Please, trust me, Josie, PLEASE!

  Are you there? Are you mad?

  “I hate this man, too.” Swiping away tears, I realized there was blood on my face. My nose hadn’t stopped bleeding.

  I cleaned up quickly and changed back into my own clothing, boots and an ankle-length wool coat. If Carter got me out of here, great. If I was stuck with Philip, I’d rather throw myself into the well or better yet – steal a horse and run away like the real Josie should have.

  Tell me what to do about my empathic memory chip, I ordered Carter. I’m bleeding again, worse than before, I texted him.

  Oh, good. You’re okay. You need to go back to the well. Fast, before we lose the lightning.

  It was the last place I wanted to be. The mention of lightning reminded me Carter needed it to fuel sending me back in time, the way he had the night I arrived. I looked around my room with dread and regret.

  I really did like
it here. I had seen the possibility of remaining here with Taylor, too. The thought of him made my heart and stomach twist hard enough for me to ache. I could stay here, where we had hoped to make a home …

  But with all the memories that now haunted me … with Philip waiting in the shadows …

  The urge to run and never look back filled me with scared energy that replaced my exhaustion. I didn’t even ask Carter where he planned on sending me. I didn’t care, so long as it was far, far from here, somewhere where I could forget about Taylor and how I’d probably un-created the only good man left in the world.

  I left quickly and quietly, hurried down the stairs of the brightly lit house and fled out the front door.

  With some dread, I returned to the gruesome scene behind the barn then texted Carter. I’m here.

  The massive man I’d seen before disengaged from the shadows of the smaller barn. Clutching my phone, I resisted the urge to run. He’d protected me once, and Carter swore he wanted me alive for some reason.

  “Kneel,” the man ordered in a voice low and gruff enough to be thunder.

  Swallowing a sob, I obeyed and closed my eyes, shivering as much from cold as emotion.

  Just know you gave me – and Fighting Badger – the peace we otherwise never would’ve known. You made a difference. Taylor’s parting words echoed in my thoughts. They were generous, considerate, an attempt to comfort me in the face of being un-created, erased from history, the universe.

  You made a difference.

  I didn’t deserve the words or the emotion behind him, as if he truly believed I’d helped him and Fighting Badger. Only I would mourn the man who didn’t exist. Only I would remember him. Only I would know there once was a good man named Taylor Hansen, whose sole wish in life was to retire and live in peace with me.

  He deserved so much more, and I had taken everything from him.

  The tears began again. I made no effort to stem them this time.

  The shadowy figure pressed a large thumb to the back of my neck. I waited for the brilliant light or maybe, for him to chop off my head the way he had halved Nell.

  Something smashed into my head instead, and I slid into darkness.